Fabric of Folklore
Folktales can be strange, mystical, macabre and intriguing. Join us as we explore the stories, culture and people behind the folklore. We go beyond retelling the legends, myths and fairy tales of old. We look at the story behind the lore, behind the songs and traditions to understand more about what they mean, and their importance. These stories, many originating as oral histories, inform us of what it means to be human; what it means to be an integral part of this Earth. Stories of magic and wonder bind us. They connect us through invisible strands, like the gossamer fibers of a spiders web. Folktales have the power to demonstrate how, although we live in drastically different locals, our hearts and minds beat as one human race. We are weaving the fabrics of our past and present stories, to help us better understand ourselves and to awaken us to a more compassionate and caring world community. As we explore the meaning of existence through folklore we hope to inspire future generations to lead with love and understanding.
Fabric of Folklore
Ep 63: The Legend of the Naked Dead and Other Mormon Supernatural Tales with Christopher J. Blythe
Have you heard of the legend of the naked dead or the vanishing hitchhiker? Join us on episode 63 as we dive into the mystical world of Latter-day Saint folklore with Christopher James Blythe, podcast host of the popular Angels and Seerstones. In this supernatural episode we unravel the threads of faith, fear, and the unusual woven into Mormon culture. From ethereal pre-existence beliefs to apocalyptic prophecies, we'll explore the otherworldly stories that shape LDS folk identity. Dr. Blythe explains the dark history in the Mountain Meadows Massacre as well as how modern members prepare for the prophesied apocalypse. This episode peels back the layers of Mormon mythology, revealing a tapestry of stories that bind communities and challenge perceptions. Join us for a fascinating journey through the legends and lore of a uniquely American faith.
Links:
Angels and Seer stones Podcast
Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse Book
Episode 31: Unmasking the Mysteries of Halloween: A Deep Dive with Lisa Morton
Episode 39: Myth Storytelling in Grief Circles with Sabrina Fletcher TFMR Doula
Episode 29: Ghost Stories Throughout Time, and Around the World with Dr. Tok Thomspon
🎙️ Introduction to Fabric of Folklore (00:09 - 05:32)
📚 Christopher James Blythe's Background (05:33 - 11:17)
Author of 'Terrible Latter-Day Saints and the American Apocalypse'
Host of 'Angels and Seer Stones' podcast
🔍 Latter-day Saint Folklore and Podcast (11:18 - 22:15)
Explained the purpose of his podcast on Latter-day Saint folklore
Discussed the terminology: 'Latter-day Saint' vs. 'Mormon'
Addressed common misunderstandings about Latter-day Saints
👻 Supernatural Elements in LDS Folklore (22:16 - 34:21)
Discussed the concept of pre-existence in LDS beliefs (Bluebird Movie)
Explored the idea of soulmates and relationships in the pre-mortal world
Talked about demonic possession stories in LDS history
👥 LDS History and Culture (34:22 - 44:08)
Discussed the Mountain Meadows Massacre and its impact on LDS history
Explained how the LDS church has addressed this dark moment in its past
Talked about the importance of acknowledging difficult historical events
🔮 White Horse Prophecy and LDS Apocalyptic Beliefs (44:09 - 52:59)
Discussed the historical context of LDS persecution and its influence on apocalyptic beliefs
Talked about the concept of the Constitution 'hanging by a thread'
🏘️ LDS Community Preparedness (53:00 - 01:02:59)
Discussed the prepper culture within the LDS community
Explained the concept of food storage and emergency preparedness
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Fabric of Folklore website
Welcome, folksy folks. Welcome to Fabric of Folklore. I am Vanessa Y. Rogers, your hostess, and this is a podcast where we unravel the mysteries of folklore. This show is about legends, fairy tales, storytelling. On the show, we ask questions about all types of folklore, including what it is we're trying to accomplish through the passing on of our stories. We ask how these beliefs began and how they are evolving, because our folklore is continually evolving. I was watching hocus pocus with my kids this year because were trying to get into the spirit of Halloween. And in the beginning of the show, the movie, the main character, Max, wrongly asserts that Halloween Washington created in a conspiracy by the candy companies. And this is something I've heard quite frequently.
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Vanessa Rogers
00:59
But Halloween is a much older celebration than America's candy companies, and it's gone through centuries of evolutions. But it wasn't until 1920 when the town of Anika, Minnesota became the first town in America to officially celebrate Halloween in an effort to combat pranksters. It was kind of a situation either ban theme or join them. So Halloween celebrations started to become more commonplace, and as they after World War Two, local candy stores and local candy companies really began to take notice and began repackaging candy specifically for trick or treating, which is really when the association of Candy and Halloween began. If you really want to know more about the Halloween traditions and the origins of Halloween, we have an entire episode that we did last year, episode 31, with Lisa Morton, who wrote the book on the topic. It's a spooktacular episode.
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Vanessa Rogers
01:54
I definitely suggest you check it out. I also suggest that if this sounds like a podcast you want to continue to listen to, hit that subscribe button, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcasting platform like Spotify or Apple Music or iHeartRadio. So you get notifications every week when our podcast drops. If you're a long time listener, please send us a review. Write us a review. It's so helpful as an indie podcast for new people to be able to find us. We have a fantastic show for you today. Christopher James Blythe is an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University, where he teaches courses on folklore and latter day Saint literature.
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Vanessa Rogers
02:38
He's the author of the book terrible Latter Day Saints and the american apocalypse, as well as the host of the popular angels and Seer Stones, a latter day Saint folklore podcast. We're going to be talking all about the legend of the naked dead in the Latter day Saint's folklore, as well as his podcast and his book. And we're going to be talking a little bit about Halloween traditions and the mormon tradition. So thank you so much for joining us. Christopher.
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Christopher Blythe
03:05
Thank you. I'm so excited to be with you.
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Vanessa Rogers
03:07
So tell us a little bit about how you fell into folklore or found your way to folklore.
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Christopher Blythe
03:16
Do you know, I did my undergrad at Texas A and M, and I took one course on supernatural folklore and I loved it. I didn't do a great job at Texas A and M. I ended up graduating with just a 2.3 gpA. This is not good for a scholar. I went on a latter day St. Mission for two years and I got home, I said, gosh, I want to, I spent a lot of time at universities when I was a missionary. I thought, gosh, I want to get back and go to grad school. And I ended up going to Utah State University first to get a second bachelor's. And at Utah State, it's one of the best places to get a master's degree in folklore.
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Vanessa Rogers
04:04
Wow.
