In a previous thread, RfM poster "tombs1" wrote:

“When I was about eighteen and geting ready to go on a mission, my Never MO dad brought home a book called ‘Secret Ceramonies’ by Deborah Laake. In it she described the Temple ceremony in detail and talked about how Mormon culture forced her into a loveless marriage and how divorce and being different ostracized her and took a huge toll on her mental health.

"Ironically, the little bit that I read prepared me for the Temple far better than any Church source could have. I also remember being told that Mormon women threw a fit about her talking about the Temple when the book was released in 1993.

"Has anyone ever read that book or met Deborah Laake?

"Another irony is that when I read part of it I said, ‘[S]he is saying things that shouldn't be talked about.’ My father than encouraged me to ‘run not walk away from any organization that tries to tell people what to read and what not to.’ I than had almost the exact same thing happen to me just months latter in the MTC that happend to Ms. Laake in the book.

“I know it is an older book, but if anyone can find it I encourage you to read it.”

("’Secret Ceramonies" by Deborah Laake,’” posted by “tombs1,” on “Recovery from Mormonism” board, 7 January 2011, 2:16 p.m.)
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A family member of Deborah, RfM poster “Jewel in the Desert,” responded:

"Deborah Laake was my aunt and it's interesting reading about her here. Steve Benson wrote a very accurate description of Deborah. She was one of those 'high maintanance' kind of people but she had such charisma and an infectious laugh. I miss her and wish I could have understood and appreciated her better while she was still here."

(“Re: ‘”Secret Ceremonies” by Deborah Laake,”’ posted by “Jewel in the Desert,” on “Recovery from Mormonism” bulletin board, 28 January 2011, 21:23 p.m.)
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Deborah was a valued friend of mine and, yes, since it has been mentioned here on RfM, she did commit suicide.

She had previously undergone a double mastectomy, which greatly drained her. When she got the bad news that her cancer had returned, she was determined not to fight a losing battle with a disease that would undoubtedly wrack her body once again; so, she returned to her family home in the Charleston, South Carolina, and on her own terms quietly took her life with a pill overdose.

I knew Deborah as a gifted writer and editor for the weekly alternative newspaper in Phoenix, the "New Times." Her prose was poetic and blunt, direct and elegant, descriptive and devastating. When she wanted to and felt she had to, she took no prisoners.

Deborah’s hallmark was no-holds-barred/no-nonsense honesty. Indeed, that was what impressed me most about her. Like many of us, she started out as a Mormon product but eventually woke up, planted herself for battle and rebelled against repression. What you saw was what you got.

Like “Jewel of the Desert” noted, Deborah was “high maintenance” but for those who loved her, it was worth the effort to help maintain her. She was also high energy and high truth--not to mention creative, thoughtful, impulsive, focused, bold and crazy, all in a great sort of way. She will always be missed.

When Deborah's book, "Secret Ceremonies," came out on her experiences in Mormonism, it sent shock waves through the Mormon Cult and beyond, with its then-relatively rare and explicit unveiling of Mormonism's secret temple rituals. It was unapologetic in description and language about Mormonism and the personal toll that it took on her but it is written with understanding, insight, forthrightness and a sense of refreshing and truthful abandon. I have a personally-autographed copy of it in my home library. I recommend it highly--at least for those who can handle it. It is gut-wrenchingly direct, revealing and powerful, spoken in Deborah's expressively truthful way: open and in-your-face, yet done with grace. No wonder the Mormons went ballistic when she lobbed it their way. It is not for the faint of heart, the easily offended or those in denial. In short, most Mormons would hate it.

Deborah made the rounds on the national talk show circuit, where she was asked why she allowed herself to be excommunicated rather than leave a religion that she saw as poisoned by detestable patriarchal abuse. She replied that she stayed in for her LDS family, not wanting to hurt them.

Deborah interviewed me once during the sorry saga of eventually-impeached and -convicted Arizona Mormon governor Evan Mecham, when I was going after him tooth and tong in my cartoons for being a racist, uninformed, embarrassing idiot. I was still LDS at the time and Deborah helped me, in her brutally honest and forthright way, to recognize my own lingering blind spots, for which I will always be indebted to her.

Deborah was a high-voltage, vivacious person with a loud, infectious, wide-open-mouthed laugh that carried far as she would fling her head back and let loose. She had a certain flamboyant flair about her, liking to wear red dresses with matching high heels.

When Deborah was recovering from her breast cancer surgery, I visited her at her small, simply-decorated but stylish home in Phoenix, where she tucked her legs up under her as she sat on the couch, her head wrapped in a colorful scarf to cover her chemo-induced baldness. In quiet moments like those, she was thoughtful and gracious, with perceptive insights.

