Latter-Day Saint Folklore: The Stories We Tell When the Manual Closes

Folklorist Christopher Blythe of Brigham Young University joins me to unpack the unofficial stories that quietly shape Latter-day Saint belief. We talk three Nephites, seer stones, missionary legends, evil spirits, and why some 'false' stories still tell real truth.

Blythe defines folklore as informal ideas we pass along—what parents tell kids, what missionaries swap in apartments, what members share at campfires or in the celestial room, not the correlated manual. Folklore includes what we do, make, and especially what we say: stories, interpretations, and "off-the-record" teachings. "Official" doctrine is correlated and written; folklore is what happens the second we interpret and repeat it. We often misuse the term "folklore" to mean "false doctrine" or "wives' tales," but in academia, it refers to how ideas are transmitted, not to their truth or falsity.

Folklore can be deeply sacred—sometimes things we won't share over the pulpit precisely because they mean so much.

Angels & Seerstones Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Christopher Blythe's Facebook - / christopher.blythe.3

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