I was looking at John Dehlin's list of why people leave. I couldn't find one of my reasons. The temple endowment I endured was like a spiritual slap in my face. In it I realized that for the "sake of righteousness" I was being coerced into agreeing to things I hadn't had time to think about and I was being coerced in a ritualistic way using people around me to pressure me into conformity.

If "the gospel" is all about persuasion, long suffering, being guided by a spirit then this experience was the polar opposite of a patient and loving ritual to a stronger relationship with the Mormon god.

It was scary, coercive (via social conformity), and confusing. But these facts didn't make Dehlin's list.

"Bad experiences in the temple
i.
Not edifying and/or boring
ii.
Issues with initiatory ceremony
iii.
Offensive (e.g., blood oaths, gruesome penalties, women being required to submit to husbands)"
http://whymormonsleave.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Why-Mormons-Leave-Comprehensive-List-February-2014.pdf

So are the other Exmormons out there who had faith shaking, fundamental, and downright upsetting experiences in becoming an endowed Mormon?

I'm still in shock thinking about it. Being born a member didn't prepare me for it. Quite the contrary. I think being born a member, when you go through this you are blindsided by what is designed as an ancient acolyte's initiation and you are endowed ignorant which is not what ancient peoples did. They stair stepped people up to their holy of holies hand picking initiates.

And Mormon apologists claim a religious genealogical connection with ancient rites!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 01:22PM by Elder Berry.

I went through 2 weeks before I got married. I came away feeling like I'd just walked through a mine field. All I could think was "THAT was it? The thing I've been waiting my whole life for? The church that makes fun of the Catholics for THEIR rituals?"

We were driving home and my mom turned around and said, "Well, how do you feel?" I will never forget that and trying to hold the tears back. I just said I was tired.

I got home and got ready for bed and looked at myself in those uglyass undies (the one-piece days) and broke down. I was going to be stuck in those things the rest of my life. The wedding day was not so bad even though no one had told me about having to wear the robes over my wedding dress and the polygamous-looking veil with the hideous bow under your chin. I didn't have to go through the endowment and just wanted to get it over with to get home for the party and then the sex!!!!!!

I tried going back to get "that feeling." You know, the one you get when you go back enough that you can (convince yourself that you) understand it. But I was creeped out more each time. Mind you, this was in the throat-slitting days. I think I went 5 times and finally gave up. Hard to believe, but I was active Mo for 20 years after that and never went to another endowment session. Kept a recommend for a number of years to attend weddings and then didn't care about that anymore either.

Thanks! I fill vindicated. The oaths were gone by a few months by the time my time came and the underwear wasn't an issue much because it was two piece and I'm comfortable in maleish underwear.

I didn't ever want to talk about the temple after going through because I knew if I did a shiz storm would be unleashed so I kept my trap shut. I did find it boring after a few times because I was so checked out. All I could think about was what a colossal waste of time I was burning for my signs and tokens playing their God charade.

My temple experience mirrors yours, NormaRae. It was weird and everything, especially the washing and anointing. But I mostly just remember feeling completely disappointed. I waited all my life for THAT?? I was expecting that some great, unexpected truth would be revealed to me.

I also didn't know until I was getting dressed on my wedding day that I would have to wear the robes and veil over my wedding dress. Man, was it hot in the temple with all that clothing on over my dress...garments, a dickie because my dressed had short sleeves, my heavy wedding dress and then the robes on top. I couldn't wait for everything to be over so I could peel off the clothing.

I too only went back to the temple a handful of times for endowment sessions over the next 20 years. I was completely active in the church, but my secret was that I hated the temple and never went. When they started barcoding temple recommends, I devised a plan to walk into the temple and have my recommend scanned and then walk out again. That way no one would know that I never actually went to the temple to do sessions. I never did it, but I would have if a bishop ever questioned why I never went to the temple.

