Joined by guest Brandon Crockett, we quickly go off the rails from our narrative episodes and take time to discuss everything Mormon and occult.

Joined by guest co-host Obi (definitely no relation to space wizards), we explore the crescendo of Joe's career as entheomagus. During the Temple dedication in Kirtland Ohio, Joseph delivers a truly psychedelic experience to his congregation of some 500 people.

Today, we explore some righteous good parties and more of Joe's Christian fan-fiction...this time regarding supposed Lamanite giants.

Today, we explore some of the more frat boy-like behavior that occurred in Kirtland during these years, and perhaps touch on why it sadly had to come to an end…

Joe has successfully flipped from Occultist to Prophet and relocated his fledgling church to the visionary and religiously eccentric town of Kirtland Ohio. Within approximately a year of the religions birth, reports of psychedelic sacraments and hallucinogenic conferences begin to surface.

After fifteen episodes, we have finally reached the birth of the Mormon religion. After getting trolled pretty hard by some local New York activists, Joe the Prophet leads his congregation in their first psychedelic sacrament ceremonies. Rival prophets, devil stones, group hallucinations, and exorcisms immediately ensue.

Now that the Book of Mormon is about to be printed in our narrative, we finally delve into the exact contents of Joe’s Gold Bible. Things immediately get weird. Wooden submarines filled with bees, Native American race wars, alien gods, and more.

For this week, Cody covers the printing process of the Book of Mormon and takes a closer look at some of the alleged ‘witness’ testimonies used to legitimize Joe’s new religion. Acting as a divinely ordained meat telephone, Joe delivers a number of revelations from god with his head in a hat in order to berate his financial backer Harris for complaining about the expensive costs of printing a new Gold Bible.

In this episode of the historical narrative, Jo the occultist now prophet secures a copyright for the book of Mormon, as well as three men to testify as witnesses to Jo’s divine abilities, much in the same way one collects testimonies for a court case. Afterwards, Jo directed a group hallucination or vision of the Plates, which as we discussed looks a lot like Jo’s first successfully orchestrated multiple participant entheogenic session.

In another, perhaps unnecessary tangential rant, Cody talks about the Ephrata Cloister of Pennsylvania and how their drug fueled cult of Christian esotericism likely influenced the birth of Mormonism.

Within just days of retrieving the Gold Bible from treasure guardian turned angel, Jo orchestrates a meeting with local businessman Martin Harris. Equal parts wealthy with credulity, Harris proves to be outsmarted by just about everyone, possibly even himself.

For this week, Cody takes a moment to tangentially rant about the history of white supremacist doctrine and philosophy that make up the backbone of Mormonism. The LDS church is currently attempting to capitalize on the murder of George Floyd at the hand of Minneapolis police by spinning some good PR out of the current protests, which is just gross. Warning: this is an uncomfortable episode. Not many jokes. No drugs or magic. Just a lot of really sad racism and white supremacist theology.

Going back into the historical narrative, having just recently escaped a serious prison sentence for swindling neighbors out of time and resources, Jo sets his ambitions towards taking Emma Hale as a wife and finally obtaining his plates of gold. Jo then engages in a series of small wizard skirmishes with his former money digging associates in order to keep his Gold Bible out of their hands.

Finishing off his tangential rant from last week, Cody discusses the Harvard Psilocybin Project, the Good Friday Experiment, and why responsible psychedelic advocacy is so important. Additionally, he gives a detailed breakdown of the variables used to assure a psychedelic administration is used entheogenically, or in other words for religious purposes.

Finally taking a moment to seriously examine drugs on a podcast named Mormons and Drugs, Cody covers the vast pool of research regarding psychedelic substances and their beneficial uses. Of particular note, Cody rants at some length about Fred M. Smith who, as a sitting Prophet or leader of the RLDS church, was also a passionate and avid user of peyote.

Jo is finally brought on trial for his occult conman ship. Cody exhaustively covers the trial in detail, and so provides the catalyst for Joseph’s pivot from teenage witch to young Prophet.

Joseph Smith Junior is met mysteriously in the night by a treasure guardian (soon to be angel), and first learns about a set of gold plates which allegedly held the history and wisdom of a lost tribe of white Native Americans. Cody also continues ranting about Jo’s career at the time as a teenage witch.

Finally getting to focus in on Joseph Smith Junior, Cody rants about the Smith family’s reputation as occultists, scryers, and money diggers around their Vermont/New York neighborhoods.

Continuing the discussion of the Smith family from last week, Cody delves into the occult worldview of the 19th century Burned Over District and how that social climate provided the perfect environment for young Joseph Smith to grow up in.

For our very first episode of Mormons and Drugs, Cody kicks things off by highlighting the Smith family, whose middle son Joseph Junior, eventually founded the Mormon religion.