Cody Noconi | The Psychedelic History of Mormonism, Magic, & Drugs

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01:37 In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the Fireside Chats. His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times. From 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration we offer a fresh conversation. These are the higher side chats. Another day, another deep dive into this weird world from sunny San Diego I'm Greg Carlwood and as we close the door on another holiday season let's take a look at an area of overlap between two topics i consider pretty much holiday themes drugs in religion

02:19 Some would say they seem like two of man's most eternal pastimes, and by every indication outside of the shallow sober watered-down surfaces of the modern day usually they've been very much intertwined. And rightfully so because if your goal is communion with the divine, the invocation of angels or a glimpse into the higher realms Entheogens sit high on a long list of practices man has developed and refined for centuries to alter consciousness enough to do just that Chanting, fasting, drumming, ecstatic dance, exhaustion, extreme heat or cold, sustained pain or pleasure, sleep deprivation and pretty much any practice that shakes you from baseline reality will take you towards a breakthrough enlightenment experience as if reality was designed to open doors for those bold enough to knock on them.

03:06 It seems the yearning for mystical spiritual experience in the pursuit of beating back the boundaries, The Material Matrix know no limits in much of the human story. And I salute that pursuit! But Entheogens also provide a means for false prophets and charlatans to prey on the ignorant And today we'd be wise to keep these things in mind as we wade into the microcosm of Mormonism and its quite possibly entheogenically inspired origins with today's guest Cody Nacone. Cody is an ex-Mormon writer, podcaster who breaks it all down in his book The Psychedelic History Of Mormonism Magic & Drugs and his show The Mormons and Drugs Podcast

03:44 He's also a certified permaculture designer specializing in micro-remediation and plant medicines, and this is certainly going to be fun. An entheogen expert false idol exterminator an ex-Mormon master of his domain Cody my man welcome to the higher side. Thank you wow that's uh I've listened your podcast for awhile and i've always wondered what it would be like if you did an intro A lot of fun. Thank you! I appreciate that, man. All in a day's work for me really but thank you for doing this. I really enjoyed your book You know a lot about this niche microcosm that overlaps a lot with our interests around here

04:25 You make a pretty ironclad case, and it's very academic in how you approach the crossroads of entheogens and Mormonism. And this question of if Joseph Smith used plant medicines to incite visions and revelations for himself and his followers... But it also covers Joseph Smith's family and their strange occult history that I knew nothing about, treasure spirits and all sorts of good stuff that fits right in around here. But to get the ball rolling let's get into the personal stuff and your background and your own breakthrough experience and how you put these pieces together when it comes to the faith you were raised in what should people know? What's the story there? That's a very long story but

05:11 I struggled with a lot of it because it can be pretty toxic at times and the rest of my family seems to have a pretty easy time with it. So, as a bit of a black sheep when I got out of high school and moved out on my own I had a breakthrough experience with LSD not so much for spiritual reasons so much is recreational ones and I'd been a long-time migraine sufferer I heard that LSD had connections between migraines and so I'd taken it as kind of like a, well let's see what happens. And not only did i go I think four or five months without a migraine but I also had my very first religious experience which was pretty shocking having grown up in a religion that tries to foster those things so that was my kind of wake-up call and I started researching psychedelics and plant medicines

06:10 I stumbled across another Mormon researcher's paper, Robert Beckstead. He wrote The Restoration and the Sacred Mushroom which kind of got me diving down the rabbit hole so to speak and then 10 years later that's...I have a book! Short and sweet hey? I like it but that really is something else to struggle with migraines hear about this relief that supposedly comes from LSD You give it a try, suddenly the whole context of religious experience that's been drilled into your head from an early age actually makes sense for the first time. Exactly And you go through one of the longest windows of time you'd had without a migraine Obviously that's going to have a huge impact on a person and fuel them to go further I think that's great

06:57 and as you know we were originally planning to do this a bit closer to christmas and i was gonna bring up all the stuff with john michael allegro's book the sacred mushroom in across these connections people have made between. The aminata muscaria mushroom and christmas traditions red white theme since the mushroom itself is red and white kinda like the classic mario mushroom for people who need the visual, We have this tradition of hanging stockings over a fireplace, which might have once been there to dry the mushrooms. We have this mystical man who brings gifts dressed in red and white Of course the use of Christmas lights to stimulate the dazzling display of a mushroom trip Which we also see with Christmas trees because we decorate them with reflective balls and tinsel these very kind of psychedelic things

07:44 And we have the quote-unquote flying reindeer, you know and reindeer are interesting because they apparently eat the mushroom in the wild And some of these are a little iffy, but I think when you stack them all together it makes a pretty interesting case. And i've heard some people try to debunk some of the correlations... But it really blew my mind when that list was first presented to me because when you think about our Christmas traditions they are pretty weird and without explanation! So it kind of makes sense to me that they could have got started from trying to recapture some of those earlier not-so sober traditions?

08:20 But that holiday stuff is really just one fun little layer to a robust amount of information that shows there's a real overlap between Entheogens and religion. But what are your thoughts on the sacred mushroom in the cross, this explanation for Christmas traditions? And really just that idea that Entheogen use is probably at the heart of older Christian traditions as well as Mormonism. Oh for sure! I have a whole chapter where i just kind of highlight the different religions throughout history that have used psychedelics. The correlations between Christmas and amanitas or mushroom trips can be a bit strained at times but, I do understand the appeal That's one of the things that kinda got me into this as well is John Allegro's work and Jerry Brown A lot of the psychedelic Christianity stuff

09:14 And some of the evidence is again pretty strained, but a lot of it is also very unambiguous. An india jim fueled spiritual group who then removes the end of the agenda and has this like i don't know cultural memory. Are there echo of what it used to be like like sure let's decorate the trees that kind of stuff is like christmas is tied a t-shirt yeah but,

09:50 You write that one of your goals with the book is that you seek to better contextualize the occult background which gave Joseph Smith the necessary skill set to utilize mind-altering substances with entheogenic intentions, as well as the revelatory doctrine that resulted. So let's get into that occult background long before Mormonism came to be what should people know about The Man and his family in that regard? The first documented connections between the Smith family and the occult actually comes from the Salem witch trials. I believe it was Joseph's paternal grandfather who was one of the men accusing a teenage girl of witchcraft, and i believe she was subsequently hung for being a witch. And the interesting part of this is that the Smith family themselves even at the time had a connection to the occult

