I read on another website something Helen Radkey posted that Alister Crowley, a "self-proclaimed antichrist and servant of Satan" has had his temple work done. From her post:

Aleister Crowley (1875 – 1947), born Edward Alexander Crowley, was also known as ... The Great Beast. Well-known for practicing black magic, Aleister Crowley was a promiscuous, power-hungry Satanist who devoted his life to the occult and identifed himself with the number “666”.

For some reason, I thought this would be an interesting tidbit to share with my LDS husband. I told him I knew that the church didn't encourage this sort of thing and it was probably done by some bored housewife in Manti looking for a little excitement. He said "No, I think there are some people who pretend to be good Mormons so they can do things like this to undermine the church and make it look bad. It's easy enough to pretend to be a good Mormon, if you think about it." I was so surprised I said that I thought people who had a chance to get out of Mormonism just took off and left it far behind and that no one cared enough about destroying the church to go through all that. He hmmphed and went off for a nap.

But I think the point is valid. The vast, vast majority of the universe couldn't care less what Mormons get up to - unless those Mormons are overstepping their boundaries outrageously again. Like with Prop 8, pesky missionaries, unbelievable slanders by members or watching our loved ones be lied to and taken advantage of. Nobody cares enough about Mormonism to try do destroy it although a number of people want the LDS church to mind it's own business and will work to that end. I'd love to see the church come to an end but I'm a minority and it's because of a number of the offenses listed above. If they'd go away and leave me alone, I wouldn't spend a second thinking of them, much less worrying about how to destroy their church. Their persecution complex is completely unfounded ... Mormonism will more likely die of neglect and indifference well-placed anti-Mormons creating bad PR. Because really, no one cares about Mormons unless they are forced to.

Well, it's like someone once said, the Mormons didn't leave Nauvoo because they were afraid of persecution, it was because they were afraid of prosecution.

Thinking everyone is out to get them is so deep in their culture - they turn any kind of negativity towards them into a personal attack by Satan, and who wouldn't begin to feel important, I mean the DEVIL himself is after them on a daily basis!

If they had a clue that a lot of people just consider Satan and the Devil to be imaginary friends of one another, they would see where that places them in the world of importance (in a world of hurt).

The whole thing seems to breed narcissism, being so important and all. Me, I'd rather be a nobody and be left alone to my own imaginary friends.

Powerful enough to destroy other peoples civil rights and swing or "rig" votes in California and elsewhere.

Powerful enough to have seats in the senate and house?

is of them butting in where they don't belong. That's when people care but they only care to make the Mormons back off.

The second isn't relevant because it isn't about Mormonism. It's politics. I'm talking about the religion being unimportant to most people, not individuals.

Those Mormon "individuals" are an extension of power in other arenas we are not supposed to discuss here:)

Not to mention "grass roots campaigning"- or covert bullying of gays.

I am just not shocked by the whole "Allister Crawley" being dead-dunked thing.

"Nothings shocking"......with TCOJCOLDS

I guess it is just another "out of step" individual the morg has taken into their silly-not so important, nor beneficial to anyone practice of necromancy.

I say Allister loved King Solomon style worship-and would have most likely enjoyed the temple.

They will be around for a long time my friend.

I hope I am allowed to still have my own opinions and keep communication lines open with you?

and right about people in politics being an extension of Mormon power but I really think most people don't care about Mormons unless there is a Mormon stomping on them or their loved ones. I totally agree with you that Mormonism becomes important then, to those involved with Mormons. That's why I'd love to see a serious Mormon candidate for president. Because then people who are now indifferent to Mormons and think of them as nothing more than a hillbilly Utah religion would have a reason to care and to investigate. Maybe then the truth would come out. The Mormons, on the other hand, think everyone is out to get them and that everything they do is relevant to the world at large. Can you imagine someone pretending to be LDS for years so they could make the Mormon church look bad by dead-dunking holocaust victims and Satanists? I think it was just some shameless Mormon overstepping their boundaries as they tend to do. My husband is a little too conspiracy theory, persecution minded for me.

You wrote="Can you imagine someone pretending to be LDS for years so they could make the Mormon church look bad by dead-dunking holocaust victims and Satanists?'

Laughter-well no!

I believe that these individuals doing the dead-dunking are not the same person for each baptism. Therefore one individual could not say be the proxy for ol' Adolf Hitler- and say Lee Harvey Oswald.

Very unrealistic-but funny!



You also wrote-

"I think it was just some shameless Mormon overstepping their boundaries as they tend to do."

Yes they have a spinless lack of boundaries but; any Mormon willing to be the proxy for Allister a man that had known associations of sexual promiscuity and both children dying under questionable circumstances crazily enough paling in comparison to Adolf-

1.Would do it out of altruism-

2.sickly obsessing over geneology/ relations to the said individual genetically or just plain sick.

3.Doe's not understand the language well

4.Just did not hear Allisters name or recognize who he was- with the 50 other names they called and dunked.


You also wrote=

"My husband is a little too conspiracy theory, persecution minded for me."

Is this why you chose Crawley to write of-doe's your hubby mention him ever?

665, I agree - Crowley would have LOVED the Temple - ritual, obscurantism, dramatic language, esoteric rules: just his sort of thing.

By the way, I was amused to see that on my new credit card, the 3-figure security code on the back is... 666 !

And I'm not even called Damien IRL.

Out here in 'the field' a lot of people don't know what a Mormon is. I've had people ask me if I was Amish.

Seriously, not only do they not know, but other than idle curiosity they don't care either. About the only time anyone even cares about them is when they stick their noses into politics.

