1. Set the stage for an intimate, comfortable, experience. Establish your priesthood authority with props such as important looking charts, or bookcases full of reference books.

2. Project a sympathetic personality. Put your client in a receptive, cooperative mood by explaining that the blessing is a team effort largely based on their spiritual preparation.

3. There are seven things people most want to talk about: love, Health, Money, Career, Travel, Education, & Ambition. Stick to these themes by asking a lot of questions and making plenty of statements from each category.

4. Start with the "Barnum" effect that offers something for everyone.

5. After general statements, you can begin to home in on specifics that apply to most people.

6. Extract information from your client by talking with them for five or ten minutes prior to the blessing.

7. Use Biblical language in the blessing.

8. Address concerns that are common to adolescents or those in the age bracket of the person receiving the patriarchal blessing.

9. Don't forget the obvious. Flatter your subjects. Tell them what they want to hear.

10. Have your excuses ready. Turn every outcome to your advantage.

OK. So this was not actually guidance for patriarchs as they prepare to give partriarchal blessings. It is actually only a very slight modification of:

http://www.skeptic.com/downloads/10_Easy_Psychic_Lessons.pdf


Once again, Joseph Smith did not engage in anything that cannot be explained by his background in lies, manipulation, and parlor tricks.

"blessing" was a mis-mash of the same old talking points I had heard most of my life..."blessed to be a mother in zion"..."home where gospel was taught" blah, blah, blah..

Not a thing that reflected me, as an individual. I think the old geezer that did the "laying on of hands" was actually bored with the whole thing, and wanted it over quickly so he could take a nap.

I got my P.blessing when I was 12-in 1964. It was 1 paragraph.Not kidding-1 paragraph. It said absolutely nothing. My 20 year old tbm daughter got hers 7 months ago (it was so hard to sit through that. I just wanted to tell the guy to shut up.His wife was in the room,of course,and she looked like a mindless robot. Very obvious who ran the show. She was very sweet but wouldn't talk above a wisper.) and it was 3 PAGES long. He pretty much covered every topic. Of course my daughter was thrilled.

It's not even that complicated. One of my callings was typing Patriarchal Blessings. I think that was probably my first cog-dis moment as I began typing them from dicta tapes and found that they were all the same.

The only variation would be a line or two if the person had children already, or something like that. Then it could say something about them being a parent.

The most detailed ones came when the Patriarch actually knew the person receiving the blessing and knew what their ambitions were.

But the core of them were all the same.