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Christopher Blythe
04:05
I didn't do that. I went and got a degree in history, but I met a wonderful folklorist named Jeanne Thomas, who's, she's the expert on Salem and tourist industry in Salem and in this class with her, even though I was studying mainly religion and other classes, she really helped me think about the supernatural, including the sort of supernatural religious things I thought were interesting, a scholarship of how to dig into it, and I guess got the bug. So even though I went on to get a PhD in american religious history, it was always folklore that drove me. I learned how to interview people and I love interviewing early on, and I just, I mean, I just love legend. It's the thing that gets me excited, a great thing, because legends are all around us, right?
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Vanessa Rogers
05:03
Yeah, it's amazing. I. I kind of fell into folklore as well. And now that I'm in it's, it's just, it's so captivating. And I love that, really, it shows the true soul of who a culture is.
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Christopher Blythe
05:19
I feel like, oh, I think you're absolutely right. It's this stuff that people can't articulate necessarily. But if we focus on the story, we can find out what people are anxious about, what moves people. I think there is no more interesting topic than the folklore. Everyday folk style.
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Vanessa Rogers
05:43
Well, you're in good company and you have your own podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
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Christopher Blythe
05:48
Yeah. My wife and I. My wife, I went and did american religious history for my PhD. But while I was writing my dissertation, she led us out to Memorial University in Newfoundland, which is a wonderful folklore university, to go to get a folklore degree. And so she's a folklorist. And so together we pick a different topic in latter day saint folklore history. Our first episode is about the missionaries that maybe you've seen before and the supernatural assault stories that they tell, demons showing up in their bedrooms in the middle of the night and things. And then, you know, we have stories on romance and all sorts of other legends. Every episode we focus one, always include a few stories that we dramatize. So yeah, we just had such a good time with it.
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Vanessa Rogers
06:48
And what do you feel is the goal with the show? What are you, what are you trying to accomplish?
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Christopher Blythe
06:57
Maybe like you, I'm obsessed with folklore to the point that I've collected so much. I love writing, I love scholarly audiences and peer review, and I'm not going to give that up, but I have so much work that I couldn't in my lifetime write about all of it. So I'm excited about sharing some of my research in a way that I spend one day putting a great episode together and a little help from a producer and we have it ready to go. So I'm excited to do that. But I'm also excited this is Latter day St folklore.
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Christopher Blythe
07:34
And so part of the purpose of the podcast is to help Latter day Saints who sometimes, you know, and we have things like the Book of Mormon musical that it's main, one of its main thrusts is that being a Latter day Saint is kind of lame. Our podcast says, actually, this is a really awesome culture. And so there is some level of, I mean, we look at controversial things too, things. Latter day Saints. You know, I did a whole podcast on a murder Chad Daybell last summer. It was a ten part series, but I really want Latter day Saints to understand their culture is exciting. And I particularly want Latter day Saints who might shun the sort of legends, the supernatural claims of people that they might want to say, oh, that's not really what we believe.
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Christopher Blythe
08:31
I want them to think, well, why do so many people believe it, though? Dig into it?
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Vanessa Rogers
08:38
Who is your audience, do you think? Is it primarily people of the Latter day Saints religion? Or is it, you know, outsiders as well, kind of looking in to see, you know, what's going on?
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Christopher Blythe
08:51
We definitely have a good share of non Latter day Saints, but I would guess, well, less than 10%. I would guess over 90% are Latter day Saints. Some believing, some former Latter day Saints who are interested in hearing the weird things people, some Latter day Saints have thought and that's okay with me, too. But I'd say the audience that I'm looking for is, you know, if I could pick, if I could claim an entire audience I want for the show, it would be 20 to 50 year old Latter day Saints who are thoughtful and eager to dig into this material and think about their religion in a new way and think about what the field of folklore can bring to their understanding of the stories of their faith.
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Christopher Blythe
09:49
I suspect my general audience is between 40 and 80, but I think they like to capture that younger audience.
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Vanessa Rogers
09:58
Absolutely. And can you just explain to us a little bit about the terminology? Because I think a lot of people outside of the Latter day Saints would refer to you as Mormons, but you as a group don't refer to yourselves as Mormons. Or do you? Can you explain that to us?
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Christopher Blythe
10:16
We've gone back and forth on whether this is a term that we're comfortable with. There was a really important talk from a man named Russell M. Nelson, who we accept as a prophet. He's the Latter day Saint pope a few years ago, where he said, let's try not to use the word Mormon anymore, that it gives people, it has connotations that seem like we're not Christians, right? And so he asked this, and as a result, many Latter day Saints have tried to make the effort to say Latter day Saint instead of Mormon. And that's always kind of been the insider term. It's not something that we're offended by if someone says Mormon. And you'll certainly catch me saying mormonization and just try not to because I know it means something to a lot of people.
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Vanessa Rogers
11:18
And tell us about this, like, what are the misunderstandings you feel that people from the outside looking in have about the Latter day Saints?
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Christopher Blythe
11:29
Oh, I think it depends where you hear. So different pockets, different cultures have had different ideas about Latter day Saints, I think, you know, and on the podcast, we talk about stereotypes of, like, the overly wholesome Latter day Saint. So if you watch the classic South park episode on Mormons all about the Mormons, you have this, like, family who's just overly corny, wholesome, and that motif shows up a lot. There's certainly the intolerant Latter day Saint. There's certainly, you know, Latter day Saints still have to respond to questions about whether they practice polygamy or whether they believe in Jesus or whether they, you know, are they, you know, is this a cult? And, you know, who cares if someone thinks you're a cult? But if they already have it in their minds, then you have to be concerned, right?
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Christopher Blythe
12:36
Yeah, I think for the most part, the, like Catholics, we have a major institution, and so people often take what the institution, you know, their little knowledge of the institution and stretch that over all of the people rather than understanding. Latter day Saints are really diverse. Some are conservative, some are liberal, some are gullible, some aren't. But we just have tv show after tv show that have featured Latter day Saint characters lately, you know, under the banner of heaven was really successful. Makes us seem like lunatics. Chad murders came out, which has had tons of podcasts on.
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Vanessa Rogers
13:25
Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because you do. You said you have a ten part series on this, and I'm not into true crime, so I didn't really pay attention to that. But it is. It was a focus because he was lds, right?
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Christopher Blythe
13:42
Yeah, he was lds, and he was taking a lot of the stuff that I would consider latter day St. Lore and selling it to make his, you know, to present himself as a sort of prophet figure. You know, he's meeting with Jesus, he's teaching reincarnation. Not. Not a mainstream Latter day Saint idea, but an idea that's showed up in pockets of Latter day Saints since the beginning. And eventually, you know, he's really focused on demonic possession. And whereas that's not popular in 21st century Latter day Saint practice and belief would have been popular ish in the 19th century. And so he took these ideas and eventually came with the idea that you could.
