#mark hofmann

While watching “Murder Among the Mormons” I heard about the ”Salamander” letter for the first time. It was created, sold and it’s contents released in 1984.

I had to go check a few dates and it turns out that Orson Scott Card published “Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories” in 1981. It contains “The Porcelain Salamander”. A fairy-tale style story about a magical salamander that lifts a curse off a princess.

Card is a devout Mormon. (part of why he went off the homophobic cliff and I no longer buy his writing) He’d also been published in both Mormon things AND was making a name for himself in Science fiction circles with a number of short stories in big-name magazines like Analog, during this time period.

It seems very likely to me that Mark Hofmann, a Mormon-passing, closet atheist and book dealer would have had a good chance of reading that short story. Also, he is a person who is also very likely to have some sort of empathy disorder, so I can see how it would have spoken to him personally.

The conclusion of all this is that I believe the whole bit of him replacing the angel with a white salamander in the forged letter was both a tribute to Card’s story and a huge flare, indicating that it was a fake. I am also shocked that I can find absolutely ZERO indication that anyone has ever put this together! (and I am also deeply curious how Card reacted to the letter during the period where it was believed to be genuine, considering that a good chunk of the church was apparently freaking out about it.)

I started off writing about lawsuits and countersuits, the difference between copyright and trademark, and why anyone would think it’s a good idea to try to sue Taylor Swift over evermore.

Then I watched Murder Among the Mormons more times than any human should and interviewed the Mormon historian in the documentary about Mark Hofmann copycats. I also talked to an old friend and old school news anchor (who is also in the documentary) about why we’ll never see news coverage like the Mark Hofmann bombings ever again. 

Engelsstaub aesthetic 💙

The Salamander Letter was a document created by Mark Hofmann in the early 1980s.

The letter was one of hundreds of documents concerning the history of Latter Day Saint movement that surfaced in the early 1980s. The Salamander Letter presented a view of Latter Day Saint founder Joseph Smith's life that stood sharply at odds with the commonly accepted version of the early progression of the church Smith established.