Amazing to think [the temple penalties were] abolished nearly thirty years ago. I'm a decent age myself, and I never saw all that [throat slitting & penalties] in the temple. Put it this way, I was around when the *1978* Declaration took place (although I was too young to notice - and my parents weren't exactly active in the LDS back then, which is yet another reason).
If you married in your twenties, back in 1989 and witnessed this, you would be in your fifties by now, and born around the time of the Moon landing or earlier. Yet you would be some of the last people to see all this.
Pretty much two generations have gone by - the ones who have been born since then, and the ones who were around but too young to take part. The first lot are hitting their thirties and the second lot are well into middle age.
With the 1978 declaration, the passage of time is even more apparent. If you were in your twenties then, you'd be in your sixties now.
As for the polygamy declaration, it's not a vast time ago, but long enough for no one to be alive. Several generations have rolled on since then. That legacy continues through embarrassing little sects.
But here's the strange thing. A lot of the GAs do remember 1990 & 1978 very well. Especially RMN, who if nothing else, seems to have taken age in his stride better than his predecessor.
for each generation to regard anything that happened before they were born as being distant, remote and difficult to relate to. Add to that an intentional campaign of manipulation, censorship and lying by omission and subsequent generations can be trained to have an entirely false perception of history.
When I went through the temple, the disembowelment and throat-slitting "penalties" were included in all their gory glory. I was shocked by them at the time and thought they constituted the most ridiculous thing that I had ever experienced as a Mormon. (I still generally think of them that way.) But at that time, I thought that I "knew" that they were a permanent part of the temple ordinance. I thought that they had been "revealed" by a "true Prophet"...yeah, even the Prophet Joseph Smith. So I figured that maybe there was something wrong with me. I had to figure out a way to reconcile my negative reaction with these "eternal truths" that everyone around me repeatedly confirmed were sacred blessings and gifts from God.
By the time they canceled and deleted the "bloody penalties" from the ritual in 1990, I had already figured out that Mormonism was fraudulent from its inception. So I wasn't surprised that the modern managers of the fraud had decided that the sacred penalties were causing more trouble than they were worth and flushed them down the toilet without any explanation being given to the sheep.
But I was subsequently quite amazed when I encountered younger Mormons who couldn't believe that anything so stupid, crude and idiotic as acting out your own execution by throat slitting or disembowelment had EVER been a part of the temple rituals. They were 100% certain that I was lying or badly misinformed when I mentioned it. It only takes one or two generations of indoctrinated people to lose connection to the past and all the lessons that it could have taught them if it had not been heavily censored and concealed from them
Yes, and there have been recent changes in the temple ceremony as well which moves it along further. I'm one of the oldies who will remember the pre-2019 ceremonies in thirty years time, if I'm still around.
I have to admit I have an issue with the way some people are talking about the pre-1990 stuff as if it was yesterday. It isn't. I never saw it, and like I've said elsewhere, I can't get away with calling myself "young" anymore.
"I have to admit I have an issue with the way some people are talking about the pre-1990 stuff as if it was yesterday. It isn't. I never saw it, and like I've said elsewhere, I can't get away with calling myself "young" anymore."
Just be glad that you never did it. That throat slashing cannot be removed from my memory. It is just as vivid as if it were yesterday.
Jordan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I have to admit I have an issue with the way some > people are talking about the pre-1990 stuff as if > it was yesterday. It isn't. I never saw it, and > like I've said elsewhere, I can't get away with > calling myself "young" anymore.
The perception of remoteness in time is relative. As you get older, you get to a point where things that happened 30 years ago don't really feel like that long ago.
I'm not ancient by any means, but I'm old enough to have gone through the temple about a decade before the 1990 changes occurred. TBH, the 90s in many ways still seem very recent and fresh in my mind.
I remember once when I was a kid talking with my great-grandfather a few years before he passed away. He was talking about how a whole group of about 7 or 8 deer had come into his backyard "a while back" and were "getting into mischief" in the garden and around the fruit trees. He was talking about it as though it had just happened recently. I was quite surprised because his house was in a very developed area and I had never seen deer or any kind of wildlife in that area.. So I asked him when that happened. His answer was: "Oh, I guess it was around 1919 or thereabouts."
At the time, I thought he was joking around. But now I realize that to him 1919 didn't seem very long ago. To me it was unimaginably far back in the past--just a time that you read about in old history books.
I saw the BoM Musical twice, both times well outside of Utah. There was loud laughter at the line "and in 1978 God changed his mind about black people". People remember. Brigham Young is still the most famous American polygamist ever. LDS and Mormon will be recognized terms a hundred tears from now.