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Christopher Blythe
14:25
That someone could be possessed and they're actually dead inside, so it's just an evil spirit living in their body and ultimately use that idea, really a changeling idea, more akin to irish folklore, scandinavian folklore, than is mormon folklore, but ran with that idea and used it to justify the murder of at least four people. So very scary, very dark. I thought about taking down the episodes, but people liked them so much. So was he.
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Vanessa Rogers
15:00
Was he trying to position himself as kind of a cult leader?
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Christopher Blythe
15:04
Yeah, you know, I think he was positioning himself as a sort of, you know, he would claim that he still had loyalty to the church, but that he was gonna be this messianic figure. Right. He was gonna come forth and fix everything right before Christ returned. And him and his spouse were reincarnations. He was an apostle at the time of Jesus Christ, and she was his spouse then. And so they had come back and they were going to organize everybody in camps before the apocalypse fully comes to fruition. And so I don't know if he would start an institution, but he was creating a circle that he largely ran through this woman that was infatuated with him and equally as crazy, Lori Vallow.
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Christopher Blythe
16:01
So he would stay back and, you know, kind of declare strange messages to her, which she would then impart to her circle of six or seven people. It does. It's, I mean, I think by classic sociological definitions of a cult, this is pretty close to it.
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Vanessa Rogers
16:19
Mm . And so you said that they believed that they were reincarnations of famous people. Is reincarnation a part of lds in general, or is it kind of a fringe belief, or where does it lie?
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Christopher Blythe
16:37
It's a very fringe belief. There have been mainly schisms, you know, religion schisms. And so since 1830, there have been over 100 schisms of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Latter day Saints and some of the small ones, none that have endured across time, have promoted reincarnation. And so, you know, bad guys, the people they see as their religious competitors, they're thinking are, you know, Cain in the flesh, reborn. And what Latter day Saints do believe is that we existed before were born as spirits. So this is actually a really important idea in our theology that we call the premortal world or the pre existence.
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Christopher Blythe
17:27
And so a lot of the folklore that I find so interesting are people who tell stories about what life was like back then, asking questions about, do we have a soulmate that we knew from the previous world? Did we know our kids friend from back then that you don't remember? All those sorts of stories, I think, are very fun. And Latter day Saints don't put a lot of stock in any specific story, but the big concept has led tons of lore.
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Vanessa Rogers
17:55
So this is. I remember seeing a movie a long time ago, when I was a child, I was at my grandparents house, and it was basically this idea of pre existence, and it was all these children up in heaven, and they were waiting to be born into a baby's body. I don't. It was an old movie. I don't remember what it was called.
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Christopher Blythe
18:16
Your grandparents were lbs, were they?
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Vanessa Rogers
18:18
No, no. It is. It was on cable. I mean, it was on. It was on cable, so whatever the movie was, it just came on.
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Christopher Blythe
18:27
Was it amazing?
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Vanessa Rogers
18:29
No.
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Christopher Blythe
18:30
Oh, interesting.
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Vanessa Rogers
18:32
And so I always kind of thought that, I mean, I never. I grew up in the Methodist church, and it was not a concept that I had ever heard of, but I had seen this. This idea in that movie. And so I was curious if that was found in other religions as well, or even in some christian religions, you know?
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Christopher Blythe
18:58
So latter day Saints, we think that the race of angels are really just the race of mankind that and when we die, we go back to being angels. This idea of pre existence was taught in ancient Christianity by origin. There's some sort of the pre existence of the soul in Catholicism, but it was declared a heresy in several hundred years after the coming of Christ. And so Mormons are definitely heretics and this and lots of others, but it, any other faith I can think of, but it's awesome. And you can certainly hold to it without being a Mormon.
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Vanessa Rogers
19:50
You know, I feel like I don't even know who I heard say this recently I heard someone, like, referring to trying to have some sort of conversation with young children to find out where they were prior to being born, and not in the term, not in the idea of reincarnation, but as in the term of where their spirit was. Where their, where their soul was. So. And I don't even. It was kind of more of like a spiritualism type, like a new age. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's interesting. That that is a strong point in lds, and I didn't realize that.
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Christopher Blythe
20:36
I think spiritual, particularly, you know, the idea of soul mates or twin flames nowadays would play off of those ideas.
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Vanessa Rogers
20:46
Mm . And so is soulmates a big part of Lds lore? Do people really believe that there is, like, one soulmate out there because of this pre existence idea?
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Christopher Blythe
20:59
We had an episode on this, I would say in the 19th century, people were really proud to believe in soul mates. And today church leaders have worked really hard to teach that you have a soulmate. And so I always ask my students, do they think they knew their spouses in the pre existence or who they're going to marry? And they all say no. And the reason they say no is because they don't want to be pushed into thinking there's just one. But then if I ask them, did they know their parents in the pre existence? They all say, oh, absolutely. And somehow in their minds, they're imagining maybe their parents didn't know each other. So it's interesting, you know, I love that. So we just have basic idea, is there, are there soul mates or not?
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Christopher Blythe
21:53
People say there aren't soul mates, but at the ground, people are still wrestling with what to make, how to make sense of that. I like to think my wife's my soulmate.
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Vanessa Rogers
22:04
What about, like, friendships where you, like, you know, you meet someone that is not a romantic nature, but someone who is definitely a kindred spirit of. Right.
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Christopher Blythe
22:16
Is that a lot of saint might say that, like, oh, I think I knew you in the pre existence, or were so close. I mean, you could have a lot of saints say that we're doing an episode in a few weeks called I found you, my friend, which is, you know, started out as what we call the xerox lore. You know, back in the eighties, people would xerox a legend and then hand it right. And Latter day Saints would do a lot of this particular missionary of someone or dream of someone who doesn't isn't a latter day Saint, but they knew them in the pre existence, and the vision is back then the guy says to his friend, hey, make sure you find me down there if I'm not a brother.
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Christopher Blythe
23:05
And so, yeah, this concept of someone might be your friend, but usually Latter day Saints are just emphasizing like, we're all children of God, and so we all were in heaven before. We were all good. You know, the story is that two thirds of God's children came to earth and followed Jesus Christ, and one third followed the devil. And so if you have a body, if you're in life, you once made good choices before.
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Vanessa Rogers
23:41
And what about you mentioned demonic possession was a part of Lore past, which I feel like was probably more culturally acceptable in the past as well. I think it was a part of a lot of religions, including more mainstream christianity as well. I do feel like demonic possession stories have kind of gone with the mainstream culture.
