Monday Oct 30, 2023 will mark 185 years since the Hawn's Mill Massacre occured in Missouri. What can an archaeologist tell us about that event? How do modern-day Missourians view it? Paul Debarthe will answer those questions, along with dispelling other myths. For example, was Nauvoo really a swamp? What happened to the rapids on the Mississippi near Nauvoo? Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/5frn58n56JY

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Nauvoo Swamp Doesn't Exist

Paul  00:50  Give me one more, I have another article under way.

GT  00:52  Okay.

Paul  00:54  The history of the Nauvoo swamp.

GT  00:56  Yeah.

Paul  00:57  It is one of the most fascinating chunks of mythology that the Mormons have created. Virtually every Mormon history, the pageant, the tours, all speak of draining Nauvoo, draining the swamp, so they could make Nauvoo a habitable place.

GT  01:13  Well and plus there were all of the mosquitoes that were carrying malaria. Right? Well, I mean, they didn't know that was the cause for that.

Paul  01:21  They didn't know the ague was caused by that. But Joseph Smith noted that along the riverside, there was sickness. Well, the Mormons got there in the spring of 1839, a wet spring, probably a wet winter too. So, there would have been quite a lot of moisture coming off the bluffs down onto the flats. And so, they dug the ditch at Durfee Street to drain that. And they did a few other ditches. But to have a swamp, you have to have some kind of barrier that keeps the water from escaping. You don't have that at Nauvoo. As a matter of fact, you've got the Des Moines rapids going right by Nauvoo. And you can't combine rapids with a swamp.

GT  02:08  Okay.

Paul  02:10  And furthermore, archaeology shows that you have consistently layers of dark sandy loam, lighter sandy loam, gravel, limestone. There's no layer of humus in there. That's what you would expect to have if you have a swamp with all the vegetation falling into it and making layers.

GT  02:28  So there's no swamp in Nauvoo.

Paul  02:30  We had some swampy areas, but no swamp in Nauvoo. And just as an example of that, this last August, August 4 and 5, I was in Nauvoo for the pageant. It was for the British performance. Beautiful music, I enjoyed it. I parked on the grass, two blocks away and walked in and a thousand people or more were there. A sprinkle came in during the performance, but not enough to stop the performance. We went home, the rain continued. We got 7.8 inches [of rain] in Nauvoo that night.

GT  03:07  Seven inches of rain?

Paul  03:08  Seven, almost eight inches of rain that night. The Durfee ditch was full and just surging toward the river. I had the privilege of escorting Mary and Rebecca and Rebecca and Rebecca, four ladies from Burlington, wearing Mormon period garb, the dress down to the ground, to that second performance. We parked in the grass in the same place that I parked the night before and didn't get stuck. We walked. The ladies didn't get their dresses dirty. Where it had been dusty the night before, now the dark sandy loam was packing down. We got to the performance, and we sat in chairs that had four legs. We did not tip over or sink in. We just sat there and enjoyed the performance. And were instructed at least 12 times during that pageant, that we're sitting in this swamp. {Rick laughing} That inspired me to write this article that points out that you pretty well have to have geological characteristics. You have to have a barrier to have a swamp. You've got rapids. We have some swampy areas, yes, and you can drain those and yet, to get almost an 8-inch rain and in 20 hours it's been soaked away and carried away, so the people are walking on virtually dry land, that's not a swamp. And the Aboriginal folks have been there for 10,

Is the Mansion House in Nauvoo a stop on the Underground Railroad in which slaves were helped to freedom? Archaologist Paul Debarthe makes this surprising claim. We'll also talk about the murder of an abolitionist by the name of Elijah Lovejoy and how that relates to the Underground Railroad. I was also surprised to find out that Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs started the Honey War after he sent Mormons from the state. Check out our conversation....

https://youtu.be/EVKqN_j0LrI

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Gov Boggs Honey War!

