Have any of you ever come across the PH ordinance of releasing someone from life by the laying on of hands? My family abounds with such stories, including a few where my dad did the deed. Apparently, this involves visiting a critically ill member, giving them a blessing by the laying on of hands, and telling them that their "calling" of life is over and that God is now "calling" them home. My dad tells the story of releasing a faithful sister from life, followed by hear death within the hour, as evidence of the Spirit's divine intervention in inspiring him to perform the ordinance.

I witnessed such a thing firsthand when my young wife died of sudden heart failure. Although I was still TBM at the time, I was too distraught to compose coherent sentences, let alone muster the faith to raise her from the dead (as was my right as a worthy PH holder), so I asked my TBM brother to do it for me. After a piss poor attempt at bringing her back to life with magic words ("If it be the Lord's will, your spirit may rejoin your body, but if not..."), my brother, in the alternative, released her from life. Bear in mind that she was already dead, and had been so for a good twenty minutes.

The fact that PH holders only do this for people WHO ARE ALREADY DEAD OR DYING should say something about the level of inspiration involved. I have always wondered what would happen if PH holders giving a normal blessing (say, a start-of-schoolyear-father's-blessing, or setting someone apart as EQP) suddenly felt inspired to release that person from life. "I set you apart as Elder's Quorum President and...wait...this just in...you are hereby released from life to be brought home to your Father in Heaven." What would people think? Would it cause people to question the accuracy of the source?

Any thoughts or experiences?

My first experience with PH blessings was with the Bishop. He called me to accompany him on a visit to a sister that was in intensive care.

The lady was weak and looked in pretty bad shape when we arrived. I thought it would be pretty miraculous if we could lay our hands on her and have her walk out of the hospital that day.

The bishop gave the blessing, and while he didn't use the phrase you've noted above (release from life), he said nothing about her being healed and only reassured her that her sins were forgiven and she would be with God and Christ after this life.

The lady noticed the lack of any mention of healing, and afterward asked, "So, will I be okay?"

The bishop just said, "Your sins are forgiven. You'll be just fine."

As compassionate as the bishop was, this was about the most non-committal exercise of faith I could imagine.

About two years later (and after a few more trips to the hospital) she died. Hope she kept her slate clean in the meantime!

It is never easy. There is the wish and temptation to try to revivie someone and heal them, but deep inside you know that it will only make matters worse by giving false hope. Maybe that shows a lack of faith. But nevertheless, I have never seen or heard of anyone trying it.

It never ever occured to me to say such a thing as releasing them from life. Never heard of such a thing, but I suppose it would be comforting for the family and for the person to relax and accept death.

On Christmas morning 2003 the Doctor at the hospital called to tell us that my Mother in Law had declined even further and that today was the day to get everyone around. While we were alone, just her and my wife and her grandkids, I gave her a blessing of comfort and of reassurance, and some other things that I won't share. It was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but in the face of knowing the inevitable, it was also very, well I don't know what to call it, but I would not have let anyone else. Later that evening she slipped into a coma and died two days later.

That last person I ever gave a blessing to was an elderly man who I had given rides to church and who was in a Nursing Home. I was his HomeTeacher and got the call from his daughter who needed someone to give him Last Rites. He was mostly unconscious but it was just me and her and it was a blessing of comfort and of reassurance. Ed was my friend and he died before I got home.

His daughter is not a member, but she loves a church that allows people to be friends and who as friends can minister to those in need instead of having to have The Minister come and do the impersonal during such a dreadful time in a persons life.

I think that that is one of the things that the church does right. Authority questions can arise, but the prayerful touch of a friend in the name of God is of great value to those in need.

who one day committed suicide (i.e. business had failed, financial problems, etc). His DW found him hanging in the stairway in the family home when she came home from work. He was dead. They could not revive him. A few days later, this spiritual go to guy in the stake was called to give the corpse a blessing. At the funeral home, the family gathered around the casket, while the "go to guy", a TBM who has been known to be very effective in giving blessings, gave a blessing with words like, "Its okay, you are forgiven, go to the place of rest and receive the love of savior, your family loves you, etc." I was not there, but the grandmother is a close friend of my mothers (which is where I got the scoop). From what I can tell, it was a very strange, seyonce like event.