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Christopher Blythe
24:07
Yeah, I think you're right. I think Methodism actually, you know, Catholicism wasn't as big in the areas that the Latter day Saint faith began, but Methodism was right. And Methodism has a lot of questions about what are we doing with charismatic experiences? And so Latter day Saints, you know, there's a saying from early days, like, they were good Methodists, but they. But they thought Methodists hadn't gone far enough. And so charismatic traditions were really implemented there. And so in the current days, I would say were very charismatic faith up to the coming of actual christian charismatics, of Pentecostals, and then we backed off some of that. And then in the modern era, our supernatural understandings might be shaped of other influences as well, including horror movies or popular fears against the Ouija board or things like that.
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Christopher Blythe
25:20
But definitely, maybe these experiences all happen at the same level. But in the 19th century, people talked about it, and today it's considered, you know, Latter day Saints are prone to be cautious about talking about Satan in general. Kind of the Voldemort rule, right? You're not supposed to say Voldemort's name or else you'll know what's going on. So the devil speaketh and he appears. I think lottery saints really have this folk idea that they should avoid talking about things that creep themselves out.
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Vanessa Rogers
25:52
Huh. What about angels? What do they, is it more common for Latter day Saints to see or speak with angels?
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Christopher Blythe
26:00
We do. You know, angel for us is the same species as a human. So if you see your deceased loved one, that's angel visit. And we have some popular angels like the angel Moroni. You know, he's a dead prophet, just like Peter, James and John or Elijah. These biblical figures might appear to leaders or might appear occasionally in stories to members, but for the most part, people are talking about apparitions of their loved ones. And so that is actually common in all traditions, though we don't always couch it in our faith. Right. Think about it as ghosts or something like that. But, you know, one of my favorite books is Jillian Bennett's a last poor ghost. And she's one of the most fantastic folklorists from Great Britain.
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Christopher Blythe
26:57
And she focused on women who told stories of seeing the apparitions of their deceased husbands. And that's really the most common experience among Latter day Saints. But because of our supernatural inclinations, we share those stories a lot.
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Vanessa Rogers
27:14
Yeah. I had a guest on last year, Toque Thompson, and he teaches us a, an entire freshman seminar about ghost stories around the world. And he also said that the most common ghost story that you hear is usually a past, a recent family member who's died, who comes back and says, visit someone either with comfort or with concern, I guess.
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Christopher Blythe
27:47
Absolutely. It makes sense, right?
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Vanessa Rogers
27:50
Yeah. That's interesting. So you said that Latter day Saints are more inclined towards the supernatural. So does that mean that Halloween is something that is, it is celebrated, that is excited that people are excited about, or how is the feeling around that?
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Christopher Blythe
28:10
Absolutely. You know, I think my wife, I grew up episcopalian and my wife grew up evangelical. And as an Episcopalian, I never thought there was anything strange about Halloween. When I heard an evangelical or fundamentalist christian friend be anti Halloween or be anti Christmas, I associated it with, like, extremism as a kid, as an adult. You know, I just purchased my 1st 15 foot skeleton and I love it.
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Vanessa Rogers
28:43
I'm jealous.
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Christopher Blythe
28:45
Latter day Saints are very, they tend to be very excited about Halloween. And, you know, they might not want blood at the same level, but spookiness, hocus pocus style Halloween. I mean, there's, you got a great fan base there. And I think we have had people kind of push back, influenced by things like the satanic panic in the 1980s to be anti Halloween. But it's few and far between. There's a very small movement of people, Latter day Saints, but certainly not from the church, who have argued we should not be celebrating Halloween because it's evil. And they are doing, I mean, this could be 200 people. They are doing something called, they're calling it Shekinah, which is, you know, God's presence in the whole Old Testament.
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Christopher Blythe
29:39
And instead of celebrating Halloween, they put up one of those, these big, grumpy signs that say, you know, no trick or treating here. And they put up white lights throughout their house, and they have white food they eat. And so they try to bring as much light into the world as they can. And that doesn't resonate with me because I think spooky stories about vanquishing evil are pretty faith promoting. I think those are good stories. So I'm going to be as spooky as possible on Halloween and scarcity.
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Vanessa Rogers
30:19
Well, you know, the whole idea behind Halloween is that it was like the day of when the other world was the most close at hand. Is there any feeling about the truth of that in the LDS community? Like, there is a day of the dead is a celebration for that purpose as well on November 1. Is there that feeling?
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Christopher Blythe
30:45
I wish there was. Do you know so much when Coco came out, you know, this mexican celebration of the day of dead? Latter day Saints loved it because this idea of the spirit world and seeing your relatives there resonates with us so much. I've certainly met Latter day Saints and many other Americans that are non mexican Catholics who have tried to do their own, a friend does and things. But we, there's no official celebration of Halloween. There's just good american fun associated with Halloween.
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Vanessa Rogers
31:19
Now, as a person of the faith, do you find any discomfort in looking at your, you know, the supernatural element or the folk beliefs of your own religion? Is there any, like, oh, I don't know, questioning or, you know what I'm saying? Like, a lot of times I feel like historians try and, like, step back and have a very objective feel. What is, what is your thought about that?
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Christopher Blythe
31:48
Yeah, I'm, you know, so I would say, and I explain this to people all the time. Like, I accept the worldview that produces all the stories that we tell, but I don't have specific belief in many legends. Right. So if you came to me and said, I saw my grandma and she said blah, I would say, well, I think it's possible that grandmas could appear to you after their deaths. But I don't place a lot of stock in any specific story, so I would just accept that you had this, you thought you had this experience, and I'd be interested in it, but I, it wouldn't cause me a lot of consternation to, like, try to figure it out, and that's true.
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Christopher Blythe
32:32
You know, there are certain things, there are certain stories, maybe at the foundation of our religion, you know, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even that if somebody wanted to, like, try to pick apart and say, oh, these are just legends from the time and so on, I might feel uncomfortable. I'm used to at this point, right. But I would understand comfort. I don't feel that on many things in the latter day Saint experience, but partly because, you know, I'm kind of, you know, this is, I'm fully immersed in this tradition. I'm convert. Fully immersed. And so I would, I have stories that, from being a lottery saint, that I share their folklore, but about my experience with God. And so, yeah, I don't get nervous about specific stuff, but many people do.
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Vanessa Rogers
33:33
And at Brigham Young, where you're a professor, are there students that are not of the faith?