10:47 What I find a fascinating line between malevolent and benevolent magic, and how one tiptoed that line was how one navigated through society because pretty much everybody had some occult practice at that time. That kind of falls into Joseph Sr., who is Joseph Smith's father, and his mother Lucy Mack both of whom again, had ties to the occult. His mother apparently read cards and told fortunes and probably read palms a bit. His father was very very interested in divining and treasure digging which we can talk about it's its own beast And they were connected with some radical apocalyptic Christian groups who were using their divining mud-and-digging practices to supplement their Christianity

11:45 And after a financial devastation when the family was pretty young and they had some young children to take care of, they turned to the occult to rely on more monetarily. They continued those practices up until Joseph was well into his teens and beyond well into the early Mormon church Mm-hmm. I had this quote written down that, beginning approximately as early as 1820 Joseph Sr and his sons Alvin Hiram and Joseph Jr began working as scryers diviners and money diggers for hire As young Joe was unable to physically participate in the prolonged hard labor of digging massive holes in attempt to procure magically concealed treasure

12:33 he found himself delegated to the imperative role of virgin scryer within these operations so really from just the youngest of ages you was born right into it seems yeah. So when he was a child, he caught an illness where he developed an abscess or some type of gangrenous something on his leg which required some radical surgery. I believe from age around 8 to 14-15ish, he needed an assistant to help him walk and then for the rest of his life had a very pronounced limp

13:11 So, like when he was a young kid you were expected to help put food on the table and he couldn't participate in the actual treasure digging or manual farm labor at that time. The best way he could help the family make money was to be the virgin scryer who divined the location of the treasure and how and where and kind of gave everybody instructions on how to find said treasure room Right on. You also write about Luman Walters, who would have been an early occult mentor to Mighty Joe Young? You write not only could Walters have aided in furnishing the Smiths with their occult toolkit but he was noted by many of the Smith's neighbors as having a notable influence on the family's future religious endeavors Well that's interesting too Where do you think I mean if we're going back to The Witch Trials and

14:05 and Joseph Sr.'s father, it seems like he might have been born into it too. But what are some of the occult influences that this family was soaking up? Michael Quinn another Mormon historian wrote a book about the magical worldview in which Mormonism was birthed and he highlights a occult toolkit that belonged to the family and does a really good job of tying it to Joe Jr. himself, and breaks down... It's a pretty complicated set of... it's a ceremonial knife, a bag for herbs or the rest of your toolkit, and then a series of magical lumen or parchments that are used as like an instruction manual for summoning angels or visions And then a few of them are used as protection amulets

14:58 And lumen walters probably helped furnish the Smith family with these lumen which were used for communicating with spirits that could get you in contact with gold. And the particular symbolism and the sigils used in these lumen have been connected to a few grimoires that this Smith family definitely had access to, likely lumen walters had access to them as well and could've given At the time books were very rare so when you had a treasure digging group it was kind of like a book co-op where everybody exchanged magical information. And these particular books used to create the lumen that they had also contain pretty explicit mentions of entheogenic materials and plants that can induce visions

15:53 Right, plants that can induce visions! Ding ding ding. That's gonna come up again. Mm-hmm and interestingly Lumen Walters himself after his involvement with the Smith family retired in Gorham New York where he ran a kind of tincture emporium and was a kind of country doctor and clairvoyant which I think says a lot yes On top of the esoteric toolkit of parchments and the ceremonial knife, they also used seer stones as a major tool. Right? Correct actually um A lot of Mormons grow up seeing artwork of Joseph using these religious relics to translate The Book Of Mormon from gold plates where he was physically looking at plates and translating Where in reality He was using his old teenage occult practice

16:46 placing a seer stone in the dark hat and then putting the hat to his face, and using that as a means of scrying or divining treasure locations. And he used that same method to translate conceivably the entirety of The Book of Mormon Yeah, I think that's a part of the story that is confusing for some people is some of the foundational items of Mormonism. The gold plates, the spectacles... It's like the gold plates never really were seen from anyone else but Joseph Smith. Is that right? Correct and there's a tie-in to his

17:28 early teenage years. So for several years before the Book of Mormon was considered a religious relic or even talked about as such It was spoken of in terms of the family's money digging activities. It was just supposed to be a golden book of lost history of the Americas, and they'd been talking about it for some years to their neighbors and their friends involved in their treasure-digging activities. And so everybody was kind of waiting for this to happen. In 1826 Joseph was arrested for conning some of his other neighbors using magic And it wasn't so much that he was using magic that was the problem, it was that he was conning his neighbors out of money and not giving them the stuff he was promising with the magic. It was at this point they made a pivot from pure occultism to religious activity because

18:19 You're more or less immune from the law if you're claiming to be a religious person instead of an occultist. So they, I think saw safe pocket and made a pivot to that. And that's where the gold book of The Lost History Of The Americas suddenly became a second Bible or a lost testament of Jesus Christ Right. And so people who are in the Mormon religion today, I believe I hear them talk about there being translations of these tablets. How do we get from – obviously we're jumping down the road here to the foundation of Mormonism but how do we get from these gold plates that were just basically talked about to their being something in the faith today that people do read and consider to be valuable? That's a long conversation.

