The Legend of the Three Nephites among the Mormons

Fife, Austin E.

doi:10.2307/535372

The Journal of American Folklore

1940

DOI: 10.2307/535372

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The Legend of the Three Nephites among the Mormons

Austin E. Fife¹

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1995

2023

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“…Today, the largest town in the valley is Logan, and the numerous small farming towns surrounding it bring the valley population to just over 100,000; the vast majority are Latter‐day Saints 4. Mormon folklore is rich with tales of uncanny encounters (Fife 1940; Reeve & Van Wagenen 2011), and didactic tales about spirits make up much of the ‘cultural kindling’ of the region, to use Julia Cassaniti and Tanya Marie Luhrmann's term (2014; see also Stiles & Davis 2018). Spirit visits are common, and they can happen to anyone, women and men, young and old.…”

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‘They have shown me what I need to know’: spirits, the eternal family, and collective ethical responsibility in Utah Mormonism

Stiles

2023

Royal Anthropological Inst

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ResumenVisits from spirits are common among Latter‐day Saints (Mormons) in northern Utah, and most involve positive interactions with the spirits of helpful kin: the spirits of the deceased and of children not yet born. The spirit visits show that the Mormon cosmological notion of the eternal family is not simply abstract or something to imagine and long for in the afterlife. Rather, spirit members of the family are active in the world of the living, and both spirit and living members of the family are involved in the mutual project of salvation. The living and the spirits coexist in a relationship of mutual ethical responsibility centred on assisting one another with spiritual progress. Mormon notions of the eternal family are manifest in the mutual responsibility between the spirit world and the mortal world. An exploration of Mormon spirit interactions contributes to recent work in the anthropology of Christianity that emphasizes relationalism as a value by extending an understanding of this concept to include active ethical obligations between living and spirit kin.

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‘They have shown me what I need to know’: spirits, the eternal family, and collective ethical responsibility in Utah Mormonism

Stiles

2023

Royal Anthropological Inst

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“The Evil Spirits Are Always Trying to Bring You Down”: Righteousness and Spirit Harassment Among Latter-day Saints in Northern Utah

Stiles

2022

Journal of the American Academy of Religion

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This article explores contemporary Latter-day Saint conceptions of evil in northern Utah through considering both the lived experiences of spirits and the didactic tales of spirits that are a rich part of local folklore. Latter-day Saints are visited by both benevolent and malevolent spirits. These encounters with spirits are connected with local conceptions of “righteousness,” a moral framework that is centered on positive action. Malevolent spirit visits are typically understood as the consequence of “unrighteous” actions or as impediments to exceptionally righteous activity; indeed, the most righteous actions are perhaps the most spiritually dangerous. Negative visitations reflect a cultural framework of evil as a human phenomenon that results from the temptations and distractions of an aggressive, external cosmological force—Satan. Righteous and unrighteous actions both attract the interest of Satan, and therefore invite the possibility of evil to disrupt the moral order.

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Mormon Narratives: The Lore of Faith

Wilson¹

1995

Western Folklore

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The Legend of the Three Nephites among the Mormons

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

‘They have shown me what I need to know’: spirits, the eternal family, and collective ethical responsibility in Utah Mormonism

‘They have shown me what I need to know’: spirits, the eternal family, and collective ethical responsibility in Utah Mormonism

“The Evil Spirits Are Always Trying to Bring You Down”: Righteousness and Spirit Harassment Among Latter-day Saints in Northern Utah

Mormon Narratives: The Lore of Faith

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