And I am not shy- when people ask me about polygamy I am happy to tell them that I am the descendent of my ancestors' third wife. (something I learned despite family tradition)

Over all, it has been my experience since moving out of the morridor, that my church was no longer relevant and instead of being surrounded by people who don't dare mock any aspect of morgbotism, I'm now surrounded by people who think mormons are a joke.

My mother told me that Satan has been creeping around for 200 years falsifying documents and trying to make Smith look bad. I didn't know what to say to that. It's a world view that I have never understood. Look, it's a kooky church and that's as much thought as anyone puts into it. Nobody cares. Just like nobody cares about the Jehovah's Witnesses. There are more important things in life to worry about.

Satan changed documents to decieve us?

There are nearly 4000 changes to the original edition of the Book of Mormon which was translated by the power of God.

Entire paragraphs have been added to and deleted from the revelations in the Book of Commandments before appearing in the Doctrine and Covenants in their current form.

Over 60% of the History of the Church by Joseph Smith was written after his death.

Why didn't our prophets warn us that our present canon of scripture was tainted by satans craftiness?

Are they oblivious or are they in cahoots?

Margaret Meade summed it up the best when she said:

"Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

I find the LDS very important to my life in a very bad way. They are a few committed people that have indeed working to change my life in a negative way.

Of course being gay has put me in a group that has a few committed people that are battling to change the world in a different way.

Prop 8 should show anyone how important the LDS church can be.

I think we need to keep in mind that the Mormon Church (as an organization) believes itself to be THE most important orgnization on the planet and that it has a God given duty to save everbody.

That position and philosophy will breed a sense of superiority and self importance within it's membership.

Does the Church leadership give you the impression of humility?

They get to feel like the center of the universe when they're a majority or close to the mother ship, but out in the rest of the world, poof, they become invisible.

So true CA girl! Thanks for the smile.

After 180 years of missionary work, you would think they would have at least greater brand recognition. (Coca-Cola was invented in 1886; JS started his organization in 1830.)

As the years pass, I expect TSCC to become ever smaller and more weird.

I thought that for God's great Plan of Salvation to work that the morg would convert most of the world or at least become such a major presence that it would be either greatly feared or admired.

I was raised in a podunk branch (later a ward) in "the Mission" and had a BP that was going on constantly about the Last Days. I figured there was no reason to even plan for college since Jeehzuz would be back by then.

From that point it was a slow dawning that Moism conquering the world is simply not happening. The state I live in is 0.2% Mormon and it hasn't grown in some time. Most of my friends didn't even know what Mormons were, but outwardly they were pretty nice about it and supportive but had zero interest in pursuing for themselves. After I deconverted they were a little more candid in their opinions about Moism and religion in general and they were not positive.

Even while I was a believer I couldn't help noticing the only convert baptisms we were getting were folks on the fringes of society usually poor and without much education. Nobody even close to the model family the morg wanted you to recruit was joining.

In the U.S. Mormons rank just above Muslims in how they are viewed which is more negative than positive. Their association with polygamy is now stronger than it ever was while I was growing up thanks to shows like "Big Love" and the FLDS controversies of late.

Unless the morg is being annoying like with Prop 8, nothing they do elicits much more than a yawn from the world at large.

In their cloistered walls, they stroke their own egos to bolster their "faith" in their organization, but it's nothing more than a self-produced fantasy world.

This was my first "thought" when reading your post--and I haven't read all the others yet.

Someone asked me on this board several years ago why it was so difficult to leave mormonism, why it took so many years (I was in my late 40s when I finally realized it was bullshit). AND I explained--I know you were a convert in CA, right? Was your husband raised in Utah? If not, he was raised MORMON, right?

When you are a child (especially in the 1960s), your whole world is UTAH. Your whole world is MORMONISM. I was under the impression that mormons were the majority and the rest of the world was all sinners. I didn't really know many nonmormons until I went to work at Thiokol (made the space shuttle solid rocket boosters)--and I met out of staters.

AND if all your associations are with mormons, most of your news is from Utah sources (and most Utah mormons only listen to Utah news, Glen Beck, or Fox News)--then you STILL get the idea that they are persecuted. My TBM daughter wasn't raised as a cultural mormon and she thinks I persecute the church . . . because I read exmormon and post. I should just be over it (or have gotten back into line by now).

So--mormons do think they are much more significant than they really are. They are rather full of themselves--which is something I could never understand. I always was somewhat embarrassed about being one.

I have thanked my lucky stars many times that I was raised in California in a part-member family. I knew as many, if not more, excellent people who wanted nothing to do with Mormonism. The kind of educated, hard-working, high standards people that Mormons like to think they are. In fact, often Mormons think they have a corner on the "goodness" market when in fact, that is not so. I could see on a daily basis that people were just as good and happy and moral without the church and that saying Mormons were somehow special was just BS. Nowadays, it's easy to visualize a good life outside of Mormonism because I've seen it but when you are like my DH and all you've seen is Mormonism (except for a short stint in the Army) it's harder to visualize anything else or see things from any other point of view.

Conservatives love to court Mormons because they can really push the aganda. Mormon love to court the Conservatives for the same reason.

As far as cultural and religious influence, the Mormons are little more than an oddity outside of the West, but as far as political they are rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with. So while their statements and activities may keep potential converts away, the politicians put on their best makeup and flaunt themselves.

Helen Whitney after the PBS Mormons program was aired:
http://blog.mrm.org/2007/12/the-smell-of-evasiveness-will-linger/

see the point made at 1:25 and especially 1:45