The truth is not in them.

The lidless, unsleeping, malignant eye of my Malevolent Stalker, always on the hunt for material that he might be able to abuse and twist in order to portray me as mean-spirited, corrupt, and depraved to the core, recently discovered a personal essay that I published in a 1996 anthology that was edited by Susan Easton Black under the title Expressions of Faith: Testimonies of Latter-day Saint Scholars.

My entry includes the following passage:

The building up of Zion is a cause that has interested the people of God in every age; it is a theme upon which prophets, priests and kings have dwelt with peculiar delight; they have looked forward with joyful anticipation to the day in which we live; and fired with heavenly and joyful anticipations they have sung and written and prophesied of this our day; but they died without the sight; we are the favored people that God has made choice of to bring about the Latter-day glory; it is left for us to see, participate in and help to roll forward the Latter-day glory. . . . And whilst we are thus united in the one common cause, to roll forth the kingdom of God, the heavenly Priesthood are not idle spectators, the Spirit of God will be showered down from above, and it will dwell in our midst. The blessings of the Most High will rest upon our tabernacles, and our name will be handed down to future ages; our children will rise up and call us blessed; and generations yet unborn will dwell with peculiar delight upon the scenes that we have passed through, the privations that we have endured; the untiring zeal that we have manifested; the all but insurmountable difficulties that we have overcome in laying the foundation of a work that brought about the glory and blessing which they will realize; a work that God and angels have contemplated with delight for generations past; that fired the souls of the ancient patriarchs and prophets; a work that is destined to bring about the destruction of the powers of darkness, the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family.

My Malevolent Stalker made merry over the fiery biblical rhetoric of that passage, and over my apparent pretense to something like prophethood.  “Wow!” chimed in his much less gifted wannabe, whom I call my Mini-Stalker.  “Peterson really holds himself in high regard. Peterson’s name will be handed down to future generations? I can’t believe he really wrote that.”  Poor Mini-Stalker practically had to grasp for his smelling salts in order not to swoon at my “smug sense of self importance and arrogance,” my “enormous ego” and “narcissistic personality.”  “Unbelievable,” he wrote.  “Just unbelievable.”

But then it was realized that the words aren’t mine at all.  They’re quoted from Joseph Smith.

Oops.

And suddenly, at that point, the narrative turned on a dime:  I had plagarized Joseph Smith, you see, “word for word.” Without credit.

Oh my.

Please see the photos above, taken from the book itself.  Please notice the indenting that indicates a block quotation.  Please notice the reference to HC 4:609-619.

This little episode offers a clear object lesson on how consuming malice can cloud one’s vision, making obvious things invisible and replacing them with phantasms, specters, and fictions.