Agent S's document stash: Part II

[_Bond James Bond]

I'm still hysterically laughing over Ernie's dream of stolen greasy pants. The whole index speaks volumes about his anger and paranoia and all that is perfectly distilled into that one dream image. It's such a great example of Freud's "the dream work." I've really got to find the perfect way to artistically incorporate it.

God moves in mysterious ways, who'da thunk I'd ever find inspiration from Ernest Wilkinson.

Shades please bring back images! I need greasy artwork in my life.


*To stay on-topic more documents will take a few days. Agent S will be away from scanner for a few days. Might not be until end of week. (I hope you all can survive :)

[_Nevo]

Delightful! This certainly isn't available on the Internet anywhere.

Talmage's version of this story has been available for some time, however:

Armed with this response Elder Talmage brought up the subject of Smith’s paper in the April 1931 meeting called to bring the issue to a final solution. In this heated meeting, as he later wrote to his son, Talmage used Sterling’s evidence to “show up James McCready Price in all his unenviable colors.” Moreover, he “was bold enough to point out that according to a tradition in the Church based on good authority as having risen from a declaration made by the Prophet Joseph Smith, a certain pile of stones at Adam-ondi-Ahman, Spring Hill, Mo., is really part of the altar on which Adam offered sacrifices, and that I had personally examined those stones and found them to be fossiliferous, so that if those stones be part of the first altar, Adam built it of stones containing corpses, and therefore death must have prevailed in the earth before Adam’s times.”


— Jeffrey E. Keller, "Discussion Continued: The Sequel to the Roberts/Smith/Talmage Affair," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 1 (1982): 83. See also, Richard Sherlock and Jeffrey E. Keller, "The B. H. Roberts/Joseph Fielding Smith/James E. Talmage Affair," in The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism, ed. Gene A. Sessions and Craig J. Oberg (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 99.

[_gramps]

About the Ernest Wilkinson Index:

Blixa, I couldn't find anything funnier than the greasy pants. That is too funny.

And what is up with the Madsen blurb about being on the faculty list as holding a Ph. D. two years before actually receiving it. If someone here is in academia, could they explain it to me?

Is that normal, or even kosher?

Edited to add about the greasy dream: I wonder what Freud would have said about that one?

[_Blixa]

Delightful! This certainly isn't available on the Internet anywhere.

Talmage's version of this story has been available for some time, however:

Armed with this response Elder Talmage brought up the subject of Smith’s paper in the April 1931 meeting called to bring the issue to a final solution. In this heated meeting, as he later wrote to his son, Talmage used Sterling’s evidence to “show up James McCready Price in all his unenviable colors.” Moreover, he “was bold enough to point out that according to a tradition in the Church based on good authority as having risen from a declaration made by the Prophet Joseph Smith, a certain pile of stones at Adam-ondi-Ahman, Spring Hill, Mo., is really part of the altar on which Adam offered sacrifices, and that I had personally examined those stones and found them to be fossiliferous, so that if those stones be part of the first altar, Adam built it of stones containing corpses, and therefore death must have prevailed in the earth before Adam’s times.”


— Jeffrey E. Keller, "Discussion Continued: The Sequel to the Roberts/Smith/Talmage Affair," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 1 (1982): 83. See also, Richard Sherlock and Jeffrey E. Keller, "The B. H. Roberts/Joseph Fielding Smith/James E. Talmage Affair," in The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism, ed. Gene A. Sessions and Craig J. Oberg (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 99.

Thanks for that addition, Nevo. As you can tell, I'm taken with turns of phrase and "stones containing corpses" is another evocative one.

[_Blixa]

About the Ernest Wilkinson Index:

Blixa, I couldn't find anything funnier than the greasy pants. That is too funny.

And what is up with the Madsen blurb about being on the faculty list as holding a Ph. D. two years before actually receiving it. If someone here is in academia, could they explain it to me?

Is that normal, or even kosher?

Edited to add about the greasy dream: I wonder what Freud would have said about that one?

About the Madsen blurb I can think of three explanations:

1) it was an awkward way of indicating his ABD status
2) it was a mistake
3) it was a lie necessary for some reason (his hiring? promotion? ???)

#2 is a real possibility, after all. I'll go back and read the entry and see if it suggests anything more definitive. But right now, its a puzzler.

Now on to the dream of greasy pants.

On one level its pretty easy to interpret, I think. Wilkinson is under constant pressure, real and perceived, thus the slight persecution scenario the dream is framed by: hands grabbing at him (in attempts to steal his pants).

He's also apparently worried about his own infractions; remember those listings under "Sabbath" that run for pages and detail all the ways he's broken the sabbath? Or the mention of him trying to outrun the cops but getting a traffic ticket anyway? Plus, he's constantly bickering with the Brethern about everything, getting called on the carpet for this and that. You can imagine the pressure he's under: he's got faculty he hates and is snooping on, student body officers who are insubordinately refusing to give up their fad dancing, worries about hiring black faculty, and recruiting black athletes, homos spreading their communist filth from rest room to rest room. All these things could be represented as being spattered by an unpleasant, hot and sticky substance.

And surely his many enemies (both within and without the church) would love to get their hands on this disreputable intel: thus the attempts to steal his stained garments.

Now as to why its "pants" being besmirched and grasped at?

