SIO333: 'Under the Banner of Heaven' and the Lafferty Murders, with The Glass Box Podcast

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:12 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 333. I'm Thomas and that's Dr. Lindsey Osterman. How are you doing, Lindsey?

0:00:18 Lindsey: Fantastic. How are you? Yeah.

0:00:20 Thomas: I am great and I'll tell you why. It's because I'm so excited for our guest today. A little bit of a change up on today's show. I'd like to welcome my favorite ex-mo, no offense, Shannon, Bryce Blankenagel. How are doing, Bryce?

0:00:33 Bryce: And I'm fantastic. Soon to be your second favorite Exmo, I think.

0:00:37 Thomas: I was going to leave that open. That possibility, Shannon is open. Just Bryce and I Bryce and I have a history you know an elaborate romantic history that we won't get into here it's Bryce Bryce and Chan from the glass box podcast how you two doing today so

0:00:39 Bryce: Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good to be open -minded. Yeah.

0:00:40 Shannon: We go. Hi. Yeah. Right, there you go. Good.

0:00:50 Bryce: That's just for patrons. Fantastic. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here.

0:00:58 Shannon: Yeah, yeah.

0:01:00 Thomas: This came out, it was totally left field, because here's what was happening, um, right, I became a fan of one Andrew Garfield recently, um, weird reasons, everybody, I think, already watched those old Spider-Mans, but I never watched those, I didn't watch any of the stuff he was in, but my wife had that, um, there's a new documentary on HBO about the guy who wrote Rent, uh, that Andrew Garfield is in, and I found, wasn't even watching, she was watching it, but he's so delightful that me, like, like, it was a secondhand delightfulness, just not even watching him that I absorbed.

And I just started really liking this guy. And then I saw that new Spider-Man that he guest starred in, liked it even more. And so then we see a preview for Under the Banner of Heaven. I know nothing about this, zero about this. But it's an FX show. You know, it's good, usually good channel. And it's got Andrew Garfield in it. And not even a big true crime fan. I'm like, kind of like had enough of true crime.

I feel like our, our society has an unhealthy relationship with true crime, but it's Andrew Garfield. I'm like, well, I have to watch this. And so lo and behold, we turn it on. And again, I know nothing about this. I've just like, ah, it's a crimey crime thing. Turn it on, oh boy, it's Mormonism. Like, unbelievable amounts of Mormonism that I was not prepared for. I had no idea.

It was cool, but it was also just one of those weird things where, like, it was sort of like you travel across the planet on vacation and you see someone, your neighbors with or something. And you're like, like, what are the odds of this? It felt like, oh, this is Bryce. Like, I'm seeing a Bryce on this show, stuff that he's taught me. But it was so interesting. There's so much inside Mormonism, baseball, whatever stuff in here.

I thought it would be a fun opportunity to have my good buddy Bryce Blankenagle back on the show for what's been far too long. And then you tell me that your co-co-host, Shannon, has a history with this actual real crimey case. Would you like to tell us about that?

0:02:45 Shannon: Happened right in the area where I grew up. And Ron Lafferty, because this is about the Lafferty brothers, and them killing their sister -in -law and niece because they said God told them to do it. This is back in 1984. Ron is the oldest brother of the Lafferty brothers. His oldest daughter was actually a year older than me. So I knew her in high school. We weren't friends, but we had mutual friends, if that makes sense. And so all of this happened right when I was at that age of, what, 17, 16 years old. And so, yeah, Ron Lafferty was in my stake, which probably need to explain those Mormon terms, right? Okay.

0:03:25 Thomas: Yeah, what? Yeah.

0:03:28 Shannon: Mormons like to stand out. So they like to take things and just change the names on them. So, they stand out to everybody. So the name of a congregation, oh, and the other thing to know about Mormonism is they put the word organized into organized religion. So with a congregation, they call it a ward and you have a bishop in charge of the ward. Then a group of congregations is called a stake that has a stake president and all these other people in charge of that, a group of stakes is called the region and you have regional presidents and then a group of regions are the church itself, so they weren't in my ward, but they were in my stake, and so when it talks about in what was it like, episode, when you get something like episode five, I think, when when the stake president, Richard Stowe, shows up, that was my stake president.

0:03:41 Thomas: Hmm.

0:04:15 Lindsey: I'm glad you explained that. I was very confused by that.

0:04:16 Shannon: Yeah, those are all very common terms that Mormons don't think about non -Mormons not understanding at all. But yeah, and they're all, they abound.

0:04:18 Lindsey: Yeah, okay.

0:04:27 Thomas: Yeah. Go ahead and assume that about every single term today in this recording. If you don't be like a Mormon, Oh, I got to define what is a Mormon? You know, like that level would be fine because as much as I have absorbed plenty from your shows and from Bryce and everything, my mind just doesn't work this way because I wasn't, I didn't grow up in it and I just don't have a mind for these things. Like your steak, your word, your blah blah blah, like it instantly just goes in and out, so it's it's really interesting how much of an inside world that is to you guys and I think that's kind of on purpose, right? Like we've talked about that, Lindsey, with some of the cult stuff where it's like this specialized world that only you and the members kind of know about, it creates more separation from everybody else and keeps people

0:04:33 Shannon: I will do that.

0:04:58 Shannon: Yes. Yeah.

0:05:13 Shannon: Mormon.

0:05:13 Thomas: In in line kind of

0:05:15 Bryce: All about the jargon. It is how they are able to identify each other and identify outsiders as well. I may say something as an apostate former member that they can quickly identify, oh, this person is an apostatist just by one word that I say in a single sentence that's, you know, out of place to them or something, too.

0:05:16 Shannon: Is absolutely yeah right

0:05:20 Thomas: That's

0:05:34 Shannon: Right, the Mormons like to be known as a peculiar people, it's in one of the articles of faith, the 13 Articles of Faith that Joseph Smith wrote, and so yeah, they like to stand out

0:05:45 Thomas: What I would say too if I was a mormon I'd be like oh we meant to too. We want it to be really weird and stand out. Well, I feel like I'm trying to think. I don't think people need to have watched this limited series, although you should. It's seven episodes. They're actually pretty long, chunky episodes. They're like each an hour or more, I think, for some of them. But it's a very good show. Recommend it.

0:05:46 Shannon: Yes exactly exactly that's exactly it yeah yeah

0:05:49 Bryce: That's right. Yeah. But

0:06:09 Thomas: Sorry,

0:06:03 Shannon: I'll all but the last one and are an hour the last one's an hour and a half but they are really packed just really packed with stuff yeah

0:06:13 Thomas: Gotcha. Yeah. And I love the show, but I want to try to do this in a way where they don't have to have watched it. And it's also honestly, like, I know it's a bit of a spoilers to even say this, but it's not that spoilery of a show. Like if you don't know anything about it, it's, it's Not really a, like much of a whodunit. It's more like a why done it, you know? And so I think it's the kind of thing where you could listen to this and us talk about it and still fully enjoy the show if you'd like, I think. Don't you think?

0:06:17 Shannon: Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it starts out where he gets the call, the detective Pyre played by Andrew Garfield, he gets to call to go investigate the murder. So you know right at the beginning. And I mean it's a true story. So it's like watching Apollo 13. You already know how it's going to end. So, yeah...

