Why are Mormons a bewildering mix of peculiar and normal? Some of it has to do with . . . testosterone? Stephen Carter explores the Mormon implications of Joseph Henrich’s book “The Weirdest People in the World.”
Podcast: Sunstone Podcast
E141: “You Will Not Talk about that Woman in My Church”: How We Wrote “Mormon Enigma.”
“Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith” was a turning point in the telling of Mormon history. And it has a fascinating history of its own. Linda King Newell recounts how she and Valeen Avery Tippetts wrote this groundbreaking book. This episode was recorded at the 2009 Salt Lake Symposium.
E140: Hallucinogens in Early Mormon History
How much of a role might hallucinogens have played in some of the visions of early Mormon history? Bryce Blakenagel, host of the Naked Mormonism podcast, explores the possibilities. This episode was recorded at the 2022 Salt Lake Summer Symposium.
E139: The Jungian Shadow and Mormon History
If the LDS Church has light, it also has a shadow. But what should it do with that shadow? Valerie Hamaker, host of the Latter Day Struggles podcast, shows how the Jungian shadow can either save or destroy a person—or a religion. This episode was recorded at the 2022 Sunstone Summer Symposium.
E138: The Woman Who Brought Satanism to Utah
LDS Church member Beatrice Sparks published two wildly popular diaries of teen drug abuse and Satanism: “Go Ask Alice” and “Jay’s Journal.” But the diaries, and Beatrice herself, were much more complicated than they appeared. Using Rick Emerson’s book “Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries,” Stephen Carter …
E137: Affinity Fraud in Mormonism
Utah has often been called the ‘fraud capital of the world.” In this episode, Ryan McKnight takes us on a tour of Utah’s worst fraudsters—all of them LDS. Recorded at the 2018 Sunstone Summer Symposium.
E136: From the Book of Mormon to a Box of Tissues: How Mormon Masculinity Is Changing
They’re embedded in a patriarchal church, so shouldn’t Mormon men be the very definition of toxic masculinity? In this episode, Stephen Carter explores the surprising ways Mormon masculinity has shifted over the past few years.
E135: How Artificial Intelligence Changes How We Think About the Plan of Salvation.
In the Book of Abraham, the gods create intelligences and put them into human bodies. Humans are now creating intelligences. But the intelligences we create could have the capacity to destroy us. Ross Richey shows how this could change the way we think about the Plan of Salvation. This episode was recorded at the 2018 …
E134: AIDS in 1980s Utah.
Utah’s first AIDS cases were confirmed in 1983. How did gay and lesbian people in Utah respond to this new disease? How did the LDS Church respond? J. Seth Anderson presents an overview of this tragic part of Utah’s history. This episode was recorded at the 2017 Sunstone Summer Symposium.
E133: More Than One Way to Polyg.
What if we could free polygamy from patriarchy and inequality? In this episode, Brady Williams and Blaire Ostler talk about how we could greatly expand the definition of this odd Mormon concept to make room for more types of relationships.