Put on your tinfoil hat and your green-aproned biohazard temple suit and settle in for some faith-promoting Mormon make-believe. It's time for tantalizing, mysterious, 'round-the-cult campfire tales from the secret "reality shows" of President Ezra Taft Benson (including a shocking--shocking, I say!--account of him being beaten up inside the Salt Lake temple by hooded gang members of the Quorum of the Twelve).
Over the years, I've had various rock-ribbed Mormons contact me, directly or by correspondence, claiming to have been privy to special inside information regarding certain alleged occurences in the life, times and prophesies of my grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson. These stories have been described to me by their conveyors as either being true on their face, or at least being deserving of serious consideration.
One such inquiry about these supposedly awesome, real-time, latter-day, epic episodes has recently been posted here on the RfM board:
"Hey Steve,
"I've read in a couple of places that Hinckley and Monson supposedly put a pillow over your grandfather's head, and then hit him with a hammer repeatedly (the pillow was to make the blows less obvious), and this is what caused him to become incapacitated. Have you ever heard this, and do you think it could be true? Can you tell us what you know about it?
"Thanks!"
As they say, if you believe Mormonism, you'll believe anything. Below are some of the tall tales that have been relayed to me in the dedicated Mormon spirit of faith and conviction--or if not that, at least in the spirit of wanting to believe. They're offered here for the purpose of building up Zion in the last days by deepening faith in the wild and wondrous world of Mormon make-believe, as practiced by its desparately-devoted Saints.
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--President Benson Was Brutally Bludgeoned by Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles When He Wouldn't Go Along with Their Secret Plans, Resulting in Permanent Brain Damage
One Mormon breathlessly phoned me from the Northwest, asking me if the following story was true.
It seems that a so-called "Pink Room" had been clandestinely constructed in the upper reaches of the Salt Lake City Temple during the administration of Mormon Church President Wilford Woodruff. There, in absolute secrecy, members of the Quorum of the Twelve would gather to perform dark and solemn rituals, dressed for the occasion in hooded cloaks.
President Ezra Taft Benson was supposedly brought into this "Pink Room," where it was demanded of him that he go along with certain evil designs of the Twelve. (The specifics of these pernicious plans were not spelled out to me, so your guess is as good as mine). President Benson refused to go along, whereupon he was stuffed into a gunny sack by his hooded tormentors and mercilessly pummeled, resulting in permanent brain damage that kept him from leading the Mormon Church.
I told the inquiring senseless Saint that Ezra Taft Benson had indeed suffered severe cerebral strokes, but that there was no evidence they were caused by him having been mugged by members of the Quorum of the Twelve.
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--President Benson Was Spotted in a Las Vegas Casino, Where He Held an Off-The-Record Meeting with a Young Mormon Boy, the Contents of Which Were Too Sacred to Reveal
According to this tale passed on to me by an incredulous Mormon, an LDS father and his son happened to be on the main floor of a Las Vegas casino, when they spied LDS Church President Benson, accompanied by his security detail, walking through the casino. The Mormon father pointed out President Benson to his young son, whereupon the boy said he wanted to meet him. His father took his son and they followed President Benson's entourage up the elevator to a hotel room. After President Benson and company entered the room and shut the door, the father knocked on the door and asked if his son could meet the LDS Church President. The father was told to wait outside, while the young boy was allowed to enter President Benson's hotel room. The door closed and the young boy was in President Benson's hotel room for two hours, as the father remained outside in the hallway.
When the boy finally emerged from the hotel room, his father asked him what had transpired. His son told him that President Benson had spent the whole time talking to him and that President Benson had told the child that it was good to be able to talk, since he (meaning President Benson) was not allowed to do so. However, the boy wouldn't tell his father any more about his behind-closed-doors encounter with the Lord's anointed prophet.
The purveyor of this story asked me if it was true. I replied that I had never heard of any episode involving Ezra Taft Benson being spotted visiting, or staying in, a Las Vegas casino. I must add, however, that he did play a mean game of shuffleboard.
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--President Benson Issued an Inside-the-Temple Elevator Warning That It's Too Late to Start Storing a Year's Supply of Food
According to this faith-promoting tale, President Benson was encountered in an elevator in the South Jordan, Utah, temple. There, a member of the Church told him that he was accumulating his food storage. President Benson reportedly replied that it was too late to begin that task, given that the end of the world was at hand and that time had run out. This was several years ago and we're still here.
Next.
