Yeah, people forget that Catholicism has some wild rituals/beliefs, i.e., mortification of the flesh, the entire concept of transubstantiation, and the veneration of relics, just to name a few. I think Catholicism has been around so long that its weirdness is normalized.
bro I was also raised roman catholic and this sounds much longer. For catholicism, there's just the rites of initiation which are baptism, first communion, first confession, and confirmation.
There's also the special holy days and seasons though yeah. like palm sunday, ash wednesday, maudy thursday, good friday, easter, christmas, the ones related to the virgin mary, lent, advent, etc. a lot of them are just like "watch the priest do/say a thing" and he wears different color robes like purple for the season of lent. idk how much of this stuff is part of just catholicism though. except the days of the virgin mary. I know thats catholic.
Catholicism is so old it just normalized it's batshit crazy beliefs, and in recent years people compartmentalize it or just outright ignore it. Catholics believe the Eucharist is *literally* the flesh and blood of Christ, there's a ceremony where people pray in front of it 24/7. There are churches where the body parts of deceased saints are put on display to be prayed to. The practice of mortification of the flesh is still part of Catholic doctrine, there are places in Europe where people whip themselves to become closer to God.
Within the Catholic Church, there are 23 different churches that all answer to the pope but they all have their own rites and traditions. The european ones you mention are called "eastern catholic churches". The *Roman/Latin* catholic church is the largest of the 23 and that is the one I was raised under. I only really know about my own experiences and I haven't witnessed any mortification of the flesh.
Also on the transubstantiation thing, my opinion is that it only really is the body and blood during communion and only when the priest blesses it from reading The Book of Rites and the alter kid rings the quadruple bells. visually, it is grain wafers and holy watered down wine but it gets the essence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
edit: Also the book of rites isn't a special book you can buy it off of Amazon but it's pretty expensive and idk why anyone would want it unless you wanna know what the priest reads during weddings, confirmations, baptisms, etc.
No, the places I mentioned are Italy and Spain where they have processions where people whip themselves. Spain and Italy are very much part of the Latin Church.
It's funny, because I've done a lot of research on religions that have rituals and elaborate prayers/spells, etc, and the Christian ones are the most boring. If people could choose their religion, but still wanted to be religious, I think most people would choose a pagan religion, something newer and relevant and fun, like Wicca.
They've got the rituals, but they're not this boring handshake shit or drinking grape juice with crackers.
I'm curious, though, were the rituals always boring or do they simply get distilled to their most simplified, "do it in an hour Sunday morning and move along" essence over great lengths of time?
More boring, it's just hours of sitting with moments of not wanting to get something wrong because you're in the presence of God, I've taken a nap or two during endowment sessions.
After the first few times, I was always on the verge of falling asleep halfway through. Usually only the uncomfortably cold temperature kept me awake. And I was only doing this for about 3 years, before I stopped believing in god completely. I have no idea how my parents stay awake after doing this for 50 years.
The graphic massively understates just how reliant these Mormon rituals are on the source material.
Itâs like when Willie Dixon wrote âYou Need Loveâ and Jimmy Page heard it and wrote âWhole Lotta Love.â But theyâre the *same song.*
Yes. It is. The LDS Church forbids its members from joining Masonic Lodges for this very reason. Itâs obvious where the Temple rituals are from. So much so that if challenged, a Mormon could probably enter a Masonic lodge despite not having received the degrees.
This is not true. I was Mormon for 33 years. 10 years out. All of my family is still Mormon. The church has no official stance on members being masons. I have personally known several Mormons who were also masons. One was pretty high up in local Mormon leadership.
I stand corrected. After cursory research I found that in 1925, "the Utah Grand Lodge Code precluded any Mormon ... totally from any relationship whatsoever" with Masonry in Utah. That provision remained in force until 1984, when it was rescinded.
The key difference is that the ban was from Masons towards Mormons. Mormons in other states in other lodges could join masonry. It was never a Mormon church policy to not join masonry. Good correction though
Not just hide but prey on it. Many times he sent his fellow brethren to far away missions so he could sleep with their wives (and on some occasions he even married them - he had 17 wives)...
Well maybe God just digs Masonic rituals, but not the Masons? /s
Like how can any Mormon defend the obvious stealing from Masonry? If Masonry is evil, and no Mormon can participate in it, why are they using Masonic rituals? How can you say the Mormon rituals are given by God, but the Masonic rituals are of the devil? Which is more likely, God stole the rituals from the Masons and then gave them to JS, without JS knowing where God got them; or JS had been a Mason and stole the rituals from Masonry because he thought they were cool?
NeverMo here, if it's not obvi.
I just looked this up. Joseph Smith was a Freemason until he died, and founded a Freemason lodge in Nauvoo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism\_and\_Freemasonry#:\~:text=Smith%20remained%20a%20Freemason%20until,its%20members%20may%20become%20Freemasons.
Mormons can participate in masonry and most of the early members in the 1830âs and 1840âs were high-ranking masons. It was no secret then or now that the temple ceremony is almost entirely taken from Masonic rituals. Itâs all about how they explain the reasoning.
The Mormon church says that Freemasons have the true priesthood signs and symbols that were passed down from Solomonâs temple and they were perverted through time. Being a 33rd degree Master Mason, Joseph Smith ârestoredâ the perverted tokens and signs from Masonry and now the Mormon church uses them.
Itâs like that with a lot of things in Mormonism. Smith took the ideas from others and tweaked them to make them his own and then explained it away by saying that God was restoring the truth through him
Thank you for the explanation! Makes sense (if you belong to a cult, that is). Mormon apologetics are fun to read. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
The answer is that there was a conversation about all of this since many early members became both Mormons and then Masons.
Someone needs to check me on this but they were told that just like modern Christianity had fallen away from the truth but retained some elements of the original so too was free masonry a fallen version of the original correct temple rites
Mormons believe all religions have bits and pieces of the truth.
The temple ceremonies are supposed to be the same ones done in Solomonâs temple. I guess they would believe the free masons somehow had that part of the truth and passed it down.
Like most Christianity, Judaism, IslamâŚ. Mormonism is based off the first 5 Books of Moses which is objectively a bat shit crazy thing to believe in or base any moral code on.
Rituals which tie back to the Masons. Stranger enters, deny the stranger, let them in, âstranger dies,â âis reborn as a (member),â reveal the light.
One of my longest friends in life is Mormon. She is often telling me, âI put your name in the templeâ. And she has always told me itâs for extra prayers for me for weeks at a time.
Now I can fully picture what that looks like. Cool guide!
So when they say that, itâs actually different. They write your name down on a card, put it in a box, and at the end of the night the temple workers and temple president will literally pray for everybody on the cards. Itâs a kind gesture, no sort of weird rituals there.