19:10 There's a few things Mormons use to point to the validity of the Book of Mormon, even though there is no archaeology. There's nothing in the Book of Mormon itself that would give evidence that it is a true document other than just like a received magical book in the same vein as Alistair Crowley's The Book Of The Law. They point to... In most Book of Mormons today at the back section there's an attached section called The Pearl Of Great Price where there are a few facsimiles of what appear to be Egyptian documents that are supposed to come from the Book of Abraham. And there's a few things like this that they point too, but if you do even just a small amount digging they're not really any kind evidence actually like the book of Abraham the facsimile I'm talking about are from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and pretty common

20:08 rights of breathing that are buried with any Egyptian mummy essentially at the time period. So in terms of their belief in this document, I think comes more or less from the miraculous story Joseph kind of spun for a good 10 years and it evolved over time, but eventually from 1840 to today there's been a slow propagandized version of the official events where Joseph saw God in the Father and all these things that are supposed to validify their belief in the Book of Mormon which

20:45 It's all a bunch of, I'm sorry. There is a bunch of tangential tirades on each of these subjects that i am trying to figure out what to talk about Yeah, it's all good. We had plenty of time but it does seem like when people get vested in a subculture they will bend over backwards to make it seem...to basically fill in the gaps that don't make sense obviously in the last two years I think we've seen a lot of people who were vested in a worldview really want to just do whatever it takes to preserve that worldview and people don't like to admit they were lied to is

21:21 another major factor that they wasted years of their life on something. I was going to ask you, how different is the official biography or the official history of Mormonism to the things we're talking about? Do they try to conceal some of this in the Mormon academia realm? It seems like they probably do right? Yeah actually there's two official church organizations that that's their entire job so the Mormons have their college BYU and Brigham Young University And there's essentially a branch of the history department that is devoted to apologetics and just like tearing down work like mine, and coming up with reasons why it's not.

22:05 factual. Actually, just this morning I read a paper – so I have a quote from Lucy Mack Smith Joseph's mother where she is talking about her use of occultism and how it didn't interfere with their Christianity or their ability to be productive good members of society so it wasn't a big deal And somebody wrote a 23-page paper trying to basically say why that was just tongue in cheek, and she didn't really mean exactly what she said. But very much will go out of their way to try and account for the things that are uncomfortable for them to deal with – much like Joseph's polygamy has taken 100 years for anyone to come to terms with on the Mormon side

22:49 So too, I think it will take a while for people to realize that the drug use was just another part of it. Right on. And so probably my favorite section of the book is conjuring treasure guardians and accusations of necromancy, this whole treasure guardian saga is really interesting talk to us about these encounters with the Treasure Spirit and what you get into with this section because there are some really intriguing details to all this Yeah, yeah, this kind of ties into the evolution of Joseph's story

23:26 I believe it was 1823. I don't have my notes in front of me, so excuse me. Joseph essentially summons a treasure guardian who he later referred to as either Nephi or Moroni for treasure digging purposes and after summoning said spirit the spirit told him about the location of this treasure which he used his seer stone to locate at the Hill Cumorah. Apparently when he went to the Hill Cumorah, the Treasure Guardian arrived again and told him that he couldn't... He did not follow the Treasure Guardian's instructions explicitly which falls in line with traditional treasure digging practices and because he didn't follow them to the letter, he was denied access to the treasure. The Treasure Guardian told him to come back at the same time in one year which happened to be the fall equinox

24:21 And at that time he would have to bring his brother Alvin, who was his older brother. Another member of the treasure diggers who sometimes himself acted as a scryer as well He came home told his whole family the story and through weird circumstance A month later His brother Alvin died probably from a bowel obstruction and his brothers last words were obeyed the dictates of the Treasure Guardian and find the treasure The next year he goes to the treasure guardian with another person who scryes the magic spectacles and is like, hey there's these magic spectacles with the treasure and this story evolves a little bit more. Joseph decides this guy is not the right person. The very next year he supposed to come back to the treasure again This time he's married man which is a whole separate treasure digging story And he...this time gains access

25:19 so-called gold plates, makes a flight through the woods being pursued by his former treasure diggers who think they have a right to this gold book. He is injured in the process they move locations several times he starts translating The Book of Mormon and that's how that kind of evolves out of his occult practices I'm sorry, i go on rants. It's all good! I may have lost the thread no that's good that's the joy of having a lot of time is to be able to go on rants and tangents but you mentioned that he didn't follow the instructions perfectly and i did copy this part down He was supposed to go to this place where the manuscript was dressed in black clothes riding a black horse

26:04 horse with a switchtail and demand the book in a certain name, and after obtaining it he must go directly away and neither lay it down nor look behind him. Well, he did everything he could. When he got there, he apparently picked up the manuscript and then tried to put back the lid of the box where it was so that we set it down and thats when the guardian spirit was like damnit I said don't se this thing down! i just thought that was so interesting because it does jive with what i read in grimoires and what i've heard and other magical war tales. And i never really know how much to believe in the stuff i do think people communicate with spirits i do think they have a weird strange logic too,

26:55 things that they say or the instructions that they give so this has a lot of the pieces. That would give it some legitimacy in my eyes and is just hard to know where to draw the line cuz it seems like the smith family, They're kind of charlatans but they also maybe have a genuine occult interest and those two things aren't mutually exclusive. How much stock do you put in the treasure guardian story? Do you think there ever was contact with anything, Of this nature or was it completely made up in your opinion? Oh I definitely believe that the family... There's a term coined in the 17th century called pious fraud

27:38 for people like this who today we call them like televangelists. Somebody who genuinely believes in the thing that they're touting but maybe doesn't follow the rules their espousing and has no problem taking advantage of or like building an empire off the backs of their followers, And I think that The Smith Family is an example of this They genuinely believed what they were doing given their own testimonies. I tend to take their accounts at face value I think they did believe these things. I don't think that means that they saw any problem with gaining financially off of those beliefs or the beliefs of others in their experiences. Fair, yeah, that makes sense to me and so The Spirit Guardian says

28:26 Young joe you screwed up will try again in a year come back with your older brother and the older brother of course dies well this was interesting so joseph smith senior ran a notice in the newspaper and it read that reports have been industriously put in circulation at my son alvin has been removed from the place of his inner men rest move for is resting place basically and. It almost seems like they were going to do that themselves and so he was getting out in front of it being like someone else did this but you kind of say that when you say, This was likely due to the fact that despite being sworn to secrecy about the treasure most of The Smith family went around telling their friends and occult confidants about the new treasure Joe Jr. had discovered by the time Alvin died many of the locals knew of The Treasure Guardian's instructions And the necessity of Alvin's presence if The Smiths were to obtain the Golden Book

