This will be the first of hopefully many essays I draft on topics related to the intersection of conspiracism and Mormonism, as I organize my thoughts in preparation for future projects. Recently, I finished reading three books the deal with the psychology of conspiracism: Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories (2015), Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power (2019), and Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (2020). I am also presently reading The United States of Paranoia (2014) and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (2018). What follows are some observations from these books regarding common features of conspiracy theories as I try to organize a framework for understanding what causes some communities to be more prone to conspiracism than others. The ideas below are rough ideas based largely on the things I’ve learned from the above books, with brief thoughts on how they apply to Mormon culture.

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The Socialization of Conspiracism

No one is born a conspiracist; worldviews are generally acquired through socialization. Undoubtedly, there are characteristics that make individuals more or less receptive to conspiracy thinking, but I genuinely believe that people develop conspiracist mindsets primarily through social conditioning in our formative communities. Therefore, instead of asking: “What are the features of individuals that make them more prone to conspiracy thinking,” perhaps we should be asking: “What are the features of social environments that may condition individuals into a conspiracist worldview?”

From my reading on common characteristics of conspiracy narratives and those who believe them, what follows below are some factors that I think contribute to the likelihood that members of a given community will develop a conspiracist worldview.

• The prevalence of conspiracy and persecution narratives in the stories you hear told regarding your community identity. These can be narratives about conspiracies real or imagined.
• The degree to which black-and-white and us-vs-them thinking is reinforced by your formative social community.
• The social acceptability in one’s formative community of unorthodox practices or beliefs, relative to the mainstream/official practices and narratives of the broader community of which one’s formative community is a part. That is, mistrust among one’s immediate formative community of the orthodox history, medicine, science, etc. of the broader community.
• The degree to which hidden, arcane, or esoteric knowledge is valued in one’s formative community.
• The degree that one’s formative community prioritizes individually obtained truth, personal enlightenment, and lay authority over the acceptance of communally-accepted wisdom or expert opinion.
• The prevalence in one’s formative community of narratives that being different or strange is a sign of superiority. That is, a sense of communal exceptionalism born from peculiarity.
• The extent to which one’s formative community promotes principles as being incontrovertibly true, without promoting a critical evaluation of evidence or the consideration of alternative perspectives. The value placed upon the concept of faith in one’s formative community, especially where faith is characterized as believing questionable things to be true.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of these ideas and examine how they apply to Mormonism.

Personal Enlightenment

One of the features of conspiracy theories that makes them attractive is the sense of “awakening” or personal enlightenment experienced among believers. The notion that not everything is as it seems—that there are hidden machinations underneath everyday events that most of us don’t comprehend—gives individuals who have “taken the red pill” a sense of empowerment and superiority. Believers are bestowed with higher, gnostic truths to which only they and their conspiracist fellows are privy. While the information itself may be disconcerting, the sense of enlightened exceptionalism feels elevating. That positive emotional response can be extremely reinforcing, especially among those who otherwise feel powerless or socially disenfranchised.

A common theme among conspiracy narratives is that individuals can learn the truths of the conspiracy by “doing their own research.” This notion plays off the concept that truth should be independently verifiable, but typically ignores the utility of subject area expertise in the ability to comprehend and interpret complex information. Regardless, individuals are frequently taught that they can learn the truth about the world around them if they search for it on their own and consult the right sources. Sometimes, but not always, conducting this independent research can take on the language of a quest for enlightenment and may invoke spiritual and religious metaphors. Religious methods of epistemology may be specifically encouraged, especially in the context of personal enlightenment. Invoking familiar spiritual and religious language and ideas can increase the likelihood that someone will incorporate a conspiracy theory into their current worldview.

