When I was 10 or 11 I walked into the kitchen and my mom was cutting up pieces of embroidered looking cloth and putting them in a tin can. Mom, what are you doing? She explained that they were pieces of the garments and that you could not discuss what they were for or you would die of disembowelment. Growing up on a farm, I knew exactly what that meant, and I could picture people in our area who would probably do that for me, including my own Grandfather.

When I was preparing to go to the temple, I mentioned this to my Stake President- he sorta chuckled and said No God won't do that, but the members might. He said it in such a way that I interpreted it as a joke...except my mom was dead serious, and like he said, "...but the members might."

In preparation, although I had been through the probation and disfellowshipment phase of my repentance while coming back into the fold, I still confessed every possible misdeed that I could think of so that I would be sure that I was worthy to enter the house of the Lord.

When we went to the temple my parents were the witness couple who were at the front of the room at the altar and we would all follow as they were given the signs and tokens first. As the ceremony progressed (this was after the 1990 change) I was disturbed to watch my parents doing this, and at the prayer circle I was positively weirded out. I didn't really want to be in the circle but it was expected of me. They did it so naturally, and afterward in the Celestial room when I was able to talk to them face to face, I was scared. They had become something strange and possibly sinister standing there in their robes and looking not joyous, but stern and expectant as they asked me if this wasn't just the most wonderful experience.

The thing that kept running through my mind was a short story I read in High School about a boy who at midnight heard strange noises coming from downstairs and so as he crept to the hallway and peered over the railing to the Living Room he saw his parents and others dressed in strange clothes with a bald man in red robes and a wreath of roses on his head reading from a large and awful looking book.

This was my first time in the temple. I did not feel holy, I did not feel joy, I did not feel the presence of what I expected God to be like. I was afraid.

Thankfully, taking my wife and my children to the Sealing Room was a far more pleasant experience. It was one that I will always treasure.
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A few years later a new member went to the temple for his first time and resigned from the church shortly thereafter. It turns out that he was a Freemason, and he said that we had stolen the ceremony.

That made perfect sense. My BornAgainst Co-worker had showed me numerous anti Masonic websites and it was then that I realized that I had Masonic markings on my garments.

Although I was fully into the church and had callings that made me feel important, I could never dismiss the new revelation that Mormons are really just overglorified Masons. And everyone knows that Masons are evil. Right?

Nevertheless, I would attend the temple as often as possible and got as much family file work done as we could, but no mastter how many times we went, I never did shake the feeling that something was not right, despite it being the most holy place on earth.

What an articulate post.

When I was being 'prepared' to go to the temple for the first time (in my 40's) I was counselled that I should look for the Saviour. I followed that advice, but the whole ceremony was not about the Saviour at all. He was nowhere to be found...

It is a Masonic ceremony.

My wife says, when I questioned this, that maybe God put Masonry in the path of Joseph Smith because it contained some of the truth...

I can relate to the both of you.

Not only was I freaked out and scared the first time... it never really grew on me altogether.

I never felt that 'special love' others were talking about. I never felt 'the spirit' and I never felt at ease in the temple.

Then I thought it was because I felt unworthy. (I was unhappy and therefore must be doing something wrong) I never felt good enough in the church and I was always miserable. But always kept that hidden. And somehow I thought that being in the temple would make me transparent. That those people who were so close to god would see it. I was always terrified that someone would see through me and see the ugly, dark part in my heart and make me leave...


I went before 1990 and was very freaked out by the ceremony. And astonished how everybody, including my mother would do all these things with a smile on their faces!
And then ofcourse I felt even less worthy for questioning and for freaking out..

geesh.. talk about messing with someone's mind!

I had no special preparation - no temple prep classes, no talks with my TBM parents (although dad was still ex'd for adultery at the time), no special talks from bish or SP. Went through temple in DC with my best friend and his folks a few days before going to the MTC. It wasn't too weird b/c I was high on the idea of secret knowledge. Now I'm just embarrassed.

I went through the temple with a couple of ward members, not my own family/parents. THAT would have creeped me out completely. Even so, where you said, “They did it so naturally”—yes; that was the weirdest thing about it. Everyone there acted like the clothing & rituals were a perfectly normal thing to wear & do.

“I did not feel holy, I did not feel joy, I did not feel the presence of what I expected God to be like.” Ditto! The Celestial room was sort of nice, but still inferior to the uplifting peace of a beautiful place out in nature.

Religious institutions seek to take good, trusting people and change them into fearful and obedient sheeple. How hard you (and most of us) tried to be “worthy,” realizing only years later that it was MAN calling the shots in the church, NOT “God”!

I had a similar mom and garment incident as a child, and I remember always feeling scared of the temple. I never really wanted to go no matter what else everyone said about it.

The secret/sacred part just scared the bejeezus out of me. I figured they could be doing animal sacrifices in there and I wouldn't know till I showed up.

Weird to know now that I wasn't horribly far off in my childish imaginings...

If the temple really was a restoration of the temple of Jerusalem, they would be doing animal sacrifices.

That's what they did all day in the original temple with the burnt offerings and the doves you could buy to take there to sacrifice.

My mother did that to her garments so I thought that was normal. I went through the temple in 1999 so I missed all the disembowlment, but it still was so freaky I refused to go back. I only went back once for a cousin's sealing. It used to confuse my husband, but he gets it now.

Some things I remember very cleary and some things not so much so it's entirely possible my brain made up the following memory. The very sweet, very elderly lady explaining to me about the sacredness of garments said that when the garment got old and needed to be replaced I should cut the markings out and burn them. I already knew this because of my mom so this was one of the very few things that seemed normal. How stupid that burning markings on your underwear seemed perfectly normal!

When I made my big decision to get rid of all my garments, I threw all of them in a garbage bag and took them outside to our garbage can. I told my husband what I had done when he got home from work that day. He was upset and asked me if I had cut out the markings and got more upset when I told him no. I didn't believe in the church or god so I certainly didn't believe that an imaginary god would punish me, but if he was worried about it he could go dig them out and cut the symbols out and burn them himself. He did not take me up on the offer.

and/or of the book from which the bald, red-robed man was reading?

--Another curious reader

If I recall, it was a compilation of short stories in a book called Boris Karloff Presents, or it was Alfred Hitchcock stories for late at night. Something like that, I don't remember, but I did have both books.

They contained great stories like The Whistling Room, one book had "Its a good life" the story from which the Twilight Zone story was derived, also had the Short story that the original The Fly was based on. Or maybe the stories were based on the movies...

Anyway, I don't know the reason that the Robed man affected me so much, or why I felt I could relate to it as a kid, but it was funny that it was the first thing that came to mind that day in the temple. Unfortunately the boy on the stairs is the only thing about that particular story that I remember.

I was not to surprised when I went to the temple the firts time. I went in '04 so I missed all the death oaths and preacher working for the devil. My Mom was kind enought to fill me in on the poncho and naked touching stuff. The chanting in unison, law of sacrafice and law of concecration probably wierded me out the most but I put it all on the shelf because I was sure if I kept going and paying attention I would eventually figure it out. Now I am just disturbed by all the bullshit and how readily people lap it up (inluding myself).

Reading this makes me so glad that I was not BIC, and I never held to Mormonism enough to ever go in a temple.