| Subject: | Threats in the Mormon temple. |
| Date: | Apr 12, 2010 |
| Author: | Makurosu |
| The first time I went through the temple was in
September 1987. The thing I remember most vividly about that day, besides
the naked touching, was the "penalties." That's where I was asked to make
several blood oaths never to reveal the various signs, tokens and other
bizarre things that went on there. The penalties involved various pantomimes where I had to pass my thumb across my throat, chest and bowels (IIRC) indicating different kinds of suicide while chanting with the rest of the room "rather than do so, I would suffer my life to be taken." (Short pause after "life" while the slashing motion is made.) That was the moment where I think I stopped caring whether the Mormon church is true or not. I didn't want to be part of it and felt trapped by my family and partly by these oaths. I didn't know how serious they were. So, after returning from the Celestial room, I asked a temple worker a question. I asked what that was all about and if I was just threatened back there. He turned to me, put his hands on his hips with some fury in his eyes and said "Brother, what do you think?" I was very confused and didn't think of any of the comebacks that enter my mind now. I asked to speak with someone and got a few minutes with the temple president in his office. I was tired from the day and just didn't have the courage to make a big deal out of the penalties like I should have. I thought I would have more time to discuss it with someone. Of course, the endowment timing had been well planned by my parents and church leaders, and ten days later I entered the MTC with the questions unanswered and a whole slew of new problems to deal with. The experience angers me to this day, especially when Mormons like my mother deny that the penalties ever took place in the temple. |
| Subject: | It used to be all about secrecy. Now it's all about "sacredness." |
| Date: | Apr 12 09:50 |
| *hands on hips* I mean, whattya think? Really, it's stupid because EVEN IN THE TEMPLE no one will tell you. Personally, I think no one knows, but no one has the cojones to say they don't know. That's why I think they lean back and ask, "So, what do YOU think it all means, brother?" |
| Subject: | Wow, you're Mom denies the penaltie oaths existed? |
| Date: | Apr 12 09:53 |
| Thats just nuts. Sorry you have to deal with that, Mak. |
| Subject: | Yeah! Can you believe it? |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:02 |
| Author: | Makurosu |
| After all the planning to minimize the potential damage caused by the penalties, Mom denied it all wholesale. I confronted her on that. I told her that I SAW HER perform them that day. She said that I need to "get over it" and she's not going to discuss the temple. So, I guess it's a "lying for the Lord" thing. |
| Subject: | TBM wife BIC, RM, TW, late 50ish |
| Date: | Apr 13 09:07 |
| Author: | dwindler |
| said there were never any death oaths...WTF? GBH et al. trained her well |
| Subject: | Did they introduce hypnosis in the post-1990 ritual? |
| Date: | Apr 13 09:14 |
| Author: | Gorspel Dacktrin |
| Or possibly drugs that make people forget? I only went to the pre-1990 temple sessions and, believe me, you don't easily forget it when you stand up in a room full of about 2-3 dozen people and are instructed to make hand motions that pantomime your own execution by disembowelment and throat slitting. How would anyone forget that?? How could anyone forget that?? How could a devout Mormon lie about that?? Just another sure sign of being nailed by a cult, I guess. |
| Subject: | At some level you probably knew you were caught in a cult. |
| Date: | Apr 12 09:53 |
| Author: | Cheryl |
| That ritual is sick, especially since you were not
warned in advance what would happen. I'm lucky I never had to go through that. It's strange to think of the people I know who did and who thought it was a wonderful experience. Go figure. |
| Subject: | I have to wonder about people like that. |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:17 |
| Author: | Makurosu |
| You'd have to be pretty disturbed to consider the pre-1990 Mormon temple experience to be "wonderful" and "beautiful." |
| Subject: | Re: Threats in the temple. |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:09 |
| Author: | Let Go |
| According to a BYU Ed Week lecturer the Law of Consecration means you give everything to the church. I was told if you have a mortgage on your home you can't deed it to the church so you are not living the Law. I would say every temple going Mormon is under the power of Satan. They don't live it. Sucks to be them. |
