Title: Highly speculative
Product review: This is a quick and easy read, perfect for after dinner reading. The argument is intriguing, but one shouldn't take it so seriously. It's best to read this book with the same healthy skepticism one would bring to a "JFK assassination conspiracy" book. The author is simply connecting dots in Joseph Smith's life to construct his theory that Smith had a personality disorder, and that this disorder was the essence of his religious genius. The book's critical flaw is methodological: Morain never really compares Smith with other case studies from the literature on dissociative disorders, rendering his conclusions pure speculation. Still, Morain scores a few interesting points, and made me say "hmmmmmmmm" more than once. Five stars for readability. Three stars for scholarship. That's an average of 4.
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