Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Postmormon Postmortem
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Postmormon Postmortem
By Hannah and JessReligion & Spirituality
Postmormon Postmortem episodes
- LuLaRoe: The Mormon Family Behind the Billion-Dollar MLM Empire
How did a Mormon couple turn buttery-soft leggings into a billion-dollar MLM empire?
Hannah and Jess talk LuLaRoe, the multilevel marketing company founded by DeAnne and Mark Stidham. We get into the Mormon family behind the company, DeAnne's upbringing in a household devoted to traditional femininity, her mother's anti-feminist activism, and the marriage advice that encouraged women to behave like helpless children.
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon.
Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening.
https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
Patreon: https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
Instagram: https://instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
Facebook: https://facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
27 min - Dallin Oaks on Peacemaking, LGBTQ Rights, and the Utah Compromise
When Dallin H. Oaks spoke about peacemaking at Washington National Cathedral in September 2026, he held up Utah’s 2015 compromise on LGBTQ rights and religious freedom as a success story. But who got to decide the terms of that compromise?
Was the Utah Compromise really a win-win? And who had the power to decide what was negotiable?
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon.
Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening.
https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
Patreon: https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
Instagram: https://instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
Facebook: https://facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
14 min - How Did Mormon Leaders Go From Kissing Men in Public to Aversion Therapy?
In 1843 Joseph Smith preached about friends sleeping in each other’s arms. In 1962 a Mormon apostle ordered missionaries into separate beds. D. Michael Quinn traces the LDS turn on homosexuality.
Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn documented how the Mormon Church handled same-sex intimacy from the 1800s through 1976. The episode covers Utah’s 1876 sodomy law, the quiet handling of Patriarch Joseph F. Smith in 1946, BYU aversion therapy, Spencer W. Kimball’s marriage counsel, and the 1976 handbook change from “homo-sexual acts” to “homosexuality.” It then follows Dallin H. Oaks and the church’s Supreme Court briefs from Proposition 8 to today. The certainty you were handed as timeless was assembled in pieces, and the dates are on the record.
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon.
Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening.
https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
Patreon: https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
Instagram: https://instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
Facebook: https://facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
53 min - The Singer-Swapp Standoff, Part 1: Excommunicated, Armed, and Homeschooling
John Singer pulled his kids out of school, was excommunicated, took a second wife, and was shot by Utah police in 1979. Mormon True Crime, Part 1.
On January 18, 1979, John Singer walked to his mailbox in Marion, Utah, and police were waiting. Part 1 of the Singer-Swapp Standoff traces how a Mormon fundamentalist raised in Nazi Germany ended up at war with his school board, his bishop’s court, and the state of Utah.
We follow Singer from the Hitler Youth to a Utah farm, through his marriage to Vickie, his excommunication, the homeschooling fight that went to court three times, and his secret plural marriage to Shirley Black. Includes discussion of a police shooting, suicide, the deaths of children, and talk of wanting to die.
Part 2 introduces Addam Swapp and the 1988 siege. Patreon members can listen now.
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon.
Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening.
https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
Patreon: https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
Instagram: https://instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
Facebook: https://facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
1 hr 14 min - Did Joseph Smith Really Say Mormons Would Save the Constitution? The White Horse Prophecy Explained
Did Joseph Smith really predict that the Constitution would hang by a thread and the Mormons would save it? Jess went looking for an easy debunking of the White Horse Prophecy. The history was messier than that.
Jess walks Hannah through the origins of the White Horse Prophecy: a document attributed to Joseph Smith, written down by English convert Edwin Rushton decades after Nauvoo, and denounced by Mormon leaders in 1918 and again in 2010. BYU Studies researcher Don Penrod’s analysis of the Rushton manuscripts shows why the horse document doesn’t hold up. But the “Constitution hanging by a thread” idea doesn’t depend on the horses. It appears in earlier accounts of Joseph Smith, in the Church’s own Ensign magazine in 1976, and in Ezra Taft Benson’s 1987 general conference talk “Our Divine Constitution.”
So what exactly did the Mormon Church reject in 2010, and what did it keep teaching?
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon.
Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening.
https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
Patreon: https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
Instagram: https://instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
Facebook: https://facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
33 min - Mormonism and Conspiracy Theories: The Church's Secret Combinations Problem
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?
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon.
Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening.
https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
Patreon: https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
Instagram: https://instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
Facebook: https://facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
22 min - Mormon Polygamy and Intergenerational Trauma: What Families Are Told
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.
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon.
Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening.
https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
Patreon: https://patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
Instagram: https://instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
Facebook: https://facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
1 hr 1 min - Children of Thunder: Glen Helzer's Mormon Prophet Murders
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.
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon with a FREE membership. FREE members also get our monthly newsletter. Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening. https://www.patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
- Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
- Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
1 hr 8 min - The Mormon Photographer Who Sold Erotica
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.
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon with a FREE membership. FREE members also get our monthly newsletter. Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening. https://www.patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
- Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
- Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
28 min - The Mormon Church's New 25-Minute Sunday School
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?
SHOW NOTES, including all sources mentioned in this episode, are available on Patreon with a FREE membership. FREE members also get our monthly newsletter. Paid memberships start at $2/month for AD-FREE listening. https://www.patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Thank you!)
- Venmo: https://venmo.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/postmormonpostmortem
FIND US HERE
- Website: https://postmormonpostmortem.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@postmormonpostmortem
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@postmormonpostmortem
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/postmormonpostmortem
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/postmormonpostmortem
Theme song | Vocals: Hannah W. | Guitar: Dr. Dave | Audio: Mick
15 min
About Postmormon Postmortem
From the publisher's feed
Mormonism gave you a complete universe, with charts, diagrams, and a plan for everything. Leaving can dismantle all of it at once. Postmormon Postmortem is hosted by Hannah and Jess, two women who…
left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and wanted more honest conversations about what comes after. We cover Mormon history, doctrine, culture, true crime, institutional harm, religious trauma, and the messy work of rebuilding a life outside the church. Whether you're freshly out, years removed, or trying to understand someone you love, you're in the right place.