Dear AT Editor,

I agreed to become part of the AT editorial board many years ago (and held that position for 12
years), because I felt that AT was the most honest and open Adventist publication left at the
time. Evangelica had been banned by the church in 1987 and its seminary student publishers
threatened with expulsion, unless they ceased publication. Adventist Currents had closed shop in
1988, for lack of funding, so I saw AT as less political and more willing to publish controversial
articles than Spectrum.
However, when the CORE scandal rocked our La Sierra campus in the late 1990s I came to
realize the AT was more than vulnerable to political pressures as well. Twice, I was asked by the
AT board to write articles about the situation on campus, and I made every effort to be as fair and
objective as I could, interviewing a wide spectrum of student leaders in both cases. At that time,
AT was housed on the LSU campus, and when the first article I wrote was scheduled for
publication, I was told, by an embarrassed board member, that the University President (the most
effective SDA Pharisee I’ve ever known) had stepped in and asked that it not be published. Not
because it was untrue, he just didn’t think the university could afford the bad PR.

The board was embarrassed about this, so several months later, they came back to me again,
asked me to write an even more extensive article, and assured me that this time it would be
published, regardless of political pressure. So I did my best, and the student leaders quoted in
the article were excited about the promise that this time it would not be censored. But, believe it
or not, the same university president applied such pressure when he found out about the article,
that it was axed at the very last moment and the issue of the magazine was actually published
with my article listed in the table of contents, but removed from the pages it was supposed to
occupy. I kept that issue as a reminder of what AT had become. I pretty much lost my
enthusiasm for the magazine after that, but was surprised about a year ago when the Chair of the
AT board contacted me about doing an interview regarding my new book, Ellen G. White a
Psychobiography. I agreed, and was pleased that the interview actually occurred without any
political intrigue. However, it wasn’t long before Alden Thompson wrote his letter to the editor,
rebuking AT for doing the interview, and calling for censorship. I responded to this letter, after
being asked to do so by AT, exposing it for its inaccuracies, its gross hypocrisy and the proposed
censorship it contained. The editor (Loren Seibold) asked me to withdraw my letter in an email.
He assured me that Alden was writing a second letter (less embarrassing to him) to which I could
respond. When I insisted that I wanted to respond to the first letter, and wanted it published, he
waited to post my response on the website until Alden’s first letter was taken down and his new
letter was posted.

This of course was dishonest, and misleading to the readers, but it was meant to protect Alden
from embarrassment (the full letters can be found on my website egwpsychobio.com-articles).
But, AT would betray its readers much more, by pressuring Tim Ruybalid, its recently chosen
new chair to step down so that the old guard could continue their control of the publication.
Ruybalid was picked to reach out to the younger generation with a new openness, that would
look at all sides of issues, but the old guard (and I do mean old) who are trying to hold on to their
power and control at both Spectrum and AT, want nothing to do with real openness or real truth!
You can be sure that I will no longer be supporting your publication that is so lacking in
journalistic integrity! Sincerely, Steve Daily
Dear Editor (Spectrum),

I was surprised and disappointed to read your email, that Spectrum will not be publishing my
response to Jonathan Butler’s lengthy review of my new book Ellen G. White a
Psychobiography, in either your magazine or on your website. I found your request, that I try to
limit my response to 500 words in a letter to the editor to be totally unrealistic given the amount
of material to which I was responding. The response I sent you, simply took Jonathan’s points,
positive and negative, and concisely replied. I can understand the limitations on space that you
must consider in the magazine, but your failure to allow for a full and fair response on your
website, raises major questions about your commitment to fairness and journalistic integrity. I
believe you owe it to your readers, to let them decide for themselves if what I have to say is valid
or not, without you playing the role of censor. I do have to say, that given the very sad
dishonesty that I have experienced dealing with some of the most influential members of your
boards (Spectrum & Forum), I can only assume that they must have played a role in this
decision. Of course, I would not expect that this would ever be acknowledged, because that is
not the SDA way. In any case, I will be publishing the full response on my website
(egwpsychobio.com - see:more…/articles), on my Facebook page, and sending it to Christian
Scholars Forum, SDAQ&A, and other interested parties. If Spectrum had any interest at all in
fairness I would expect it to provide a link from its website, but I am not holding my breath. If
you as a reader would like to see my response, go to the above website, email me at
sdailycc@gmail.com, or message me on Facebook messenger.

