Added Jan. 2005

Subject: I want to hear from people who are "touched", if any! (Temple Initiation)
Date: Jan 20 08:01 2005
Author: Quinlansolo

However spooky and uncomfortable that process was there was not touching. In fact I called my ex wife, who also is inactive, she did not remember intrusion of that sort. I agree the whole process is whacko, uncomfortable and so invasive that you want to block it from your mind forever.
If any of you touched I would like to hear about it.

Subject: I was totally touched.
Date: Jan 20 21:07
Author: WashingtonExmo

This is a joke? 

I went through the temple for the first time several years ago. For my initiatory, I was told to strip naked put on the shield and walk into the initiatory room. Me and another guy (who was going through for the first time) sat on a cold stone bench trying to hold both sides of the shield closed--we were both pretty red-faced and uncomfortable. I have a "hey, dude" to him and we both stared at the floor.

My turn came up and I stepped into what was almost like a showere stall with curtains on all sides. This old guy came in and recited the script from the ordinance. The guy reached in and touched me really firmly with his finger about six inches above my penis on my front side. I think this was done twice (once with water and again with oil?). It has been awhile, but I was naked under a shield with open sides. I guy reached in and touched me twice about six inches above my penis. He was obvious looking where to touch me (either to avoid accidently touching my penis or to catch a glimpse of it.)

I was, in fact, touched. I was also exposed to the old man when I stood in the stall and even more so when he reached into the shield. After I walked out of the initiatory room, my father led me back to my locker stall where I got dressed for the movie part. I was really freaked out and wanted to leave, but everyone acted like everything was ok. So I pretended like I was ok and went through the rest of the ceremony. I never did the initiatories again.

Subject: Did you read my answer to your specific question to me? If not, here it is.
Date: Jan 20 21:11
Author: SusieQ#1

To say that no one was touched on their bare skin under a flimsy sheet/tunic, in the Washing and Anointing Ordinance, is completely false.


The whole point of the ordinance is the symbolic washing and anointing and the body is touched in several places by the ordinance worker.

Read this. It is 100% factual.

[edit ] Detailed descriptions...OK here goes... My temple history recap and memories of Washing and Anointing...Re:My Q. is: when/where did you take your endowment, and were you touched?


I went to the temple for the first time in August of 1962. I had been a member just over a year.

That was the ceremony up to 1984. You can find it on line.
After a year, (I refused to go again for at least that long)
I felt extremely pressured by the BYU married ward we were in to go to another temple. So, I did.

I have done somewhere between 300 to 400 "sessions" in several temples in the USA (Logan, Manti, SLC, Provo,Wash DC, LA, to name a few) and in one in Europe (Swis). The last time I attended was in the middle 90's, after the 1990 changes.

As a long time musician and dramatist, I easily memorized the whole ceremony (all of them) word for word. (over 30+ years of temple attendance, averaging two sessions a month). At the time, it presented (to my view) as an old fashioned play done in costumes and the rituals were not to be taken literally.

I married into a long time TBM family, going back to Joseph Smith days. I am personally acquainted with dozens of Mormons that attended the temple from the early 1900's on.

I have met many "general authorities" over the years, especially when we lived in Utah during the 1960's.
Some were speakers at our "Firesides" in our local homes, such as Boyd K Packer, Bruce R McConkie, and dozens of others.

We lived in Utah in the 1960's where the temple garments were bought "over the counter" at Penny's. I usually went to the one in Provo for the official underwear.

I have posted extensively on the Role of Women in Mormonism and the Temple Washing and Anointing.Tis is part of a prior post on the subject.

Memories of washing and anointing rituals.


The washing and anointing rituals are only required the first time you go to the temple now as these ordinances are done in blocks by people who do only those kinds of sessions.

If you go through as proxy for any dead relative, you must do the washing and anointing along with it. Years ago, we did the washing and anointing and the endowment session for the same name all in one evening. Sometimes doing two sessions doing it all for two deceased people.

I can still see the rows of tiny lockers where we completely undressed and donned the sheet tunic, carrying our long temple garments (one piece underwear like a "union suit") into the little cubical where the old lady awaited me.

You enter a small stall, and sit on a cold marble type slab. The female temple worker doing the washing and anointing stands behind and to the side of you and starts with the top of the head, the forehead, the eyes, nose, mouth, breast, bowels, legs..etc.

She has a little spigot she gets water from that drips slowly. The oil is done in the same fashion. Nothing untoward, of a sexual nature is done, (at least not in my experience) but it is ethically and culturally out of order. How anyone can equate that to something spiritual amazes me.

