Introduction and Episode Overview

Marc Oslund [00:00:00] Foreign.

John Dehlin [00:00:10] And welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is November 3rd, 2021, and this afternoon here in Utah, we have what we think is a very important and hopefully very interesting and compelling episode for you to participate in, listen to, and if you're joining us live, even share. Today we're going to be talking about the Mormon teaching or practice called inoculation. And we'll be getting into what that means. But that is what we're going to be talking about. And today we are super excited to have with us an illustrious panel. We have the Gerardo Simano back as co host and he is kind of the producer organizer of today's episode. Hey, Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [00:01:06] Hey, John.

John Dehlin [00:01:07] Welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Gerardo Sumano [00:01:09] Thanks, thanks. Happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:01:12] And we also have two other returning guests to Mormon Stories podcast. We have the Luna Corbden, author of Recovering Agency and an epic, I don't know, 16, how many hours, Luna. Oh, you're muted, Luna.

Luna Corbden [00:01:29] I knew I was going to do that. Yes, 17 hours and a few minutes.

John Dehlin [00:01:34] So 17 hours of the 31 tools or techniques of coercion and undue influence that high demand religions use. It's an amazing book, Recovering Agency. And Luna is an amazing mind and thinker and thought leader. So, Luna, we're so glad to have you back on Mormon Stories podcast.

Luna Corbden [00:01:53] Thanks a lot.

John Dehlin [00:01:53] John, buy Luna's book.

Luna Corbden [00:01:55] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:01:56] And we have with us the one, the only, Mark Osland. Who? Mark, how many hours did we do on Mormon Stories podcast?

Marc Oslund [00:02:05] Eleven, I think, John. Right around 11.

John Dehlin [00:02:08] But Mark is awesome because he was an all American baseball player, high school standout in football as well, BYU All American baseball player. But he, Mark, Mark himself has an epic story about how he kind of sacrificed a professional baseball career and ended up as a Mormon seminary teacher. And then how that didn't quite work out and you know, by, by, by this dream team of like Gerardo as co producer, producer, Luna as sort of social psychology expert, and Mark as someone who has served and worked in the church seminary and institute program. We've got a, we've got a all star lineup. So I'm super excited. Mark, I told you offline, sorry about your Dodgers, but I know you're, I know you're happy about, I guess, the outcome of the World Series.

Marc Oslund [00:03:04] That's right. Anyone but the Astros, like for the rest of forever. Yeah, we're, we're in Yankees, whoever, all these people I disliked. As long as it's not the Astros, we're good.

John Dehlin [00:03:13] Well, Sam Young is cursing our names right now.

Marc Oslund [00:03:15] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:17] I also should say, Mark, and not to be too jovial about it, Mark, you were recently excommunicated from the Mormon Church for the crime of speaking openly about the church's issues and problems. And I just want to, we're going to do a follow up episode on, on that, but I just want to give you our support and condolences. That's not a fun thing to go through, even if you are at peace with the outcome.

Marc Oslund [00:03:42] Yeah, you're right. And you had kind of foretold that.

John Dehlin [00:03:45] Right.

Marc Oslund [00:03:45] And I was feeling good up until the day and the day was really weird and then kind of waiting for the letter that we knew was going to come. And then it finally came and felt weird that day. But each day since that point has gotten a little bit better. You know, you've mentioned so many times, John, that the gift of a Mormon faith crisis is the rest of your life. And, and, and that's ultimately the way that I feel about what's happened. So we'll talk plenty about this in another episode. But yeah, really, really appreciate all the support from you from the Mormon stories, you know, community from so many really kind people and messages and, and comments. It just means a lot.

John Dehlin [00:04:20] I love it. Chris says. Come on, Mark. Go Astros. All right, and really quickly, just because we have Luna here as well, I just wanted to make a quick announcement. Thrive Day 2021 is coming up. It's going to be Saturday, November 13th and Sunday, November 14th, Saturday, November 13th at the Salt palace starting at like 7pm we're going to be doing a mixer, open bar, karaoke night care Barrel will be there, I'll be there. All as many as the speakers and tick tockers as is possible will be there. And it'll just be a fun night of talking and mixing and meetups and who knows, some partying and karaoke.

Thrive Day 2021 Community Event Announcement

John Dehlin [00:05:04] So that's going to be Saturday night, November 13, and then Sunday all day is going to be an amazing event. The whole purpose is just to help you find friends and community and to help give you hope if you have left Mormonism. We're going to have Lance Allred, NBA basketball player, legally deaf, raised in a polygamous cult. We're gonna have Sarah Edmondson, survivor of the Nexium cult, star of the HBO series the Vow and a little bit culty podcast. We're gonna have Radio Free Mormon Bill Real Alan and Katie Mount for marriage on a tightrope. Mary and Shelley from Latter Day Lesbian. We're Gonna have Luna Corbin.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] I'll be there. Natasha Helfer. And yeah, it's just gonna be a great time, but mostly it's literally just for you. As it stands, the event's going to lose about $30,000, but that's how committed the underwriters are to giving you an amazing event. So please don't let anything keep you away from this amazing time. We're going to have a great experience and it's all for you, so please join us. So without any further ado, let's jump into this. Oh, and by the way, you can register for that event@thrivebeyondreligion.com registration is 25 a person. And it just goes to prevent a massive financial loss. And so please support us if you can. Now, Gerardo, why don't we begin by talking about this, this episode and how it came about.

Gerardo Sumano [00:06:40] Yeah, so.

John Dehlin [00:06:41] Oh, go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:06:42] Yeah, so this is something I, I've been, I mean, I've known for a while. I've known that it has. It was happening since, since I was still a believing member when, when I came back from my. Around the time I came back from my mission. I'm probably gonna mention this in a bit, but the church came out with this new classes for institute and at the time my dad was pretty involved with leadership in the church. And something he had mentioned to me is that these new classes were purposely designed for preventing young, the young generations from leaving the church.

Gerardo Sumano [00:07:32] And so again, it's something I knew was happening. And, and it's topic that it's just been really interesting to see how the church has evolved in just like really fast in this last few years. Just like since I came back from my mission in 2015, the church has updated Preach My Gospel to include more, more, more stuff relating to, you know, the problematic history, for example, the multiple versions of the first vision and stuff.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:04] And because of Mark, Mark's involvement in seminary, we know that that has been happening there too. So, so I just had this idea of covering just what has been going on and have Luna with her expertise just help us just dissect what, what, what the church is trying to do and, and you know, Mark will, will offer some commentary as, as to like how much this is helping.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:35] I've had some experiences with own. My own family members and, and some close friends who have been through this kind of like inoculation process and I've seen how different their experience has been to mine because I grew up in the church not knowing anything about the issues with the history and stuff. So, yeah, this will be a very interesting topic to talk about.

John Dehlin [00:09:07] I love it. Yeah. And let me just say one thing just to make sure there's no confusion here. Something that, that Luna and I talked about when we interviewed Luna is that Luna and Luna, this is just me advocating a bit. Luna identifies as gender non binary and Luna goes by they them pronouns. So there will be times today where we refer to Luna saying they, them, Luna, is there anything you want to say about that? I just wanted to clear that up.

Luna Corbden [00:09:37] Thanks. I appreciate it, John. It's sometimes a little fearful for me to self advocate, so I really appreciate you doing that. I don't like causing confusion and I know it does, so I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [00:09:48] No worries. No worries. We adore you. And yeah, Gerardo, it's a big deal because for so many years we all wanted the church, the Mormon Church, just to come clean about its history and to be open and honest.

John Dehlin [00:10:02] And so we thought that, that that's, you know, we hope that that's what would happen. But unfortunately, fortunately, they were kind of, because of the Internet, forced to start disclosing. But I think if I had to frame why today's episode is so important is because it, it turns out, even though we were all kind of all taught to tell the full truth, you know, absolute honesty, complete honesty, and that's kind of the standard the Church held us to.

John Dehlin [00:10:29] I think many of us feel like, whether it's with the gospel topics essays or with the Mormon Church's seminary and institute curriculum, that they're not only not telling the full truth, being completely honest, but they're kind of trying to share the information in a way that's less about candor and ownership and accountability and full transparency, but instead they're trying to bleed out and leak and control the information in a way to where, you know, you can understandably minimize the damage. But at the same time, it's, it's, you know, it's this inoculation idea of titrating the information in a controlled, meticulous way to try and maximize the advantage of the church.

John Dehlin [00:11:16] It, it can be seen as, as psychologically manipulative or coercive. And Luna, tell me if I'm wrong. That's kind of what we're going to be talking about today. And then Mark's going to be filling in with some of his examples. Did I get that right, Luna?

Luna Corbden [00:11:30] Yeah, I'd say like anything else, it's inoculation theory, which is what we'll be defining in a minute, and stuff like that it's a tool, like all the manipulation methods that I've outlaid. Most tools, they can be used for what we consider good or used for what we consider bad. They can use for our own interests, other people's interests, against us, for us, all different ways. So I just really want to clarify. It's a tool. It isn't malicious and evil on its own. And we'll explore that a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:11:58] Anything you want to add, Mark?

Marc Oslund [00:11:59] No. And I mean literally. That's exactly what the purpose of. Somebody wouldn't use these words directly, but the sentiment overwhelmingly, as we'll see, has been to accomplish that very goal. So. Yeah, you nailed it.

What Is Inoculation Theory in Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:12:14] Okay, well, maybe let's begin. We've got some slides. Gerardo, are you gonna say something?

Gerardo Sumano [00:12:19] Yeah, sorry. So just as you were just explaining, just something came out, came to my mind. I think there's a difference between what the church did with the gospel topic essays and what they are doing with the correlated curriculum in seminaries and institutes.

John Dehlin [00:12:42] And.

Gerardo Sumano [00:12:43] And I. I will throw there, like the book saints and that kind of stuff. I. I think the gospel topic essays were originally to. To give official answers to people that were already questioning where, like, what we're going to be talking today is going to be like just what the church is trying to do to prevent people to have to use the gospel topic

Marc Oslund [00:13:10] essays, if that makes sense.

Gerardo Sumano [00:13:12] And in my mind, the gospel topic essays in some way are a little bit more transparent and honest than what the church is doing by inoculating the youth. So I just wanted to put that.

John Dehlin [00:13:26] That's actually a good point. I hear rumblings from inside that. That many of the LDS church apostles regret that the gospel topics essays are released and that there's even some discussion about withdrawing them and taking them back down. And so. You're right. That's a great point, Gerardo. This inoculation discussion that we're going to be having is about almost an alternative to that. In other words, to say, let's see if we can prevent people from even needing to learn the full information. Let's give them what they need just to make it so they don't have to think about this stuff at all.

Marc Oslund [00:14:02] Right.

John Dehlin [00:14:03] All right. Well, we've got some slides, so maybe, Luna, I think you're guiding us a bit through this discussion. And then Mark's going to help fill in some color with his experiences. And then Gerardo and I will jump in as we see fit.

Luna Corbden [00:14:17] Sure. Well, I think we all know how inoculation works in the medical world or Vaccines, similar concept where they take a copy of the virus, they disable the virus so the virus can't do its thing, but it's got enough of the what the virus looks like that the immune system can understand that it's a virus and understand that it needs to build immunities against it. So that's how a virus works.

Luna Corbden [00:14:45] You're actually getting a disabled copy of the virus. What Psychological inoculation theory is very similar. In around the 60s, social media psychologists decided that maybe this works with our mental world as well. Perhaps there's a version of an idea that you can give someone that's weakened or watered down, that's easy to argue against.

Luna Corbden [00:15:10] So you present that weakened version of the argument, then you attack the weakened version of the argument and that will create in the listener a sort of immune response to when they hear a stronger version of that argument later down the road, then they'll be unable to hear the stronger reasons and logic behind that facts and other reasons behind that argument.

Luna Corbden [00:15:33] So that's the basic idea behind inoculation theory. It's been tested in different, many different experiments since the 60s. They started out looking at things that were completely inarguable, like our is brushing your teeth healthy or not? They would take something that everyone knew and then they would try to inoculate against it. And they've done all sorts of repetitions of that experiment since then and different. And we'll, we'll take a look at I think two, two of those experiments, one in the field of marketing and then at the end one in the field of trying to prevent people from being manipulated. But mostly we're going to focus today on how the Mormon Church uses inoculation to prepare members to reject any external ideas that threat in the church ideology.

Elder Ballard's Call to Inoculate Students

John Dehlin [00:16:22] I love it. Okay.

Luna Corbden [00:16:26] Yeah, so, so here's an example of, I mean the church is actually using the word inoculate. I no one knows for sure at this point if there's like a mysterious panel within the church of, of various skilled experts who know about psychological manipulation, how it works and whether they're doing this on purpose. Like we don't know, but we know that at least on an intuitive level they're sort of understand concept of giving a weakened argument. They're not calling it that though, but they are using the word inoculate. So here's an example from M. Russell Ballard in CES Employees Devotional. This might be for you Mark, because this is your.

Marc Oslund [00:17:06] Yeah, let me kind of give you the background here because we every year we Have a general authority. They call it evening with the general authority. And it was at the tabernacle and is one of my least favorite days of the year. Because I realized, if these people are all going to heaven, I really don't want to go to heaven with them. But anyway, while I was there, you know, it's always an apostle. They always give some sort of vision for the year. It would typically be in January or February.

Marc Oslund [00:17:31] And Ballard, this talk was really kind of the pinnacle, I think, where so much of the focus that we'll get to in seminary, you know, at present, where it really comes from. So Ballard gets up and he has this kind of. He's just kind of going back and forth and he's talking about a variety of subjects. It felt like he was very much in the know with.

Marc Oslund [00:17:54] We're not doing super well in terms of retaining people, in terms of the happiness that our students are having. The questions that are being asked, obviously the gospel topics essays. These are all things that were clearly on his mind based on the talk that he had given. There's some really interesting comments here. But it basically became the turning point, I think, for seminary beginning to focus on trying to be more accurate with their history. But it's not from the goodness of their hearts. That was the important thing. It was like, hey, we're losing students.

Marc Oslund [00:18:28] Teenagers are leaving. Kids have questions. We need to make sure that they are. That we are taking care of them. So he gets up, and as part of the talk, he says, we give medical inoculations to our precious missionaries before sending them into the mission field. This is what Luna mentioned. And by the way, I think that's why inoculation theory, we can grasp it so well because we know what it's like in our own lives, right, with medicine. So they will be protected against diseases that can harm or even kill them. Now think of that, right? It can kill them. You know, he's going to move into something else in a similar fashion.

Marc Oslund [00:19:02] Please. And it really felt like the pleading of it came through from him. Before you send them into the world, inoculate your students by providing faithful, thoughtful and accurate and interesting word interpretation of gospel doctrine. The scriptures are history and those topics that are sometimes misunderstood.

Marc Oslund [00:19:24] And Luna is going to talk about, I think, how interesting it is. How interesting it is that inoculate is literally the word that he used, right? Like, it's right there. Inoculate your students. However, the feeling that came through in the room was very much like, okay, like, let's talk more openly in Fact, he said, gone are the days when a student asks a question and you respond by saying don't worry about it or bearing your testimony in response. And because of this, this is personal irony. I'm like, cool, let's talk openly. And that eventually led to my demise. So yeah, interesting.

Gerardo Sumano [00:20:01] Yeah. Something that, what's interesting about the talk too is that he meant, he mentions the word faith crisis at some point. He says that he repeats this like he says we should inoculate to, to avoid faith crisis in our youth. So yeah, he's definitely just implying what, what they were trying to do. And like you said, like what, what, what was the church starting to do?

Marc Oslund [00:20:28] Yeah, because the truth is at this time, this is 2016, I mean it's abundantly clear. We've had John Dehlin, we've had Kate Kelly, we've had Gospel topics, we've had these things that are starting to come out. CES letter. It's, it's felt as a teacher, it is felt in the room with the types of questions that kids are asking. I remember the very first day I taught DNC132, my very first class, it was 7:45 in the morning, said, hey, today we're going to talk about DNC132. Kid raised their hand and said, is it true that Joseph smith had a 14 year old wife?

Marc Oslund [00:20:59] Right. Not expecting that one. And so obviously this was, this was done. I taught at seven or six schools in seven years. I taught junior high and I taught senior high school. And in all of the classes kids are asking insightful, pointed questions. The leaders are clearly aware of what's going on.

Gerardo Sumano [00:21:17] Yeah, yeah, John, we can go to the next slide, but

Luna Corbden [00:21:26] yeah, so this, I can take this if you want. Yeah, this is, this is sort of how inoculation theory works or how social psychologists have defined it. Their hypothesized criteria for what it takes to get this weakened idea to really be the most effective. The first thing you have to do is the target has to believe that they're under threat. So whether they already believe they're under threat or whether you tell them that they're under threat in some way, you have to convince them that they have a stake in the game. Then you do what's called preemptive refutation or some papers called it refutational preemptiveness. I chose. Preemptive refutation is way easier to say. And that's the idea of refuting your opponent's argument before the chance to actually state their argument. And what you're doing is you're planting those ideas in the target so that they create their own arguments.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:23] That's what's.

