Mine was freakishly accurate in a lot of ways but what I didn’t tell them was I was discerning if I should return to the Catholic Church or not when I received mine. I prayed that no matter what the truth was and where I belonged the Holy Spirit would still speak through him. I can say pretty much everything came to pass except being sealed for time and eternity in the Temple but of course they will just argue I will receive a chance in the after life or perhaps they believe I will come back. Did anything in your blessing come true or was it a bunch of hogwash with things that never came to pass even a little bit? Some say they figure out things about you and just pull from it.

Not much of mine worked out. One of the more poignant phrases is: "use wisdom in the choices that you make"

Now what kind of advice is that? It's like saying be smart and you'll do well. Either your smart or your not, either you have wisdom or you don't. So what was I suppose to do? Wait around for wisdom to fall from heaven before doing anything? I've been waiting to hear what exactly is that wisdom I'm suppose to be following? This is why I listen to conservative talk radio. I think there might be some wisdom there, but at this point I'm grasping at straws, I'm not sure what's the most important things to do in life.

Much of the "counsel" is at the common sense level of advising someone to look both ways before crossing street.

And everything is contingent. "If you remain worthy, blah, blah..." "If you give heed to the counsel of the Lord's anointed, blah, blah, blah." Stuff like that. So if you don't marry the person of your dreams and live happily ever after, which is what you may have interpreted as being vaguely promised in the PB, it's probably because you screwed up somewhere along the way--even if you don't know exactly how you screwed up.

The Word of Wisdom makes some amazing promises. But even the most fanatical observers of the WOW, as written in the D&C, can't really say that the promises come true, unless they interpret them in a way that makes them seem much less impressive than what is implied. PBs contain the same kind of hyped-up flowery wording that rarely ever delivers as implied.

exactly, mine is filled with all the nice things I'm suppose to enjoy sometime in the future, but no real road map of how to get there. Since my life is full of questions and nothing like what the PB says, I guess I'm suppose to have been a big sinner or made all the wrong choices in the past.

I think I have more wisdom now approaching 40 years old, that I already made many of my life's choices but of course I can't go back in time and tell my naive self what that wisdom was that I was suppose to know. So I'm skrewed up!

PB didn't help me, much. Sorry folks :(

The problem is that it's best at teaching you what you needed to know just BEFORE you had the experience. It's not quite so good at teaching you what you need to know in unique future situations.

Mine said that I would “labor with those who hold high office in the church.” Even after decades of devout activity, that didn’t happen.

Mine was so generic it came true for everyone on the planet.

Done & Done Wrote:

> ... it came true for everyone on the planet.

Hahahahah!!!!!

Maybe soon, you will also meet a 'tall, dark, stranger' too!

I never got one and no one ever mentioned that I should get one.

Was this connected with the Temple Recommend? Because I never took those classes.

Most get their PB's as teens. It was very encouraged before going on the mission or to the temple for endowments.

I didn't want one before the mission. Looking back I was more suspicious than I gave myself credit for at the time I guess. I wanted whoever was going to tell my future (which is the way we looked at it) a blessing from God just for you, to be channeled through the holy ghost by a stranger and not some neighbor who knew me. Apparently I was doubting long before I realized it.

When I got to the LTM (language training center) in Provo to begin the mission, I decided to get the fabled PB and they arranged for a local patriarch to give me mine. I fasted and prayed and then went and he laid his hands on my head and bored me to death. I could have done a better job myself.

Tall dark handsome stranger, haha. I wished.

The only thing I really remember (cuz I tossed it year ago) is that it said when the time comes pick a partner of your own choosing. He probably had no idea that would turn out to be a guy--not tall and dark, but we have to make do with the hot blondes sometimes, don't we? :)

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He probably had no idea that would turn out to be a guy--not tall and dark, but we have to make do with the hot blondes
sometimes, don't we? :)

Hahah Done you are so funny!

I hope your blonde appreciates you!!!

