Did anyone read this book as a TBM, and if you did, did it have any sort of impact on your religious mentality? Also, has anyone tried or been successful in getting a TBM in their life to read this book, and if so, what was the outcome?

From what I'm hearing from TBM friends, the new PH/RS manual (ETB coincidentally) is encouraged to be downloaded electronically instead of printed on hardcopy. That makes chucking stuff down the memory hole a lot easier, doesn't it?

Yes, I read it as a TBM and loved it, but not knowing anything about the shady history of the church, failed to make the connection at the time.

Interesting podcast on this very topic up at Mormon Expression:

http://mormonexpression.com/2014/10/06/episode-274/

Thanks!

Yes, I read it and loved it. Yes, subconsciously I did associate similarities to TSCC. But somehow that didn't create much of a crack in my shelf.

I read it as a tbm. Loved the book and remember thinking how crazy people were to allow themselves to be so completely manipulated. I never made any connections between that book and mormonism.

Just goes to show. The most difficult thing for cult members to believe is that they belong to a cult.

1984 blew my mind as a teenager

I read it in high school. My english teacher was a very insightful lady (she was a mormon at one point in her life. her name was on the records at my branch).
it definitely had an effect on me. that was also around the time my boyfriend was trying to let me know that this whole church thing just didnt make sense. we were also doing other readings of a similar nature, and they strengthened the effect.
she also did a lengthy bit on buddhism (along with other religions), and that affected me quite a lot. i remember sitting in class when she read "life is pain", and i remember thinking "yes. now what do we do about it?". because i had known that truth for quite a while.
thank goodness for literature classes and clever people.

I also read it in high school, but it was something I chose to read after my English class had read Animal Farm. I've always been a bookworm, which really annoyed my TBM ex-husband. I was actually a hormonal convert, but thanks to my love of reading everything I can get my hands on, I didn't last long as a TBM.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2014 03:57AM by adoylelb.

ah animal farm. we also watched both movies in addition to reading the book (hmm.. maybe she wanted us to retain something.. lol)
and yup! same here. the "problem" with reading is that it expands the mind far beyond the bounds of a cult.

I read it in high school, because it was required. And no, it didn't even make a dent in my religious mentality at the time.

I re-read it this past summer, and the parallels were obvious and somewhat frightening.

I had to read it in 1973 in a modern US History course at a community college in California. In the first place, the class was taught by a professor who would come in with a cup of coffee, pace back and forth with his coffee as he lectured and then light up a cigarette and use his empty coffee cup as his ash tray as he paced back and forth lecturing and smoking. You could do that in those days. It was so hard to get past the coffee/smoking that I could never focus on his lectures. He really engaged the class and lots of people liked to pipe in, but I probably never spoke once.

I remember how spirited the discussion about 1984 was but mostly I remember his mentioning mormons one time. My father taught at the same college so he knew I was mormon and maybe he was trying to get me to speak up and say something. I just never got the connection. It was all about communism and totalatarianism to me. And in those days that was a serious subject. Don't ask me how I got an A in that class. I guess I write good papers, even if I don't really know what I'm writing about.

Anyway, fast forward 40 years and I'd give anything to take that class again. For one thing, there would be no smoke in the classroom and I wouldn't care about the coffee, I'd probably have mine too. But I've read 1984 again since then and the mormon connections (any cultish group) are obvious. So many 1984 ideas, IMHO, totally relate to mormonism--thoughtcrimes, ignorance is strength, Big Brother (of course), The Party, The Ministry of Truth, The Inner Party (G.A.s), the Outer Party (high ranking stake/regional authorities) and the Proles (rank and file mormons), double think, the thought police, and more.

Yes, but I didn't associate it with the church.

1984 is all about state totalitarianism. While the church is bad, one is always free to just leave the church. A religion can mandate whatever it wants, in my opinion, as long as people are free to leave the religion.

I read it and Brave New World as a TBM. In fact, I was in high school in 1984 and we actually did the play, 1984.

I did not make the mind-control connection at the time.

I read some of animal farm on my mission(when an 'apostate' missionary would stop every day at the library to aim with his girlfriend). I eventually was too tempted by all the books to be content with my book of mormon. So I went to the fiction section and since I read 1984 in HS and liked it, I read Animal Farm. It freaked me out. ALot of the imagery really sounded like the gospel/mission.

"those ribbons you are so devoted to are the badge of slavery"
gave me shivers.

Another book along those same themes: This Perfect Day by Ira Leven ..good read..

Yup, when I was 15. The message and theme definitely implanted into my brain.

I first read it when I was in high school but it didn't make an impact until I started waking up from the cult brainwashing. I always say that 1984 really opened up my eyes when it comes to freedom of thought and what it means.

I read this at 16, just on my own. I've gone back to it multiple times since then, and I would say it played a big part in me getting out-- or at least seeing the corruption within. I loved it so much, I have a big tattoo on my arm of a tree and a quote from the book. I live in the Morridor, and have to explain this tattoo to 98% of people I meet. Very rarely does someone recognize the reference.

I first read "1984" in high school and immediately started feeling uncomfortable with LDS Inc. It was obvious to me that "1984" could have been the Morg's playbook.

A few years later, I read "1984" a second time. I was a BYU student at the time. Again, I could not escape the similar techniques used by TSCC.

For me, "1984" may be the best faith-destroying book out there because the reader may not initially perceive that it is could be interpreted as an attack on LDS Inc.

No But I saw the movie

Another great book along those lines is:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Yes, I read 1984 as a TBM, when I was only 11. And my father complained to the schoolteacher that Winston Smith visits a prostitute in the book! Not a good book for the young me, apparently.

"We've always taught that Joseph Smith used a rock in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon."

"We've always taught multiple versions of the First Vision."

"We've always said that the Egyption papyrus used by Joseph Smith to write the Book of Abraham was simply used fors inspiration. Joseph did not literally translate the writings of Abraham."

"WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH EASTASIA . . ."

Stunning how easily the past can be erased.

;o)

Exactly!

I read it in 1964 on our way from Alberta to Mount Pleasant, Utah for Christmas...read it in one sitting...couldn't put it down. Didn't make a connection to the cult I was a member of until several years later when I went to Ricks and was exposed to LDS-24/7 and felt overwhelmed with the suffocating nature of the place and the LDS church. And BTW, Dad and Mom never questioned the books I was reading....Catcher in the Rye was next on my reading list back then.

Ron Burr



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2014 12:20AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

Striking parallels between 1984, LDS Inc, and the DPRK.