Bonnie Dwyer
Spectrum Magazine
Fax: 916-791-4938

8-20-2021

Hi Bonnie,

Hope all is well with you, and wishing you a very pleasant retirement at the end of this year. I
tried to email this response to Jonathan’s review of my book through the Spectrum website
address, and it came back to me. So I am texting it to you, with the hope you can put it in the
appropriate hands.

God bless,

Steve Daily
(909) 557-0975
A Response to Jonathan Butler’s Review of
My Book, Ellen G. White A Psychobiography

By Steve Daily (8/18/2021)

I want to thank my friend Jonathan for taking the time to write his lengthy review of my book,
Ellen G. White A Psychobiography, and to thank Spectrum for publishing the review. My
general feeling was that Jonathan tried to be fair and balanced in his observations, and I am
grateful that he found the book valuable, “I found the book well worth reading,” and an
important addition to his personal library, “I am pleased to add Steve Daily’s biography to my
bookshelf.” As far as Jonathan’s criticisms are concerned, they are certainly worth responding
to, and I will try to do so in a systematic way. First by listing the criticism in italics, and then by
providing my response.

1.An unexplained change of historical perspective: Jonathan is quick to acknowledge, in his

review, the contribution that my previous historical works on Ellen White have made. However,
he prefers the “old Daily” to the “new Daily,” and can’t resist stating that, “There is no ignoring
that White had her problems, while speculating, “but Daily comes across as having his own
problems.” In his recent letter to the editor of Adventist Today, concerning my book, Jonathan
makes the same criticism, Daily, seems to do an unjustified about face that reveals more of him
than of Ellen White. I responded to Jonathan’s criticism then and I will repeat it here, to explain
my change in position. Jonathan implies that I basically knew everything about Ellen White 40
years ago, that I write about her in my latest book. This is certainly not the case. I learned a great
deal more about Ellen in my research for this latest book than I ever knew before. I can say that
each of my historical books have been focused on very specific themes. My MA thesis in history
(1982) was focused on the 1919 Bible Conference as it related to the higher criticism debate in
19th century America, and showed how both liberal and conservative scholars in the church
colluded to hide the findings from this conference, bury the minutes in the GC archives and see
them lost and forgotten for more than 50 years. Instead of dealing with the truth about Ellen
White, and sharing it with the church, both groups, for different reasons, chose their own self-
benefit over truth. So, what should have been addressed more than 100 years ago, remains
unaddressed because of academic dishonesty.

My doctoral dissertation at Claremont (1985), The Irony of Adventism, explored the paradox of
Ellen White’s strong female leadership role in the church, compared with her opposition to
women’s ordination and fairly regressive attitudes and writings towards women in general. My
Ph.D. dissertation (1991) focused on Adventist adolescents and addiction in the light of the
Valuegenesis research. My two books on Ellen White and Adventist history, The Prophetic Rift
I & II (2008, 2009), looked at why Adventists related to Ellen White in the context of Old
Testament prophecy when they should have evaluated her as a post-New Testament professed
prophet. And Ellen White a Psychobiography (2020), embraces the challenge of exploring
whether the repeated accusations of fraud and pathology against Ellen White leveled by various
individuals during and after her lifetime stand up under historical and psychological scrutiny. As
I focused on this last question, the evidence I researched, forced me to conclude that Ellen was
guilty of both fraud and pathology, although I am certainly not convinced that my expressed
conclusions are the only legitimate explanations or interpretations for her words and actions. It
is not my intention, to be dogmatic, but to provide an alternative view that has not been
expressed by a previous historian, psychologist and theologian.