Also, in another ward, the bishop was summoned to heal a dying mother with cancer. She had 4 small children. The family was very angry when his priesthood could not heal her. Frankly, I know of no event where the so called "power" to act in Gawd's name has ever healed anyone - where they would not have healed anyway via normal medicinal treatment. Its all bull shiz.

Or so they said. I wasn't there. I was 15, and my mom lay dying from lung cancer. She was only one day away from death, and the branch president put his hands on her head to give her a blessing and, according to other church members who may or may not have been present, "released" her from her suffering. She died within the day, and everyone said it was the miracle of a priesthood blessing. Back then, being impressionable and only 15, I believed these idiots. I mean, "releasing" someone who has gone into a coma and only weighs a few pounds from not eating in weeks is pretty easy pickings, if you ask me.

As far as I know, the particular ordinance you are referring to has been discontinued by the church because it placed to much emotional/psychological burden on the person performing it.

It was called "Dedicating a person to the Lord" and in effect commanded the recipient to die.

As a young missionary many years ago one of my uncles performed this "blessing" at the request of a family, and it haunted him forever.

He said when he finished the blessing,the person opened his eyes and they were a right blue, and he died that instant.

as I never heard of it, or witnessed it. I don't know when it was discontinued, but there is no record of any such blessing in the official list of blessings and instructions from the LDS Church. They do still dedicate a grave.

These are the only ones that they sanction:
Priesthood Ordinances and Blessings
http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,13-1-1-7,00.html

I have seen rituals performed for the dying by different kinds of believers. They were beautiful and performed with dignity.

I have also witnessed a kind of release from life from the family when a family member is dying. It's nothing more than letting them go and verbalizing it.

Placebo effect is a very powerful thing. It can help with many conditions.

conversely it can also be used to 'harm' a person (think: Voodoo curses)

giving a priesthood blessing to someone may help them purely through the placebo effect.

by giving a priesthood blessing which is releasing someone from life, to a TBM, would be like showing a voodoo doll, complete with pins through the heart, to a voodoo believer

I have personally done it three times. All three were "gone" within 4 days.

1.My LDS former business partner, who was totally incompacitated by ALS.
2.My former brother-in-law's girlfriend (way non LDS), who was brain dead from overdosing on heroin.
3. My father, who was dying from pulminary fibrosis.

#1 and #3 I can perhaps put to their own faith, as they requested it and they were TBM's.

#2 I have no answer for.... the doctor said that as she was in her late 20's and in good physical health, she would probably live 10 plus years. All of brother-in-law's christian friends were in the hospital for a week, praying for a miracle. My wife and I went there, I "released her", and she was gone the next day. Note....brain dead.... no way could she hear what was going on.

I am not aware of why some other posts say that it is not done anymore. All of the above were done in the last 10 years (my father 10 months ago), and #1 and #3 were done with the approval of the local bishop.

Now, was it the priesthood? Notice my name, "skeptic". On the other hand, I do believe in God, and I believe that something was going on.

He and his comp were asked to give a blessing (in a foreign language, no less) to an ailing person.

DH put his hands on the person's head and got the very strong impression that the person was close to death and that healing (which had been requested) was not an option. He had a moment of panic because he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to make a mistake when this person was hovering on the brink of eternity.

DH is not a BS artist. He is a very honest person. So he said something along the line that the person had lived a full and useful life, was much-loved by family and friends, and soothing things like that. He did not even suggest that the person would be healed because he knew that was not the case.

DH felt absolutely exhausted after this because he knew that he had not said what the family wanted to hear, but he spoke what he believed was the truth.

The person died within a matter of hours.

I haven't heard much about this type of blessing either, but that doesn't mean that it never existed. It does seem to be the sort of thing that would have been performed in the past. One thing I have learned about the church since leaving it is that people think the priesthood holders should be in control of every situation. And if they are not, the excuse is that it's God's will or the person didn't have enough faith. What a cop out.

