Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
History and Religion
One of My Weirder Days (Not Today)

One of My Weirder Days (Not Today)

Last updated on: October 21, 2026 at 1:19 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

One of My Weirder Days (Not Today) 2026-10-21T13:19:26-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A daguerreotype of the original Nauvoo Illinois Temple as it looked in 1847. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

The newest episode of Becoming Brigham went up on Monday morning. And are you really telling me that you haven’t watched it yet? Not even once? Well, happily, that problem can be easily remedied, at “Mud! Down Payment on an Exodus?— Becoming Brigham Episode 39”

And the teaser or trailer for Episode 40 is already available: “Trailer for Ep. 40–The Price of Faith? The Fire of Covenant!”

Please subscribe to Becoming Brigham. It will cost you nothing, but it will give you the peace of mind for which you’ve been searching.

And here are two more new items from the Interpreter Foundation, where nothing new ever appears because, in fulfillment of a very confident prophecy, the Foundation died many years ago:

“Reprint: Centralizing Scriptural Resources,” written by Ryan Dahle (Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses — Inspired Origins, Temple Contexts, and Literary Qualities Volumes I and II, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, David R. Seely, John W. Welch, and Scott Gordon. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ancient-threads-in-the-book-of-moses/: “My remarks today will discuss the efforts by Book of Mormon Central to offer a helpful, centralized resource for studying the Book of Moses and other content from the Pearl of Great Price. Many in today’s audience may be familiar with Book of Mormon Central. Its primary goal is to ‘build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making the Book of Mormon accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to the entire world.’”
“James E. Smith and Jonathon Riley: Reading Nephi with Jacob and Mormon: A Text Foundation” (a 36-minute video)

A Wikimedia Commons public domain photo of Romania’s Peleș Castle

Our main activity today was a visit to the very beautiful Peleș Castle, which was built between 1873 and 1914 and which is located in Romania’s beautiful Carpathian Mountains, near the pretty skiing and resort town of Sinaia.

I know the name of our extremely knowledgeable guide now. It’s Bogdan Dragoi. We had him with us for three days.

A mountain scene near Sinaia in 2025 (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). The colors were much the same today, and the weather was glorious.

I was talking with Bogdan yesterday, and the fact came up that I pretended for many years to be a university professor. I mentioned that several Romanian emigré academics (including the eminent scholar of comparative religions Mircea Eliade) had made a big impression in the United States and specifically upon me. He named Ioan Culianu, and he was surprised to hear that I had known Professor Culianu. Well, anyway, I had met him. (For what little it’s worth, I even briefly met his fiancé, Hillary Wiesner, who was based at Harvard at the time.) And my very limited acquaintance with Ioan Culianu is one of the weirder experiences of my life. I thought that I was on the way to getting to know him better — we had hit it off rather well, and we shared several academic interests — but suddenly our relationship ended.

I hadn’t really thought about the story for many years. But now it’s come forcefully back to me.

Ioan Petru Culianu (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

In 1990 0r thereabouts, Ioan Culianu attended a session at a national academic conference at which I delivered a paper that I had written with my friend and BYU colleague, the late and much-lamented Bill Hamblin. Or, rather, it was a paper that the two of us had thrown together at the last minute. We had a very good idea, I think, and we had had excellent intentions when we sent our proposal in to the conference conveners, but somehow the time got away from us and our paper was pretty rough and only partly finished when I delivered it. In fact, when I realized that Ioan Culianu would be in the audience, I fleetingly thought of running for the hills rather than delivering it.

Immediately after the end of the session, Professor Culianu made a beeline for me, and he didn’t look happy. I thought that I was about to get my just desserts. But he had really, really liked it. He was, he said, launching a new journal, and he hoped that we would consider submitting our paper for publication in it.

The paper really wasn’t ready for prime time, but we eventually polished it up and fleshed it out, and we were reasonably satisfied with the finished results. It appeared in print as William J. Hamblin and Daniel C. Peterson, “Neoplatonism and the Medieval Mediterranean Magical Traditions,” Incognita: International Journal for Cognitive Studies in the Humanities 2 (1991): 217-240.

So far, so good. If I recall correctly, Professor Culianu afterwards requested a second paper from us. I believe that was the reason why I was trying to call him at his office at the University of Chicago on 21 May 1991, not too long after the publication of the first article. A secretary answered the phone and said that Professor Culianu was unavailable. I asked when might be a good time for me to try reaching him again.

“Well,” she said after a brief moment of hesitation, “Professor Culianu was murdered this morning.”

I thought that it was a very poor joke. Not even remotely in good taste and, it seemed, completely pointless. But it wasn’t a joke. Ioan Culianu had been assassinated earlier that morning in a restroom not very far from his university office, in what seems to have been a professional hit. And the murder has never been solved. No motive has ever been identified, although at least two or possibly three distinct motives have been proposed.

For more about Professor Culianu generally, see the Wikipedia article “Ioan Petru Culianu.” And here are two specific discussions of his assassination:

The Louvre Museum, with the Tuileries in the foreground and, in the distance beyond, the two towers of Notre-Dame (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Things are rather placid here in Bucharest, apart (of course) from the traffic at rush hour. So, in order to avoid terminal boredom, you should watch this important video from elsewhere in Europe: “Today I Show You the Real Paris.”

Posted from Bucharest, Romania

History and Religion

Travel and Religion

Previous Post

October 20, 2026

Reflections on the Attempted Revolution in France

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"That is interesting. It would be another factor in the demographic issues."

Michael Hoggan

Reflections on the Attempted Revolution in ..."

"SG "Chet," Legion: "Here you go DP:"We are not, I think, talking about the same ..."

DanielPeterson

Reflections on the Attempted Revolution in ..."

"That classic French rallying cry "Allahu Akbar""

TheLastDanite

Reflections on the Attempted Revolution in ..."

"Interpreter has been publishing the presentations from the Small Plates Conference and Scott Stenson gave ..."

Theodore Brandley

Reflections on the Attempted Revolution in ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to 1 John, what is God?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The Word Spirit Perfect Light