All i can say is that can not be real. Every adult around me growing up was participating in this weirdness. And they tried to make me the crazy one. Jesus christ i will never get over this probably. F#ckin hell i went through so much suppression over this secret nonsense. I feel like everytime i watch the endowment i am smarter than the last time and the cult factor is way more obvious than the last time. I am glad i can atleast laugh at it now. It is more obvious to my mind that it is made up and it is a fraud and does not reflect christianity at all. I really dodged a bullet by not doing it and getting even more locked in. Thank you newnamenoah you are a hero.

Yes, I remember what all the endowed people in my stake told me about the endowment, how a precious blessing it was and how they could learn a lot of the precious parts of the gospel going to the temple. They made me think that it was like classes where you learn through the use of symbols (those classes changed each session/day), but when I read about it for the first time it dissapointed me and shocked me because it was all stupid handshakes and promises about giving your life to the church (which is a creepy cultish thing). But I think that seeing it was worse, it's like everything in the video is shouting "it's a cult".
I think the only positive teaching of the endowment is that TSCC is a cult and being out of it and being free are the real blessings.
And yes, New name noah is a hero for making this creepy things available to the world.

Its like something a five year old would make up. Treating all the adults like idiots and children throughout the whole thing. It is sickening. All i can say while watching is this CAN NOT be real. No wonder everyone acted so weird around me, i was around cult members the whole f#cking time.

If I would have had any tiny inkling of what went on in the temple before I went through in 1970 I'd have never gone through with it.

Same here,in 1964!!

1969 on my wedding day. No family with me and an utter sense of absolute betrayal. This was nothing I signed on for and I wanted to leave but knew I would have nothing but grief from parents who had never gone to the temple but pushed me to go. The only words I could use liberally that day were panic, despair, shock, numbness, anger, bewilderment,

Mormons always make a big deal in a very self righteous declaration about never going to R rated movies but what went on that day was not only R rated it was abusive and disgraceful.

What happened to "sacred" when I felt like I was dancing with the devil himself

I think that is part of the mindf#ck, is that it is not sacred at all.

Try being the one actually going through that. I wanted so badly to bolt for the door, but I looked to the back of the room and there were people standing in front of the doors, blocking my exit.

I wish I had followed my instinct and just boldly said, "Let me out NOW." But I was a good little girl and sat on my hands to keep myself in my seat.

Everyone said I glowed afterwards. Yeah, that's because I was so happy to be out of there.

That would be creepy to want to leave then realize the doors were blocked by men and women in white, rather than black.

Evil cult.

I actually expected the temple to be like that, once you are in there is no coming out. Which is horrible for someone like me.

Right when they said if anybody wants to leave raise your hand. I raised my hand literally and i am just watching the god damn video i wasn't even trapped there. Get me the f#ck out even though i am not even f#cking there is all my mind said.

while I have not been through an endowment session other than being sealed to my family as a young child, the bit of video recording I've seen online has been sufficient to assure me of its falsehood.

Last winter I went inside a temple to the waiting area while someone checked on something for me to do with some family history. People were swarming around in their white clothes and whispering to each other. Other people were coming in off the street through revolving doors (several of them,) with suitcases. While others were leaving intermittently through the same set of revolving doors w/suitcases having finished their endowments for another day.

It seemed like a big social whirl to me more than anything.

It also made me feel very uncomfortable sitting there in the mostly outdated furnishings (yes that is very possible,) in the waiting area, because I didn't have the credentials ie, temple recommend to go in further - nor would I have wanted to.

The temple president came out eventually, after a long wait, to tell me the documents were not found. He looked at me suspiciously, as if I were there not as a friend but a foe (even though I was simply doing family history research, and had been referred there by a genealogist from Salt Lake.)

He didn't trust my motives for being there - as if family history weren't enough of one for its own sake.

That also made me feel very uncomfortable, like I was sitting inside some insidious temple cult - the only one not dressed in white or whispering. And did not arrive with a suitcase for an endowment session. The air felt suffocating in there. There was no "light" or "inspiration" flowing through there - just stupidity.

When I left there that day it did feel lighter than air to be on the outside rather than the inside of that hidious place.

A video I later watched online showed an endowment session of an entire room full of women sitting in rows and rows of chairs, listening and watching a video tape. I was incredulous!

That's what they do for temple sessions besides the vows they take out for dead people?

It was mind boggling, to say the least.

It's no wonder my parents struggled with their faith and their marriage for all those years they spent living that lie.

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A video I later watched online showed an endowment
> session of an entire room full of women sitting in
> rows and rows of chairs, listening and watching a
> video tape. I was incredulous!

