Just, you know, reading conference talks for research. Just leaving this here.

"Members who forgo Church attendance and rely only on individual spirituality separate themselves from these gospel essentials: the power and blessings of the priesthood, the fulness of restored doctrine, and the motivations and opportunities to apply that doctrine. They forfeit their opportunity to qualify to perpetuate their family for eternity."

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/10/18oaks

We can't retain hope in the fight for progress if we only look at the state of politics.

Institutional waves are more meaningful. Individual growth even moreso, and these changes spread outward in ripples. THAT is anarchy to me. That is the principle of Mutual Aid applied to influence and cultural momentum.

But it takes time. It took this kid years to make the decision to read this letter to his Seminary (LDS high school religious education). And now this will sink deep into some of the other kids' minds. They will resist it, dismiss this act and dehumanize its actor, but the memory of it will surface over and over and they will ponder its meaning.

It can only change some of them, and it will take years and many other disconfirming events for them to take a similar plunge. But some will, indeed, themselves walk out of the cave. And maybe make a fuss on their exit.

This is activism. Not one hero riding in to save the day, not one prophet standing on the walls of Zarahemla under a rain of arrows, but each individual choosing the right as they learn it, one inch at a time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1kc9uh5/its_finally_over/

Some people leave the LDS Church individually. I was one of those.

But it's fascinating the times when it becomes a group project, when one's own doubts are generated by the doubts or struggles of others. It's less common perhaps, but it sometimes happens for couples and in close-knit extended families that don't immediately disown the first doubter.

It happened in the case of John Dehlin and tens of thousands of his Mormon Stories audience. As he tried to grapple with issues in a faith promoting way, his doubts grew, his listeners' doubts grew, and then when the Church excommunicated him, he took most of them with him.

Same with my client Natasha Helfer, on a smaller, more private scale. As she helped her therapeutic clients with faith crisis, or even just saw their pain trying so hard to live up to impossible ideals, or doing what the Church said and having tragic results, she learned from them, and they learned from her.

Until they excommunicated her, too.

It seems like they really don't like that, and will excommunicate the figurehead of this process.

But all those invisible participants are just as much part of it. It's a collective thing. It wasn't Dehlin or Helfer who "led them astray." It was the falseness of Church claims, and the people collectively figuring that out by the mirrors they held up to each other.

LDS Bishops told not to ask members for immigration status in temple recommend interviews.

I find this very, very interesting as I try to feel out the shape of power in these shifting times.

https://archive.pn/www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/04/25/lds-church-first-presidency-issues/

While we're interpreting the Pope's death right after Vance's visit in a certain humorous way, you'd better believe that a significant number of anti-Catholic evangelicals and Mormons will see it as Vance single-handedly conquering the church of the devil.

To literalist promotors of life-dictating takes from the Bible, remember Christ's Pearl-Swine corollary:

Do not cast your costume jewelry before scholars.

An excerpt from the most recent issue of ICSA Today, on how to help someone escape coercive indoctrination, by Dr. Janja Lalich, one of the cult researchers I quote in Recovering Agency.

In short, DON'T PREACH. DON'T ARGUE.

Instead, show someone what having a choice looks like.

"Effective Intervention Approaches

"1. Creating Safe Spaces for Ambivalence: Rather than demanding immediate recognition of abuse or control, effective intervention allows people to safely explore their doubts without threatening their entire meaning system at once. This might mean supporting someone in questioning specific practices while temporarily accepting their continued commitment to the group’s core beliefs.

"2. Reconnecting with One’s Pre-Group Identity: Helping individuals reconnect with aspects of their identity that preceded their involvement in the totalistic environment. This isn’t about erasing their experience but about expanding their frame of reference beyond the bounded system. I describe this as doing something that will hopefully tug at their emotional heart strings, reawakening thoughts, feelings, memories that have been suppressed by the group’s indoctrination processes.

"3. Addressing Practical Constraints: Understanding that bounded choice operates through both ideological and practical constraints. Effective intervention often requires addressing concrete obstacles to leaving—financial dependencies, fear of social isolation, lack of practical life skills—along with psychological barriers.

"4. Building Alternative Support Systems: Recognizing that totalistic environments become self-reinforcing partly because they meet real human needs for belonging and meaning. Intervention must include helping individuals find alternative sources for these needs."