Elizabeth Smart Part 2: Brian David Mitchell & Wanda Barzee: The Making of Immanuel & Hephzibah

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. In this What You Know Wednesday, 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 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

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 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

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 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

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

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