29:21 The question that remained was how far would they go to get it? Well, how far do you think they went? This is where I lost the thread. Yeah! I think one of two things happened given this neighborhood notice that was issued by Smith Sr.. Either they were trying to dispel rumors that they were willing to exhume their eldest son and through necromantic rights They wouldn't necessarily need to bring his corpse to the site through sympathetic magics. They could maybe even remove like a finger or something So the purpose of exhuming the grave would be to remove a piece of Alvin to take to The treasure site, to satisfy the Treasure Guardian's instructions. The other purpose would be to do just that either they're trying to dispel these rumors Or that's what they were doing and they needed a reason why Alvin's grave had been recently exhumed

30:17 I tend to think, given Joseph Smith Sr.'s devotion to treasure digging that him and a couple of his buddies may have exhumed Alvin's grave and taken a piece of Alvin to try and satisfy the Treasure Guardian. worldview or even that they would have thought of that as like a bad thing. They just didn't want their neighbors asking too many questions because that is very malfeasant adjacent magic, shall we say? Yeah it's frowned upon yeah I tend to lean that way but you know at this point i wouldn't be surprised by anything if anything came out that leaned one way or the other right on so whether or not they utilize necromancy

31:07 took a piece of Alvin's corpse. It seems like the visit, a year later was also a failure right? Yeah this was likely with another treasure seeker, uh scryer friend of Joe's and I think given the accounts about how he handled the scrying operation and what he was suggesting to Joe and like telling him how to deal with the treasure Joe didn't really like to take commands from people, especially about his own ideas. So I think this is one of the early cases of him bringing somebody out trying to feel out how devoted they were or like how they could help the operation and then was like you're a little...I don't want a rival and was willing to wait another year. You know what i mean? Yeah yeah so bring us up to speed on when he actually does have a successful visit

32:05 So the successful visit happens after his 1826 trial. His trial where he pivots from occultism to religion is kind of smack dab in the middle of this three year period where he's trying to get the book, so it's like 1824-25, 1826 is his trial and I believe 1827 when he gains access to the book finally And it's because he marries the daughter of one of the men he dug treasure for, this woman who had his eye on for a while Emma Hale. He is I think 19 at this point and to retain his powers as a virgin or untainted scryer he would need to become married if he wants to be like young man and have marital relations and still retain his occult powers

33:02 Which is, I personally think is what happened. Anyway he takes his wife Emma in the dead of night after stealing one of his friend's horses and apparently gains access to a set of plates which he keeps covered in heavy canvas cloth. I think they were a set of prop plates which I go into at some length And he also has a pair of what he calls magic spectacles also wrapped in canvas cloth which I also think were another set of props. But he allows people to kind of handle them while covered in the canvas cloth and you get a couple of the first accounts that people talking about these pages with like hieroglyphs on them or like, the magic spectacles what they looked like but it wouldn't let anyone see them because The Treasure Guardian said under pain of death no one can see this but you. Convenient? Quite convenient and over the next few years

34:01 He has a few run-ins with his old treasure digging buddies who again ran around with this guy for 10 years and they never found anything. They never found any treasures, so he's all of the sudden running around with the gold Bible and all of them signed contracts with each other that said they had equal shares in this. Many of them very rightfully felt that they had a share of this gold Bible and a very fun wizarding battle ensues where they try and gain access to the plates, and Joseph has to run around keep them out of the hands at these rival scryers. Actually one of whom was Lumen Walters And then he kind of spirits away to his father-in-law's property and starts translation of The Book of Mormon which was not called The Book of Mormon at that time it still kinda referred to as a gold Bible using his scrying method like I said the stone in the hat

34:55 And, oftentimes with the plates in a separate location entirely he would dictate what they said to his wife at the time who was working as his scribe. He would kind of with his head in hat tell her what the Book of Mormon said and she would transcribe it into English – not modern English for that time actually they were using a vernacular used in the King James Bible which is probably one of the reasons why it's not a totally legitimate document. Yeah, I think it's really interesting...I guess I never thought too much about it in terms of there being something fake you know when I just hear the cliff notes I definitely heard about some kind of tablets with hieroglyphs on them and

35:42 and i thought well that's interesting because people say that there is hieroglyphs and weird relics in the grand canyon area that shouldn't be there maybe did actually find something and i just kinda wrote it off similar to a ufo call you know, people will see something in the night sky or maybe they'll have a direct download from. visitation or an abduction experience and the right person having the right experience can inspire many, many followers. And an entire cult or religion can spawn up around it so I always thought maybe he did find something genuine and it just went off the rails or he just used it as a means of gaining a following when people talk about some kind

36:30 Relic with hieroglyphs on it do you think that was completely made up was he just kinda making something that looked like hieroglyphs to ignorant people or is there any. Party your mind the things maybe did find something that's not all that mystical but didn't maybe did find something from a previous age that shouldn't have been there like these other relics were told about are found and then covered up, In short, no. There's several eyewitness testimonies of people who were allowed to handle the plates or be near them and were told under pain of death you cannot view these things and they're like yeah whatever and they ripped a canvas off and got it quick glimpse at the so-called plates and consistently they describe it in the same way that was some type of masonry brick or tile that had holes drilled through it and three metal rings that had connecting

37:24 Sheets of tin or some type of like loose metal that had hieroglyphs on it for people to feel but they were made up by Smith this was kind of a motif in the zeitgeist at the time. A lot of the Mayan and Aztec redelics had recently been found and Americans who didn't know much about this all they saw was Hieroglyphs, and pyramids which they tied directly to Egypt Joseph Smith, by creating this document was providing a sort of Christian fan fiction for how to explain the mysticism of Egypt and the original tribes of Israel being transferred to the Americas which a lot of people believed there was evidence for they just didn't have a connecting thread to make that make sense. And Joseph's

38:15 Book of Mormon was supposed to be, like I said that Christian fan fiction that was going to tie those things together. So no i don't think it was a legitimate document. I think a lot of the discoveries of hieroglyphics in the Americas is worth talking about but in this case I don't think it was real. I think he was kind of piggybacking off of a thing that was popular in the zeitgeist at the time. Fair enough fair enough Would you highlight any other stories from the family or Joseph Smith Jr. himself that speak to fraud and charlatanism and maybe flexible morality, pre-Mormon religion? That would just speak to like if someone was trying to determine the legitimacy of any of this are there other stories from the family where