C
Christopher Blythe
33:39
Sure, but not many. Brigham Young, it costs much less for a member to attend than a non member. Grad students are more, they, we have more non members as grad students. But for every class, you might have one or two that aren't latter day Saints. And I'm just honest that I teach my classes as if everyone was lDs. So I'm building common experiences and I apologize, and I, hey, if you have any questions, you can come talk to me sort of thing. But I love having that sort of setting where I can be fully myself. Right.
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Christopher Blythe
34:24
And it would be really weird if I taught the way, and I never would I do at BYU when I was teaching at Florida State or Utah State or Tallahassee Community College or any of these other small jobs I've had, I would then teach like a secular scholar, because I don't think we should be forcing our beliefs onto folks. Right. And in fact, I wouldn't even talk about what my identity was. But in this setting, I just love the idea that I can be fully human.
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Vanessa Rogers
35:01
You can be who you are.
C
Christopher Blythe
35:02
That's right.
V
Vanessa Rogers
35:04
So I found, so I came across your article in the american folklore society journal. It's called the Legend of the Naked Dead, and that's how I discovered you. So can you tell us a little bit about what this is?
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Christopher Blythe
35:22
Oh, yeah. I love this legend. Now, if you asked a Latter day Saint, what is the legend of the Naked dead? They wouldn't know what you're talking about, but they might know the details of the story. So I coined this term for a set of legends that show up a lot of. And they're often told as memorots, which, of course, is a personal experience narrative that deals with the supernatural. It's kind of a cross between the legend, but sometimes it's a family story, so. And the story goes like this. Well, here's the background. Latter day Saints. In our temples, wear priestly robes, right? And we all wear undergarments, if you're a called the garment of the priesthood. And men and women all have the ceremonial robes wear.
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Christopher Blythe
36:11
Wear them as part of a ceremony in the temple when we get married, when we do a ceremony called the endowment, where we take vows in our tradition. And then when we die, we're dressed in these robes because they're kind of symbolic of the robes in the book of revelation where you saw all these, the. The righteous gathered with Christ, and they're wearing white robes. And so we're kind of preparing to meet him. So we're dressing the part. Okay? And it's. It consists of a long, white robe, a hat, an apron that's green, and then our undergarments. And so in these stories, you bury someone, and you have forgotten to put on part of those robes, and you go home, and all of a sudden, grandma's by your bed that night saying, hey, where are my slippers? And, oh, no way.
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Christopher Blythe
37:14
And usually the story you tell someone else, like grandma, appeared and we forgot to put on our slippers. And they say, oh, it doesn't matter. Or, well, no, that's not to say. They say, oh, of course we did, except you freak out. And so you go. And the more elaborate stories, they actually dig up the body and they find, oh, she's not wearing her slippers. Let's put those on. And then the dead rests. Right. This is so interesting. It's a very strange, very latter day Saint story. When I first time I presented at the American Folklore Society, there was a graduate student from China who was sharing her paper, and in it, she talked about her grandfather, who the family, you know, has a shrine for to remember.
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Christopher Blythe
38:04
And the mother dreamed that he needed clothes, and so they burnt clothes to send to him on the other side. And so I love that. I wonder how cross cultural this is. But, of course, the simple legend of the dead returning and asking you to do something, what you then do, and they can rest is a very old story indeed.
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Vanessa Rogers
38:26
And so this is something that was more commonly told in the past rather than in modern day.
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Christopher Blythe
38:32
Definitely. I would think the latest story I collected was from about the 1960s or seventies. And certainly people knew this story because the formula of the story is exact. Right. Each of the different tellings, but different part of the. The outfit that's not put on correctly. Different relationship with the person. But, yeah. So today, my students, when I tell this story, would think, whoa, what? Chris, nobody thinks that these robes are like, essentially, you know, we believe in baptism by immersion, so sprinkling doesn't count, but nobody thinks you have to get the robes perfect. That's not a thing. And I would say, well, that's not what your grandma thought here. You know, very fun idea.
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Christopher Blythe
39:30
And it's what I also find so interesting is that church leaders, this is an idea that they tried to police, like, saying, look, some people are burned up in fires and you can't put clothes on them. So you can't be too dogmatic about this. Don't worry. There was a grave digger where I actually think the story started was a crazy grave digger in the 1960s, was in charge of burying bodies, but he would disrobe them and just throw naked bodies. And the thing, when people discovered this, it was really scandalous because there was a religious right to it, but also, nobody wants their loved one to be disrobed. Crazy guy, he gets exiled from the community. But I think it starts there, where people start claiming these dreams.
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Christopher Blythe
40:24
And Brigham Young gets up and says, stop talking about knocking spirits, poking fun of the fox sisters who believe spirits knocked. Knocking spirits who are telling you to worry about your, the deceased person's clothing. If you, if you find him, throw the, the clothes in the coffin and just shut it. You know, don't try to dress a decayed body. Yeah, but he said, you know, some people are going to be eaten by sharks, so calm down.
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Vanessa Rogers
41:02
Yes.
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Christopher Blythe
41:04
That lay people really stuck to and created their own stories about, and they endured for 100 years.
V
Vanessa Rogers
41:10
And so is it, is cremation acceptable in the mormon faith?
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Christopher Blythe
41:17
I would say cremation was discouraged until, like, five years ago. And now they would say, dress the person in their robes and cremate them in their robes. Okay, that's your preference. But, you know, traditionally, christians were hesitant to be cremated in general. Right? Followed that until very recently.
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Vanessa Rogers
41:41
And when did christians stop burying? Or they still bury, but it's not as important as it used to be. Now cremation is fully acceptable, I believe, by.
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Christopher Blythe
41:53
Right. And we wanted consecrated graves, the past, which we don't do as often anymore. I think it's really late, 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds when we fully allowed the bearing of our dead to be taken over by the funeral industry. So then things became more exact. You know, in the past, you die, you might be on display in your living room for a couple days and then buried right from there. And the family took care of all this stuff. There's no formaldehyde, nothing like that. And now things, you know, there's an interesting book about this called the american way of death. It talks about this big shift, so it becomes a business rather than sort of a religious practice.
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Vanessa Rogers
42:41
Right.
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Christopher Blythe
42:41
Yes.
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Vanessa Rogers
42:42
I had a guest on who was living, she's an american who was living in Mexico, and she felt that, you know, in Mexico, they still have more family practices rather than what we have currently in America, whereas, you know, it's all taken care of by someone in the industry, whereas they still have the practices of having the bodies in their homes and they're still doing the cleaning and the dressing. And death is less scary and it's more willingly talked about in those communities, whereas here in America, like you, it would be more weird for a family member, families to actually take control of those situations.
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Christopher Blythe
43:32
Who was this that you interviewed? Do you remember?
