Hey Brian

File directory:

“Mormon-theocracy” files are just the zencastr backups, you can probably just ignore them.

“WB Bryce Side 1; WB Bryce Side 2” my side of Will Bagley interview; Zoom recorder split audio after 2gb file size. It’s 3+ hrs to be split into 113&114

“WB Will Side” Will side of Will Bagley Interview

“Alma side; Alma Bryce Side” short interview for end of 113

“Weird Alma Revelation” outro music for 113

“113 revised outro” as name says, made to accommodate Weird Alma interview and outro music

“WB Intro Outros” is only useful for the 114 outro (3:52-5:00)

“Patron pitch 114” is spliced in to beginning of 114 before I say “let’s get meta with Jo and Brigham Young” You’ll hear the queue in the audio file.

113

Ep 113 – Mormon Theocracy with Will Bagley pt.1

On this episode, Will Bagley takes us through the Joseph years of Mormon history and sets the precursor for next week’s episode where the blueprints Joseph laid are realized by Brigham Young.

Show Links:

Website http://nakedmormonismpodcast.com
Twitter @NakedMormonism
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Naked-Mormonism/370003839816311
Patreon http://patreon.com/nakedmormonism
Music by Jason Comeau http://aloststateofmind.com/
Show Artwork http://weirdmormonshit.com/
Legal Counsel http://patorrez.com/

Most of the scripted questions here didn’t even make the recording so the only pertinent info here is at the head of each episode for your editing.

My audio recorded for about 8 mins before I started recording his. Good timestamp sync is me asking him for a “test 123”, but it’s not perfect. Also, my zoom apparently has a max files size of 2 gb so it split my audio into two files.

The latency made us talk over each other a lot, that’ll make this edit a huge pain in the ass, sorry man.

Red highlighted section in intro needs to be cut from audio.

Zencastr took a shit but there’s a good cut back in point to keep Will’s point contiguous.

Cut 113 after Will says “You got it” with the squatters pub stuff ~1:20:00

113 has a revised outro with a 5-min interview with weird alma and outro music for 113 will be one of his songs.

See below for 114…

With how busy everything is leading up to Sunstone and the live show at Squatters, last week I told you all that I’ll entertain you guys for a couple weeks while we depart from the regular historical timeline. Well I’m confident you guys will enjoy what I’ve got in store for you. I’ve asked our guest to speak freely on the subject today so the explicit tag is there for a reason folks.

Will Bagley is a BYU educated Western-American historian who David Roberts called “that sharpest of all thorns in the side of the Mormon historical establishment.” He’s written more than twenty books on American history in and out of Mormonism and he’s been a frequent contributor to Mormon Think and the Salt Lake Tribune and his many books, including The Mormon Rebellion, So Rugged and Mountainous, and Blood of the Prophets, have won a number of distinguished awards from numerous historical societies. I’ve just finished reading Blood of the Prophets and Will was kind enough to give us some of his time to talk about Mormon history.

Will Bagley, welcome to the show…

Will, few people are as acquainted with the Mormon historical establishment as you are in your 25+ years in writing American history. I want to ask the most pressing question to break the ice here, who made you angry? What did somebody do to you in church to become such a bitter apostate and start a career of writing anti-Mormon literature?

Alright, that last question was a bit tongue-in-cheek to point out how absurd and damaging such thought-stifling questions can be. The real reason I wanted to talk to you today is two-fold. First, as I’ve been studying Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo years I can’t escape the slow realization of just how much Joseph Smith tried to become a theocrat to overthrow the United States government, it’s a cloud over Nauvoo that requires wrestling with and I can’t think of anybody better to help us work through it. Secondly, I’m of the opinion that Joseph Smith didn’t die at the crescendo of his career, rather he was still on the upwards trajectory in 1844 during his presidential campaign; however, in his Utah theocracy, Brigham Young truly seemed to capture what Joseph Smith was seeking to build in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. I’m hoping you can help us process all of this with your incredible wealth of knowledge in American history. So, let’s just dive right in with Joseph Smith and his theocratic intentions, realized and potential.

Will, do you think there was a single point when Joseph Smith likely decided he wanted to become king of the world or was it a slow and subconscious evolution?

…

I have a closing question concerning Joseph Smith. He’s been mythologized within the culture of Mormonism. All his mistakes have been actively scrubbed from the record to exhibit this one-dimensional pious prophet of the Lord. People who truly study Mormon history have a completely different model of Joseph Smith than the average chapel-attending Mormon. With your decades of researching and writing Mormon history, how can we bring those two disparate models of Joseph Smith into reconciliation? What do you think are effective ways of teaching people about who the real Joseph Smith was and is there any way to mesh these seemingly opposed versions of Joseph Smith in the minds of the average believer?

Will Bagley, thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge of Joseph Smith’s history.

Ep 114 – Bloody Brigham’s Mormon Theocracy with Will Bagley pt.2

On this episode, Will Bagley joins us to share in his specialty, Bloody Brigham Young. We discuss a brief overview of how the Saints made their way from Nauvoo to the Great Basin in Mexico territory and the fun begins. Brigham Young realized Joseph Smith’s dreams of a Mormon theocracy and truly took it above and beyond anything Jo could have dreamt up. Be sure to buy Bagley’s book, Blood of the Prophets, which spawned this entire conversation.