39:05 They're clearly frauds that you would look at as a exhibit A, that maybe they shouldn't be trusted later down the road either. Yeah, so Joseph created this religion after being the kind of neighborhood pariah after his trial for fraudulent occultism. And a lot of his neighbors were willing to give firsthand accounts like hey this is how they talked about this like 10 years ago and it's not anything like what they say about it now and he's clearly making a cult in making money off of it maybe you guys should watch out So, from the very get-go what was termed as anti Mormon was really just Joe's neighbors trying to let the other people who didn't know his reputation know what this kid was about. And a lot of these accounts from their neighbors like Joseph Smith Sr walked around talking about how they were going to make – this is going to be the most famous book next to the Bible and they were going to make oodles of money off it and one of the witnesses to so called miraculous events, a man named Martin Harris

40:08 supposedly told his wife and his sister-in-law that if you guys would just leave me alone, we'll make money off of this. Because they were like, kind of getting into a cult and this dude's clearly a fraud." And he was like I don't care if he's a fraud! We can make money off of this. A lot of the early Mormons were quoted as saying things like that by credible neighbors who knew these people for a long time. It's kinda twisted today is anti Mormon propaganda but in a lotta cases People will be involved with the early Mormon Church and then get disenchanted, and then we'll give first-hand accounts of like Joseph was saying this in a church meeting about making money and all this stuff. And then all of a sudden that person's labeled as an anti-Mormon even though they are still Mormon. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of a way of just spinning that but there's oodles of first hand accounts of people throughout Joseph's entire life being like, This guy is a fraud! He's out to make a profit

41:06 I don't know if he really believes this or not, but he clearly has no problem stepping on the backs of others to get what he wants. And the same with most of the Smith family a lot of people refer to them as like a mafia family and it does kind of read that way if you're looking at it objectively. And I was also going to ask you how intertwined the family was or Joseph himself was with Freemasonry, because I understand that in one of the big Mormon museums on display is his Masonic apron. It seems like maybe he got some ideas from freemasonry? How intertwined are they?

41:46 So this is a good example of where the official narrative kind of differs from the facts. Officially, Mormons say that I think it was 1843 or 1844... It was just a few months before Joseph died he joined a local Masonic fraternity and in three days was raised to the rank of Master Mason which is pretty notable The Masons have their own history of entheogenic use in their initiation ceremonies, as highlighted by author P.D. Newman and others. Aside from that, the official narrative

42:22 It is worth noting that Joseph's younger brother Hiram was named after Hiram Abiff, the patriarch of Masonic lore and that Smith Sr. likely had connections with local Masonic fraternities as early as before Joseph was born it's very likely that unofficially His father, Joseph Sr., was probably a member of local New York branches and kind of disassociated when the church was formed. And then a lot of them knew the passwords and signs and stuff of Masonic initiation so they were raised very quickly in the organization when the church officially joined in 1840's. Nice!

43:04 just to bring a finer point to this transition from occultist to profit what do you think happened there you mention a local businessman martin harris and that when joseph met him which he considered a mark of sorts he had a plan that would take his pivot from occultist to prophet and it would be more complete. What is that chapter of his story where he does go from just an occultist, to actually forming this religion? And what was Martin Harris's involvement? So shortly after his 1826 trial, and after he had supposedly gained access to the gold plates, a lot of the neighborhood

43:50 heard about this obviously because the Smiths, like I said were not very quiet about obtaining these things. They talked about for years so a lot of the visitors that came to call on the Smith's shortly after were the locals that were interested in occultism like I mentioned a small scuffle with his former treasure digging buddies they wanted to see the plates and have access to them because they thought he had a right to them Aside from that, a local eccentric Martin Harris who was a very successful businessman but was kind of known as a gullible visionary. Was invited by Lucy Mack Smith this is again one of those points that seems like fraud to me because why would you go after the rich guy in town that everybody knows is gullible? But Lucy Mack goes to his house and says hey have you heard about these plates we have? You should come over and handle them and talk to Joseph a bit so

44:45 Martin Harris comes over, handles the plates very shortly thereafter is just enchanted by Joe and his story and offers all the money in the world to see it printed. And so Joseph has this very successful financial backer behind him suddenly. The very famous South Park episode is about this incident with Martin Harris, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum and his very smart wife asking for real hard evidence. And like hey this whole sideshow thing where you feel the plates through a cloth like can you give us some transcriptions of the plate so that we know this is real? They have some back and forth about this but essentially Martin Harris keeps asking for evidence that the plates are real and this is what the Mormons know as The Three Witnesses

45:36 which was a very common way of legitimizing books that talked about visions or religious experiences. You'd have like this legal document in the front of the book that said, hey these guys attest to what I'm saying is true and I'm not just writing all this for no reason and He gets a small group of men who are attached to the translation process of the Book of Mormon. One of them is Martin Harris, and in what I think is the first entheogenic administration by Joe gets Martin Harris to have a vision of the plates and an angel and a sword and all this stuff. And Harris keeps kind of asking for more and more evidence Joseph keeps giving it to him in very weird visionary ways

46:20 and that's kind of his involvement in the early church. Later he disavowed Joe, and went out of his way to let people know that when he saw those angels and the sword and everything it was in a state of enchantment or it was in a visionary state only—that he did not physically see these things And again, Mormons have artwork all over their churches and temples of like men physically examining plates. Like here's a painting of the three witnesses and they're being shown physical plates by angels and stuff. This is where things kind of differ again Yeah, so with Joseph Smith it seems like the charisma that he had naturally and of course the relics and the story of the gold plates. That's going to take you halfway to a new religion but it seems like the visions and the mystical experiences that people were having around him is what really kicked it up a degree, put it over the edge

47:19 it seems like basically we've established that he's got flexible morals i'll do anything for money and attention, were thinking that he might have drugged people who weren't aware that they were drugs and maybe through some kind of sacrament or ritual and they had visionary experiences that they thought were just from being in his presence is at the gist. Yeah, a common precursor to these early ceremonies with the Mormons involved what was called The Lord's Supper where somebody would drink up to a pint of wine and a loaf as big as your two fists on an empty stomach. Providing a great vehicle to administer psychedelics with throughout the early Mormon years with Joe

