It’s too long to fit into RFM post., so here are a couple of paragraphs to see if you might be interested, link at the end:
Presumably, we have all heard the notion that one of the primary purposes (if not the primary purpose) of the LDS proselytizing mission, is to “convert the missionary,” so to speak. It is widely held that those who put in the 18 or 24 months of missionary service are more likely to remain active in the faith and to be committed to continued service to the Church.
In this piece I suggest that to the extent that this entrenchment of commitment, activity, and service actually happens, it should not necessarily be interpreted as a positive reflection on the LDS Church, but as a result of normal and natural psychological processes occurring in reaction to the experiences typically had on the mission.
Faithful LDS members are likely to interpret this “conversion of the missionary,” this increase in commitment to Church activity by the RM (returned missionary) as a positive reflection on the truthfulness of the claims of the Church, perhaps as a result of becoming increasingly attuned to matters of the spirit while steeped in service, or as an inoculation against the future stresses of difficult Church assignments, or any number of things that reflect a positive glow onto the Church.
I humbly submit that the RM’s increase in commitment to the Church is independent of the truthfulness of the claims of the Church, and would occur whether those foundational claims held any truth or not. To put it even more bluntly, even if, for the sake of argument, the LDS organization were a complete fraud, the experience of serving a mission would result in the exact same dedication to future Church participation as it would were the Church entirely legitimate.
Regarding missionary service, the LDS sponsored website “mormonwiki” (http://www.mormonwiki.com/Returned_Missionary) employs an enlightening turn of phrase: “For young Mormons, and most especially for young male members, serving a mission is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood.” (italics added to emphasize the interesting use of the term)
The central thesis of this piece is that the RM’s increased commitment to the Church can be accounted for by precisely the same “rite of passage” phenomena that occur when students, soldiers, athletes, etc., are “hazed” by their fellow soldiers, teammates, etc.
To that end, I first try to lay out a definition of hazing, then offer a simple discussion of some principles of psychology, followed by an application of those principles of psychology to hazing to show some reasons why hazing has the effects that it has. I then try to make a case that a description of a proselyting mission has sufficient similarity to the description of hazing to justify a claim that the mission qualifies as a form of hazing. By that point the heavy lifting is done, and I conclude by trying to pull it together with a necessary but brief section tying the mission back to the psychology of hazing.
Please read on: https://unexaminedfaith.blogspot.com/…/the-lds-proselytizin…
BTW, I’d be very interested in your comments and experiences.

I skimmed the blog. Couldn't really get into it though, but i tried. I think trying to link a mission to hazing is a stretch at best. For myself, I didn't experience or participate in any hazing on my mission. I also never heard another missionary say they had.

The mission is a "right of passage" in the same way graduating from college is. It an accomplishment one can be proud of and helps transition young people into fully functioning adults. Hazing is a right of passage to join a frat or sorority, etc. Not much of an accomplishment there.

I would guess some hazing could happen when a new missionary comes out, but comparing the whole experience to a hazing ritual? I don't see it.

If you think of "hazing" as "performing a set of ritualized tasks, some of which may be embarrassing or unusual, after which the initiate is accepted as a full member of the community..."

Then a mission is "hazing."
Even if the missionary isn't being physically or emotionally mistreated (though the latter is *very* common, the former a bit less so).

You didn’t read it, but you disagree with what you think my main point is…?
I guess I’m not sure how to respond to that.

S Richard Bellrock Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You didn’t read it, but you disagree with what
> you think my main point is…?
> I guess I’m not sure how to respond to that.

I did read it.
What makes you think I didn't?

I also pretty much agreed with your main point. Both above and below (see my other post).

So I haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

It’s hard to keep track on these threads, sometimes the indentation makes it confusing, but I wasn’t replying to you. I was replying to Johnny the Smoke.

You and I were on the same page as far as I can tell.

Ah, I see.
Yep, we were :)
That's why I didn't understand your reply!

This is a big subject. People are complicated, and RMs experiences are slightly to massively different. My nephew recently returned from his mission this year after two months. He had a breakdown but was told he had served a full mission.

One of my companions was trashed by the MP at the mission office on his way home – I’d heard from a subsequent companion who served in the office that my former companion was crying after the interview. One Elder Anderson was quite open about his motivations – a brand new pick-up truck from his father. He was basically not interested in “harvesting the field”! But I suppose most missionaries like me are middle of the road? Just forget the strange happenings.

