Taves explores how Smith could produce a complex revelatory text through mental processes that made aspects of his own activity seem to come from an external other. Her comparative account examines nonconscious processes together with collaborators’ interpretations, rather than treating the witnesses’ attribution of the words as a complete explanation of their production.
Development of the founding narrative · Conversion narratives and visionary experience
Taves compares Smith’s accounts with contemporary ways of identifying supernatural presences, treating the reported experiences and interpretations as historical evidence without deciding their supernatural source. In her 2020 reconstruction, the evidence for the 1824–25 revival and Lucy Smith’s history suggests that direct speech from the Lord emerged in 1829 and was later placed at the beginning of the founding narrative.
Taves explores how the plates could have become materially and religiously real for Smith and his associates without either ancient plates or conscious fraud. She proposes an interaction among Smith’s abilities as a seer, the expectations of close associates, and material objects, allowing a sincerely understood sacred object rather than treating physical contact as a verdict on antiquity.