One of the questions not satisfactorily answered by critics of the Book of Mormon who see the book as a product of Joseph Smith’s mind and imagination and his nineteenth-century environs is how he could have found many of the elements in the Book of Mormon (e.g., a knowledge of olive horticulture, Egyptian names, ancient travel routes, knowledge of ancient American culture) in his information environment. If this material was a product of his mind, as some contend, then one has to explain how it got there. This paper takes a look at new scientific explorations into the possibility that one can access information outside one’s information environment (both past and future), can receive communication across the liminal threshold between the physical and spiritual worlds, and can tap into “nonlocal” information and experience that may exist on the quantum level. This theory posits that Joseph Smith could have gained access to some realm of consciousness that could be characterized as both trans-spatial and trans-temporal.

Robert A. Rees, Michael J. Stevens