0:06:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

0:07:04 Bryce: I would also argue that most people are not aware of this little tiny.

0:07:07 Shannon: No.

0:07:08 Thomas: No.

0:07:08 Bryce: I mean, this was huge in Utah, of course, happening in the heartland of Utah when it happened. But I mean me as a 91 baby, right? This was long out of the culture by the time I was a young kid. Nobody talked about this. Nobody referenced this. The church had done so much work to culturally scrub the Lafferty murders out of the culture. Same with the Mark Hoffman affair, if people have recently watched the murder among the Mormons.

0:07:09 Thomas: Yeah,

0:07:13 Shannon: Right.

0:07:34 Bryce: So It's very interesting to see how quickly an entire culture can move on from this heinous thing that was so big in Utah at the time, made national headlines, but arguably hardly anybody outside of Utah even knows anything about this or even heard the name of the lafferty's

0:07:33 Thomas: I love that one.

0:07:49 Shannon: Right. Right. Ended up on national news at the time crime because of trying to search for them. And When Ron and Dan were arrested, they were in Reno, Nevada. So the FBI got brought in because it was across the state lines. But mostly it was because they killed their sister -in -law and the 15 -month -old baby and used a ritual form from the temples of the Mormon church. That's why it even made it into the news. But yeah, yeah. People don't, you say something about the Lafferty murders and they're like, what? You know, even here that happened before. And

0:07:58 Thomas: Well, there's so much to talk about. Not sure where to begin, but one thing that struck me right away and that I think is another one of those things that maybe won't seem odd to you too, but to just a non-Mormon watching, right away, you've got this super Mormon, and I don't know how much of this stuff is fictionalized, but, you know, in Andrew Garfield's character, but you've got this super Mormon detective, seems pretty, I don't know, believable to me, but the, the, just the close ties and the fact that like everybody in this place is Mormon, except they have this wonderful character, and I don't know, again, if this is a real person, but his partner, who's Native American, who's not Mormon. I love that character and the dynamic there. It makes it really interesting, but it shows you the contrast of how kind of inside this is and how like, it's honestly just scary to see how closely tied Mormonism is to the police. And like, what did you, what do you think about that? Is that, does that strike you as kind of realistic in its portrayal?

0:09:11 Shannon: Yes.

0:09:30 Shannon: God, yes. Oh my God.

0:09:33 Bryce: Let's start with a softball yeah no like utah is mormonism right they are inseparably tied there it's I mean the entire you know territory turned state was created by the mormons and their you you know, their system of religious and racial eugenics, and the state hasn't evolved from that. It is still a theocracy, and I feel like it was more prominent and more so in the 80s, but I feel Like they very well illustrated how tightly interwoven everybody is, and the nucleus of all of these ties is obviously the church.

0:09:34 Thomas: Okay.

0:09:36 Shannon: Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:08 Shannon: Right. The police officers in this are kind of a conglomerate of several, both of them are fictional for the show, and we really don't know much of who investigated. As far as I can tell from the book, they named the police chief of the town of American Fork because that's where it actually happened, but they don't have any of the investigating officers. And so that character, though, is perfect because he shows really what every exmo goes through in a faith crisis, you know, in their various forms. And so watching him progress through this and seeing him show very clear Mormon priesthood holder men things as he's dealing with all of this was just fascinating. I was impressed with how well he did it.

0:11:00 Thomas: The priesthood holder stuff um what does that mean and is it a penis related thing and was that yeah because like they talked about holding the priesthood and I was like what what is our priesthood here is that your name for the something what's going on yeah

0:11:03 Bryce: Yes. Always. Voice.

0:11:07 Shannon: Everything Joseph Smith is. That was so funny

0:11:21 Bryce: Yeah, this is another one of those Mormon-y jargon cult-y things, right? So the Mormon culture, we ascribe significance to words that are typically, you know, have different definitions to everyone else. So one of Those is like a testimony. In Mormonism, a testimony is an ethereal concept of something that you hold, and your devotion to the gospel is essentially measured by how strong your testimony is. And same with the priesthood. The priesthood is not just a person who is a priest. The priest hood is something that you are endowed with when you, you know, are somebody who happens to have male anatomy.

0:11:54 Thomas: Well endowed with in some cases yeah separate

0:11:56 Bryce: And exactly when you turn 12 years old, you get this blessing and you gain the priesthood and that allows you to conduct ordinances that are all priesthood ordinances. And that's everything from baptisms to blessings to temple work to all sorts of things that that are all, only men can do all of these things. And the way that they say that this isn't sexist is that women have access to the priesthood through their husbands, of course.

0:11:56 Shannon: And

0:12:24 Lindsey: Okay.

0:12:23 Shannon: And and women get yeah women get to have babies that's that's the equivalent that is exactly What we were taught is we get to be mothers, which makes us hand in hand with God, so therefore that's equal to men, having the priesthood. Yeah, yeah.

0:12:25 Thomas: But equal access yeah yeah

0:12:27 Bryce: Yeah. Yeah.

0:12:43 Bryce: It's great. No, it's awesome.

0:12:45 Shannon: But it is the power to to act in the name of God. That's what priesthood is. And so you have to have the priesthood to be a leader in the church. Only men can be the leaders, you know, so the prophet all the way down to bishops, all theway down to presidents of the different quorums, which, you know, are the different groups in the priesthood. So the lower priesthood is the Aaronic priesthood.

The upper priesthood is the Melchizedek priesthood, the Melchizedek priesthood is the one that is used to rule in the Church. That is what the young missionaries are. That's the first office in the Melchizedek Priesthood, so that's why they're called elder. And bishops are in there, stake presidents, you know, the 70s quorum, which is part of the leadership of the church, the quorum of the 12, the upper leadership, all of that. That is all part of The Priesthood.

They have to have it, the different keys of The Priests to hold those positions. Women will never have those. But see, this is also the other thing to remember is this This is in 1984 when this is happening. It was only 1978 that they allowed black men to have a priesthood.

0:12:39 Thomas: Yeah, I was going to mention that okay a couple other technical questions there. Off, I find it weird. So I remember from, you know, Book of Mormon that they call specifically like the youngest people elders, which is confusing. Like, aren't those specifically like 20 year olds or so that are on their missions and they're called elders for some reason?

0:13:50 Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, now it's 18 is when the boys are sent out, which I'm like, those are boys.

0:14:12 Thomas: Okay. So they're, they're definitely not elders. Like you say, using different definitions of words for some reason. Elder in relation to what? Little kids or something? I don't get it. No, really. I don't understand it.

0:14:19 Bryce: Exactly. Yeah, that's right.

0:14:16 Shannon: You're right. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. But there's also the psychological impact of that because then you feel like they know what they're talking about. When in actual fact, these kids don't. They're just spewing forth whatever they've been brainwashed. They really have no fucking idea what they're talking about, which is why when somebody asks the in -depth questions, they're like, oh, you're trying to bash with me. No, we're going to go away.

0:14:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:49 Thomas: Right. And

0:14:50 Shannon: Yeah.