GT  00:44  Fantastic. All right. So, the weird thing is, I knew about your archaeological stuff in Nauvoo, and then all of a sudden you have this new book on Hawn's Mill. So, as we jump into Hawn's Mill, and, of course, you're the archaeologist. Can you give people that may not have watched some of my previous interviews and don't know what the Hawn's Mill Massacre was? What is that all about?

Paul  01:09  Well, the way you said that, Hawn's Mill massacre...

GT  01:11  I said that on purpose.

Paul  01:13  And for Mormons, it's the Hawn's Mill Massacre. For Missourians, it is not likely to be found in the history books.

GT  01:22  They call it an incident, right?

Paul  01:23  Well, that came from my students, because my students had been digging in Caldwell County and digging at Hawn's Mill and we got an invitation to give a presentation to the Caldwell County Historical Society, meeting in Polo. And on the way to that presentation, the question came up. Here we're digging on what the Mormons call the Hawn's Mill Massacre site. But we're presenting to the Caldwell County Historical Society, which had a bunch of [descendants of] people that were on the attacking group in it, how do we address this matter and not be offensive? And I left it in the hands of the students. And they presented that night on the Hawn's Mill incident in the Mormon War. I've been proud of that ever since because it is a more neutral way to approach it. And yeah, there were 17 people killed, dumped in a well. The small hamlet of Hawn's Mill was very innocently hit because Jacob Hawn was not a Mormon. But his mill was there on Shoal Creek, supplying wood for the Mormons to build houses as they came into Caldwell County. And he had the grain, the grist mill to grind the grain, and he was in a very good position to take advantage of the Mormons coming into that county because it was part of the settlement that had been brokered by Alexander Doniphan.

GT  02:44  Right.

Paul  02:45  So, yeah, the Hawn's Mill incident was particularly painful, because it was so unnecessary. You have a group of people from Kirtland who left at the beginning of the Mormon War, early July, and made their trek all the way across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. [It took them] months to get there finally in October to be killed in the massacre, in the incident. And to me, one of the fascinating things that comes out in the book is the discovery that in 1838, in Indiana, the Potawatomi village of some 850 people was burned by the federal government to get them out of there. They were then escorted by the military, across those same states. They happened to camp in some of the same spots that the Mormons had camped in when they were on the way from Kirtland to Hawn's Mill. But they came the southern route to Independence and would have been in Independence at the time that the incident at Hawn's Mill occurred. But they were expecting to go across into Kansas where the government had promised them new houses. Instead, they found a cemetery and Kansas named a county for them. But they left behind a trail of about 100 dead people. If you drive along highway 24 through Missouri, you'll find the occasional monuments to mark where those children are buried.

Paul Debarthe is a Community of Christ archaeologist in Nauvoo and Hawn's Mill. 185 years ago, a Missouri mob killed 17 Mormon men and boys at Hawn's Mill. What evidence can be found now? Paul Debarthe is an archeologist and member of the Community of Christ. He'll discuss his latest book, "Hawn's Mills Hamlet" and discuss the latest archaological findings from that terrible event. We'll also discuss some of his findings from digs at Nauvoo. Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/0F3b_iRnSJQ

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Excavating Nauvoo

Interview

GT  00:44  Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I'm excited to have a longtime friend of mine, but you probably haven't met him before. Could you go ahead and tell us who you are and where we are?

Paul  00:59  Good evening, I am Paul DeBarthe. What is this place called?

GT  01:07  The Hangar Hotel.

Paul  01:09  It's in the airport at Fredericksburg, Texas. And [we are] in the hotel room, and Rick Bennett is conducting an interview.

GT  01:17  And why are you in Texas?

Paul  01:19  The John Whitmer Historical Association has set its conference here for this weekend. And I have had the privilege of being invited to give a presentation.

GT  01:29  Yes. So, the good thing about--it's kind of a good and bad thing about this. So, Paul and I are actually going to be speaking against each other. So I can't watch his presentation, and he can't watch mine. And so, I'm taking this opportunity, because actually, we're going to talk more than--you're probably going to just have to talk for 20 or 30 minutes in your presentation. We're going to get the full inside scoop.