Mormonism presents many narratives that mirror those described above. Of particular prominence is the concept of personal revelation—that every member can (and should) seek individualized personal access to divinely-inspired truth through study, prayer, and other devotional practices. This democratization of revelatory experience is such a hallmark of the faith that it serves as one of the centering principles of the missionary lessons in proselytizing efforts. In seeking personal revelation, members and investigators are taught to attend to their emotional responses while engaged in their personal study of scripture, prayer, or other activities of religious devotion. Positive, elevating emotions are taught to be manifestations of the Holy Spirit confirming the veracity of things an individual is learning, or indicating approval of an individual’s current course of action. These experiences are taught to be primary to all other means of knowing.

Intellectual Hipsterism

Among the many factors that prime someone toward conspiracism is what some researchers have termed the cultic milieu. Despite the terminology, the essence of this is the culture of intellectual unorthodoxy—a preference for information or wisdom outside the mainstream. Parapsychology, astrology, numerology, apocalypticism, near-death experiences, New Age spiritualism, alternative medicine, etc. This atmosphere of alternative wisdom rejected by the mainstream is to what the cultic milieu refers. I jokingly call it “intellectual hipsterism.” This is not a commentary on the veracity of any of these domains. Rather, it is an observation that each exists outside of the mainstream; it is this countercultural element that is important for the present conversation.

Research has found that those who are more accepting of ideas or practices characterized by the unorthodoxy of the cultic milieu are more likely to be amenable to conspiracism. They tend to be less trusting of orthodox wisdom and more trusting of unorthodox wisdom. Consider for a moment the Mormon concept of “deep doctrine.” These are Mormon ideas that exist outside the Mormon mainstream, let alone the broader currents of society. What’s more, deep doctrines are broadly understood to be gnostic truths that only the spiritually enlightened can comprehend. Mormon “deep doctrine” fits neatly within this domain of the cultic milieu. It represents a well of gnostic wisdom that exists outside the mainstream by being comprehensible only to the spiritually enlightened. It is Mormon “intellectual and spiritual hipsterism.”

Inasmuch as immersion in the unorthodoxy of the cultic milieu is predictive of amenability to conspiracism, it follows that there would be a connection between preference for deep doctrine and the acceptance of conspiracy theories. The deep doctrines themselves may not be conspiracy theories per se (though some are!), but they provide a wealth of esoteric material to incorporate into conspiracy narratives. This confers a sense of gnostic enlightenment to those narratives and roots them in familiar ground.

Conspiracy narratives nearly always feature 1) mistrust of official/mainstream information, 2) a sense of personal enlightenment in knowing hidden truths, 3) an assumption that things are not as they seem, and 4) a penchant for “connecting the dots” through esoteric channels. “Deep doctrine” within Mormonism checks these boxes and then some. In this way, they provide fertile ground for the incorporation of existing—and construction of new—conspiracy narratives within a distinctly Mormon worldview.

Faith, Evidence, and Dogmatism

Faith has many definitions and is used a host a different ways in either religious or colloquial use. In post-Enlightenment western Christianity—especially since the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the early 20th century—one particular definition of faith has become especially prominent: assensus. This is the notion of faith as believing, or assenting to particular doctrinal tenets; it’s opposite is doubt or disbelief. Increasingly, this notion of faith means not just believing, but believing questionable things to be true—particularly where evidence is lacking or even contradictory. There are other definitions of faith (e.g., fiducia, fidelitas, visio), but faith as assensus has arguably become the primary definition in much of American culture and especially among Christian fundamentalists and Evangelicals. (I am drawing most of these ideas regarding differing notions of faith from the late Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity).

Related, dogmatism is the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, especially without consideration of evidence or the perspectives of others. Communities that are highly dogmatic tend to also emphasize faith as assensus. (There are also exceptions; faith is not typically a valued concept among empirical scientists, but we can at times be incredibly dogmatic regardless). A product of dogmatism is dichotomous thinking—painting the world and in terms of black and white, true or false. Other forms of dichotomous thinking include us-vs-them, trustworthy-vs-deceptive, or good-vs-evil—each of which are frequent themes of conspiracy theories. These generally false dichotomies are part of what make conspiracy theories effective tools for creating myths of group identity, because they often define the boundaries for the in-group vs the out-group. “You’re either for us or against us, and if you’re against us you’re probably part of the conspiracy.”