Luna Corbden [00:22:24] I think the most interesting thing about this is, is you're giving them a little seed and then from that seed they're growing their own. What makes the most sense to them personally. And in. In my years, many years of debating and studying psychology and all the things that I do, that's one thing I've noticed is everybody has their own reasons for things. I had my own reasons for believing the gospel when I did it.

Luna Corbden [00:22:47] My family, different family members, each one seems to have their own reasons for believing it. And when I argue with them using my own reasons, that's not going to sink into them. So what this does is gives that target a chance to develop their own reasoning that's going to feel the most comfortable for them. And if it feels comfortable, then they're going to better attack any incoming threats that threaten to disable that.

Luna Corbden [00:23:12] We've talked before about confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. That's the big one. And I don't want to go super into it here, but it's the idea that you. Things that feel like they're threatening our existing belief structure feel uncomfortable.

Luna Corbden [00:23:27] Many different types of emotions that can be anger, it can be confusion, and we don't like that feeling. So we do our best internally and externally to assuage that feeling through different mechanisms. And so this inoculation theory kind of takes advantage of that in a way in helping us structure our own cognitively consonant. Or that where the. Or a system of thought that feels good to us.

Luna Corbden [00:23:52] Then they found that it's more effective if there's a delay between the preemptive refutation and the actual encountering the actual stronger version of the argument. It's a little bit effective if there isn't a delay, but it's way more effective if you give it a couple weeks and then it's similar to threat. But the target has to care. The target has to feel like it's a topic they're interested in is something that's going to affect their lives in some way.

Luna Corbden [00:24:21] So those are the four. Four criteria. And we'll look. Mark has some examples sort of showing how different. How the church uses these four steps in different ways.

Marc Oslund [00:24:30] Yeah, and Luna, just to hop in here, because I. If I were to say the one single slide, if you were to take anything from it, it would be that one. It hit me really deeply because the way that we are trained as seminary teachers to do this you can literally cross reference. So if you had Luna's slide on one side, and then what we're taught to do in seminary and how we talk about it in terms of asking questions, like you could literally put them side by side and see what they're doing. I don't think that was their intent, but I think it's abundantly clear that that is exactly what is happening specifically with this concept of doctrinal mastery that we'll get to later. But, Luna, this, to me, this is worth the price of admission just for this slide alone.

Luna Corbden [00:25:14] And there's something I was going to bring up later because it's one of the experiments I'm going to delve into, but I think I want to point it out right now. In one of the experiments, they found that if they showed a student or a participant, I mean, they were students because they're psych subjects and psych subjects are always students, but they found that the students, if they, if they participated directly in seeing the, the error of their ways or whatever, that it, it was way more effective. Like, if they demonstrated the vulnerability or the threat to the, to the student by having them actually participate and then see how they were wrong, that was far more effective and lasted much longer than just telling them the thing.

Luna Corbden [00:26:03] We'll talk a little bit more about the context of that towards the end of this whole thing, but just keep that in mind. That, like, being involved. There's a lot of questions. The examples that I came up with, they ask the primary student or the seminary student or whoever, they ask questions, and that gets the person actively engaged in the concept.

John Dehlin [00:26:24] And I'll just add that, yeah, I mean, Mark, we're going to talk about this, but like, yes, the church is constantly talking about the threat of apostates and of losing your faith. CES and Seminary Institute is a perfect place to do a preemptive refutation where you, where you teach this stuff before they ever get exposure to it. Because we know the Mormon bubble is real, and most Mormons, even to this date in 2021, have never heard of Mormon stories or the CES letter or any of this stuff. And because they're going to get them early in seminary and institute, there will always be that delay then between the exposure to the weaker argument and the real substantive, stronger argument.

Marc Oslund [00:27:07] Yeah, of course.

John Dehlin [00:27:09] Of course we're primed to care as Mormons because we're, we're primed to learn from literal infancy that, that Mormonism is the most important thing, and it's the only way you can see your family and be with your family and with God in the afterlife. So I think we're checking all the boxes right from the start.

Marc Oslund [00:27:26] 100%.

John Dehlin [00:27:27] Yeah. Luna, I think you're.

Luna Corbden [00:27:30] I'm all kinds of things today. Yes. There's that thread again. That's what I was saying, that you won't get to see your family. That. And that gets you directly involved in the topic.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] Yeah, Yep. All right.

Straw Man Fallacy and Psychological Reactance

Luna Corbden [00:27:42] Okay, so the next slide, I wanted to talk a little bit about the. A couple of side concepts that are kind of interplaying with this main concept. The first one is called the straw man fallacy, if anyone's ever heard of that. And that logical fallacies are basically ways that we can present a lot what an argument that appears to be in a logical format, but there's an error in it. And they've gone and thought about all the different ways you can make an error in general in a logical argument. So one of those ways is called the straw man fallacy. And that is when someone is.

Luna Corbden [00:28:19] So you got person A and person B and person A is arguing, arguing against person B. Person A makes a version of argument B that is wrong. And so it's easily defeated. That's why it's called a straw man. It's like a target practice. It's like a straw dummy that you're shooting arrows at that is easy to defeat, but it's easy to defeat because the thing isn't hitting back at you with the sword. And so I think that the strawman fallacy, beyond just being a problem in logic, actually has an effect in that it's creating. The inoculation theory is creating that effect in people that you're using it against.

Luna Corbden [00:29:01] And I see this a lot, like I said, I like to debate, I like to argue. And I see a lot of people using this. They, you know, they come up with some flimsy version of what you're trying to say. It doesn't have the real reasons, doesn't have your real facts, it doesn't have your real histories and, and the real thrust of your argument. And they're like, haha, look at you, fool. You believe that because it's this, this and this. But really, no, that's not what you're arguing against at all.

Luna Corbden [00:29:27] I think that. So the next one is psychological reactance. This is a concept, another well tested concept. The idea that each of us has an instinctual need to preserve what we perceive as our freedoms. And if you have an existing freedom and someone takes it away from you or you believe that they're about to take it away from you. People get really, really activated.

Luna Corbden [00:29:52] Even if they didn't care about a thing before. If you threaten to take their freedoms away, they lose their crap. I think we're seeing this in politics right now on every side of the aisle. It's neither a good thing or a bad thing. It's just like, I think it's a good thing overall in that we don't want our freedoms taken away, but it can be used by manipulative actors to say, for instance, create a fake freedom that's being taken away. And that's where we have to be more cautious of it. And then this concept of preaching to the choir, which plays on cognitive dissonance theory I mentioned before, that we'll try to create, we'll try to manipulate our minds or reality to reflect that truth that we want to be true back to ourselves.

Luna Corbden [00:30:37] And one of the things we can do is get social approval. So if we go to people who already agree with us and we kind of be like, can you believe that thing? Oh, yeah, I can't believe it either. Oh my gosh. And you go back and forth and support each other's ideas. That's a really great source for cognitive consonants. And I think that during the delay phase of the inoculation, when we're thinking about it, wow, they said that this thing. And I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about it. When we get a chance to talk to other people, to work through that, people who agree with the inoculator, then that bolsters those ideas a great deal.

Luna Corbden [00:31:19] So an example of sort of all of these concepts is that in the 80s, media outlets were arguing that the seat belt laws were a restriction on freedom, and authoritarians were trying to take away your freedoms. And they made comparisons to Hitler. They got a whole bunch of people to be up in arms against seatbelt laws. I was alive during that time, by the way, and I was on the side of seatbelt laws are nonsense. Like, why do we even do that? Well, that's like a weakened version. So they weren't expecting explaining that seatbelt save lives. They weren't explaining that young children don't get to choose.

Luna Corbden [00:31:53] They don't get to choose whether they're putting on a seat belt or not. They didn't explain how those injuries that occur during accidents, those preventable injuries, affect the overall cost of health care. There were actually like a lot of really, really good reasons to have a seatbelt law.

Luna Corbden [00:32:11] But of course, the people who were against the seatbelt law. Law, mainly the auto industry. They were getting people to be outraged. And that was a form of inoculation. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:26] Do we want to. Do we, Gerardo? Do we want to just kind of briefly apply these, or do we.

Gerardo Sumano [00:32:31] Yeah, so. So we're going to be doing that in just a minute. Just like a few. A couple. Actually a couple more slides, and we're going to be talking about that.

Real World Examples of Inoculation Campaigns

John Dehlin [00:32:41] Okay.

Marc Oslund [00:32:42] This is a huge deal. Again, the combination of the slide before and this slide are. I mean, again, if you compare them and part of. Part of maybe a fun activity for people, if they ever wanted to, would be to literally go to manuals, in particular seminary manual, because we're talking about inoculating youth. But it's in every manual, as we'll see. But literally take Luna's last two slides and then go through lessons specifically on maybe thorny subjects. So polygamy, temple and priesthood ban, anything like that. Marriage and family is always one. And you can literally compare and contrast and see where these tools are being utilized.

Marc Oslund [00:33:26] I think that's really, really, really important. In particular, the last one that really hit me, as Luna was kind of reviewing this was the preaching to the choir. I mean, we are literally taught as seminary teachers to have students share their testimonies, to ask their questions, and have people reaffirm to them what they're learning.

Marc Oslund [00:33:44] On top of that, we're also taught to that delay that Luna had mentioned. Hey, we're going to do it just on Mondays. We'll do doctrinal mastery. And then we'll come back to it next week, and then next Monday, we'll work on it. And then as we progressively get through the subject, let's take marriage and family, we introduce it, why do we need families? How do we love people, Et cetera, et cetera. And then eventually, four weeks later, it gets to the point of why is it right for profits to say that queer people shouldn't be married?

Marc Oslund [00:34:14] And so that's literally how it operates. And then you have at the very end, sharing your testimony of what you believe is true and what you've learned from this experience and how you believe that it's valuable. So you can literally take the last two slides and copy, paste and say, oh, that's where this is. That's where this is. You can label it. You can go through for yourself.

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:35] Yep, yep. It is hard. I don't know. It's. This is a highly speculative, speculative comment, but it is hard for me not to see how. How the People writing these manuals are not aware of these techniques because you can point them out almost like line by line all throughout the new ces. Come follow me.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:01] Stuff that the church has come up with. And I think it's very. This is something I had pointed out to John and I think I talked to you Mark, at some point about it. I sent you some examples on how similar the. The. The new church curriculum is to the Jehovah Witnesses as far as how they. How they teach subjects. So the Jehovah Witnesses, they have always been very big into this techniques of preparing their members be. I think part of it is because they go out that all the members go out and preach. So they get these like just questions and like reputations pretty like every week when they go out and preach. So they have to prepare their members to. On how to answer these difficult questions.

Guest [00:35:54] And.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:55] And the church is pretty much following that same pattern. Like if you compare I come following me manual to a Jehovah Witnesses, it almost looks exactly the same as. As how it is formatted with a question and answer. Question, answer and yeah, just super interesting.

Marc Oslund [00:36:12] That's exactly it. And I. John, you've mentioned before, right, that. That the I'm a Mormon campaign. Didn't that come after some, you know, it was a Jehovah's Witness or Scientologist.

John Dehlin [00:36:22] Scientology. Scientology had. And I'm. I'm a more I'm a Scientologist campaign that was literally identical. It's almost as if the same marketing firm that was helping the Scientologists turned and said, hey, we had. We had a lot of success with the Scientology with Scientologists. We'd love to run the same campaign with you guys. And you'd literally have skateboard. Skateboard Scientologists like skateboarding around and then, hey, I'm a Scientologist.

Gerardo Sumano [00:36:50] You know.

Marc Oslund [00:36:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:53] Actors identical campaign.

Marc Oslund [00:36:55] Yeah, yeah, it feels the same. Right? It feels the same where they're kind of gleaning. And. And in order to maintain membership, we know about this. Lying for the Lord is justified because anything is necessary. If you can keep members in, that's fine. You can do whatever you want. And so I do agree, Gerardo, that it. There has to be some sort of understanding because we understand this from the medical field so well. Right. I. I think generally this is why Luna mentioning this is so important. There might be other, you know, things that Luna mentions in her book that maybe people don't know that they're doing consciously. This one we are so familiar with because we do it so regularly. That we at least have to have some sense that hey, this kind of feels like we're doing something similar. Obviously Ballard felt that, which is why he used the word inoculation.

Gerardo Sumano [00:37:42] Right, next slide.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] All right.

Luna Corbden [00:37:46] Is this the I'm a Mac campaign? I think yeah. So they actually use this as an example. I don't know if anyone remembers in the mid 2000s there was this. I thought it was a great campaign. It was really funny. I'm a PC, I'm a Mac. And they had this sort of stodgy corporate accounting kind of guy who was the nerdy PC. And then they had the cool like surfer skateboarder dude and he's like the Mac. Right, the artistic kind of thing. Well, watching that campaign back in the day, I thought that that was aimed at me, who was a PC user at the time.

Luna Corbden [00:38:26] And actually it turns out that that campaign was not aimed at the PC users whatsoever. It a brand retention campaign aimed at existing Mac users trying to keep them to be loyal, faithful Mac users. And the way they did that was they inoculated Mac users by showing them that they have another choice. They're saying, look, you're not stuck with the Mac. They just wanted to remind them so that, that, that the PC market couldn't sneak around back and be like, hey, you know, the PC is better. So they're like, no, we, we're admitting right now there's a choice, but it's not a good choice. You're going to be, you're going to be a nerd and you're going to be corporate and we know you don't want that.

Luna Corbden [00:39:08] And so. And it was wildly successful. This study is quoted in marketing literature a lot and studies on why the campaign was so successful and it did its job in inoculated Mac users against switching to PC. Yeah, I just wanted like a non pol, political, like a non religious example so that sometimes like we're talking about inoculation theory, right? We've all got our heads full of all kinds of inoculations. We've got our predisposed biases towards and against all kinds of things. And so sometimes talking about it in a political way or a religious way, people are going to be like, oh, right, but you talk about marketing.

Luna Corbden [00:39:49] It's like, what? Nobody likes companies, right? None of us like them. I like Apple, but I still can detach myself enough from my loyalty to Apple to analyze that campaign.

Gerardo Sumano [00:40:00] Sorry.

John Dehlin [00:40:01] Gen Xers and Gen Zers all hate corporations.

Marc Oslund [00:40:06] Burn it down, John.

John Dehlin [00:40:06] Yeah, I'm so tired of all the Anti capitalism.

Marc Oslund [00:40:11] Luna. I'm glad you put this one because it reminds me of an Instagram post that was going around, man, right around conference time with the, with the title that said you can leave. And the body of the message was, hey, you really can leave. Mormonism, it's okay. But then there's a huge bulk of being like, but this is why it's good to stay. And I feel like it's very similar where it's like, yeah, yeah, you totally have a choice. Absolutely. For sure. But just so you know, the choice that you're making might not be the best one. Right. It almost feels more manipulative to tell people that they have a choice, but then to make that choice look really that right.

Luna Corbden [00:40:48] It always reminds me of the scene in Interview With a Vampire when Lestat is turning Louis into a vampire and he's, he's half dead. He's laying there, he's, he's gonna die if he doesn't choose to become a vampire. And Lestat says, I'm going to give you the choice I never had. And it's, it's like, but you're not giving him a choice. He's still going to become a vampire, otherwise he's going to be dead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:13] So, yeah, yeah, we can go to the next slide, John, and that one is just, you know, when you combine indoctrination or, or what the church promotes of accepting its teachings on critically, and when you combine that with inoculation,

Guest [00:41:37] it

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:37] just, I think in, in some way can really help just keep people in the church indoctrinated and inoculated because people are, are like members of the church are meant to accept whatever the church says without critical thinking. Right. So when they're presented with some of this troubling information in, in a spinned way, or maybe not completely honest there. I mean, their perception of the, of the, what the actual problem is might be lessened. So there's a video on the next slide where in a Relief Society meeting. This is a video from Jonathan Streeter that he, he clipped and, and, and they explained how, how they expect the membership to, to confront difficult questions. If you want to play that,

Church Curriculum and Inoculation Attempts

Guest [00:42:40] here's

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:42:40] one I think is important to ask. I know the gospel is true, but I am not comfortable with some things from our history or with our positions

Video Clip 1 [00:42:47] on certain social issues.

Video Clip 1 [00:42:49] How do I reconcile my testimony with my concerns? Okay, one, Scripture comes to mind. Doctrine Covenants 6:36. Look unto me in every thought. Doubt not, fear not. Remember that one. Remember when Elder Holland talked about remembering what you do know, not working from your. Your fears or your doubts. But remember, if I don't know all the answers to all the questions, that's all right. It's good to ask questions, it's good to explore. But start from as elder, I think Uchtdorf said, start from a basis of faith so that we can look in the right sources for those answers. I think there are some questions that will not have answers right now and right today.

