Whose idea was it to have the opposing mirrors?

Yayoi Kusama is an artist who became known for her installations that were small, dark rooms with mirror walls, and filled with illuminated objects. If I understand correctly, she created these installations to convey what it was like to have schizophrenic thoughts - as a visual representation of a world of objects that spoke to her.

Any connection between schizophrenia among early Mormon leaders, and having infinite reflections in the temple?

I doubt it's anything that complicated. It's probably just a pioneer era "special effect" to convey the concept of eternity.

What I find astonishing are accounts I've heard here of TBMs seeing the same mirror effect in hotels or elevators and remarking that they only thought that it worked in the temple.

It was explained to us,when we were in a sealing room for the first time, that the mirrors are there to remind us that we are eternal and that we will be together through eternity.

The mirror practice has it's roots in most occultism, witchcraft, alchemical practices, etc.

Considering the roots of the church, this is a no brainer. The "Chamber of Reflection" is a common masonic rite among some orders.

g0rgone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The mirror practice has it's roots in most
> occultism, witchcraft, alchemical practices, etc.
>
> Considering the roots of the church, this is a no
> brainer. The "Chamber of Reflection" is a common
> masonic rite among some orders.


but............
sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

No, it doesn't.

There are zero witchcraft rituals or practices that use mirrors in this way, and none in any other pagan paths either. I don't know of ANY occult practices involving mirrors set up like they are in the temple.

Orson Wells used it briefly in "Citizen Kane," with excellent cinematography and camera position.

Interesting symbolism. I'm not inclined to think too much of it, psychologically or occultically.

The mirrors in my bathrooms always did this. I used to laugh at how mundane it was, and how the temple tried to make it all so spiritual and symbolic. I do my hair in eternity.

What was interesting to me was that due to some physics of light (someone can explain it) each reflection is darker and slightly distorted. Maybe that explain a lot f what happens to a temple marriage over the years! The Reflective Boner.

BYU Boner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What was interesting to me was that due to some
> physics of light (someone can explain it) each
> reflection is darker and slightly distorted. Maybe
> that explain a lot f what happens to a temple
> marriage over the years! The Reflective Boner

Glass is not perfectly transparent
in fact, it is pretty poor as far as transparency goes
if you used normal window glass (or mirror glass) in optical fibre, you wouldnt get a signal through more than one or two feet.

the mirrored surface also plays a part, but I know more about the glass than the mirror

My orthodontist had a bathroom with mirrors like that.

The temple experience was such a disappointment and the reflecting mirrors were an ending part of that disappointment. The mirrors to me represented the shallow trickery I had endured in this weird temple something-or-other. What in the hell was it?

The corny costumes, the getting up and down, the continual adjusting of the corny costumes, the juvenile roadshow of Adam, Eve, and then Big Bad Satan. I felt like I was being treated like a child of eight or nine throughout the whole silly thing except for the part where I was supposed to agree that it was all right to have by throat slit and my guts spilled all over the ground---all to prove how much I would stand behind the MormonCultCo.

Yeah, the mirrors were a cheap parlor trick, just like the entire temple ceremony.

I was more than relieved to get out of this voodoo event.

O ye of little faith.

You're supposed to see a different set of ancestors in each relection looking behind you and all your posterity looking ahead.

If all you saw was the same reflection you did not have enough faith.

Okay, I'm probably confused, more than normally, since I've lost my reading glasses. But wouldn't it be more likely to see your posterior in the mirrors behind you? And I am completely at sea about the whole thing where you're supposed to see anteaters. That just doesn't jibe with anything I've read about Mormonism. Wouldn't tapirs be more likely?

And, by the way, what's going on, here? We haven't had a good tapir thread in a long time....

Wow. I just read that as vitrinite reflectance. I'm such a geology nerd.

The only other place you get them are swimming pool changing rooms... (well at least in the public pools in my hometown)

I used to hate mirrors I guess I was meant to leave the cult naturally.

I now have this effect in my available in my bathroom--no 10% membership fee to LDS Inc. required.

I thought you were going to charge me to check it out.

It's all about appearances

The mirrors are merely another mind f**k.

Agreed good call on that

Nineteenth-century special effects.

When I was a kid, the barber shop I got my haircuts in had large mirrors on opposite walls. I used to have weird thoughts about the multiple "through-the-looking-glass" worlds with the many images of me and the barber.

So when I saw the sealing room setup, I immediately thought of getting clipped.

I think the mirrors do look cool. Though I think it's cooler when you have the three mirrors in the bathroom so it looks like a circle of mirrors.

It's a safety measure: they are two-way mirrors!