“These beliefs are barking mad.”

Words spoken by British scientist Richard Dawkins during an interview — referring to Mormon Church doctrines.

I take notes when watching video-talks on subjects like philosophy, theology, cosmology and evolutionary biology. After writing down our epigram from Doctor Dawkins, an image appeared to my mind of a woman in an 18th Century insane asylum, restrained by rope and ratty burlap, barking like a dog.

Madness.

Then I recalled a scene from the remarkable religious revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky (1801) — experienced by me vicariously on the site where it occurred. Back then redemption-hungry farmers in their hundreds arrived by horse and wagon at a massive canebrake; scores of pilgrims heard preaching from improvised platforms, and subsequently were slain in the Spirit, stretched out on the ground swooning. Many barked, shook violently, shed tears and cried for Mercy.

Again: a kind of Madness.

The word bark refers backward and forward in the professor’s sentence; it appears to fuse deep religious conviction and psychosis into a single state of mind. The saying contains subtext: “Religious beliefs are the sort of things that drive billions of people crazy; furthermore their lunacy partakes of our animal inheritance — our most primitive nature: our kinship with wolves, barking-owls, coyotes and foxes and California sea-lions, all of whom can howl and whoof when circumstance demands.”

True to his prophetic disposition, Joseph Smith (founder of the Mormon Church, instigator of their beliefs) might have seen Dr. Dawkins coming; the prophet said during his “King Follett Discourse,” a sermon preached in 1844 — to a purported audience of twenty-thousand:

“I do not intend to please your ears with superfluity of words or oratory, or with much learning; but I intend to edify you with the simple truths from heaven …  If a man learns nothing more than to eat, drink and sleep, and does not comprehend any of the designs of God, the beast comprehends the same things. It eats, drinks, sleeps, and knows nothing more about God; yet it knows as much as we, unless we are able to comprehend by the inspiration of Almighty God.”

Dawkins points out Smith’s relatedness to a mad dog; the Prophet responds from the grave labeling the atheist zoologist a beast — an ignorant animal; and so it goes between the Spiritually Dead and their adversaries among legions of the Frozen Chosen.

A Mormon artist depicts an event Joseph Smith believed was indisputably real: his vision of a resurrected John the Baptist. Remember that John was originally sent by God as messenger bearing witness to the Light — the same role he appears to play here. He ordains Smith and disciple Oliver Cowdery into an ancient priesthood, obsolete since occupied by Israelites in Biblical times. In the moment depicted above, two 19th Century men are called to restore that priestly function for the modern world. Henceforth, Latter-Day Saints would claim membership among the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Consider the Latter-Day Saint Temple built on that hill in Manti, Utah — pictured above and over-watched by mountains of the Wasatch Range. What ultimately caused (brought into being) this edifice? I think we can say: “But for immaterial phenomena — the visionary imaginings of Prophet Joseph Smith — this  consecrated stone building would not exist.”

As we are familiar with it, the state of Utah would not exist. The fascinating juxtapositions in our image with slashing clouds would never in the life of our universe have emerged. Myth — a realm teeming with celestial beings — seems to have intersected our visible world and changed history’s trajectory.