After Deborah died, I was asked to provide the artwork for the cover of her memorial program, which I was honored to do. To this day, I have a magnet on my fridge of her smiling photo that inspires and reminds me of the wonderful, brave person that she was:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2000-02-10/news/in-memory-of-deborah-laake/1/


Deborah flashed like a meteor over the horizon during her short, brilliant, dramatic life. She disappeared quickly but sure as hell lit things up as she blazed across the sky, illuminating the way for many of us.



Edited 18 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2011 11:16PM by steve benson.

You should be able to find it at your local library. Barring that, they maybe able to order it via ILL (Interlibrary loan).

When I lived back East, she made an appearance on a lcoal TV show. I remember this made such a stir, that for one RS meeting in my YSA ward, this interview was played in its entirety. The rest of the room was floored, but I found it fascinating. I even checked it out of the library and read it. Great book. Now I want to read it again to see how my POV has changed.

Thank you Steve for posting this.

That was one of the first books I read after discovering TSCC was a fraud. I loved how she verbalized feelings that I had also experienced. It's good to see her remembered in this manner - I hope she knew how many people she touched, in spite of all the criticisms leveled against her.

Steve, I want you to write my obituary when I die!

I loved that book and even read it twice. I'll never forget the part about the lambskin condoms they had to rinse out and reuse.

My exact impression of her story was, 'There but for the grace of god go I.' The way she described social life at BYU and how girls were pressured to marry any breathing RM was so true, at least when I was there about 1978-85.

because I thought it was tacky to discuss what Mormons considered sacred. That is an opinion I have since discarded, BTW.

I finally reluctantly picked up the book some months after it came out. By the time I got to page 3 or so, I'm thinking OMG, it's THAT Deborah. She changed her last name, and I think had a veil on in the covor photo, if that was even her on the cover.

She grew up in my mom's stake in Florida when I was a teen, and I had noticed her at stake functions. Right after I got off my mission, I went back to BYU, and she was in my ward as a freshman. She was tall (5'10" or so), tended toward heels and pencil skirts in a world of jeans and sweatshirts, had just gotten a flashy little sports car from her dad, and was smart as a whip.

Any part of that would have gotten my attention. All of it together was impossible to ignore. I was also a budding exmo at the time, though I would have denied it. I had some walks and talks with her across campus, but I didn't make the cut, and life went on.

When I read the book, I thought she was pretty hard on all involved, including herself. She changed most names, but I identified some of the folks. I was surprised at how many of the people I knew at BYU in the late 1960s went on to be part of the Sunstone crowd, and some went on to be fairly prominent exmos. I really gravitated toward the "intellectuals" of BYU, and here I thought I was such a good little Mormon.

Somebody in another thread yesterday said there is no such thing as Mo-dar. The hell there isn't. There is gaydar, Modar, and exmodar. It's not foolproof, but it does exist.

Anyway, back to reading the book - it and Housewife to Heretic by Sonja Johnson were real revelations to me. I left long before the web was available, and I felt like I was the only Mormon who had been through what I went through. I left Mormonism while a grad student at BYU. Not a good tactical move, but that's another story. Those books let me know I was not alone.

I found the first 2/3rds of Secret Ceremonies riveting. The last third or quarter had the feel like some editor said "damn, girl, we need to wrap this thing up. We're going with what we have now." Her life was a jumbled mess at that point in the book, so maybe the book was as it should be. It is a short book and a quick read, so if you do find a copy, I recommend it. I gave my copy away some years ago, but I still have a videotape of Deborah on Phil Donahue, and someday I may find the damn thing. Her book made quite the splash at the time.

One thing that I remember was that Phil had a lot of trouble getting the details Mormonism right, and he was justly famous for doing his homework about the subjects of his programs. Mormonism just amazed and puzzled him. OTOH, maybe the people that aren't amazed and puzzled by Mormonism aren't really getting the whole picture.

Nice tribute to Deborah, Steve. I think she was a journalism major right out of the gate as a freshman, and she left a pretty bright meteor trail, even as a teen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2011 09:00PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2011 11:02PM by steve benson.

B of J Your comment on the Phil Donahue show sent me on a search to see if I could find a clip or show archive. I couldn't find that, but I found a blog written by a TBM who says she was on that show representing tssc. I'm wondering if you have memories of her on the show. I hope you find the recording.

I read Secret Ceremonies not long after it came out. My daughter had married in the temple and her father and I were excluded. The book made me feel even worse about tssc and my daughter being a member. That was before I had internet access, so the book was my first and only introduction to the underbelly of tssc.