0:14:50 Bryce: And then they're told to dust off their feet, and They'll sometimes, like, you saw that it's depicted, the quorum of 70 after the conversation with Pyre and Alan uh Lafferty, he uh, he, like, brushes off the back of his shoe, that's like a very significant thing in the Mormon culture is dusting off your feet, which Is basically like I tried my best with you but now I just give you over to the buffetings of Satan, it's like washing your hands.

0:14:53 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:53 Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I'll tell you one thing that's interesting is I was out on my mission in 1988 through '89, and they actually sent out to all the mission presidents saying tell the elders to stop doing that so Much elders will be all mad because they couldn't get indoors so they dust off their feet over an entire town and shit like that, so they're like nope

0:15:36 Thomas: Wow. Well, dumb question.

0:15:27 Bryce: Oh my god oh that's so dumb

0:15:39 Thomas: I thought... So, wait. So, can women do that part? The mission part with the... Oh, you said you were on your mission. Then what do you... You

0:15:45 Shannon: You can go on a mission you do the the mission part, but you have no power or authority for anything.

0:15:48 Thomas: Just have a baby there. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. What do you do? Like, so you don't do the door to door thingy or you do.

0:15:50 Shannon: Yeah, right. Yeah. You go around. Yes, you do.

0:15:52 Bryce: I

0:15:56 Shannon: You go round and you teach people and everything, but as soon as it comes down to a decision like baptism, then you have to have your district leader, who is a man, who, you know, is one of the elders, be the one to interview. You have to arrange for somebody else to do the baptism part. So you get to teach.

0:16:11 Thomas: Ah, so, but you can do the door-to-door and the necktie and the typical thing that we associate.

0:16:14 Shannon: Yeah except we had to wear dresses. Now they get to who wear slacks, but they can't be form fitting. They can't show, you know, the shape of the leg. They have to be nice and loose. But you know when I was out, we had to wear dresses. I was in Pennsylvania and I was supposed to wear nylon stockings every day, but I just downright refused during the summer. It was too fucking hot.

0:16:17 Thomas: Right. Yeah, I guess not to style shame, but everything the Mormons wore in this seemed designed to look bad. Is that like, no one should be attractive.

0:16:36 Bryce: Feel that was

0:16:44 Shannon: It's it you know and the funny I

0:16:47 Thomas: You You don't want to do that because the devil's, they, it was also the eighties.

0:16:48 Bryce: That the mormon stuff or was that also the 80s stuff like all

0:16:51 Thomas: That's true. I feel like it's a bad, uh, diagram, you Know, like eighties and bad Mormon style.

0:16:47 Shannon: Know yeah

0:16:52 Bryce: Right

0:16:56 Shannon: It was and that was actually very typical. In fact, I think it was episode, it was either three or four, I was like, I had that shirt that Becca Pyre was wearing, I had that exact shirt. Then, uh, we didn't wear dresses all the time like they show in here, but there's this, the psychological impact, I think, or whatever you want to call it, of, of the really, the fundamental ones and the really strong TBMs, true believing Mormons, women would be in dresses. The ones that were more thinking for themselves would have on slacks. And Brenda, you know, you see that with Brenda a lot. You see it through there at the beginning, she's in slacks, there's times when she is wearing dresses a lot, when she's trying to do, fall in with what Alan is telling her to do. But then at the end, when he's trying to break free of all of this conditioning, you see her in a swimsuit and shorts because she's been laying out, you know, that kind of thing and that that whole feeling of it the clothing

0:17:51 Thomas: Right. I mean, she is in her backyard. Like, were you allowed to wear a swimsuit in your backyard?

0:17:55 Shannon: Right yes you were though They did kind of look askance at women doing it when they got married, you know, because you're really not supposed to be without your garments, but but you can if you're doing something like swimming. And so, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, there

0:17:59 Thomas: Okay.

0:18:15 Thomas: Other question. Is there a, refer to the prophet. You refer to it. You refer it to the profit. That's not just talking about Joseph Smith. Is there like a current prophet at all times, like the Pope?

0:18:24 Shannon: Always is one.

0:18:25 Thomas: There's always one.

0:18:25 Shannon: There always is. Yep, there's one. Well, they all

0:18:26 Thomas: Okay.

0:18:29 Bryce: Well there's all in all of the different factions they all have their own profits but yeah

0:18:30 Thomas: Right.

0:18:33 Shannon: Have their own. But even the leadership of the church today, yes, you have the prophet, and that's Russell M. Nelson right now. And he has two counselors, and then they have the Quorum of the Twelve. But they're also all sustained as prophets seers and revelators so I know that's that You know, they, they have everybody sustain them, the whole church membership do it, which they say, you know, you have to raise your arm to the square and say yes or nod your head or whatever, you know, raising your arm tothe square when they say do you all sustain us means that you do and means that you are supporting them, you will follow them, you will obey them, you'll do everything they say, you won't argue with them, you'll follow all of the covenants you made in the temple about them.

Or, you know, if you haven't been to the temple, your baptism will come in, which means you believe they are the only true and living prophet and you will do everything they say. And so you have to do that every year. I think it's at least once a year. Do they do it every conference now? I'm trying to

0:18:51 Thomas: What? Sorry, I don't know. I don'T follow that.

0:19:34 Shannon: Remember.

0:19:34 Bryce: It's I think it is every conference that they do it yeah it's

0:19:36 Shannon: Now, twice a year? And so general conference is twice a year so when when mormons say conference that's what they're talking about is this big general conference that gets broadcast to the entire fucking world it's

0:19:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:50 Bryce: A 10 -hour brainwashing session

0:19:51 Shannon: Yeah

0:19:50 Thomas: It's like Comic -Con, but just worse in every conceivable way.

0:19:53 Shannon: Worse yes

0:19:55 Bryce: Yeah but everybody's just cosplaying in sunday dress yeah it's awful

0:19:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:57 Shannon: Yeah it's awful yeah

0:19:59 Bryce: Yeah

0:20:01 Lindsey: So the whole conflict between the brothers about one of them being the chosen one, is that what they were talking about? That was something

0:20:08 Thomas: Well, that was within the family, right? Well,

0:20:10 Lindsey: Different? Well, but it also seemed more general. Maybe I misunderstood that.

0:20:12 Bryce: So yeah A lot of insider baseball that is going on with that, so um, Joseph Smith gave a revelation uh that one mighty and strong would come forth to set the the Lord's church in order, uh, in the last days, and it may be biblical, I'm not sure, but it does, it is featured in one of Joseph Smith's revelations. And it's pretty widely understood that Joseph Smith was calling himself the one mighty and strong, or possibly his own son, Joseph Smith III, the one mighty and strong.

0:20:40 Lindsey: Okay. Okay.

0:20:41 Bryce: But that is what fundamentalists or anybody who wants to declare themselves a new prophet will say is that I am now the one might and strong sent to put the church in order prior, prior to the coming of the Messiah.

0:20:54 Thomas: You like arm wrestle Joseph Smith's corpse and you're like, I win. I bench more than you. Yeah.

0:20:55 Lindsey: So

0:20:58 Shannon: There you go yeah

0:20:58 Bryce: Yeah, trying to throw him like the leg wrestling. Yeah, or stick pulling.