I was so shocked I refused to go back for over a year. Then I only went because I was with some new friends we met in BYU married student housing, even then I refused to go through the veil unless my husband did the veil stuff! They didn't know what to do with me! I was the last one out of the room.
They opened the veil and it was a 400 lb Samoan standing there and not seeing my husband, I started to cry. They thought it was because I was prejudiced !! NOPE.. I was SHOCKED that it was not my husband. That is how it's done the first time, so why would I think it would be done any differently. I kept asking: where is my husband. Finally they asked me for his name and went and got him to do the veil stuff!!

Took about another year for me to go back, but then I got into it and went along to get along like everyone else and went to a bunch of different temples where I had some of the strangest experiences with goofy members!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 02:08PM by SusieQ#1.

I was very much a TBM when I went through the temple. When I went for my endowments, I was just getting ready to go on my mission and my life up to that point had revolved around the church.

I went through in '91, so right after they removed a large chunk of some of the more horrifying parts of the endowment. So, I didn't get to mime getting killed for breaking my oaths, but it was still pretty bad.

I remember my parents telling me that the temple was different from most other church settings, because there were more prayers that were given line for line, more ceremony than I'd be used to. That was the only prep I had for the experience I was about to endure.

I'll never forget the fear I had in the temple. The weirdness of standing naked under a poncho while an old guy touched me uncomfortably close to parts of me that I didn't want an old guy near. I kept repeating to myself that my parents wouldn't ask me to do it if it wasn't right or if I wouldn't be safe. Little did I know...

The movie part was boring and weird, but there was enough "church" stuff that my TBM brain was OK with it enough that I didn't run from the building screaming, but just barely.

The thing I remember most was that my parents were nervous about my reaction. At the time, I chalked it up to their being excited about their son completing this important phase of church growth... Now I realize that some part of them knew/knows that it's very odd and were worried about how how I'd see it.

When I was finally able to shake off the programming and see the church for what it was, the temple and what goes on in there was one of the bigger nails in the coffin of my belief in the church.

My first time was just before my mission and I didn't question anything. I just felt "special." After marriage,we lived overseas for many years, far away from temples. So my temple experience was sporadic at best before moving to Utah. When we started going more often, after moving here, I started feeling uneasy, but couldn't exactly put my finger on it. I didn't like how Eve was shunned by God and the 3 visitors. They completely ignored her. I started paying more attention. I started questioning the veil. Why didn't God want my face shown? What's wrong with females? And I started to see it all. Why am I promising EVERTHING I have or ever will have to the church? What on earth is wrong with loud laughter? Why do I covenant to give myself to my husband, but he doesn't reciprocate? Why don't I make covenants with God, but my husband does? So the weirdness didn't bother me as much as these things. I started resisting going to the temple, until I refused entirely (except for weddings). I tried to explain to my husband what I was thinking. He tried to understand but just couldn't. I was still TBM, years before I began questioning the truth of it ALL. I felt guilty for not going, but if I did go I just felt discouraged. Now I never go, except for weddings. I might stop that too, when my current recommend expires.

I am actually embarrassed that I accepted it all at first.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 02:23PM by liesarenotuseful.

I freaked out. I told myself, "OMG I'm in a cult". From the "washing and anointing ( naked touching era ) to the creepy oaths ( no penalties era ). I was freaked the eff out. I remember seeing the robes and hats and thought they were the food workers. Peer pressure, family pressure to stay, you name it. I wanted to run out!

Nobody prepared me for anything!!

effin cult!!

Look! A Mormon's list is so simple why members leave. Big surprise. Dehlin has probably a couple of hundred. This guy has five one of which is similar to another so you could say only 4 reasons.

http://www.gregtrimble.com/you-should-not-leave-mormonism-for-any-of-these-5-reasons/

This has always been a red flag for me. People have many many reasons for things in their lives. Reduction in this is so absurd. But Mormons believe it and so many other things like the temple is edifying for all who sincerely enter it.

I entered it a true believer. I used Mormonism to reclaim my broken self and realized after entering it that I had to build a shelf for it and the Mormon baggage just kept piling up on it until I was sent a big book which caused it to come crashing down.

I probably was at fault for reading and enjoying science fiction. I was, I have always been, a tremendous cynic; nobody tells the truth when a lie works better. I include myself.