I had a cousin who suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident many years ago. It paralyzed him from the waist down. He was in the hospital for weeks. I was there when he bawled in his hospital bed that he wanted to be healed and why wasn't it working? Many members of our family had been there and blessed him several times to no avail. When we left the room, there was talk of "why can't we heal our sick?" At the time, I bought into the whole "not enough faith" BS. What makes me angry about this now is that it wasn't a question of what my cousin wanted or what the person who was giving him the blessing wanted. Obviously, he wanted to walk again. But they will live for the rest of their lives wondering if it was something THEY did wrong and now he's paying the price.

We blame ourselves for not having enough faith, or for having committed some mis-step that God would choose not to heal His child who was ill.

We are taught that if we had sufficient faith, that God is bound to obey us. "When ye do as I say, I am bound. If you do not, ye have no promise". And so as with all things mormon, if we fail it is our fault and our faithlessness.

And yet, when the church leader like a Bishop or something says "according to your faith" it let's them off the hook by placing again, any failure on the patient of the family.

Yet we can only petition the Lord and have faith that His will is being done. We must not punish ourselves for that which is beyond our control.
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Speaking of Doctors-
I know one Stake President and one Bishop and two Priesthood holders who are doctors and over the years I have had the opportunity to assist them in giving blessings to people in the hospital and I have Never heard any of them do more than assure the patient that HF loves them and is aware of their needs. And to follow counsel given, and to bless them that the doctors will know what to do and that all blessings they may need according to their faith, etc,etc.

But no doctor that I know has ever promised in a blessing that the patient would be healed unless they already knew the most likely outcome, and never have I seen one of them heal a person by laying on of hands.

JoD -- right. I remember beating myself as a missionary when I blessed this older member that he would overcome his sickness. He died weeks later.

I remember walking through the chapel during his funeral feeling like crap. I had failed him. I was not righteous enough.

In retrospect -- what a crock of BS.

I had an experience similar, yet opposite.

We had a great guy who joined the church. His family did not, but they fully supported his decision and being wheelchair bound, they brought him and sat through church. The disease which had taken him to the wheelchair was a progressive one and his days were numbered. The doctors in our ward never doubted his eventual demise.

When he ended up in the hospital, his family called us to give him a blessing. The HighPriestGroupLeader called and asked me to assist him. We gave him a blessing and when we were done and I was on my way home I had the overpowering feeling that we should have blesssed him to get well. And it nagged at me the whole night. There were several times where I felt that I should go out there and give him the blessing that he should have had.

And yet, while I struggled and regretted not doing that at the time, I also knew that it would have been an awful thing to bless him to get better and then not have hem get well. It would have been a major cause of embarrasment.Not only to me but to the church. But still, had I signed his death warrant by not going back out?

As he progressed from there to the hospice care, it ate at me with a vengeance. I spoke to the HPGL who told me that he had had no such impression and that perhaps it was his own lack of faith that failed to prompt him with the proper words.

The Stake President told me that if we had not received an impress at the time, then we were free from burden.

Self condemnation in full force.

But then again, the stake president who is a doctor, and the two doctors in our ward at the time never once gave him a blessing to get better, or even doubted his demise.

My my was over 80 and dying. She had been in pain for a long time and many of my sisters had gathered because we knew she was dying. Out of my mom's 8 children I was the only on who went on a mission so I was kind of the Golden Child as far as church goes. She asked me for a blessing to be released from her pain. Because I loved my mom so dearly I was happy to do it.

What nobody knew at the time was I no longer believed in the priesthood powers. I had been reading this board for months and my testimony was on it's way out the door. I hadn't spoken to anybody about yet, not even my wife. I was totally in the closet but the damage had been done.

So there I was, a non believer with a suffering mother who wanted comfort. My sisters were sitting around looking up at their baby brother expecting a miracle. I turned it into a test. I wanted to see just what kind of spiritual manipulation a non believer could produce. I new the words to use, I knew what phrases would bring the tears. More importantly, I knew what would bring a little comfort to my mother so I didn't hold back.

