In 2002, the acclaimed LDS indie-band Low, in one of their few flirtations with the mainstream, recorded the theme to The Mothman Prophecies, a supernatural horror film starring Richard Gere, and (very loosely) based upon the breathless 1975 book of the same name by parapsychologist John Keel. Stepping well out their comfort zone, Low tabled the “slow-core” minimalism that had been their bread-and-butter for nearly a decade by then, to instead record a blazing, up-tempo dance-anthem clearly intended for raves. The results speak for themselves.
The pairing of Low with The Mothman Prophecies was especially apt–not only because they absolutely nailed the movie’s creepy atmospherics (about the only thing that does hold up from that mixed-reviewed film), but because, being LDS themselves, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker would have been peculiarly invested in the film’s central question of place of modern-day prophecy.
The movie, like the original book, centers upon an elusive, folkloric demon creature who only appears just before horrific tragedies–in this case, the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River in 1967 (though the film inexplicably updates the setting to 2002–as though that wouldn’t become immediately dated, either). Absolutely every character who encounters the never-directly-shown Mothman is unsettled and unnerved by this apparition; the movie is the opposite of faith-promoting.
The titular Mothman of course differs significantly from our own LDS prophets, seers, and revelators: the former is much more a straight-forward prognosticator (a “seer,” if we want to get technical), all-seeing and reading minds, but without any salvific intentions or agendas. As a former-Mothman-hunter explains to Richard Gere’s character, “If there was a car crash ten blocks away, that window washer up there could probably see it. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s God, or even smarter than we are. But from where he’s sitting, he can see a little further down the road.” The Mothman isn’t trying to warn anyone or cry repentance; it simply notes what is shortly to come.
By contrast, our Latter-day prophets rarely engage in any straight-forward predictions at all (maybe Gordon B. Hinkley’s vague “portent of stormy weather” shortly before the Great Recession, and Joseph Smith’s prediction of the Civil War in section 87, is all we have to hang our hats on; certainly none of the current Q15 even tried to predict the pandemic lockdowns), since their entire function is exclusively salvific to begin with. Any Isaiah-or-Revelations-type prophecies we might have access to are strictly of the “hints, types, and shadow” variety (which shadows are perhaps where “Half Light” derives its name), subject to endless debate and dispute and retroactive reinterpretation if/when they come to pass.
Nevertheless, every time I listen to “Half Light” come October, I am reminded of just how terrifying even the simplest of prophecies can be once we take them seriously–that there was a reason why that Methodist minister angrily told Joseph-fresh-out-of-the-grove that there was no such thing as visions, that such were done away with at the time of the Apostles–it is our way of keeping the divine at arm’s length, lest it get too up close and personal. Yet as even a film as shakily-produced as The Mothman Prophecies can remind us, just because we leave the divine alone doesn’t mean it’ll always return the favor. Actual prophecies are terrifying, and there is a reason we treat their manifestation as insidious intrusions into our daily lives.
Perhaps the reason why we never hear grandiose prophecies from the General Conference pulpit anymore (we haven’t since 1918, quite frankly–or 1978, depending on how you want to define them), is because we don’t want to hear them. They would frighten us if we did. Perhaps we all collectively (both as a church and as a human race) actually prefer to live in the half-light. But we won’t be allowed to stay there; something will always be coming for us–and even if its something far more glorious and loving than the demonic creature in The Mothman Prophecies, well, every angel that has ever appeared has to first declare “Fear not,” because fear is always our first and foremost human response. But if we will not come unto them, the promise is sure: they will come find us eventually. And that’s perhaps what scares us most of all. “I’ll see you in time/in the half-light” indeed.