Most are teens yes, but I was 25 and a new convert looking towards my endowment. They won’t give it to anyone “not spiritually ready” so usually you are reaching some type of milestone before they give it such as serving a mission or about to receive your endowments but not always.

mine hasn't worked out yet but i just need to keep waiting while i pay, pray and obey. they say pray, pay and obey but they mean for you to pay first.

YES!!!!

Mine said I have no fear of the truth.

Stinks for them !!!!

:D

They play the odds the same way that insurance companies do based on actuarial tables.

Occasionally, they'll fail spectacularly. But in most cases they won't because the generalities match up with statistically predictable outcomes.

And everything is always conditioned upon "obedience" and "faithfulness" so if something doesn't come true, you can always be blamed for doing something wrong.

Usually, the PBs are given to someone at a young age, so chances are that the person will have good health for many years to come. If the person is already in obviously bad health, the Patriarch will leave out the typical "sound body and mind" type blessing.

Being a "savior on Mt. Zion" is a typical thing in many PBs. It usually refers to dead people looking to you for their salvation and depends on you doing genealogical work and proxy work for them in the temple. (The doctrinal issues this raises are quite problematical.)

Finding a good mate is another typical thing. In the past, the odds were pretty good that a normal young person getting a PB would marry at a normal age and have a family, so no big risk of being wrong there. If someone with three eyes and a fetus foot growing out of their head were to go to the Patriarch, the Patriarch would probably dial back on the promises with regard to future marital bliss.

Cold reading and preparation. It's also important to realize that Patriarchs are essentially performing as fortune tellers, and can employ some rudimentary cold-reading techniques, as well as doing more preparatory research on the subject than the subject may be told, so that the subject get the impression that this Patriarch who is virtually a stranger seems to know a lot of details that must be coming from inspiration.

Two of my best friends went to the same Patriarch that I went to. A few years after we got our blessings we had an opportunity to compare and it turned out that our blessings were almost completely identical. I was not so impressed with my blessing after that.

Wally Prince Wrote:

>...we had an opportunity to compare and it turned out that our blessings were almost completely identical. I was not so impressed with my blessing after that.

This seems just like the people who 'guess your weight' at the fair! or going to a gypsy fortuneteller!

My horoscopes have been more accurate than my PB.

This might be too sardonic. Neither my PB nor my horoscopes (whatever they have been) have had any semblance to the outcome of my life beyond that common to all humans.

I almost had it memorized. I wanted to be married and it promised me that. It just didn't promise me what happened. Obviously I was not living worthy???

It promised me that if I lived worthy, I would be found in holy places serving the Lord and would not suffer unduly at any time. Whoops! Someone goofed. It wasn't me.

I threw it away and then decided to let my daughter have it. Her's is quite short compared to mine and the copy she got of my mother's, and I thought that it might give her something to THINK ABOUT.

In my PB it says that I will get married in the temple it came true.

In my PB is says that my father will join the lds church through my example. That never came true. 2013 I have resigned from the lds church and my father has never joined at all.

The only part of my PB that I really liked is where it said that I am "blessed with a brilliant mind". If only I had used that "brilliant mind" to reason my way out of TSCC sooner!

Mine said I would have sons and daughters. I imagine all females received the same "blessing" of reproductive suggestion. Two sons and this womb is closed for business lol!! They also said I would have a vocation that would serve many... But I thought I was supposed to be home doing what good Mormon girls do??

If you'd had a dozen kids, your maternal vocation would indeed have been to serve many.

See how well everything fits together? Your patriarch was a genius.

One of tscc’s mistakes is putting that nonsense in writing.

Joseph Smith's dad to make some money. They charged money for the blessings (the way a fortune teller charges money to read fortunes.)

Joe was always working the profit angles. He was working the gullibility mine for all it was worth.

It's funny that instead of having to cross the gypsy palm with silver, you pay tithing and the gypsy (or patriarch) gets nothing.

Were the church to put donation boxes for everything--each sunday school teacher, patriarch, ward vacuumer, church organist, babysitter of primary....there would actually be direct reward for doing this stupid stuff.