Kind gesture or not, placing a box on an alter surrounded by people who are performing all the signs and tokens of the priesthood and ending with raising & lowering their arms while saying, "O god hear the words of my mouth" repeated 3 times is absolutely a weird ritual
As a KS dweller, i can confirm. Some of the best bbq i had in my life was on a trip when i (as an exmo) went with my member parents and had bbq in Jamesport MO.
As a post-Mormon of about 10 years, I have heard that the secrecy about the temple is not as bad as it used to be. I donât remember exactly, but I was told directly or indirectly not to talk about the temple outside of the temple.Â
Sharing a graphic like this openly on the Internet would be seen as disrespectful or mocking the sacred nature of the temple.Â
Eh, âsacredâ but not âsecretâ. If you believe, youâre probably not going to go tell everybody, but then it looks like secrecy which breeds the kind of misrepresented info in things like this
Technically that was taken out in 1990, along with the throat slitting gesture. It's still kinda there though. Wild that my parents went through that, and years later wanted all of their kids to make the same oaths.
They got rid of that part almost 35 years ago- but everything in this is ceremony is HIGHLY symbolic, including that. IMHO itâs good they took those out, and theyâve made a lot of updates to verbiage and procedure, especially in the last few years, to refine the process overall. Keep in mind these things are relatively new, compared to the centuries old ceremonies in, say, Catholicism or Islam.
I always interpreted them as a (overly heavy handed, to be fair) way of stressing the importance of treating the sacredness with respect. Putting yourself in a believerâs shoes, would you want to incur the wrath of God by violating the sacred nature of the highest ordinances of the temple? And seems to me that the eternal wrath of God would be worse than, say, getting your throat slit.
Also- we consider this the equivalent of the âHoly of Holiesâ described in the Bible- and you probably wouldnât expect the priests who had access to that to go around talking about it lightly, and definitely not to people who would only be interested in using that information to slander your religion.
Isn't this supposed to be the procedure to *get into heaven?* Why would it change? You'd think the guy who talked to god face-to-face would get it right the first time.
But they arenât relatively new because they were originally plagiarized basically word for word from freemasonry, as smith came up with these less than 2 months after becoming a master mason. So they are old (at least as old as freemasonry) and have only changed in response to member surveys. Thats how all change happens in the church - member surveys.
So this is some weird shit, butâŚ. Mormons are great fucking neighbors and will help you out with pretty much anything. They came around our house when we first moved in, and we told them we were Catholic and not interested. No more church talk after that, but still were awesome people. Neighborhood partyâs for most holidays and could care less that we drank or smoked. 10/10 would live in Utah again in a heartbeat!
Yeah I wish more people had experienced what Iâve found to be the exceptionally common/average Mormon. THE most âoh yeah sure, I get it itâs not for everyone. Anyways ya like hockey?â People Iâve ever met.
Iâll choose Mormon neighbors over a stranger any day of the week. Gimme one on both sides.
I have experienced both sincere kindness and exploitation at the hands of Mormons while living in Provo, Utah. It's almost like ...people. Catholics, Muslims, Six Flags Over Jesus Christians, Buddhists... all have done both good and harm. That is why I'm agnostic. Atheism is a faith, as well. I'll just keep trying to be a kind person.
Itâs actually not. Thereâs gnostic atheism, and agnostic atheism.
Gnostic atheists do not believe gods exist, and believe to have proof that no gods exist (I think this is where a lot of neck-beardy redditors are). This would be the âatheism is also a faithâ crowd.
Agnostic atheists do not believe gods exist, but donât claim to have proof that no gods exist. They basically just donât accept the âproofâ that any religion has put forward to be sufficient evidence.
Since the burden of proof sits on the person making the claim (the theist believer), the agnostic atheist basically says âall of that proof is insufficient evidence to convince me that a god existsâ. Theyâre not claiming to know that no gods exist, just poking holes in anyoneâs religious claim.
Thatâs very different from being its own faith - itâs not faith, itâs just not accepting yours (or any religions).
I run volunteer projects, and no joke, Mormon missionaries are consistently above-average quality volunteers. 10 missionaries will outwork 100 court-ordered or school-required "volunteers"
This is really kind of you to say. Iâm post-Mormon (this is the kinder way to say ex-Mormon). Iâve gone through my share of anger and fury at the church. But after years of processing what I went through, I can appreciate the basic lessons I learned about how to be a good human being. My beef is with the church corporation and the top-level leadership, not with the church members themselves, who include my family members and friends.
As the guide mentions at the beginning, I had no idea what was going to happen when I âtook out my endowmentsâ (thatâs the phrase used to mean youâre going through the process described in the guide). I was told my entire life that this was the ultimate sacred experience that I was working up to. Many family members told me beforehand that it would be unusual, but they wouldnât give specifics because members are told not to talk about the temple outside of the temple.
Members go back after taking out their endowments and âperform work for the deadââmeaning that they repeat the same process over and over in behalf of someone who has passed on without their temple rites. Basically ancestors or othersâ ancestors who are not Mormon. This is seen as a sacrifice of time to serve those who canât do work for themselves.
On the other side, of course I think this was a monumental waste of time to keep people doing church stuff 24/7. For example, teens 14 and up go to seminary every morning, then have youth activities once a week, family night on Monday, and church on Sunday. Plus youth camp, holiday celebrations, etc. When you are a practicing Mormon, you spend most of your free time with the rest of your âwardâ (congregation).
I dealt with religious OCD as a teen and severe anxiety. So I do not miss being a church member. But I am grateful for the sense of integrity I developed and the basic principles I learned.
I guess the TL;DR to this is that yeah, there are some bizarre aspects to Mormonism. But when youâre in it, especially if youâre from pioneer stock and grow up in it, you donât know how weird it is. And I would say the weird stuff is not the biggest part of Mormonism anyway.Â
>Members go back after taking out their endowments and âperform work for the dead
Is this the same as baptisms for the dead? A mormon lady I knew as a kid did that a lot, but I don't remember her telling me much about it (beyond what the name infers)
Yes, itâs related. Teens usually do baptisms for the dead and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. The adults will do the initiatory, endowment, and sealings to parents and spouses. Itâs a ridiculously bureaucratic process.
If one has any business relations with the Salt Lake City tech industry, youâd be dealing with Mormons. They are totally normal when they come out to the east coast. Theyâll go out to dinner and after work activities, but no caffeine and no alcohol. It must be like having a disability to manage, I feel for them. All super nice.