Video Clip 1 [00:43:44] But I have to be faithful enough that I can put that on the shelf and let it rest until I can find that answer. Because I trust. I trust my Heavenly Father that He loves me enough to help me move forward despite that challenge that I don't have an answer for right now. But I do know. And what do I do know? I do know that I am a daughter of God. I do know that Jesus is the Christ.

Video Clip 1 [00:44:13] And when I keep those primary questions in mind, I can work on the secondary ones over time. I think it's essential that, that we keep the Spirit, that we're praying continually to stay close to our Heavenly Father in the process as we're asking those questions so that the Spirit can indoctrinate us. We can be taught by the Spirit.

Video Clip 1 [00:44:36] And.

Video Clip 1 [00:44:37] And I think feeling Heavenly Father's love is so important because there are so many things today in the world that would tear down that feeling of who we are and how much we are loved and how patiently he watches over us. And so I think, and you're right, as we all have questions, if that's okay, I just think it's important that we remember to put as much time into our spiritual indoctrination as perhaps the Internet and what the Internet would tell us.

John Dehlin [00:45:16] Amen.

Luna Corbden [00:45:18] Amen. You say amen?

John Dehlin [00:45:20] Did she just say indoctrinate twice?

Luna Corbden [00:45:24] We talked a little bit before this about how that we've got loaded language going on here. So as secular people, indoctrination has, like, a negative connotation to it that it didn't have for me when I was lds. So when I was lds, it just meant to be taught or to be educated with religious things. And it was only after I left that it meant, like, being programmed in some way.

Gerardo Sumano [00:45:49] Yeah. And I. I mean, I think the definition of indoctrination is accepting teachings on without critical thinking, which is what the. What. Which is what they were talking all along. But.

Luna Corbden [00:46:04] Yeah, but it's shown as a good thing. It's shown, like, as faith.

Gerardo Sumano [00:46:07] Right.

Luna Corbden [00:46:08] And the Spirit and you're a daughter of God and all that Kind of stuff. And I like she admits like she says it's good to explore. And so she, but she contradicts that. And this is like a form of double speak. You know, ask the question but know the answer. That's basically what she was saying.

Marc Oslund [00:46:29] Yep.

Gerardo Sumano [00:46:30] And it's, it's a form of also inoculation. Right. Like they're trying to inoculate other members. They're bringing this question up because they're trying to help other members to know how to, how to react or how to respond when they get difficult doubt or questions.

Luna Corbden [00:46:46] Right. Just remember Faith, remember feelings. She pulls you right back into feelings. Daughter of God is like a conditioned, like I was conditioned as a person who went through young women's very much to like feel things when I hear that. And I would lose that status as being a child of God if I were to leave the church.

Marc Oslund [00:47:07] Yep.

Luna Corbden [00:47:10] And that's the threat by the way. The threat in the inoculation model. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:47:19] No, John, we can go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [00:47:22] All right, all right.

Luna Corbden [00:47:24] So this, this is from the Aaronic priesthood manual in 2002. I just went onto the LDS Org, which is something else now and just did some searching and came up with a few examples. So this is one of them I came up with in this one. It instructs them to present. These are 12 year olds, 12 to 14 year olds to present this story about Tom who is thinking about going on a mission, but he doesn't really want to go on a mission. And he's gotten some advice from his friends and his girlfriend and various, you know, his boss, his co workers in his life and he comes up with a list of cons.

Luna Corbden [00:48:04] He's going to lose out on time, he's going to lose out on money, he's going to. Maybe his girlfriend won't be back. The old, the same old story that we are familiar with about a young man's decision to go on a mission.

Luna Corbden [00:48:18] So it has some questions. So it's getting the, the participant, the Aaronic priesthood kid involved in this. How qualified were the people Tom asked to help him make his decision? So these are, you know, his friends and so forth. And then it plants a little seed. They were probably looking at Tom in a selfish way.

Luna Corbden [00:48:38] His, what his decision would mean to them personally. Now when I go back and look, I don't actually see how any of his friends are going to get anything selfish out of this other than maybe just keeping Tom in their life, which is not exactly what I think of as selfish. Like that's friendship.

Luna Corbden [00:48:57] But they're framing that as selfish. All these people are selfish. They're just thinking about themselves as if the church is not being selfish in this situation. And what would, what other people should Tom have asked for counsel? And the answer, of course is his parents, his bishop, his trusted relatives and Heavenly Father. And it's implied there that they're not selfish. I think that's probably the core to this inoculation is that people who argue against doing what the church wants are selfish in the church itself, or people arguing in favor of the church are not selfish.

Luna Corbden [00:49:30] But having left the church, I've discovered that that's, that's not true. People are people. They have their own interests, they have interests in other people. They have all kinds of mixed motivations. And it doesn't come down to this flat, easy thing. And in fact, institutions like churches, parents and bishops can be very selfish.

Luna Corbden [00:49:51] And so, but that's what I learned later. But the kids in Aaronic priesthood are going to come away with this feeling that everyone is selfish except for the Church. So then at the end of the story, Tom starts to feel unhappy with his life. He's not going on a mission, he's just doing regular teenager stuff and it's so awful.

Luna Corbden [00:50:09] So then he's like, well, maybe if I go back to church. So he goes back to church and he learns his lesson and he shows up the bishop and he's like, is it too late for me to go on a mission? They asked. And then the teacher is supposed to ask the kids, what good things did Tom make do to make his decision? So it's instilling that idea that these are good things. Going to church and reading the scriptures are automatically good no matter what.

Luna Corbden [00:50:30] Reading the scriptures, talking to his bishop, and then on the chalkboard, the ultimate message that people are supposed to learn is consult others who are qualified. And the implication there is that anyone who's arguing in favor of the church is qualified. And anyone's arguing for Tom to go on and live his own life, which is his own life, and go to school and keep his girlfriend and all of those things, that those people are selfish and underqualified.

Gerardo Sumano [00:50:58] It's like when the church uses the term go to the, go to qualified or go to the right sources or go to what other words do they like? It says like, whenever you have a, they say whenever you have a doubt, you should go to trustworthy sources. And what that really means, like, or what every Mormon understands that is like church approved sources. So if you're gonna learn anything about the church, it has to be through, through church approved sources. It's almost like the same thing that's happening here, I think.

John Dehlin [00:51:35] Yeah.

Luna Corbden [00:51:36] And there's an authoritarian core to this story too. You know, trust the right authorities and we'll talk about which authorities to trust at the end, so.

Marc Oslund [00:51:45] Right, right.

Guest [00:51:46] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:51:48] And in the next slide there is another quote which I was, I was pretty surprised that it was all the way back in 2004. But the, the article was called Youth Need Inoculation against the World by Melissa Merrill. She uses some President Parker stuff from, from I think a talk he gave. And she says, although facing evil of epidemic, epidemic proportions, students can be inoculated through a knowledge and testimony of their respect restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, President Packer taught. So I, I thought this was interesting because it was back in 2004 is by. President Packer is a person. Packer's quote. But he has a different approach as to what the newer quote of Elder Ballard has.

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:40] Elder Ballard talked more about, you know, having answers to the difficult question of history and doctrine, while President Packer back then was using testimony and, and knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as like the way to, to go. But like, you know, like the church has shifted gears since 2004 and that's kind of what we're going to be showing. So John, you can go to the next slide and Mark Stern.

Key Figures Reshaping Church Education

Marc Oslund [00:53:13] So this is important because there's a couple key figures here. We already talked about Elder Ballard and they all kind of go hand in hand. So on the left you have Chad Webb, who's the administrator of seminaries and institutes. So he's, he's equivalent to Kevin Worthen at BYU or Henry Eyring, who's at BYU Idaho. They're all on the same level. They report to the Commissioner of Church Education, who I believe I forget his name. Johnson. Paul. Paul Johnson.

Marc Oslund [00:53:41] Obviously we know Sherry Dew and we'll talk about kind of her role in all of this. And then Elder Ballard and him saying, you know, what he did specifically with inoculation. So in 2016, that's kind of where it really starts happening. So February of 2016, Ballard gives this quote where he talks about inoculating. He says, hey, we need to be more forthright with our students. We need to ensure that they're asking any question that comes to their mind and that, you know, the gospel topics essays like the back of your hand. That's a direct quote.

Marc Oslund [00:54:12] And so this is the beginning of a major shift in how we Talk about some of the major concerns from, you know, a Mormon's perspective. Right. And importantly, I don't think that this was intended out of just generosity. Right. That this was really a, oh, we are losing people. This is a. We have to do this in order to retain membership. So therefore we're going to do it. It felt very reluctant, it felt very intentional as to.

Marc Oslund [00:54:44] You're pulling our teeth here, but we have to make sure that that happens. So that's kind of the overview. I think the next slide kind of conveys her mention this, right? Yeah, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:54:54] So I added this one because this was around the same time when the church comes up with these four new classes that were. That are, that are going to be necessary for anyone that wants to graduate from Institution Institute. And everyone that's going to CES schools will have to take this classes as, you know, as generals and you know, their basis for the religious classes they have to take. So everyone has to take these classes.

Marc Oslund [00:55:24] Cornerstone. Cornerstone class is what they're called.

Gerardo Sumano [00:55:26] They call it. Yep. And it's just interesting if you see the four classes, what the topics are. One is called Foundations of the Restoration and it deals from the very beginning. Starts dealing with the pro. With problems with history. It deals like the, the whole class about the first vision is talking about the different accounts and how they all supposedly tell a similar. Or a.

Gerardo Sumano [00:55:57] What's the word that they use? Yeah, a similar narrative. And then, then they have teachings and doctrine of the Book of Mormon that is just. It's a class that is just. It's just about how, how important, how amazing the Book of Mormon is. Rather than just studying the Book of Mormon as before, they're just gonna talk about how amazing the Book of Mormon is and how it can't be refuted or proven that it's not real. And then they have the eternal family. The whole class is, is the, is studying the family proclamation paragraph by paragraph. So each class is a different paragraph from, from the family proclamation.

Gerardo Sumano [00:56:40] They have, I think there's at least three classes that mention same sex marriage or same sex attractions. And it's all about you combating, you know, like the idea that the church is bigoted against gay people by, by not supporting same sex marriage. And the last one is Jesus Christ and the everlasting Gospel. And that one's just about how amazing Jesus is and why this is the, the true church of Jesus and just very interesting and, and different than what they were doing for decades, you know, before it was studying just the books of Scripture.

Marc Oslund [00:57:19] That's Right. And I'll point out that, you know, this happened while I was teaching seminary, that this became a thing for institute students or BYU students. And largely the feedback in particular was that the Eternal Family is a hated class. Like this class is not well received. It's a class that they know that they have to take. Have to take. And that's the word that they use. They absolutely despise it. But the concept trying to be, hey, let's get you on the side of the, of the Lord's team. Right. Let's talk about some of these messier things. Let's again inoculate you. But it's actually not working.

Marc Oslund [00:57:54] It's actually kids are so smart, especially institute level kids. These are not compelling arguments that are being made here. And I think that's why they're starting to kind of move down younger and younger and younger, because they don't have the compelling arguments made up or they don't have maybe the resources to be able to check. That's why I think there's a pilot program going on somewhere in Arizona where they're, they're trying seminary for eighth graders, which. Because I think it's being rejected at higher levels.

Luna Corbden [00:58:23] Right.

Marc Oslund [00:58:23] And so they have to go younger and younger and younger.

Luna Corbden [00:58:26] Yeah, it's too difficult.

Gerardo Sumano [00:58:28] So bad.

Luna Corbden [00:58:30] Yeah. To me, it strikes me as, I think the inoculations being done before the children can like get, like before the church can get to them. The, the inoculation when it comes to social issues, when it comes to LGBT issues, is they have friends that are lgbt and if they don't have them in real life, they've got them online and they're seeing representation of trans people and other people like me in the media and they're seeing that we're human beings. And so, you know, in, when I was coming up in the church in the 80s, a few whispers about how gay people were evil and in, in the hand of Satan and you know, that was all it took for my generation to self hate and hate other people.

Luna Corbden [00:59:11] That's all it took. But when the coming out movement, I think the coming out movement I think is a really great example of sort of how the culture war shifted because our existence, our open existence became the inoculation. Like how, how, how much of a monster are you if you go on hating someone after you're friends with them?

Marc Oslund [00:59:32] Yeah, yeah, great point.

Gerardo Sumano [00:59:36] And next slide, John.

Marc Oslund [00:59:39] Yeah, so this, you know, I would, it's hard. I wouldn't recommend anyone listening to talks largely because they're Just. They're just dry. They're just dry. But this. So February of 2016, Russell Ballard gives his talk talking about inoculation. Then in May of 2016, there's a pretty profound talk that was referenced quite a bit in seminary trainings. We definitely had it in summer. We had it for weekly in service. We talked about the concepts here. And then you'll. We'll see in a slide that it's actually expanded upon by Chad Webb, who's the administrator of seminaries and institutes. But Cherry Duke comes to BYU Idaho, and that's significant in and of itself because we know that BYU Idaho is even more rigid, right.

Marc Oslund [01:00:21] Than. Than BYU and even BYU Hawaii. And so she gives this talk that is largely talking about questions, doubts, concerns, and she covers it. The title of it is will you engage in the wrestle? And she talks about this where, you know, there's a wrestle in scriptures with, I don't remember someone in the Old Testament, there's wrestle with, was it Jacob? I should know this. I used to teach. My brain was wiped clean. It's like Men in Black. When you get excommunicated, it's like it just wipes out. But anyway, I. I have all of these experiences. And so I'm thinking about Sherry Dew giving this talk.

Marc Oslund [01:00:57] And as you kind of go through it, we're not going to listen to it because, again, it's pretty dry. But you'll see that there's two things that she mentioned. She mentions one girl in particular, young woman, she says, who is super smart. She graduated with honors from byu. She has questions about the church. I think the phrase that she provides, actually, I know that it is, is I'm not sure I believe the church is true. And I'm scared. What if my family isn't going to be together forever?

Marc Oslund [01:01:26] Right. We've talked about that. That is absolutely a threat. This is how Mormons have this great tension. And Sherry Dew ends up responding, do you want a testimony? I do want a testimony. Are you willing to work for a testimony? Yes, I am. And then she says, and she was. And she expands on all the ways in which this young woman was willing to work hard and wrestle for her testimony in spite of her doubts. Right? Then she contrasts that with another young woman, and she paints this young woman again. The demonization comes in where this person becomes somebody who is maybe not as faithful and not an honors graduate student, but she is a BYU graduate.

Marc Oslund [01:02:03] And then she says, you know, before you hear from anyone else, I want you to know that I got pregnant. You know, outside of marriage. And then Sherry Dew asked the same question. Do you want a testimony? She just says, no, I don't really think I want a testimony.

Marc Oslund [01:02:18] And she talks and compares the difference between these two and the contrast. And in fact, the exact phrasing is the contrast was stunning. At about the same time, these two young women had questions that threatened their testimonies. One of them sent out a cry for help, and family, friends and leaders followed President Monson's counsel and went to her rescue. The other girl nursed her doubt and convinced herself that the immoral choices were accepted.

Marc Oslund [01:02:45] I love and care about this girl, but for now, she has chosen a spiritually perilous path. Right, so this is how we begin. This is. This is 2016, where emerald saballer says, hey, be open. And then Sherry Dew says, hey, yeah, if you're open, it's really up to you. How hard are you going to work for this. And if you aren't willing to work hard, then you're going down a perilous path, which I think is really profound, which then in the next slide, Chad Webb ends up building upon quite a bit.

Doctrinal Mastery Program Training Videos

Gerardo Sumano [01:03:14] And. And this one from Chad Webb, you. You mentioned, and you showed me that the church has made a document out of this experience that we're gonna listen to, right?

Marc Oslund [01:03:24] That's right. There's a PDF.

Gerardo Sumano [01:03:26] And.

Marc Oslund [01:03:26] And this. This was. This became the foundational talk. So in June or July, whenever we have our yearly kind of broadcast trainings, they've adjusted since. They've made some tweaks to how the manuals come about. But Chad Webb kind of sets the course for what we're going to be doing in seminary. And so he expounds, literally quoting at the beginning of his talk, M. Russell Ballard and Sherry Dew, and refers us both to those talks. Then he says, in light of this, we are creating a new initiative called Doctrinal Mastery. Doctrinal Mastery will replace Scripture Mastery, if you remember. Like, I never did this because I was a convert, but Scripture cases and all of that type of stuff, he says, no, we're done with that.

Marc Oslund [01:04:06] Doctrinal Mastery is coming into place. And as part of this talk that he gives, I don't know if this is a real example or a hypothetical example. I do know that Chad Webb is a Stake president. I also know that he had been thinking about this for quite some time from an ecclesiastical position. In some training he gave, he referred to this of how so many kids his daughter's age are coming up to him and saying, I don't Believe I'm struggling with this. I'm struggling with this. In fact, he said he had been wrestling with it, then he presented it. So this is really interesting.

