Growing up LDS we were taught that garments were a protection and a shield and they often protected members from harm. My father was a welder and we were taught that while his clothes would catch fire from the flames he was never burned where his garments were.

Now the magic powers of garments is being dismissed by the church in their new video on you tube. I guess the whole belief in garments having magical powers was rubbish. Just another Mormon Myth. Even in the temple we learned garments were a protection.

When will the Mormon myths end?!

Yep, I learned that, too -- in the temple and in Sunday meetings. There were stories aplenty about individuals whose garments:

-- miraculously shielded them from bullets shot straight at them at close range during a bank robbery
--protected the covered areas from any damage during head-on collisions (even though skin just outside the garment lines sustained heavy damage)
-- remained undamaged during escape from a house fire and completely protected the skin beneath (even though clothes were burned off and other body areas had severe burns)
-- caused them to remain alive and unscathed during plane crashes, near-drownings, bicycle wrecks, fights, falls, and all sorts of other mishaps.

I doubt any of the stories were real, but what mattered was that garment protection was definitely taught as doctrine. Now it's NOT? Wonder how TBMs are dealing with that?

Don't forget the televised confession from JW Marriott that his garments saved him from a boat fire. That one will be harder for the church to push down the memory hole.

embarrassing Church mythology.

Can't wait for them to explain all the Mormon folklore

The Three Nephites

How many other land minds are there?

If they were really magic, my farts, having been filtered through them, wouldn't stink. That was not the case.

To be fair, I think the magic elements are just assumed/perpetrated by gullible members. I think the shield and protection bit has to do with you the member now dressed in the garment you are committed to the church and it's gospel, and that commitment will help shield you from the real world facts and anti-mormon realities.

They are weary of the internet referring to garments as magic underwear. Besides, magical and mystical church underwear events only happen when no one else is around to see.

But the church was perfectly happy to let those ideas spread. They aren't innocent.

It's the authorized pattern of the Church. Let the members imaginations run wild about apostles being special witnesses and all that. Adds to the mysticism, where there clearly is none.

So, the protective aspect of garments has become a myth. This is what happens when the truth of the "special" nature of some aspect of Mormonism becomes an embarrassment to LDS leaders - they morph its previous meaning into something new and less embarrassing.

It's nothing new; we've all witnessed several things go this same way. The lesson to learn: what has happened to the "specialness" of temple garments is what is true of all aspects of Mormonism - none of it is special or magical. Garments are only underwear and they were only ever special because someone told us so, and we believed it.

They sure didn't protect my Dad 7 Mom from the stroke and pneumonia that killed them or all of my cousins, aunts and uncles who died terrible deaths from cancer..garments protecting TBM's...what a fuckin' idiotic & fraudulent concept.

Ron Burr

The only thing that garments protect you from is truth.

When I first put them on there was a strong psychological element that pushed me much deeper into Moronism.

The only thing that garments protect you from is truth.


Oh, man I am going to remember this gem and hope I get to use it someday.

themaster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now the magic powers of garments is being
> dismissed by the church

That's so people will stop calling them "magic underpants."

I was never taught garments protected us from harm from my parents, the church yes, but not my parents so I never believed it.

Same here. Never taught that they protected you from harm. When I got older and came across TBMs (in the Morridor) that told me stories about the Gs physically protecting people, I thought they were really weird.

Yeah. I knew some people who believed the physical protection BS, but as a TBM I just believed that it was spiritual protection mostly in the form of a reminder of temple covenants.

Pretty Sure it was Hoax that was on network TV explaining that he was in a (boat?) fire, got burndt EXCEPT where his garmies were...

go ahead, Deny That!

It was Bill Marriott that told Mike Wallace in a 60 Minutes interview about the magical garments protecting him from a boat fire. President Kimball certainly believed in the possibility of magical physical protection as was also consistently taught in church lesson manuals. Ahhh the ever changing doctrine of Mormonism.

Quoted article from Mormon Research Ministry
http://www.mrm.org/garment-protection

While we are not insinuating that Mormons believe the garments will protect the wearer in all circumstances, certainly Kimball thought that there are “many cases” where there has been “an actual physical protection.” For instance, Bill Marriott of the Marriott hotel chain told CBS 60 Minutes interviewer Mike Wallace in 1996 that his garment had protected him in a boat fire. Despite the testimonies of Mormons who believe their garment has protected them from physical harm, it should be pointed out that there are seemingly faithful Mormons who wear their garment on a regular basis yet are killed or injured. For instance, President Spencer W. Kimball said on 31 May 1948:

Temple garments afford protection. I am sure one could go to extreme in worshiping the cloth of which the garment is made, but one could also go to the other extreme. Though generally I think our protection is a mental, spiritual, moral one, yet I am convinced that there could be and undoubtedly have been many cases where there has been, through faith, an actual physical protection, so we must not minimize that possibility. (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 539).

