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Light Languages: New Age Glossolalia
While I was scrolling through TikTok the other day, perusing the ASMR hashtag for fun, I came across a video of a woman speaking in what she dubbed “Light Language” in the caption. When I heard it initially, I was genuinely confused. It sounded like a language, sure. The phonics and tones seemed to go…
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Can a Person be scriptualized?
The historian Richard Bushman opens his biography of Joseph Smith by recounting a scene in his mother, Lucy Mack Smith’s life – as she reacts to the death of her sons, Joseph and Hyrum, in 1844. Lucy Mack Smith writes, “I had for a long time braced every nerve, roused every energy of my soul,…
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What’s In A Name?
One of the critiques I have struggled to confront within my work is why I utilize the term “Mormon” or “Mormonism”. Most often, this critique is posited to me with reference to the 2018 commandment from Russel M. Nelson – the leading prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He gave…
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“The Desires of My Heart” – From Vision to Scripture
The earliest version of Joseph Smith, Jr.’s First Vision is dated the summer of 1832.[1] It begins, “A history in the life of Joseph Smith Jr. an account of his marvelous experience…”[2] Two words stick out to me, nearly instantly. History. Experience. This opening sentence evokes the First Vision conceptually as both a history that…
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Introduction!
Hello readers! My name is Casey A’Hearn and I am a Masters student at the University of Alabama in Religion in Culture. Within the academy, I dedicate myself to understanding how people use scripture in conjunction with how religion functions in society (or doesn’t). My research concentration is in Mormonism and American Religion. I am…