48:09 Just about after an hour, after they ate the Lord's Supper everybody started having visions that were directed by Joe. And he saw what they wanted and this is again what I think is the first example of that He started with a small group He repeated the experience with the eight witnesses in small groups and then got everybody to sign a document he had prepared that said like hey this is what we saw A lot of their signers were originally hesitant to sign the document because they're like hey you wrote this You kind of make it sound like it actually happened when we all saw that, like this was a vision clearly. But he got them to sign it and then for the rest of his career about an hour after either an anointing ceremony with psychotropic oils or probably laced sacrament ceremony with ceremonial wine

48:59 people started having visions. And this escalated up to the Kirtland Temple dedication, where some 500 people at one time were all having visions and puking in the pews and stuff. Later participants said that everybody was having a vision, it was a day of Pentecost but it was brought about by wine. It's pretty explicit at times when people who were Mormon are talking about the visionary experiences of their early church Yeah, it's interesting how a lot of that stuff can just be edited out when it needs to be. Exactly! And again like we talked about earlier people will go way out of their way to discredit... so like the Whitmer family who are involved in the three innate witnesses I was just talking about they later provided a lot of the witness testimonies for the Kirtland Temple dedication then were talking about being induced by wine

49:52 The same people who are used as a witness testimony to the validity of the Book of Mormon are later discredited by the same historians as anti-Mormon for providing contradictory testimonies. You know what I mean? So this is kind of a personal question, but how does your family react to your work? Because it is pretty ironclad. It's academic. It's clear that you aren't just making assumptions based on nothing. You aren't just throwing things out that you want to be true. You're looking at the actual history. You're looking at credible sources or getting quotes foundational quotes and recontextualizing them

50:34 I've always heard it's kind of hard to leave the church, to a degree. What's been your experience since putting out this book? It seems like it's a bold thing for someone in your position to do." Most of my family doesn't talk to me about any of this. I've politely let them know it exists and they've all politely ignored that it exists. I have some family who are interested in it few and far in between, and they've been kind of quietly supportive. But by and large it has not been received well. And in the larger community I've tried to push it on like social networks and stuff but very quickly like abandoned that idea because they very quickly start getting death threats and stuff so this is just not-not being received well by the believing Mormon community even my family

51:28 It's such a shame. I just sometimes wonder what it is that makes people so hesitant to examine things critically or really hold their own beliefs and practices under the microscope because for me, it just felt natural. It really wasn't anything difficult to do maybe it's baked into my personality maybe you feel the same way but why is it that some people they're just so vested in Something that maybe even subconsciously they might know that what you're saying is right, but they just don't want to look at it. Well try not to use the word cold but especially with mormonism there is a

52:13 top-to-bottom view that you have the perfect and undiluted truth, and that the rest of the world just doesn't know what they're talking about. And are actually trying to prove you wrong... ...ignorantly So there's this very knee jerk reaction I think that comes from either An unwillingness to address maybe your own ignorance or the fact that the thing you've invested so much time money and energy into is not real Coupled with all of the critiques I will have for the Mormon community itself and who they include and exclude, I will say that when you're involved in the Mormon community it is a very tight-knit group. And people will literally give you everything they have... Like, I've watched a lot of people get taken care of—and there's a light and dark side to that—by the community around them. And I think there is a hesitancy or fear —and I've seen this in my own family where people maybe

53:14 don't believe in Mormonism anymore, or don't maybe think that it is as true as they were led to believe but refuse to look at it critically because they can't leave a community that tight-knit. Again I won't use the word cult but it does bear some parallels to that kind of you can't leave the community because no one else will love you like these people You know what I mean? And when everyone in your life is Mormon, that means you have to completely restart your entire life. Yes! That's...I can understand how that's very scary for a lot of people Of course, of course network is so important It's part of the reason why don't leave California because if the shit really hit the fan and society descended into chaos

53:59 Why go to some area of the country that's maybe cheaper and more secluded when I don't know anybody? You know, I know a dozen people here that aren't gonna let me go without food and water. We're gonna pull together if things go really south." Exactly! And these people will literally pay your bills. Yeah exactly but you know because i host a show like this within the borders of California you know, they really get hung up on well California is one of the worst states. Well that's where I'm at so whatever but without having your network it'd be really difficult to get up on your own two feet like without my parents helping me financially economically through the 20s letting me fail a few times and restart

54:45 Going to college dropping out and coming back home without having that it would have been really really difficult to take any risks even just do anything and i can understand that if everyone in your family is of the mindset that you're either inner your out. That takes a lot of guts to be like you know what i think a lot of this is bullshit and done with it it's very difficult empathize Yeah, there's even a sort of subgroup of Mormons that call themselves community Mormons or like communal Mormons. They're really just there for the community for that reason you know? Yeah, that's true with all religions they say I'm a practicing Catholic or non-practicing and... ...I got very lucky growing up in a situation where yeah it was told to go to private school they were like oh we'll let this school teach about religion and all that but

55:39 When I decided that I didn't believe in a lot of that, it really wasn't a big deal. And I can only imagine it would be just so difficult if it was any other way. Are there groups out there? I'm sure of ex-Mormons that try to make that transition easier. Yes. God, I can't remember the name of it. It is notoriously difficult to leave the church. You have to give them like a formal written, I want my name removed from the records of the church kind of thing Or they forever and always just count you as an inactive Mormon. What would be wrong with that like if you say your done with them but they're like we're still gonna put your name on the books, alright who gives a shit? A lot of people have a problem with it because their exclusionary doctrine

56:27 past of racism. A lot of people really just don't want to be involved in any way I myself have similar to the Catholic Church with hiding pedophilia and molestation, I've witnessed the church cover up and get people's legal records expunged and all sorts of really nefarious things can very much sympathize with why people would not want to be associated with it at all and are like, no I want my name removed from your organization please. And there are groups that help with that because it is so hard to get them to do that. I think its like exit Mormonism or there's some type of website that provides legal counsel for doing that and they've kind of streamlined the process