So there I was, finally 'ready' to go on my mission. I was a real student of doctrine and I had it all worked out in my head; people might be pieces of shit, but ghawd wasn't and his plan was put into play to help us pieces of shit get obtain salvation and exaltation. There was nothing, I told myself, that I couldn't explain; his plan was perfect, though we weren't.

So I drive up to St. George and my bishop and his wife meet me there at the temple. The bishop sticks by my side (except for groping time) and then he and his wife are so happy for me there in the celestial tiki room.

A lot is going through my head, none of which is complimentary of the temple experience. As I've mentioned dozens of times, as a secret club, it was total failure. There was zero allure to the ceremony. The only way the ceremony meant anything is if you came prepared to have it mean something. Taking it in as separate entity, in and of itself (which I as a cynic was quite good at) it was both silly and stupid.

I have a memory of a memory left from that day: me, walking out of the temple, towards the parking lot, and thinking, 'how does the church, with its perfect doctrine, explain the stupidity that is the temple ceremony?' I could not come up with an acceptable answer, because at that time, declaring the church a fraud was not yet something I wanted, nor much more importantly, needed to do.

Then in the SLC mission home, we went through again, and it was just as stupid, but I was too busy to take action. But I never changed that opinion and when I was the EQP in the Lakeview ward, I always had an excuse for not going to the temple. I'd been a third time, to get married, back in the St. George temple, and it was the same old, same old.

I know the dates of all three temple sessions, two in late May and one in early June, and as anniversaries they are completely meaningless.

I, too, find it ludicrous that people will say to others, with a straight face, "I always learn something new each time I go to the temple." I figure it's an acquired taste, like learning to like 'weird' foods.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I probably was at fault for reading and enjoying
> science fiction.

You didn't see your own edification in your own imperial robes? Would a crown of laurel been better than a baker's hat and tassel?

I was more the 'first contact' guy, the outlier...

Too bad. Maybe if they had made you a King instead of just endowing you to become one...

"Continuing with my facts and fancies - that most of the things which were developed in the Church at Nauvoo were inextricably interwoven with Masonry - in addition to the endowment, the temple, and the Relief Society, I have already mentioned, I suspect also that the development of prayer circles and even polygamy are no exceptions. but more importantly, I suggest that enough evidence presently exists to declare that the entire institution of the political kingdom of God, including the Council of Fifty, the living constitution, the proposed flag of the kingdom, and the anointing and coronation of the king, had its genesis in connection with Masonic thought and ceremonies.

It could not be coincidence that all of these concepts had their counterparts within Masonry in the day of the Prophet Joseph Smith. There was an Elect Council, an Elu, and a Council of Fifty; a Supreme Council, and a Grand Council. The crown was a common Masonic symbol, as well as a portion of the regalia actually worn by officers who represented the king in the higher degrees. Anointing was commonly performed and any practicing Mason would have been familiar with the word "constitutions." "
http://www.mormonismi.net/temppeli/durhamin_puhe1974.shtml

I had a friend who got married about a year before I did and she told me she thought the temple was evil and would never set foot in that place again. She didn't expand on that and I didn't ask.

When I went through several months later, I felt that same evil force. But more than that, I was pissed off. I felt jerked around being told I could leave or I would have to make serious commitments prior to knowing what those were.

Then the real fun begins and you get to mime the most horrific ways to be killed. Yippee Skippee!!!!

I also vowed I wouldn't go back.

ANYTHING written by Greg Trimble makes my blood boil Elder Berry. he is a sanctimonious twerp...Ah I feel better just writing that...

Like most things in Mormonism I was not shocked by anything until I came to the conclusion that the entire thing is a fraud.

After coming to that conclusion, I am shocked continually by the information that is being disclosed by TSCC, the current way in which Mormon central leadership treats members and responds to contemporary society.

What would be really shocking? If the Mormonism first introduced by Joseph Smith was still practiced today. Want to know what that would have looked like? Think Warren Jeffs.

There you go.

I was shocked and so disappointed. I went through the St. George, Utah temple and it was the start of the collapse of Mormonism for me. I remember not being able to look at the mirrors in the celestial room because I looked so ridiculous. A cult for sure.