“He writes with a historian’s version of Tourette’s Syndrome:” Jonathan has a great dry wit, a
fantastic sense of humor, which I have greatly appreciated over the years. My first response was
to crack up, when reading these words, because I enjoy laughing at myself. And I am still
assuming, that Jonathan is using this analogy with tongue in cheek, rather than trying to make a
serious point. But, if he is actually trying to make a serious analogy between the documented
arguments in my book and Tourette’s Syndrome, I would have to seriously question his
psychological expertise. Tourette’s Syndrome is a neurological disorder that involves
involuntary tics, or the blurting out of irrational random words, such as swear words. People are
certainly free to disagree with my interpretation of the evidence, provided in my book, which is
why I included 326 extensive endnotes, so that the reader can explore the evidence and draw
their own conclusions. But, to mischaracterize the points I make as random or irrational, when
they are clearly reasonable and source documented, is hardly responsible or insightful. I do not
lightly, or irrationally, observe that the source documentation leaves me with no choice, but to
conclude that Ellen was guilty at times of being a “liar, hypocrite, narcissist, con artist, fraud and
yes, even demonstrating the behavior of a high functioning sociopath.”

It seems to me, that for Jonathan to suggest that there are not clear patterns of deception and
fraud (including gross plagiarism), which he did in his letter to AT, “Fraud is a Bridge too far,”
demands the kind of questions I asked him in response to that letter, and am still asking in the
wake of his review. Is extensive plagiarism, stealing the works of others, and then claiming that
those materials were given you by God, while you insist on the highest royalties for such books
and become a millionaire (in our money today), FRAUD? Is claiming that your writings (which
were not hers) were not of human origin, but only “what God has opened before me in vision” (5
T, 67), and that anyone who did not heed them would have the “Holy Spirit” “shut away” from
their “soul” (1 SM, 46), FRAUD? How about attributing all kinds of false and unhealthy views,
that clearly came from 19th century authors, to God, that involved racism, God hating various
children, masturbation causing a number of serious diseases and pre-mature death, etc., etc,
FRAUD?

Is repeatedly, over many years, insisting that God gave you visions showing his coming was so
soon that Adventists were to sell their homes and give the money to “the cause” (while you keep
your possessions/home), and then, when the prophecy fails, and people who believed are
destitute, ignoring them, while you get rich, FRAUD? Is a lifetime pattern of claiming to have
visions, which demonize those who question your authority and literally see many of them lost
for eternity, while you have the testimonies about them read publicly in church, and fail to follow
Matthew 18 by going to the person individually, and many of these “visions” are proven to be
false, FRAUD? (I lost track of how many lives she destroyed in this manner) How about
claiming to have a vision that exonerates your husband, who was guilty of embezzling at least
$250,000 in our money today, from church institutions (p. 245), only to have the “vision” proven
wrong, after your husband’s death, and the money returned to its rightful source, is this FRAUD?
I find it hard to believe that Jonathan is familiar with all this material (and much more) and still
insists that none of it constitutes FRAUD! My own belief is that many Adventist historians, who
have written extensively on Ellen White, have not, and do not want to fully acknowledge the
dark side of the prophetess, because of how it may reflect on their jobs, careers, reputations, the
SDA Church, or their social relationships related to the church.

A lack of historical even-handedness: I would be the first to admit that Ellen G. White a
Psychobiography, is not an even-handed attempt to present a balanced history of the life of the
professed messenger of God, and I made this clear from the outset (as seen in my introduction).
Obviously, my book was not intended to be a hagiography, way too much literature of that kind
has been written about Ellen White, and I emphasized, in my book, that it was not a biography,
but an attempt to do what I stated above. To see if the accusations of pathology and fraud
leveled against Ellen White during and after her lifetime would stand up to historical and
psychological scrutiny. There are many different kinds of psychobiographies, and I am not at all
sure that Jonathan is an authority on this kind of literature. Clearly, my book is not empathetic to
Ellen, because I have become convinced that she deliberately hurt a lot of people for her own
benefit, largely got away with it, and has generally had the church defend and cover for her in a
manner that is very wrong. My Facebook page is filled with regular testimonies of how people
have had their lives damaged and negatively effected by Ellen White quotes. Jonathan compares
my treatment of Mrs. White to how I might have treated his maternal grandmother (Granny),
who was diagnosed with schizoid affective disorder. He notes how she had many good traits, but
on occasion could also be violent, throwing a hot pie at his mother and scalding her arm, and on
another occasion irrationally demolishing their new kitchen counter with an axe. Jonathan
suggests with regard to his grandma that I would obsess over the negatives and ignore the
positives in her life.