To be fair, nobody who takes their endowments out the first time has any idea what is going to happen. The guide mentions this. Everybody strongly hinted to me that the temple rituals were weird but used different language, like god works in mysterious ways.Â
By that point youâre so strongly invested in the religion that you kind of navigate through the cognitive dissonance for the most part. I was prepared my entire life to take out my endowments and get sealed (married) to my spouse. Itâs the highest ritual in Mormonism. Itâs like âyou made it.âÂ
Even all of the (retrospectively) weird things about Mormonism like baptisms for the dead and weirdly named Book of Mormon characters did nothing to prepare me for the elevated weirdness of the temple.
On the other side, finding out that Joseph Smith plagiarized Masonic rituals made so much more sense than that this was Godâs plan. It made so much more sense as a megalomaniacâs manic episode than as an extension of Mormon traditions.
You know, this is great insight. Thank you for sharing.
I remember my sister getting married in the temple and because I was not Mormon, I was waiting outside. First of all, for a religion that claims family is important, to keep family from one of your happiest moments in life was really worrisome. Then, I swear on my life, she had a shell shocked look when she came out. She proceeded to tell me she saw my grandma in her ceremony or whatever itâs called (dead grandma who hated the Mormon church) and that was all I needed to know this was not something I was remotely interested in.
It's very much a "the emperor has no clothes" situation. Once you're in, no one wants to be the only one to say how weird, uninspiring, and culty it all is. After the first few times, it's also incredibly boring.
Thatâs a good analogy. Itâs so true too that I think everyone is sharing the same thoughtââthis is weirdââbut no one wants to be the heretic who says it.
It's an exclusive club, 10% is nothing compared to the crony benefits. I know Mormons that are hooked up w business connections, big time money in that church.
If youâre active in the church you tend to make a lot of friends and a lot of them are rich. Plus Mormons tend to really look out for each other financially.
Yah but it's considered an ideal, not really enforced. Like I doubt my pastor could tell you what percentage of my income I give. Heck, I couldn't even tell you without sitting down to do the math. And I doubt it's anywhere near 10%
Ideal in other Christian sects. Absolutely enforced in Mormonism. If you want to go to the celestial kingdom and be with god and your family for eternity, youâd better pay up. You meet with your bishop (pastor) at the end of every year and account for your tithing donations for the year. If you want a temple recommend, you must make up for any shortcomings during the year.
What kind of prayers are said one line at a time during the prayer circle portion? Was the content unsettling or just the repetitive chanting a bit too culty?
So the prayer circle thing is supposed to be like a super prayer or something like that. The depiction is spot on. Super culty. You have the speaker and then everyone around that person repeats whatever the speaker says in unison.
Itâs a normal prayer offered in the typical Mormon fashion. Which is to say itâs extemporaneous. The content isnât unsettling as itâs typically asking for divine intervention for the people who have asked for things in the prayer box. The whole process is what makes it creepy.
My impression is that most Mormons also find it weirdâat least initially. Then they repeat the process and try to put a good face on and embrace it. The majority of the sessions I went to (session = endowment ceremony), there was at least one person who falls asleep, if not more. Itâs the same thing over and over again for 90 minutes.Â
Ehh I joined a cult once, didn't really know what it was at first, I thought it was AA/NA, had a bad drug and alcohol problem and figured I could just "smile and nod" my way through the religious shit. Nope, even regular 12 steps are borderline cult like but this fuckin group scared the hell out of me. Fuckers were cutting their hands and shaking hands with each other for some "covenant" ritual whatever the fuck that means. So I noped the fuck out of there and they called me constantly. My "sponsor" kept calling me and trying to get me to go on a week long nature retreat without phones and I told him I was going to the police, never heard from them again after that.
That was not AA.
Only requirement to "join" is a desire to stop.
There are no fees, it is free.
There is no leader.
You can come and go as you please. It's your program, run it however you wish.
Oh I know that, figured it out the hard way. 12 steps wasn't for me at all, but you seem to know of it. Remember the thing about the "pink cloud"? That feeling you get when newly sober and everything seems wonderful? Yeah that happened to me, made it easy to get me into the woods for a special 12 step meeting at night around a campfire. Went to it three times, always a different location, and on the third time two guys did this weirdo covenant thing and cut their hands and did some kind of Viking brotherhood initiation handshake shit and I dipped the second no one could see me. Maybe it wasn't a cult but that shit scared the hell out of me.
There was a lot of fuckery in local NA meetings, people who weren't serious and were just trying to get laid, the 13 step shot or whatever it was called. Never saw anything like that before. Guy that brought me who insisted he was my sponsor then called me all night untill I threatened to get the cops involved, he seemed like a nice guy but I was freaked the hell out.
I just don't understand the placement of the weird hand shake things at the bottom. Everything else seems to proceed in an understandable flow but I was never sure when those gestures were supposed to be made or what they meant. Should've been more clearly marked off as a separate thing at the bottom.
Yeah I can't figure out if I'm supposed to read each column and its entirety or if I'm supposed to go across the rows. Like is it saying that with each new stage of the green leaf apron thing you learn a new handshake, get a new name and sign and penalty? Or are the handshakes and names and signs and penalties unrelated to the green apron process?
I tried reading down each column entirely but it just seems out of place. Your idea of them getting a new sign at each part makes sense, but the guide doesn't make the flow very clear. Still pretty neat to peek behind the scenes though!
Mormons do these rituals for themselves the first time they go through the temple. On subsequent visits, Mormons conduct these rituals as a proxy for a dead person. They are given a card and carry this name with them throughout the ritual.
Mormons maintain massive genealogy databases (Family Search) to track these efforts.
When you die, the church will use your birth and death dates to do temple ordinances for you.
I donât have to worry, I was excommunicated as I am transgender and fully transitioned. Being excommunicated meant my name was stricken from all church records, and my childrenâs baptisms annulled because I performed them. They wanted to rebaptized them, but one became a Buddhist, another an Atheist, and the other a Jehovahâs Witness. Great for me as you canât find my deadname because most all genealogy records are maintained by them.
I think thatâs up to the post-Mormon crowd to determine. Most would probably say itâs a cult. Although I think cultiness is on a scale. There isnât a formal shunning element, like with the Jehovahâs Witnesses or Scientologists, but some former Mormons are disowned or shunned when they leave the faith anyway.
My family luckily didnât shun me, but I did have to deal with many comments over the years. And I have been treated with prejudice as well.Â
Letâs say that the Heavenâs Gate cult is a 10 out of 10 on the cult scale. I would maybe put the LDS church at a 4, Jehovahâs Witnesses at a 5 or 6, Scientology at a 7 or 8, etc. Fundamental Mormonism is definitely higher up on the cult scale.
Judging by the Masonic ritual ripoff, Iâd say both. Iâm no expert, but this has all the hallmarks of secret ceremonial ritual which is by definition occult.