I was disappointed. The whole thing was so incredibly SILLY. The robes were awful, the wash/anoint uncomfortable, the endowment trite, rushed and nonsensical. My sealing to the Geezer was just more mumbo jumbo and the officiator more worried we kept the grip properly visible to him than any concerns about leg shackling two people together eternally. It was an enormous let down, a bunch of grown ups playing dress up. I thought upon leaving that no wonder no one is allowed to talk about it, it's ridiculous and would give other churches a recruiting advantage not to mention hiccups.

Worst part was the new name. Why can't God let me have my birth name? Doesn't he know who I am? And I was dumb enough to think I was the only one who got that name on that day. When I found out otherwise I wasn't surprised. No woman is special in the cult and most men aren't either.

All in all just a big stupid costume party and a spiritual downer.

ptbarnum Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Worst part was the new name. Why can't God let me
> have my birth name? Doesn't he know who I am?

I know right? I had to be renamed by a religion?

It was Not edifying and/or boring for me. Certainly not shocking. Not shocking enough, to be perfectly honest...

In shock but the reverse of many; I was mad it wasn't culty enough. Secret handshakes, but handed out standard and en mass. Washing one's nude body, but in a game of musical chairs. Secrets of the most ancient kind, to bend angels and demons to your will, and pass into the holiest sanctums of the universe, delivered by a bad seminary video.

Where was the elderly priest rubbing my body with oil? Where were the lamps and decaying paintings to show me the secrets of the elders? Where were the gods and angels walking the halls with men? I wanted to be escorted through an initiation, not given the fast-food version of a vaguely occult work orientation. This was the First Teaching from the Ancient of Days, revealed in unchanging truth. The oldest Magic! A binding oath between me and the King of Heaven.

...and yet, the oil was wrong, the words were rushed,...what the hell is the guy at the front of the room doing?! Is he *pretending* to be the voice over guy?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 04:32PM by atouchscreendarkly.

I saw my sister's face after she went through the SL temple to get married and endowed all on the same day. I KNEW I would never do it all in one day and I didn't. I had so much fear and anxiety over going through, I thought of eloping, but then what was the point of marrying my gay husband if the LDS church was the only one that could save him (ha ha ha ha). I was relieved once it was over, but I was shocked by it all. My experiences never improved, actually got worse.

Once I had been through and my marriage fell apart, then I was able to allow myself to let go of mormonism. It was a step I had to take or I would have lived my life thinking there was something special I was missing out on no matter what someone else said. I had to see it for myself. It was one of, if not the biggest disappointment of my life. They really build it up so much that it isn't just ridiculous, it is criminal.

My ex's past partner and his brother both converted. His brother and wife worked for years to finally make it to the temple. They went through and never went back to the LDS church. His brother said it was the stupidest thing he had ever experienced.

I believe it was one of the worst things they could have done to me personally, making the temple out to be something it isn't. Again, Lucy is my super secret special name God picked just for me. (I only went 4 or 5 times and my husband pretty much had to force me to go. I was always going to be the perfect little temple attender.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 05:16PM by cl2.

I was 21 when I left for the mission. I was happily sipping the kook-aid until they got to the "no evil speaking of the Lord's anointed...donate all you have to the church (time talents money).
That's when the still small voice in my head said WTF?
But, I put it on the shelf because what I only really wanted was that smile on my chest like all the returned missionaries.
At home that night, (this was back when they ONLY had one piece garmmies) I went to do a number two and thought...what have I done?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 05:15PM by lapsed.

Elder Berry, did you go through pre-1990 with the slashing and gashings?

I went through January 1991. No B-film Horrors for me.

Damn, that probably explains why you weren't sufficiently scared to leave Mormonism. But, seeings how you wanted to know--I wasn't initially bothered by slitting my throat, slashing my chest open, or slitting my abdomen--I was too confused to know what just happened.

I was counseled to go back so I could learn and thus, understand. Well, I lived close to a temple, so I went back enough times to memorize the old ceremony.

It wasn't until I "helped" an innocent kid who was going on a mission and thus getting his own endowment that it (the crazy ceremony) struck me. He looked at me and practically shouted, "I have to do that!"