0:21:03 Shannon: And this this is why why Mormons secretly love the Highlander, you know, there could be only one. Yeah, yeah,

0:21:12 Bryce: Yeah, but that does also contribute to another point that's important here, is that illustrated in the show and very much within the culture of Mormonism is the priesthood is a very competitive hierarchy.

Hierarchy and it's it's very much stratified that uh you get the priesthood at 12 years old you're a deacon and then the 14 year olds are teachers and then the 16 year old are priests and then the 18 year olds they get the Melchizedek priesthood, they are the elders and then you have quorums beyond that as well but it's considered like you're leveling up each each time, you get these, you just level up by virtue of being a member of the church and turning these ages, but basically everything after that is much more competitive and a lot of it does have to do with prosperity uh gospel, that the, you know, the wealthy businessman in the in the community, in your neighborhood, that person is usually, that guy is going to usually be called to be the bishop and then it's like the most effective and the most well -loved or the most iron -fisted bishop, they level up to be stake president and then they rank up and up and so within the Lafferty family, we We see illustrated many times how competitive it is, mostly between Dan and Ron, these two eldest sons, who want to become essentially the patriarchs of the family once Ammon Lafferty passes on.

But it's also within the broader context and the broader culture of Mormonism that every time you go to church, you're trying to put on your best appearance. You're trying the hottest wife and the most kids that always show up on time. You're always trying to have the best appearance the best optics so that you might get picked and it is it's very

0:21:25 Shannon: Yeah.

0:22:53 Bryce: Very competitive and

0:22:53 Thomas: Wait, who does the picking at every different level? Well, OK, I guess to clarify, I think Lindsay's question and maybe I'm just not understanding it, but there's a lot of initial competition in the early scenes with the family. And I want to ask you about this dad who's the creepiest motherfucker I've ever seen. Somehow, you know, in a show where two other people commit murders, like awful, gruesome murders, he's the most creepy to me, like even more than the murders. But anyway, early on, there's a lot of tension between because Ron is the oldest, but is not kind of it doesn't seem to be the chosen one of his dad. And I'm wondering, is that just a family dynamic of you're the patriarch, or is that also an official Mormon -y thingy, like somehow the designated, you know, highest male of the family?

0:22:55 Bryce: The higher quorums yeah oh

0:22:57 Shannon: The next one's up. Yeah.

0:23:14 Bryce: This is so mormon yeah

0:23:22 Shannon: Yeah." I think it's more of a family dynamic in this one because the father picks Dan more than Ron because Ron is stronger, but he wouldn't be able to take the control back from Ron afterwards and he thinks he can with Dan but Dan has more charisma than Ron does and this you see more in the book actually I think they put made him a little bit more equal in the show, but yeah, Dan, Dan also goes off the rails a little easier than the rest of them do, but he got, he's, he gets the ones to follow him, but I do think that Ammon choosing him was, was because then when he got back from his mission, he'd be able to take control of the family back.

0:23:57 Thomas: Hmm.

0:24:08 Thomas: Interesting.

0:24:26 Thomas: Right. Okay, that actually makes sense. I got kind of a different message from the show, and again, probably just because I'm watching as not anyone who knows anything about Mormonism. But it one thing that struck me as a little artificial was like they made Ron early on into the most likable, normal guy. And then, like, by the end, he's just absolutely batshit in the worst way. And the and his transition struck me is kind of bizarre. I don't know. It seemed really fast to me.

0:24:46 Shannon: Yeah, yeah.

0:24:56 Thomas: And I wonder if that was just them trying to like maybe he was always fucking bizarre in real life, you know, and they were trying to create that like journey. Oh

0:25:02 Shannon: I think, yeah, in real life, I think he was. And my dad had said once years ago after the book came out, he remembered Ron, because Ron Lafferty had been called into the bishopric of his ward in my stake, which the bishop has two counselors, and they help run the thing. And so he's one of the counselors. Was, but he said that if Ron Lafferty had been called to the bishopric and our board, dad would have changed boards because yeah, he didn't like him. He was not comfortable with him. And, and so there was a lot of that just underlying feeling of something is a little bit off, which when you have an abusive, severely abusive father, like their father was, you know, beating a dog to death with a baseball bat actually happened. That's something he actually did.

0:25:43 Lindsey: Sure.

0:25:29 Thomas: Wow oh wow I thought that was something they made up to be particularly evil in this show

0:25:52 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:54 Shannon: And that was something he did. He was used to beating his kids all the way up to adulthood. He was that kind of thing. And his beating was the buckle side of the belt and the kind that leaves welts everywhere. But that's the kind of home he grew up in. And that's the kind of attitude they had. So yeah, underlying feeling already there in this feeling of family first, church second, you know, this control, this feeling, all of that. So scriptures, yes. But also that the priesthood rules everything and that women are second class and that's the way he was raised.

0:25:54 Thomas: Okay yeah that came through that definitely came through in the show yeah

0:26:35 Shannon: Yeah. And Mormons, TBMs today hate that about it. They're like, oh, the church isn't that sexist. I'm like, yes, it is. It still is.

0:26:37 Bryce: Fucking

0:26:45 Shannon: Yeah, that's the 80s there, but it's still the same way. There is a canyon between the difference between the way men are treated and the way women are treated in this church.

0:26:43 Thomas: Yeah lindsey

0:26:44 Bryce: Is absolutely I The power struggle within the family, was it served as a microcosm of the power struggle within the priesthood, uh, the church level, and we see that the competition between Ron and Dan, and we see, you know, among all of the brothers, and that's something that we see within the church as well, and you know, Ammon Bundy is like a crew, I said Bundy.

0:27:13 Shannon: Yeah.

0:27:13 Bryce: Uh that's why I mean I think that's Why they chose that name because his real name was like warren or something like that um but ammon ammon Lafferty, uh, like everybody knows that guy in the ward too, like as soon as I saw some of his idiosyncrasies in the movie I was like, yeah, yeah, immediately somebody from my old ward came to mind. Like yeah, no, I, exactly, that's exactly this person

0:27:16 Lindsey: That's a good slip.

0:27:14 Thomas: Yeah Yeah. Oh, really? Hmm. Okay. Well, let me ask you this. Cause I, couldn't tell how, and this was a major question I had for you guys coming to this. I couldn'T tell how anomalous or not that Ammon, their father, and just for people who didn'T watch it, this is the father of the, it's a large family cause it's Mormons. And, and The two oldest brothers, ultimately, sorry if you don't want spoilers, but they ultimately are the ones who committed the murders and there's, this is, they're the ones who are having this power struggle that we're, we're talking about, um, the dad who I've mentioned is, um, batshit and scary in this, is how anomalous was that character, because the, from the show I almost got the impression that he would be like a pretty well respected mormon or is

0:27:34 Bryce: Right hmm Yes. Very

0:28:15 Shannon: Yes.

