{"id":1759,"date":"2004-12-16T16:11:56","date_gmt":"2004-12-16T21:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1759"},"modified":"2004-12-16T16:11:56","modified_gmt":"2004-12-16T21:11:56","slug":"jays-journal-mormon-horror-fictionor-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2004\/12\/jays-journal-mormon-horror-fictionor-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal: Mormon Horror Fiction…or is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard of Jay or Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal<\/em> let me explain. Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal <\/em>is a slim volume, published in 1979 and edited by adolescent psychologist and Provo resident Dr. Beatrice Sparks. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a series of journal entries that detail a sixteen year-old Mormon boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s descent into the occult, culminating with his encounters with an evil spirit, the mysterious deaths of his friends, and eventually his suicide. <\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a cult classic in every sense of the term.<\/p>\n

When I first came to BYU in 1990 I heard about Jay and his journal, about the underground world of teen Satan worship along the Wasatch front, and about the fact Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grave glows red at night. Some of my classmates even ventured to a cemetery South of town to see Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s final resting place with their own eyes. I understand that there was a headstone that did in fact glow red, but a little investigation revealed that it was reflected light from a nearby neon sign. <\/p>\n

I love a good scary story, so I never forgot about Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal<\/em>. Last time I was in Provo I found myself in a used bookstore downtown (a spooky place to begin with) and decided to ask about the book. They had a copy and I bought it and read it.<\/p>\n

Let me just say it was disturbing and unnerving in many ways. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great as a flat-out horror story, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a blatantly transparent fraud. <\/p>\n

The tone of the book was way too didactic to be anything but the work of an adult\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe most likely suspect, the middle-aged \u00e2\u20ac\u0153editor\u00e2\u20ac? and committed Later-Day Saint, Dr. Beatrice Sparks.<\/p>\n

I became obsessed with the book for a few weeks and did a little research. Once again truth is stranger than fiction. The true story surrounding the origin of Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal<\/em> is twice as disturbing as the actual work itself. (The best article I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever found on the subject was recently published and can be found here<\/a>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely worth a look).<\/p>\n

Essentially, Dr. Sparks used the actual journal entries of a Pleasant Grove teen that did commit suicide as a starting point. Only about 21 of the 212 entries in the finished work were written by the original teen. More importantly, the original teen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journal makes no mention whatsoever of occult worship or interest in the supernatural. <\/p>\n

Dr. Sparks claims to have filled in the rest of the story through letters Jay wrote and interviews with Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friends (many of whom did coincidentally die very young). She changed the name of the boy to Jay, but it was easy for the residents of Pleasant Grove to figure it all out and the ensuing chaos contributed to the divorce of Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parents and the disruption of their family.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m interested in a discussion of the ethical issues involved in Dr. Sparks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 actions. Did the ends (frightening kids out of exploring the occult) justify the means (taking considerable license with another person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story)? <\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a shame the book wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t originally presented as fiction. If you approach it simply as a piece of horror fiction it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty dang good. Plus, it is delightfully 100% Mormon. It has great detail about growing up in Mormon culture. For example, Jay starts his journal in the first place because his scoutmaster and Sunday school teacher keep hounding him to do so. The book may be a fabricated, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a personal history\u00e2\u20ac\u201da type of storytelling Mormons are particularly receptive to. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no wonder that Mormon kids to this day enjoy reading about Jay because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot like they are, struggling against the boundaries of their faith as they emerge into adulthood.<\/p>\n

The book also incorporates Mormon doctrine in imaginative and frightening ways. In the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scariest moment Jay meets Raul\u00e2\u20ac\u201da spirit from the third of the host of Heaven in search of a body\u00e2\u20ac\u201din this case Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. In fact, the zeal with which the author goes for the scares makes me wonder if she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always hold an interest in horror and the occult and presented her story as true to legitimize writing in a genre that Mormon culture generally frowns upon. <\/p>\n

Finally, it may sound strange, but in a roundabout way reading Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal <\/em>increased my testimony of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. In its failure to convince me that it was a product of a teenage mind Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal <\/em>made me contemplate how difficult it is to pull off a believable hoax that can withstand intense scrutiny. Obviously not the best way to strengthen a testimony of the Book of Mormon, but every little bit helps. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard of Jay or Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal let me explain. Jay\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Journal is a slim volume, published in 1979 and edited by adolescent psychologist and Provo resident Dr. Beatrice Sparks. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a series of journal entries that detail a sixteen year-old Mormon boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s descent into the occult, culminating with his encounters with an evil spirit, the mysterious deaths of his friends, and eventually his suicide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}