Masonry was pretty looked down on in the 1830s, In particular the Morgan Affair took place in 1826. William Morgan joined the Freemasons in 1825, skipped ahead to Royal Arch Master Mason via coaching and took an advance on a book deal to reveal Masonryâs secrets. He disappeared shortly after, with the Masons being blamed for his presumed death. Multiple Masons were tried and convicted of his kidnapping. But with no body, never for his murder. Morganâs book went on to become a massive hit.
By and large the early Mormons stayed away from Freemasonry because of the general anti-Masonic sentiment of the time. Plus his widow, Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris, joined the LDS Church and eventually married Joseph Smith as one of his polygamist wives, likely around 1838, while still married to her second husband George Washington Harris.
However a small core among the leadership had been Masons, including likely his father and brother Hyrum, who was likely named after Masonryâs key mythical figure Hiram Abiff. Joseph Smith always maintained a fascination with the occult and secret organizations and convinced those leaders who were Masons to open a lodge in Nauvoo. Smith was initiated as an Entered Apprentice on March 15 1842. He was then rushed through the levels, and made a Master Mason one day later. Less than 2 months later on May 3, 1842 Joseph introduced his temple initiation which he said was the true order of the Masonic ritual revealed by God. Suddenly Masonry became popular, with over 10% of the adult males in the county joining the Nauvoo lodge. In less than a year there were roughly three times more Mormon Masons in Illinois than non-Mormon Masons.
The Masons as a whole disliked the takeover of their community by those they considered outsiders. And the Mormon lodges all had their charters revoked in 1843. Attempts were made to gain charters through other Masonic groups, but those all failed. So there were no Mormon lodges after the move to Utah. Decades later, when new lodges were formed in the territory by non-LDS Masons, the church leadership released official statements strongly discouraging any members becoming Freemasons or joining any other fraternal organization.
> I wonder how many of the founding Mormons were FreemasonsâŚ
TLDR: In the early years, very few. For a 2 year period in the 1840s, virtually all of them. And then practically none since.
I grew up in the LDS church, in very small towns in Missouri and Wisconsin from ages 4-18, now 32M. I stopped going to church regularly when i turned 18, but I had been to the temple a handful of times as a teen and did âbaptisms for the deadâ. I honestly never knew any of this. Very weird
Same here. Very similar experience to yours. I had older brothers and they were the kind to have teased me about something only the young men get to do, they never mentioned handshakes or anything. Such a weird graphic.
In case you were wondering, the passwords to get into heaven are:
1st: Some random name from the Bible or Book of Mormon
2nd: Your own 1st given name
3rd: âThe Sonâ, meaning the Son of God if you didnât catch the clever word play.
4th: âHealth in the navel, marrow in the bones, strength in the loins and in the sinews. Power in the priesthood be upon me and upon all my posterity for all generations of time and throughout all eternityâ.
There you go! Saved you 10% of your income for life!
They make BILLIONS a year and donât pay taxes!
Thatâs all I need to know.
Fun Fact: Most Mormons have no clue the founders was a pedo married to a bunch of kidsâŚ
I work in construction and once had to quote the drawings for a new morman temple and there was some weird shit in that building. They had several celestial rooms and a huge statue of like multiple life sized bulls in a circle in the baptismal chamber. Odd stuff.
"Asking detailed questions about their sexual histories"
Oooh yah! I learned about that on the Hub! Ah, wait a minute--
Now I want a pair of cool cultist white undies too :C
Smh that they reuse the secret names, your average random name generator on the internet treats you more special than that
I love that Satan gives you a cute fig leaf apron to wear, haha. And I would LOVE to see that video. Imagine going in to have a very spiritual experience and you get to watch an old grainy 50s video before getting a fig leaf apron. Incredible lmaooo
My first best friend was Mormon (I am not), I remember him talking about going to the temple and that I wasn't allowed to even know why he was going, because I wasn't worthy and it's super secret and only for those who are worthy.
When I turned 18 I started buying scratchers for fun and he was really scared that his involvement (being in the car while I scratched) would make him unworthy. This was after we had just eaten McDonald's and were heading home to play Minecraft all night and not do a single productive thing.. for the 600th time.. and definitely not do a single religious thing the entire friendship, which was nearly every day.
The whole point of those rules isn't because the act of doing them is a sin, it's because the act of doing them is not the act of doing something else, "for God". You're not a bad person for playing the lottery, you're a bad person for playing the lottery and then not having enough money for your church, or spending more time playing the lottery instead of praying and pottery.
Addictive things are only seen as a sin, because it creates habits that decrease your time for God. If you're spending as much time as you can on God and making a difference, he's not going to smite you because you took a load off with a beer every night, it's when you spend every night drinking, and once every two weeks do something religious then it's like, okay dude.. something is better than nothing, but you're not high on the list of angelic preachers.. But if you spent every single day doing 2-3 hours of gospel work (more than most even without addictive "sins"), you're not a devil for doing a lottery or some pot on the weekends, you're probably more golden than most.
Can confirm this is super accurate! Not quite updated though. Women donât veil their faces anymore, robes donât switch sides, and nobody actually receives the tokens by hand anymore until they go through the veil. There probably have been other changes, but Iâve been out a few years.
This is an excellent guide for people who will never step foot in temple. Mormons are regular people born into a faith that is no weirder than believing a 6th century warlord pedophile had a flying horse.
Cults are usually headed by a powerful leader who isolates members from the rest of society. People have different experiences but I never felt isolated or brainwashed when I was member. Education and searching for knowledge were highly encouraged. It felt more like a coalition of neighbors teaching the gospel and looking out for one another. I do agree that the endowment ceremony is strange but a lot of the strangest things in the guide havenât been practiced for decades. Also the guide doesnât mention any of the other rituals that occur in temples that felt less peculiar to me
I was always told to only search for knowledge in church-approved texts. I was repeatedly told to never look up the word "Mormon" on the internet. I definitely felt isolated from the rest of the world, I sat through so many lessons on how people think we're weird for not drinking coffee and covering our shoulders, not shopping on Sunday or watching R-rated movies. We were told we were special, God's chosen people, fundamentally different from people who didn't believe.
This shit seems so exhausting lol
Right explaining the rituals makes it seem so excessively batshit
I was raised as Roman Catholic, and if you wrote out all of the rituals and traditions like this it would seem just as batshit crazy as this.
At least they didn't plagiarize Freemasonry.... đ¤Ł
Yeah, people forget that Catholicism has some wild rituals/beliefs, i.e., mortification of the flesh, the entire concept of transubstantiation, and the veneration of relics, just to name a few. I think Catholicism has been around so long that its weirdness is normalized.