Show Links:

Website http://nakedmormonismpodcast.com
Twitter @NakedMormonism
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Naked-Mormonism/370003839816311
Patreon http://patreon.com/nakedmormonism
Music by Jason Comeau http://aloststateofmind.com/
Show Artwork http://weirdmormonshit.com/
Legal Counsel http://patorrez.com/

114

Begins with story “In some ways, maybe the high point of my career…” includes phone call and ends with “Joseph is nothing if not compelling… yeah” total of 12:50 all patron only content.

114 begin with Will “And it is a great story, one thing I’m certain with Carthage Jail…”

Splice in “Patron pitch 114” before I ask “let’s get meta with BY and Jo”

Hey everybody, before we get into the meat today, I just wanted to pause and get real for a moment. This show is made possible by listener support through patreon.com/nakedmormonism. I love bringing you the skeptical side of Mormon history and hopefully you enjoy the product of all the work that goes into researching and creating the podcast. It’s a tough subject to broach when it comes to podcasts that are free to download, but it’s a harsh reality that it simply costs money to make this show and this is a full-time endeavor. I’ll never get rich from running a podcast, but I’m able to do what I love for a living and that’s what really matters to yours truly. With that in mind, I want to ask you to support the show. My ability to grow and develop the podcast and increase the quality is directly tied to how much financial support comes from listeners like you. It’s a buck a show, that’s the price of a breakfast burrito per month for you that makes researching and reporting Mormon history a living for me. If you’re able to buy me a burrito a month, I’ll give you a ton of extra content on the patreon supporter exclusive feed in return. If you support the show, you get extended ad free editions of the show that usually drop before the regular feed, you get access to our NaMo book club where I read through old Mormon texts and provide commentary, our NaMo Home Evenings with special guests every month, Fracking Bad Movies where Marie and I tear apart terrible old Mormon movies, and a ton of other content. That dollar an episode gets you a lot of bang for your buck and, in the grand scheme of things, you probably won’t even notice the trivial expense. All you have to do is sign up at patreon.com/nakedmormonism and pledge a buck an episode to keep me doing what I love, and you get the deeper-darker side of Mormon history from a skeptical perspective that you’d never know if this podcast didn’t exist. And of course, to all of you who are currently supporting the show, please accept my deepest debt of gratitude for doing so. Thank you for making this show possible. At the end of this episode you’ll hear something that I hope to do more in the future which is only possible because of your generous support. Thank you. With that, let’s get back to Will Bagley so he can give us an overview for what the coming years of this podcast holds as we quickly approach the Utah years of Mormon history.

Welcome to episode 114, I’m very excited to bring Will Bagley back to get into the result of everything we discussed last week.

Will, welcome back!

Last week you walked us through the theocratic designs of Joseph Smith which I find very hard to overstate with any combination of words. At the end of it all, Joseph Smith was killed before he reached his climax of theocratic dictatorial control, instead the mantle was seized by Bloody Brigham Young who accomplished such designs.

Let’s get started with Brigham Young by briefly going through his power grab in August 1844 and his organization of the handcart companies which eventually landed him and thousands of Mormons in Utah by the early 1850s.

Take us away, Will…

I want to examine a controversial time in Utah Mormon history known as the Mormon reformation period. Coming from somebody who knows basically nothing of Utah Mormon history, can you tell me and all of us about the reformation period?

Given everything we’ve discussed in our conversation I have a few questions that may only be obliquely related. First off, with all logistical constraints ignored, if there was one person in all Mormon history you could interview, who would that be?

After reading Blood of the Prophets, I was completely overcome by just how powerful Brigham Young and the church is and has been in creating their own version of history and eliminating complicated truths that just aren’t that useful. What can be done to bring that power in check and force the Church and its leadership to come by its history honestly as seems to be the growing trend recently?

When people start studying Mormon history, it can be very challenging to navigate the minefield of apologetic history versus legitimate history. What are some common pitfalls new historians fall into and what can we do to try and protect ourselves from falling victim to narratives that obfuscate facts or don’t tell the complete story?

One final point.  I see the landscape of Mormon history and it’s hard not to be pessimistic.  The Church has teams of historians they’ve poured millions of dollars into to create a model of Mormon history that minimizes controversial aspects of its history. If we’ve learned anything today, it's that the Church has engaged in a constant campaign to propagandize history and marginalize independent historians. I see people like Jan Shipps, Ron Walker, and Brian Hales, historians paid by the Church who will NEVER have to worry about where their next meal will come from.  Contrast that with people like you, Will, and H. Michael Marquardt, Dan Vogel, and Cheryl Bruno, Dale Morgan, and a legion of independent historians who work tirelessly and thanklessly to bring real Mormon history to light.  You know, there isn’t much money in that.  They've given up financial security to pursue the truth.  With that in mind, I want to encourage everyone to buy Blood of the Prophets in print or audiobook to support this kind of research.  And I'm going to do even more.  I hope this doesn't embarrass you, Will, but I'm going to take a portion of my patreon dollars for these past two episodes and donate them directly to you as an honorarium. Think of it as a speaking fee.  If any of you take any issue with that, please let me know.  But if you think it’s a good idea to compensate intellects like Will for their work and devotion to truth, I encourage you to pledge support over at patreon.com/nakedmormonism so we can do things like this more often and make a difference. Hopefully this will be one way of funneling resources to more independent researchers of Mormon history and continue to grow and expand the field.

With all that said, Will, what’s your current project and when can we expect to find it in bookstores so all of us can buy it and keep funding your awesome research?

Fantastic, do you have any parting thoughts you’d like to leave us with given everything we’ve discussed?

Copyright Ground Gnomes LLC subject to fair use. Citation example: "Naked Mormonism Podcast (or NMP), Ep #, original air date 07/25/2018"