And this may well be, if his grandmother had founded and claimed to be the God- appointed last
day visionary of a major religious movement. My belief, is that Ellen attempted to deceive not
only the acclaimed 20 million plus SDAs living today, but two or three times that many who
have left the church, to say nothing of millions more who have died, related to the faith. I don’t
think Jonathan’s “granny” was quite this influential. A better comparison might be made to
Bernie Madoff. If Bernie had died at the age of 70, before his exposure and arrest, there
probably would have been many accolades given at his funeral, as there were for Sister White.
He may have been remembered as a kind and sweet old man who helped many people, and was a
successful CEO for decades and even Chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, a very
prestigious position. All of this, before the house of cards collapsed. To treat Jonathan as he has
treated me, he would want to write a psychobiography of Madoff spending much more time
focusing on the positive accomplishments of this famous man, that dominated the majority of his
life, than what was exposed in the last decade of his life. Obviously, such a book would be
ridiculous, and until Ellen White is cleared of the gross deception that is source documented in
my book, I am not interested in trying to make her look good, or contributing to the positive
myths that historians have created. No, Ellen was not a Margaret Rowan, or the author of the
greatest Ponzi scheme in history, but I am convinced she could have been the most successful
plagiarist of all time, and the most deceptive, fraudulent religious icon, or prophet/founder, of
any major religious movement.

“Daily exaggerates her wealth”: Jonathan makes this simple statement without refuting the
evidence in my book. He offers no footnotes to support his position. The reader is simply
expected to believe that what he says is true, because he has written it. I’m sure he would have
been scathing in his criticism, if I had taken the same approach in my work. One of the things I
definitely learned in writing this last book on Ellen was the degree to which she and James
financially exploited and took advantage of church members. I was frankly quite appalled to see
the way they peddled dress patterns, Bible charts, hymnals, other books and trinkets, to the tune
of making more than a million dollars in our money today, in addition to their salaries and her
very generous royalties (more than 3 million in our money) which Ellen demanded for her books.
They also designed schemes to use the church to buy back books that they personally owned to
make substantial profits, and to use Ellen’s “visions” to motivate believers to buy her books and
to give sacrificially to “the cause” which clearly correlated with their great increase in wealth. It
is no coincidence that James was accused of financial mismanagement and embezzlement
throughout his years in leadership, that Ellen supported him with “visions,” and that these
charges were proven true after his death. Simply saying, “Daily exaggerates her wealth” without
providing any evidence to substantiate this charge, is neither scholarly nor convincing.

A lack of new material: Jonathan implied there was little new from a historical perspective in the
book. This may have been true for Jonathan, although if that is the case, he seems to have
covered well for Ellen over the years, which has been a real problem for Adventist historians.
And, it certainly is not true for the vast majority of Adventists. More than 99% of those I’ve
heard from, who have read the book, have been amazed and even astounded by the revelations
which were new to them. I have even had highly placed leaders in the denomination who have
spent much of their lives in administrative positions, come to me confidentially, and admit that
they feel completely duped by what Ellen did and how the church has handled it. Largely, I have
written my book for the general church membership, those who have left the church, outsiders,
and people like this, more than for Adventist historians in general, who have already proven
themselves to be quite untrustworthy when it really comes to telling the truth about Ellen White.