Top church leaders know by now that it's all a crock.
Of course there is no protection in wearing some silly undergarments.

But instead of dismantling their whole house of cards like the Reorganized LDS did, they prefer to give out info piecemeal and hang onto that revenue stream for as long as possible.

Bunch of crooks.

in the temple ceremony they say that they are a "protection unto you" and something about that being so if you don't defile them or some shite like that.

I can hear it in my head even, and I have not been to the temple in 14 years or so. Thank God!!

When are they going to tell my 80ish parents that everything they beat into their kids was just symbolic?

Being married in the temple was the one and only way you would be acceptable to your family. You'd best have those underwear on if you didn't want to be chastised and rejected.

There are many , many things you must do and comply with, but wearing your holy undies is how you're going to be judged and talked about both in your ward and your family. If you're not wearing them, you'd better be very good at hiding it. Everything you are and do as a mormon is judged by your underwear.

If you're a mormon, and don't believe me, go ahead, take them off. Don't wear them until 2015. That means you can't wear them for the Holiday family get togethers. If you're really brave you'll wear clothing that makes it obvious you're not wearing them. While you're at it, keep track of how many life threatening traumas you have that your G's would have saved you from.
I was bic in 1953. I wasn't imagining all the crap I was taught as gospel truth. I wasn't just taught, I was commanded and threatened for decades. The church is now saying that was all in our heads. They never taught that. Liars, deceivers, and thieves is what they are.

Right from the magical incantations of the International House of Handshakes:

"Inasmuch as you do not defile it, but are true and faithful to your covenants, it will be a shield and a protection to you against the power of the destroyer until you have finished your work on the earth."

So I'm guessing they'll be removing this from the initiatory portion of the endowment as apparently they're not a "protection" at all right?

"remained undamaged during escape from a house fire" - IF this really worked, all Fire Depts. all over the world would be buying garmies by the hundreds of thousands.

hey if that's in the initiatory then I did pretty damn good considering I only did that once for myself and that was in 1987!! I knew there was some defiling, like shiting in them or something besides the whole sex with garmies on.

Don't let the Mormon apologists gas-light us again!

I and my siblings were certainly taught that the Mormon temple garments were a LITERAL protection! At first, when I was told to wear them, I thought they were more of a "reminder"--a constant reminder by sweating, being goosed, fighting with the folds, having my bra slide up and down, not being able to wear "seductive" clothing, being too embarrassed to undress in front of a man, etc. "No", the Mormon leaders said, "The garments will literally protect your from all kinds of harm!" I was told the boat story by Marriot's wife. My GA relative thought it was terrible that the LDS Hospital cut off the garments of accident victims in the ER. The Doctors would not operate on a patient unless the patient was first sanitized and had all clothing removed. Just when a Mormon needs Magic Garments the most--doctors would take them away. Well, probably magic consecrated oil and a blessing made up for the lack of "protection".

No Mormon is ever going to tell me I didn't hear what I heard!

This same thing happened with the back-pedaling of the dark-skinned descendants of Cain thing. I was so severely gas-lighted by my TBM neighbors here in Utah, that I had to call both my brothers and ask them if I had just imagined the reasons that Blacks couldn't have the priesthood. We actually had been taught all of it, from the time we were very young, until a few years after the Blacks were given the priesthood. (It took many years for the cult to explain its way out of that corner.)

I think the present Mormons are waiting for us older folks to die--and then the forgetting will be complete. They have already destroyed my Mormon ancestors' diaries, and they will try to destroy ours.

I'm in my 50's, and agree with the gaslighting comment. We were definitely taught in lessons that these were a literal protection. I remember when one of my YA friends got beaten up and robbed, he went to great lengths to testify that his only bruisings were in areas not covered by his garments. We saw nothing unusual about this, it was what we expected. So please, less of the sneering and "guillible". It's what we were taught. In the past year, the Church has pretty much rejected everything it spent my entire life teaching me. It's not easy to come to terms with.