Taves’s Revelatory Events, pt. 2: Translation

See part one here. 

Again, Taves uses very little cognitive science until she turns to the question of the translation. To do so she compares the Book of Mormon translation to Helen Schucman’s writing of A Course in Miracles. Schucman’s case is particularly useful because in a private interview she described the process. Schucman said she, “didn’t hear anything,” the process was “strickly mental,” but still “it wasn’t my voice” (247). Schucman said the process wasn’t automatic writing and that she could “stop and start the flow at will” (247-50).

Taves then looks at research on “highly hypnotizable individuals” (HHs) for insight into how this process might have worked for Schucman and Smith. Such individuals can easily go in and out of such a state and may even learn to control the process. In such a state HHs can tell very vivid narratives as though they are experiencing a complete different place (254). Taves gives the example of a student of researcher Ernest Hilgard for how vivid these experiences can be. At a party, the student had been hypnotized, during which he described a setting in Victorian England so vividly that he believed he was recounting a past life. Despite this belief, the student went to Hilgard for analysis of the events to get a further perspective. Under hypnosis, Hilgard had the student enter other settings, including the Old West, where the student gave equally vivid descriptions and felt like he was there (250-51).  

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The Eagle Scout in General Conference

On Tuesday the Church Newsroom announced a “Plan for Worldwide Initiative for Children and Youth” that will change, among other things, Personal Progress and the Church’s relationship to Scouting. Yesterday I wrote about mentions of the Personal Progress program in General Conference. Today I look at mentions of the Eagle Scout award.

[Edit: Due to a very embarrassing error on my part, I only searched from 1940 to the present. There were two mentions of Eagle Scouts before 1950: In 1924 then-President Heber J Grant quoted approvingly a letter published in the Improvement Era that enthused at some length about Mormon scouting and included the line “There are more boys of advanced rank and a greater percentage of Eagle scouts than in any other section of America” (1924 April, p 155). In 1923 Apostle Richard R Lyman said, in a talk on training young people, “You cannot know what real scouting is until you have at least one Eagle Scout in your troop” (1923 April, p 157).]

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Scholarly Inquiry: Q & A with Seth Perry

We are pleased to present a Scholarly Inquiry Q&A with Seth Perry, Assistant Professor of Religion in the Americas at Princeton University and a past guest contributor to the JI. Professor Perry earned his PhD from the University of Chicago (whoop whoop!) in 2013, and he maintains an active research interest in Mormonism, which he discusses both below and in his article “An Outsider Looks In at Mormonism,” in The Chronicle of Higher Education 52, iss. 22 (3 February 2006) [subscription required for full access]. He is also the author of “The Many Bibles of Joseph Smith: Textual, Prophetic, and Scholarly Authority in Early-National Bible Culture,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84, no. 3 (September 2016): 750-75. See my overview of that article here. Perry’s first book, imminently forthcoming from Princeton University Press, is Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States. 

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Mormonism in the Travel Ban Supreme Court Case

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments surrounding President Trump’s travel ban. The arguments centered around whether the president had authority to issue such a ban, whether the ban targeted Muslims, and how long the ban would last. Public responses have fallen largely into two camps: that the ban is a continuation of presidential campaign prejudice against Muslims, or that the ban protects national security based on confidential information.

A telling article in the Salt Lake Tribune last week gave some historical context for the Supreme Court situation. During World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which authorized the removal of Japanese-Americans to internment camps because of a potential threat to national security. Fred Korematsu refused to be removed, was arrested, and argued that the order was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that the executive order was constitutional and that national security took precedence over protection against racial prejudice. This court case was not the only source of presidential authority over national security in relation to race and migration, but it was a symbolically important one.

“Forty years later,” Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Gehrke writes, “an attorney named Dale Minami persuaded a court to vacate the conviction [against Korematsu] based on new evidence that the government had lied about the ground for the interment order.” In 1983, Korematsu won an appeal against the original Supreme Court decision, and in 1988 the federal government issued $20,000 in reparations to each surviving interned Japanese-American.

So, what does this court case mean for today’s travel ban? And why are you reading it on a Mormon History blog?

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The Western History Association Graduate Student Prize: Applications due June 1

The Western History Association is pleased to accept applications for the WHA Graduate Student Prize. Inaugurated in 2014, the prize is designed to foster graduate student professional development and to enhance collegial citizenship within the organization. Up to ten students may receive the award. Each recipient will receive: a one-year WHA Membership, complimentary conference registration and tickets to the Welcoming Reception and Graduate Student Reception, and three nights of lodging in the conference hotel.

Prize Responsibilities: Prize winners must attend the WHA conference in the award year. The WHA Graduate Student Prize may be held concurrently with other WHA graduate student awards. WHA Graduate Student Prize winners are expected to be active in the organization through service on WHA committees and/or through participation in annual conference events and attendance at conference sessions. In addition, WHA Graduate Student Prize winners will act as co-hosts of the Graduate Student Reception each year.

More importantly, each WHA Graduate Student Prize winner must submit a two-page post-conference report to the WHA no later than December 31 of the award year. Details on report requirements will be included with the award letter.

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Call for Papers Reminder: Book of Mormon Studies Conference

Last year’s Book of Mormon Studies Conference was one of my favorites. The deadline for papers and proposals is quickly approaching. Come and join us in Logan for two days of engaging work on the Book of Mormon. See http://bomstudies.com/ for more details.