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--President Benson Ordered Christmas Gifts from Deseret Book, Proving He Really Wasn't Mentally and Physically Incapacitated
The faithful Mormon relaying this story told me that they knew a fellow Latter-day Saint who worked in one of Salt Lake City's Deseret Bookstores. The employee was said to have answered the phone at work one day, only to hear the voice of President Benson, who identified himself and who then proceeded to order books as Christmas presents for family and friends.
My response to this story was that, based on my direct observation of my grandfather's severely deteriorated state of physical and mental health at the time that this phone conversation allegedly took place, he would not have been able to find the phone in his apartment, much less have been able to have used it.
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--President Benson's Private Apartment Nursing Staff Witnessed Him Performing His Prophetic Role but, Given the Sacred Nature of These Acts, Has Chosen Not to Talk About What They Beheld
I was told by a devout Mormon that, based on inside information relayed to this believing Saint, one of President Benson's attending domestic nurses saw President Benson do things in his apartment as she cared for him that definitely testified to his calling as God's prophet. What those things were, however, were never explained.
Personally, I saw my grandfather's nurses patiently feed him by spoon as he sat, stooped over and silent, at the kitchen table in his Mormon Church apartment. He ate like a horse, but uttered nothing prophetic in the process. I also saw his assigned caregivers take President Benson-- dressed in a sweatsuit and diapers and wrapped in a blanket-- and prop him in a reclining chair so that he could stare out, unspeaking, through the window of his upper-story Eagle Gate apartment toward Temple Square. I saw his nurses plant him in a soft recliner next to a radio in his aparment studio, so that he could listen to sessions of General Conference he was too weak to attend, as I sat by his side.
I never saw my grandfather do anything remotely prophetic in his apartment.
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--President Benson Appeared in a Dream to a Faithful Latter-day Saint in Order to Pressure Me to Rejoin the Mormon Church
After I left Mormonism in 1993, a Mormon anonymously called me from somewhere in California and left two voice messages on my office phone, informing me that my grandfather had appeared to him in a dream, instructing him to tell me that my grandfather wanted me to return to the Mormon fold. The anonymous caller hung up each time after having delivered the message. I figured that if my grandfather wished for me to be re-baptized a Mormon, he could have appeared in a dream to me--or better yet, in spirit-person form--rather than to a complete stranger. That way, he could have told me directly, to my face, what he wanted me to do and, in the process, cut out the middleman.
That has yet to happen.
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--President Benson Was the Target of an LDS Church-Hatched Murder Plot
This one's a super-dooper woozy-doozy.
According to RfM poster "ex_sushi_chef" (who occasionally drops in for a visit from the Twilight Zone), my grandfather was afraid of being murdered by evil forces residing in the LDS Church Office Building headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City--and confided his fear in that regard to his personal massage therapist.
The source of this Tantalizing Tale fron Beyond the Veil is identified as Kevin Kraut, son of Ogden Kraut--the latter who was a fundy Mormon and author of the book, "Jesus Was Married." As they say, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. Here's a little on the voodoo views of Kevin's dad, Ogden:
Not only did O. Kraut assert that Jesus tied the matrimonial knot while in the flesh, he claimed that Jesus tied it with more than one woman at the same time. In support of this polygamous premise, O. Kraut predictably quotes none other than early LDS apostle Jedediah Grant, who preached that this proved Jesus was a Mormon:
"The grand reason for the burst of public sentiment in anathemas upon Christ and his disciples, causing his crucifixion, was evidently based upon polygamy, according to the testimony of the philosophers who rose in that age. A belief in the doctrine of a plurality of wives caused the persecution of Jesus and his followers. We might almost think they were 'Mormons.'
"What does old Celsus say, who was a physician in the first century, whose medical works are esteemed very highly at the present time? His works on theology were burned with fire by the Catholics, they were so shocked at what they called their impiety. Celsus was a heathen philosopher; and what does he say upon the subject of Christ and his Apostles, and their belief? He says, 'The grand reason why the Gentiles and philosophers of his school persecuted Jesus Christ, was because he had so many wives; there were Elizabeth, and Mary, and a host of others that followed him.'
"After Jesus went from the stage of action, the apostles followed the example of their master. For instance, John the Beloved Disciple, writes in his second epistle, 'Unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth.' Again, he says, 'Having many things to write unto you (or communicate), I would not write with paper and ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.' Again--'The children of thy elect sister greet thee.' This ancient philosopher says they were both John's wives. Paul says, 'Mine answer to them that do examine me is this: `Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas.' He, according to Celsus, had a numerous train of wives."