Afterwards, in the Celestial Room, he was surrounded by family and friends and had a look of terror on his face that gradually turned to a smile. I realized he had just been inducted into a cult, I had helped, and my shelf collapsed.

Take good care of yourself, EB! I love your posts. Boner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2016 06:27PM by BYU Boner.

Funny how when we see it through others' eyes we can see what our own were probably telling us and we chose to disregard.

I opted to have no family except a brother. They were upset and my mother especially. I'm so glad they weren't there because I could tell I wasn't acting right. I didn't know I was in shock but my brother knew something wasn't right and didn't talk to me as much as he would have had we just been hanging out.

My brother didn't empathize like you did. He might of sympathized because he did ask what I thought of it and I told him it was interesting. I didn't affirm my faith or say much at all. My feelings processor was in overdrive so my thinking processor was waiting.

Was this the same brother who left?

Ah, no. I have two "elder" brothers. The eldest brother was this brother. He ignored us younger kids when I was growing up. He is a decade older than I am but when I grew up we grew closer. He was a ballroom dancer, impeccable dresser, had a gay lover in high school. I thought he was cool where other people thought he was either a dork or a freak.

After and before my mission we hung out a bit and always had some good laughs.

But as time has progressed he has become progressively more and more Mormon minded. He has been in the lds conference center's Jesus Christmas thing a lot. Growing up he was in musicals that were actually performed at the ward house and stake house. I doubt they do that anymore.

He's changed quite a bit. He has 8 kids and is Mormon Nazi like our mother and father now just not as dictatorial - that is his wife. His wife and my mother don't get along well because he married his mother.

I hated my brother who is Exmormon now when we were growing up. We didn't get along. I was favored more than him as a child because my sister says I was cuter. I'm in the middle of three boys who came after three girls who came after my eldest brother.

Until I went the first I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it really is a sacred place, not of this world. Maybe I will undergo a spiritual transformation.

Then I went.

Nope. "There is no there there," as Gertrude Stein said. Nothing they can do will change that. They can change the scripts, rewrite the movie, throw rose petals in the dunk tank. Irrelevant. It won't work. Nothing will.

I felt like Charlie Brown, who thought that finally, this time, at last, Lucy was going to keep holding the football so he could kick it.

What an idiot I was.

There is certainly a huge disconnect between what goes on in the temple and what you experienced in church services. And I find it telling that they don't prepare you for the temple. They just foist the freak on you and since you're surrounded by people you feel compelled to go along and get along with (all that preconditioning) you just do it with your BS meter going off the charts.

I share your opinion about 'the freak' but it makes sense that there are many members who don't allow 'the freak' to have any effect on them. These are the ones who forever will mystify me, the ones who stood up in F&TM and said, with a straight face, "I love going to the temple. I love the peace there! And I always learn something new."

It was years of listening to these people that had me set up for believing that something good, edifying, cultured, learned, etc., was going unfold before my eyes when I finally went...

But then you think back on the basic nature of MEN... We're pigs! It absolutely makes total sense that the Rulon & Warren Jeffs version of the temple is what JS had in mind when he decided to start his private sex club. Not to mention that it was a place to put a bed. He must have giggled a lot about how he was pulling the wool over Emma's eyes.

And then it morphed into a holy place. At least in mainstream mormonism. A holy boring, tedious place.

I was so confused the first time I went (1989), but I totally thought it was my fault. I had been convinced that this would be a remarkable and spiritual experience, and it was neither...it was just slightly terrifying, slightly hilarious (the costumes - lord above!) and not even a little edifying.

Afterwards, I said all the right things about it being so uplifting and such a blessing, because I didn't want anyone to know that there was something so wrong with me and that I was so horribly unworthy to understand the blessings. I was depressed and felt inadequate for a long time afterwards.

Looking back, I was just a young 20 year old convert who was looking for love and belonging...I was never going to find those two things, nor truth, in TSCC...

yeah, we yield to the pressure join in on agreeing that the Emperor's new clothes are the cat's meow. And don't doubt for an instant that the Fossils and their advisers count on this fact of tribal life.

Ditto!!!