They might have only been showing one side of the room. The women sit on one side of the room, while the men sit on the other side.

Although I guess it could have been a group of Relief Society sisters all deciding to go to the temple that day.

It may have been the angle from which the person recording the session was able to film the footage. If I recall correctly, it was an apostate male who faked his way back using someone else's ID to get a temple recommend who was making the recording. Therefore, there would've had to have been some men there that day. His recording showed only the women.

Of course he wouldn't have been able to maneuver his camera inside that room for fear of being caught red handed. He's made a series of YouTube videos of temple trips using a forged identity.

I thought that was pretty crazy in itself to even want to attempt that. The person's ID he used gave his consent however, according to the film maker.

To each their own I suppose.

It is definitely a very creepy social gathering place that is for sure.

A while ago, I saw a video by New Name Noah, that showed the pre-1990 endowment ceremony, including the 'panalties,. It's the only temple ceremony video I've seen with the penalties. But I couldn't find it now. It would be nice if someone could find and post that link here.

I would like to see that as well. All i have seen is reanactments.

There's only audio from the pre-1990 versions (back then, video cameras small enough to smuggle in essentially didn't exist).

Here's one with pre-1990's audio laid on top of 2012 video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEKGPqu92EI

I went through the first time in 1978. The penalties were real. I did 'em.

Hoooly f#ck hie.

So, there I was, 1971, just before my mission, getting my endowment in the Salt Lake temple, complete with live "actors" and the murals I'd seen in church publications, in a roomful of people — including my parents — dressed in those costumes, thinking, "Ah, so THIS is the REAL church I've been raised in." If everything hadn't been so solemn and serious, and if I hadn't wanted so much to please my parents, I might have laughed and walked out.

It is so crazy that grown adults take that seriously. I am so ashamed of my parents that words don't even describe it. It is good to hear from someone that has actually done the live version in person. Did they really make you reanact your death by slitting your own throat? My dad denied doing this when i confronted him, what a liar. God d@mn can't any mormon be honest?

Badassadam1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did they really make you
> reanact your death by slitting your own throat?
> My dad denied doing this when i confronted him,
> what a liar. God d@mn can't any mormon be honest?


Yes! That's what scared the living crap out of me and made me want to bolt for the door. I wish I'd had the guts to simply say, "I'm not doing this!" That's certainly what I was thinking to myself, as I went through the motions like a robot.

I just got through it and felt really happy to escape at the end of it all.

Hooooooly sh#t i would probably never be the same if i did death oaths in a "holy" building. But it definitely explains the strangeness of the people around me growing up. I was like a normal kid that did not realize he was in a cult and was surrounded entirely by cult members. And that normal kid eventually did not know what to do or to turn to for help. I still feel like a man that escaped a cult compound and is still adjusting to the real world. Will i ever become an authentic person and normal? Who the hell knows? But i feel i have been trying against the brainwashing and programming of my youth.

Indicating that you would allow members of your church to kill you by slitting your throat, disemboweling you, and mutilating your body rather than allow you to spread eternal truths of the the gospel of Jesus Christ.


When put that way, does it sound very Christian?

Not christian at all it is horrifying to say the least. My mind still can't handle it all. The facade it portrayed growing up but behind closed doors it was a cult doing death oaths.

Howdy Badass, yours truly did the Endowment complete with the death penalties. Here’s the endroctinatiom: 1. Build a culture of specialness around it—only the worthy best get to do it, 2. Keep it secret, 3. Tell folks they will learn something new each time they go to the temple, 4. Scare the shit out of participants, and 5. Blame any concerns or uneasiness on the person as not being faithful or worthy. That last one is the kicker because Mormonism is built on guilt and shame. If folks felt truly worthy, they’d question and realize it’s a sham.

I was kept from going to the temple because I was a single male who didn’t go on a mission. The temple was closed off to me. It was special, I was a wanker. All my friends had gone, they were special, I remained a wanker. All my friends wore garments, I had my tighty-whities. I was a wanker. Do you see the pattern?

Now, my concern is not for the temple, but for you. Are you torturing yourself by going into the temple mindfuck when you know it’s going to be upsetting to you? Yeah, a lot of people you know have done the temple, including your family members. They were PROGRAMMED to do so by a cult.

Now, because the Badass and The Boner are “truly special” we’re going to do our version of the Endowment. We’re going to “gift” ourselves with the following: 1. Letting go of all shame and guilt, 2. Enjoying being our wonderful earthy selves, 3. Engage in loud laughter, 4. Being friendly to people who we’d normally never give a shit about, 5. Engage in frequent self-pleasuring because it feels good and we have nothing to be ashamed about anymore, and 6. Refuse to give the fuckin’ cult any more of our time and energy (this includes watching re-runs of the Adam, Eve and Stan show.)