Paul  01:52  I brought an hour, so we'll see what we get.

GT  01:56  Oh, you have the whole hour. Okay, wow, that's awesome.

Paul  01:58  I don't know if I get the whole hour or not, but I'm prepared.

GT  02:01  You're prepared either way.

Paul  02:02  Yeah. {both chuckling}

GT  02:05  Well, you've just written a brand new book.  Why don't you show it to the camera. And we'll see, we'll let people know what it is. What's it called?

Paul  02:17  Hawn's Mill's Hamlet: a Phase Three Archaeological Investigation. Michael S. Riggs and myself are the authors. And it's published by John Whitmer Books.

GT  02:32  Oh, that's so fantastic.

Paul  02:33  It is the second in a series of archaeology history. And we anticipate that series will build indefinitely, because there's an awful lot of need for history to be counterbalanced by archaeological facts. I'll probably get in trouble with this. But archaeologists with artifacts that tell the truth, often contradict what the historians have to say.

GT  02:58  Uh, oh. {both laughing}

Paul  03:01  If we could help the historians correct a few things, then we clearly can benefit from each other. Because clearly, as an archaeologist, if I can get the benefit of historical guidelines and know where to dig, digging is such a painstaking operation and so deliberate. And it's good to know where to dig and the historians can sometimes help with that.

GT  03:22  Yeah. Well, that's fantastic. So, let's talk a little bit about your background, before we dive into the book. So, you have an archaeology background, tell us where you went to school and how you got that.

Paul  03:36  As a lad, I liked to read the National Geographic. And I liked to read the Book of Mormon. And I recognized that there were just an awful lot of archaeological sites that I wanted to explore in my life, Mexico in particular. And I had the privilege in 1971 of getting on the Robert T. Bray Archaeological Field School from the University of Missouri at Columbia. And that project was at Nauvoo, Illinois.

GT  04:05  So you're a Missouri Tiger. Is that right?

Paul  04:07  No. Well, I have credits from there,

Are there metals for making plates found in Yucatan Peninsula? How does it compare with other models like South America? Bob Roylance will answer these and other questions. Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/QXjSl6fs9cA

 

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Comparing with South America

GT  00:26  Well since you're an agriculture guy, you didn't go to Utah State did you, by the way?

Bob  00:30  No, I went to BYU.

GT  00:31  You went to BYU. Okay. The reason why I ask that, I know the South America—have you followed the South America Book of Mormon theory very closely?

Bob  00:40  Not very closely, I've just sort of glanced at it.

GT  00:42  One of their big things is that Nephi grew up in a Mediterranean climate and it said that they took seeds with them and that when they got to the promised land, wherever that is, the seeds grew. And so South American proponents, and Baja to some extent, say that those two areas are a Mediterranean climate. Would you consider the Yucatan Peninsula to be a Mediterranean climate as well?

Bob  01:13  Pretty close.

GT  01:14  Pretty close?

Bob  01:17  The equator goes into Kenya. It's north, probably through the southern Sahara Desert. So, yeah, it's Mediterranean. Yeah.

GT  01:36  Okay.

Bob  01:37  Maybe more so. It’s Mediterranean. But corn or maize is the big deal in Central America.

GT  01:49  Right. It's funny because the Book of Mormon doesn't really mention corn that much, does it?

Bob  01:55  No

GT  01:56  Because barley and wheat is what it mentions. But those were not really common in the Yucatan? Or were they?

Bob  02:03  No, they grow it, but it's not like corn.

GT  02:09  Yeah, corn is everything.

Bob  02:10  There's a lot of tradition about corn, a lot of sacred—when we planted our corn there, we had to have the seeds. We had to bring it in early, so that the people could put the candles above it with Mary there. And then they'd wave their smoky things over the seeds, making sure it was blessed. We had to adhere to their traditions, or we would be probably shunned. So, it's fun trying to work with their traditions, to be right honest.