Some memes do not fade.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2019 07:54AM by Brother Of Jerry.
Brother Of Jerry Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I saw the BoM Musical twice, both times well > outside of Utah. There was loud laughter at the > line "and in 1978 God changed his mind about black > people". People remember. Brigham Young is still > the most famous American polygamist ever. LDS and > Mormon will be recognized terms a hundred tears > from now. > > Some memes do not fade.
There is some truth in that, especially the Brigham Young comment.
I don't intend to see the BoM musical - I hate musicals to be honest, I think they're the poor man's opera. Its writers made their money off a crude animation - and when I say "crude", I mean it looks like something someone at elementary school put together. I can't take such people seriously.
However, the throat slitting? Do people remember? Most of my social circle know little or nothing about the LDS. They know about polygamy, the funny buildings they have etc... But very little beyond that. Many of them conflate Smith and Young (understandably). Many of them can barely distinguish between LDS and JWs, and don't intend to waste their time over the differences. We know them, because we were "in", but that's different.
I doubt most people are aware of much about the temples other them being "weird" and shut to the public. Some of the public wouldn't even know the difference between a chapel and a temple.
“I can't take such people seriously.” Really? You can’t take their work seriously because the animation is crude? Do you not take political cartoons seriously because they’re not fine art? Yes, South Park has crude animation and often offensive humor (that’s kind of the point), but they often explore controversial matters in a very thought provoking way. Sometimes they take a controversial subject (immigration, the economy, elections, end of life decisions, and many others) and ridicule some of the weakest arguments on both sides of the controversy. This is a clever way of nudging people toward a new perspective on their opinions.
I’m sure that more people have become aware of the most uncomfortable beliefs and history of mormonism and scientology from South Park than from all of the blog posts and podcasts combined. The 2006 South Park episode about Mormons was a huge factor in the LDS church having to come clean about the “rock in the hat” story.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with not liking musical theater (everybody has their own tastes and opinions) but your “poor man’s opera” comment seems really dismissive. It reminds me of people who say that hip hop isn’t “real” music. Well, many people said the same thing about rock and roll 50 years ago, and jazz at the turn of the 20th century. Just because a certain form of art and/or entertainment isn’t your cup of tea, doesn’t mean you can dismiss it or believe it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Jordan Wrote: -------------------------------------------------------
> > However, the throat slitting? Do people remember? > Most of my social circle know little or nothing > about the LDS. They know about polygamy, the funny > buildings they have etc... But very little beyond > that. Many of them conflate Smith and Young > (understandably). Many of them can barely > distinguish between LDS and JWs, and don't intend > to waste their time over the differences. We know > them, because we were "in", but that's different.
Welcome to the Mormon "Memory Hole".
The general ignorance about the throat-slitting and disembowelment gestures that were a prominent part of the central ritual (the "endowment") in the temple for nearly 150 years is the natural result of the leaders of the church constantly reinforcing the idea that members were not supposed to talk with anyone outside of the temple about the details of what happened inside the temple. It was "too sacred", they would say. (In reality, it was too embarrassing. That is 100% the reason for all of the secrecy.)
Mormon temple worship had it's own form of "fight club" rules. The first rule of Mormon temple worship is we don't talk about Mormon temple worship outside of the temple (except in very general terms).
People would sometimes question this and ask why all the secrecy was necessary. Leaders would often say something like: "It's not secret. It's sacred." (Really stupid. A difference without a distinction. But most members swallowed it and accepted it.)
So virtually nobody who went through the temple after 1990 would have grown up in a family or ward environment where anyone would have been talking to them in any detail about the gestures or demonstrating the gestures to show the kids what happens in the temple. It just wasn't done. If the bishop had ever seen an adult showing any kids any of the penalty gestures or handshakes, that adult probably would have been called into the Bishop's office promptly for a stern talking to (at least) and possibly some form of discipline.
I find it hilarious now that some of the GAs are trying to pretend that there was never a strict policy against talking about the details of the temple rituals outside of the temple.
The cult is Orwellian to its core...and the dishonesty of the leaders can be breathtaking to see.
I was born during the Kennedy years and I do solemnly bare my testimony that when I first went to the temple that I had to pantomime slitting my throat and disemboweling myself if I were to divulge the signs and tokens received in the temple.
It happened. It was real. It freaked the crap out of me. Watching my otherwise angelic mother doing that made me think of the scene from Beneath the Planet of the Apes where the mutant humans removed their faces to reveal their true selves.
I know that the church is trying to memory hole the penalties that used to take place during the endowment. Many members of the church - and some of them who participated in it - now deny that it ever happened.
