For those that may be interested.

This is what my grandparents swore to.

The ceremony was changed in the 1920s

Warning: graphic

1: My throat be cut from ear to ear and my tongue be torn out by the root.

2: My breast be torn open. My heart and vitals be torn out and given to the birds of the air abd the beasts of the fields.

3: My body be torn asunder and my bowels gush out.

And you all swear to take vengeance on the United States of America for the murders of Joseph and Hyrum.

This shows us that 'group-think' can be very dangerous for those who do not understand it enough to oppose it when it happens and when things go terribly bad. People of good conscience really don't understand that those actions are wrong. SCARRY !

No one seemed to have a problem with these terrible oaths at the time. Everyone was doing it so it was acceptable to everyone who knew about it. People even hid these terrible oaths from their own adult children before the day when those children then went through the same ceremony. Meanwhile, everyone involved probably believed that they were good people and that nothing was wrong with those oaths.

I learned about 'group-think' in college. One example came from the study of a situation that occurred in Veit Nom during the Vietnam war. Several American soldiers went in to a village and hunted down and killed every man, woman, and child they could find there. There was a side to the story that makes sense, the side those soldiers had to believe to do such a terrible thing and see no wrong-doing about what they were doing as they did it. Several of the soldiers had agreed ahead of time that this was not wrong and there were logical arguements that circulated between them as they all reinforced their mutual belief ahead of time amongst themselves, that such an act was not wrong. It didn't feel wrong to them as they did it because they were all in agreement that it was necessary. They all became war criminals while not understanding their own guilt for terrible crimes. 'Group-think' can do that to people.

Those "penalties" are almost word-for-word the penalties of the Masonic initiation that Joseph Smith heard when he became a Mason.

The penalties always made me think of Jack the Ripper. Masonic symbols were found on a wall close to where one of his victims was found in pieces. It was not proven that the symbols were left as a clue to the murder but sometook them to show that Jack was a mason and part of the class that would have been involved in masonry.

Jesus.

I hear Rusty was pretty good with a scalpel.

Great grandma said the changes were in 1933 & 1937.

I couldn't find a source for notable changes in the 1920s. Can someone provide? TYIA.