The combination of faith as assensus, dogmatic tendencies to cherry-pick confirmatory evidence, and dichotomous us-vs-them thinking all combine to make conspiracism virtually impervious to refutation. Within the conspiracist style, information sources either confirm the conspiracy narratives or they are untrustworthy and probably controlled by the conspirators. Individuals have either been awakened to the true reality, are deluded sheeple, or are a part of the conspiracy. The confluence of dichotomous thinking, the sinister attribution error, and unchecked confirmation bias blend together to produce a readiness to accept unproven allegations of conspiracy whilst simultaneously being capable of sustaining conspiracist beliefs despite a lack of evidence (or in the face of conflicting evidence). After all, the lack of evidence is easily interpreted as evidence of a coverup.

Dogmatism and an emphasis on assensus-style faith are prevalent features of Mormon culture. Mormon doctrines are presented as unassailable truths revealed directly from a divine source. Doubt and skeptical criticism of the tenets of the faith or the policies of the church are strongly discouraged. Members are taught to “doubt their doubts before they doubt their faith.” Cherry-picking evidence that supports Mormon narratives while ignoring contradictory evidence or alternative perspectives is modelled by church leaders, apologists, and CES instructors. False dichotomies in the style of us-vs-them, good-vs-evil, trustworthy-vs-deceptive are frequent themes in Mormon settings. The concept of sticking to “approved sources” to avoid deception by “anti-Mormon literature” (especially regarding the internet) is a striking example. All of these features of Mormon culture make it especially ripe for breeding conspiracism.

Good Guys and Bad Guys

People crave a villain, and we’re often reluctant of giving them up. When we’ve created a villain in our minds, we typically don’t appreciate redemption arcs. We prefer our villains to remain such and to get their comeuppance. A critical feature of every conspiracy theory is the identification of an enemy—an opponent to fight against. One could argue that this is the primary function of conspiracy theories. This is what makes conspiracy rhetoric a powerful political tool, but it is also powerful for creating other kinds of group identity. More often than not, we define our groups by who we exclude, or who we are against. Conspiracy narratives create compelling myths of group identity. Who are the villains identified by the narratives of Mormonism? How might some conspiracy narratives tap into traditional Mormon animosities?

It is often assumed that conspiracy thinking is just something “crazy” or “stupid” people do, but truth be told, we all engage in conspiracism to varying degrees. We all create stories about our world that feature elements of conspiracism, often about our perceived enemies. Maybe some of the stories we have created or adopted about our perceived enemies are not quite what we assume them to be. Maybe we have fallen victim to our tendency to create conspiratorial narratives that cast us as the heroic underdog against a unidimensional villain.

Heroic Underdog Narratives

A common feature of conspiracy narratives is the existence of a heroic underdog fighting against a more powerful enemy. Consider how renegade doctors or scientists routinely are featured in conspiracy theories against vaccination or human-caused climate change. These figures are presented as courageous dissenters who are fighting against the powers of Big Pharma or the prejudiced academic elite. Consider how the 9/11 Truther movement turned renegade scientist Steven E. Jones into a heroic figure after Brigham Young University distanced itself from Jones’s remarks and pressured him to retire early. Whenever a conspiracy theory identifies an enemy, it will nearly without fail identify who is heroically opposing that enemy.

Part of what makes an underdog endearing is their persistence in the face of opposition. The greater the opposition, the more heroic and endearing the underdog figure. If there is a perceived ongoing campaign to smear the reputation of these underdog figures and discredit their findings, the more courageous and plucky they’ll be perceived to be. Everyone loves an underdog and their inclusion in conspiracy narratives gives believers someone to root for. Often that someone will be themselves. Conspiracy theories will frequently identify believers as underdog figures within its broader narrative, casting them in the hero’s role. As Robert Brotherton states in his book Suspicious Minds:

Even more than making heroes out of a few renegades, though, conspiracy theories offer to make heroic underdogs of us all. A conspiracy theory is an invitation to join an enlightened but embattled minority—an elect few who bravely, selflessly speak truth to power.