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Vanessa Rogers
43:36
I'm forgetting her name, but she spoke specifically about, she runs a group about women who have to terminate their pregnancies due to medical situations that are out of their control. And so she runs a grief group for them. And she uses folk stories in order to kind of walk through the grief because they don't feel a part of any other. They don't feel like they can be a part of any other grief groups.
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Christopher Blythe
44:09
Oh, this is so interesting. So I would type in fabric of folklore grief and probably get it.
V
Vanessa Rogers
44:15
Yes. Yeah, I'll look up her name.
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Christopher Blythe
44:18
I love that.
V
Vanessa Rogers
44:21
But you had a thought about it.
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Christopher Blythe
44:24
Oh, I just think you're absolutely right. Like, our culture is at the extreme end of creating a sort of consumer and I offloading what used to be this really intimate responsibility. The only thing we have left as latter day Saints is that it's preferable not for the funeral director or the mortician to put on these sacred clothes. And so you have your family member of the same sex or your spouse that's going to dress you in this clothes. And it, you know, can be a little traumatizing to people to address a dead body because we're not around dead bodies. A lot. And there's a lot of stories about. And that in earlier days, that would include cleaning the body. Our body does things when we die, and so taking care of this body and then putting them in this proper clothes.
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Christopher Blythe
45:21
And so a lot of stories of kindness, but also stories of kind of trauma, trying to figure something out, relate to this dressing or taking care of a dead body.
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Vanessa Rogers
45:35
Yeah, that's so interesting. So I'm looking up the name, and I'm Sabrina. Her name is Sabrina. I'll put it in the show notes for everybody who is listening right now. But there was also in the paper you talked about, there's a, in general, there's a lot of apparition lore, and you refer to the three Nephites and other miraculous stories. Can you talk a little bit about that?
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Christopher Blythe
46:04
Yes. The three Nephites are our most famous saint figures. So three, the nephite people are Israelites who, in the book of Mormon moved to the Americas. And three of them are. There's old Testament stories tell us about Elijah and Enoch, who are, like, taken up by God even though they're still alive. Right. So they don't die. And, you know, the. There's wonderful jewish rabbinical folklore that tells about the appearances of Elijah to different people working miracles. And our version of Elijah. There are these three Nephites who at the time of Jesus are his sort of. They're sort of apostles. Call them twelve disciples, though, in the book Mormon. And three of them, nine of them, say, we want to die and go to your kingdom. And they all die at 67 years old.
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Christopher Blythe
47:02
And three of them want to go and live forever until Christ comes back. And so these three are called the three knee fights. And they. And stories, they show up when your car breaks down or when you're, you know, gonna die, that you're out of food in the desert. You know, they'll come and they'll take care of you, and then, you know, you're dealing with a three knee fight, typically when they just disappear. And so, yeah, these are great stories. And it's an official idea, given in the book of Mormon, that these figures are gonna go out there and do good works. And the individual stories certainly aren't official, but it's anything. And here's a great one. In the 1960s, in the seventies, there was an emphasis on Latter day saints to collect food storage.
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Christopher Blythe
48:02
They were supposed to have one year supply of food storage. And nowadays we talk about, like, three months that were less extreme. But in the stories, you pick up a hitchhiker on the road. There's an example, the vanishing hitchhiker story. The hitchhiker comes to your car and you're going about your way, and then the hitchhiker turns to you and says, you need to get, and it's usually two years of food storage, which is strange. You need to get your food storage in order. The last days are happening now. And then, poof. This, this hitchhiker disappears. And those sorts of stories spread everywhere. And at this point, people, because they've heard so many of them hear that story and they know they're dealing with a legend.
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Christopher Blythe
48:45
And so instead of approaching it with sort of belief, they approach it with kind of, you know, what a silly thing is this a 3d fight story?
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Vanessa Rogers
48:53
You know, interesting. So I didn't know that. But this kind of leads into the book that you wrote, right? Apocalypse, the American Apocalypse. Is that, is that part of why there's the need for prepping?
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Christopher Blythe
49:12
Well, they fit into. Yeah, yeah. The why the threeing fights are promoting this is definitely because, you know, we're Latter day Saints because we think we're in the last days. And so.
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Vanessa Rogers
49:24
Yeah, I never put that together. Okay.
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Christopher Blythe
49:28
Now we're not. You know, in the 19th century, moving to Utah was kind of considered like leaving the world where all these terrible things were going to happen. And nowadays, Latter day Saints would have food storage and we would expect, you know, we think we're the last days, but we think Jesus is probably going to come back when our grandkids are grown up. You know, it's not an imminent sort of thing. And typically, when our grandkids are going to grow up, if it hasn't yet happened yet, they're probably going to think it's going to happen when their grandkids grow up. And so there's preparation. There's certainly an idea that we need to spread the gospel and prepare the world for Jesus return. But at a different point.
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Christopher Blythe
50:12
What I write about in the book is about the expectation of these great destructions to occur in governments topple and judgments to happen in all these different nations, all the events of the book of revelation. Latter day Saints, what made it so interesting is that they would tell stories of visions and dreams about specific american spots. So Boston's going to be underwater and Philadelphia is going to be burned with fire, and there's going to be this great disease in Baltimore, and bodies are going to pile up on the inner harbor above the highest statue there. And really these really kind of horrifying stories. And once Latter day Saints, once Utah was given statehood in 1896, and we stopped practicing polygamy then. We didn't really want. We wanted to be good Americans.
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Christopher Blythe
51:09
And so as a result, we stopped talking about America being destroyed. You know, as early days, it was things like, we would predict slave. You know, people were expecting slave uprisings and indian raids, all these things. And in that period, once we became citizens of the nation, full citizens, people kept saying things like, hey, if you say this stuff, they're going to think we're not. We're not part of the team.
V
Vanessa Rogers
51:39
Right?
C
Christopher Blythe
51:39
Yeah.
V
Vanessa Rogers
51:40
And was there a fear from the american government that the LDS might, like, rise up themselves and try.
C
Christopher Blythe
51:50
And since the 1840s, there's been. Well, even the 1830s, there's been fear. You know, a Latter day Saints aren't pacifists. We're selective pacifists. So in the 19th century, if you. You know, if there was a mob, then Latter day Saints would be okay with defending themselves. Right? We're not amish. And so in Missouri, there was some skirmishes. This is the 1830s. There was something called the extermination order, which was, Latter day saints need to leave the state of Missouri or be exterminated. And so after this law was passed by the governor, a group of men and young boys, about a dozen, maybe 17, actually, are murdered in Missouri, and their bodies cut apart with a huge shredder and thrown in a well. And after that, Latter day Saints, like, they built militia.