Another of my companions went inactive after a year back in the real world. Sister missionaries must have the biggest let downs – just what was it all about? I think RMs look to the next phase as the one that’ll perhaps sort it all out. Just hold on to the iron rod and do what’s expected.

Perhaps the real result is that RMs are now a quarter in on the secret that they cannot tell for varied and complicated reasons. It is something like hazing but not exactly that.

Church leadership are in charge and perpetrate it.

I like the point you make that in order for the mission to strengthen an allegiance to the church the veracity of the church is of no importance to the hardening of the bond. It is the ritual of the mission itself that ensures an indoctrination upgrade.

THE rite of passage or hazing may bequeath one with pride or bragging rights. However, I do see another even stronger principle at play and that is that the more you invest in an entity, the more likely you are to protect your investment. Most will "throw good money after bad" as they say,continually, before they will throw in the towel and face the loss of their misguided investment.

The Gerontocracy understand this principle even though they are in the midst of their ever diminishing lucid moments. The Mormon church is all about investing. Your time, money, emotion, self esteem are all used to bankroll the process. Family ties are offered up as sacrifices. Who will turn easily from that which they have put their heart, soul, and a bit of blood into?

The mission is one of the largest purchases to be made of Mormon Stock which pays no dividends and only goes down in value. Still, we hoped for a Bull market as the optimists we are, and as the humans who just wanted all that we had sacrificed for to pay off so it would not be all for nothing.

Investment is a powerful control tactic. One more quarter in the slot machine . . .

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The mission is one of the largest purchases to be
> made of Mormon Stock which pays no dividends and
> only goes down in value...
>
> ...One more quarter in the slot machine . . .

Dude! (Dude, not chick, right?) The way you said it, that's poetry! Your posts contain the seeds for many songs...

It's Dude. And thank you.

Agreed regarding the throwing good money after bad. I didn't refer to the principal using that same term, but it was discussed in the piece. "Less is more" and "effort justification affect" or more or less the same thing as you refer to.

I'll leave this here: https://www.stophazing.org/

btw, yer link iz borked:

https://unexaminedfaith.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-lds-proselytizing-mission-as-hazing.html

Perhaps I don’t know what hazing is. In the UK we have beasting. Beasting is a military technique about degrading the individual so that very little of being a human is left and they are reduced to robots - it is brutal. Not just a right of passage. Cultish manipulation is certainly not the same thing but does have a similar goal.

While not necessarily physically brutal, the mission experience is quite similar.

Your individuality is stripped away -- you're just "Elder" (or "Sister").
You're given a strict set of rules to follow, with the consequences for breaking them being psychologically severe (shamed in front of your fellows, shamed in your family & ward back home, etc.).
You're not allowed to act on your own.
You're not allowed to ever *be* alone.
You're constantly watched & monitored.
You're given unrealistic goals, and are berated when you don't achieve them.
You're denied any sexual outlet of any kind.

Your entire existence consists of scripted daily routines full of rules already laid out for you. No thought required or desired, no decision-making, just pray & obey.

Thanks for catching that

The whole Mormon experience is a mental mind-f*ck, and missionary service takes that to a whole new level. I contend that the missionary program is guilty of human trafficking by modern definition. Their are plenty of human rights organizations that should be scrutinizing this.

Very interesting!! When I served in South Korea years ago, it was so f%&$# hard. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. The language (I was an early missionary and they hadn't figured out how to best train the missionaries in the difficult language). I enjoyed the people, the culture, and the experience. For the first time, I started to realize this was a cult (or something like it). It was challenging for me to say--I know JS was a prophet of God (I didn't know, of course). I realized I wasn't ready for this experience. But, I just decided to enjoy the experience, learn a language, learn a foreign culture, and just do my best. After serving as a Bishop where dozens of young people when on missions and then looking at the church policy adjustments to keep young people active, I see the true purpose of a mission--to keep young people active. I didn't have a bad experience. I met my wife there, I developed an interest in Asian culture, and it led to my graduate degrees (3 of them), and I became an Asian scholar in my discipline. The church is false, a fraud, a cult, and is struggling like hell (especially with young people), and will continue to struggle as more members and nonmembers see the historical evidence. I served in so many church positions (Bishop, Bishop's counselor, HC, EQP, and so forth). I wish the information that is available today was available to me years ago. It wasn't--I knew the claims had problems, even when I served as a Bishop. But, no question, missions are mainly to keep young people active. However, so many RM's have left after discovering the truth. The bad thing is that it took many years for some of us to discover the truth.

