You know.

New Name.

Secret Handshakes.

True order of Prayer.

If they told you this stuff first you would be expecting a tree house and a "secret girl/guy haters club"...

Secret-sorry-sacred movie with Satan as the main character.

Stupid baker outfits.

The old naked touching and death vows.

If they told you that stuff first, you'd wonder if Mormonism or Heaven's Gate was crazier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_group)

If I were the church, I'd answer your question thusly:


"One of the oaths that we take when we make our covenants with ghawd is to promise to never reveal these sacred oaths and promises. It is this promise that prohibits us from 'teaching' you what to expect, what goes on, in the temple."


...or, "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you..."


Has anyone ever spoken with a Bishop or higher to ask about how and why ghawd let the beans be spilled about the McDeist Secret Sauce names?

And what's the penalty, if any, levied on a man who reveals his Secret Sauce to a mere wife?

And has there ever been a Lady Missionary who later used her temple name as part of the porn star name?

And finally, were lap dances a thing in the Pre-Existence?

Why they don't tell you Temple stuff ahead of time?
Because if they did very few would play their
"in the far off future"
game

If they had told me, my unspoken reaction would've been, "You're kidding, right? That's the big secret?"

My spoken reaction, because I wanted to please my parents, go on a mission and avoid Vietnam, would've been, "Um, okay."

I never took the "Temple Prep" class because I heard from friends that it doesn't tell you SQUAT about what really goes on in the temple.

I remember thinking about the temple, as I was going through it for the first time, "When does the Serious Enlightenment part kick in? So far, it's just drivel."

The best part of the day, and I'm not kidding, was eating in the cafeteria. This was in the Atlanta temple, and we had to take an overnight bus ride to be there.The food was really good. (I had been told to fast overnight on Friday and not eat until we got to the temple early Saturday, so I was pretty hungry.)

My temple initiation was in 1970, in the SLC temple. Actors, moving room to room, throat slashing and disembowelment, the whole show. We lived in SLC, so the after-meal was at home, Mom's usual cooking, plus me trying to answer, "So, what did you think? So spiritual, right?"

And this is why they don't (or at least didn't) really want people going through until right before getting married or going on a mission. Without that peer pressure, it would be easier to say "fuck this shit, I'm outta here" as one heads for the door.

They don't tell us temple stuff ahead of time because there's no way to explain it without it sounding weird.

Try to recall your first temple experience when you took out your endowments (that sounds weird just typing it). Pretend you're telling a friend all about it. There's no way to explain it without it sounding freaky. I think that's why they don't want us to talk about it.

So....I was an innocent young college student who never knew anything and never looked up anything online. And one day I was doing baptisms for the dead on my own and then I went to the cafeteria afterward, and when I was done eating I tried to find my way back outside and I got lost trying to get to an exit. I ended up somewhere in the halls in the main part of the temple. There were all these freaky adults dressed up in weird costumes walking around the halls. I just played it cool in my Sunday dress and acted like I knew where the fuck I was going, like someone who gets lost in a movie where they've discovered the whole town are secretly aliens. I eventually made it out the main entrance.

I was never the same again.

I later decided maybe it was a solid idea to get the straight dope on what the fuck the temple ceremonies were before getting in there, where I knew I'd be pressured to go through with whatever promises the mysterious temple endowments required. So I looked them up, found Richard Packham's site, and laughed with uncharacteristic existentialist irony as I realized I was born and raised in a cult. I then submitted my resignation about a month and a half later.

Thanks for a brand new take on 'discovering' the bat-shit craziness of the temple-nearer-my-ghawd-to-thee experience: being there for baptisms for the dead and stumbling into the Celestial Room (that's how I intend to remember your story!).

Great story! I wish I'd had something like your (mis)luck and personal verve. Though I may not have pulled off being cool in a Sunday dress.

Alas, I was simply stunned - totally bowled over into befuddled submission. I had absolutely no idea, none, what was in coming. None. I went alone. My entire preparation was the bish telling me to take a pair of garments with me. I got the "modesty shield", the "strength in the loins touch", blood vows, the works.

At least they still had the Lucifer scenes then. That was the only decent part in the farce.

My god, the shit people come up with.

They probably want you to stay Mormon. But THAT'S PRECISELY the problem.

Here's the rub: Sacred SECRETS (including lies, omissions, and sketchy emissions) subvert family member's FREEDOM, loyalty, and trust!

At EIGHT (8) years old, a PROSPECTIVE member (growing up in a LDS oriented family) should be told about mormonism's temples. Not the RIDICULOUS fluff of "beautiful, mirrors and flowers & spires, yada yada yada" but how WEIRD and sacrilegious and creepy and unholy they are.

At 8, a child could make an informed decision! Based on TRUTH, not facades.

I would have started smoking at 8 years old if I knew it would have kept me away from church until I became a teenager and could rebel better and stronger.

LDS temple indoctrination starts in primary.

LIE to the young, and FOREVER.

The EMC (evil moron 'church').

TCOO - the 'church' of omission... on a mission to lie to the world, starting with its (families-individuals) CHILDREN-members.

Because then you would be able to exercise agency and choose whether to participate or not.
Remember agency is something that you talk about but NEVER allow!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2020 12:47PM by thedesertrat1.

As a primary kid, they gave us a "test" on temples.

There where stupid questions like what color will people be wearing? White

Why don't we talk about the temples?
It's sacred/ secret

Blah blah blah

I baptized dead people, FOR FREE, as a teenager. Then they expected me to grow up and take out my endownments. I thought that was something like fast food, dirty laundry, some chick, or the trash or something.

I'm glad I never grew up to be an adult Mormon. Only a child one. After decades of inactivity/ freedom/ happiness/ peace, I relocated to the family area where I grew up. Thought I'd check out the Mormons. See how it was doing. What it was all about, as an adult who was wide open as to my BS detector. OMG! Shit Show. Resignation. Happiness again, this time KNOWING the truth, not just feeling it.

A temple would have freaked me out (it sounds like). I might have run amok. Said what the fu*k? I'm out of luck (and I'm out of here)!

I knew, as a child, that mormonism was just there to use it's members. Boy was I right?