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Christopher Blythe
52:59
And so when Latter day Saints were pushed out of the nation, were in Illinois at that point, in the 1840s, and it ends with a battle called the battle of Nauvoo. And so when we get out there in Utah, there is a lot of fear of Latter day Saints, which is made all the more intense because in 1857, a group of Latter day Saints around Cedar City, southern part of the state murdered a wagon train of colonists and people traveling to California. The government was sending in federal troops to put down a rebellion in the state, and there was all this war fears, and so this town murdered 100 people. Very scary. And, of course, that didn't do a lot of good for a Latter day Saint reputation.
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Christopher Blythe
54:03
So from 1857 to into the 19 hundreds, and you still see this in things like under the banner of heaven, the show that was on modernity, saints definitely presented as, you know, a threat, a violent threat to a good american.
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Vanessa Rogers
54:21
Yeah, I'm not familiar with that show. Under heaven. Under the banner of heaven. Is that what it's called?
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Christopher Blythe
54:27
Banner of Heaven is the most popular book maybe it's ever been written about Latter day Saints. It's written by John Krakauer, who's great writer. He did the book into the wild about the guy who goes up to Alaska and died, right?
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Vanessa Rogers
54:43
Yes, I read that one.
C
Christopher Blythe
54:44
Yeah, he wrote under the banner of Heaven. And in this book, he calls it a story of a violent faith. And so he writes about mormonism, and he takes this terrible moment in our past, 1857, and then he takes these weird extremists who have done terrible things. He hasn't yet got to Chad Daybell in that point, but there have been some strange, what we call fundamentalists who have, you know, killed a dozen people over 100 years or something, and so intersperses that story as if you can understand something about what it is to be a Latter day Saint by looking at these extremists here, this terrible event in our past, and it led to a really popular tv show called under the Banner of Heaven as well that had Andrew Garfield in the lead role.
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Christopher Blythe
55:32
Yeah, it's an interesting thing, but the idea that Latter day Saints would team up with native populations to fight the government was a really popular idea till about 1900.
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Vanessa Rogers
55:52
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And today, how do. How is it perceived by LDS? Like, how is that history perceived? Is that something that people like to. Don't like to talk about or, like, what is.
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Christopher Blythe
56:12
So initially, Latter day Saints wanted to blame Native Americans. They thought there's no way they did it right. And then, you know, they did do it, and there was lots of accounts, and they didn't kill the youngest children. And so those children had stories to report. And so there's a trial. You know, there's all sorts of stuff goes on in the 1950s. So Latter day Saints are really in denial until the 1950s. We have a history, a historian, wonderful woman named Juanita Brooks, who wrote on the Mountain Meadows massacre. That's what this is called. And she said, look, we know this was a local thing, but this was certainly a Latter day Saint thing, and natives were involved, but under the Latter day Saint direction. And that was really hard. Initially, people thought that was a terrible thing to admit.
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Christopher Blythe
57:11
And then in the early two thousands, the church itself commissioned historians to write a book called the Massacre at Mountain Meadows. And it was published by Oxford University Press, the largest university press in the world. And they gave all the resources to these historians to work, and they wrote a really hard hitting story that said, yeah, this is something horrific in our past, and we got to deal with it. And so from then, I think Latter day Saints just acknowledged this as the ugliest thing it doesn't tell us about, you know, are Germans responsible today? Should they be feeling terrible about Hitler today? I don't know, but latter day saints definitely check things. If you know, what lessons are learned there? Are they about obedience? Are they about, you know, how we need to be careful about what your boss is telling you?
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Christopher Blythe
58:07
You should question it. Is it about demonizing others? Is it about over anxiety? All those things. But lots of historians now write about it, and the regular audience would know about this as the absolute darkest moment in their history.
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Vanessa Rogers
58:23
Is it taught in Utah schools?
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Christopher Blythe
58:25
Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Do you know, my son is twelve, 7th grade. His mom is the executive director of the American, excuse me, of the Mormon History association. So she has some inside scoops. And he chose to do his paper on mountain meadows when heard about it, and she hooked him up with the top historian on it.
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Vanessa Rogers
58:47
Oh my gosh.
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Christopher Blythe
58:48
Paper quoting from the historian as he's doing this and his personal correspondence. So, yeah, this was just two weeks ago. So it's definitely taught in schools now. I mean, this might be the darkest moment. Yeah. It's the darkest moment in Utah history.
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Vanessa Rogers
59:03
Mm . Well, I'm glad it's addressed. I feel like, you know, in general, in american history, a lot of times we just kind of whitewash things, and I feel like that in, you know, there's a lot of dark moments in all of our history. Right. In each of the states, there's a lot of violent, a lot of violence, and it's hard to know sometimes who's to blame, but a lot of times the blame is pretty clear. Right. And sometimes the people who are writing those textbooks don't want to take the blame, you know, even though it's pretty clear that it needs to be taught.
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Christopher Blythe
59:47
Absolutely. Japanese incarcerate, incarceration, slavery. There's so many things. Native american massacres. I mean, right. Our history is full of stuff that we have avoided talking about, and fortunately, and none of it has to be, you know, you don't have to hate being an American knowing that we once had slavery, but you do have to wrestle with it.
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Vanessa Rogers
01:00:13
Yeah. And there's still repercussions today.
C
Christopher Blythe
01:00:16
Mm . Absolutely.
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Vanessa Rogers
01:00:19
So I'm really, now I'm really interested about, so your book is called the Terrible Revolution, Latter day Saints, and the american pop culture apocalypse. You talk about the infamous white horse prophecy. Is that something you mentioned when you were talking earlier or.
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Christopher Blythe
01:00:37
I don't know if I kind of alluded to this whole white horse prophecy is the most famous of the sort of latter day Saint folk prophecies that were started back then. This one's really interesting. One of the things I think is most interesting is because it's been debunked so many times by church leaders that people are supposed to like, they'll say, oh, this isn't true. And what it actually is, this prophecy is a whole bunch of stuff that you can find in other prophecies put together in one place and then put in Joseph Smith's mouth. And because of that, when someone says this isn't true, they might think the content of it. In fact, Mitt Romney people used to say, what about this prophecy about the constitution hanging by a thread?
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Christopher Blythe
01:01:32
And then the Latter day Saints like restoring the Constitution or preserving the Constitution? And he'd say, oh, that's not true. But in actuality that's 100% true. This is, I would call it the Constitution prophecy, but he thinks of it as the white horse prophecy. He's thinking because it's mentioned in this other document. In short, the white horse prophecy is allegedly Joseph Smith making commentary on the Book of Revelation, which has four horsemen of the apocalypse. And there's one on a white horse who goes forth conquering. There's one on a red horse who goes forth creating war. There's one on a black horse which deals with famine, maybe, no, maybe the last one does. A white horse, a red horse, a black horse and a pale horse.
