Apparently it’s only movies, and please make sure that you bring a lock and key to the House of the Lord

?

Live throat-slashing gestures (from the heart!) did occur!

I remember it like it was 56 years ago!!


Bad Guy, motivated by devilish impetus: Tell me what happens in the temple!

Me: No, no! I can't!

BG: Tell me or I'll kill you!

Me: No, I won't! Go ahead and kill me! I won't break my vows!

BG: Tough guy, huh? Okay, then how about I cut off yer dick!

Me: ... ... So where do you want me to start?

Yep,this was the routine in my temple experiences, which ended abruptly when I realized we were just a bunch of sheep going through the motions. I managed to get through at least 12 years of being active without attending before I left for good. Nevertheless, I got a polite phone call every month asking about my temple attendance.

Helped that there weren't nearly so many temples around in those days.

It most certainly did happen.

And disemboweling gestures too.

I was party to both in the late 1950's in the Mesa Temple
and I so testify!!!!

My question was: is this limited to ourselves or are we being trained to do this to others ? We’re we Danites in training ?

Where did they get this crazy crap ?

Masonic temples.

kathleen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Where did they get this crazy crap?


Kath, the crazy pre-90's crap was lifted almost verbatim from Freemasonic lodge rituals cherished by Joe Jr. and most of the original apostles.

All grifters and swindlers know the secret.

Bind the befuddled with such oaths for oafs and you got 'em.

Brigham and his buddies on the square applied the tactic for decades.

It became too transparently Mason-cultish to continue past the 90's.

But still, they rope them in with silly robes and videos.

Certainly not from the Jewish temple.

They didn't pantomime their death rituals.

Joe and Brig probably got them a revelation but they couldn't tell everyone...

Now all the temple secrets, including handshakes and passwords, can be found on the internet. The cat is out of the bag. No need for throat slashing.

I never understood the whole throat slashing thing. Was I supposed to cary a knife with me at all times just incase someone asked me for the temple secrets? Wouldn't it be better to learn self defense instead?

What would the bad guys do with the secrets if they had them? Could they fake their way into the celestial kingdom?

The throat slashing simply meant you'd suffer your life to be taken before you'd reveal the signs and tokens.

In older temple ceremonies they went into detail as to what you'd be willing to suffer.

Imagine if you swore you'd rather have your belly ripped asunder and your entrails strewn on the ground before ravenous dogs than reveal the secrets of god.

Most of simply swore we'd rather die.

Brave, brave Sir Robin.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2021 01:42AM by babyloncansuckit.

Ha ha ha!

I promise to never reveal the first token of the Aaronic priesthood along with its sign, name and penalty. Rather than do so I would suffer my life to be taken.

And so forth for the other tokens.

In addition Adam when questioning Peter to see if he was a true messenger from Father.

Adam "What is this?"
Peter "it is the first token of the Aaronic priesthood.
Adam. "Has it a name?"
Peter "It has"
Adam "will you give it to me?"
Peter "I cannot for it is the new name. But this is its sign and this is its penalty"
Adam "now I know you are true messengers from Father"

Of course god changed his mind. Does that make my promises and covenants null and void too?

It was only done away with in 1990. I got my own "endowment" in 1968 in a "live action" session in the SLC temple. Trying to be all spiritual and shit, I lit out to go to the temple as many times as time would permit, all of them but one a live endowment, so I really picked up all the lingo and could recite it like the play actors. I eventually learned most all the endowment in me head. I thought I was pretty big stuff when I went on my mission. I can promise you that they did the penalties at the front of the endowment room. The only negative thing that would often happen was the person playing one of the roles, would suddenly forget his line. Most of these people had been retired for years. It's so very odd to see some major character like Peter have to rely on a walker or walk with a stick.

Do you have any Geritol?

Sufficient for our needs.

Mock these things if you will, but my cat knows if he meows three times I will ask "What is wanted?"

I think the church wanted to make these ceremonies be as threatening as they could possibly be and still be legal for them to administer to their members.