Marc Oslund [01:04:38] He presented it upwards to Kim Clark, who was the Commissioner of Church Education, who then presented it to the quorum of the 12. The irony here is Chad Webb is a church employee. He is not an ecclesiastical leader in terms of his seminary role. He is a stake president.

Marc Oslund [01:04:56] But isn't Revelation supposed to be coming from top down? Shouldn't Nelson or Monson or whoever was leading at the time be like, I think there's an activity that should come that's, you know, that we should do something like this. Instead it came and it was actually presented to us as what a miraculous thing that we can all get Revelation that prophets were on board. Here's Chad Webb presenting this new initiative that all the church leaders sign off on because it's just so inspired. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:24] Yeah.

Marc Oslund [01:05:25] That's interesting. Interesting.

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:27] So, John, if you want to play the video, I that you had the time codes earlier.

Guest [01:05:33] Yeah.

Marc Oslund [01:05:33] And let me preface this by saying again, dry all of those things, but we want to listen to it because, look, you can't get a specific snapshot of what this looks like in seminary. They don't have videos of watching teachers do this. But this is how the very first training we got from Seminary Admin about how to present this and what it would look like in a class. And I think as you listen to this, you're going to see, oh, this is exactly where it manifests itself. Oh, I see what they're trying to do. Think back to Luna's couple slides where she reviewed or they review these really important things. And you're going to see this manifest itself.

Luna Corbden [01:06:14] Right?

Marc Oslund [01:06:15] You're going to see this manifest itself in this talk, which is exactly what seminary teachers are being trained to do right now. 20, 21.

John Dehlin [01:06:23] All right, you guys tell me when to stop it, okay? Yeah, okay.

Guest [01:06:27] By your in service leaders. As an example of how doctrinal mastery will be a blessing to our students, let me share a scenario of a young woman who represents many students who sit in our classrooms who are having similar questions and concerns. I have chosen this particular example because I'm the father.

Guest [01:06:52] Of six daughters whom I love and for whom I pray that they will feel how much Heavenly Father loves them. So imagine a woman named Monica, a young woman who comes from a faithful family and has learned the gospel throughout her life. She loves attending young women's in seminary. But suppose that one day a friend or a teacher or even a family member says to her that the church does not value women.

Guest [01:07:21] And the argument is made that the world has recognized the contribution of women and treats them as equals. And then comes the question, when will the church catch up with the rest of the world on this social issue?

Marc Oslund [01:07:33] Okay, can we pause?

Guest [01:07:34] It felt unloved.

Marc Oslund [01:07:36] I think there's so many things right off the bat, right where he's talking about faithful girls, he's talking about his own daughters. He's talking about how serious this is. He's talking about what a big deal. And then ultimately, he's also presenting a very real example of this for women. This is a pressing issue. Does this not remind you of exactly what Kate Kelly and ordained women was trying to do? These are the types of questions that our students are. We're showing up with every single day in seminary. Right. So even in the example of how to present this, it's essential that we're seeing. Yeah, he's already inoculating us. Because I know for a fact seminary teachers are having the same types of questions. The same types of questions. So it's serving multiple purposes in this talk. Training us, sure. Teaching us how to inoculate people, school, but also how we feel.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:32] Right.

Marc Oslund [01:08:32] As we as about ourselves, about our own testimonies. Because seminary teachers have doubts just like everyone else.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:39] Yeah, you can play it.

John Dehlin [01:08:43] Keep going.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:43] Yep, keep going.

Guest [01:08:46] Appreciated a church. She's been taught that she has a divine nature and individual worth. She's observed powerful young women leaders and a wonderful, wonderful mother who happily serve in the church and in their communities. But Monica is unsure how to answer the question. In fact, it starts to bother her, and she begins to wonder why women don't hold certain positions in the church.

Guest [01:09:07] The argument she has heard about equality and fairness for men and women begins to sound reasonable to her. One day in seminary, her teacher, Sister Bell, initiates a doctrinal mastery discussion about the Godhead and the principle that God loves each of his children perfectly and that all are alike unto him. They then study 2 Nephi 2633.

Guest [01:09:29] As the discussion progresses, Monica wonders how that can be true if women are not given the same opportunities as men to hold certain callings in the church. Still wondering about this issue, Monica writes a note to Sister Belle asking, when will the church be like everyone else and start treating men and women equally equally? The following day, Sister Bell decides to address the question in class. She asks how a person with this question might act in faith.

Guest [01:09:58] Students discuss things such as the importance of praying to Heavenly Father for help and understanding. One student expresses the importance of holding on to what they already understand about their relationship with Heavenly Father and shares an example of when she came to know that Heavenly Father loves her and values her. Then to help the class consider how they.

Marc Oslund [01:10:21] I'm actually curious and Luna, I don't mean to put you on the spot, so if you're like ah, don't just tell me. But I'm curious because look, I know how this happens for me and I knew what I was thinking as I went through this. But I'm curious as somebody who is like an expert on these types of things, what are you noticing as you hear this?

Luna Corbden [01:10:41] He's praising women which supposed to make women feel good. I guess it worked on me for a while. It is a form of inoculation. I know that when I was in my early 20s going to college in the late 90s, I had a non member friend that was my first mistake. And, and she's like oh, your Mormon church is patriarchal. And, and, and they can't have positions of power and they hate women.

Luna Corbden [01:11:13] And I'm like no, they love us. They said every week they're up there saying with tears in their eyes how much they love us. And I totally fell for it. And so part of this form of inoculation is what's that saying about faint praise? It's. I actually wrote an article about this for a blog called no Longer Quivering, which are ex members of the Quiverful movement, which is a branch of evangelicalism.

Luna Corbden [01:11:42] They're basically feminists who were formerly survivors and abuse victims and all sorts of things of that form of patriarchy. And, and, and I talked about how the woman's place is on a pedestal and that's what they're doing. They're, they're putting women up on a pedestal with, with their words. But they're not actually in, in actions. That's supposed to distract us from the fact that there are virtually no positions of leadership in the church for women and absolutely none for women over grown men.

Luna Corbden [01:12:16] And that's, that's just what it is. You, there is no role of power for women in the church. And that's what he's inoculating against here.

Marc Oslund [01:12:24] Yeah, isn't that interesting? Right? And, and it happens because again the priority praise. Right. This kind of idea of benevolent patriarchy that. Exactly. That it should appease. Oh, I know these people, especially these sisters, they're just really feeling worried. But if I tell them they're really special, they'll feel better. Right? You can See it all happening. So it. It. I would have loved Luna to have been able to have you right next to me or even your book right while I was listening to this and just cross reference. So I don't. I'm sorry to keep cutting in Gerardo on this, but.

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:52] No, just great. This is great.

Guest [01:12:57] You might examine the question with an eternal perspective. Sister Bell encourages them to think about the worldly assumption or premise upon which the question is based. She asks, how might the world define equality and fairness? A few students comment on how some people think that equality and fairness mean that everything must be the same between men and women. A young man explains that according to the world, a person's position determines his or her importance. And that could lead to the perspective that some church callings are more important than others, making it seem unfair if everyone can't hold those callings. This loving teacher then asks how they might reframe this question from the Lord's perspective.

Marc Oslund [01:13:43] Oh, pause that.

Guest [01:13:44] This is a difficult skill.

Marc Oslund [01:13:48] This is so interesting to me. The world's perspective and the Lord's perspective. Right. Okay, here's a really hard question. It makes you feel really uncomfortable, which, by the way, think of the time that Luna had mentioned where it's like, we're going to kind of drop it, and then it's more effective if you wait a little bit. Come back to the next day and then the next day and then the next day. So the Lord's perspective. Now let's look at how does the Lord feel about this? And by the way, how do we define the Lord for. I know, I know. Listen, I got excommunicated for a reason.

Marc Oslund [01:14:20] But the way that we define the Lord here is Mormon leaders. That's what they mean, what Mormon leaders have taught, because the Lord actually doesn't say much, if anything about that at all. But regardless, this is okay. I feel uneasy. Okay. You're wrestling with it for a couple days a la Sherry. Do you're not feeling good? Let's get some people in here too. What do other people do think? Oh, they don't have problems with it. Why do you have problems with it? Right. Those types of feelings begin. I just think this is such an important snapshot of exactly how it should be operating in seminary where, oh, somebody has a real doubt.

Marc Oslund [01:14:56] Okay, let's talk about it. Let's kind of buy ourselves some time. Let's see how maybe the world has influenced them. Give it another day. Let's talk about this again. Hey, I was thinking about this. Can we reframe this to the church's perspective then also, I know that you're struggling student, but there's a lot of really faithful students that have answers. Why don't you listen to them and because they're going to help you feel a lot better about this. And if you don't, then you're going to feel really crappy because everybody else feels good and you're the only one that feels right.

Luna Corbden [01:15:27] Also, it must be nice to have God on your side. I'm quoting Hamilton there with a little bit that is like, well, God says I'm right. How do you argue with, with God? I mean, I mean that's. But that's the point. You can't, you can't argue with God. So they get to say whatever they want God to say.

Marc Oslund [01:15:44] What did John, what has John said? I. We should make it illegal for any person to say they speak for God. Right.

John Dehlin [01:15:50] It's just too much power. It's just giving anyone too much power. Influence at its finest. Because the. How do you argue with God? But who can, who can ever really know that they're talking for God? But then you have to obey God and so, and then the shame and the guilt for messing up is just the stakes all get amped up too high. And that's where so much mental illness, in my opinion comes from.

Luna Corbden [01:16:18] And you end up obeying that person via being, obeying God. And that's what we, we call on the manipulation side of things, sacred science. Is that idea that the leaders speak for God.

John Dehlin [01:16:32] Yep.

Marc Oslund [01:16:32] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:33] It's just interesting just to, I don't know, it's hard for me to know what he's trying to get to. I mean he's just giving her an example that could happen in anyone's classroom.

Guest [01:16:43] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [01:16:44] But what is he trying to tell? Is he trying to model how to deal with difficult questions? Is that what he's trying to do? Is that what doctoral mastery means?

Marc Oslund [01:16:58] Like, yeah. And they, after this, this is important. So after this talk they come out with a whole separate manual that's a supplement to the seminary teachers curriculum. And so doctoral mastery has become a program in, in and of itself. Now I, I believe they're trying to integrate it to the daily seminary lessons, which is interesting. But also there was specific time that teachers either at the beginning of every class or spending one day, like for me it would be on Mondays. We just did question the answers. But anyway. Yeah, so that's part of it, right. Is that you're opening this up and this became the word. I'm Looking for when it's like the groundbreaking thing, the water. The watershed moment. Right. Like this became the moment when seminary began to shift to a more doctoral mastery focused organization.

Gerardo Sumano [01:17:52] That means. That makes sense.

Marc Oslund [01:17:54] Yeah. Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:17:55] Do we want to keep playing or. I think you're well.

Marc Oslund [01:17:58] Yeah, I think. I think we're good. I think you get the idea. If you want to listen to more of that. Yeah. You can hear how this was played out. I. I mean, part of me wishes I could get an actual video of what that looks like in a seminary class, but, I mean, that's it. And. And the way that this is conveyed with this is not a problem.

John Dehlin [01:18:16] Problem.

Marc Oslund [01:18:16] We're not worried about it. No. And literally, Ballard being taught like. And us being taught as seminary teachers, the way that you respond to your students concerns is an answer in of itself. Meaning if you respond with yeah, that makes me feel really uncomfortable. Which was my answer again, why I got part of the reason I get excommunicated. Or if you. Oh, yeah, that's. I get why that would be concerning to you. But let me tell you, the Lord is in this church, and the church is true and beautiful and good. The irony is, okay, in one of my letters, I was told not like to bear testimony, but M. Russell Ballard says, don't bear testimony as an answer. So anyway, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of disconnect there.

Gerardo Sumano [01:18:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. John, if you go to the next slide, I think it's just a quote from. From him. Right?

Marc Oslund [01:19:09] Yeah. There are so many students. There are so many students. That is the phrase, I think, that jumps out, which I kind of exemplifies where the church is at, that they know there are so many students just like Monica, who have pressing questions and they need you to teach them. What does that mean? Kids are smart. This is what we were taught. This is J. Reuben Clark, the A Charted course for the Church in Education where kids are experts. They want the doctrine straight and undiluted. Why are we having to teach them how to find answers? What does that mean, how to find answers? Now, look, I'm not saying kids don't need to be taught how to, you know, trust certain sources and what have you, but at the same time, we know what that means.

Marc Oslund [01:19:53] Who needs you to teach them how to find answers? Not answers. How to find our answers. The answers that we say are. Okay. Okay. That's the whole point of this.

Gerardo Sumano [01:20:03] Yeah. In the next slide, there's a. An actual example of. Is this a seminary manual?

Marc Oslund [01:20:12] Yeah. So this, this is from the Doctrinal mastery manual. So we're going to have. There's quite a few. And part of what we had done for our little presentation, I just wanted some things documented because we know, you know, when church leaders start talking and people start getting word of it, they like to alter it and pretend like that didn't exist. So part of what I did was just compile things, screenshot them, so we could have them documented in case in 10 years we say, wow, it's totally gone. And they said doctoral mastery wasn't a thing. Or where did it come from asking people to baptize, get baptized on the first, you know, missionary discussion?

Marc Oslund [01:20:48] Anyway, we'll have this. You guys can check with John and Gerardo. But part of this is just conveying what we are supposed to be doing. And I think in step four, where it says act in faith, examine concepts, see further understanding, that would be the slide that you would contrast with one of Luna's earlier ones that make it very clear what the church is trying to do and just making it feel okay to even ask questions. I think that's really interesting here.

Gerardo Sumano [01:21:14] Yeah, yeah. And the next slide is an example of like, why. I mean, I think John mentioned this in the beginning. What we want is the church to be more transparent on actually dealing with these issues. But I think in some ways, and, and I think, Mark, you, you.

Gerardo Sumano [01:21:34] We could say probably in most. Most of the times the church is not doing it in an open, honest way. It's not letting people find their own, like arrive to their own conclusions. It's not letting people. Is not putting out the evidence and, and having people decide by informed consent what, what they think is best is. They're trying, what they're trying to do by this new, new curriculum and classes is like shaped. Shape what the church teachings were, what the problematic church history was. And, and. And kind of presenting it in a, In a dishonest way. Honestly, like if you can't tell, this is dishonest.

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:19] I don't, I don't know. Like, I mean, this is us. This is a picture from the Come Following Me manual that was headlines last. Locally last year when it came out. Because in this manual, when he was. When the printed version was released, they, they had this point where they discussed the black skin cur. The darker skin of the laymanites and how that was a curse that God gave them.

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:48] And this whole thing went when I think when people started complaining, the church came out with a statement. I think they apologized and they took it, they took it out of the online version. But if we see this is an example of what they're trying to do when they present these difficult subjects. And in the last sentence of. Of this paragraph that explains the curse of the Lamanites, they use a quote from just Joseph Feeling Smith from Answers to Gospel Question, a book from 1960.

Gerardo Sumano [01:23:25] And what they're trying to. To do pretty much is saying that. Trying to portray as Joseph Feeling Smith as not being racist or, or not as racist. They quote it and say. They say dark skin and then they have a column and then it says is no longer to be considered a sign of the curse. So trying to make Joseph Feeling Smith look like he is. He agrees with what today's prophets say, which is that they disavow the theories advanced in the past about, about dark skin being a sign of. Of divine disfavor.

How Seminary Handles Polygamy and the Priesthood Ban

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:04] And. But, but they're leaving out an important part of the quote. And in the right side of the slide, I have the. The full quote where Joseph Feelings meant. What he actually says is that the dark skin of those who have come into the church, of those who have joined the church are no longer. Is no longer to be considered a sign of the curse. For everyone else, it's still a curse. He says many of these converts are delightsome and have the spirit of the Lord. Perhaps there are some Lamanites today who are losing the dark, dark pigment. Many of the members of the church among the Karaba Indians of the south because readily passes of white race also in other parts of the South.

Gerardo Sumano [01:24:48] So this is just an example of how they're presenting this troubling information, troubling past, trying to make it look like the church, how their race issues, how they talk about it today is how they've always talked about them and trying to say, look, the church has never really been racist.

Marc Oslund [01:25:10] That's it. And I, and I think in seminary, you. You had alluded to this and this is kind of what I was thinking of, but you conveyed it better in the quote before. Seminary is specifically seminary teachers. Now this is happening in a lot of places, but this is where, you know, my former expertise comes in, where we are being told to literally walk students step by step through the process and not allow for free thought. In that we give the illusion of free thought, which I think is the inoculation portion for my. From my mind. And Luna, you can come in and tell me if that's accurate, but the inoculation is.