| Subject: | You asked the temple worker a sincere, legitimate question… |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:24 |
| Author: | WiserWomanNow |
| …and you deserved a straightforward, honest answer,
Makurosa. As you learned (as we all have learned!) cults refuse to address
questions. Even more amazing is your mother's denial of having done what you SAW her do with your own eyes, and her subsequent conclusion that YOU are the one with the problem because you are refusing to deny it like she is! Glad to be OUT of a system like that! |
| Subject: | I haven't been since 1990 |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:25 |
| Author: | cl2 |
| but even if they took all the penalties out, it is
still pretty disturbing. Just what I saw on Big Love made me feel like a
total fool. I never asked my mother about the temple, BUT towards the ends of their lives, my mother would make statements about my dad finding someone else if she died first--and she was NOT HAPPY about the idea. One day, I just dropped the bomb of polygamy on her--and she gave me a look I'll never forget. My family hates the idea of polygamy. My older sister has said clearly that if there is polygamy in the CK, she'll choose to go somewhere else. Well--why be active mormon then? |
| Subject: | Borrowed from Masonic temple ritual, another secret society (nt) |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:30 |
| Author: | Enlightened |
| Subject: | Re: Threats in the temple. |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:51 |
| Author: | coventryrm |
| I have been out for so long it seems like forever and
a different lifetime, but upon reading this thread It really hit me how I
was so brainwashed to just accept that no matter how disturbing and creepy I
felt when asked to do those signs for the first time I believed I was having
those feelings because of MY own short comings. WOW how sick is that, really, a 19 year old kid is asked to do sick suicide style oaths and feels like there is something wrong with him for thinking it creepy and strange! |
| Subject: | "The experience angers me to this day" Video LINKS |
| Date: | Apr 12 10:56 |
| Author: | anon |
| "The ( LDS Temple ceremony) experience angers me to
this day" -Good! BECAUSE CRIMINAL acts should tick off people! On a more personal level its very VALIDATING to see that it offended at least a few other people -AS IT SHOULD! I need to see some outcropping of sanity relative to the MORmON temple abomination. I was overwhelmed & hamstrung emotionaly by the deal at the time. A young person has no real back ground or footing in rational adult thinking to reject this absolutley HELLISH blight that MORmONISM conveys. The longer I live the more it pisses me off that my brain dead MORmON parents could find so much satisfaction in the temple molestation & threats I was subjected to as I followed the religious path they laid out for me. It disgusting & troublesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZtk2ZLaIGk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqd-p4UZ-AE |
| Subject: | Maybe the Jerk temple worker would like to brow beat Brenda Lafferty |
| Date: | Apr 12 11:00 |
| Author: | anon |
| He could put his Jerk hands on his Jerk hips and try
to minimalize this Temple ceremony inspired tragedy in his jerk MORmON way http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wke5eZ1xla4 |
| Subject: | Your comment on the timing is very insightful... |
| Date: | Apr 12 19:21 |
| Author: | Gorspel Dacktrin |
| For the vast majority of TBM men, the endowment
experience comes right before they go on a mission that they have already
committed to. The social expectations are immense and the pressure not to
question too much is very effective. Similarly, the vast majority of TBM women have the endowment experience either right before they go on a mission or as part of their temple marriage process. Again, the social expectations are immense and the pressure not to question too much is very effective. You have to think that this is by design and that the Church policies are based on a conscious decision of the leaders to employ psychological manipulation. |
| Subject: | I think it was a deliberate manipulation. |
| Date: | Apr 12 22:13 |
| Author: | Makurosu |
| I was asking about the Endowment for a year before my mission. I began my mission just before my 21st birthday. They delayed me right up until the week before I entered the MTC. There's no other explanation. They clearly were trying to the sneak the evil that goes on in the temple past me and then exert enormous social pressure to get me on the mission before I had time to think about it. It was a deception that my parents and local leaders all conspired in. I don't know how it was for other people, just for me. But like everything else in this religion, I suspect it's like this for most other people as well. |