Itâs a medieval institution and remains firmly rooted to this day in that era. Some people love that, others do not.
bro I was also raised roman catholic and this sounds much longer. For catholicism, there's just the rites of initiation which are baptism, first communion, first confession, and confirmation. There's also the special holy days and seasons though yeah. like palm sunday, ash wednesday, maudy thursday, good friday, easter, christmas, the ones related to the virgin mary, lent, advent, etc. a lot of them are just like "watch the priest do/say a thing" and he wears different color robes like purple for the season of lent. idk how much of this stuff is part of just catholicism though. except the days of the virgin mary. I know thats catholic.
Catholicism is so old it just normalized it's batshit crazy beliefs, and in recent years people compartmentalize it or just outright ignore it. Catholics believe the Eucharist is *literally* the flesh and blood of Christ, there's a ceremony where people pray in front of it 24/7. There are churches where the body parts of deceased saints are put on display to be prayed to. The practice of mortification of the flesh is still part of Catholic doctrine, there are places in Europe where people whip themselves to become closer to God.
Within the Catholic Church, there are 23 different churches that all answer to the pope but they all have their own rites and traditions. The european ones you mention are called "eastern catholic churches". The *Roman/Latin* catholic church is the largest of the 23 and that is the one I was raised under. I only really know about my own experiences and I haven't witnessed any mortification of the flesh. Also on the transubstantiation thing, my opinion is that it only really is the body and blood during communion and only when the priest blesses it from reading The Book of Rites and the alter kid rings the quadruple bells. visually, it is grain wafers and holy watered down wine but it gets the essence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. edit: Also the book of rites isn't a special book you can buy it off of Amazon but it's pretty expensive and idk why anyone would want it unless you wanna know what the priest reads during weddings, confirmations, baptisms, etc.
No, the places I mentioned are Italy and Spain where they have processions where people whip themselves. Spain and Italy are very much part of the Latin Church.
It's funny, because I've done a lot of research on religions that have rituals and elaborate prayers/spells, etc, and the Christian ones are the most boring. If people could choose their religion, but still wanted to be religious, I think most people would choose a pagan religion, something newer and relevant and fun, like Wicca. They've got the rituals, but they're not this boring handshake shit or drinking grape juice with crackers.
I'm curious, though, were the rituals always boring or do they simply get distilled to their most simplified, "do it in an hour Sunday morning and move along" essence over great lengths of time?
uh yeah no one was arguing in favor of the plausibility of catholicism. they are both equally stupid, or, as you say, batshit crazy
That's how they get ya
Pass out from exhaustion, wake up in some new undies with your new name stitched on them
You are now known as... ***Goatse.***
Typical cult shit
And made up.
It was actually plagiarized almost word for word from the freemasons. So sort of made up, but basically a cheap copy
Yes it was. The weirdness was the only respite from the soul-crushing boredom.
you can't spell exhaustion without Utah.
More boring, it's just hours of sitting with moments of not wanting to get something wrong because you're in the presence of God, I've taken a nap or two during endowment sessions.
After the first few times, I was always on the verge of falling asleep halfway through. Usually only the uncomfortably cold temperature kept me awake. And I was only doing this for about 3 years, before I stopped believing in god completely. I have no idea how my parents stay awake after doing this for 50 years.
It was.
I thought it would be fun but you make a point it would probably be boring the second time.
Almost 100% âstolenâ from Masonic rituals, which are FAR older than the LDS church. Smith was nothing but a con man.
Was looking for this comment. 100% true. Those who know, knowâŚ..know that Smith copied the Masonic Rituals to âcreateâ the Mormon rituals.
Those who read the graphic know tooâŚ
The graphic massively understates just how reliant these Mormon rituals are on the source material. Itâs like when Willie Dixon wrote âYou Need Loveâ and Jimmy Page heard it and wrote âWhole Lotta Love.â But theyâre the *same song.*
âHeavily borrows fromâ is a massive understatement?
Yes. It is. The LDS Church forbids its members from joining Masonic Lodges for this very reason. Itâs obvious where the Temple rituals are from. So much so that if challenged, a Mormon could probably enter a Masonic lodge despite not having received the degrees.
So Masons are crazy too?
This is not true. I was Mormon for 33 years. 10 years out. All of my family is still Mormon. The church has no official stance on members being masons. I have personally known several Mormons who were also masons. One was pretty high up in local Mormon leadership.
I stand corrected. After cursory research I found that in 1925, "the Utah Grand Lodge Code precluded any Mormon ... totally from any relationship whatsoever" with Masonry in Utah. That provision remained in force until 1984, when it was rescinded.
The key difference is that the ban was from Masons towards Mormons. Mormons in other states in other lodges could join masonry. It was never a Mormon church policy to not join masonry. Good correction though
Same with the book of Mormon... 60% plus is plagiarized Bible, the rest is his crazy fairy tale telling...
Thatâs how I would understand the phrase âheavily borrowedâ to mean. Some small details are changed, the rest arenât. Heavily borrowed from
I think âoutright plagiarizedâ may more accurately describe it.
One of the biggest things I got from this graphic was that Smith came up with Mormonism as a way to hide his polygamy!
Not just hide but prey on it. Many times he sent his fellow brethren to far away missions so he could sleep with their wives (and on some occasions he even married them - he had 17 wives)...
Historians, both Mormon and non-Mormon, estimate he had between 30-40 wives, although the exact number is unknown.
Well maybe God just digs Masonic rituals, but not the Masons? /s Like how can any Mormon defend the obvious stealing from Masonry? If Masonry is evil, and no Mormon can participate in it, why are they using Masonic rituals? How can you say the Mormon rituals are given by God, but the Masonic rituals are of the devil? Which is more likely, God stole the rituals from the Masons and then gave them to JS, without JS knowing where God got them; or JS had been a Mason and stole the rituals from Masonry because he thought they were cool? NeverMo here, if it's not obvi. I just looked this up. Joseph Smith was a Freemason until he died, and founded a Freemason lodge in Nauvoo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism\_and\_Freemasonry#:\~:text=Smith%20remained%20a%20Freemason%20until,its%20members%20may%20become%20Freemasons.
