Joseph Smith used a similar ploy when dictating the Book of Mormon. Smith claimed he discovered two golden plates etched with reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics. An angel led him to the plates but also decreed that Smith could not show the plates to anyone. He translated the story on the plates using a hat and a magic seeing stone. Smith returned the plates to the angel after his translation was complete. All the priceless physical evidence of divine existence was destroyed or returned to the divine plane.
