Because it has been quite a while since I last updated this blog, I want to provide an update on what I have been working on, and what you may expect to see coming down the pike.

Come, Follow Me Responses

Earlier in the year I decided to write a series of responses to the 2021 Come, Follow Me curriculum for the Doctrine and Covenants. This began largely on a whim that I didn’t really intend to become a major project. However, after a few responses I decided to make it a series of sorts and began to feel a self-imposed obligation to see it through to the end. Along the way, I started reading Hearken, O, Ye People and Fire and Sword—two scholarly histories on the Kirtland and Missouri periods of Mormon history. In preparing my responses, I began routinely diving into the wealth of materials on the Joseph Smith Papers website, so as to better understand the historical context of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants behind each lesson. Of course, I also found myself increasingly deep in the lesson manuals and linked materials for each lesson. Very quickly, the response series took on a life of its own. What began as a lark became a laborious project, with each response seemingly raising the bar for the next.

As the fall semester hit, demands at my day job dramatically increased and I found I simply did not have the time to devote to all the projects on my desk. Realizing that the Come, Follow Me series had evolved into something I never intended—and because it was always a hobby project anyway—I decided to stop working on it and devote the reclaimed time to higher priority demands. Thus, the last entry in this response series was published on August 1, 2021. I had planned to still write entries for specific lessons of interest—such as D&C § 132, the Official Declarations, or the Family Proclamation—but after pivoting my attention from the series for a while my research interests became focused on other topics. Therefore, I probably will not return to the Come, Follow Me series anytime soon. If I do it will likely be just to write on the history behind the Doctrine and Covenants, without a rhetorical analysis of the Come, Follow Me materials.

All that said, I have not been idle in my personal research on topics related to Mormonism. In fact, my free time has arguably been even more focused on another Mormon Studies project that I had been working on in parallel to the Come, Follow Me series. One that I am much more excited about and ready to reveal to you.

Conspiracism Within Mormon Culture

If you follow me on Twitter at all, you’re probably aware that I am very interested in topics relating to conspiracy theories and Mormon folklore. You may have seen me sharing content related to the lost tribes of Israel, Anglo-Israelism, or the hollow earth theory. You may have encountered commentary on things I have been reading regarding the psychology of conspiracism. All of these are related to a bigger research project that I am working on regarding the culture of conspiracism that is prevalent in Mormon communities. Specifically, I am investigating the variety of conspiracy narratives present in the history and sacred writings of the faith, and how those narratives intersect with trends in conspiracism more broadly. I have also been reading deeply on the psychology and sociology of conspiracism in general. That is, why do we believe in conspiracy theories and who are the people who are most amenable to them?

My interest in this topic was sparked as I observed how Mormons responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, social justice protests of 2020, the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and vaccination efforts of 2021. During all of this, I had been reading a number of books on Mormon topics that prominently featured conspiracist themes: Matt Harris’s book on Ezra Taft Benson and the rise of far-right conservativism within the LDS church, Betsy Gaines Quammen’s book covering Cliven and Ammon Bundy and their fights with the Bureau of Land Management, and Christopher Blythe’s book on apocalypticism in Mormonism. Furthermore, while reading history related to early Mormonism in New York, Kirtland, Missouri, and Nauvoo, I noticed that conspiracist themes repeatedly emerged—both about Mormons and among Mormons. I began to realize that this was a topic with a wealth of material that really deserved more direct attention.

This topic of conspiracism and Mormonism feels both timely, important, and rich with material. In researching this topic, I have quickly discovered that it is far more vast than I originally had anticipated. There is really enough to cover for a full length scholarly book, and then some. Who knows? Maybe one day someone will write one.

Tokens and Signs Indeed

This brings me back to the current and future direction of this blog. I created my Twitter account to have an outlet to voice my thoughts and feelings into the void, but in a wherein I also felt witnessed in doing so. Eventually, I created this blog to be an outlet for my opinions and ideas that I wanted to articulate in a manner for which Twitter was not a conducive format. Furthermore, I wanted a place to serve as a repository of sorts for interesting things I discovered while researching Mormon topics. It was always meant to serve partly as an outlet for expressing myself in my faith transition from orthodox Latter-day Saintism, and partly as a vehicle to draft out essays on Mormon topics that I might want to reference later. That is, this blog was originally intended as a vehicle for personal expression rather than as a resource for others—though if others find anything I share here useful, then great!

With the above in mind, I hope to again start utilizing this blog space to organize my thoughts and ideas as I research topics of interest to me relating to Mormonism. For the present, that will likely be focused heavily on conspiracism in Mormon scripture, history, and present day culture. I hope to draft short essays and compile references for later use in more refined form later and elsewhere. Some of the posts may be less organized and more free-form than others; some might be more polished and scholarly. Either way, I want this to be a space where I can express myself as I see fit while sharing information that I find fascinating.

Hopefully you will too.