0:28:16 Thomas: That not true okay even with the all the corporal punishment beating a dog to death stuff or would that be stuff that was kind of kept quiet that most people wouldn't know about well

0:28:17 Bryce: Much so very very much yeah yep yeah

0:28:17 Shannon: Yes. Corporal punishment was definitely a thing, and that was recommended a lot of times, especially then. It's only recently that people are starting to actually agree that things like spanking and beating your kids is a bad thing. But this is a church that believed in blood atonement for so long, meaning you have to spill somebody's blood and kill them kind of thing, and so if they've done stuff really bad, so yeah, it was very typical of the time period, yeah.

0:28:54 Lindsey: I was gonna ask how typical that was, because it seemed like the blood atonement thing was kind of widely accepted. But wow. Okay.

0:28:55 Shannon: Yeah yeah um

0:29:04 Bryce: So

0:29:04 Thomas: Like in What in what way? Like, I guess I don't understand what, the obviously it wasn't mainstream Mormonism that you murder a wife and a baby. So Like what In One way, was it blood atonement, or is it, or was it an acceptable kind of thing, what version of it, so

0:29:05 Shannon: Right.

0:29:12 Lindsey: Sure. I want

0:29:19 Shannon: That's Where it gets tricky, because you also had the penalties going on in the temple, the blood oath you had to take, but, and blood atonement and the blood oath are kind of different but somewhat same. I mean, Bryce, you have more on the blood atonement, right? Yeah.

0:29:35 Bryce: The blood atonement itself was something that was invoked by Brigham Young, and it was used, uh, he used it, uh, as a plea to avenge the people who are to avenger the prophet, and to essentially curse the state of Illinois and any enemies of the church under the third and fourth generations. Uh, that was removed from the church, from the temple ceremonies, because it was too evocative, and the church was trying to be accepted into mainstream Christianity, uh

0:30:03 Thomas: Wait, they still just had this like grudge against the state of Illinois, and like, like they started and And fuck the state of Illinois and bless you all. Good night.

0:30:08 Shannon: No

0:30:09 Bryce: Yeah uh one of the hymns actually said long shall his blood yeah it's literally in one ofthe hymnes uh praise to the man praise to joseph smith they They say, long shall his blood, shed by assassins, stain Illinois while the earth lauds his fame. Yeah, yeah.

0:30:15 Shannon: Right yeah

0:30:25 Lindsey: To come back to the anti-state stuff too, at some point. Anyway, go ahead.

0:30:27 Thomas: Yeah, definitely.

0:30:28 Bryce: Yeah.

0:30:29 Lindsey: Of

0:30:28 Shannon: In fact the the event, there was an oath of vengeance that he had them take in the temple as part of the temple ceremony. It was taken out in 1927 because of pr it had hit the non-mormon newspapers who and people across the nation, politicians and everybody, just were were irate over it, but this was the oath. It said that, and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets. That means Joseph and Hiram Smith, but avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation.

0:30:37 Bryce: Yeah.

0:31:09 Thomas: I'll be honest, for 1927, like, I think Christianity had a lot of worse stuff going on, too. It doesn't sound that bad.

0:31:14 Shannon: Yeah. Yeah, but see, the other thing is, is in the temple, you are also taking blood oaths about you were doing in the Temple, and this is something they talked about, they showed in the second episode, and I shouldn't have interrupted you, Bryce. You had more you want to say on that. Sorry.

0:31:32 Bryce: This is important because it plays within the thesis of the show that blood atonement is this concept that there are some sins that are so egregious that the atonement of Christ does not cover these sins. That the person has to bleed in order or for their sins to be forgiven. And the blood of these sinners must be shed on the ground, very specifically.

0:31:57 Thomas: Like a paper cut, not do it, then? Does it have to be? If you.

0:32:00 Shannon: Exactly.

0:32:00 Bryce: Well, if it's deep enough and across the neck, yes, it would.

0:32:04 Thomas: Yeah,

0:32:04 Shannon: Well, no, but think about it, though. In that last episode, episode when Ron is strangling Dan and he's hitting himself to draw blood, that was the reason for that is so that blood would be shed so that he could go to live in the celestial kingdom. He didn't mind being killed as long as his blood was shed. Yeah, yeah.

0:32:25 Bryce: So the most egregious sin that a person can commit is not murder, it's not pedophilia, it's none of these things. It's opposing the gospel. So the enemies of the church are the people who need to be blood atoned. And in the Utah Territory, the most bloody era of the Church history, this is a refrain that was commonly used, that people would be blood -atoned and they would, you know, disappear.

0:32:36 Thomas: Of course. Yeah.

0:32:50 Bryce: That does make its way into the early 1900s as this oath of vengeance that was in. Blood atonement as a concept is still within the signs and penalties, the, you know, the finger across the neck, uh, then across the chest, and then across the stomach, signifying that if you ever oppose the church or if you have a reveal the secrets of the the ordinances that you're performing there, then you are consenting to have somebody slit your throat and disembowel you. Yeah.

0:32:50 Shannon: And Yes, I did those penalties when I went through. They

0:33:22 Bryce: Weird when were were they removed shannon just like three or four years after these heinous murders 90

0:33:24 Shannon: Didn't get yeah they didn't get removed till 1990 yeah But you were, you were promising, let me see, let me give you the exact wording to you, would say, "I covenant that I will never reveal the first or second token of the Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood with its accompanying name, sign, and penalty, rather than do so I would suffer my life to be taken." So you're not agreeing to kill yourself, you're agreeing to let somebody else kill you if you reveal these,

0:33:29 Bryce: Yeah

0:33:54 Thomas: Right. Right. What's so funny about that is you're like, I will never reveal this thing. And I'm like, I don't know what the fuck that is, lady. Like the pentatonic cry. I don't know. You could tell me or not. I wouldn't know if you told me. I would even know what it was.

0:34:01 Shannon: Right?

0:34:03 Bryce: Yeah I know

0:34:09 Shannon: And here's the other thing, because you're swearing you won't reveal any of these things that go with the promises you're making in the temple, which, I mean, mostly is just the names and the signs of each promise, not the promise itself, because the promises are things like the law of sacrifice, the law of chastity, the law of consecration, the law of the gospel.

0:34:29 Thomas: Do we have to kill you now that you just told us this? Do we Have to?

0:34:31 Shannon: No, but if I give you the sign and the names of them, then you do. Yeah, and so, yeah, oh

0:34:32 Bryce: She yeah yes and they all have accompanying little masonic handshakes and you know little like points of fellowship and like you know cupping your hand and raising the you know and all this crazy shit

0:34:46 Shannon: My god, that, yeah. You go through them so many times in the temple, and then you have to stand at the veil as if you're at the veil after death, and you're talking to Jesus Christ through the veil, and you have have to give them all of these signs and tokens and all this shit and and the names I know and then as long as you do all that

0:35:06 Bryce: Ankle

0:35:03 Thomas: Jesus, can you hear me? Give me a second. I'm going to use this hand signal to make sure you can hear me.

0:35:08 Shannon: Right Then you can get into the Celestial Kingdom as long as you have all those, which my question was always, well, if you're excommunicated, you still remember all those, so You know, but at any rate, the worst, the other thing about it was, they did at the time, for the last one, the fourth sign, which was, and the name, you were given the name at the veil, not in the rest of the ceremony, but they have to do it on what they called the five points of fellowship, so you had to have hand on shoulder, so both of you are reaching through the veil and putting your hand on the shoulder of the other person on the other side.

