Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

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_deacon blues
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Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _deacon blues »

I've just been reading up on Beatrice Sparks, an L.D.S. author whose claim to fame was that she wrote books that were partly, mostly, or completely fake. She claimed to be a youth counselor, and said that her books were based on experiences related to her by real patients, but later these claims were shown to be deceitful at best, and untrue at worst. I remember Seminary teachers telling us about the dangers of drugs, Satan-worship, and the counter culture, based on these books. She sold a lot of books, and still seems to be well regarded in some circles, but I couldn't help but wonder if "Jay's Journal" helped contribute to the "Pace Memorandum" by Glenn Pace, in which the L.D.S. general authority warned of ritual abuse by Satan worshipers. Has anyone read any of those books.
_moksha
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _moksha »

Here is her most famous fictional book that was presented as if it was real.

Go Ask Alice - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/go-ask-alice/
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_sunstoned
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _sunstoned »

Jay's Journal was very popular when I was a first year student at BYU. We even had a student ward EQ lesson based on it.
_Grudunza
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _Grudunza »

She should have teamed up with Paul Dunn.
:mrgreen:
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_kamenraider
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _kamenraider »

I found Jay's Journal on my mission and read it. Wasn't sure if I took it seriously, but thought it was interesting. My companion read it and said he was challenging Satan somehow one night (can't remember) and thought he was surrounded by evil spirits. I thought he was just being crazy and went to sleep (it was around bedtime). Later he got a letter from his mom, who I guess was a single mom. She said she felt he was in trouble from the Adversary at one point and raised her arm and rebuked the evil by the priesthood of her dead husband. It turned out that it was at the same time he was scared of evil spirits. He was blown away and excited about it all day. I was like, huh?!?

Here's a link about the author:

http://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Beatrice_Sparks
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_honorentheos
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _honorentheos »

A good friend's mom read Jay's Journal and gave it to her son to read with the firm belief it was a true story. It made the circles in our group and I wish I could say I saw it for being a bunch of BS. Instead, it was probably the first time I thought something external to a Church meeting confirmed the reality of the things the Church taught. How the spirits were described at the end who had become visible to Jay fit perfectly with the LDS portrayal and I guess I hadn't realized I had an itch that needed scratched with non-LDS validation that the book seemed to provide.

Being a naïve young teen, I didn't think to check the author's bio out nor to question the claims it was a true story. I mean, it said so on the cover and my friend's mom believed it so...

Kind of embarrassing.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
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_Kishkumen
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _Kishkumen »

I read Jay's Journal on my mission and was kind of spooked out by it. Then, on further reflection, I thought it seemed pretty fishy. Then I did some research on it some years later when the internet was blossoming into a decent research tool. Found out it was bogus and felt vindicated.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_cinepro
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _cinepro »

Wow. I've never heard of her or her books (must have been before my time). This is interesting though...

In 1973, after the publication of Go Ask Alice, Marcella Barrett, a Pleasant Grove, Utah woman, approached Sparks to edit the journal of Barrett's deceased son Alden. Alden had suffered from depression and committed suicide at age sixteen and Barrett felt that his story might help other at-risk teens. The result was Jay's Journal, which tells the story of a teenage boy drawn into Satanism. Barrett's family was horrified by the book.[2] They insisted that Alden had never been involved with the occult and that Sparks had used only 21 entries from his journal (out of 212 supposed entries that appeared in the finished book).[2][4] Sparks defended the book, claiming she got the extra material from letters and interviews with Alden's friends.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Sparks


It sounds like she found a place among the wider context of social fear being stoked at that time about "satanism" and the occult, and just translated it into Mormon culture.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-brief-history ... 1679476373
_candygal
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _candygal »

Can someone with some time refresh me on the story of Jay's Journal? I think I read it..but not sure. If it was a story that was proclaimed true as if in a diary..I have read it. Was it a story in a Utah town?

thanks...I am your local PITA child.(Pain in the ass).. :smile:
_deacon blues
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Re: Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, etc.

Post by _deacon blues »

candygal wrote:Can someone with some time refresh me on the story of Jay's Journal? I think I read it..but not sure. If it was a story that was proclaimed true as if in a diary..I have read it. Was it a story in a Utah town?

thanks...I am your local PITA child.(Pain in the ass).. :smile:

It was loosely based on the diary of a depressed Utah teenager who committed suicide. His parents then apparently gave the journal to Beatrice Sparks, who was well known because her previous sensationalist book "Go Ask Alice." Evidently, Sparks used the journal as a source and then added fictitious details about devil worship and animal sacrifice and published it as "Jay's Journal", an anonymous confessional. Jay (his name was changed) did live in a small Utah town.
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