"I tell the story of Mormon origins in secret-oath bound counterfeiting networks. I tell how the secret counterfeiting affected what happened to the Mormon people.... In these pages I explore the evidence that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were born into a family enmeshed in the criminal subculture of their times.... The Book of Mormon has been called the 'most successful attempt ever made to counterfeit the Scriptures.' This book is also the story of how the Smith brothers produced the Book of Mormon....The real history of Mormonism is shocking to both Mormon believers and those who know them as good citizens and neighbors.... It is also hard to understand the intellectual problems of Mormonism without understanding the past. On the surface the Mormon cosmology hangs together as an intriguing explanation of life's big questions. But many Mormon believers, in the past and the present, have become aware of the conflicts in the system, yet have not known how to process the contradictions.... Many Mormon believers , when they become disillusioned with Mormon contradictions automatically reject Christianity. It is one of the aims of this work to explain Mormonism's relationship to biblical Christianity in early America, so that modern investigators can understand from whence the ideas came, and evaluate them separately." -- from Acknowledgments and Sources