Deborah's story is heartbreaking. I'm grateful to her for writing her story. Thank you Steve for your thoughts as well.

Here is the link to the blog (Warning: tbm barf material):

"My Day on the World Stage" - LDS - Families.com

http://lds.families.com/blog/my-day-on-the-world-stage

> Her book came out shortly after I left LDS Inc.
> I deliberately didn't read it for a while..
> because I thought it was tacky to discuss what
> Mormons considered sacred.

Yah it can work that way for a while, until a person realizes that MORmONS are about the most tacky idiots around and there is NOTHING sacred about the laod of crap LDS consider to be holy & use so much to beat up others.

STUPID ASS MORmONS!

Too bad I didn't have the balls to write as she did about the truth.

I cowardly have written an anonymous series of chapters, hoping to pull it together, but chicken to put it out there until my TBM parents pass away.

Don't know why I didn't hear about her book when it came out, which would have definitely hastened my departure, which wasn't until around 2000.

I had read her book around the time she died and in a way it helped me to escape. I saw a baby blessing in sacrament, and it was just as she described, so I realized that she was probably right about the temple, even though they removed the throat slashing and other "penalties" by the time I joined.

You can buy a copy of Secret Ceremonies from vendors on http://www.half.com for $1 + shipping. I haven't read it myself, but it sounds like an excellent addition to my personal library.

RG

I had already read Sonja Johnson’s “Housewife to Heretic" and was angry to discover how the church REALLY feels about women, how it treats them when push comes to shove. I was hungry then to read more by people who dared to tell the truth.

In “Secret Ceremonies,” Laake told the truth as she experienced it, “how Mormon culture forced her into a loveless mariage and how divorce and being different ostrasized her and took a huge toll on her mental health” as Steve says. I felt so sad for her and even more when when I learned later that she had committed suicide.

Sonja Johnson and Deborah Laake are among the courageous “pioneer” exmos. They did not have either supportive families or fellow RfM posters to assure them that their feelings and views were valid. Yet both of them ended up making a lasting mark on the exmo world.

"WiserWomanNow" writes:

"In 'Secret Ceremonies,' Laake told the truth as she experienced it, 'how Mormon culture forced her into a loveless marriage and how divorce and being different ostracized her and took a huge toll on her mental health' as Steve says."

Let's give credit where credit is due.

That nice summation was actually written by RfM poster "tombs1," whom I was quoting and sourcing in the initial post in this thread.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2011 11:17PM by steve benson.

I read Secret Ceremonies when it first came out. I was riveted. And felt amazed. The rampant misogyny made me mad. I re-read it in the spring of 2002, and as often seems to happen, I got even more out of it then.

My only prior experiences with Mormons was a guy I dated when I was in nursing school, who told me about the "curse of Cain" and how black people were made inferior by God. He looked a bit taken aback when I said "Bullshit" because you know, ladies don't talk like that. He also told me that women were being punished because they were daughters of Eve, which meant that they were not supposed to be given any pain medicine in childbirth. They had to "suffer." I found out later that this was NOT a Mormon thing, just his own sick ideation. The other Mormon I knew was a co-worker who ridiculed me for wearing a cross, but did not try to convert me or sic mishies on me.

I did a web search on Deborah Laake, then, eager to learn more about this damaging culty religion, searched on Mormonism. Lo and behold, there was RfM.

and confront you about your belief. Most people would not do that.

Speaking truth to power! All of their books made a huge difference in my life. I marvel still at their courage.

I've read lots and lots, and I read Laake's book about 10 years ago. Still I'd say it's one of the most shocking and heart-wrenching books I've ever read.

What gagged me most, at the time, was that her FIL gave the young couple a set of re-usable condoms, made of sheep intestines or such material, and how they washed and dried them after use. Eeewwww.

Or have I mixed up something? Maybe I should read the book again.

I'd forgotten about the wedding gift and lambskin condoms in general. Do they even still exist? I remember being taught in school and later reading in professional literature that lambskin condoms provided little or no protection against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. They were still sold because some religions and ethnicities said they were superior because they were not made of man-made material. They were also touted as providing increased sensitivity for the male. We were taught never to recommend these condoms as they put both participants at increased risk for sexually transmitted disease.

I remember the passage about re-using the condoms as well. EW!

Oh, and the time her TBM husband got really mad at her for ordering a slightly more expensive breakfast than the "Blue Plate Special" ...on their honeymoon!!

Did she receive threats from the Mormon church for speaking her mind and writing what she did? If so, then they are partially responsible for her early passing...

Deborah Laake's book was exerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine a long time ago. After I read the book in its entirety during my research, I remembered the Cosmo article.

Mindbending!

~VOW