I don't know where this fits in:

My grandson is 17 months into his mission in Sur America. His weekly email blast is pious as Kolob (the planet, not the RfMer), full of miracles and tender mercies, along with requests for prayers that their investigators will come to church, etc.

But then there's his Google docs photo album, in which he and his fellows are white shirt and tie goof balls! The disparity between the tone of his missives and the tenor of his collected photos is striking.

Which is the real grandson?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2017 09:34AM by elderolddog.

He's probably asking himself the same question.

elderolddog Wrote:
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> His weekly email blast is pious as Kolob
> (the planet, not the RfMer)...

Thanks for making that distinction :)

Double the Pious.
Double the Fun.
Double the trauma,
It's two Mormons in One!

The Mormon church would give you a split personality if you stay in too long? At a certain point you have to choose between your facade and your self. That is exactly how I felt at a certain point.

A while before I figured out the church was a lie and still thought I had a burning testimony, I reached a point where I walked into the ward house on a Sunday, looked around, and walked right back out. I couldn't even have told you at the time why I left. I just had to.

Later,I understood. Deep down, I was done with the bifurcation.

No doubt he is asking himself that same question, as the mission grabs a hold of you just as your adult identity starts to jell

I wouldn't agree that the mission itself is a form of hazing but I did see things that disgusted me.

I saw *some* alpha elders treat betas in most un-Christlike ways. Merciless teasing and bullying because the elder was socially awkward or -gasp- didn't want to spend his p-days playing basketball.

I saw this behavior right from the beginning in the Provo MTC. It blew me away that guys were doing this seemingly oblivious to the irony of supposedly representing Jesus Christ. I saw it again in "the field". It wasn't a universal occurrence but it happened enough to be too much.

I was on the receiving end once, by one of the AP's no less, and it really pissed me off because I then realized what they thought of me in the mission office. This despite being a consistent hard worker. I just didn't play "the game" and try to brown nose my way into leadership positions. But thats a whole other story.

They learned from their parents and leaders how to establish the pecker (pun intended) order. It's all about browbeating your inferiors into submission.

Missions make good practice for the years to come :(

I can't really say whether it rises to the level of hazing or not, but I do think it sets folks up for a lot of painful cognitive dissonance if they ever question later in life.

It goes something like this:

"I have a doubt about the church.....but I spent 18 months / 2 years telling people it was true." This is a very painful thing to contemplate.

Most folks will do almost anything to reduce that dissonance and many LDS just put their doubts on the shelf and keep going through the motions.

are the frat brothers that never grew up and moved on. The missionaries are the Gomer Pyles and the GA's are the Sargeant Carters. The Lords army can't seem to graduate from boot camp.

I call the LDS Mission experience child abuse with some hazing thrown in and loaded with mind control dished out by the cult of Mormonism.

Hie gave a great list of experiences the unsuspecting missionary is put through and I would like to add a few others.

1. Let's see....the missionary is old enough to travel to a new area, even a new country, but after arriving suddenly they are not old enough to call home when they want and need to?? Big Daddy has to police this. Really? Oh yeah, and this certainly DOES NOT help families stay together. This is emotional abuse.

2. Missionaries are not allowed to keep informed THEMSELVES on current events where they are living, let alone keep up on what is going on back home and in the world. Again, they are told that their spiritual giant, the Mission President, will keep them safe, informing them of any news they need to know. This teaches them that they are not capable of thinking for themselves nor does it give them the tools to learn.

3. Missionaries are sleep deprived and expected to work and study WAY too much for their age. It is not healthy and plays into physical and emotional health problems that some missionaries encounter. This is physical abuse.

Whether you care to label this experience at too young of an age child abuse or a form of hazing it is NOT WHAT A YOUNG PERSON OF THIS AGE SHOULD BE DOING. In case you can't tell, this something I feel strongly about.

Amen, and amen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2018 10:30PM by presleynfactsrock.