GT  02:10  Yeah.

Bob  02:47  Now, I'm working over in Senahu, which is an LDS community, and those traditions are no longer there. So, it was really fun working with them, because then we can move ahead and do these things really the way I think it ought to be done, rather than trying to be held up by tradition. It's really been a fun experience.

GT  03:06  You're talking about with some of the trips you've been on to help with farming and that kind of thing?

Bob  03:11  Yeah. I've been in about 20 countries, a lot of the developing countries, trying to help them with overcoming their poverty and their starvation situations, and it's quite a ride.

GT  03:24  Okay.

Bob  03:24  And then I spent several months in the Sahara trying to help them rehabilitate a multimillion dollar failure in their big canal, and they just couldn't raise the crops. So, I went over there to help them on that. And I think I helped a little bit. But it's, as far as I can tell, it's still pretty much a failure. There are some things that they can't overcome. There are parts that we were able to overcome.

GT  03:54  All right, well, tell us more about Yucatan, why that's a good place for Book of Mormon lands?

Bob  04:03  Well, we could spend days and maybe months, going over all the stuff that we've put together. We do a worksheet on every location, where we look at all the scriptural references to that location, and we look at all the other things that may apply. And so, we just dig really deep in our model to make sure everything is taken into consideration. In order for us to decide with a high level of confidence, it has to be a city that has the date right,

Last time, Bob Roylance discussed why he believes the Book of Mormon took place in the Yucatan Peninsula. This time, we'll compare it with the Heartland Theory, another popular geography. Is there one Hill Cumorah or two? Is there a relationship between Yucatan & the Heartland? Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/hs3gyNmPbyE

 

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Comparing Yucatan with Heartland

GT  00:26  Well, you know what? This brings up the first thing that Heartlanders are going to call you on, as well as some non-believers.

Bob  00:34  We're all by ourselves on this.

GT  00:37  It's called the two Cumorah theory. So you're saying the final battle was in the Yucatan Peninsula?

Bob  00:43  Yeah.

GT  00:44  And so then a Heartlander is going to say, "Well, how did they get from Mexico, or Yucatan? How did the plates get from there to the Hill Cumorah in New York?

Bob  00:54  Oh, he had, what, 40 years? Mormon went into his stash of records, and pulled out these plates. And he gave them to him, [Moroni,] like, you'd better get out of here before you're killed. And you've got 40 years to get to Hill Cumorah.

GT  01:17  To the other Hill Cumorah.

Bob  01:19  In New York.  And who knows how he got there? He could have been in all kinds of ways, via water, via walking, via spiritual ways. I don't know.

GT  01:31  Those plates get heavy.

Bob  01:32  Yeah, so there's plenty of legitimate reasons how that could have happened, I think.

GT  01:38  Okay. So that's not something that bothers you?

Bob  01:42  Oh, no.

GT  01:43  Because the Heartlanders love to say, “There’s only one Hill Cumorah.

Bob  01:46  Yeah, well, if you read that scripture, where he hands him the records, if he didn't intend him to go, then he would say, "This is where the records are. So you just take care of them." But he handed him the records, the important ones and essentially said, "Get out of here." So, he did. And so to me, it just makes a lot of sense.

GT  02:12  Okay. I'm sure that's a place where the Heartlanders are going to be like, “We don't agree.” But I mean, that's what's fun about this, is everybody disagrees with each other on certain points. So what else can you tell us about Yucatan as being the Book of Mormon lands?

Bob  02:31  Well, the Yucatan you get up in Chetumal Bay. I think Chetumal Bay is where the Jaredites landed, or close to that.

GT  02:41  Chetumal Bay, and where's that?

Bob  02:43  That's in the very corner of Southeast Yucatan.

GT  02:48  Southeast, so are you proposing an Atlantic crossing for Lehi instead of a Pacific?

Bob  02:53  Yes.

GT  02:54  Oh, so there you're on board with the Heartlanders.