0:35:17 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:46 Thomas: Oh, wait. It's a two part. Like someone plays the part of Jesus in this?

0:35:46 Shannon: Um they do and And it's, it's always an old man. Okay. So even to the women, so women standing there, there's mouth to ear, hand to shoulder, hip to hip, knee to knee.

0:35:53 Thomas: Of course, yeah.

0:35:54 Lindsey: Course. Yeah.

0:36:02 Shannon: And you're also or ankle to ankle. Yeah. And you're Also holding hands and what they call the patriarchal grip, which is this really weird handshake kind of thing, interlocking little fingers and your thought your first finger is on the pulse point of your wrist okay yeah but there

0:36:02 Bryce: Dangle yeah yeah you're holding each other's priesthood yep oh

0:36:17 Thomas: Okay, just because I know that rule the internet, there must be porn based on this exact thing, right? There must be.

0:36:23 Bryce: Hundred

0:36:23 Shannon: Is and I will send you a picture I will you a picture but here's

0:36:23 Bryce: Million percent uh

0:36:26 Thomas: I will accept that

0:36:27 Lindsey: I'm good.

0:36:27 Thomas: Picture because it would be so funny.

0:36:29 Bryce: Well

0:36:29 Shannon: The other thing but here is the other thing that would go on then is and this happened to me all the time is these old men would pull me forward so that their hand would be resting right in my breast. I would try to pull away and they pull me back in. But then regularly in Relief Society at church, which is the women's meeting, you know men would be in priesthood, women would be Relief society, we would get these letters from the president of the temple saying, women you need to be careful at the veil, that you don't get so close, that the men on the other side are touching you because da da da. It's like, excuse me, why are we getting blamed for this?

0:36:42 Thomas: Of course.

0:37:08 Shannon: But you know, that's the other thing is in Mormonism, women are blamed for for every fucking thing, right,

0:37:08 Lindsey: Wow

0:37:13 Thomas: Yeah. Typical young teen girl wants to get close to an old 80-year-old fucking creepo. That's definitely what's happening there.

0:37:21 Shannon: Right. Yeah.

0:37:22 Bryce: And another thing that, that Shannon you went through that is like much more muted now, uh, but they illustrated in the show is the shield and the anointing, right? So part of the anointing process is they speak their magic spells while they put a dot of oil on your forehead, on your chest, and then down on your hip right next to your groin. And they have your...

0:37:33 Shannon: Oh, it's even more places than that, Bryce. You have no fucking, oh my God, you have no fucking idea.

0:37:47 Bryce: I mean, yeah, please tell. You went through it. I didn't.

0:37:52 Thomas: Oh, this is just the woman thing, or is this because of the year?

0:37:54 Shannon: No, men get it too. Men get it. Women, now up until, I think it was 1900, they, one, they didn't have a shield. They were totally naked and doing this, but I think that men also were blessing the women. I'm trying to remember when that changed, but with it, you know, they're starting on the top of your head. They do it with the water first, and then you go and do it again with the oil, but you know your head that it will do this, your eyes that they may see, your nose that it may smell, your lips that they always speak righteousness, your chin that it'll be strong, your neck that it can always blah, blah, your shoulders, your back, your loins, you know, your breasts that'll do this, your loins that'll, you, know your bowels, your vitals, your loins your legs, your

0:37:56 Thomas: Okay. Jeez, what are

0:38:38 Shannon: Knees, all of the shit.

0:38:38 Thomas: They giving you, a colonoscopy at the same time? Your gallbladder so that it may all... Oh, boy, I got to get in there.

0:38:40 Shannon: Oh my god, now here's the thing about this. I'm like, yeah, mine's gone. You want to try that again? Yeah, you know, it's like, but see here's, the thing depending on who's doing it is where you you got actually touched. And so while, yeah,

0:38:46 Bryce: Your appendix so it doesn't explode.

0:38:56 Thomas: Right, like how creepy the dude that was doing it, you mean?

0:38:59 Bryce: Exactly. And

0:38:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:59 Shannon: Or even the woman doing it. And, and so, you know, there's, there's women that have talked about it going, yeah. I was touched on the labia at one point. Men have said, my balls were fondled. My penis was touched, you knows, others where most of mine, it was more on just, they would do the side of my hip, just barely in, but it just dependent but they would reach in and touch your skin and then do it again with the oil and so it was just creepy ass and it was that yeah

0:39:27 Bryce: When we say, by the way, when we says shield, you're wearing the shield, you're naked it's just basically a poncho with open sides yeah

0:39:34 Shannon: Just a poncho without a hood yeah

0:39:35 Thomas: Oh. Okay, yeah, it's good clarification, because since you said shield, I was thinking of a shield, you see, since that was the word you used.

0:39:42 Bryce: That's right yeah

0:39:39 Shannon: Yeah yeah so

0:39:45 Bryce: Outfitting mormons for war

0:39:47 Thomas: I guess I better never assume any word you say is the thing it is.

0:39:47 Shannon: Nope

0:39:47 Bryce: Yeah that'S HOW COLTS WORK BUDDY that's the name of the game oh

0:39:52 Shannon: Never assume it yeah it's

0:39:53 Thomas: Yeah. I was thinking that was kind of cool, like a Hyrule shield, you know, I was actually kind of getting into it.

0:39:56 Shannon: Kind of funny oh god that'd be really good Good.

0:40:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:00 Bryce: That would be way just surf it out of the temple down the steps

0:40:02 Shannon: Yeah.

0:40:06 Thomas: That man's the prophet. Look at the serving he's doing. He's the nice, strong and...

0:40:08 Bryce: Everything

0:40:09 Shannon: There you go. I love it. Yeah, when they showed that in the show, you aren't standing there in the crucified position like she did in there, but I thought that was actually a nice visual. What you're actually doing is you're in this very small curtained area. It's a four -part area and you just go from one curtain area to the next one. And you're sitting on this marble stand and you're in there crowded with two other women doing all this to you. Or two other men if you're a guy.

And then you go to the third one, which is where they give you the garment to wear and tell you to wear it for the rest of your life. And when I went through, they put it on me. And it was a one piece garment, which now they do two piece ones. But at the time of this, they were one pieces. I think they didn't start the two piece until like 83. But you the one time you see Brenda in it, not Brenda, but Becca in it. And that first one when she goes in to get in the shower with Detective Pirie, and you see her taking that off. That's what she's wearing. So I was like, that's hella loose. No woman wears them that loose. You wear them so they're tight on your skin. Otherwise, they bunch up under your clothes.

0:40:21 Thomas: Right.

0:41:25 Thomas: There's a lot there. There so remind me how how old are you when these pedophiles are touching you for that ceremony

0:41:26 Shannon: Yeah, there For girls, well, for guys, it's, at that time, it was 19. Now, it is 18 when this happens. Women, it Is 19.

