Episodes
You've found all episodes of Post-Mormon Postmortem, where we examine Mormon culture, true crime, and religious trauma with the analysis that comes from lived experience.
Episode Categories
True Crime - Mormon cases where culture and doctrine create the perfect conditions for deceptionReligious Trauma - Processing the aftermath of high-control religion
Foundations - Mormon beliefs and culture explained for never-Mormons
Exit Stories - Real accounts of leaving and rebuilding
Cultural Deep Dives - Examining the weird, wonderful, and deeply dysfunctional
How the Mormon Church Tried to Silence the Salt Lake Tribune
The Mormon Church helped slash a rival paper's revenue nearly in half, in a deal negotiated in secret. Jess and Hannah trace a 180-year fight over who controls the news in Mormon Utah: Joseph Smit...
Jean Baptiste: The Mormon Grave Robber of Salt Lake
When Salt Lake City discovered that its gravedigger had been returning to graves after burials, stripping bodies of their clothing, and taking the clothes home to just… look it? Well, it raised more t...
The Leak That Predicted Itself: Gong, WikiLeaks, and the LDS Cover-Up
In January 2011, Gerrit Gong stood before the Quorum of the Twelve with a warning: could WikiLeaks — the group behind the Chelsea Manning leaks — embarrass or damage the Mormon Church? Instead of secu...
The LDS Church Has a New Way to Recruit Your Neighbors
The LDS Church is encouraging wards to advertise their events directly to people outside the church through a program called “activity sharing.” Hannah and Jess look at the church’s instructions for m...
Is the Mormon Church a Cult? Here's What the Research Says
Is the Mormon Church a cult? We ran mainstream Mormonism through the actual clinical frameworks researchers use for cultic control — not the insult, the real definitions. Using Steven Hassan's BIT...
The Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping: Brian David Mitchell, Wanda Barzee, & the Role of Mormonism
Mormon True Crime episodes will drop on Saturday from now on... not usually this late. Think of this week as a two-fer Sunday. Elizabeth Smart was fourteen years old when Brian David Mitchell entered ...
The Mormon Glow: Can You Identify A Mormon By Their Face?
Can people really identify Mormons just by looking at their faces? In 2010, psychologists Nicholas Rule, James Garrett and Nalini Ambady found that both Mormons and non-Mormons could classify Mormon f...
Jared Bridegan Murder: Shanna Gardner, Mario Fernandez Saldana & the Mormon Connection
The murder of Jared Bridegan involves his ex-wife Shanna Gardner, her then-husband Mario Fernandez Saldana, and Mario’s former tenant Henry Tenon. And Mormonism runs all the way through the case. Shan...
Joseph Smith's Childhood Trauma and the Making of a Prophet
At seven, surgeons cut into Joseph Smith's leg without anesthesia. At seventeen, an angel told him where to dig. A psychiatrist, a historian, and a surgeon trace the line between the two. Hosts Je...