As I learned a lot that was new in researching this last book, I’m sure that others, who have not
studied Ellen White much of their lives, have plenty to learn as well. What ultimately motivated
me to consider writing another book about Ellen, I had no such intentions after leaving
Adventism in 2010, was the hacking of the White Estate in 2012. When I saw some of the
damning quotes and diary entries from Ellen that were released on to the internet in 2014
(included in my book), which were kept from me, and other scholars, when I did research in the
White vaults, it certainly produced a sense of betrayal and reinforced my concerns about the
dishonesty of the White Estate and the denomination in general. It didn’t help that soon,
thereafter, the White Estate claimed that they were releasing these materials for all to see in
honor of the 100th anniversary of Ellen White’s death. Please, don’t insult our intelligence with
this kind of a claim, after so many years of dishonesty and cover-up.
“He often … does diagnose White”: Jonathan accuses me of diagnosing Ellen, but anyone who
reads the book carefully will note that I simply presented the historical evidence, as well as
diagnostic criteria, and insisted that the readers make their own decisions. I specifically made it
a focus in the book to point out that it is not ethical to diagnose individuals who are not your
clients, dead or alive, and certainly not in a public manner without their written permission.
Rather, than wandering into a field where he is not trained (psychology), I would have expected
Jonathan to find fault with my historical arguments or source documentation, if it was to be
found. But, instead of taking issue with my specific arguments and source documentation,
Jonathan makes broad generalizations without support for his claims. I know it is the Adventist
way, to try to discredit the messenger when anyone dares to expose the prophet, and there have
already been several establishment book reviews aimed at accomplishing this purpose, but I
don’t see Jonathan as an apologist historian, and am frankly disappointed that his criticisms seem
so unsubstantiated and from my perspective, rather easily dismissed. This is not to say that I
don’t value the opinions of my friend Jonathan, I very much appreciate him serving as part of my
reader’s group for the book and giving me valuable input, some of which I definitely applied.

An all or nothing approach can’t be justified: Jonathan finishes his piece by writing “All or
nothing? Give me another choice.” I want to emphasize again, as I did in the book, that I do not
personally take an all or nothing approach to Ellen White in my thinking about her. Clearly, she
did accomplish remarkable things in her lifetime, especially given her circumstances and lack of
education. There is no question that many people have benefitted from the Seventh-day
Adventist Church and its various institutions, and the same can be said for Mormonism, God is
great at overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:21). But, that does not make Joseph Smith a
true prophet, and I think most Adventists would be repulsed by such a claim. Ellen’s claims to
being the last day messenger of God, must be judged on their own merits or lack thereof. And
her claims are about as absolute and ambitious as any person could make. I will not list them all
here, but I have listed 25 of them in my presentation to the Christian Scholars Forum, May 22,
2021, available on YouTube, and on my Facebook page. Just to give a few examples:

5T p. 67 “In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the
Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They
are what God has opened before me in vision – the precious rays of light shining from the throne.”

1 SM p. 46 “If they [her testimonies] are not heeded, the Holy Spirit is shut away from the soul.”

5T p. 661 “When I send you a testimony of warning and reproof, many of you declare it to be merely the
opinion of Sister White. You have thereby insulted the spirit of God.”

3 SM pp. 32, 52 “The testimonies never contradict His Word” … “There is one straight train of truth,
without one heretical sentence, in that which I have written.”

5T p. 674 “If you lose confidence in the testimonies you will drift from Bible truth.”

4T p. 230 “God does nothing in partnership with Satan. My work for the past thirty years bears the
stamp of God or the stamp of the enemy. There is no halfway in the matter.”

2 SM p.63 “You think individuals have prejudiced my mind. If I am in this state, I am not fitted to be
entrusted with the work of God.”
Ellen took an all or nothing approach to her own writings, and if the reader is to take her claims
seriously, we too, are forced to evaluate her, and investigate her claims for what she stated them
to be. According to her, she either got her “visions” from God or the devil. They go hand in
hand with the Bible. They are not influenced or prejudiced by human thought, and if they are not
heeded, the Holy Spirit is shut away from the soul and insulted. In simple terms, this is
blasphemy. And when we compare these overwhelming claims to the source documented
evidence of errors, deception, plagiarism and fraud in the name of God, you end up with my
book. All or nothing is not Jonathan’s choice, it is not my choice, but it is Ellen’s choice and
demand, and it is left with us, to deal with it.