Marc Oslund [01:25:44] Yeah, you're free to ask questions for sure, but then we prescribe the Methodology of how we find those answers, where we find those answers, what those answers can be. So we make people feel like, oh yeah, no problem at all. But it is absolutely prescribed. It's absolutely something that we have very strict bounds in how we present as seminary teachers. And there was even one of the comments in the chat that says it was a seminary student in 2016 or an institute student in 2016.

Marc Oslund [01:26:12] Their teacher explained that people tell different stories about the First Vision accounts all the time, don't worry about it, no big deal. And then they never actually refer to the different First Vision accounts. So this is a, this is very much something that is happening in real time and very much something that is, is again, intentional. That's the real thing. Whether it's manipulative or not. The end goal is to walk students through a process that, that keeps them in the church. That's the reason.

Gerardo Sumano [01:26:41] Yeah, John, if you go to the next slide, Mark has an example of DNC132.

Marc Oslund [01:26:48] Yeah, there's a couple examples here. And so again, this is, this is what I was conveying earlier where take Luna's slides that they presented earlier and then walk through any manual, Just choose a manual, choose a thorny subject, choose Abraham sacrificing Isaac and how they try to make people feel like that's okay even though Abraham hands a total coward. Why wouldn't he just tell God that God sucks, I would never kill my kid, what have you. So in this example it mentions. We're talking about polygamy. We had already referenced, well, you know, it was okay in, in the Old Testament, therefore it should be okay now. Then it references Jacob chapter two. That conveys that the Lord's standard, and this is literally what it says in the manual. The Lord's standard is monogamy.

Guest [01:27:29] Right?

Marc Oslund [01:27:29] Between one man and one woman. Except that I, I had mentioned this kind of off air, but the irony here is in this same verse is where it says, like, polygamy is only authorized when it's intended to raise up seed. But yet people will say, well, Joseph, no, he didn't have sex with any of his wives because why, he didn't have any kids. So Joseph was in violation of his own verse. But anyway, the point is, look, it's not a big deal. It's in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon. It's okay. Then it has a student read and follow along and look for specific ways that the Lord commands that this is actually a good thing, even though you're deeply disgusted about it.

Marc Oslund [01:28:07] Right. And then It. And then the very end. I think this is really interesting. The Lord affirmed that when people practice the principle of plural marriage according to his commandment, they are not guilty of adultery. No, no, no. They're not breaking the law of Jassy. Because the Lord said. Right. However, if anyone practices plural marriage under any circumstances, the Lord does not command they are guilty of adultery. Right. And so the next, when we get to the next slide, you'll see how ironic this is. Then it mentions in parentheses, right. The word destroyed in verse 41, by the way. It doesn't actually mean destroyed. Like, Emma's not actually going to be obliterated.

Marc Oslund [01:28:46] It's just she's going to be removed from her covenants. It's not a big deal. You don't need to feel bad about that. I know women. We love you. You're so. Thank you. Young women, right? That's literally how we are being trained in, in service meetings to convey this messaging. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:29:01] Yeah.

Luna Corbden [01:29:02] And I'm not the ecclesiastical version of. I was just kidding.

Marc Oslund [01:29:08] Yeah.

Luna Corbden [01:29:08] Like, you say something really abusive or do something really abusive, and you're like, oh, I was just kidding. And it's like a way to kind of test the waters. And you get, you get both, you get to have your cake and eat it too, because they get to smite fear into people's hearts. Like, destroyed is going to read regardless of whatever, like upper coding and logical loops that we're running ourselves through because they've redefined words and stuff like that. Like right here, we're going to feel that word as a threat. I am going to be destroyed if I don't obey God. And then they can be, well, destroyed, actually being like eternal death. It's not real death. It's just like you're just gonna be unhappy forever. That's all. And, but really, it has the same exact effect as the actual literal meaning of the word.

Marc Oslund [01:29:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Gerardo Sumano [01:29:57] So that was very interesting because I, I. Because there's a lot of people that have trouble with Several references on DNC132 of Emma being destroyed. And it's just interesting how the manual is just hinting, oh, hey, by just like in the middle of nowhere, hey, by the way, the word destroyed in this verses that you just read actually means you're just separated from God.

Marc Oslund [01:30:23] And I think the afterthought of it, like you mentioned in the parentheses, just a passing comment, is, is inoculation. Like, we're just gonna address it because you're gonna hear it, but we don't actually want to go into it, because if we go into it, it's going to make everyone feel really confused and there's actually no good answers for.

John Dehlin [01:30:37] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:30:38] Yep. Yeah, that's great.

Marc Oslund [01:30:40] So then the next, the next slide. So this would be the, the follow up lesson to this, right, where we're talking about Official Declaration 1, which is the ending of plural marriage. Right. At least according to how the church likes to convey this. Right. And then if you notice at the beginning, ask students name righteous individuals in the scriptures that phrasing implies, hey, we're setting you up to see the people that we're going to talk about as righteous individuals who have been arrested or in prison for what? For doing what God has commanded them to do. And we think it says answers might include Daniel Abinadi, Peter Joseph Smith, and the Savior.

Marc Oslund [01:31:13] Like, wow, the people that were persecuted for practicing polygamy are just like Jesus. That's literally how we're preparing people to hear this messaging about, hey, just so you know, some people are actually arrested and it's not because they were doing something wrong. Actually the United States government was wrong for persecuting us because religious freedom, right to have plural wives, that's kind of the concept that they are trying to convey here.

Luna Corbden [01:31:38] But we can't have gay marriage. That one, we can't have that, though. Just plural marriage. That's fine.

Marc Oslund [01:31:43] Exactly, exactly. And so it's so interesting, right? I mean, a conversation for a different time. But ultimately consenting adults operating in a plural relationship, there really shouldn't be a problem with it. Utah has come down really strongly on that to be like, see, we really hate polygamy here. Right. But the reality is, is that the church is really embarrassed about this. And so they, they want to make it seem like it's a terrible thing.

Marc Oslund [01:32:08] And so, yeah, it talks about going into hiding and women who had to like, defend their husbands and not reveal and how brave they were. Right. And in some ways for sure. And in other ways, please know that this wasn't a necessarily done under the same consenting adults concept. Right. Then ask students how to summarize how the practice of plural marriage among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was actually, you know, more or less a good thing. How would you, how would you summarize this after all that you've been taught? So now this is your opportunity to share, to have your practice in defending it and also to hear other people's answers that make you feel better about what's going on.

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:49] Yeah, so it's Interesting. A very problematic thing. The fact that they were hiding from the government. The fact that, that you know, these things that will come out late come up later when they find these things out either through the CS letter, gospel topic essays or just like other stuff. They're. They're initially trying to frame. Frame all these problematic issues as like being just like Jesus and, and, and like everyone else in the scriptures.

Marc Oslund [01:33:20] Correct.

Luna Corbden [01:33:20] That's it.

Gerardo Sumano [01:33:25] If you go to the next slide, John, this one's pretty interesting.

Marc Oslund [01:33:30] Yeah. Gerardo, you really like this one. So this was part of the official declaration seminary seminary lesson. So Gerardo, tell us, tell us what you enjoyed about this.

Gerardo Sumano [01:33:41] Well, something that I think is, is most members still don't know, right. Is that because I, I remember on my mission because what most people that don't really know what the Mormon Church was, what everyone's perception is, every non member or not everyone, but a lot of people is that Mormons are polygamous. Right. So, so we would have to answer questions a lot on my mission to people like oh no, we're not actually polygamists. Those are other group with that separated from us. And I remember because our mission president will. He liked going out with us and, and teaching people and he would pull. The first thing he would pull out was the official Declaration 1 and say no, we ended on this date and we don't do it anymore.

Gerardo Sumano [01:34:36] So to me, when I later found out that there was actually polygamy after the first manifesto, that that was pretty shocking, you know, because like it's like. And especially sanctioned by church leadership. Like so that double speak from church leadership was pretty shocking to me. So that's what they're trying to address on this paragraph here on the manual, they say explained that a small number of Latter Day Saints continue to enter into new plural marriages after the manifesto was given. In 1904, President Joseph S. Smith announced that all plural marriages are prohibited. And if any officer or member of the church shall assume to. To solemnize or enter into any such marriage, he will be excommunicated.

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:22] This policy continues today. So they're trying to address the fact that oh yeah, there's actually members that were practicing polygamy, but they're not denying that it was church sanctioned. They're just saying, oh, but Joseph F. Smith said this in 1904, just.

Marc Oslund [01:35:39] Right. Really interesting that he agrees. Right. With our current approach. I. I love that you had said that earlier, Gerardo. Like yeah, look, see, prophets are totally in conjunction with how we're operating now.

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:50] Right?

Marc Oslund [01:35:50] Yep.

Luna Corbden [01:35:51] Yep.

Marc Oslund [01:35:52] So the next two we can do pretty quick. So this one, again, I chose what the church would deem thorny subjects particular because it's, I think, the clearest example. Luna had mentioned earlier about the importance of people feeling like it mattered to them. Well, these are core issues for testimony, right?

Marc Oslund [01:36:11] The fact that the church is racist, the fact that the church has polygamy, like coercive polygamy, right at its core, the fact that patriarchy and all of those things, those are core fundamental issues. So in this one, the lesson on Official Declaration 2, which is the temple and priesthood ban, point out to students that you might be asked, right, Literally inoculating, preparing yourself for why church didn't ordain people of African descent to the priesthood for a time.

Marc Oslund [01:36:40] All of those words are very calculated. Specifically saying for a time being like, yeah, it was just a thing. Right. Invite them to consider how they might answer this question. One of the activities in this lesson was to share with each other. Write on the board your answers. Write on the board your concerns. Again, pulling in the collective here. And then this part, affirm that it is appropriate to explain to others that we do not know why the priesthood restriction began.

Marc Oslund [01:37:06] So this lesson, now think of this for a freshman, a ninth grader, being like, hey, I feel like I don't like that there is some racism. I think there's some racism right off the bat being like, it's totally okay, we don't know. And that no big deal, we don't know why. It's no problem. But you can testify of what you do know, that you do believe the Book of Mormon is true, right? This is. I feel kind of uneasy about this. I don't really agree. Okay. But I guess this makes me feel better. So therefore I'm not, you know, feeling overwhelmed. Luna, does that, does that cover that kind of accurately or what am I missing there?

Luna Corbden [01:37:41] I think so. And I think what they're leaving out are all the reasons that the Church stated way back when, and there were many, many, many of why African Americans or people of African descent anywhere in the world weren't allowed to have the priesthood.

Luna Corbden [01:37:57] They're. They're saying they don't know why it began. And in a way, that's kind of true because they might be rejecting the stated reasons previously, but the stated reasons are quite on record. They're very much on record. They are racist af, and they're leaving that part out. And so it becomes a straw man argument. What? They're attacking us for no reason. We never knew why we were just following the Lord's wisdom. We, we've no idea. But the, the truth is they, they did know and they were stating it. And I have a book on my shelf, the Church and the Negro, which wasn't officially published by the church, but it was quoted and used into that.

Luna Corbden [01:38:37] And it, that whole book, I can't, I can't even read a page before. I just like want to throw this thing across the room. That's how repugnant those are. And, and people still, there are church members who grew up during that time who still believe these things. And because the church is not coming out and saying, here is the doctrine that we taught before. It is absolutely and completely and totally wrong. They. They wiggle around. Oh, we've always said God is not a respecter of persons. Well, it's convenient. Double think.

Marc Oslund [01:39:05] Yes, that's a great point. Somebody in the comments again had mentioned that this is helpful to understand what was happening to them when they first started Institute. And I think that is an important piece of, I think what we're trying to convey here. So, you know, again, I, here's a, here's a recent example. I had an excommunication letter that was filled with victim, you know, victim blaming and gaslighting and all of those things. And I could, I could see it. I really could. I told my friends this sentence, this sentence, this sentence, but I still felt bad. I felt the effects of it. And so I hope that what we're trying to convey here can be then shared to people who are like, wait, I felt like this was good, but it's not.

Gaslighting, Emotional Validation, and Temple Changes

Marc Oslund [01:39:49] I hope this can help provide the comfort. When I had friends be like, yeah, that's total gaslighting. Yeah, that's really victim blaming. Yeah, all of that. I hope that that's what's being conveyed to anyone. And please share if you know anyone that could possibly benefit from being told that, hey, it's not actually your fault, this is what was intended to be felt by you.

Luna Corbden [01:40:08] And all of these things can be true. That's one thing. Like the church taught us that there's only one truth and that can only be true, only ever. And I don't want to get into a whole thing about objective versus subjective truths or anything like that, but. But it is important to know that when it comes to subjective things like feelings, all of the above can be true. True. One person can feel their testimony be strengthened by a certain statement. Another person can be gaslit. The same person can feel gaslit and feel their faith being Strengthened at the same time or at different times, like as a tool that we former members need to sort of like get used to. Is this idea of holding multiple things either true or possible or possibly true at the same time?

Marc Oslund [01:40:53] Yes.

Gerardo Sumano [01:40:53] Yeah.

Marc Oslund [01:40:54] Yep.

Gerardo Sumano [01:40:56] John, do you. Yeah, there we go. Oh, there we go. Yep. So this is an example that I added in and is. Is what I. We were talking offline about this one. It's on the institute manual for the Eternal family class and is one of the classes on same sex marriage. And this one just says the Lord's teachings about same sex marriage. And it starts with this note. It says, be sensitive to students who express differing opinions on this issue. Focus the class discussion on the statements of the general authorities. And with pretty much the. What it says to do is to hand out this different first presidency on quorum of the 12 statements to the students and read them in the class and just kind of like talk about them.

Gerardo Sumano [01:41:53] And I think Luna was mentioning something about how inoculation can sometimes involve validating someone's feelings, but at the same time just like not addressing them, not addressing their concerns, just jumping right off the bat to like, what they're supposed to be thinking or feeling.

Luna Corbden [01:42:14] Yeah. And this is original research. I'm not basing this off of any actual study. This is me just merging my own personal knowledge of different psychological principles and noticing the pattern. So there's a different concept in sort of the emotional wellness sort of and communications side of things called emotional validation or sometimes just validation.

Luna Corbden [01:42:39] It's kind of a semi popular concept, so many of you may have already heard of it. The idea is that everyone's face feelings are real. So even if we're reacting to something that isn't real, like we've misunderstood a situation or something like that, our feelings are still real and our reasons for feeling that are real, even if some of the reasons might. Might not literally be real, like we still believe they're real. And so, so they're. They're valid.

Luna Corbden [01:43:06] And so the idea isn't that we're saying you are definitely right about everything you're saying. What emotional validation is about is saying you are justified in feeling the way you do. And it's an amazing tool when it comes to de. Escalating tense situations. They use it in hostage negotiations, they use it in couples counseling to help people listen to each other better. It's a really, really awesome technique for really getting down to the root of a problem between people and doing so in a way that builds relationships rather than destroys them. So you acknowledge and it gets you to listen. Like when you're trying to validate someone else, you are more capable of listening to their true concerns because you're looking for, okay, well, how, how is it that the person feels this way?

Luna Corbden [01:43:53] How is it that they think, how is this reasonable to them? And so through doing that, even if you don't end up agreeing with them, you can agree with their emotions. Of course, I would feel the same way too, if I thought, thought that's what was going on. And so, and there are different phrases and things that you can learn to help people feel emotionally validated. One thing I'm noticing though, in a lot of these examples from the church is they're saying, yeah, you feel that way. You sure do. But then they're using it in a manipulative way. Is a really interesting, like, I've not really seen this written about.

Luna Corbden [01:44:23] They're saying, yes, you feel that way. And instead of saying, but we feel differently, so let's sit down and work out our differences in an equal way, in a way where we compromise and understand each other in a bilateral way. It is top down, we understand how you feel.

Luna Corbden [01:44:41] It's wrong. And we're going to now. So you get the feeling of validation. And then they just use that to steer the ship in the direction that they want the ship to go unilaterally.

Gerardo Sumano [01:44:52] Yep. Yeah, that's super interesting.

Luna Corbden [01:44:54] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:44:56] And then on the next slide, there's a screenshot for.

Marc Oslund [01:45:02] Yeah. Anthony Sweat, who is a BYU religion professor, former seminary teacher, who has been doing this very concept of what we are supposed to be doing in, in classes on Instagram. So there's a couple that you can go and kind of see his, his posts and you can see what he's doing. He's done word of wisdom, he's done women. Why can't we give women give priesthood blessings anymore? And then ultimately, this one I thought was most intriguing because of the language being used, talking about, hey, why is the endowment now so different than the endowment when it first started? Because again, if it's revealed directly from God, then why would we need to revise it?

Gerardo Sumano [01:45:43] Right.