| Subject: | That's the way it was for me. They even told me that it was policy not to... |
| Date: | Apr 13 03:16 |
| Author: | Gorspel Dacktrin |
| let someone in my position (single, male, young) go
through the temple until a formal mission call had been issued. I was in a bit of a shock after the temple ceremony. But there was that whole "Emperor's New Clothes" thing going on and I didn't feel like I could make a stink about it without creating the impression that I wasn't "worthy" to go to the temple. I guess I mostly believed at first that there was something wrong with me, because I had heard nothing but praise and ecstatic (yet hushed and reverent) comments on how wonderful, sacred, special, enlightening, blah, blah, blah it was supposed to be. Then, shortly after I started my mission, I ran into a convert who had gone through the temple. He asked me if I was as freaked out by it as he was when he went through. "Well, now that you bring it up...." That really got me started--realizing that my initial reaction (of shock, horror and disappointment) was maybe valid. |
| Subject: | BINGO!!! |
| Date: | Apr 18 02:11 |
| Author: | JoAnn |
| I thought there was something wrong with me, too,
after going to the temple for the first time. Everybody expects you to be
all starry-eyed and dazzled by this overwhelming spiritual experience - and
it just didn't happen. But the pressure on you to SAY that it did is
horrific. Not until I found this board and learned that others were underwhelmed by the temple did I feel validated. It was a HUGE relief for me. |
| Subject: | Mak, I wonder how they can lie like that. nt |
| Subject: | A correction. The statement "I would suffer my life to be taken" did not |
| Date: | Apr 12 19:40 |
| Author: | ihidmyselfbecauseIwasnaked |
| mean that you would take your own life but rather that you would allow someone else to take your life. |
| Subject: | It.s both ways.... take my own life or have it taken-they covered all bases.Will not go back n/t |
| Subject: | My own temple preparation. |
| Date: | Apr 13 05:56 |
| Author: | forestpal |
| I wanted to go through the temple at home, during the
summer I was engaged, but the leaders advised me to wait until my husband
could join me, from BYU. We went through 3 days before our 400-guest
wedding. I had enjoyed some fun summer school classes, two of which were a social psychology class and a sociology class, covering mass hyteria, group control, peer pressure, group bonding, and using models such as the Nazi Party, college fraternities, urban gangs, etc. I was on a sci fi kick, and read Brave New World, Walden II, and Orwell's 1984 that summer--talk about "temple preparedness!" During the entire duration of all the rituals, I kept thinking, "I know what this is! This is all man-invented to manipulate people!" I wanted to back outof the temple and the marriage! But I was in too deep, with all the preparations, my parents, etc. Everyone said it was wedding jitters. I had dreamed of being a virgin bride in a white dress, walking down the country club stairs on my father's arm at the reception. Instead, my new husband drove past my family in the temple parking lot, honked the horm, waved the marriage certificate out the window, and said, "She's MINE now!" Instead of going straight to the luncheon my mother and aunt had made for the temple guests, he drove me to our motel, and checked in early. I was still sick and in shock from the temple, didn't want to be rude and miss our own lunch party, and I needed to get ready for the reception, and I didn't like the way he was approaching me. I pleaded and cried, and told him how I'd dreamed of being a virgin in a white dress, and promised him I would make it all up to him after the reception--that it would be run and romantic--but he got angry, and forced himself on me, and didn't care that I cried. Gone were the dreams and fake promises of my childhood religion. I was in the middle of a sexist cult, bound in polygamy to an abuser, as his property, for eternity. I went to my beautiful reception barely able to walk (I didn't know I had internal injuries), thinking about those death oaths in the temple, trying to hold back the tears. I was in real trouble, and was not able to tell one soul, or ask anyone for help. That's how brainwashed and frightened I was. |
| Subject: | What a horrible way to spend one's wedding day. Another wedding horror... |
| Date: | Apr 13 08:42 |
| Author: | Gorspel Dacktrin |
| produced, directed and sponsored by the LDS Church.