O. Kraut adds that Jesus must have approved of the p-word because he never condemned it:
"Although the practice of plural marriage was commonly known and believed by many people in the Jewish society, it was never condemned by Jesus. The Savior had surely witnessed plural marriage, heard it taught and, of course, had read of the many examples of this law in the scriptures; yet there is no evidence that he opposed or refuted that practice. He spoke of strict moral issues which pertained to every physical or mental sin involving sex, but the word 'polygamy' was never refuted, nor did he utter a word against those prophets and patriarchs who had obeyed this principle of marriage. Because Jesus took no issue against polygamy, it is therefore implied that Jesus must have sanctioned that law. This fact was generally understood and accepted by many scriptorians and reformers."
(Jedediah Grant, "Journal of Discourses," vol. 1, p. 346; for the text of Ogden Kraut's book, "Jesus was Married," Chapter 6, "An Everlasint Covenant of Marriage," 1st ed. [Salt Lake City, Utah: Ogden Kraut, 1969])
Interestingly enough, my grandfather had a copy of Ogden Kraut's book, "Jesus Was Married," in his personal library, which he gave to me. I eventually sold it to a second-hand bookstore, "Benchmark Books," located just off the I-15 freeway in Salt Lake City.
But I digress. Poster "ex_sushi_chef's" appeal to Ogden Kraut's son, Kevin, is where we left off--at the point where K. Kraut was claiming, on authority from ETB's devoted "massage therapist," the existence of a plot--put together, no less, deep in the heart of the Mormon Church's very own HQ--to rub out (so to speak) Ezra Taft Benson. As proof of that dastardly plan, "suckered sushi" asks with great fervor:
" . . . [H]ow about this one??: 'Ezra Taft Benson Identifies The Modern Day Gadiantons, by Kevin Kraut,'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvSYj2pE7NI"Do you think he is nuts, too?? While you are claiming your are the only one sane and pure. [J]ust [a] joke."
("Re: ex-sushi chef: You've apparently gotten food poisoning from eating raw fish," by "ex_sushi_chef," on "Recovery from Mormonism" discussion board, 30 JMuly 2013m at:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,974816,974876#msg-974876)
Jesus, Jedediah and Just a Joker, indeed.
According to this Kevin Kraut fellow who appeals to the authority of ETB's masseuse, ETB--in a recent "first talk" in General Conference--ripped on the Illuminati. Ya don't say. I'd like to have a citation for that claim, if you don't mind.
K. Kraut goes on to reveal that ETB's former "massage therapist" relayed to him (K. Kraut) that he (the massage therapist) had gone to ETB's Church office to do the massages on ETB (which Kraut said this Mormon masseuse performed regularly) and asked ETB if he (ETB) was afraid of being murdered by his enemies in Washington, D.C. At that point, according to the massager's message, ETB motionied the masseuse over to ETB's Church office window, where ETB pulled back the curtains and "pointed down" to "the Church headquarters," which ETB identified to the massager as being ETB's first source of worry when it came to his own personal safety.
Really now.
It's telling how K. Kraut words the narrative: He says the massage therapist claimed he was working on ETB, as in "up with him up in the [pause] . . . up in his office." Yeah, up in that "the-his" office--the precise geographical location of which K. Kraut can't seem to pinpoint for his rapt audience.Here's the rub: the story's a lie, and I'll tell you why.There could have been no "up in his office" from which ETB "pointed down" to the "Church headquarters," for the simple reason that my grandfather's personal Church office was in the low-slung Church Administration Building, on the second floor. In other words, my grandfather's office wasn't "up" in the "Church headquarters"--meaning the 28-story "high-rise" (as Apostle Dallin Oaks once dismissively referred to it in a conversation I had with him and fellow Apostle Neal Maxwell in Maxwell's Church office, up one floor in Room 303, which itself was located in the same Church Administration BUilding where ETB's office was).
By their fruitcakes, ye shall know them.
I wish these folks would get their goofy gospel straight before peddling it here. It'll only prove embarrassing to their kids. And coming from, of all people, a Mormon massage therapist. That just, well, rubs me the wrong way.
Kevin Krsut later responded to me--on the RFM board, no less. On 14 February 2014, he posted the following response (original punctuation left intact):
"Hmmmm well I posted this to get the story as best I could there were several who witnessed this event including my wife and one of the sons of the therapist. And if you listen closely I never told where etb was I did not know.
"Kevin kraut
"PS I always admired Ezra Taft Benson"
I responded back:
"Kevin, there's obviously a lot you don't know but still believe it, anyway."
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--Conclusion: What Can I Say?
Other than the time is far spent, so get off your backsliding behinds and repent! These stories have just GOT to be true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOsiXRXhL00Edited 13 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2017 03:51PM by steve benson.