Mormonism sprang forth in upstate New York into a world of religious upheaval and rebirth. It was the period of the Second Great Awakening, when men and women voiced dissatisfaction with the impersonal churches that kept God at bay, sequestered behind rigid hierarchies of the clergy. Many disaffected Christians searched for a religion that would reflect the new freedoms and powerful potential of individuals in a new country of seemingly endless opportunity and possibility. Between 1790 and 1840, the Second Great Awakening swept through New England and the Eastern Seaboard, promising a more personal connection to God, as well as...

From one perspective, the idea of a single Mormon folk tradition is absurd. As in any culture or community, there are hundreds of folk traditions. These traditions can be explored according to patterns in form, function, or group. A single umbrella for both the tradition of ballads sung primarily by Mormons in the Intermountain West that memorialize the trek of Mormon pioneers and the tradition of the customary lore of Mexican Mormon converts in the process of building new churches in a predominantly Catholic land would be unbearably large. While shared patterns might be found, they would no doubt pale...

“Performance” is an ambiguous term. Like “folklore” and “myth,” it has a connotative meaning in vernacular usage that runs counter to its academic definition. In the United States, “performance” often evokes images of formal, prearranged theatrical displays laden with artifice. Trained actors, clearly set apart from their audiences, give performances. Like the false dichotomy between fine art and folk art, performances are marked as elite and esoteric, the actions of a small cadre of trained specialists. However, beginning in the 1970s, performance theory emerged as the dominant paradigm for folklore analysis, and with it came a discipline-specific definition that exploded...

Genres are powerful. Whether as a system of classification or an emergent form of discourse, genres provide the means for creating and interpreting performance.¹ The shared structures, themes, styles, and contexts link past performances with present ones, setting up a series of expectations for both performer and audience. The “knock-knock” joke provides a useful example.

A knock-knock joke told among six-year-olds in the present does not emerge fully formed in the moment of performance. Themes change, contexts change, but basic structures are fairly conservative. Children learn very quickly, for example, that a knock-knock joke must begin with “knock, knock.” And...

Pattern in performance begins with pattern in experience. The similarities in stories of people who have shared experiences such as natural disasters, biological processes, and holiday airline travel all begin with similar circumstances. The same is true of personal revelation. While different types of revelatory experience lead people to ask different questions and construct distinct narrative performances, there remain broad commonalities across types.

Of course narratives are not only descriptions of events, they are interpretations of those events, and interpretation begins with the senses. We see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. Through our senses, we attempt to assess experience. Concurrently,...

The issue of truth is central to how personal revelation narratives are evaluated, interpreted, and performed. In the spirit of emic analysis, this book has approached personal experience narratives according to the values of the people who share them. Whether or not a story is true, therefore, has figured heavily in this analysis. Yet folklorists have typically shied away from questions about objective assessments of truth. One reason is that in this postmodern world, the idea of objective truth has been rightly questioned into oblivion. Another, more significant reason is that the question of whether or not a story is...

Folklore has often defined itself in opposition to elite and popular traditions. For narrative, text-based genres of folklore, this has meant the elimination of written traditions. A legend told by an old woman by the fire is folklore; a legend published for mass consumption is not. One of the most succinct and pervasive definitions of folklore is Dan Ben-Amos’s description of “artistic communication in small groups,” a definition developed in part to help folklorists navigate the regular intersection of multiple media, in particular the oral and written (1971:14). Unfortunately, his solution was powerfully restrictive: “A song, a tale, or a...

Personal revelation is a fundamental and integral element of LDS religion and culture. Its power and influence pervades scripture; its promise is repeated in church, at home, and while tracting; and its impact is felt directly and personally by virtually every member of the church. The idealized role of personal revelation in the lives of the Saints is one of constant companionship. Through prayer and righteous living, Latter-days Saints invite the divine into their lives and listen carefully for the whispering of the Holy Ghost. In conversations and talks during church lessons, people often cite scripture to remind themselves that...