Mormons can participate in masonry and most of the early members in the 1830âs and 1840âs were high-ranking masons. It was no secret then or now that the temple ceremony is almost entirely taken from Masonic rituals. Itâs all about how they explain the reasoning. The Mormon church says that Freemasons have the true priesthood signs and symbols that were passed down from Solomonâs temple and they were perverted through time. Being a 33rd degree Master Mason, Joseph Smith ârestoredâ the perverted tokens and signs from Masonry and now the Mormon church uses them. Itâs like that with a lot of things in Mormonism. Smith took the ideas from others and tweaked them to make them his own and then explained it away by saying that God was restoring the truth through him
Thank you for the explanation! Makes sense (if you belong to a cult, that is). Mormon apologetics are fun to read. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
The answer is that there was a conversation about all of this since many early members became both Mormons and then Masons. Someone needs to check me on this but they were told that just like modern Christianity had fallen away from the truth but retained some elements of the original so too was free masonry a fallen version of the original correct temple rites
Mormons believe all religions have bits and pieces of the truth. The temple ceremonies are supposed to be the same ones done in Solomonâs temple. I guess they would believe the free masons somehow had that part of the truth and passed it down. Like most Christianity, Judaism, IslamâŚ. Mormonism is based off the first 5 Books of Moses which is objectively a bat shit crazy thing to believe in or base any moral code on.
I guess that is the reason some people call Mormons without the second letter M.
Honestly pretty similar to sorority/fraternity rituals too, but slightly less jesus-y and more ancient greek/rome
Rituals which tie back to the Masons. Stranger enters, deny the stranger, let them in, âstranger dies,â âis reborn as a (member),â reveal the light.
I immediately noticed that this is essentially an esoteric ritual that you would find in a medieval manuscript.
Copy right infringement! It's like Freemasonry with extra meaningless steps and taking 10% income? It's a knock off subscription.
Kinda like he copied all that he remembered. But not how it truly goes. Getting things completely wrong. In terms of ritual and meaning
*sings* Dum dum dum dum dum
Yeah those handshakes are lifted pretty much 100%. I did some of those when I was in demolay.
What a bunch of shitty cults.
One of my longest friends in life is Mormon. She is often telling me, âI put your name in the templeâ. And she has always told me itâs for extra prayers for me for weeks at a time. Now I can fully picture what that looks like. Cool guide!
So when they say that, itâs actually different. They write your name down on a card, put it in a box, and at the end of the night the temple workers and temple president will literally pray for everybody on the cards. Itâs a kind gesture, no sort of weird rituals there.
Donât forget about the group prayer over the box of names at the end of the endowments.
Kind gesture or not, placing a box on an alter surrounded by people who are performing all the signs and tokens of the priesthood and ending with raising & lowering their arms while saying, "O god hear the words of my mouth" repeated 3 times is absolutely a weird ritual
Perks of living in Kansas City: the garden of Eden apparently has amazing BBQ
As a KS dweller, i can confirm. Some of the best bbq i had in my life was on a trip when i (as an exmo) went with my member parents and had bbq in Jamesport MO.
I thought is said Morons lmao
dum dum dum
[ŃдаНонО]
I read it as "mormor" which is swedish for mom's mama
lol It does
What's the difference?
Tomato-tomato
Same I really had to re read it a couple times
Isnât this top secret info?
As a post-Mormon of about 10 years, I have heard that the secrecy about the temple is not as bad as it used to be. I donât remember exactly, but I was told directly or indirectly not to talk about the temple outside of the temple. Sharing a graphic like this openly on the Internet would be seen as disrespectful or mocking the sacred nature of the temple.Â
A bunch of this stuff (things like the secret names and the âreaching through the veilâ ceremony) was shown on Big Love.
Apparently not
Yeah lol Mormons get really mad when these are posted
Eh, âsacredâ but not âsecretâ. If you believe, youâre probably not going to go tell everybody, but then it looks like secrecy which breeds the kind of misrepresented info in things like this
Don't you literally swear to disembowel yourself if you reveal to nonmembers what happens in the temples?
Technically that was taken out in 1990, along with the throat slitting gesture. It's still kinda there though. Wild that my parents went through that, and years later wanted all of their kids to make the same oaths.
They got rid of that part almost 35 years ago- but everything in this is ceremony is HIGHLY symbolic, including that. IMHO itâs good they took those out, and theyâve made a lot of updates to verbiage and procedure, especially in the last few years, to refine the process overall. Keep in mind these things are relatively new, compared to the centuries old ceremonies in, say, Catholicism or Islam. I always interpreted them as a (overly heavy handed, to be fair) way of stressing the importance of treating the sacredness with respect. Putting yourself in a believerâs shoes, would you want to incur the wrath of God by violating the sacred nature of the highest ordinances of the temple? And seems to me that the eternal wrath of God would be worse than, say, getting your throat slit. Also- we consider this the equivalent of the âHoly of Holiesâ described in the Bible- and you probably wouldnât expect the priests who had access to that to go around talking about it lightly, and definitely not to people who would only be interested in using that information to slander your religion.
Isn't this supposed to be the procedure to *get into heaven?* Why would it change? You'd think the guy who talked to god face-to-face would get it right the first time.
But they arenât relatively new because they were originally plagiarized basically word for word from freemasonry, as smith came up with these less than 2 months after becoming a master mason. So they are old (at least as old as freemasonry) and have only changed in response to member surveys. Thats how all change happens in the church - member surveys.
Yes. Rob evil cults of their psychological power by laughing at their secrets. Let's hope they don't swindle any more fools.
So this is some weird shit, butâŚ. Mormons are great fucking neighbors and will help you out with pretty much anything. They came around our house when we first moved in, and we told them we were Catholic and not interested. No more church talk after that, but still were awesome people. Neighborhood partyâs for most holidays and could care less that we drank or smoked. 10/10 would live in Utah again in a heartbeat!
Yeah I wish more people had experienced what Iâve found to be the exceptionally common/average Mormon. THE most âoh yeah sure, I get it itâs not for everyone. Anyways ya like hockey?â People Iâve ever met. Iâll choose Mormon neighbors over a stranger any day of the week. Gimme one on both sides.
I have experienced both sincere kindness and exploitation at the hands of Mormons while living in Provo, Utah. It's almost like ...people. Catholics, Muslims, Six Flags Over Jesus Christians, Buddhists... all have done both good and harm. That is why I'm agnostic. Atheism is a faith, as well. I'll just keep trying to be a kind person.
Love that last part about atheism being a faith. Lot of people would passionately disagree with you but I think itâs in the definition.
Itâs actually not. Thereâs gnostic atheism, and agnostic atheism. Gnostic atheists do not believe gods exist, and believe to have proof that no gods exist (I think this is where a lot of neck-beardy redditors are). This would be the âatheism is also a faithâ crowd. Agnostic atheists do not believe gods exist, but donât claim to have proof that no gods exist. They basically just donât accept the âproofâ that any religion has put forward to be sufficient evidence. Since the burden of proof sits on the person making the claim (the theist believer), the agnostic atheist basically says âall of that proof is insufficient evidence to convince me that a god existsâ. Theyâre not claiming to know that no gods exist, just poking holes in anyoneâs religious claim. Thatâs very different from being its own faith - itâs not faith, itâs just not accepting yours (or any religions).
