UC Riverside

From Joseph Smith’s earliest interactions with spiritual beings, Mormonism established a framework for communication with spirits. This often manifests in encounters with the spirits of deceased ancestors or loved ones, experiences that often lead to a feeling of comfort or renewed faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, spirits, both literal and metaphorical, are also sources of disruption that have the potential to lead individuals into apostasy. Within Mormonism, communication with spirits is largely accepted, as long as it does not lead to alternative claims to authority apart from the institution. As such, the boundary between benign spirit communication and apostasy is based on the question of authority and who holds access to the power of God. This dissertation uses five cases studies of Mormon groups who navigate the established boundaries of spirit communication in Mormonism—The Church of Zion (Godbeite), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS women seeking spiritual authority through alternative practices, Christ’s Church (Peterson group), and the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days (TLC). These groups, and the spirits they interact with, complicate Mormon history and lead to a reevaluation of what scholars mean when they write about “Mormonism.”