I think that the real harm isn't in that you're afraid that you might have your throat slit open if you reveal anything, although that fear lingers. But the most significant thing is that somehow the church owns you after you took those oaths. These oaths must be the biggest secret ever to be successfully held by a very large group of people (the largest group ever), from the rest of the world. To this day, most people who know about the Mormons would never believe that these kinds of oaths existed in the church up until 1990. In most people's minds, it would simply too big of a secret to keep hidden with so many people being co-conspirators and no one leaking the truth. And yet to this day, they still succeed on some level to hide that these terrible oaths ever existed. Even with the internet, it can be difficult to prove. Before the internet, it was virtually un-provable. And yet of all of the television documentaries on mormonism that I have ever seen on TV, this secret always stays in-tact as a secret, even now in 2021.

It's not only the penalties that cause trepidation in the person who took these vows. The church keeps you locked-in by the fact that the combination of abuse/secret exists at all. It's like being molested by a trusted relative who you really thought was a good person, but that convinces you immediately after abusing you that they will kill you if you ever tell anyone that they molested you. So in a very real sence, you are owned. The secret separates you from others who do not know about the terrible secret. Only you and others who have been similarly threatened, ever know just how bad the threats against you are and just how terrible the abuser (the church in this case), really is. This form of abuse is one of the worst of all because you are deceived as a means to put you in to that position, and the abuser isn't who they convinced you they were before they abused you. After this point, the secret itself keeps you connected to the abuser who continues to harm you in secret.

I doubt that anyone here or anywhere else has ever seen these penalties ever acted out publicly such as on TV or in front of any audience. It simply doesn't happen, even thirty years after the abusive ceremonies have stopped. The secret is so terrible and so contrary to who the abuser has everyone else convinced that they are, that people are always too afraid to reveal this terrible thing. No one else ever talks about it and no one wants to risk having their throat sliced open. After all, you have already given your permission or preferences on that issue, you would rather have your throat sliced open 8lif you can't keep the secret.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2021 03:43AM by azsteve.

> I think the church wanted to make
> these ceremonies be as threatening
> as they could possibly be and still
> be legal for them to administer to
> their members.


The first part of your musing is probably spot on.

But the second part, about the church wanting to "still be legal" is probably not at all correct.

The terms, "still be legal" and "what can we get away with" are not harmonious in their intent. I like to imagine that "What can we get away with?" has always been the church's mode of operation.

"Still be legal" smacks of earthly governments and laws and we all know that JoJu was not much of a law abider.

Yes it happened in the temples. All the transcripts for this can be found in early mormon research books.

Like with the Mason ceremonies the penalties are nearly identical with the similar verbiage. Gee, where do you think Joseph lifted the idea from?

Quite the con job to make up the whole temple ritual just to bank a few more married ladies. What a scumbag Joseph was.

When I went through in the mid 80's for the first time, it was for getting sealed. I was a bad boy and boinked, so didn't get married there, just sealed later.

So aunts and uncles, parents, older siblings are there. And we get to the throat slashing part. I gasped and thought, holy shit! All these people are going to kill themselves if in a situation where they are asked to tell what goes on here?

You only have a second to think, and I wanted to leave right then. I'm a very honest person, and I didn't want to lie. I knew that I wasn't going to slash my throat if push came to shove and I was forced to tell.

But the pressure of only having a second to think about it, and having to walk out on people who came from out of state to be there was too much. I lied and said I'd do it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2021 10:39PM by DNA.

My endowment was about 80, DC Temple. It was a movie but the "guy" temple patron, I guess, demonstrated the gastly moves. I wanted to RUN OUT! What is this? I've joined satan's church??? The road to eternal life is in the Word of God (thankful for my real Christian upbringing)... and this [#*%^<*] is NOT in His Holy Word!!! God is not going to "hide" how to get to heaven for the few. Smh. Sooo glad I'm out!!!

The church was pissed!

They went to the trouble to read a letter from the pulpit that a horrible Anti-Mormon propaganda film was going to be aired over a PBS station.

The Area Presidency had encouraged members of my ward to write intense letters to the PBS station and plead with them to not air "this filth". Furthermore, members were told that they should refrain from monetarily supporting this PBS station from this point forward (more on that later). They read the times of the airdate and advised members to tell their friends (and potential converts) not to watch the program.