Brotherton (2015). Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, p. 150.

Mormonism provides plenty of underdog narratives of its own. Joseph Smith is portrayed as the heroic underdog of the Restoration, speaking divinely revealed truth to bring the world out of the darkness of the Great Apostasy. Smith is presented as someone who is opposed by Satanic forces, maligned and conspired against, and eventually martyred for his cause. Likewise, Smith’s followers are portrayed as endearingly courageous underdogs who were persecuted and driven from place to place because of their beliefs in revelations of previously hidden truths that challenged the status quo. Their enemies are many and powerful. In Utah, the Saints are a peculiar people who—having fled the oppression for the beliefs—are striving to carve out an existence in the untamed Rocky Mountains. They are persecuted and opposed by the formidable US Government because of their belief in plural marriage.

On and on it goes; throughout every stage of Mormon history, the church and its members are presented as an embattled minority who dare to stand apart from their deriding neighbors because of the higher truths revealed expressly to the Saints. This sweeping narrative eventually culminates in a grand and final conflict in which the far outnumbered Saints will be vindicated as their enemies are swept from before them at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The Grand Conflict

Conspiracy theories come in many shapes and sizes, from the relatively quotidian and mundane (e.g., Amazon and Google are eavesdropping on all your conversations to deliver personalized ads on your smartphone) to grand conspiracies of epic proportions that pervade every aspect of life (e.g., the world is controlled by space lizards disguised as humans who are secretly pulling the strings of all world affairs). Grand conspiracy theories often incorporate lesser conspiracy theories into a larger interwoven narrative on a existential or cosmic scale. Not only are Amazon and Google eavesdropping on your conversations, but they are part of a shadowy surveillance network that serves the space lizard overlords who are enslaving humanity and feeding off the energy of our negative emotions.

Many communities have myths featuring a grand conflict between pure good vs pure evil on an existential or cosmic scale. Not everyone who grows up with or believes such stories is destined to become a conspiracist, but I hypothesize that the prominence of such narratives within one’s formative community may correlate with individual amenability to accepting grand conspiracy theories. Alternatively, the prominence of grand conflict narratives in one’s formative community may make it easier to accept lesser conspiracy theories by integrating them within the framework of the grand conflict.

Mormonism presents a grand conflict narrative that is itself a conspiracy theory. In the premortal realm, Satan conspired with his followers to usurp power from God and take away the agency of humankind. Though he was defeated and cast out, he now conspires with the third part of the host of heaven who were cast out with him to lead humanity astray and thwart God’s plans on earth. He is the author of all contention and earthly conspiracies, including the secretive order of Master Mahan and the Gadianton Robbers. This grand conspiracy narrative is prominently featured in canonical Mormon scripture, and numerous church leaders have told the tale through official channels and from the highest positions of Mormon ecclesiastical authority.

How does the prominence of such a narrative in Mormon communities affect the amenability of Mormons toward accepting other conspiracy narratives, whether they be grand or lesser in scale?

Some Additional Caveats

In all of the above, I am using the term “Mormon” in a broader sense than referring only to members of the SLC-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Conspiracism isn’t just a feature of one particular group, Mormon or otherwise. With regards to Mormondom, I am including any and all persons whose worldview and life experiences have been shaped by the movement initiated by Joseph Smith. That certainly includes self-identifying “ex-Mormons” as well.

In all of the readings I’ve done so far, the clearest overarching theme is that we are all conspiracists to varying degrees. As I look at the features of Mormon communities that may make individuals more amenable to conspiracism generally, these features surely apply to other groups outside of Mormondom as well. In that sense, Mormondom is merely a microcosm through which to observe how community dynamics contribute in the socialization of conspiracism.