I can still see, hear and feel and smell those old women. They were a little like your grandma; dressed in a white uniform, false teeth clacking, chewing a breath mint. I could feel their breath and smell the aroma of the mints as she whispered in my ear, reaching under the sheet with those warm, sweaty, damp hands sliding over here and over there, anointing me first with dabs of water from head to toe, then going the same thing with oil.

I can still hear the water trickling from the tiny spigot that she put her hands into to begin the anointing. I can still hear the sing-song monotone of her memorized washing and anointing dialogue.

Sometimes, I had to stifle a giggle as the old woman inadvertently tickled me and I squirmed.

I tried to sit very still so she would not slide her wet, warm oily hand anywhere it ought not to be as her face was averted outside the sheet and she could not see where she had her hands.

Sometimes she slid her hands within inches of my breasts and pubic hair as she slid her hands around in her predetermined and well practiced path.

I always hated that part and would shudder when she slide those warm, oily hands down my legs onto my feet.

There are promises given, with each part of the body that is washed-dabbed with water and anointed-dabbed with oil. The promises have to do with promising the female that she will be a priestess to her husband etc.
(These have been posted on this forum and they are easily found on line.)

When she finished, she would help me step into my new temple underwear, (in past years it was a pair of old fashioned temple garments that covered the body from ankle to wrist to neck), while still wearing that sheet tunic, adjusting it properly. I always had the feeling she wanted to kiss me, she was so pleased. I often got a a little hug. I still shudder.

Then she sent me out into the dressing area with our lockers where dozens of other women were coming and going.

Here, we got completely dressed and attached the keys to the locker on our dress someplace where they giggled quietly, sometimes the only sound head while walking down the halls in our white slippers on well carpeted floors.

How does the Mormon church get old Mormon men and women to believe it is a sacred ordinance to touch your bare skin under a sheet with little dabs of water then oil while you sit in a small cubicle?

The part that is so unethical and disrespectful is that no one tells the new initiate anything ahead of time.

You go and do what dozens of other people are doing. It is very difficult to leave once you get in the temple. It can be done, I know, I have watched people do it, but it is rare.

This is group pressure at it's most intense.

Under no other circumstances would anyone even dare to consider that you would strip naked, put on a shield (sheeting made in the style of a tunic or poncho) as it is called, carry your underwear and go into a small room alone with someone you do not know while they whisper memorized dialogue, usually with a breath mint in their mouth then help dress you in the official temple garment to be worn day and night for the rest of your life.


Originally, this was a complete washing and anointing, similar to some other religious customs.

What we will do in the name of pleasing the Mormon God!

Subject: was repeatedly touched.
Date: Jan 20 21:14
Author: kc

Not only was I touched during my initiatory....

but I KNOW I was not 'mistaken' or having a 'false memory' because my 2 friends and I used to actually go to the temple for hours and do initiatories for the dead! I went round and round in the little booths until I thought I would faint, being touched over and over until the oil was dripping down my body in certain spots. Yes, I had a sheet over me, open on the sides, and yes, a little old lady reached under the sheet with her COLD bony hands and touched my naked body. When she would bend and touch my legs her face was almost in my lap. When she anointe my breasts she touched above the breast area but when she anointed my vitals and bowels she often inadvertently brushed my breasts or nipples. IT WAS VERY UNCOMFORTABLE.

So yeah. Naked touching.

kc

Subject: I was totally touched.
Date: Jan 20 21:26
Author: Harry
Mail Address: 
"I guy reached in and touched me twice about six inches above my penis."

Whoa! It's a good thing the penis wasn't standing erect! Otherwise guess what he would have been annointing and touching!

Subject: 1970, SLC temple
Date: Jan 20 21:20
Author: Stray Mutt

I was naked except for the holy poncho. I was touched briefly, discretely, on several parts of my body, including at about 9 o'clock from Mr. Winkie, about 3 inches away.

Subject: I was wearing a drafty poncho, an old lady approached me
Date: Jan 20 21:42
Author: Saucie

with oil dripping from her fingers, she mumbled "health to
the navel, blah blah blah, marrow to the bones, or something like that, she was saying her lines like a robot, she touched me as she talked, her fingers were cold and I got the intense feeling that she was so very very bored. I was scared of where else she would touch me, I had no idea that I would be touched by anyone, especially
by an old woman with arthritic fingers and a no nonsense
approach.