And for the record Badass, you’re still fuckin’awesome!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2017 12:14PM by BYU Boner.

Yes boner i am still torturing myself with this mindf#ck. I think you have an idea of how this temple was used against me my entire life. I was the excluded one, therefore i was automatically the bad guy and god's enemy by default. And i lived accordingly for a long time thinking i was just going to die and go to hell. But i have seen how the cult operates a little better now that i am a little further away. You are spot on with those steps. My mind still can't quite grasp that it was a cult the entire f#cking time, my mind is in denial about my entire life. Everything that was brainwashed in me was a lie, everyone around me was a f#cking fraud, i knew deep down that something was wrong but i just could not put my finger on it for the life of me. It is hard as f#ck to put it all behind me and try to live a normal life. I never lived a normal life, i never was aloud to or even be myself. I am like a bird that has forgotten to fly or is too afraid to fly because it has been caged for so d@mn long. My family will stay in the cult till death thinking they are right and that bothers me. I want vengeance boner i can't f#cking help it, straight up vengeance. And i know i am probably wrong for that but it is how i feel. I am shopping for supplements right now and i am looking for calcium for bone health haha. Now that's pretty funny.

Badassadam1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes boner i am still torturing myself with this
> mindf#ck.

And because you’re in the mindfuck you’re in hell—

> And i lived accordingly for a long time thinking i was
> just going to die and go to hell.

I don’t think, Badass, you really want to be in hell, yet—

> I want vengeance boner i can't f#cking help it, straight
> up vengeance. And i know i am probably wrong for
> that but it is how i feel.

Feelings are just felling, Adam. It’s okay to have feelings, but remember Badass, feelings can be part of the mindfuck, too.

I think it’s time to re-brand your self-image, Bro. You’re Badass Adam, a man of quality, a compassionate man who has a lot to offer. Badass is funny, warm to his friends, smart, and a survivor. Badass ain’t no whimp, the Badass takes shit from no one, but the Badass isn’t living in the mindfuck anymore.

Adam, I love you. I see my younger self in you. You can and will heal if you make it a priority. Begin by seeing your own wonderfulness and your own uniqueness, let go of the vengeance, Badass, it’s part of the mindfuck that’s hurting you. Get out from the pain, Bro, by let it go....

I was 30 when I took out my Endowments, because before that time, unmarried women didn't go through for their Endowments unless they were going on a mission.

I can only imagine the horror my very prim and proper Presbyterian raised mom felt after joining the cult and then attending the temple with dad. They never discussed what went on there with my brother and I of course and neither he or I have ever held a recommend...or wanted to so it's all just pure fucking weirdness to us.

I actually tried telling my friend how they used to do these death penalties in the temple and she treated me like I was just a gullible child. Her exact words to me were "I'm sure they never did that! that is something you would do in a cult!" Mmmmmhhhhhmmmm it IS now isn't it? LOL azsteve I should really try showing her that video shed be in for quite the shock to say the least!

And its crazy how members who actually DID the death oaths deny doing them! What does that say about the whole thing? That maybe just maybe it was just a little bit....odd?

I've posted this before, it bears repeating...

When I first went through (LA Temple, 1978) I was accompanied by my TBM mom and step-dad. We did all the "death gestures." Every single one of them. I went through various other temples (Provo while at the MTC, SLC for brother's wedding in 1981, a few more), doing the "death gestures" the whole time.

A few years ago, after the removal of them, TBM mom was visiting. While we had a few "alone" moments, I asked her how she felt about them changing the temple ritual to remove the "death gestures."

"Oh, you must be remembering things wrongly, we never did any such thing."

Um...what?

"Mom, you were there with me. You know very well we did them."

"No, you must be remembering things wrongly," she kept repeating.

Argh.

Hooooooooooly f#ck, you kept doing more death oaths at different locations? And different events? And your mom denied doing death oaths like my father did when i asked him and he looked at me like a crazy person. Jesus christ this is all worse then i could ever have imagined.

I tell people who don't believe me to ask their Mormon parents or grandparents, who went thru before the changes, if it's true that you had to promise to slit your throat and disembowel yourself. I say "They probably won't tell you the truth but the momentary pause, the shocked, guilty look that they give you - that will be what is telling. You will know the truth in that silent moment of pause where they look busted, before they become outraged you spoke of these things outside the temple - that will tell you the truth." Because I have gotten that momentary pause from my Mormons, that guilty look, and I know my suspicions are confirmed.