57:14 There's also a lot of support groups on Reddit and Twitter and stuff of ex-Mormons that are there to provide like, a social network or... A sympathetic shoulder for people who are trying to restart their lives. Yeah They are out there Just kind of look up ex-Mormon groups, a lotta Exmo is a lot of the tags for it so If you are a Mormon that wants to leave I suggest looking up a lot of the Exmo or ex-Mormon groups Yeah, luckily we have the internet. To do that in a pre-internet world would be just even more difficult! Exactly Man... You certainly know your stuff I think we need more explorations of probably many religious traditions and some sort of psychedelic origin but Mormonism is even weirder than that so i'm not complaining this has been a lot of fun Remind people where they can get the book check out the podcast and any other links you might want to give them

58:13 The podcast Mormonsanddrugs.com, you can usually find it on any of your podcatchers or whatever you use We took a bit of a hiatus for the last year and half-ish during COVID we just recorded some new episodes so if you start listening and like it and get caught up hopefully we'll be releasing more by the time you get there The book, if you like this and you want to reference... I have a very heavily referenced book. So if you want to present your friends or your family with well-cited information You can find the book at Amazon or Barnes & Noble There's an ebook It's all over the place too If you don't want to buy it The biggest thing that would help me is just like a review Like a nice review in a kind word would be great It helps me in the Amazon algorithms

59:08 You can always get a hold of me, Mormonsanddrugs at Gmail. If you want to give me a shout and say hi. I always love that right on yes the almighty algorithms we have to play their game but awesome man i really appreciate your time and your diligent research thanks for breaking it all down for us and take care I appreciate your time too. Thanks for reading my book, it's...I think you're one of the first people that's combed through it like this! I really really appreciate it so... Of course This was a pleasure for me too anytime you want to talk The power of Christ compels ya people Cody Nacone Praise be to he figured it would just be an interesting subject for us to take a look at I felt pretty out of my element just because I don't know that much about even conventional Mormonism

1:00:00 Everything I know, I learned from Trey Parker and Matt Stone. And that might not be the best but it's actually probably not so bad either But I started booking this in early December Thought it would make a pretty good holiday adjacent episode And we just had to push it back for a couple of reasons A little bit of life getting in the way on both ends but...I would say that its January that truly ends the holiday season Even though it feels like Christmas was a world away for some reason and I appreciate it nonetheless. Obviously the psychedelic and entheogenic origins of Mormonism was the basis for this show, but we didn't spend a ton of time on that directly because there's just so much other surrounding context. But when you learn a little bit more about Joseph Smith's character and his family and his access to such things it just kind of becomes a no-brainer

1:00:55 But if you weren't aware or you feel like we glossed over it, Mormons believe Joseph Smith was a facilitator of visions and spiritual revelations and miracles because he was some kind of special person. But really it just seems like he was drugging them and they were ignorant of it Or as Cody kinda says some of them were actually skeptical of their mystical experience but signed something anyway that said yeah this did happen So then it goes down in Mormon history in an advantageous way for them when its not necessarily exactly the truth. But I had no idea about his occult treasure hunting background and when I read about that, I thought oh ok now with this layer we do have enough for an entertaining off-the radar episode that people wouldn't expect to see

1:01:46 So I appreciate Cody's work. I appreciate that it brought back some of the psychedelic Christianity stuff that i haven't thought about in a long time, and it's just a strange microcosm overall. I know it's very personal to him and I appreciate that because this kind of thing was very personal to me for a long time because I was just bitter over how much of my time and mental bandwidth was wasted on Catholicism And of course I got kicked out of the Catholic high school that I went to my senior year. I'd went to school with a lot of these people since kindergarten, so get kicked out on the first day of senior year and then have to make my case to a panel of teachers and say hey I'm really sorry I want to stay here I'll be good from now on

1:02:34 And then also be on a phone call with the head of the archdiocese in St. Louis and be like, hey what happened to turning the other cheek? I'm telling you i'm sorry! I don't even really know what i'm sorry for just generally stirring the pot I guess but I will straighten up and fly right. I just want to graduate with my friends and have all these people who taught me about turning the other cheek and forgiveness and all that kind of thing totally be hypocritical when it came to a real-world situation that I thought was pretty mild, it obviously contributed to the bad taste in my mouth. So when it came to religion, I was very aggressive on all that stuff in the early episodes of THC but I have softened because in retrospect, I'm glad I did grow up with some form of spiritual tradition Of course, I think Catholicism is a shallow empty corporate cul de sac of spirituality one of several really

1:03:29 But having grown up in it, with all its flaws it's a lot easier to come back and take what is useful and cut around the rest rather than having little to no spiritual context at all. So I hope you enjoyed it! For people who are not Plus Members and only heard the free first hour some of the stuff we added to the stack in The Plus Show would be... A deeper examination of the plant medicines Joseph Smith had access too and likely used for his ruse The prevalence of these visionary plants in nature and in human history. How our less routine interactions with psychedelic intelligences has affected culture and our relationship with the things on the other side of the phone line. Cody's experience with these beings that you make contact with through psychedelic means. Mormon cosmology, the sweet sweet hollow earth, and alien gods

1:04:23 Polygamy in Mormonism and Joseph Smith's teenage harem. The death of Joseph Smith, was he murdered or martyred? The Joseph Smith-L Ron Hubbard similarities I really liked that section. Mormonism and intelligence gathering And a little bit about Cody's permaculture and plant intelligence insights So a lot more fun stuff for those who take the plus plunge And also in higher side news, yes our discord community was banned for quote violating community guidelines related to misinformation. So we can all read between the lines I don't even personally post much in the THC Discord yet my personal account was also banned

1:05:11 The community itself was largely fan-run and moderated by SilentSai, who I've always been grateful for but it seems like their account was disabled too. I've had to field so many questions about this and look guys it shouldn't surprise anyone if the discord is down well it should just be assumed that we've been banned And there's really nothing I'm going to be able to tell you about it and there's nothing I want to be able to do about it. I'm a little surprised we lasted on YouTube longer than Discord but it is what it is I know a lot of people want to know exactly what it was that got us banned. We will never know, they don't give you that information If they did send any kind of mod mail to me well They also disabled my personal account so i couldn't read it anyway I guess i should say this but there was a thread on our subreddit That talked about the site being down and The site isn't down that was just their miscommunication using The wrong term its only the discord