And I did the unthinkable. I happened to stumble upon the program (I think it was @ 11 pm on Saturday). My family lived out in the boonies and wouldn't pay for cable so our tree antennae received 3 clear channels depending on the weather.

So there I watched (with the sound turned down) part of the program with the pantomimes of the penalties. It all freaked me out as a teenager. And before the program finished, my Mom came out to check what I was doing. I don't think I had ever jumped off the couch so fast to turn off the TV--sorry no remote!

I felt guilty and wondered if I would later be punished for disobeying a church order not to watch.

Prior to the PBS station airing the Decker? program, the "in-thing" for primary teachers in my ward was to carry their primary props and lesson manuals in a giant tote bag; mostly the free ones offered for being a PBS supporter.

So here comes my Mom a few weeks later with her PBS tote bag. Not one, not two, but three sisters descended upon her to tell her not to bring that tote bag to church. She gave in to peer pressure and bought a different tote bag, but never threw it away. I came across the evil bag when I was cleaning out the garage 5 years ago.

Scary stuff.

In the Mid-80s my tbm friend read The God Makers on her mission and lost her testimony.

I didn't watch The God Makers but saw a documentary on PBS about The Peoples Temple and the mass suicide of its members in Guyana. The similarities between The Peoples Temple and the Mormon church scared the crap out of me.

I wonder if the blood oaths in the Mormon temple were to prepare members for eventual mass suicide?

We did the throat and gut slashing gestures from 1983-1990.

I threatened myself to kill myself at least 84 times.

Wow. That's a lot of temple attendance.

My condolences!

Thank you, Lot’s Wife :D

She was interviewed in the PBS presentation, "The Mormons".
She wrote two Mormon themed books, "Red Water", a novel about John D. Lee; and "The Latter Days", a memoir.

She married in the temple at a very young age, 18 I think. In an interview written up in the LA Times, she told how for years, she suffered with mysterious stomach pains. When she learned that the disemboweling bit was eliminated from the temple vows, her pains suddenly went away.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jan-22-lv-freeman22-story.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2021 09:44AM by auntsukey.

Older active Mormons, including my wife, have gotten into gaslighting vis-a-vis the older temple endowment. If I make reference to the penalties, she will say that she doesn't remember what I'm talking about. "You know,like when they had the loopy minister who was in league with Satan..." "I don't remember any of that."

Right.

Other people have reported the same experience to me.

I thought the minister was one of the better parts.

In league with Lucifer but not able to recognise him.

Members will deny and gaslight anyone who brings up penalties.

https://youtu.be/GtguC5-I5EA?t=2458



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2021 09:32PM by messygoop.

Whether it’s death oaths or wired handshakes, the REALLY odd thing about the temple ceremony is that so many people don’t recognize it for what it is - a cult-like ritual - and continue to endorse it. I was like that. In 1968, before my mission, I performed these gestures and never really gave it much thought. Even to this day, I wonder, “Seriously, how could I have done that.” It’s actually one of my life embarrassments. Ugh -

The best way to control people is to threaten to kill them if they don't obey you. Dictators effectively use this method. And it works. So the Mormon church uses similar means. Rather than simply threatening to kill you for your disobedience, they shroud the threats against you in ceremonies.

The Mormon church tells you how secred your body is as a justification for your not having non-marital sex. Then they threaten to mutilate your body while you're still alive, as a means of murdering you as a "penalty". The handshakes are not significant. Your own fear of their willingness to threaten you with death through body mutilation is what really matters.

Some people say that your promise is only a preference by you to die of body mutilation as a means of your death, rather than to reveal the secret handshakes. But the pantomime of your method of death is more of a veiled threat than anything else. It's like saying "gee, it would be terrible if someone were to cut your throat open as a means of murdering you if you ever reveal these secrets". Compare this to protection rackets where some thugs come in to your business and ask for money for them to protect your business from harm. When you refuse to pay, they say something like "it would be terrible if your business were to be burned to the ground". They don't actually have to threaten to burn the business down if the extortion is not paid. They just put the idea out there in a way that can be understood as intended without ever verbalizing the actual threat itself. This is exactly how the pre-1990 endowment ceremony operated.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/22/2021 08:49PM by azsteve.