[…] occult beliefs across time and space. They refer to a wide array of very different belief complexes —Rosicrucianism, freemasonry, divining, alchemy, phrenology, astrology, visions, dreams, faith-healing—from different times and places as if their differences […]
[…] a curse God had placed on me.’ He said some men had told him that was it, because he was with the men who killed Joe Smith, the Mormon prophet. On some of those […]
[…] it authentic. Henry Caswall in 1842, James H. Hunt in 1844, and W. S. Simpson in 1853 all quoted Joseph Smith as comparing himself to Muhammad. Soon the latter-day vilifiers tired of their more […]
The nature of genius —especially religious genius—is an elusive and controversial topic. Great and recognized creativity in fields such as art, science, or politics has been the subject of extensive investigation without leading to […]
[…] might arouse suspicion and decided to stagger their departures (Layne, 26). By 3 June 1887 nineteen adults- —-sixteen men and three women —had arrived at Lee’s Creek. Of the sixteen men, fifteen were polygamists […]
This is an essay in speculative theology. In it I explore an idea —the general Mormon expectation of future polygamy—that has important religious and moral implications but about which there is little definite scriptural […]
[…] explain my wrestle with them. And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that […]
[…] hardship in the service of the Church made me royal too. Even with that tainted Lee streak —we knew John D. was a scapegoat for Brigham and became, for us, a kind of hero […]
[…] of being and becoming. Black Latter-day Saints became Black through the enfleshment of the curse of Cain —whether one identified as Haitian, Ghanian, or Malian, among others—in the Mormon imagination. Mormonism incorporated prevailing American […]
Dialogue 25.4 (Winter 1992): 81–96
A history of ethnic wards and branches as the church struggled with integration vs. segregation of immigrant communities.