Bob  02:56  Yeah. Yeah, when I look at the journey of the Pacific, I just say there's no way that can happen. You've got to go over Mongolia. Russia, China. I don't know what [else.] I'm not sure what they did. But that would be so historic.

GT  03:16  It's like twice as long as the Atlantic way.

Bob  03:19  Oh, well, just the land, just the land. That would be so historic. But there's nothing said about it in the Book of Mormon. There is absolutely nothing said about that trip.

GT  03:31  Have you followed George Potter at all?

Bob  03:33  No, no.

GT  03:33  Do you know who George is?

Bob  03:34  No.

GT  03:35  So, one of the things about--I know the Ashtons are another group. They think that Lehi and his family went down the Frankincense trail into Oman.

Bob  03:44  Yeah, I buy that.

GT  03:45  They took a left turn into Yemen basically. And then the question is, did they go across the Indian and Pacific Ocean, or did they go down around Africa and over to Yucatan or Florida as Heartlanders think? But so, I mean, the Meso guys, it sounds like, think they hugged the coast of India and China and everywhere and the...

Many people believe the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica, but Robert Roylance believes it took place on the Yucatan Peninsula. How does he come to that conclusion? Where is the narrow neck of land? Bob tells more! Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/zaxi0r7zOQ8

 

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Intro to Yucatan

Interview

GT  00:40  Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I'm excited to continue our Book of Mormon geography theories. I'm trying to remember. So you have a brother-in-law...Well, actually, why don't you go ahead and tell us who you are and what Book of Mormon theory do you promote?

Bob  00:57  Okay, I'm Bob Roylance, we're promoting a Book of Mormon theory called the Pasion River Model.

GT  01:03  Okay.

Bob  01:03  And this particular model is a pretty accurate description of the geography of Book of Mormon lands, primarily in Guatemala, Belize and Yucatan.

GT  01:14  Okay, so it's kind of the Yucatan Peninsula. So, I think it was your brother-in-law, contacted me a month or two ago and said, "Hey, I've got a Mesoamerica that's actually north south, instead of East West, like a lot of things." So, it's kind of the Yucatan Peninsula?

Bob  01:31  Well, the southern end of the Yucatan.

GT  01:33  Okay, the southern end. So, tell us. I always like to ask people their educational background. What's your educational background?

Bob  01:42  I have a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics and agronomy.

GT  01:47  Oh, wow.

Bob  01:49  And I've been involved in a lot of very large international farming projects. And it's been a very incredible opportunity for me.

GT  02:00  So you're like Ezra Taft Benson. You're a farmer. Right?

Bob  02:03  I am a farmer.

GT  02:04  And agricultural economics means you're a statistician, too. Right?

Bob  02:07  Oh, yeah, that's very important, statistics.

GT  02:11  I have to tell you, I met a guy for my master's degree. I was getting my oil changed. And this guy came in and saw me studying my statistics book. He was like you. And he was telling about this. They were actually studying marijuana, believe it or not. And they were like, "We're done with it. Should we just burn it?" And he's like, "No, you're going to make the whole city high? Why don't you just bury it? Plow it under." { both laughing}

Bob  02:43  Oh, I've got a lot of stories about agriculture, but I don't think you want to go into all of those.

GT  02:49  Well, it was funny. It was such a good story. We actually had him speak at our senior seminar. So, it was great.

Bob  02:54  I spent four years in Africa helping farmers there and about 20 other countries and just lately in Guatemala.

GT  03:02  Well, great. What got you into thinking that the Yucatan Peninsula was where the Book of Mormon lands took place? Because I'm sure that the Meso guys aren't real happy with you. Is that right?

Bob  03:12  Right. The thing that's driving me is that when I read the Book of Mormon now, it becomes alive, because we really nailed the locations. So, I just feel like I can just walk down the streets almost. And the other thing is that I've been very disappointed in the fact that there's no consensus by anybody on where the Book of Mormon lands are, in fact it's getting worse every day.