Reflections on Taves’s Revelatory Events, pt. 1: The Plates

Ann Taves, Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).

Taves was my dissertation adviser at UCSB

Ann Taves, Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, made some waves in the Mormon academic community with her paper 2013 MHA paper that argued that Joseph Smith made the golden plates himself but did so under religious sincerity. Taves published her argument in Numen in 2014 and then placed the argument in a larger context in Revelatory Events, which not only looks at more of Smith’s supernatural claims (the First Vision and the Book of Mormon translation) but also compares those events to other revelatory individuals: Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous and Helen Schucman, founder of A Course in Miracles.

Taves divides Revelatory Events into two parts: she starts with a historical examination of the founding of each religion and then she compares them to each other in part two. Since the book is a rather novel and somewhat complex approach to Mormon origins, I’ll break my review into two parts, following Taves’s division.

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Applications FAQ for MHA Face-to-Face Mentorship Event

The deadline to apply for the Face-to-Face Mentorship event is coming up in less than a week! The deadline for applications is May 1st (email them to mha.face2face@gmail.com). The call for applications can be found here. In the meantime, here are some details about the event and clarifications about the application process.

Why is it called a “Face-to-Face” mentorship?

The event is designed to facilitate dialogue. Your conversation, however, could take a number of different forms: you could workshop a research or source problem, strategize your career trajectory, or investigate an alternative occupation. Do you want to talk to the main scholar in your field about your research idea? Do you want to understand the ins and outs of the Church History Library archival process? Do you want to strategize how to get an academic job? Do you want to explore alternative career possibilities in publishing, digital humanities, public history, or archival work? MHA attracts so many different types of scholars that we have the unique ability to facilitate many different kinds of conversations.

The face-to-face mentorship also means that the mentorship will happen in a concentrated amount of time. Any continued contact between you and your mentor outside the event will be up to the two of you.

Who can apply?

The call for applications says “students” and “young scholars.” I would like to think of the “young scholar” category, especially in this first year, as an expansive category. In other words, if you think you could benefit from an event like this (whether you are an undergraduate, independent historian, or anything between) make a case for yourself in your application!

Who will the mentors be?

It is highly encouraged that you identify potential mentors (up to five people) and explain why they might be helpful. If you don’t know who to ask for that is okay! But make sure you describe in as much detail as possible what type of mentor and conversation you are looking to have so that the committee will get a better idea of who to pair you with.

The mentors will be people who are already attending the conference. So when you are listing potential mentors with make sure you keep in mind who will be at the conference. A good place to start is by looking at the preliminary program to get a sense of who will be there (although there will be more people coming who are not involved with the program).

How long is the event?

It will go from 5:30-6:30 on Friday and will be directly followed by the awards ceremony. We will start with a round of 2 minute introductions and then the rest of the time will be yours to talk with your mentor.

Why do we need to apply to take part?

Some academic organizations pre-select mentors and have drop by sessions where people can engage in general conversations.The idea for this event, however, is to have specialized one-on-one conversations.The application process will help you, in part, to understand the type of dialogue that will be useful for you.

This sounds cool! I’m available to participate as a mentor.

Great! Shoot an email to mha.face2face@gmail.com and let us know what you can offer.

Phrenology and More: Introducing the Joseph Smith Papers Documents Volume 7

Matthew Godfrey, Spencer W. McBride, Alex D. Smith, Christopher James Blythe, eds. The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 7, September 1839-January 1841. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2018).

I was introduced to the newest addition to the Joseph Smith Papers Project the day the books hit the shelves a couple weeks ago. We were given an opportunity to meet with the editors and talk about their favorite parts of this new volume. The Joseph Smith Papers Documents Volume 7 continues the inevitable march to June 1844 and as we get closer, the numbers of documents increase and the time period covered shortens. This seventh Documents volume covers just five months from September 1839 to January 1841 in 713 pages. We might consider the meticulous nature of the editing and annotation of each of these volumes, in that, this new volume is no different. All offer new nuance and detail to the narrative of Joseph Smith?s life. However, unlike the last volume, this volume is a period often skipped over. After the harrowing drama of the Missouri War and expulsion and the brief respite found for the refugees in Quincy we often narratively find ourselves in a fully formed and functioning Nauvoo. This volume zeroes in on Joseph Smith laboring to establish and bring the Saints to what he considers will be ?the greatest city in the world? as he likewise endeavors to seek political redress for what happened in Missouri, and begins to introduced distinctive Mormon doctrines that will shape the Nauvoo period.

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Interview with Patrick Mason and Sara Martin (link)

I’d like to draw your attention to two recent interviews that may be of interest to Mormon history enthusiasts. Kurt Manwaring interviewed Patrick Mason, Howard H. Hunter chair of the Mormon Studies program at Claremont Graduate University–it’s worth reading for Mason’s thoughts on what Mormon Studies is, what Mormons don’t necessary talk about (but should!), and the question Mason would ask Ezra Taft Benson if he could! (It begs the question: if you could ask a historical figure one question, who would it be and what would you want to know?)

Then, Kurt also interviewed Sara Martin, editor of the John Adams Papers, who talks about her work, archives and technology, Abigail Adams–and the Joseph Smith papers project. Head here to find out more.