When I finished my mom hugged me as much as she could and thanked me with tears in her eyes. My sisters were all crying and on the verge of multiple morgasms.

I was torn. On the one hand I felt a little slimy for faking it but that was outweighed by the comfort my dying mother took from it. I decided I had done a good thing even though it pretty much destroyed any remaining doubt I had about the church being a crock of excrement.

Stunted

One of the great lessons I learned on leaving Mormonism is that "Men can not tell God what to do." That was the last thing I said to my bishop.

My very old aunt was dying, and in pain. She said to her 100-year-old husband, "I want to die, but I can't die until you let me go." He told her he was letting her go, and she died.

according to the NT (Matthew 17)
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

healing cancer, heart attcks, amputees, etc should all be a cinch

It doesnt say you have to have the Morg Priesthood™

or, it could all be a crock ??

Outside of the morg you can find story after story of someone holding on just long enough for a loved one to catch a flight and say goodbye. It's not uncommon for people to hold on for one more wedding or one more Christmas morning or whatever. What keeps people hanging on for those last few days or hours is a mystery, but their will seems to play some part in it. I myself had a friend who died of cancer right after I graduated from high school. Christmas night a few of her friends, her brother and then her parents all came in and spent a few minutes with her alone. Some sang favorite carols to her, some shared old stories, others just had private conversations. Her parents then each spent some time with her, and 5 minutes after her dad said goodnight she passed on.

Do I understand what is going on there? No, but it's a phenomenon many people have witnessed. So maybe, for some, the "release you from life" speech has a profound effect on them and gives them what they need to pass on.

a great comfort for both the dying person and the family/loved ones, if they are true believers.

When my best friend's mother was dying from cancer, she managed to overcome her decades-long terror of displeasing her husband, who was a real tyrant. He loathed religion in any form, and had never permitted his wife to practice the Catholic faith she had been raised in. Only a day or two before she died, she whispered to my friend that she wanted to speak with a priest.

My friend, herself an agnostic for as long as I knew her, came up with a plot within hours. With the help of her adult son, she contacted a Catholic priest who was willing to come over to the hospice and administer Last Rites, while friend's son took Grandpa out for lunch (to get him out of the way and keep him from making a scene, which he would have done, without hesitation. He was a dreadfully selfish man.) The priest understood that he could not show up (but was kind enough to be in the waiting room) until Daddy Dearest had been hustled out.

My friend said that the priest was very understanding. He was gentle but businesslike, conducted the Last Rites with dignity and kindness, and left my friend and her mom with a blessing. My friend said that a calm serenity showed on her mom's face.

Daddy Dearest never had a clue, my friend's mom passed away peacefully within a few hours, and my friend was so grateful that their concerted efforts made this possible.

in the Philippines we were really far out in the middle of no where. We had visited a member, left and were walking done the "road" when the member came running up to us. Someone in her family was was about to die and wanted a blessing. My Philippino companion froze and wouldn't do it. I did it mostly speaking English.

This lady looked older than dirt, weighed under 100lbs, was incoherent, sweaty and in my 19 yr old mind only hours from death. I was speaking English but still scared the wailing relatives would understand me. I didn't want to bless her that she would get better because I knew she wouldn't. I "blessed" that she be comfortable. When I saw the member on Sunday she told me the lady calmed down and died 15 mins. after I left. It freaked me out!!! I was sure it was all my fault.

(In addition, I was occasionally doing the M at this time and felt even more guilty that my unworthiness had somehow changed this situation.)

I'm sure this was the source for many an elder's feelings of "not measuring up". Like the Lord of the Universe would really care.

Enquiring minds like mine want to know.

Before my story, I'm so sorry Res Ipsa about your wife dying young. I hope you have found healing from that loss.

As a missionary, one day I was waiting outside the mission president's door for an interview along with other missionaries. This was in the last 80s. A 19 year old elder was telling another of the profound learning experience he had about the priesthood from his conversation with some priesthood leader and the mission was going to let him go home for a few days based on this situation.