Marc Oslund [01:45:43] If the restoration is complete, what are we doing? Why do we keep updating things? And so in this, one of the slides that he had is that the presentation of the endowment has continued to be adjusted over time by those with prophetic authority. So there's the kicker, right? Yeah, it's adjusted, but it's because they're prophets that can adjust it. And as President Nelson has said, there are Others that will follow. So there's the protection. What, you feel uneasy about this? Mm, for sure. Just so you know, more is gonna come, and that's okay, because. Why? The First Presidency recently wrote, through inspiration, the methods of instruction in the temple experience have changed many times. Why? To help members better understand. Isn't that so interesting. Right. That they're right there. I mean, you have it in on Instagram. It's captured the exact messaging.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:34] Right.

Marc Oslund [01:46:35] Of how this is supposed to be conveyed to students. And as this quote up on the screen right now. Right. Mentions. Students can see it. And in some ways, it works. I think it works especially for the younger students, because, again, they don't have any other reference point. But the older you get, the more you see through the hollowness of some of these arguments, and they don't accomplish their objective. It. I don't know, Luna, you can tell me this is a bad analogy, but it'd be like getting a flu shot while having the flu. Right. You want to get it early and in advance so that you can have as much time as possible to let that inoculation work for you.

Luna Corbden [01:47:13] Yeah. For someone who grew up being told that the temple ceremony was perfect, it was revealed straight down to Joseph Smith. Exactly. In its total form, the way identical to the way Solomon's temple operated. The whole exact thing completely to a T.

Luna Corbden [01:47:30] Yeah. And back then, the inoculation was, you know, well, anti Mormons are just lying about us. So when I heard someone say, oh, no, it has changed. Oh, the other. The other inoculation we had at the time was, at least for when the Book of Mormon was changed, is all. Those were just grammatical and spelling issues. Right. And we would translate that to the temple changes. Oh, those were just, you know, insignificant little style changes or something like that. And so I think that for those of us who are older, like, when I found out that the temple ceremony had changed significantly, that was a real, like, affront to me.

Luna Corbden [01:48:06] And so they're kind of in a double bind of their own making, which some part of me has a little bit of schadenfreude there because of how many double binds they've put me in. But they're. They're stuck because if they. If they inoculate that with the new method to the younger generation, it's going to work great on the younger generation. It's not going to work on people my age and older who were taught that it was absolutely perfect at the beginning, and nothing has ever changed.

Luna Corbden [01:48:31] But. But it won't entirely backfire because of that cognitive dissonance that we have in that they might even just completely forget that there's a lot of people, my generation, who are faithful members of the church who have too much invested to acknowledge the truth and. Which is not on them. It's on the church. And they. They will not be able to, like, they'll just erase the memory that the temple was never supposed to have been changed. And they're going to go forward with it. Oh, yeah, we've always. We've always been at war with Eurasia. Right. So, yeah, that was a 1984 reference.

Marc Oslund [01:49:07] Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, this is important. So I think that I believe the next one is a Preach My Gospel reference that you found Gerardo. But the point that I think we're conveying at this point is it's everywhere. So we're talking about Instagram, we're talking about seminary manuals, we're talking about, you know, gospel doctrine manuals, we're talking about missionary manuals. You can look for it in primary manuals. It's. It really is everywhere. And if you really want to dive in again, take those two slides, I think, from Luna that they presented earlier and just go through and be like, yep, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is.

John Dehlin [01:49:38] Yeah.

Guest [01:49:39] Yep.

Gerardo Sumano [01:49:41] Yeah. This is an example of Preach My Gospel and how it was changed. So when I went on my mission, I. We were using the 2004 version that just talks about the first vision as. And any quotes from it. And it just talks about it like, if that's the only version that exists. I think it says because of this passage, Joseph decided to ask God what he should do. And in the spring of 1820, he went to a nearby grove of trees and knelt in prayer. And he described his experience as.

Marc Oslund [01:50:16] And.

Gerardo Sumano [01:50:16] And then they just quote the first vision from. From Joseph Smith history. And then later in 2018, it was updated to say we have four different accounts of what followed recorded by him or scribes under his direction. And then in parenthesis it says, see Gospel topic essay. First Vision accounts. In one account, he described his experience as. And then it just quotes from. From the Joseph myth history. And it's just really. Because for me, obviously, when I found out about the different versions, it was a little shocking.

Gerardo Sumano [01:50:55] But then for friends who have come recently from back from missions, they already know about it, as if it's something normal, you know. And the. And when you go to the Gospel topic essay, of course, the. I think on the first paragraphs, it says, oh, there are different versions, but they all tell a consistent, A consistent story.

Gerardo Sumano [01:51:16] So yeah, just re. Just interesting how they, I mean, we're talking about this note, right? How they're changing the manuals, changing an admission Institute seminary. And so. Yeah.

Luna Corbden [01:51:30] And as much as I believe in science and I'm advocating here for inoculation theory being valid, it really makes me wonder like, I think a bulk of the work being done here is that most people, People will just believe this and won't investigate inoculation theory would probably say that if they did go to the Gospel topics essay or to an external source and see that there were such vast differences in those accounts, like even whether or not Heavenly Father and Jesus were there or whether it was just an angel, those are some pretty stark differences. And so some part of me wants to believe that if someone actually went and discovered that, that the inoculation theory wouldn't work on them, but the studies say that it will.

Luna Corbden [01:52:12] So I don't know. I don't know about that. But. Yeah, but, but the bulk of the work here is done with them reading that footnote and then they're like, yep, I agree. Let's go on. They won't actually dig.

Gerardo Sumano [01:52:24] Yeah. Yeah. And that. I think that's what they're. What the church is counting on. On, on people. Not really. I mean I, I would bet that most missionaries don't go to the gospel topic essay just because it's referenced there. Yeah. But they at least are introdu. Introdu. And introduced to this idea that there are multiple versions. So. So in, in, in John's interview with Sandra Tanner, the first one that he did, she said something that has been always on my mind since I watched it, where she says the church and she talks about what the church is doing through the gospel topic essays and that. And she says they're trying to take the shock value out of this troubling information, but the information is still troubling.

Marc Oslund [01:53:12] So.

Gerardo Sumano [01:53:14] And that's kind of what, what's happening here.

Luna Corbden [01:53:16] But yeah, it's. This one is so much like the one that I heard growing up of, you know, the people out there, the anti Mormon saying that the Book of Mormon has changed. They're referring to like the, the fact that they added chapter numbers and they did some spelling corrections because language changed after 100 years. This one really reminds me of that one. And that's what most people are going to think.

John Dehlin [01:53:37] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:53:39] John, do you want to go to the. Yeah, there we go.

Inoculation Theory as a Mind Control Technique

Luna Corbden [01:53:43] So I noticed while, while digging into this that the inoculation Theory has a lot to do with many of the mind control techniques that I outlined in my book and in the previous podcast I did here on Mormon Stories where I talked about 31 different manipulation techniques that the Church uses. And a lot of these manipulation techniques actually are inoculation or assist in the inoculation process.

Luna Corbden [01:54:09] I don't think we have time to delve in and do an analysis on each of these, so I'm just going to pull out a couple of examples. Milieu control is the idea of controlling the setting that you're in as a believing Mormon and your the restrictions against seeking external opinions or external materials. So Maloo control is very much about inoculation in support of inoculation in that it teaches people that the world is not to be trusted and they are separate from the world and and that the anti Mormons are out there trying to get them and that keeps you from just. That's like a blanket inoculation against.

Luna Corbden [01:54:47] That would be like if you had a vaccine that prevented like 80% of viruses like right there. That one gets most of them. You don't even have to be specific on that one. Us versus them, it's a similar deal. The wicked are out there and they're not to be trusted because they're misled by the most evil being on earth, who's Satan.

Luna Corbden [01:55:09] Loaded language. We've hit on that a few times throughout this presentation of the ways that they change the definition of words very slightly or sometimes dramatically in such ways that we might feel the impact of the word but we still think of it differently. So we talked about the destroyed in DNC132. Destroyed doesn't really mean destroyed, it means something else. There's a lot of loading. The language within Mormonism that helps inoculate them against the like it can have two people using the same words in English talking together and they think they're talking about the same thing and they're not even talking about the same thing.

Luna Corbden [01:55:48] That's that can be the effect of language induced phobias. If you can cause someone to be afraid of something and have that initial emotional reaction of fear, they're not going to be able to get into a cold state of cognition or exploratory state. I'm referencing other studies. I'm geeking out here.

Luna Corbden [01:56:07] You can get people out of an exploratory rational state of mind and into a confirmatory survival mode state of mind in which case they're going to be more accepting and susceptible to any message that you want to give Them that's the threat in inoculation theory as well.

Luna Corbden [01:56:24] And so those are just some examples there. If we want to talk about this more, we can. If not, we can bounce to the next thing.

Gerardo Sumano [01:56:31] So I, I mean it's great to see the list. Right? I mean we, and we talked. We as, as we presented the examples, I can see how these apply. For example, the blame reversal and the talk that we, we listen to. Where is that? Oh, the world is the one that's wrong about, about their opinions about how we treat women because the Lord is the one that actually is right and, and we follow the Lord. So, so they're, you know, putting the blame on the world for misunderstanding what their opinions are on how women should be treated.

Gerardo Sumano [01:57:12] And yeah, the, to. I mean this all applied to Mormonism. Totalist reframing. Just saying. I mean this is all or nothing and we are the churches, we are the ones that were going to get you to heaven with your eternal family and, and you can't really question us. And yeah, this is great.

Gerardo Sumano [01:57:32] And the one, and the next, the next slide, I think. So you talk about how, how people, how, how inoculation prevents agency. Is that kind of what.

Luna Corbden [01:57:47] Yeah, well, in this case, the way the church is using it. Yeah. Again, it's just a tool. Inoculation is just a tool like anything else and can be used for all kinds of ways. But the church tells members that they have agency, free agency. It's a core doctrine to the whole thing.

Luna Corbden [01:58:05] But then they have all these methods, which we just saw a few of them, of restricting the choices of members without iron bars, without handcuffs, without any physical or obvious evidence that they're being manipulated. But they are. And so the Church gets to say we're going to give you agency, which is the, that is the virus that has been weakened that they're giving you. You are having agency for sure.

Luna Corbden [01:58:31] But the part of that, that that virus that they've taken out is the actual agency they've taken. Just the same way in, you know, in a COVID vaccine, you're taking out the part of the virus that actually like attaches to your cells and replicates and starts like wrecking havoc and replacing your own DNA with its. And all of that things that viruses do.

Luna Corbden [01:58:50] The, the actual core delivery of you are a free person doesn't come with the wrapper. It's not there. Yeah. So, so for example, the threat in this form of inoculation, the threat that gets you to, to do whatever the Church says is eternal death, which in the in the cult manipulation world, they call dispensing of existence, the threat that you will cease to exist in some way. And of course that can mean literal physical death, it can mean spiritual death, it can be the death of your identity, the loss of, of the core, things that make you feel like you are you.

Luna Corbden [01:59:33] All of those types of threats or even just threatening your belief system, threatening your social circles. Any threat like that can be felt like really deep in your core and is going to get your brain to jump through all kinds of hoops to try to make it all work out.

Luna Corbden [01:59:50] And so some examples of some of the preemptive refutation that they give is like the choose the Right campaign. So you're free to do whatever you want, but if you choose wrong, then things are going to get really, really, really bad for you. You're going to have terrible, horrible consequences.

Luna Corbden [02:00:07] So you, you have the choice, but you really better not choose that one because you're going to die. They also told us that small choices lead to huge consequences. And while it's true that a handful of small choices in our lives can lead to huge consequences, most of the vast majority of tiny choices we make literally have no impact at all, ever.

Luna Corbden [02:00:30] They tell us to trust only LDS authorities. We saw that in a couple of examples earlier. They tell you to trust your feelings, but only those that conform to LDS teachings. And they use polarized thinking or black and white thinking to limit your choice. You only get choice A or choice B and they ignore all of the other choices that you have available. Or they mischaracterize. They say choice A is really amazing and wonderful and the best thing ever. Choice B is the worst horrible thing ever. And which one are you going to choose? Right? And they're over summarizing everything into those buckets.

Luna Corbden [02:01:05] Indecision and discouragement are clients. Climates in which the adversary lives to function. If you have not done so yet, decide to decide. I think I quoted my source for that in the notes somewhere. If anybody needs the source for that, I got it from some general conference talk or something. So yeah, that's kind of how they inoculate you with the idea of free will. And really they're not giving you free will.

Marc Oslund [02:01:29] Yeah, great point.

Why the Church Resists Full Transparency

Gerardo Sumano [02:01:33] And then the next one is like some examples on a manual. This is a primary.

Luna Corbden [02:01:43] Yes, this is to. They redid primary from when I was a kid. So I guess they call it primary 2. Now choose the right A. And so this is getting little kids. This is taught to four to seven year olds. So think about how Young, we're talking here. Very, very young. Way before seminary ever happens. And so they have this silly little example. So you bring a hat and gloves and shoes to the class. So it's an object lesson. And you put the gloves, the teacher puts the gloves on her head. Wait, do I have gloves? Look at this.

Luna Corbden [02:02:17] Okay, so the teacher puts the glove on their head and they say, is this how we should wear gloves now? The teacher looks ridiculous, I look ridiculous. And the students are gonna think they look ridiculous. That is so funny. And they're gonna laugh, they're gonna have an emotional response that's gonna connect them to the lesson. And then the teacher says, well, what should we use gloves for? All the kids, all four year olds are gonna know that.

Luna Corbden [02:02:45] So the teacher points out that it's foolish, then invites a child to demonstrate the correct way. So again, we're hands on. We're not just showing the inoculation, we're actually involved in the inoculation. And then we're going to explain that we make choices every single day.

Luna Corbden [02:03:00] You know, like, do we follow the gospel or not? Foolish choices harm us and make us unhappy or make us look ridiculous like the teacher did. Mockworthy or. And wise choices help keep us safe and happy. And then there's some questions, and these are loaded questions. So let's think about if there's a way to answer these questions other than what they've been asked. What kind of choices make us happy?

Luna Corbden [02:03:24] So there's no wiggle room in that question for choices that make us feel neutral, choices that make us feel happy, but they're actually a bad choice in the long run, or vice versa. Choices that are make us feel bad for the moment and then. But in the long run it's good. No room for discussion there. In order to be wise and happy, whose teachings should we follow? Well, here in this secular world, we don't really concern ourselves very often about who is saying the thing.

Luna Corbden [02:03:54] There's not like this monolith of like one person we're supposed to follow and everything else is wrong. Like we follow this one and that one and that we have like lots of choices, which is what agency actually is, is having lots of choices and the freedom to make those choices. In this case, there's only one entity or person's choices that we're supposed to follow. And it says, why is it foolish to disobey Jesus Christ and do wrong? So this is like, when did you stop beating your wife? It's a loaded question and there's no room there for you know, why would it be foolish to follow Jesus Christ? There's no room for that sort of freedom of thought, Father.

John Dehlin [02:04:33] Wow.

Gerardo Sumano [02:04:33] That, I don't know. That's pretty, pretty crazy to me for, you know, like things that I don't know. It's just something I don't think a lot about, like what kids are being taught in, in primary. And it just, it just makes me think about, you know, those people who do not believe in the church anymore but decide to stay connected to it because of their kids, because of. That's their.

Gerardo Sumano [02:05:03] That that's their spiritual home and, and all that. And do they really realize how the kids are being, you know, taught in this ways? Because like a. More like the healthier approach, you know, is what kind of choices make us happy. You know, I don't know what comes to my mind. It's just.

Gerardo Sumano [02:05:23] I don't know what kids want to do. But that's not the, the answer is that the, the. The manual or the teacher is expecting from the kids. It's like an indoctrination and inoculation process that, that it's. That they're taking the kids through.

Luna Corbden [02:05:41] And see, I would. I'll go ahead. No, I already had my time.

Marc Oslund [02:05:46] See, it's better than my time if I.

Luna Corbden [02:05:48] And I'm bad with kids, but if I were teaching. But I do have a child who, who. So what I would. My approach that I would do if I wanted to teach critical thinking children is I would make this a true exploit exploration where there's no wrong answer. I certainly at that age group, I would want the children to realize that the authorities in their life, their parents and teachers do actually literally know more than they are because they are four.

Luna Corbden [02:06:14] So I would include that in the exploration, but I would leave it more up to the kids. So like, is there a time when it's good to obey your mommy? And we could talk about crossing the street and how dangerous that is and not washing your hands and how dangerous that is when you talk about all that stuff. And is there a time when it's okay not to obey mommy? And we would explore the times sometimes when mommy's really cranky and she tells you to go to heck. And it's like, teach kids emotional awareness and awareness of their world so that when they're 8, 9 and 10 and 12, then they can start to develop an approach to the world that is truly free and truly coming from them.

Luna Corbden [02:06:52] But that also includes those guardrails for safety and the things that our elders have learned that are Actually beneficial. We don't want to create the opposite robots. We aren't actually satanic. We're not trying to teach a bunch of kids who definitely do everything against the way they've been taught because they're trying to be evil. That is not what we want. We want people to think for themselves and make their own choices with awareness of the world.