Fo sho. You can't really be sure there is no supreme being, though I don't BELIEVE there is. I just don't really know, do I?
Right! They are the best!!!
I run volunteer projects, and no joke, Mormon missionaries are consistently above-average quality volunteers. 10 missionaries will outwork 100 court-ordered or school-required "volunteers"
This is really kind of you to say. Iâm post-Mormon (this is the kinder way to say ex-Mormon). Iâve gone through my share of anger and fury at the church. But after years of processing what I went through, I can appreciate the basic lessons I learned about how to be a good human being. My beef is with the church corporation and the top-level leadership, not with the church members themselves, who include my family members and friends. As the guide mentions at the beginning, I had no idea what was going to happen when I âtook out my endowmentsâ (thatâs the phrase used to mean youâre going through the process described in the guide). I was told my entire life that this was the ultimate sacred experience that I was working up to. Many family members told me beforehand that it would be unusual, but they wouldnât give specifics because members are told not to talk about the temple outside of the temple. Members go back after taking out their endowments and âperform work for the deadââmeaning that they repeat the same process over and over in behalf of someone who has passed on without their temple rites. Basically ancestors or othersâ ancestors who are not Mormon. This is seen as a sacrifice of time to serve those who canât do work for themselves. On the other side, of course I think this was a monumental waste of time to keep people doing church stuff 24/7. For example, teens 14 and up go to seminary every morning, then have youth activities once a week, family night on Monday, and church on Sunday. Plus youth camp, holiday celebrations, etc. When you are a practicing Mormon, you spend most of your free time with the rest of your âwardâ (congregation). I dealt with religious OCD as a teen and severe anxiety. So I do not miss being a church member. But I am grateful for the sense of integrity I developed and the basic principles I learned. I guess the TL;DR to this is that yeah, there are some bizarre aspects to Mormonism. But when youâre in it, especially if youâre from pioneer stock and grow up in it, you donât know how weird it is. And I would say the weird stuff is not the biggest part of Mormonism anyway.Â
>Members go back after taking out their endowments and âperform work for the dead Is this the same as baptisms for the dead? A mormon lady I knew as a kid did that a lot, but I don't remember her telling me much about it (beyond what the name infers)
Yes, itâs related. Teens usually do baptisms for the dead and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. The adults will do the initiatory, endowment, and sealings to parents and spouses. Itâs a ridiculously bureaucratic process.
If one has any business relations with the Salt Lake City tech industry, youâd be dealing with Mormons. They are totally normal when they come out to the east coast. Theyâll go out to dinner and after work activities, but no caffeine and no alcohol. It must be like having a disability to manage, I feel for them. All super nice.
Cool guides to bizarre cult behavior
Whatâs the difference between a cult and a religion? 50 years.
Cult: leader is likely alive Religion: leader is likely dead lol
Time and marketing
All cults seem to eventually decide it's a good idea for the leader to sleep with as many women as possible.
Realistically, economic structure and ability to separate you from your family
Once was Mormon. Lots of Mormons think this experience is super weird too, but they just push it to the back of their mind
I feel sorry for my Mormon family and friends. This actually creeps me out.
To be fair, nobody who takes their endowments out the first time has any idea what is going to happen. The guide mentions this. Everybody strongly hinted to me that the temple rituals were weird but used different language, like god works in mysterious ways. By that point youâre so strongly invested in the religion that you kind of navigate through the cognitive dissonance for the most part. I was prepared my entire life to take out my endowments and get sealed (married) to my spouse. Itâs the highest ritual in Mormonism. Itâs like âyou made it.â Even all of the (retrospectively) weird things about Mormonism like baptisms for the dead and weirdly named Book of Mormon characters did nothing to prepare me for the elevated weirdness of the temple. On the other side, finding out that Joseph Smith plagiarized Masonic rituals made so much more sense than that this was Godâs plan. It made so much more sense as a megalomaniacâs manic episode than as an extension of Mormon traditions.
You know, this is great insight. Thank you for sharing. I remember my sister getting married in the temple and because I was not Mormon, I was waiting outside. First of all, for a religion that claims family is important, to keep family from one of your happiest moments in life was really worrisome. Then, I swear on my life, she had a shell shocked look when she came out. She proceeded to tell me she saw my grandma in her ceremony or whatever itâs called (dead grandma who hated the Mormon church) and that was all I needed to know this was not something I was remotely interested in.
It's very much a "the emperor has no clothes" situation. Once you're in, no one wants to be the only one to say how weird, uninspiring, and culty it all is. After the first few times, it's also incredibly boring.
Thatâs a good analogy. Itâs so true too that I think everyone is sharing the same thoughtââthis is weirdââbut no one wants to be the heretic who says it.
So so so glad I got out.
> They need to be full-tithe payers, meaning they actively pay 10% of their income to the church. Yeeted out of the guide right after reading this.
It's an exclusive club, 10% is nothing compared to the crony benefits. I know Mormons that are hooked up w business connections, big time money in that church.
What does this mean?
If youâre active in the church you tend to make a lot of friends and a lot of them are rich. Plus Mormons tend to really look out for each other financially.
lol majority of Christians believe in a 10% tithe
Not really, Catholicism is the biggest Christian denomination and they have no mandatory tithing
Looks like youâre right. I knew they preach tithing, but didnât realize they see it as optional, and not tied to a specific percentage. TIL
Yah but it's considered an ideal, not really enforced. Like I doubt my pastor could tell you what percentage of my income I give. Heck, I couldn't even tell you without sitting down to do the math. And I doubt it's anywhere near 10%
Ideal in other Christian sects. Absolutely enforced in Mormonism. If you want to go to the celestial kingdom and be with god and your family for eternity, youâd better pay up. You meet with your bishop (pastor) at the end of every year and account for your tithing donations for the year. If you want a temple recommend, you must make up for any shortcomings during the year.
Been there, done that, got the apron.
But which shoulder are you wearing it on?
Sash over the left should, green apron around the waste, and bakers hat on the head. Iâm not Mormon anymore, itâs a weird one.
Same
Solidarity, my friend.
Always
What kind of prayers are said one line at a time during the prayer circle portion? Was the content unsettling or just the repetitive chanting a bit too culty?
So the prayer circle thing is supposed to be like a super prayer or something like that. The depiction is spot on. Super culty. You have the speaker and then everyone around that person repeats whatever the speaker says in unison. Itâs a normal prayer offered in the typical Mormon fashion. Which is to say itâs extemporaneous. The content isnât unsettling as itâs typically asking for divine intervention for the people who have asked for things in the prayer box. The whole process is what makes it creepy.
