Free “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass by Joanne Hanks, Steve Cuno Page A

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groups, we embraced Young’s so-called Adam-God Theory. Which meant, as you can
plainly see, that claiming to be the reincarnation of Adam would have been
tantamount to claiming to be God himself. Even for Harmston, that would have
been pushing it. With no such pretentions of grandeur, Harmston contented
himself with being the Holy Ghost.
    At least at that time, anyway. Years later, Harmston would
decide that he was the reincarnation of Jesus himself. Until then, however,
Holy Ghostedness was not without its perks. The Holy Ghost’s job is to bear
witness to your heart of divine truths. So when Harmston bore witness to nubile
women that it was ordained of God that they should join his bevy of wives, it
was understood that doubting him was tantamount to doubting God.
    You might think that all this talk of reincarnation would
present a problem for people whose religion officially disavowed reincarnation.
Silly you. We just called it that for simplicity’s sake. It was really the
Doctrine of Multiple Mortal Probations, and any fool could tell that it
resembled reincarnation no more than Prayer Sessions resembled séances. Unlike
reincarnation, the Doctrine of Multiple Mortal Probations said that women
always came back as women, men always as men. Unlike reincarnation, the
Doctrine of Multiple Mortal Probations said that you were human in every life.
You were never, say, a dung beetle or a dandelion. (Which in some regards was a
shame. I have met people who would make consummate dung beetles.) Most
important, the Doctrine of Multiple Mortal Probations was different from
reincarnation because Harmston said it was.
    Since we believed that we were reliving one mortal probation
after another, sometimes we jokingly called ourselves “re-Probates.” Get it?
Like “reprobates,” except with a hyphen and a capital P. Ironically, we thought
that the irony wasn’t lost on us.
    I was proud to learn that my own husband was no less than
Oliver Cowdery. One of Joseph Smith’s closest associates, Cowdery acted as the
principal scribe in penning the Book of Mormon. Cowdery faithfully wrote while
Smith buried his face in a hat to peer at a “seer stone” and dictate the
“translation.” Later, Cowdery went down in history as one of three official
witnesses claiming to have seen the gold-like plates on which the ancient
record was originally written, declaring “with words of soberness, that an
angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes,
that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon.”
    Judith was Queen Elizabeth the First. For a while she
floated about the house doing her best to effect a regal air. Learning that she
was also Josephine Bonaparte added not at all to her sense of humility. Nor did
either epiphany incline her toward increasing her participation in housework.
    Most of history’s really cool dead women were taken by the
time I got in on the act. Nothing quite so glorious came to light about me. I
was Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, one of the wives Joseph Smith persuaded
into bed with the story about the invisible angel threatening him with a sword.
Prior to that I was Benjamin Franklin’s daughter and, prior to that, Martin
Luther’s daughter. Though it was no great claim to fame, I liked being Martin
Luther’s daughter. That is, I liked being Martin Luther’s daughter until a few
weeks later when Harmston told us that before he was Joseph Smith, he
was—guess who—Martin Luther. Luke,
I am your father.
    Not just grossed out, I was confused. I recalled a
protracted conversation Elaine Harmston had carried on with Martin Luther in
one of our Prayer Sessions. That session in particular stuck in my mind,
because Luther impressed me with his American English. The guy spoke without so
much as a hint of a German accent. He had an uncanny ability to sound like
Elaine trying to sound like a man.
    But that wasn’t what troubled me.
    When a deceased we wished to