Marc Oslund [02:07:18] Yeah, and I love that comment. And I wonder, you know, I know at the end we're almost there, but as we get there, you have a slide. Basically the argument for this theory, more or less. But I wonder. The question that I had as I'm kind of just thinking about this, I think a lot, in fact somebody had mentioned like I had done this and I didn't know that I was doing this.

Marc Oslund [02:07:39] And I just wonder. It seems like it's so clear that like, how could you not. Sorry, I don't mean the members of the church that are doing this. I mean like from the top who are creating these manuals. Like how could you not know that this is what you are doing?

Marc Oslund [02:07:56] And at the same time, if this is all you've ever been taught, it makes sense that you don't know. But either way, the question that I'm asking is, is it worse if they know and they're trying to do it, or is it worse that they don't know and that it's happening? I don't know. I think both are bad for their own reasons. Right.

Luna Corbden [02:08:14] They're both pretty bad. And I get asked this question a lot and I think about it a lot. And as a domestic abuse survivor, I think about it in that context quite a lot. Like what did my abuser know and what is he thinking and what are his motivations? And I've gotten some insights from reading different books, particularly on the interpersonal domestic side. Why does he do that? Is a really good insight by. I think Lindy Bancroft is the author of that. Really, really good insights into sort of that manipulative abusers thinking.

Luna Corbden [02:08:47] And that was really, really helpful for me and then. But can that be extrapolated out to an institutional level? A lot of these concepts can. A lot of these concepts are absolutely identical. The way it's done, one on one versus done in a group.

Luna Corbden [02:09:04] It's hard to say though. And as a person who's in favor of science, I don't want to come out. I just, I like to tell people what my feelings are and my rough thoughts are. But this one stumps me.

Luna Corbden [02:09:16] What do the church leaders know? And, and really when it comes down to it is their motivation to save people that they truly believe are going to a miserable eternal afterlife and they're going to stop at nothing. The, the ends justify the means. Absolutely. Anything is okay in terms of saving even that one soul from eternal damnation. That is one motivation that they could have which has disastrous results. Or they can have the motivation of, yeah, we know we're crooks, we've got lots of money and power and we get to tell people what to do and they listen to us and, and we're going to study the science and we're going to figure it out and we're going to manipulate them even more.

Luna Corbden [02:09:55] Those are the, really the, the two main options that I see or something in between those two. And it's really hard to know what it is, but the result is the same.

Marc Oslund [02:10:06] Yeah. So, yeah, it's almost like intent is irrelevant at that point. Right. I mean, I, I think that's so important. And I also, I'm just, I mean, Luna, obviously you're, you're brilliant. And so my brain is spinning in so many. It's true. I mean, it's just spinning in so many ways. And like.

Marc Oslund [02:10:22] Yeah, I, I don't know. I, I want. I think this is just more evidence that the church is only being as transparent as they have to be. When Elder Ballard says as transparent as we know how to be, I think that may be accurate too. But it's as they have to be because if they were truly transparent, right. They would tell us, we wouldn't have to guess what their logic is, but because we have to assume, like, I don't know, is it good intention? That's more evidence to me that they're only being transparent because their backs are against the wall. And if they don't, they're going to lose more than what they'll gain by being. But, sorry, than what they'll lose for being transparent.

Luna Corbden [02:11:01] So, yeah, and organizations that are actually dedicated to transparency, you can tell because their words match their actions. And if there's a discrepancy there, it's usually easy to see, you know, why, like, they're trying their best or whatever. When it comes to religions, I always think of the UU Church, the Unit Unifi. Universal Unitarian. You know who I'm talking about.

Marc Oslund [02:11:25] Yeah.

Luna Corbden [02:11:26] And, and, you know, like, they, they are dedicated to transparency and they're dedicated to creating policies that reduce abuse among their members. And they have a transparent sexual abuse policy. They have transparent finances. And I don't, you know, I'm not Super into that. So I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but from what I've seen, usually like they seem to be trying their best because their actions are matching. Like they actually have reporting policies in a sexual abuse case. They actually release their financial numbers. So that's really where the proof always is, is, is you can listen to them talk, but what are they doing?

Gerardo Sumano [02:12:07] Yeah, yeah. John, do you want to go to the next slide and. Yeah,

Luna Corbden [02:12:16] yeah. So more on the concept of agency. Inoculating against agency. Back to loaded language. That idea that changing the definition of a word can make people think about it differently. And this is by Matthew Flitten in the Ensign in 2018. Freedom or captivity. As we exercise agency, the choices we make have consequences that can result in freedom or captivity. So there again there's that you have choice A or B. And they're very polar opposites. Making righteous choices brings the spirit having clarity of divine direction in our lives is a form of freedom. Making unrighteous choices diminishes the influence of the spirit and leaves us more vulnerable to, to the influences and captivity of Satan. So if you act on your freedom, you're not free. But if you don't act on your freedom, you are free. So that's a loaded language. It's very much like Orwell's freedom is slavery.

Marc Oslund [02:13:15] So fascinating.

Shunning, Apostasy, and Social Control Mechanisms

Gerardo Sumano [02:13:18] The next slide. The next, next example is. It's awesome. Is this from.

Luna Corbden [02:13:25] Yeah, this is from the 80s 80s version of Saturday's Warrior, which is absolutely embedded in my brain forever. A nice pick. I still get this long stuck in my head and I still get warm fuzzy feelings. It's. It's a weird experience to re. Watch it because I'm like, oh.

Luna Corbden [02:13:44] Like so I always remember, you know, like my fear of how the external non Mormon world must be after watching Jimmy, who in the, in the play, in the movie is, is a teenager and he's trying to thinking about whether he should sew his wild oats or go on a mission. He doesn't know. And he gets in with these worldly friends and the worldly friends, they, you can tell they have porn shoulders and they are wearing denim. Oh, and they're, they have their big hair and their 80s thing going on and they dance and provocatively and that you can just tell there's a six pack of beer in the back of that Porsche and they're, they're all hanging out, you know, and, and they're.

Luna Corbden [02:14:30] The line of the song is Jimmy, oh Jimmy, don't listen to them. How can they say they're your friends, they will take you away from your family and home and leave you alone in the end. And that stuck with me until I got some non Mormon friends.

Gerardo Sumano [02:14:48] Oh, my gosh. I was going to say the same thing.

Luna Corbden [02:14:50] Right. And they were, they were, they were all from all, literally all different backgrounds. I mean, this was in college. There were a bunch of high schoolers going to that college as well. And so there was literally a Satanist in our group. I think he was just trying to make his mom mad. And then there was a Buddhist and there was a bunch of pagans. Like, I was in the geek group, so we hung out in the sci fi. There are all kinds. There's a lot of ideological diversity in the geek community.

Luna Corbden [02:15:16] And I was like, well, these, these people are all right. And my best friend came out as a lesbian. I was like, yeah, these, these people are, you know. But I hadn't quite like put it together until like, I left the church and made sort of like went through that whole family issue that many of us ex Mormons have a lot of strife with the family. I felt rejected by my family. I didn't feel accepted there at all. And I found my ex Mormon friends and.

Luna Corbden [02:15:43] Or not ex Mormon friends, but never Mormon friends. And they were all amazing. And I had what we call found family in the queer community a lot of the time. And also just people who have left fundamentalist religion, religious organizations all really strongly identify. Many of us identify with this concept of finding your own family, with the concept of that. There's that, that quote, the. The blood, blood is thicker than water. Well, actually, the original quote meant the opposite of that. The original quote, I think it was the Vikings who used to say this. The blood of battle is thicker than the. Than the water of birth.

Luna Corbden [02:16:20] So that was the opposite of saying if you go to battle with someone, you're going to be more bonded with them than if they just were your parents. And so that's what I really learned. And I learned that this scene, these scenes from Saturday warriors of Saturday's Warrior were completely and utterly bogus. I mean, yeah, there's people out there that are like the people they're depicting in Saturday Warrior. Those people exist for sure. Which is why the lie kind of works. Because we're like, oh, yeah, gangs. Gangs are like that.

Luna Corbden [02:16:51] But that's different than saying like, everybody out there and any random teenager finding a group of friends he can relate to to like, that's what they flipped on its head was, here's Jimmy didn't feel like he belonged in his family. His family was not making him feel like he really, truly belonged there. He, he was forcing, he was having to force and contort himself into a different shape in order to feel like he fit in with his family. But when he went with these people, he felt like he belonged because they were accepting him the way that he was. But of course, the way the plot goes is they do abandon him when things get hard and see they were evil all along.

Luna Corbden [02:17:28] You could tell because he's sneering in that picture. And to me that was like a huge inoculation that affected me personally because it did keep me from even considering people outside the church as friends for a long time. And like, as an autistic person, I didn't have very many friends, like very few friends growing up. And they were far between. They came and went. And so for me at last in college, finding a friend group outside of the church. And I didn't fit in very well in church either. So my peers at church didn't, didn't really. I had struggled to fit in with them. But outside the church, in that geek group in college, I found people that I could fit in with that I wasn't trying to fit in with. I just belonged there. And that I think is what I was inoculated against is finding that, that social comfort outside of the church.

Marc Oslund [02:18:20] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:18:22] Now and your experience was exactly the same to mine, I think. I mean, growing up in the church, you know, like the primary lessons, a lot of them are about choosing your friends and choosing the right friends and making sure they have your same values and then they're members of the church. And this is something that was really emphasized. And I, I love Saturday's work here too. So that's how this was portrayed even in videos that we were shown in, in Sunday school and stuff like showing, you know, the bad influence friends or stuff like that.

Gerardo Sumano [02:18:58] And to me really what broke that for me was getting this different experience. And it is just as I'm thinking about it right now, is just crazy to me thinking like that. Actually it was the opposite of what the church taught me. The friends that actually stayed with me no matter the decision I made were the non members of the church. The ones that like my, like my non member friends wrote me more while I was on my mission than my sister or my member friends. Like the ones that came, like the ones that I could come up, come up to when, when I was

Marc Oslund [02:19:44] persuaded

Gerardo Sumano [02:19:45] to go into conversion therapy, they were my non Mormon friends and they supported me on that. And the ones that supported me after I left the church there have been my non Mormon, they've been my high school friends as well. So it's just like just this, this, this just dumb thing that the church does of, I don't know, just putting this ideas into children's mind that the people out there who are not members of the church because guess who abandoned me when I left the church? You know, guess who, like, who might stop talking to my husband when they found out we were married. You know, so it's, it's not his high school friends, you know, it's, it's the, the Mormon family who, who has done that. So

John Dehlin [02:20:35] it's super sad. And I, I'm just wanting to just say hallelujah to everything you guys are saying. I, I starred in a Houston, Texas steak production of Saturday's Warrior. I played Ernie, and I love. I've got this song going through my mind, Jimmy.

John Dehlin [02:20:54] Like this stuff real. And I absorbed this message really, really strongly growing up. But as I processed this more and more, I think there was a time when you really had to rely on your family just to live and survive. I mean, imagine we're all living on farms where there's like bordering countries or tribes that are going to kill you at any moment.

John Dehlin [02:21:22] Like, you know, it's, it's either like survive in your family or get rejected and die. And I think that's how we kind of all evolved. And that may have even been true 10 or 20 or 30 years ago still.

John Dehlin [02:21:35] But, but these days, these days, because we have social media, because we have ways to become more financially independent and we don't rely on our parents as much, we have the luxury of being able to say, I'm not going to stay.

John Dehlin [02:21:53] Well, I'm not going to stay in an abusive family if the family is going to hurt me, or an abusive community if the community is going to hurt me. And instead I can find friends or family or community that, that are going to be healthy for me. And it turns out that the Holy Ghost. And I've said this a million times, I probably got, I know I got this from other people. The Holy Ghost feels a lot like familial and social approval. In other words, when, when you feel the love and the affirmation of your parents, when you bear your testimony, or of your ward members, when you get up and you know, say you're serving a mission and you get all those warm fuzzy things, that's literally your evolutionary biology saying you're doing the smart thing that's going to make you embraced by your family and community and that's going to keep you alive.

John Dehlin [02:22:43] And that's, that's literally how we've evolved to feel what we call the spirit. And, and similarly, the feelings of the adversary feel a lot like family and community rejection. In other words, when we feel awful and afraid and terrible and scared, it feels like, you know, it's pretty much what happens when we feel like everybody who we loved and depended on reject us. And it's not that every, every Mormon friend and every Mormon family member is going to reject us. We're going to have, you know, people who love us and accept us no matter what, and others who do reject us. But what I just love, you know, what I think you guys are saying is so true.

John Dehlin [02:23:28] The irony, and I'm repeating what you guys have already said, but the irony of, of this song, of this teaching, of this Saturday's warrior doctrine is that time and time again the thinnest relationships in our lives are orthodox believing Mormons.

John Dehlin [02:23:46] And whether you're outright rejected, which is what happened in the case, well, probably all of us on this panel, we've got orthodox family members, ward members, colleagues, leaders, people we served we can count on multiple hands and fingers. The number of people that have just cut us off, eliminated us, erased us from their lives and we're, we're down the memory holes as far as they're concerned and we've literally never heard from them again just because we followed our conscience and followed what our truth is, there's so many people in that, in that case, and that's kind of our lived reality is the people that we thought would be there for us for sure have shown up to be completely absent with a millimeter inch thick level of commitment.

John Dehlin [02:24:37] And on the other hand, if we've stuck around, made post Mormon friends, made post Mormon family of choice, or stuck with the friends and family that were really loyal and we only were able to discern the loyalty through making choices that differed from what they wanted for us. But once we've been able to find the friends in the community, we found the most deepest, the most real, the most meaningful relationships of our lives. And ironically, almost all of them came outside of orthodox Mormonism. And that's, that's the beauty and the irony. And that's frankly why we do thrive. That's why we do communities, that's why we do Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [02:25:20] We want people to know you're not alone, you're not broken, and you can find, you can actually Upgrade the relationships in your life. You may lose a spouse, you may lose siblings, you may lose family members, you may lose your ward community, but you can actually upgrade the quality of the relationships in your life.

John Dehlin [02:25:40] And, but. But you have to break the chains of mind control to do that. I'm sorry for my end of podcast rant, but hallelujah.

Luna Corbden [02:25:49] Yeah. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah. And that's why I want to reiterate again, because I did hear this pretty recently, is the difference between fitting in and belonging. And in fitting in, you've got to contort yourself to be acceptable to the community. And in belonging, the community accepts you as you are. With some exceptions. There's some behaviors that are harmful we probably shouldn't do, but outside of that, like who you are in your core being. If you're acceptable, you belong.

Gerardo Sumano [02:26:17] Yeah. Yeah, we can go to the next slide. We only have a couple more. Yeah, so I just wanted to show. Because we were talking about the topic of inoculation and how. And as I was doing the, like just putting up slides at the very beginning, when we started working on this several weeks ago, this thought came into my mind as to like, why is apostasy. Why does apostasy in the church require a higher punishment than most other sins? And in my mind, that has to do with the fact that it helps to, you know, by, by putting that. By making apostates this like evil, horrible sin or horrible people who need to be excommunicated, they're inoculating the membership to be aware of what the. These people are saying, this apostates are saying and preventing them from listening to them or listening to what any, like any arguments that they have to.

John Dehlin [02:27:35] To.

Marc Oslund [02:27:36] To say.

Gerardo Sumano [02:27:38] So that's why I added that there.

Luna Corbden [02:27:40] No.

Marc Oslund [02:27:40] And I think that's important. And when I think about John, right? I mean, most people don't know John. Most people know of John. And that's important because John D. Yeah, let me be clear, because like Voldemort, right, Like you can't say his full name. So most people don't know John. John is a generous, kind, loving person. His whole life has been spent, as Mormon people would say, to tear down the church, but his life has actually been to help people, right?

Marc Oslund [02:28:04] So what is the role of excommunication for John, it's so that anytime his name and or podcast is brought up, people are now resistant to it because it is anti Mormon. It is branded as something that is not trustworthy, not safe.

Marc Oslund [02:28:19] Again, if they want to present it as a form of love for the person who's excommunicated. That's clearly not true. Recently with myself, I'm not going to church. I'm not paying tithing, I'm not going to participate in talks. What benefit do I get? Right, because it's for me to be excommunicated? None. It doesn't do anything for me. But what it does is it helps those youth that think, oh, maybe he has some good ideas, Then they realize, oh, he's actually been kicked out. I shouldn't listen to him. So 100% agree with that rule.

Luna Corbden [02:28:50] Yeah. And it's. It's also like a form of poisoning the well. I left out that fallacy earlier. It's also bringing to mind in malignant, narcissistic abuse recovery circles, there's some terminology that sort of evolved, and one of those is flying monkeys. So the idea of a flying monkey is that when a malignant narcissistic abuser is like, has decided to discard and devalue and discard their partner, usually domestic partners. But this can happen in the workplace, place all over the place. So when they decide to discard that person, they. They get all of their. The friends in their social circle, their common social circle, they jump in first thing and they start telling lies about that person.

