Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition

Appendix

389 Appendix In order to facilitate the study of such a large number of stories, I coded each narrative according to the thirty-two criteria (with forty-eight separate columns for specific themes and motifs, the most significant of which appear in chart 5), listed below. However, because the data were incomplete for many stories, not all of these criteria could be usefully employed in analysis. The charts that follow provide a numeric breakdown for the categories that were most complete and most useful in my analysis. These charts are referenced in the text of the book. Summary Personal—Legend Setting Narrator Relationship between   narrator and receiver of revelation Relationship between   narrator and collector Collector Gender of narrator Gender of collector Verbatim/Notes Year told/recorded Year of event City occurred in City told in Medium of revelation Terms used to   categorize experience Origin of revelation Prescriptive/Descriptive Solicited/Unsolicited Positive/Negative Tractable/Intractable Action suggested Action taken Fulfilled/Unfulfilled Themes Motifs Direct quote of Holy   Ghost Hesitate before acting Double confirmation Function Stewardship Stated belief Still, the Small Voice 390 FOAF stands for Friend of a Friend, a common acronym used to describe contemporary legends, where specific attribution is difficult to pin down. Narrators Stories Told Revelatory Experiences Stories By Type PEN Family Acquaintance Unknown Legend FOAF Unattributed Male 144 211 260 108 42 36 0 10 15 Female 162 214 171 77 67 37 7 11 15 Unknown 16 16 10 4 5 2 0 2 3 Total 322 441 441 189 114 75 7 23 33 Chart 1. Narrators and Types of Stories Told Medium Total* Female Male Both Unknown Experienced Shared Experienced Shared Experienced Shared Internal 418 154 191 252 212 12 15 • Feeling 121 42 55 71 60 8 6 • Thought† 67 24 34 42 31 1 2 • Voice 59 16 21 43 36 0 2 • Prompt‡ 24 9 8 14 16 1 0 • Dream 129 60 67 68 58 1 4 • Vision 18 3 6 14 11 1 1 External 40 19 29 20 10 1 1 • Voice 8 5 6 2 2 1 0 • Vision 4 3 4 1 0 0 0 • Visitation 4 2 3 2 1 0 0 Unknown 24 9 16 15 7 0 1 Chart 2. Medium * Some of the stories include multiple experiences. In other charts, those are marked by the “Double” category, since the choices are between two options: descriptive or prescriptive, solicited or unsolicited. Here, however, there are multiple options. In order to accurately indicate the media through which revelation is received, I have counted each experience, meaning that the totals add up to more than 441. † People use many terms to describe their experiences in addition to those listed in the chart (see chart 3 that follows here in the appendix). Others include “impression,” “inspiration,” and “knowledge.” All three correspond most closely with “thought,” which is where I have counted them. ‡ “Prompt” is an umbrella term used to describe experiences that people clearly see as internal, but not dreams or visions. With no clearer articulation, I have used “prompt” to indicate those ambiguous revelations. Appendix 391 Term Total* Explicitly Religious Term 20 • Burning of the Bosom 1 • Miracle 2 • Revelation 10 • Still Small Voice Ambiguous Term 438 • Came to Mind 12 • Dream 123 • Experience 4 • Feeling 117 • Knowledge 21 • Impression 44 • Inspiration 21 • Prompting 43 • Thought 20 • Told 13 • Vision 21 • Voice 64 Modifier 47 • Distinct (impression/feeling) 12 • Good (feeling) 3 • Peaceful (feeling) 8 • Strong (impression/feeling) 24 Chart 3. Terms Used to Describe Experience * The total number of terms is more than 441 since some people use multiple terms in their stories. Also, I have not included ambiguous terms used fewer than three times. Solicited vs. Unsolicited Total Female Male Both Unknown Experienced Shared Experienced Shared Experienced Shared Solicited 90 33 43 55 46 2 1 • Directly* 67 23 30 43 36 1 1 • Indirectly† 23 10 13 12 10 1 0 Unsolicited 332 129 160 195 157 8 15 Double‡ 7 4 4 3 3 0 0 Unknown 12 5 7 7 5 0 0 Chart 4. Solicited versus Unsolicited * Solicited directly: personal revelation received in response to a specific prayer. † Solicited indirectly: personal revelation received after a person prayed, but the prayer was not directly related to the revelation that followed. ‡Double: a single narrative that includes two revelations, one solicited, one unsolicited. Still, the Small Voice 392 Prescriptive...