GT  03:35  All the theories are multiplying, I can tell you that. I think I'm up to at least a dozen now.

Bob  03:40  And so back when I got interested, I had no particular interest in doing it. But all of a sudden, a bunch of things fell my way. And I thought, “Wow! This thing makes sense. I guess I'd better pursue it just because there might be a chance we could reach consensus, that it's just so important that we reach this consensus of this church because it's just tearing people apart.

GT  04:03  So agriculture economics, is that a PhD?

Dr’s Richard and Claudia Bushman’s latest project involves promoting LDS artists.  I asked about how they got involved, and whether LDS art is getting more historically accurate.

https://youtu.be/oy937hR2wFU

Is LDS Art Getting Better?

GT:  Do you think LDS art is getting better? I know some critics have complained that, especially, like with Joseph Smith translating the plates he's putting his finger like he's going across line by line. Other people have tried to put him in a hat, to be more historically accurate. Do you think LDS art is getting better than it has been? Can you address those issues of whether those artists intentionally led people astray on the translation process and things like that?

Richard:  There was no leading astray.  There wasn't leading astray by Church historians or Church leaders or anyone. Everyone believed that he translated using the urim and thummim. Then, gradually these other accounts came up of him looking at a stone in a hat. But the artist who has done more Church history paintings than anyone, George Smith, painted him doing it one way. Then, when he learned that the historians were giving us another point of view, he started doing it the other way. So, I think we've come along pretty well, in keeping up with historical knowledge, as it's been accepted by the Church.

Claudia:  We have more and more better painters, really, we do.

Richard:  I mean, you're talking about the art as being historically accurate. But the question is, is the art artistically significant? I think we're getting to the position where it is that we've got some pretty good artists doing some pretty lovely work. We just had a show on the sacred feminine in Mormon, theology and art that had beautiful work, depicting Mother in Heaven, and trying to express feelings. So, I think we're certainly getting a lot more art, a huge amount of art is being produced these days, by Latter-day saint artists around the world, and it's getting better, I think.

GT:  I was in the Church History Museum just a week or two ago. One of the things that kind of struck me, we always think of Adam and Eve as very white. But these Adam and Eve had kind of a little color to them. So, I was happy to see that.

Richard:  Yeah, no, that's right. We're beginning to give a little ethnicity to people. One of our papers at the Mormon History Association meetings is going to be on the white Jesus, and how we're beginning to depict Jesus with different ethnic views. So, I think those changes will occur.

Do you agree? Check out our conversation….

Is LDS art getting better? Dr. Richard and Dr. Claudia Bushman weigh in.

Why are young people losing religion? Are they becoming atheist or something else? Is mixing politics & religion to blame? Dr Matthew Bowman answers these questions. Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/sxEN6Wu4WII

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Why Institutional Religion is Losing Influence

Interview

GT  00:38  This gets into something else we talked about last week that I'd like to dive into because institutional religion, maybe I'll say it that way, is losing influence. And one of the things that you said was--I will term it fundamentalist religion, where they ask you to do hard things. They ask you not to drink. They ask you to pay tithing. They ask you to go to church and to the Relief Society and Sunday school and everything. And I'm putting that in an LDS context. But it applies to evangelicalism as well. Pentecostals don't drink. Muslims don't drink. And it's when a religion becomes less strict, it seems to lose adherents. But when it becomes more strict, it demands more of its members, that can be really attractive too. Can you talk about that? Is that something--I mean, the LDS Church is wrestling with this right now. And not just the LDS Church, Catholicism, Protestantism, everybody's dealing with this.

