Content Warning: This episode discusses polygamy, coercion, and religious control within a historical context.

Joseph Smith is known as the founder of Mormonism, a prophet to millions and a figure surrounded by faith, devotion, and controversy. But the story of how the religion began is far more complex than many realize.

In this episode, we step into early 1800s America to trace Smith’s rise from obscurity to religious authority. We unpack the origins of his revelations, the creation of the Book of Mormon, and the structure of the movement he built. Along the way, we examine the role of secrecy, power, and polygamy within the early church, including the relationships that have sparked ongoing debate and criticism.

This is not a story told to sensationalize. It is an exploration of belief, influence, and the ways people can shape and be shaped by faith. With historical context and careful attention to the human impact, we look at the man behind the movement and the foundation that continues to influence millions today.

SOURCES & Further Reading:

Corey Miller. What Do Mormons Really Believe? PBS NewsHour (Correction: actually published by Phoenix Seminary). April 27, 2022. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo. Gospel Topics Essays. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/132

Richard Lyman Bushman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

Fawn M. Brodie. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. Vintage Books, 1971.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Becoming Like God. Gospel Topics Essays. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/becoming-like-god

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Word of Wisdom. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/word-of-wisdom

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Book of Mormon Translation. Gospel Topics Essays. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/book-of-mormon-translation

Terryl L. Givens. The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2009.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Book of Mormon Translation. Gospel Topics Essays. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/book-of-mormon-translation

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Book of Mormon. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith History 1. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1

Richard Lyman Bushman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

Terryl L. Givens. The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2009.

J. Gordon Melton. Encyclopedia of American Religions. Gale, 2010.

Fawn M. Brodie. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. Vintage Books, 1971.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Brigham Young. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/brigham-young

Leonard J. Arrington. Brigham Young: American Moses. University of Illinois Press, 1985.

John G. Turner. Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet. Harvard University Press, 2012.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/pioneer-overland-travel

Utah War. Utah War, 1857–1858. https://history.utah.gov/utah-war

Richard Lyman Bushman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

Grenfell, Alyssa. Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Cult. YouTube, 2025. https://youtu.be/4BJqFHEyW4s 

Remembering the Wives of Joseph Smith. Wives of Joseph Smith, n.d. https://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/PDFBooklet/PDFBooklet.pdf

Founded in 1968 as a radical response to systemic racism and state power, the group openly aligned themselves with the Black Panther Party as supporters. Once referred to by the FBI as one of the most dangerous and threatening groups in America. Their message was simple and controversial: white Americans had a responsibility to dismantle oppressive systems from within. How? Through altering relationship to self… including altered consciousness with a substance known to all as LSD.

In this episode, we unpack the origins of the White Panther Party, the ultimate dismantling by state interference, their ties to counterculture movements, mind altering drugs and Rock.

At a quiet crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, a legend was born.

Robert Johnson is one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. His music shaped generations, yet his story is wrapped in something far darker. According to folklore, Johnson disappeared as an unremarkable guitarist and returned with a talent so extraordinary that people struggled to explain it. The answer, some believed, was simple and unsettling. He had made a deal with the devil.

In this episode, we explore the origins of the crossroads myth and how it became tied to Johnson’s life and legacy. We look at the cultural and spiritual significance of crossroads in African American folklore and Hoodoo traditions, where these spaces were seen as places of transformation, power, and exchange. We also examine how religion, fear, and storytelling shaped the narrative, and why this legend has endured for nearly a century.

Was it a supernatural pact, a carefully crafted persona, or something else entirely?

Sources:

Crossroads (folklore and mythology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossroads_(folklore)

Robert Johnson – Biography and legacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson

Tommy Johnson – Origins of the crossroads legend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Johnson

“Cross Road Blues” myth and analysis (compiled research and scholarship)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Road_Blues

Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/escaping-the-delta-elijah-wald

Guralnick, Peter. Searching for Robert Johnson

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159166/searching-for-robert-johnson-by-peter-guralnick/

Graves, Tom. Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072051

Evans, David. Tommy Johnson (1971 biography)

Conforth, Bruce. “The Truth About Robert Johnson” (Living Blues Magazine)

National Blues Museum – Robert Johnson history and myth clarification

https://nationalbluesmuseum.org

Five children vanish in a house fire… and no bodies are ever found.

On Christmas Eve 1945, the Sodder family fire should have been a tragic accident. A home goes up in flames. Parents survive. Five of their children are presumed dead.

Except there’s one problem; there were no remains. No bones. No evidence they were ever in the fire at all.

What follows is decades of unanswered questions, strange sightings, and a family that refused to believe the official story. Were the children taken? Did they escape? Or is this a case where grief and belief reshaped reality?

In this episode, we break down what happened that night, the inconsistencies that still don’t make sense, and why this case continues to live at the intersection of mystery and myth.

Sources:

Abbott, Karen (December 25, 2012). "The Children Who Went Up In Smoke". Smithsonian. 

“Sodder children disappearance.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation

In this episode of Altar Ego, Heather takes us to Jamaica’s Rose Hall to explore the legend of Annie Palmer, known as the White Witch. Said to have practiced dark magic and ruled her plantation with fear, her story lives at the crossroads of modern paranormal beliefs, folklore, violence, and exploitation. Was Annie Palmer even real? Was she a practitioner of the occult? Or has her legacy been shaped by something else completely?