Luna Corbden [02:29:34] And, and so all of those people become what's called flying monkeys, which is a reference to wizard of Oz, Oz, where the wicked witch has all these minions. And I think that that's that concept, that pattern, that type, if you will, is at play when it comes to apostasy as well. It's like the church has said, well, you used to be a child of God and we used to love you and you were amazing, but you misbehaved. And so we are now going to inoculate everybody around you to hate you so that they can't listen to your legitimate complaints, which would make the church or the narcissist look. Look bad.

Gerardo Sumano [02:30:14] Yeah, yeah. Yep. And the next slide talk, I think it talks about a study that, that you. Luna. Where you were just reading about. Right. About this theory of inoculation.

Using Inoculation Theory to Resist Manipulation

Luna Corbden [02:30:32] Yeah. So my mind, when I, when I first got this topic, went to, like, how do we use inoculation theory to prevent manipulation? So mostly we've talked about how the church uses it to manipulate people. But how can we use the concept to bolster our own selves moving forward through the world to prevent ourselves from being manipulated? So I read this 2002 study. I recognized one of the names of the authors, Robert b. Cialdini, who I, I quote in my book, and some other people who I'm sure are also very brilliant, I'm just not familiar with them, did this thing called Dispelling the Illusion of the Motivations and Mechanisms of Resistance to Persuasion in the Journal of Personality and social psychology in 2002.

Luna Corbden [02:31:21] And basically they said, okay, so we know that advertisers sometimes use authority in a manipulative way. So they'll put up someone in a business suit and say they're a financial advisor, or put someone in a doctor's outfit and say they're a doctor, but really they're just models and actors. So I have this little joke here. I have Neil Patrick Harris, I love him. And he's got, he's got a stethoscope against a patient's nose and it says body odor protection recommended by former TV doctors like me. So the idea of this study is they wanted to see if they could teach people to recognize true authority versus fake authority.

Luna Corbden [02:32:01] And they wanted to get people to trust actual authorities in advertisements and to reject average or be suspicious of advertisements that use fake or potentially fake authorities. So that was actually kind of the twist in the study is they wanted to see like, is this just a blanket thing? Like do we get people to distrust all authority or can we get this very specific thing? We can weaken one side of the argument and strengthen the other. So, so the threat, as we talked about, there has to be a threat in inoculation theory. The threat is that people already react negatively to any indicator that they might be being manipulated.

Luna Corbden [02:32:40] So if anyone gets like their BS detector goes off, they're going to immediately reject the message that they hear. And so, so they already were just relying on people's natural tendency to do that. Then they taught their subjects the difference between ethical and unethical use of authority. Like I've described and quoting from the paper, authority based appeals are objectionable and should be rejected if the depicted authority does not at least possess special expertise in the topic.

Luna Corbden [02:33:10] But they found that they couldn't just assert that the advertiser had a manipulative motive because that created a false sense of invulnerability. So if they just said, you know, if the advertisement has an authority in it, it's definitely trying to manipulate you. People were like, ah, I know the secret, I'm good now, forever and ever. I will never fall for that ever again. Well, that's not true because they found out they did actually keep falling for it even after that. So what they did was they demonstrated to the people that they were vulnerable. I mentioned, alluded to this earlier in the discussion about how they would show people these advertisements and then get people to write down their reaction to it, like, oh, that was a doctor recommending pain prescription, that must mean it's a really good pain prescription.

Luna Corbden [02:33:57] Then they would go to the person to go, you know what, it wasn't a real doctor. And you can tell because of this, this and this and this. You can read the fine print. You can, you know, is this actually a doctor? And you got fooled because it wasn't actually a doctor that demonstrated to the person, wow, like I actually can't, can fall for this stuff. I'm not better than everyone else. Maybe I better try harder to learn how to tell the difference.

Luna Corbden [02:34:20] And so that's how they did that. So next slide, I think, and here's what they found. They actually did like three different experiments and they did them in different ways to kind of suss out different aspects of the question.

Luna Corbden [02:34:34] And so part of what they found was, quote, after the resistance treatment ads using illegitimate authority based appeals became less persuasive and ads using legitimate appeals became more persuasive, they found that if they focused on intent over content, that is possibly more effective. So for instance, again, that motive, that holy advertiser is using an actor to try to trick you, that worked better than, you know, pain relievers actually don't work half the time. Like they don't. They didn't get into the facts of the thing, they got into the emotions of the thing and that works a lot better.

Luna Corbden [02:35:14] And in fact, they found that forewarning of content might backfire. The person might look at the actual content, the stated claim and go, that does actually sound kind of true to me, even if it's completely made up. So you got to be careful with that stuff.

Luna Corbden [02:35:28] Refutational defense is more effective and long lasting than support supportive defense. So again, that idea of inoculating someone, using a straw man for a better thing, of framing the your opponent's argument in such a way that it seems like it's actually your opponent's argument, but really it isn't, that is more long lasting than just coming out and saying our side is better and then demonstrating vulnerability rather than being told it where you covered this creates long term inoculation to manipulation via legitimate authority. So again, getting the person to write it down and then showing them where they were wrong is better than just telling them.

Luna Corbden [02:36:05] So I think we can probably learn a few things from this next slide. Just so I can have my prompts. So we talked about how not all inoculation is bad. And as people who have been fooled once and we don't want to be fooled again, moving through the world. Like, we can actually use inoculation as a way to defend against future manipulation, just the same way they did in that study.

Luna Corbden [02:36:33] So, for instance, when we learn about manipulation techniques, we learn about social psychology that can be a form of inoculation against people actually using those techniques because we'll recognize what they're doing. But we also have to be careful not to create a false sense of invulnerability in ourselves. Like, people ask me how I know that I haven't been brainwashed, and I tell them, I don't know that I haven't been brainwashed. Like, I am constantly in a state of being aware that I am vulnerable to manipulation.

Luna Corbden [02:37:04] And that fact was proven to me when I was writing Recovering Agency with a narcissistic abuser. He was pulling all kinds of stuff on me that I ought to have known better, and I didn't, and that just proved it to me. Write home that you can study this stuff all you want, and you gotta always be on guard and realize that you're vulnerable so we can learn to notice inoculation attempts. So listening to this podcast can help you realize when you might be being inoculated. And that way you can choose, you can make your own choices. You don't have to just, like, react completely the opposite, because you're still, in a way, being controlled.

Luna Corbden [02:37:42] If someone tells you to jump and you're like, well, no way. I'm never going to jump. Like, you're still just reacting to what they're saying, and maybe the floor is about to fall out from underneath you and they have some knowledge that you need to jump or you're going to fall.

Luna Corbden [02:37:57] It's not always best to just react directly against the person that we think is trying to manipulate us. What we really need to do is do further research if it's important to us and if it's like, a priority for. For us to do that. But it's not always. We can't always go reading papers and doing all that kind of listening to podcasts. So we might choose to accept the inoculation on its face, but at least we're doing it with awareness. I think awareness is probably the number one thing that we can practice and learn to do, and it does take practice that can help us ward off inoculation and other manipulation attempts.

Luna Corbden [02:38:34] And I'm always Willing to set aside my assumptions. I question my assumptions. Including, is reality even real? On a regular basis, almost daily. It's like a hobby of mine at this point. It's not maybe feasible for everyone to do that constantly, but just be aware your assumptions might be wrong. Always be willing to look back at those assumptions again.

Luna Corbden [02:38:58] And in order to inoculate against malicious inoculation, we need to question everything, learn critical thinking skills. I think that's probably even more important than learning about manipulation techniques. Understand manipulation techniques, and always stay curious. Yeah, that's what I got.

Gerardo Sumano [02:39:17] Yeah, that's awesome.

Luna Corbden [02:39:19] I've been watching Ted Lasso lately, and he has a quote. I'm just going to insert it really quickly. Ted Lasso. It's a. It's a. It's a funny. Funny. It's a really good show. And he talks about that. He's like, don't be judgmental. Be curious. And I'm like, wow, those are opposites, aren't they?

Marc Oslund [02:39:34] Yeah, that's a great point. Honestly, when I think of. I mean, like I've said before, it's. It's. It really is so amazing that we have you on our team, Luna. Right. Like, that we are able to kind of utilize your knowledge to help us collectively as. As a Mormon, post Mormon, and wherever we're at in Mormonism, break down these things that are happening to us to give words and explanations. There's so much need for that. And as I'm sitting here, I feel like this almost like, relief that comes. The therapy phrase is like, name it to tame it. Right. And that's exactly what I feel when you label these, and it allows them to lose their power over us.

Marc Oslund [02:40:12] And then ultimately, on that final slide, those last points in red, I think about that. Compare and contrast that with what seminary in particular is doing with, you know, ask questions in the eternal perspective and seek knowledge. Like I.

Marc Oslund [02:40:28] The approach that you just presented at the very end is exactly what we all need, all of us, politically, religiously, whatever you want to say, like, question our assumptions, be curious. All of those things are absolutely fundamental to thinking clearly. I would say.

Luna Corbden [02:40:44] Yeah,

John Dehlin [02:40:47] yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [02:40:47] And I would. I would refer to everyone, to those amazing episodes that Luna did with John on recovering agency. They're just great about learning manipulation techniques, how to overcome them, and how to identify them. Yeah, those are. Those are great episodes.

Luna Corbden [02:41:06] Yeah. And I did that with the intent. Thank you. I did all of those things with the intent of helping people get control. Like inoculation, if you want to use that word, but get control. Control of their own lives. Like, I don't have a stake in this hunt. If you question everything and become a Hindu, cool. Is it working for you if you question everything and, and become, you know, I don't care. Like, I prefer you not enter into another controlling system. I prefer that you avoid being abused and manipulated in the future as best you can. But I really. If, like, that's what you want to do, do it. Like, seriously, like, that's my motivations are to help everyone achieve their own direction, their own goals and their own personal fulfillment in life. So. Yeah.

Closing Reflections and Donor Appreciation

John Dehlin [02:41:54] Well, brilliant. Thank you guys so much. Thank you all so much for this amazing presentation. We've had a great audience, so many great comments, and we just, we want you guys to know you're all welcome back anytime on Mormon Stories because your content's amazing.

Luna Corbden [02:42:10] Thank you.

Marc Oslund [02:42:11] It's an honor.

John Dehlin [02:42:12] Yeah. And so, Mark, thank you, Mark Oland. Mark. In any way people can follow or support or access all the.

Marc Oslund [02:42:22] Yeah, thanks. You're really kind, John. And yeah, I'm excited to be back. I mean, talking about excommunication is never fun, but yeah, I'm excited for that. I think that will be a big and important one. But yeah, you can follow me on Instagram. Um, I have two accounts. I have one that, you know, I'll post maybe more inflammatory stuff on my personal account and I also have a social work related account as I. I'm a social worker working at Mindful Counseling down in Provo. We are always, always, always available for people in Utah. We can do remote sessions. We can do sessions that are in person if you're in Utah, obviously. Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram search. Marcos Linda. I think my, my title is M Oslin msw. And yeah, I'll post my more therapy, less inflammatory stuff there and maybe some other stuff on my personal account. So.

John Dehlin [02:43:11] All right, Mark, thank you so much.

Marc Oslund [02:43:13] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [02:43:16] How do people follow you and access the amazing resources you're making available?

Luna Corbden [02:43:22] I'm most active on Twitter, so I am at Corbden C O R B D E N on Twitter and you can reach out to me there if you want to chat or tweet or whatever. And I am also, my website is recovering agency.com and I have. Most of them are older at this point, but I have blog posts and articles up there in general that are totally free. And then my book is called Recovering Agency, Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control by Luna Lindsay Corbin and that is available wherever books are sold.

John Dehlin [02:43:59] We'll. We'll Add that to the show notes as well. Gerardo, any final words?

Gerardo Sumano [02:44:05] No. I think this was a great episode. Thank you so much, guys, for being willing to do it and so much fun doing it.

John Dehlin [02:44:14] And, Gerardo, thank you for organizing it. I always love it when I have to do very little to have it. Extra.

Marc Oslund [02:44:19] But More Stories episode. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:44:21] Happen. That brings me joy because it makes me feel like Mormon stories can exist without me, maybe even someday. Not that I want to go away, but we don't want this asset to. To die, you know, to be overly associated with any one person. How's that?

Marc Oslund [02:44:39] Yeah. We're here for you however we can. And glad and honored to be a part of it, for sure.

Luna Corbden [02:44:44] Definitely. Yeah, I had fun.

John Dehlin [02:44:46] All right. All right, everyone. Well, thanks so much. Now everybody's worried. They're like, oh, no, no. I'm committed to this work for another 25 years probably, at least. But, you know, you want to have a contingency plan, because I've had. I've had several friends pass away this year, and I have no plans of going anywhere. But.

John Dehlin [02:45:08] But I definitely don't want Mormon stories. I want Mormon stories that live me. That's all I'm saying, everybody. So anyway, thanks. Thanks. Thanks, Gerardo, for making this happen. Thanks, Mark and Luna. Yeah, excellent. Thanks, listeners, for joining us today.

John Dehlin [02:45:24] Thank you so much for your support. For those of you who do donate to the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories, thank you. We couldn't do this without your support. Hey, Gerardo, Cara, Brooklyn, me and to. To pay for all the equipment and services that we have. Your donations make that possible. For those who don't support us. If you can't afford it, don't worry about it. We give it away for free because we want everyone to be able to access the content. This content. Who needs it? So don't ever feel guilty or ashamed if you can't afford to support us. If you are in a position to be able to support us.

John Dehlin [02:46:04] We just want you to know that we need your support because every month we have 10 or 20 people stop donating. Sometimes it's because they fall on financial hard times. Sometimes it's because they lose interest, and sometimes it's because they don't like changes we make. Sometimes it's like, hey, I don't like Gerardo, or I don't like Cara, or, hey, I don't like, you know, your tone or John Larsen or whatever it is people. And then they have every right to do that. But. But what that means is that we always need to be replacing our the donors we lose with new donors or we start to go in decline.

John Dehlin [02:46:40] So if you are in a position to support us, all you got to do is go to MormonStories.org click on the donate button, sign up to become a monthly donor. 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, whatever you can afford. We're 100% financially transparent. We share our finances publicly every year.

John Dehlin [02:46:59] Your your donations are tax deductible in the United States and literally all of the money that we bring in we put right back into this program, into these services. So if you want to see this continue, please support us financially if you can. If you there are other ways to support us as well.

John Dehlin [02:47:18] In addition to donating. You can give us a positive review on the Mormon Stories Podcast Facebook page. You can go to the Apple Podcast app and give us a positive review. You can subscribe to us click on the subscribe and follow bells either on YouTube or on Facebook. The Mormon Stories podcast Facebook page so that you're always alerted to our live streams when they pop up. And you can follow us on Tick Tock at Mormon Stories podcast. You can follow us on Instagram at Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [02:47:48] We have a Twitter account. It's not super active, but it's there and you could just share these links with family and friends and let people know about the good work that we do. Again, please consider coming to Thrive Day. You'll see Luna, you'll see me. You'll see Natasha Helfer, Sarah Edmondson of the Vow Nexium, Cold Survivor lance Allred, former NBA basketball player who played with LeBron James, Radio Free Mormon, Bill Real Alan, Katie Mount from Marriage on a Tightrope, Mary and Shelley from Latter Day Lesbians.

John Dehlin [02:48:23] Luna will be there and Natasha Helfer. We're going to do a we are going to do a karaoke slash reception slash open bar on on Saturday night November 13th at 7pm and then we're also going to do a full day on November 14th. I should also mention that we're doing a Thrive for youth. So Jesse Funk is leading a event all day event on November 14th for youth. You can also sign up for that. Go to thrivebeyondreligion.com you can register for the adult stuff. You can register for the youth stuff and the youth stuff is going to have a ton of cool, cool things. So please check all that out.

John Dehlin [02:49:09] Thanks for everyone's support. Be kind to each other, be good to each other and we sure love you guys and Kara's right here. She's gonna poke her head in. What do you. Is there anything you want to add, Kara? I'll turn the mic on. Kara, you want to jump in? Anything else you want to say? You say hello to our audience.

Luna Corbden [02:49:25] I just found out today that I'm gonna host Thrive as well.

Gerardo Sumano [02:49:28] Did you mention that yet?

John Dehlin [02:49:29] I forgot to mention that.

Luna Corbden [02:49:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:49:30] So maybe it's good if we tell you that before we announce it to the world.

Gerardo Sumano [02:49:34] Yeah. Thanks.

Luna Corbden [02:49:35] So, another reason to come.

John Dehlin [02:49:40] Care's going to moonwalk. We've got Michael Jackson here in the studio, out of frame. Everybody's cheering, so. All right, all right, everyone. We love you guys. Thanks again. Stay tuned, and we'll see you guys all again soon on another episode of Mormosaurus Podcast. Bye, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.