He had been on his mission for only a few months. Before arriving, his younger 17 year old brother had a terrible head injury. He'd been driving a pick up truck filled with logs, lost control of the vehicle and the logs flew through the rear windshield and hit him in the head. He was in a coma at the hospital, basically brain dead, when the 19 year old brother (our elder) gave him a priesthood blessing promising him he would live. Now he was on his mission for months and his brother continued in a coma, with no brain function but not actually dead.

So the elder, consulting with priesthood leaders in the mission field was taught that the words of a priesthood holder are so powerful that they must be obeyed. Since he blessed his brother to live, his body would not let go and let him die because of the blessing even though there was no chance of living. So the mission was going to let him go home for a few days to give another blessing releasing his brother from the first blessing and releasing him so he could die.

This elder was so strident as he told this understanding of the priesthood. I've often wondered what a sad fanatical person he might have become if he really believed that he had the power through words he spoke to cause his brother's functionless body not to expire waiting for permission from his priesthood before it could die.

I saw a horror film like that when I was 10 on Creepy Friday. A man whose wife has been stabbed and he wishes she would not die so she stays alive in agony and its worse than if she died. It's the stuff of nightmares.

A mindfuck on such a young person going through something so tragic at a time when we're so impressionable.

Turning off the life support systems would have had the same effect. 2 seconds of rational thought is all it takes to figure this out. Proof that a 19 year old is easily manipulated.

If someone really did have the ability to release someone from life by the laying on of hands, I think it could be considered murder to do so if the person was not already determined not to live much longer. I think it would be sort of a way to release them of the suffering they are going through, a bit faster. But in a painless and non-"doctor assisted suicide" way.

That's very true! Funny that I had never thought of that, even as an attorney! It definitely fits the statutory definition of homicide.

D@mn where was i during this release of life stuff.

I take it you never heard of it? May I ask if you are younger?

34 years old but i left the church in 2001 and came back in 2013 then left again in 2016.

I have witnessed this hanging on to life in people and in animals. As long as your mind is fixated on other things instead of things like shot through the heart, liver crushed, etc they stay alive and must be told by some one else to just let go.

Anon 2 Wrote:
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> I have witnessed this hanging on to life in people
> and in animals. As long as your mind is fixated on
> other things instead of things like shot through
> the heart, liver crushed, etc they stay alive and
> must be told by some one else to just let go.

Are they told to "just let go" because of expense?, space?, timing?

I think I'd be a little miffed if it were suggested to me that me hanging on was an inconvenience. Sure, inside I'd know it was true, but screw'em if they can't take a joke.

But Dr. K used fancy pharmaceuticals, while Mormons minister with "magic," claiming "freedom of religion."

My brother was dying of a stroke in 1981 and he was off life support. There was no hope. He had it while I was on my mission and I came home(my other brother threatened the MP). The stake patriarch and I were friends and he mentioned a blessing called something about "giving up the ghost." I went to my non mormon family and they actually said for me to bring over the SP and Bishop(they were friends with them). I mentioned this to the SP and he was shocked that I mentioned it and stated it was unwritten and asked how I knew about it. When I told him who, he asked my family if this is what they wanted and all stated yes. They went to the hospital and performed the blessing. My brother died within 15min. It was a gut wrenching moment and I will never forget that.

I get a kick out of women who feel left out without the mighty priesthood. This thread shows reality - guys beating themselves up because they couldn't heal someone.

To the OP, early this year, my dad blessed my dying mom to release her from life, but she lived a couple more weeks in agony.

Priesthood does poor job of healing or killing.

I never wanted the priesthood. We are already supposed to do the majority of child rearing. It's already our fault if they don't g on a mission, have premarital sex, masturbate, they are gay.....

Give us the meaningless priesthood and it's now your fault if you can't heal your child. NO THANKS

I know of one. Apparently about a year earlier she was supposed to be cured of her brain tumor. The releasing blessing worked instead.