They truly have mastered the art of making each individual feel isolated and
alone and afraid to speak the truth as they see it. F&T meetings and
countless other group-think gimmicks create the illusion that there is this
big consensus of faith, conviction and love for the Church and all of its
programs. The result is that each individual is afraid to be the one that
doesn't belong and doesn't fit in. Congratulatons to all of us who eventually discovered that not belonging and not fitting in is a good thing when it comes to the LDS Church and its mind control operation. |
| Subject: | Absolutely horrific. |
| Date: | Apr 13 10:24 |
| Author: | Makurosu |
| I think that's the worst Mormon church story I've ever heard. I don't know how you can continue to live in the society of Mormons after that, knowing that when you really need help you can't rely on any of them - not even your own family. It had not occurred to me what Mormon brides must experience having to perform these grisly blood oaths on their wedding day. Add to that being married off to a Mormon-raised sociopath. Absolutely horrific. |
| Subject: | I've heard other stories like forestpal's on this board |
| Date: | Apr 13 10:45 |
| Author: | cl2 |
| I've said before that I came here regretting who I
married. All I had to do is read stories here and realize how lucky I really
was. I had taken my endowment out a week ahead of time and I felt some
relief, but still thought it rather bizarre. I did want to elope rather than
marry in the temple--but then why marry my gay husband. BUT my wedding day was beautiful--no sneaking off to a hotel. AND many times people tell me their first time was horrible. Not so with my gay husband. It was wonderful. Shocking--I know. He'll even tell you he enjoyed sex with me. My ex never felt he was my superior--still doesn't. Stories like forestpal's really do prove to me how lucky I was to marry who I did. |
| Subject: | Re: Threats in the temple. |
| Date: | Apr 13 08:39 |
| Author: | Greyfort |
| I don't understand the denial thing at all. I don't
remember getting the memo at church which commanded us to lie about it, and
yet I come across it on the forums all the time. I wanna go, "Hello?! I went through the temple. I distinctly remember being freakin' terrified and wanting to bolt from the room, but lacking the courage to do so, and there you sit denying it?!" I remember looking back, to make sure the doors were closed, because I almost went, "I'm not doing that!" and walked out. I wish I had. LOL Rather than being confused when they changed it, I was relieved that I didn't ever have to do that again. Come to think of it, I think I must have been Endowed right before they changed it, because the second time I went through the Temple, that part of the rituals was gone. I think I must have just thought that you only do that part once, when you're going through for your own Endowments, and then you didn't do that again. I just remember being relieved when that stuff wasn't there. |
| Subject: | What bothered me almost as much as the bizarre blood oaths |
| Date: | Apr 13 18:27 |
| Author: | My2Cents |
| was the fact that there came a point in the endowment
ceremony where they stopped the endowment and told everyone that if they
could not keep the covenants they were about to make that they should
voluntarily leave. No one left. But, and here's the catch, you had to leave
BEFORE you knew what the covenants were. So how were you supposed to know if
you could keep them or not before you knew what they were? And then there
was the smothering peer pressure of everyone there watching. How
humiliating! It was a total Catch-22 and an insidious manipulation. |
| Subject: | tbmH has temple amnesia too. braindrain nt |
| Subject: | BINGO!!! |
| Date: | Apr 18 02:11 |
| I thought there was something wrong with me, too,
after going to the temple for the first time. Everybody expects you to be
all starry-eyed and dazzled by this overwhelming spiritual experience - and
it just didn't happen. But the pressure on you to SAY that it did is
horrific. Not until I found this board and learned that others were underwhelmed by the temple did I feel validated. It was a HUGE relief for me. |
| Subject: | It's like that with many of the Church's abuses. |
| Date: | Apr 18 09:57 |
| Author: | Makurosu |
| Serving a mission for the Church wasn't exactly the
spiritually-uplifting growth experience that it was cracked up to be. When I
returned home, I was expected to speak in the most glowing terms about it,
and when I didn't it was like I had said something wrong. The thing that was
wrong was the experience, not my report. But yeah, you feel so alone and confused after an experience like that, and it's a breath of fresh air when you finally meet another person who feels the way you do. |
Related Mormon Temple Topics in particular: 474.
My
Mother Denies Making Motions of Slitting her Throat in the Temple Prior to
1990
|
Recovery from Mormonism - The Mormon Church www.exmormon.org |