0:41:39 Thomas: But like so much of religion just seems like an excuse for someone to be a fucking creep or at least like a an opportunity not you know not everybody I'm sure but like it's it sure is a nice hiding place for creeps to do their creepiness right oh

0:41:45 Shannon: Yeah. Right. Well, is the other thing. See, you have that stuff in the the temple where they're actually touching you but once you turn 12, boy or girl, you start having interviews with a bishop from 12 through 15 it's once a year at the age of 16 it's twice a year to 18 and

0:42:02 Thomas: Yeah. I remember this and it's just some old creep trying to learn about your creepy

0:42:14 Shannon: Sure you're not thinking about sex you know and So I remember getting asked, you know, do you masturbate? And I was, I was sheltered enough, I had no fucking clue what that was. But I could tell by the way he asked that the best answer was no. So I just said no. And just refused to ask him what it meant. And so, yeah, that's what we went through from that age on. My daughter just stopped going in when she saw what was happening with her. And so yeah, she stopped believing the church at the age of about 14. But

0:42:14 Bryce: You've done yep correct

0:42:15 Thomas: Were you still a mormon at the time? Oh sure

0:42:48 Shannon: I didn't. She's 23 now. Stayed in longer than I probably would have because of some other things that when I told you about the threat that the Relief Society president made to Becca Pyrie in there about her three lost children. Yeah. So I can explain why that's a threat.

0:42:55 Thomas: Well

0:43:07 Shannon: And that whole episode is actually really good because both the stake president and the Relief Society president hit both Pyres on this in a very specific way that non -mormons or even Mormons who haven't been through the temple are not going to understand and

0:43:23 Thomas: Let's try to set the stage for people if they haven't seen the show, so what's happening and to whom in this part that's

0:43:26 Shannon: So at this point uh he's well before this happens he's the andrew garfield so he's going through all of this. He's got two twin daughters that are eight years old and get ready to get baptized. So he goes in to see the bishop with his daughters, which that surprised me because at that time, you saw the eight -year -old saw the bishop alone, but for their interview to be baptized. And they only asked two questions on there, and there's like five or six, one of which is the law of chastity and stuff. But that was okay.

But at the end of this, Pyre decides to ask the bishop for help because he's really concerned. He's trying to investigate this murder. He is finding ties to early Mormonism with it and is freaking him out. And him doing this is just a violation of his job anyway. He shouldn't have been talking to an outsider about the case he's on. But he's also coming at it from the viewpoint of, this is the God -appointed leader of my congregation, therefore he can give me God's advice. Anything he says will be trusted because, you know, that God doesn't put anybody into a position of power who will lead

0:43:33 Thomas: The main detective Andrew Garfield right right? Main detective. Spider -Man.

0:43:35 Bryce: Yep yeah

0:44:42 Thomas: Yeah,

0:44:42 Shannon: Us astray, you know?

0:44:43 Thomas: Of course. Yeah.

0:44:44 Shannon: Of course, and God speaks through his leaders.

0:44:44 Thomas: Solid record on that. God's undefeated on that record for sure.

0:44:47 Shannon: Oh, yeah.

0:44:48 Bryce: For for sure and

0:44:49 Shannon: Oh, yes. Every man who's a leader of God will tell you that, yes, and so he's thinking all this, and the bishop's telling him, well, you need to put all this on a shelf, which means take your doubts, stick them on ashelf, close the door, and pretend like they don't exist, and absolutely is. In fact, the prophet at the time of this happening was Spencer W. Kimball. His wife is the one who said it, Camilla Kimball, a couple of years before. And that's been the thing ever since. And so exmos will tell you, they'll say, oh, what was your shelf breaker? You know, they will say that to you. What was your shelf breaker?

0:44:52 Thomas: Yeah?

0:45:03 Thomas: That really like what the Mormon advice is?

0:45:08 Bryce: Yep

0:45:22 Thomas: Oh, interesting.

0:45:25 Shannon: Yeah, all of us. That's what it is, is when your doubts become so much, they break your shelf.

0:45:28 Thomas: How often is it just coffee as your shelf breaker? Yeah. Soda.

0:45:34 Shannon: That's a lot that's a lot yeah

0:45:36 Thomas: Yeah and

0:45:31 Bryce: But pretty frequently not

0:45:36 Shannon: Coffee yeah the more extreme ones do soda so

0:45:39 Thomas: So oh oh that's right right yeah so you're gonna tell us about the threat thing mm

0:45:40 Shannon: Yeah so he's thinking this is all under the code of silence as the leader and all this stuff but then later the stake president comes in and says the bishop let him know The bishop told him what was going on, and he says to him, "You know what, the um, the, you have taken the covenants, you've made, you know what it means if you break them," and he lets him know right there the threat. And breaking those covenantes means somebody can come and kill you, just the way those two have been killed, but that the church needs to be protected. And this is a really common

0:45:46 Lindsey: It's called science of the universe, but there's a way to do that, but it's not.

0:45:48 Thomas: -hmm yeah

0:46:24 Lindsey: Thank

0:46:24 Shannon: Thing in the Mormon church, because they just figured next life, everything will, all of justice will have been, will happen the way it should. You know, people who need to be punished will really be punished then, you know, it doesn't matter if they don't get it in this life, they will in the next. And so what, not,

0:46:25 Lindsey: You.

0:46:41 Thomas: Cuz I mean it's not as though Mormons are constantly murdering people over this are they I mean sound like a mafia situation

0:46:48 Bryce: Anymore

0:46:48 Shannon: Not so much, not anymore.

0:46:49 Thomas: Yeah yeah mm

0:46:48 Bryce: Not not anymore it's a fundamentalist uh right because they believe in the fundamentals of the church when

0:46:53 Shannon: Yeah. Right. Right, right. There's that going So that's why Pirate goes in in his office and is throwing up into the garbage can, because the state president just threatened him with eternal damnation if he makes the church look bad. That's a big deal. So the thing is, is him speaking up and saying in the press conference saying there's ties to fundamentalist Mormons pissed off the entire church. Church. So when they go to church, the Relief Society president, when she's talking straight to Becca in front of the detective without acknowledging him at all, and she brings up the three lost children, which are very likely miscarriages. Now, let me explain that a little bit. With Mormons, everything is about the next life, you know, during the millennium, that kind of thing. But also when you talk about Mormons teaching that people can become gods, they're talking about in the celestial kingdom in the top level of it. So you know you've got the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms which are Mormon heaven. Top one is where God lives, but it's the top level

0:47:20 Thomas: -hm how the fuck do you keep track all this shit and who made all this up do you guys have flashcards is there like a bar exam SAT and

0:48:11 Shannon: Of it! Yes we do!

0:48:10 Bryce: You when this shit is pounded into you from before you are a baby yes you don't forget this shit easy when

0:48:16 Shannon: Yeah you do not forget this. Yes there are flash cards

0:48:19 Bryce: You sing hymns and primary songs

0:48:20 Thomas: Like who came did was this a slow and I'm sorry. I will make sure we get back to what you're saying. But like, was this a slow evolution or did, you know, like the early Mormons lay out all this fucking D &D rules of all this shit, you know?

0:48:22 Bryce: Oh

0:48:25 Shannon: It's okay. Oh

0:48:33 Bryce: Yeah joe joseph smith was a hell of a dreamer and yeah he he came up with most of these things uh a few who followed in his footsteps made a couple of tweaks but like you know joe was a fountain of fucking crazy ideas

0:48:38 Shannon: My God, yes. Uh -huh. Yeah.

