Postmormon Postmortem

Latest Episodes:

Mormonism and Conspiracy Theories: The Church's Secret Combinations Problem Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

The Book of Mormon warns that secret organizations infiltrate governments, corrupt institutions, and destroy nations. So what happens when Mormons apply those same warnings to their own church?

Following a September 2026 Deseret News article about conspiracy thinking, we examine Mormonism's teachings about secret combinations, Ezra Taft Benson's warnings about modern conspiracies, and the tension between prophetic authority, skepticism, and the church's own history.

What happens when the suspicion Mormonism encourages turns toward Mormonism itself?

Mormon Polygamy and Intergenerational Trauma: What Families Are Told Oct 18, 2026

Show notes

What happens when a family remembers plural marriage as a sacred privilege—and barely remembers the wives?

We discuss Joseph Smith’s plural marriages, the accounts of Lucy Walker, Helen Mar Kimball and Zina Huntington, and the church’s changing instructions on polygamy. We also look at what survived in our own families: stories of obedience and sacrifice, missing women, and questions nobody taught us to ask.

Then we examine generational trauma, family storytelling and epigenetics. What can families pass down through parenting, silence and religious expectations? And what can research actually tell us about biological inheritance?

An episode about Mormon history, religious trauma, and discovering how much was missing from the family story.

Children of Thunder: Glen Helzer's Mormon Prophet Murders Oct 17, 2026

Show notes

In 2000, Glen Helzer, a former Mormon missionary and Morgan Stanley financial adviser, told his younger brother Justin and a woman named Dawn Godman that a “Spirit” spoke directly to him, that he was a prophet, and that innocent people had to die. Within days, five people were dead: Ivan and Annette Stineman, Selina Bishop, Jennifer Villarin, and James Gamble.

In this episode of Mormon True Crime, Jess and Hannah trace how Glen went from charismatic missionary to excommunicated drug user, self-help devotee, and self-proclaimed prophet. They cover the Twelve Principles of Magic, the Children of Thunder plan, the investigation that unraveled it, and the trials that followed. They also look at what the Mormon context does and doesn’t explain: personal revelation, boundaries on authority, Nephi and Laban, and how a follower’s loyalty can make refusal impossible.

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

The Mormon Photographer Who Sold Erotica Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

Brigham Young’s son-in-law built a career photographing church leaders, prominent Mormon families, and the Salt Lake Temple. Alongside that work, he sold erotic stereo views to customers across the country.

Charles Ellis Johnson photographed Mormon prophets… and sold erotic photographs by mail from his Salt Lake City studio. His church portraits and “spicy pictures of girls” carried the same business stamp.

Source: Mary Campbell's "Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image" (2016). The photographs discussed in this episode come from Campbell’s book.

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

The Mormon Church's New 25-Minute Sunday School Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

On September 6, the Mormon Church rolled out a new worldwide Sunday schedule: 60-minute sacrament meeting, then just 25 minutes each for Sunday School and Relief Society, elders quorum, Young Women, or Aaronic Priesthood. Sunday School and quorum meetings now happen every week instead of alternating.

In this Mormon Monday, we look at what the Church says the change accomplishes, and what it might cost. We trace how LDS meeting schedules have changed over time, from the standalone auxiliary meetings of the early 20th century to the 1980 three-hour block to the 2019 two-hour “Come, Follow Me” model. Then we ask: What happens to community when the hallway time disappears? Who does “home-centered, Church-supported” religion work for, and who does it leave out? What does 25 minutes mean for Relief Society, once one of the largest women’s organizations in the world?

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

"You Won't Be Needing Those": The Mormon Secret Council of Fifty Oct 11, 2026

Show notes

In 1922, Mormon Church president Heber J. Grant pointed to a box of records and told his new secretary, “You won’t be needing those.” Inside: the Council of Fifty.

The Council of Fifty was Joseph Smith’s secret 1844 political body in Nauvoo, Illinois, and its members voted to accept him as “Prophet, Priest & King.” Jess and Hannah go through the minutes: the secrecy vow, the April 25 revelation “ye are my constitution,” Smith’s presidential campaign, William Clayton burying the records in his garden, and Brigham Young’s move west. The records stayed in church custody, including a 1981 look during the church’s dealings with Mark Hofmann’s documents, until the Joseph Smith Papers published them in 2016. Historians call the theory theodemocracy. Religious liberty sounds different when the people guaranteeing it believe revelation outranks the rules meant to restrain them.

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

The Murder of Janet Abaroa: The Raven Abaroa Case Oct 10, 2026

Show notes

In April 2005, Raven Abaroa called 911 from his Durham, North Carolina home and told the operator his wife had been shot. Janet Abaroa, 25 and pregnant, had been stabbed three times while their six-month-old son slept in the next room.

Hannah and Jess follow the case from a temple marriage in Washington, D.C., through embezzlement charges, a $500,000 life insurance policy, an exhumation that recovered a contact lens from Janet’s eye, an 11-to-1 hung jury, and the Alford plea that let Raven maintain his innocence. The episode closes with Doctrine and Covenants 132 and the eternal marriage Janet was determined to keep.

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

How Mormonism Became McDonald's Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

Jess explains Church Correlation to Hannah, and the closest comparison she could find is McDonald's.

Correlation solved real logistical problems for a church going global. It also moved decisions about curriculum, publications, and programs toward the center. In 1970, Relief Society reported about 338,000 members and roughly 301,000 magazine subscriptions. The Relief Society Magazine ended that year anyway. Five years later, Belle Spafford said women were still writing to ask for it back.

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

Mormon Church Tells Members to Oppose Idaho and Nevada Abortion Ballot Measures Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

On September 16, the Mormon Church sent a letter to all 1,300 congregations in Idaho telling members to oppose the Idaho Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, an abortion ballot measure. Five days later, 339 congregations in Nevada got a letter with the same instruction and the same wording about voicing opposition "in a respectful manner." Missouri and Virginia also have abortion measures on the November ballot. The Church has not weighed in on either one.

This Mormon Monday, Jess and Hannah go through both letters, including the Idaho sentence that cites the Church's own 2024 neutrality statement. Then they go back to October 2016, when First Presidency letters told members in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Colorado how to vote on recreational marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, and set each one beside the Republican Party position on the same issue.

You'll also hear about Prop 8: the 2010 California FPPC finding that the Church reported $36,928 in non-monetary contributions late, and the $5,539 fine that followed. Plus the legal line between the Johnson Amendment (candidates) and IRS lobbying limits (ballot measures), and what changes when one letter is read from the pulpit in 1,300 congregations.

Is the Mormon Church politically neutral? Jess and Hannah leave that one with you.

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

Adam-God: When Mormon Revelation Becomes False Doctrine Oct 04, 2026

Show notes

Brigham Young said God revealed that Adam is our Father and God. In 1976, Mormon president Spencer W. Kimball denounced the Adam-God theory as false doctrine. How do you know which prophet to trust?

In April 1852, Brigham Young told General Conference that Adam is "our Father and our God." Wilford Woodruff and Hosea Stout both recorded it in their diaries, and Heber C. Kimball and apostle Franklin D. Richards backed it up. Orson Pratt told the Twelve it contradicted scripture, and the pressure to defer followed. In 1873 Brigham said God had revealed the doctrine to him, and related teaching appeared in the St. George temple's Lecture at the Veil. Then Mormon theology changed, Mark E. Petersen said Adam was not our God, and Spencer W. Kimball denounced the idea in 1976. This episode traces the Adam-God theory from the Journal of Discourses to General Conference and asks what happens when a prophet is wrong about whether something came from God.

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Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick

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