I went thru a month after the changes. If only I'd gone on my mission a few weeks earlier, I would have saved myself enormous grief because I would have seen the big, red flag for what it was. Or so I like to think ...

It's really scary to me that it is now being denied, like it never happened. That's pretty cult-like in itself.

Creepy!

I thought the dead dunkings were crazy enough. I don't think I could have suffered the endowment nonsense.

It's an odd thing when you can't explain to a member that, if there were a Mormon Christian version of heaven (there's not),one wouldn't need Masonic emblems to enter it. It's well established that the signs and emblems in Freemasonry actually do come from European stonemasons' guilds of the Middle Ages. Duh. Since that information is so easily resolved, I wonder why there are any Mormons even left.

My husband and I went through the first time in 1983. All the way to 1990, we did the death penalty/oath thing in the endowment sessions. A couple of our daughters and me were discussing this subject this past weekend. One of them asked, so who was supposed to do the killing? I told them that it says : " I would allow my life to be taken"; which is either allowing someone to murder you or possibly, suicide. I told them that those are the same oaths the murders in the MMM made with each other.

"I'm your Huckleberry!" - Orrin Porter Rockwell

I was scared shitless as it was as I was "alone." My ex's friend was being sealed to her husband and we were invited. I sat with people I barely knew and I was in a live session and had never done one. The old people kept forgetting their lines and they talked in monotone voices. I was so stressed that by the time I got to the veil, I just told the lady that she'd have to help me all the way through. It was a very to me traumatic event. Every time I went to the temple was a traumatic event.

And, yes, every damn time I went to the temple, we did the death oaths. I've said before I "tried" to go to the temple after they changed things in 1990 and I was pulled aside to do sealings, so I never did a session without the death oaths.

It is juvenile. It is an insult to our intelligence and I don't believe for one minute that there are A LOT of mormons who don't think the same thing. My mother was uncomfortable with the temple. She asked me to take someone else with me, although she would go, because she was so nervous, and yet she had been quite a few times. My dad, when he realized I was never going back, told me that the temple was bizarre. He didn't go back until my sister got married 25 years after he went through.

Oh, and if you read Richard Packhams's description of when he went through and what the washing and anointing was like, I'm certainly shocked my mother EVER WENT BACK to the temple. My mother was very prim and proper.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2017 02:51PM by cl2.

It is an insult to our intelligence i was thinking the same thing while watching. They try to treat everyone like dumbed down children or something.

there must be something wrong with you.

the one thing I remember vividly is that they FIXATE on first-timers, and are all over them if they do the slightest thing WRONG. You are repeating a lot of mumbo-jumbo, getting up and down, doing stuff with your hands - I don't remember all of it, by a long shot - but I do remember temple workers hustling over to me and fussing if I had transferred something from one shoulder to the other or something and - ghawd forbid - gotten a wrinkle in it or got it at a not-quite-kosher angle.

It made me so terrified of making yet ANOTHER mistake that my stomach was in knots and I had trouble following whatever "larger" meaning there might have been.

But that's what it's about, isn't it? Form over substance.

if the church added the death oaths to the great big list of "essays"??

Yeah they'll never do that. I would be curious about what they could possibly say to try to apologize for that one though.

Yes, the death oaths were real. I hate it when Mormons deny these ever took place. It's as if they are calling us liars! Why would we make that up, or "remember differently"?

I went back to the temple with my temple ex-husband, because he would have beat me, if I had refused anything he told me to do. I slit my throat, chest, and bowels with my thumb in the Los Angeles Temple, Oakland, Salt Lake, Provo, St. George, Hawaii, Logan temples, and it was the same in all of them.

The first time, I actually crossed my fingers, with my hand hidden under the robes, and cried silently in my mind to God: "God! I don't mean this! I don't mean this!" The Mormons got their way--I never told a soul about the temple secrets, nor did I ever discuss them with anyone, until one freeing day on RFM, 30 years later.

Do you know that they don't allow someone to go through the temple for the first time--without two "companions" assigned to sit on either side of them? I've seen that happen. I think I would have run out of there the first time, if my mother had not been sitting on one side of me, and my Sister-in-law on the other side.

I tried to locate my father on the other side of the room, but all the baker's hats looked alike. No wonder he and my mother never went to the temple! How could my father believe this junk--he's a doctor! He's intelligent! Dressed in a silly KKK costume!

BYW, you can go through the temple, without getting naked and anointed, and all that. Just go through "endowment sessions", and skip the other--what is it called? Not "the anointings", but something else. It's all gibberish, anyway.

As far as learning anything new goes--that's a hoax. I expected to gain new knowledge of God and Christ. Instead, it was just the same old Bible verses from Genesis, which I had read so often, that I had practically memorized all of it.