Sources:

https://rosehall.com/history-of-rose-hall/
https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica

https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20201025/white-witch-rose-hall-fact-or-fiction

https://uwipress.com/books/the-white-witch-of-rosehall/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rose-hall

https://rosehall.com/history-of-rose-hall/

https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica/Rose-Hall

https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20201025/white-witch-rose-hall-fact-or-fiction
https://uwipress.com/books/the-white-witch-of-rosehall/
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/white-witch-rose-hall
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rose-hall

https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica/History
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sugar-slavery-and-plantations/

https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/sugar-and-slavery
https://www.britannica.com/place/Jamaica/Plantation-economy
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/caribbean-american-passages/jamaica.html
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/jamaica/plantation_life.htm

https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/absentee-planters-and-slavery

https://academic.oup.com/shm/article/25/3/539/1682564

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/death-in-the-tropics/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maroon-history-of-slavery
https://www.bl.uk/caribbean-collection/articles/the-maroons-of-jamaica

The second installation in our LSD series...

This week, we're diving into one of history's most fascinating fungi: ergot. From the sacred rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece, through the terrifying plagues that swept medieval Europe, to its profound cultural significance throughout indigenous practices and its role in shaping modern medicine and psychedelic history.

In this special bonus episode, Heather shares her personal take on Heated Rivalry and how it hits surprisingly close to home. More reflective and intimate than our usual episodes, join us for a gentle review of Heather's experience watching the series that we've all fallen in love with.

CW: violence involving minors, themes of mental illness, delusion, and psychiatric hospitalization. Listener discretion advised.

In this episode, Heather takes us back to 2014, when two twelve-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin, lured a friend into the woods and attacked her after becoming convinced they needed to prove themselves to the fictional internet figure known as Slender Man.

We walk through how an online horror character created in 2009 grew into a widespread piece of internet folklore, and how those beliefs intersected with the girls’ lives. The episode also follows the legal outcomes and recent events involving a brief escape.

Beware the Slenderman. Directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, HBO Documentary Films, 2016. Broadcast on HBO, 23 Jan. 2017

Evan Casey, “Wisconsin woman who stabbed classmate in order to please Slender Man will be released to a group home,” Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), July 17, 2025

Todd Richmond, “Slender Man stabbing victim’s family ‘nervous’ about release,” The Associated Press, Sept. 14, 2021

YouTube, “Bodycam Shows Arrest of ‘Slender Man’ Stabber Morgan Geyser: ‘I Did Something Really Wrong’,” published to YouTube, [video], https://youtu.be/anj5s5jAQgE. (Bodycam footage of her arrest after leaving custody.)

Todd Richmond, “Wisconsin judge sends Slender Man attacker back to mental health institution after group home escape,” ABC7 Chicago (Associated Press), Dec. 23, 2025.

Knudsen, Eric (Victor Surge). “Create Paranormal Images” thread. Something Awful Forums, June 2009.

Dewey, Caitlin. “The complete history of ‘Slender Man,’ the meme that compelled two girls to stab a friend.” The Washington Post, June 3, 2014.

Romano, Aja. “The definitive Slender Man story: how an urban legend went too far.” The Verge, June 3, 2014.

Marble Hornets. Created by Troy Wagner and Joseph DeLage. YouTube series, 2009–2014.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr

Ammo.com Research Team. Murders by Weapon Type in the United States. https://ammo.com/research/murders-by-weapon-type

Clauset, Aaron, et al. “On the Distribution of Criminal Offenses,” arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0402646

Brennan, Iain R., et al. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178922000556

National Library of Medicine (PMC). Knife Crime Risk Factors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMC7732065/

In 1938, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesized LSD by accident and experienced the first-ever LSD trip. By the mid-1960s the U.S. government had funded over 1,000 clinical studies on it, secretly tested it on soldiers without their consent, and then criminalized it entirely... all within the same two decades.

In the first of a several-part series, this episode covers the discovery and history of LSD. We also get into Ricky Kasso, the seventeen-year-old from Northport, Long Island, known as The Acid King among peers, who murdered his friend Gary Lauwers and left his body in the woods for 35 days. In 1984, Gary's murder became the face of Satanic Panic in America.

CW: This episode discusses suicide, attempted suicide, depression, substance use, and themes of self-harm. Listener discretion advised.

In 1990, Judas Priest stood trial in a Nevada courtroom. Not for drugs. Not for violence. Not for anything they physically did.

But for what their music supposedly said.

Two young men attempted suicide after spending hours listening to the band’s song “Better by You, Better Than Me.” Their families believed hidden subliminal messages in the track pushed them over the edge.

What follows is a lawsuit that combined grief, fear, culture wars, and the lingering shadow of the Satanic Panic. 

In this episode, Heather unpacks what really happened. We talk about subliminal messaging, moral responsibility, and why we so often search for something external to blame. 

Sources:

• Pazder, Lawrence & Smith, Michelle. Michelle Remembers. Congdon & Weed, 1980.https://archive.org/details/michelleremembers00pazd
• de Becker, Gavin. The Gift of Fear. Little, Brown and Company, 1997.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56465.The_Gift_of_Fear
• McNally, Richard J. Remembering Trauma. Harvard University Press, 2003.https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674016764
• Wright, Gary. Dream Weaver: A Memoir. Da Capo Press, 2014.https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/gary-wright/dream-weaver/9780306822374/
• Loftus, Elizabeth F. “Creating False Memories.” Scientific American, 1997.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/creating-false-memories/
• Liu, Jia & Kanwisher, Nancy. “The Perception of Face-Like Objects.” Psychological Science, 2014.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797614524583
• American Psychological Association. “Questions and Answers About Memories of Childhood Abuse.”https://www.apa.org/monitor/may01/memorie
• McMartin Preschool Trial Overview – Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.https://da.lacounty.gov/media/news/mcmartin-preschool-case
• California Court of Appeal Records (McMartin-related cases).https://law.justia.com/cases/california/
• Vance v. Judas Priest, Nevada Supreme Court Opinion (1992).https://law.justia.com/cases/nevada/supreme-court/1992/22575-1.html