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By adopting the above-cited definition of mysticism, the compilers of the “Topical Guide” (LDS Edition 1979) distance Mormonism from a religious heritage which is perhaps as old as any other of record. The most obvious differences between Mormonism and mysticism are ones of form, and not necessarily of doctrine. The Church organization is both pervasive and extensive, whereas mystical practices are generally much less formal. Mormonism accepts a prophet as head of the Church organization which is endowed with divine authority through an organized priesthood, whereas many mystical traditions manifest a strong non-institutional tendency and go only so far as to incorporate the notion of a “guide,” a leader who does not speak with divine authority but is instead familiar with one path to God. 

We often hear the phrase, “The Church is the same all over the world.” While a mutual commitment to the gospel provides a feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood that transcends many cultural barriers, I feel…

A few years ago on a cross-country trip, my brother Paul and I detoured from Interstate 70 in western Missouri for some site-seeing. After stopping at the Far West temple site and the town square…

A 1974 article published in Science identified the Mormon culture as an unusually productive source of American scientists and scholars, an achievement linked to such distinctive tenets of Mormon theology as rationalism, natural law, and…

Mary Firmage, daughter of President Hugh B. Brown, has recently deposited a large collection of her father’s personal letters in the Church Archives. President Brown wrote part of this correspondence while he was mission president…

“Mother, do you know your boyfriend is a poor, old, decrepit, forgotten has-been? I can’t see to read, I can’t hear, my nose drips, my hands shake, I drool. Here I come, just shuffling down…

In 1969 Edwin B. Firmage taped oral history interviews with his grandfather, Hugh B. Brown. The following essay has been adapted from these memoirs, which will be published by Signature Books in 1988 as An Abundant Life: The Memoirs of Hugh B. Brown. 

Southern Illinois in sweltering and wet summer. 
Thunder and the whippoorwill sing strange 
duets at night. 
From southwestern deserts to the closest