0:48:48 Thomas: And that's interesting because, I mean, again, not an expert, but my impression of Christianity and like Catholicism, none of that shit's in the Bible. Like most of the stuff people come up with in these religions, it's a long, slow burn of like traditions that get more and more kind of divorced from the original thing, but it sounds like Mormonism, I guess also because it's such a young religion comparatively, it does seem like you're saying this stuff goes right back to the roots.

0:48:49 Bryce: No

0:48:49 Shannon: Yes. Right.

0:48:57 Bryce: Yes

0:49:16 Thomas: Very interesting.

0:49:16 Bryce: Yeah

0:49:15 Shannon: Yes, it does. It's not in any of the scriptures. It is not in the Book of Mormon or anything. This is stuff he created later.

0:49:20 Thomas: Okay. Gotcha.

0:49:22 Bryce: This is the, the revelations, right? The ongoing revelations that Mormonism has access to through the prophets, the Joseph Smith is Joseph Smith's canon of revelations is known as the doctrine and covenants yeah and so

0:49:34 Shannon: Yeah.

0:49:32 Thomas: Always hilarious to me. Always. I'm getting something. Hold on. God is telling me I need another wife. Wow.

0:49:38 Shannon: Yep.

0:49:38 Bryce: Beautifully depicted in the series yes

0:49:40 Thomas: I can't believe he's Saying, I need another wife. This is the weirdest thing. I, wow, I don't know where that came from, but it's God, so guess I gotta yeah but okay the point you're making the threat sorry let's get back to that the telestial kingdoms yeah Telecaster Stratocaster so

0:49:41 Shannon: Yep, my

0:49:41 Bryce: Absolutely Amazing. Yeah. Yeah that's right or

0:49:48 Shannon: Dick twitched. That's from God. Yeah, okay. All right, so got so the Top one is the celestial kingdom, there's levels in all the kingdom, but the only one with the name is the top one of the celestial kingdom, which is exaltation. That's actually where Mormons believe you become gods and there, Yeah, and you get to have create your own universe and figure out where the hell to put it, since all the other universes are never beginning or ending, and that kind of thing. You have your own worlds, all that shit. Okay, so the other thing is, they also, Joseph Smith also said, probably to make people not grieve so hard, that children who die before the age of eight are automatically going to receive exaltation.

0:50:13 Bryce: Baby factories.

0:50:39 Shannon: But since he also said you have to do all the covenants, and nobody does covenants, you know, the the baptisms for the dead and all that stuff for babies. You know, he says, but you have to do all those to get in there because even Christ had to do them all, according to him. Then he says during the millennium is when these babies will come and they'll get their body back and they will get to do all the covenants.

Millennium is, you know, Christ comes, Satan is bound for a thousand years, Christ rules on the earth, Mormons say you're doing temple work the whole time, so everybody's sealed together all the way up to Adam before the end and then you have the Satan loosed and battle of Armageddon and gog and magog and all that shit okay so mormons live for the millennium um But you're told, and this is the key point, and this is what she's referencing here, parents who lose a child, including a miscarriage, because Mormon's believe that it's, most Mormons believe that the at conception is when it becomes a baby, as the millennium, if you and your spouse have lived a life worthy of exaltation, you get to raise your child during the millennia, but if you didn't, somebody else gives your child, and that's a threat that's held over your head. See, this happened to me because I had a child who only lived for two weeks, my first child did, and this was held over my head for 17 years.

0:50:38 Thomas: Oh

0:51:19 Lindsey: I don't know.

0:51:25 Bryce: That's

0:52:05 Shannon: By bishops. Yes. So if they would say to me things like, I don't, I want to know if you really are paying a full tithe. So you need to show me your W-2s. If I, yeah, that was asking me what, or even are you and your husband doing oral sex? Anything other than no, you you lost your child again. Because the church says not to do oral sex.

0:52:06 Thomas: My god that is so evil oh my God this is fucking insane I mean I've heard a lot of bullshit about Mormons but this This is a new level that I didn't know about.

0:52:30 Lindsey: That's The, yeah.

0:52:30 Shannon: Yeah. Yeah, this

0:52:34 Bryce: How it works it's

0:52:34 Shannon: Is that level of manipulation is just the worst of the emotional manipulation yes

0:52:40 Thomas: Fuckers see a miscarriage, they must see dollar signs. They must be like, thank God, a miscarriage. Now we can blackmail somebody into doing whatever the fuck we want. That is terrible.

0:52:43 Shannon: Yeah right yeah

0:52:50 Bryce: Also super important in this too, uh, it is very much seen because the men are the breadwinners, it's culturally frowned upon for women to have jobs, that's changing, it's Better now than it was in the 80s, but uh, it's very much that the women are supposed to be the spiritual shepherds of their family and it is oftentimes seen that

0:53:01 Shannon: Right. Right.

0:53:09 Thomas: Spiritual shepherds, but not the priests. By the way, like a different kind of.

0:53:12 Shannon: Right

0:53:10 Bryce: Yeah yeah of course I mean come on let's be reasonable here right exactly So it's, it's oftentimes seen that the, it's the woman's responsibility, the mom's responsibility, to get the kids to church, church, and if let's say one of those kids turns, you know, 14, like your daughter Shannon, and decides that they don't want to go to church anymore, they don't believe in it, then it's obviously the mom's fault because she wasn't a good enough spiritual leader in the home to keep their kids coming to church yep

0:53:13 Shannon: We're the ones behind the man yeah right

0:53:38 Thomas: That's so convenient. Even though the dude is the priesthood as everything because of the penis. But any of the consequences, anything goes wrong. It's mom's fault obviously clearly

0:53:47 Bryce: Absolutely

0:53:43 Shannon: It's the woman it's mom's fault yeah so this is why the Relief Society president went after Becca on this not the detective and see that's the other thing is It's like with my experience, my husband, nobody ever did that to my husband. It was just me.

0:53:48 Bryce: Yep very

0:53:48 Thomas: Yeah oh yeah right yeah I mean mainstream society has a lot of the, not to that degree, but already has that problem, you know, so that's, you know, that fits but Hey, so here's the deal. That was such a fun recording. We went for double. We want a surprise two -parter. So I'm coming in here to end this part one on a sort of a good transition. It's always hard when you don't plan a two -part or to pick the middle point, but I think this is a pretty good one because when we come back next episode, we're talking about more of the history and gosh, polygamy and all that. It's really great.

I had so much fun in this conversation. And again, don't worry about if you've seen the show or not. I think you should, but the discussion works perfectly well either way. And there's plenty of more interesting stuff about Mormonism in part two. And since I haven't done much for my patrons lately, I'm going to make part two available now. You can get it right now. patreon.com/seriouspod. Everybody else is going to have to wait a little bit. Sorry.

It's just, I never do anything for my patients. So I want to, when I can, I want to do that. So we'll see you next time or we'll see you very soon if you're a patron and thank you for being one. So that's it for part one. See you for part two.

0:54:06 Shannon: Right. It's yeah, okay.

0:55:27 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do, is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod. If would like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com slash groups slash SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.