Instead, everyone works for free, even the fortuneteller.

Only the obvious stuff like getting married and working various jobs.


I waa supposed to also turn to the Lord's University, the temple, to increase my faith and spiritual knowledge.

I found that the Regal 20 Cineplex could do a much better job for less money too.

In an unexpected way, part of it DID come true.

When I got my PB, I was a convert, in my thirties. I was told, "You will marry a goodly man and raise children in the Gospel."

At the time, I was a cynical divorcee who had borne one child and then became surgically incapable of reproduction. So, I thought, "Yeah, right."

But I met and married a wonderful guy (that counts as "goodly," right?) and together, we raised our combined four kids. Three of the four ditched the LDS soul train fairly early in adulthood. The last one, an RM, finally bailed a few years after his mission.

Mine said that children would be sent to my home. I never had kids of my own but when I married a second time, 3 step children were sent to my home.

It also said to sift and sort that which corresponds to the truth and I certainly did that by sifting right out of the church!

None of mine came even close to predicting my future. Of course, I wasn't faithful to the end so all bets are off.

The really annoying thing was how the patriarch made subtle insults about my non-Mormon father in both my, and my mother's so called blessings.

Strip-mall "fortune tellers," using cold-reading techniques and generalizations, can be as accurate as PBs. Or more accurate.
It's not "holy spirit," it's generalizations and picking up clues from the person being PB'd/read.

The other thing about PBs is that the become "self-fulfilling" -- as some have mentioned, they followed the "instructions" in them, thinking they were inspired. They weren't. But doing so made some of the things they told you to do happen...not by magic or holy spirits, of course.

Mine said I'd see earthquakes, great fires, disease, famine and war.

That part came true.

Church leadership? Kind of, I was a branch president. For three weeks.

Still waiting to see Christ and be changed in a twinkling of the eye to never taste death.

My very dear friend's PB became a self-fulfilling prophesy. She was overweight, so the bigoted patriarch didn't mention any marriage or offspring. She took it literally and closed her heart. She is now a 70 year old virgin, still TBM.

I heard someone say that the church teaches if you’re sexually tempted by someone they aren’t the one HF has picked out for you so this couple who was engaged ended up doing some stuff the church wouldn’t approve of and they broke off the engagement. The guy never married after that.

Mine was so bland, non-specific and boring I never read it after the old bedshitter mumbled it to me almost 60 years ago...so no clue...but I doubt it because it probably said I had to be righteous. Fuck that.

Since it didn't predict anything there was nothing to come true.

I guess it depends how you look at it. First, I avoided getting my blessing until just before my mission. Looking back at it, I think I just couldn't take yet one more round of interviews.

It said I would go on a mission--duh...I already had my call in hand, and I did not heed the promptings of the spirit to tell my Stake President that I wasn't going to answer his nosy questions, or get on the UTA bus between the MTC and Provo Temple.

Some of the "blessings" did not materialize through my faithlessness no doubt. I did get married, but not in the temple. Oh well...that's just fine.

It did say I would be a leader in the church--I don't think my stint on the Vestry in the Episcopal Church is what the patriarch had in mind.

I can't remember anything else about it. I haven't looked at the thing in at least 15 years. I don't even know where it is.

Most cold readers/psychics don't know the person that walks in off the street, but Mormon psychics know a lot about the person getting a blessing. They know what you want to hear, what parents want to hear and what you expect. It's easy to give people a warm fuzzy when you already know what they want to hear. In the end it's all total BS.

They should give you what you want for 10% pf your pay for life.

I bless you you fill find success in some aspect of your life - 100% probability of happending.

I bless you to find a worthy partner. 100% chance of happending, expeically if you add in the after life.

I bless you that you have the power to discern evil. 100% chance

etc.........................

If they called me I'd up the game and give messages from dead people like cold readers.

Yes. I was raised on the morning of the first resurrection. Oh wait, I rose this morning with my first erection. Never mind.