It is a "trauma"! Every time, I would get nauseated, and would have attacks of diarrhea, and have to leave the session a few times. The matrons were really mean, about my having to leave. They wouldn't let me sit on the aisle, or in the back, so I had to repeatedly crawl over women's knees, to get out. The stale air, the stink of old perfume and B.O., and the suffocating veil over my face, made me almost faint. A very unpleasant, creepy experience, that I regret was ever part of my life.

I thought I was over the nightmare stuff but I guess not. Since watching Noah's video, the night terrors are back. Last nights was about me sneaking into temple. I was naked because I refused to wear the G's or the garb. Seriously delusional, horrifying. I woke up with my heart beating at a ferocious pace. Glad to be awake and laugh it off.

My parents were harassing me over the length of my hair at the same time they were monthly flapping their arms and chanting, "Pay Lay Ale!"

That just turns my brain inside out.

Jesus i gotta quit bringing up the temple it is all bad news. It is time i try to put it behind me and move on to better things.

I'm just that way. I would have tortured myself and been mormon forever thinking I had missed out on something really special. My daughter will post pictures of the temples on fb and my little sister will like them, yet my sister has been out since she was 17 and she's in her 50s.

The truth is, badass, there is so much life ahead of you. You are so young. I know at 30 something, you tend to think you've wasted your life, but you haven't!!! Start thinking in terms of being grateful you found out before you were 40, 50, 60. You have SO MUCH TIME to make a new life. I have. Sure, it isn't perfect, but it has had some amazing surprises. The best being my twins, dogs, and my boyfriend. There are still so many dreams left for you that will come true. The lds church CANNOT steal them from you no matter what.

I believe that people like your parents deny the death penalties mostly out of embarrassment that they ever did something so --what's a good word??? Look at it that way, they are embarrassed about what they are doing and have done. They raised us all telling us not to do things like drugs and that your friends will tempt you to participate, and yet they try to do the same thing to us--group think. See, you'll be happier if you do this, your life will be better if you do this. Mine never was.

It was always the church is the better life constantly rammed down my throat. And i thought it was pure evil from the beginning so that REALLY f#cked with me. I always loved the athiests, they were the best friends i ever had and i envied that they did not grow up with religion rammed down their throat. I was so jealous that they were not forced to do things and were able to develop normally. They were the good people to me so it was always backwards from the cult teachings. God d@mn i got to head to counseling now, the neverending thing for the badass. The real dirt of my past will come out of me eventually.

In 1986 I had to wait outside the temple while my sister got married. I felt bad, unworthy and alone. Then some many years later (2011) primarily due to my sister talking up the church so much I became active again and went through the temple. I knew right away it was not of god, my mind just told me no this can't be right. So I started to question my sister and my bishop. I got cold shoulders and the typical response was "you have to keep going to learn". Well, I learned alright, from Google and this site and resigned from TSCC. I can't forgive my sister for being so G.D. stupid and always making herself appear so high and mighty to the rest of the family for so many years. I loath my sister for being a lying pawn for the church.

I hate how TSCC takes otherwise good people and turns them into racist, intolerant, homophobic, egotistical, lying, selfish,con-artist, evil, hateful people.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2017 01:50PM by 64monkey.

through the temple and see what it really is and then leave. I have a lot of cousins who were wild and crazy and now are extreme TBMs. One of them attends the temple ALL THE TIME and spends very little time with her elderly mother. She is my dad's last sibling alive. When I went to the estate sale when they sold her house, this daughter told me that it was time for her mother to move on, to die, that she had nothing left to contribute in this life. I was appalled.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2017 01:56PM by cl2.

That happened to me as well i stood outside of so many temple weddings it was ridiculous. I still haven't recovered from all of them making me feel dejected and made me hate myself. There is no forgiveness for what the family did to me in my opinion. I have gone through A LOT because of them and it still isn't over. This is far from over.

Most of my nightmares that involve the church have something to do with the temple. The other ones involve being called again to peddle the BoM.

I shall ever after think of Mormon missionaries as "BOM peddlers".

I guess I might have been naive or stupid at the time because although I did that endowment thing many times I really never took it that serious including the throat slitting and disembowlment acts. Today, I think that they call that "compartmentalization". So I just compartmentilized it thinking this is what you do when you go to the temple.

My wife and I were excommunicated almost 40 years ago and when people ask us why we left we simply say "we figured it out". And yes we did figure it out long before the internet and long before all of the factual information that we have today became so easily available.

That's pretty good, "oh we figured it out". I might say that.

I also think "oh, we figured it out" is a GREAT reply!!!

:D