Matthew  01:53  Yeah, absolutely. And this is really interesting and it's also a deeply American question. Because, as I said earlier, the way American religious life is structured, we take it for granted in the US, that this is how religion works. There are different churches, different denominations, different institutions of religion, that compete for members. You get to pick the one you want to go to. That's actually, historically speaking, a very bizarre way to do religion in global culture. Historically, this has never been the norm. But it's something that the US created with de-institutionalization. The disestablishment of religion with the First Amendment and the gradual application of the First Amendment to the states. We have created what some scholars call a religious marketplace. So, the idea here is, and it's something that comes from a really famous article by a sociologist of religion named Laurence Iannaccone, called “Why Strict Churches Are Strong.” He observed that many of churches with what he called high tension with the society around them in the United States, that is, churches that asked their members to act in ways contrary to broader American cultural norms, tended to be retaining membership and even growing. And he was talking here about some of these conservative evangelical churches, but also about the LDS Church. Whereas religions with low cultural tension, religions that did not ask their members to do anything counter to broader American norms, tended to be losing members.

GT  01:53  When was this written?

Matthew  01:55  This was written the 70s. And he's looking at the 70s, 80s and 90s, in particular.

GT  03:47  Okay, so we've caught up with the other churches.

Matthew  03:49  Well, yeah, and that's what many sociologists have observed. And this is why there's some pushback against his idea, is that this idea seemed to be true in the waning decades of the 20th century. Now, it appears that some of that trend, that trend of losing membership, which is really, really afflicting, especially mainline Protestant churches, that is to say these more liberal Protestant churches that accommodated themselves to American culture. That is, the ones that largely abandoned Sabbatarianism, the idea that you do not engage in economic commerce on the Sabbath. Mainline Protestant churches abandoned that a long time ago. Mainline churches that were advocates for temperance, like not drinking alcohol, gave that up as well. These churches were just hemorrhaging members in the late 20th century. Whereas churches that held to Sabbatarianism,

Why is it that academics refuse to use the word "cult" to describe harmful religious groups? Dr Matthew Bowman says brainwashing doesn't exist. He details how these words have been modified over the years, and even argues that the term cult was originally a racist term co-opted by evangelicals. Are there a better words to use? Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/025kWSe-ym4

 

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UFO Religion & Rise of the Not Religious

Interview

GT  00:25  So there aren't any real ties to Mormonism in there, no Mormon people being abducted?

Matthew  00:32  Oh, there certainly are stories and that sort of thing, but not in my book. My book is not about Mormons. Well, it's really about the very first alien abduction story in the United States.

GT  00:44  Do we get into crop circles or mutilated cows or anything?

Matthew  00:48  Later on. That's really, crop circles and mutilating cows are really 70s and 80s phenomenon. I'm looking at this couple named Betty and Barney Hill, who said they were abducted by aliens in 1961. And their story sets the archetype that gets repeated by many other people who say they were abducted, gets repeated by The X Files. It's repeated by all sorts of movies, the story being that this craft appeared, small creatures came out of the craft. What did they look like? They are small. They have big heads. They have slanted black eyes, that quintessential depiction of the alien, that's from Betty and Barney Hill. And we were taken aboard the craft, were medically experimented on. And then they were dumped back by the side of the road, and we forgot all about it until Betty had all these nightmares. They see a hypnotist and the hypnotist puts them under. And under hypnosis, they recover all these memories. That fundamental story becomes the archetype for nearly every UFO abduction story since. Almost every UFO abduction, since Betty and Barney Hill, since their story became famous, on which it became in the 1960s, there was a best-selling book written about them. And then about 10 years after the book, James Earl Jones made a movie about this, and he stars as Barney Hill in the movie. And so the book and the movie, between them, really embedded this story in American consciousness. And it just gets repeated over and over. And, part of the story also, was how Betty and Barney Hill initially, they trusted government. They trusted experts. They went to scientists. They went to the military. They went to all these people and they expected to be believed. And they find that over and over again, even their hypnotist, who is a psychiatrist, tells them, “I don't think this really happened.” The military just says, “Thanks for telling us,” And doesn't follow up at all. They end up turning to the New Age people.

GT  00:57  Who believe them.