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Christopher Blythe
01:02:33
And so Latter day Saints who saw themselves as ethnically different than white people, refer to themselves as the white horse. The, in this story, the irregular Americans who they call gentiles are the pale horse and the red horse is Native American, the black horse is African Americans. And the idea is that the red horse and the white horse. So Latter day Saints and Native Americans are going to come together and build this last days Zion, the city of God, the community of God before Christ coming. And also the red horse and the black horse are going to be violent against the Gentiles. And so these Americans who have created slavery and oppressed Native Americans are going to get their comeuppance, sort of war raids that were supposed to occur then.
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Christopher Blythe
01:03:35
And then one of the things it says is the only safe place to go in those days is in the mountains of the west. And so it gives this rather than present Latter day Saints fighting in a sort of last days war. Latter day Saints are out there bringing people into the safe space in the mountains. So we're sent out to kind of gather in these refugees. Meanwhile, all chaos breaks loose. And it's elaborate. I mean, eventually there's going to be asian armies coming in through California, and great Britain is going to attack the east coast and really elaborate. It was penned by someone in the early 19 hundreds who was remember, who allegedly was remembering a sermon heard Joseph Smith. Smith Preach in the 1840s. So a 60 year difference. And he's promoting it word for word.
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Christopher Blythe
01:04:36
And so the church as an official organization never promoted this prophecy. But I have dozens and dozens of times, people actually drafted their own version of it because they wanted a copy. And when it circulated in the 1920s and thirties in pamphlet form, it was often called Joseph Smith's greatest revelation. So wonderful folk material.
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Vanessa Rogers
01:05:03
Why? Why did it speak to so many people?
C
Christopher Blythe
01:05:07
Well, so 1857. So I told you about 1830s, about the persecutions that resulted in these deaths. Latter day Saints were forced out of several locations, so they saw themselves as a persecuted people. Their prophet gets murdered in Nauvoo, and then the federal army comes to Utah and occupies the state for. Until the civil war, until soldiers are needed elsewhere. So there's constant signs of occupation going on there. So for the same reason, in a middle eastern place, someone might be having ideas of american evils. See that in the 1850s in Utah just happens to be two largely white groups. And then in the 1880s, after this happens, federal marshals come into Utah and begin to arrest polygamists. So the leaders of the community are often these fathers at homes. They're getting arrested.
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Christopher Blythe
01:06:16
And the idea is that the United States is horrific and they've given up on the ideals of the nation. The idea that Mormons would preserve the nation while the nation goes to heck really appealed to people.
V
Vanessa Rogers
01:06:37
Wow, that's so fascinating. Do you feel like there is a more of a prepper culture within the LDS community?
C
Christopher Blythe
01:06:47
Yeah, I think there's pockets of it. I mean, we would typically, if someone. I mean, if someone had a year food supply.
V
Vanessa Rogers
01:06:55
Yeah.
C
Christopher Blythe
01:06:56
Very common nowadays, less so. But that would be very common if you had more of, you know, sometimes we divide between survivalists and preppers. Yeah. So you might have people who learn different skills they think could be useful, but. But, you know, if you're thinking of people with gas masks and extra toothbrushes for when everything falls apart, we, most lottery saints would think of those folks as extreme, but we still have tens of thousands of them.
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Vanessa Rogers
01:07:28
Right, right. Well, I think it's having a moment in general. Right. Survivalists. There's all these. I see classes that are, you know, teach people how to you know, survive. There's tv shows where, you know, naked and alive. What is it? Naked and I love.
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Christopher Blythe
01:07:45
Yeah.
V
Vanessa Rogers
01:07:46
Where they're just dropped off without clothes and they have to figure out how to survive. And this idea that we've moved so far away from our roots and that we wouldn't know how to survive if were. If were left without technology. And so anyways, the whole idea to me, if. So, are you saying that if a zombie apocalypse happens, we need to all go to Utah because y'all are prepared?
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Christopher Blythe
01:08:16
March. You know, we do have something called welfare square, which has stockpiled a lot of grain and a lot of food. And at some point we, you know, we, now that food is sent all over the world and stuff, there's definitely a sense of being prepared. Both in the church, we often talk about how all of our buildings are stake buildings, which means, you know, like five congregations, we, part of the state building, have showers and have emergency, you know, spots there for people to stay in and so. Which have been used in emergencies.
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Vanessa Rogers
01:08:58
Right.
C
Christopher Blythe
01:08:59
So kind of cool.
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Vanessa Rogers
01:09:00
Yeah, well, we're just about to be hit by, you know, a bunch of hurricanes. I'm in Texas, so it's not hitting us, but it's, you know, it's about to make landfall in Florida. And those types of buildings would be very useful for all of the people who are evacuating. So that seems like a very smart plan to me.
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Christopher Blythe
01:09:21
Yeah, I like it. I think it's. It's neat. Preppers can be. I've been on, you know, I've done some interviews on mormon preppers. I think they can, you know, it can be a really extremist idea, but it's kind of cool. If somebody gifted me, you know, a huge supply of food and resources, I definitely wouldn't throw them away. I mean, I would become a prepper. Not that passionate about it. Right?
V
Vanessa Rogers
01:09:50
Yeah. Well, so we're coming to the end of our interview. Is there anything that you feel like we've left out or we should touch on before we.
C
Christopher Blythe
01:10:00
This was so fun. I can't wait to listen to more of your episodes. This one on grief sounds really interesting. I just appreciate you having me on.
V
Vanessa Rogers
01:10:10
Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. And you teaching us about, you know, all elements of your faith that a lot of us aren't familiar with. So that's. I appreciate it.
C
Christopher Blythe
01:10:22
Oh, thank you. This is wonderful.
V
Vanessa Rogers
01:10:24
And thank you, folksy folks, for joining us. And on this funeral. Lds deep dive into different legends and supernatural and different narratives in their community. Like I said before, all of our links will be in the show notes, which you can also find on our website, which is www.fabricoffolklore.com and so we'll list a link to his book and his podcast and the episodes that we mentioned as well the Halloween episode and Sabrina's episode, which was number 39 as well. So you can find all those links there. And I encourage you to subscribe to review to share. It's so helpful for any podcasts like ourselves when the audience members are helping to promote it and sharing it with other individuals. Until next time, keep the folk alive. Little.
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