I don't deny it happened, I'm just sometimes bemused how it is treated as the experience of contemporary Mormonism on here. You're actually one of the *younger* people to witness it.
Our first time going to the temple was in 1983. For 7 years, we pantomimed the penalties. After each penalty, you dropped your arms swiftly down your sides to mimic dying. My husband said he got so sick and tired of getting executed.
valkyriequeen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Our first time going to the temple was in 1983. > For 7 years, we pantomimed the penalties. After > each penalty, you dropped your arms swiftly down > your sides to mimic dying. My husband said he got > so sick and tired of getting executed.
How long was the endowment back then?
The duration seems to have varied. Early ones seem to have lasted five hours or so, then they got it to about an hour and twenty at one point, and two hours at another.
Gee, it's almost as though ChurchCo leaders DON'T CARE ABOUT THE MEMORIES / IMPRESSIONS THAT THEY LEFT WITH THE 'OLDERS'.
Yup, that's it: Send RMN & his posse all over the world with smiles, expensive clothing, First-Class travel & photo-ops, that's what the current people & their children will remember! (my daughter & grand-children are in one of those photo-ops with RMN!)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2019 01:55AM by GNPE.
I went to the temple nine years after the penalties were removed. But it was still disturbing to learn that my parents and grandparents had attended when those elements were in there and let us go to primary and sing: "I love to see the temple. I'm going there some day."
It was also disturbing that I could be pressured to going without knowing about all of this. It just felt like I didn't know what I was getting into. It was also a lie that the temple ceremony was something revealed from the beginning or at least since Christ's time and restored.
I agree with babyloncansuckit--these clothes would have made an excellent Halloween outfit! I never owned any, and threw out all my g's to the garbage.
The endowment sessions back in the day when we went were about 2 1/2 hours long if it was the movie and not the live sessions; those were 3 hours long partly because you moved from room to room. the last time we went (which was 8 or 9 years ago, it was shortened to 1 1/2 hours (the movie version).
My memory ain't that great these days but even after five decades every detail of my endowment in the SLC Temple --the Mother Ship---is crystal clear.
Because my father the bishop and the Man's Man in every sense was standing next to me in this silly garb, I didn't see it as silly. Because he was pantomiming, and playing dress-up, and pay-lay-ale-ing, I was busy trying to keep up and do the jig properly. Memorizing the handshakes and remembering to start the disembowelment of myself from the correct side. I wanted to be good, to please, too much to be horrified at the death threats.
As a young artist I loved the murals on the wall and noticed the surroundings more than most I dare say-seeing every brush stroke and tertiary tone. The upside down pentagrams were a shocker. My mother pulling her veil over her face bowing her head and saying yes was a shocker. My parents doing that prayer circle was a shocker. I loved knowing some of the Adamic language though, the pay lay ale.
The off-off-off Broadway play they put on was so "Dick and Jane". "See Spot chase the ball." "See Peter James and John go down." Even naive little me could not ignore that. I was a goody goody but still literate.
But, I was accepting because I figured any minute it would get real and be something special. Angels would descend from the crown molding.
The next room was like a sacrament meeting--lone and dreary. I appreciated the murals had a completely different tone to the Garden Room and focused on those. Somebody in a suit was saying something at the pulpit but that part is a blur.
Then the Celestial Room. The end. Nothing special happened. People in your face asking "Wasn't that amazing and wonderful?"
So now the young ones will never know that pleasure. What a shame. Everyone should be the deer in the headllights at least once.
It wasn't the penalties for me. It was the numbing let down of being the most mundane, stupid, nothing of an experience that left me thinking, 'WTF." What the Fudge!
And then off on the mission I went!
Bring Back the Penalties. Bring Back the Penalties. We need truth in packaging.
I went through the temple in Idaho Falls in 1961 prior to going on a mission. There were actors, no movie. The garment in the temple was one piece with string ties up the front. In washing and annointing we wore a "shield" which was open on both sides. The ceremony was long - about 4 hours I believe. We would move from room to room.
I was struck at the time with how different the ritual of the temple was from the regular church activities that had little ritual beyond the sacrament. I never believed that the penalties were an actual threat. I just thought it was a way to impress upon patrons the seriousness of the covenants.
In the 1970s my wife and I became temple workers in the Swiss Temple. We were living in Germany with the American Military and we needed our own English speaking workers. At that time they had the movie which was dubbed in various languages. By the time we returned to the States I had had enough and never went to the temple again.
I thought the Church might start to distance itself from all that ridiculous ritual, but it seems they are doubling down on the endowment, celestial marriage, etc. Look at all the new temples.