One Freudian caveat: the dream is the product of condensation and displacement. Therefore dream images are usually interpretively overdetermined. The "pants" could carry quite obvious connotations. Their proximity to genitals as well as idioms like "wears the pants in the family" suggest that "pants" could be a stand-in for masculinity and culturally gendered power. And that fits with a dreamer who feels he is under harassment, especially a dreamer whose political world view/authority is seemingly threatened by groups (students, blacks, women, gentiles, communists) he feels have no right to what is naturally his.

But, as with all such images, this is likely only one layer. To learn more, we would need more context, more information, more biography. Ultimately, we would need to engage with the man himself, now a sad impossibility. Thus we are left with only an empty pair of greasy pants, unable to fill them as completely as we may wish.

Here I must withdraw and let each reader ponder for him and herself the ambiguously anointed and oleaginous trousers.

[_gramps]

About the Ernest Wilkinson Index:

Blixa, I couldn't find anything funnier than the greasy pants. That is too funny.

And what is up with the Madsen blurb about being on the faculty list as holding a Ph. D. two years before actually receiving it. If someone here is in academia, could they explain it to me?

Is that normal, or even kosher?

Edited to add about the greasy dream: I wonder what Freud would have said about that one?

About the Madsen blurb I can think of three explanations:

1) it was an awkward way of indicating his ABD status
2) it was a mistake
3) it was a lie necessary for some reason (his hiring? promotion? ???)

#2 is a real possibility, after all. I'll go back and read the entry and see if it suggests anything more definitive. But right now, its a puzzler.

Now on to the dream of greasy pants.

On one level its pretty easy to interpret, I think. Wilkinson is under constant pressure, real and perceived, thus the slight persecution scenario the dream is framed by: hands grabbing at him (in attempts to steal his pants).

He's also apparently worried about his own infractions; remember those listings under "Sabbath" that run for pages and detail all the ways he's broken the sabbath? Or the mention of him trying to outrun the cops but getting a traffic ticket anyway? Plus, he's constantly bickering with the Brethern about everything, getting called on the carpet for this and that. You can imagine the pressure he's under: he's got faculty he hates and is snooping on, student body officers who are insubordinately refusing to give up their fad dancing, worries about hiring black faculty, and recruiting black athletes, homos spreading their communist filth from rest room to rest room. All these things could be represented as being spattered by an unpleasant, hot and sticky substance.

And surely his many enemies (both within and without the church) would love to get their hands on this disreputable intel: thus the attempts to steal his stained garments.

Now as to why its "pants" being besmirched and grasped at?

One Freudian caveat: the dream is the product of condensation and displacement. Therefore dream images are usually interpretively overdetermined. The "pants" could carry quite obvious connotations. Their proximity to genitals as well as idioms like "wears the pants in the family" suggest that "pants" could be a stand-in for masculinity and culturally gendered power. And that fits with a dreamer who feels he is under harassment, especially a dreamer whose political world view/authority is seemingly threatened by groups (students, blacks, women, gentiles, communists) he feels have no right to what is naturally his.

But, as with all such images, this is likely only one layer. To learn more, we would need more context, more information, more biography. Ultimately, we would need to engage with the man himself, now a sad impossibility. Thus we are left with only an empty pair of greasy pants, unable to fill them as completely as we may wish.

Here I must withdraw and let each reader ponder for him and herself the ambiguously anointed and oleaginous trousers.

Wow, thanks for that analysis. Fascinating possibilities.

About number one above. I am kind of stupid about academic stuff: what does 'ABD status' mean?

About number two: It wasn't a mistake to ELW, as I read it. If the President knows it is a mistake, yet can't do anything about it (I don't know this for sure), that seems very strange.

About number three: I don't want to think about that. That would be troubling, especially if the President knows, and all he can do is cry about it in his journal. Odd to say the least. I'm sure it can't be that.

[_Blixa]

"ABD" means "all but dissertation." People are often hired at this stage---well they used to be---and then with their teaching duties there is a lapse of time before they finish the dissertation and formally receive the degree. There is nothing, as far as I know, negative about such a designation. But, you're right, the notation in the index was odd and I have no good guesses other than what I offered.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

These materials are so disturbing and fascinating. I really don't know what to make of these entries:

"Only 50% of BYU faculty are full tithe payers"

"Church gives man $5,000.00 for his revelation on how to improve space travel"

"ELW calls Eldon Tanner a "shylock" for charging BYU 9% interest on a 2 million dollar loan"

"David O Mckay afraid that Catholics might attempt to take over Weber State"

"ELW assigns Clyde Sandgren to spy on alleged communists at the Maple Inn"

"Humanities one of 2 colleges at the Y which gives us much concern"

"Harold B Lee is "going to be a big problem in the future"

"Harold B Lee is so upset at being late to the Temple that he sits and sulks by himself"

"ELW to expel all homosexual students but will not list reason in their file for fear of lawsuit"

"Bruce R. McKonkie wants fee tuition for his children because his is a General Authority"


and on and on and on WOW!!

[_harmony]

Thes
"Bruce R. McKonkie wants fee tuition for his children because his is a General Authority"

Did you mean "free" instead of "fee"? And why is that so surprising? I thought that was a given.

[_Blixa]

Thes
"Bruce R. McKonkie wants fee tuition for his children because his is a General Authority"

Did you mean "free" instead of "fee"? And why is that so surprising? I thought that was a given.

I thought so too, harmony, but plenty of listings suggest that such special consideration for GA's must not have always been the case.

For example, there is this notation: "General Authorities: Wants special consideration getting grandson admitted to the Y. DO asks EW."

I take "DO" to be a variant of DOM (David O McKay) since "EW" is used for Ernest L Wilkinson who is usually designated "ELW" in the index.