1:06:10 And because there was another Reddit thread about how THC has turned into Fox News now and the health and farming shows are just so boring, I made a simple joke that the Discord was taken down because of too much farming talk. And people thought i meant crypto-farming and then that became a thing... No! I was just joking People have asked me to make another one? Honestly, I didn't even make the first one. Just don't complain to me about this. Complain to them People have asked me about other THC communities, and fans are totally free to make any communities on any platforms they want. But all I control is the Hireside Chats forum which is a plus feature because it costs money and I can only afford to have it because plus people give me some funds to work with. I'm sorry there isn't a better answer! I'm sorry the world's corporate digital infrastructure is closing in on us. I'm clearly as frustrated as anyone

1:07:10 But it would be better if you voiced your frustration to the people who are committing the acts, not the victims of them who can't do anything. Or become a Plus Member! Enjoy the conversation with other Plus Members in the comments section or in the forum and know that its all behind closed doors and outside of reach for platforms that do this kind of shit If you want free, well there is a telegram group you should know about. And that's about it! I made HiresideMeetups.com on my own dime so people could meet each other locally and in the real world if you feel as though you'd like more community engagement. I just can't control what Discord does and a couple dozen emails asking me to make a new one is the wrong approach. If they don't want us then good luck to them

1:07:58 I'm not going to play whack-a-mole with these tech companies when i run my own ship and try to keep it outside of their purview. But if you don't want to be a paying member, sadly the free stuff is all getting attacked! That's not something to be mad at me about ya know? I didn't mean for this to morph into a plus pitch but all we can do is control the things that we keep private or with enough complaints maybe discord gives us the server back but i highly doubt it I hear some of my colleagues talk about Mastodon instances or Mattermost servers and you have my blessing if you want to start something up like that and send me the link, i will put it on the THC menu bar under communities. But I am just trying to keep up with providing you the content that I promised to provide you with

1:08:49 I am very thankful that so many Plus members did actually support me taking a break for paternity leave. That gave me all the warm fuzzy feelings, but i don't think i need to do that if i just cut out all the extra stuff So that is my compromise and i appreciate the understanding 90% of people just want to listen to the show anyway And the show i can deliver But if we're going to take a look at the Meetup calendar, we do have some good stuff coming up this weekend. February 4th 5th and 6th We have events in Bellingham Washington at the Wander Brewing Establishment. We have another one in Tulsa Oklahoma at Cabin Boys Brewery And third in Grisham Oregon At Uli's Taco Bar All sound fun wish I could be there

1:09:38 I love seeing it though. I love that we're getting out of the house and meeting new people, I love that were bringing business to some cool local places that might need it And for anyone who listened to me being interviewed on Ben Stewart's podcast last week... ...I mentioned The Meetups and there happened to be one in Nashville where he is from and he did actually show up to it! So sometimes you meet previous guests as well Check the calendar for meetups in your area or make your own and I'll do what i can to spread the word here in the wrap-up. There is nothing on the books after this weekend so help me out here guys, HiresideMeetUps.com But that's it! Sorry if I seem a little frustrated Fatherhood Carlwood has a shorter fuse no doubt...I have a harder time keeping up with my inbox I have a harder time finding the silence required to record but that's life

1:10:33 I just need to be really efficient and the wrench that Discord threw at me, and the avalanche of inquiries it buried my inbox in just didn't help. But we're here! We'll persevere! And we have our own systems comments users and forums that are in The Clear I love you guys, i hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks again to Cody for the detailed and passionate work he does! I've done my part... Your move deceptive false prophets psychedelic charlatans and mormon hidden history hiders your fucking mood We are rolling around, I can't stand this. You're mine. The high sights that I knew to do the time. Yeah!

1:14:25 And that is another show complete! Remember, as much as you enjoyed this which is just the free first hour I hope you'll become a Plus Member to hear the full two-hour interviews. You also can engage with other Plus Members in the comments and the forums and you'll find your answer to one of the most common questions I get which is where can I find those cover songs that you use at the end of the show? Well they are free downloads for Plus Members too And without Plus Members, I can't hire the occasional musician to bring these odd cover song ideas to fruition. Plus members are how I'm able to do what I do without ads and without the big machine being on my back! We can fit so much more into a two-hour interview and I'd do my best to make it worth your time and money." The conversation only gets deeper, weirder, and more controversial in that private hour. How could it not be the way things are going?

1:15:17 But the best way to sign up is at TheHigherSideChats.com, where new first-time subscribers always get a free 7 day trial because I'm just that confident! There's no PayPal on the website but if you need to use PayPal then sign up through Patreon and you get all of the same episodes Our website is a credit or debit system, but you can also scope out the other options like a few various cryptos. Cash or check mailed to the P.O box and I'll even barter with most people if you have your own business and produce something nice that my wife or kid or taste buds might like But the architects of consensus reality have made it clear that these themes and topics aren't really welcome on the main stage. And so this is how we secure a little counterculture corner for ourselves, and I hope you'll join PLUS because that's the only way it works!

1:16:05 Besides, you can cancel any time right on your profile page. The most common concern I hear is people just being unsure if THC Plus will work with their podcast app and the answer is probably yes! But if not we have several high-level app recommendations for whatever phone you use and the website is made for mobile too We're trained to tip a waitress for bringing us a sandwich, but that tip doesn't give you access to a second sandwich. Really I'm not asking for any more than that and think I offer better service. Come get your second serving of tasty conspiracy goodness in exchange for that small token of your appreciation. Beyond that let it also be known we have grown and survived as long as we have by word-of-mouth

1:16:48 I don't care so much about social media likes or follows, but tell the right people about THC. And not just listeners but the high level figures who are better suited to sit down with me than most other hosts. And if you can help me with any of these things, I can work to bring you better shows which is just a win-win for both us! Informative, entertaining and action packed It also never hurts to thank a guest you liked if you have the time either. We want them to know people are listening so they're willing to come back down the road too! Thank YOU for spending some time with me and cheers to a better tomorrow!