Matthew  02:06  Yeah. And who not only believe them, but also tell them, yeah, you had this experience. But here's how your experience connects to all these other stories. It's not just an isolated thing. It helps us understand how the world really works. And by the 1970s, of course, you have the rise of conspiracy theory. That trust in government that's present in the 50s and early 60s, has vanished by the 70s because of Watergate, because of Vietnam. There was a famous, now forgotten series of Senate hearings chaired by Senator Frank Church. It's called the Church Committee. And they discovered that the CIA had been involved in assassination attempts on foreign leaders and Americans were never told about this whole sense of there is a shadowy, conspiratorial world really running things.

GT  03:40  A deep state?

Matthew  03:41  Perhaps. That appears and, of course, UFO folklore. By the 80s UFO stories are really, really deeply bound into the sense of the government is lying to us. You can't trust anybody.

Dr Matthew Bowman from Claremont Graduate University will discuss his latest book on UFOs, and we'll dive into the 3 Nephites too.  They were blessed to walk the earth without death. Is living forever a blessing or a curse?  Cain was cursed to walk the earth without death. Are UFOs a form of spirituality outside of institutional religion?

https://youtu.be/25ZR36ogteM

 

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Blessed or Cursed to Walk the Earth? 3 Nephites

Interview

Matthew  00:43  Another good example of this is Three Nephites story.

GT  00:46  Well, and that's what I was going to mention, because we think of the Three Nephites. They were so righteous that they live forever. But why is Cain, a very unrighteous person, allowed to live forever? What do you think?

Matthew  00:58  Yeah. In Genesis, God tells Cain, you're going to wander the earth. And there are stories of Cain wandering the earth all the way back into the Middle Ages.

GT  01:08  So, he's cursed with never dying.

Matthew  01:12  And then you'll see some of these folktales. People say, Well, what about the flood? And the answer to that is that he clung to the outside of the ark, during the flood. And that's the curse. Now, of course, this again, points to a lot of archetypes. One of the famous ones that you see back in the Middle Ages is the archetype of the wandering Jew, which is a Christian folk tale from the Middle Ages about this sometimes evil, sometimes dark, wandering Jewish figure, who would have maybe mocked Christ on the cross or something like that, but is cursed in similar ways. Again, you can see how this Cain legend echoes with other racist stories over the years.

GT  01:54  It's strange to me and, I probably have some non-LDS listeners that don't know who the three Nephites are. And, in fact, I will say this, especially since we recently had Community of Christ historian Mark Scherer on. One of the apostles, his daughter said, what's the three Nephites? Because apparently, that's not a thing in the Community of Christ. So, it's interesting that Cain is cursed with never dying, but the three Nephites are blessed with never dying. Can you talk about that?

Matthew  02:24  And according to the Doctrine and Covenants, the apostle John, too.

GT  02:28  Right.

Matthew  02:29  There's lots of these people wandering around out there.

GT  02:31  So why is one a blessing and one's a cursing?

Matthew  02:32   Yeah, so Cain’s is a curse. This is, it's not explicitly stated in the Book of Genesis, that he will live forever. This appears, I think, to come out of these other European folktales about people who are cast out, cursed and never to rest, never to have a home, to wander forever. In the Doctrine and Covenants and in the Book of Mormon, when the apostle John and then these three Nephites are told they will live forever, it is a blessing because they are specifically given work to do.

Matthew  02:39  And that is, they're told [that] you will go and be missionaries, you will further the work of God. And that's a righteous task given to them. And, of course, a whole folklore legendarium grows up around them, too, stories of these mysterious, helpful figures who appear and then vanish mysteriously. And just as with Cain, with stories, LDS stories of Cain intertwined with broader patterns in American folklore. And this happens to three Nephites as well.

GT  03:42  So explain how the three Nephites get called in the first place.

Matthew  03:46  They are figures in the Book of Mormon. When Jesus Christ appears in the Book of Mormon to this Nephite civilization, he calls 12 apostles, as he does in the Bible, in the gospels, and he gives them things. And three of these apostles ask. They say, “We want to stay on the earth, until Christ comes again, in order to further his work,