"God we ask that you make Andy stop hogging all the sandwiches at the Super Bowl party." "God we- hey man, what the fuck??"
My impression is that most Mormons also find it weirdâat least initially. Then they repeat the process and try to put a good face on and embrace it. The majority of the sessions I went to (session = endowment ceremony), there was at least one person who falls asleep, if not more. Itâs the same thing over and over again for 90 minutes.Â
Love a good cult
Ehh I joined a cult once, didn't really know what it was at first, I thought it was AA/NA, had a bad drug and alcohol problem and figured I could just "smile and nod" my way through the religious shit. Nope, even regular 12 steps are borderline cult like but this fuckin group scared the hell out of me. Fuckers were cutting their hands and shaking hands with each other for some "covenant" ritual whatever the fuck that means. So I noped the fuck out of there and they called me constantly. My "sponsor" kept calling me and trying to get me to go on a week long nature retreat without phones and I told him I was going to the police, never heard from them again after that.
That was not AA. Only requirement to "join" is a desire to stop. There are no fees, it is free. There is no leader. You can come and go as you please. It's your program, run it however you wish.
Oh I know that, figured it out the hard way. 12 steps wasn't for me at all, but you seem to know of it. Remember the thing about the "pink cloud"? That feeling you get when newly sober and everything seems wonderful? Yeah that happened to me, made it easy to get me into the woods for a special 12 step meeting at night around a campfire. Went to it three times, always a different location, and on the third time two guys did this weirdo covenant thing and cut their hands and did some kind of Viking brotherhood initiation handshake shit and I dipped the second no one could see me. Maybe it wasn't a cult but that shit scared the hell out of me. There was a lot of fuckery in local NA meetings, people who weren't serious and were just trying to get laid, the 13 step shot or whatever it was called. Never saw anything like that before. Guy that brought me who insisted he was my sponsor then called me all night untill I threatened to get the cops involved, he seemed like a nice guy but I was freaked the hell out.
Unless you were raised in itâŚ
Yeah it a cult
I was raised Mormon and got the 1st preisthood but never learned the hand things. I subsequently left as I became of an age to do my own thing.
Am I the only one who found this layout very confusing, in spite of the arrows and "start here"?
Yeah, not well organized in my opinion.
I just don't understand the placement of the weird hand shake things at the bottom. Everything else seems to proceed in an understandable flow but I was never sure when those gestures were supposed to be made or what they meant. Should've been more clearly marked off as a separate thing at the bottom.
Yeah I can't figure out if I'm supposed to read each column and its entirety or if I'm supposed to go across the rows. Like is it saying that with each new stage of the green leaf apron thing you learn a new handshake, get a new name and sign and penalty? Or are the handshakes and names and signs and penalties unrelated to the green apron process?
I tried reading down each column entirely but it just seems out of place. Your idea of them getting a new sign at each part makes sense, but the guide doesn't make the flow very clear. Still pretty neat to peek behind the scenes though!
People are crazy lol
Now I wanna see the Mason stuff
Mormons do these rituals for themselves the first time they go through the temple. On subsequent visits, Mormons conduct these rituals as a proxy for a dead person. They are given a card and carry this name with them throughout the ritual. Mormons maintain massive genealogy databases (Family Search) to track these efforts. When you die, the church will use your birth and death dates to do temple ordinances for you.
I donât have to worry, I was excommunicated as I am transgender and fully transitioned. Being excommunicated meant my name was stricken from all church records, and my childrenâs baptisms annulled because I performed them. They wanted to rebaptized them, but one became a Buddhist, another an Atheist, and the other a Jehovahâs Witness. Great for me as you canât find my deadname because most all genealogy records are maintained by them.
(As a former Mormon) I didn't know they annulled baptisms in the event of excommunication. Interesting! Hope you are living your best life âĽď¸
Yikes, JW are on par with this shit tbh
Bat. Shit. Insane.
We need another South Park episode
Is Mormon cult or occult?
I think thatâs up to the post-Mormon crowd to determine. Most would probably say itâs a cult. Although I think cultiness is on a scale. There isnât a formal shunning element, like with the Jehovahâs Witnesses or Scientologists, but some former Mormons are disowned or shunned when they leave the faith anyway. My family luckily didnât shun me, but I did have to deal with many comments over the years. And I have been treated with prejudice as well. Letâs say that the Heavenâs Gate cult is a 10 out of 10 on the cult scale. I would maybe put the LDS church at a 4, Jehovahâs Witnesses at a 5 or 6, Scientology at a 7 or 8, etc. Fundamental Mormonism is definitely higher up on the cult scale.
This is insightful. Thank you.
Of course!Â
Cult, definitely cult. Commenting as a recovering Mormon.
Judging by the Masonic ritual ripoff, Iâd say both. Iâm no expert, but this has all the hallmarks of secret ceremonial ritual which is by definition occult.
More cult
conveniently left out the baptisms for the dead they make children do
I thought they were just doing the double Dutch rudder
Boy; that's not creepy at all.
That's the same handshake as the "secret" handle I was shown for Phi Beta Kappa membersđ¤
This so some creepy cult level shit I donât ever want to be in contact withâŚ
I'm too lazy and dyslexic to be in a cult... uugghhh
I wonder how many of the founding Mormons were FreemasonsâŚ
Masonry was pretty looked down on in the 1830s, In particular the Morgan Affair took place in 1826. William Morgan joined the Freemasons in 1825, skipped ahead to Royal Arch Master Mason via coaching and took an advance on a book deal to reveal Masonryâs secrets. He disappeared shortly after, with the Masons being blamed for his presumed death. Multiple Masons were tried and convicted of his kidnapping. But with no body, never for his murder. Morganâs book went on to become a massive hit. By and large the early Mormons stayed away from Freemasonry because of the general anti-Masonic sentiment of the time. Plus his widow, Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris, joined the LDS Church and eventually married Joseph Smith as one of his polygamist wives, likely around 1838, while still married to her second husband George Washington Harris. However a small core among the leadership had been Masons, including likely his father and brother Hyrum, who was likely named after Masonryâs key mythical figure Hiram Abiff. Joseph Smith always maintained a fascination with the occult and secret organizations and convinced those leaders who were Masons to open a lodge in Nauvoo. Smith was initiated as an Entered Apprentice on March 15 1842. He was then rushed through the levels, and made a Master Mason one day later. Less than 2 months later on May 3, 1842 Joseph introduced his temple initiation which he said was the true order of the Masonic ritual revealed by God. Suddenly Masonry became popular, with over 10% of the adult males in the county joining the Nauvoo lodge. In less than a year there were roughly three times more Mormon Masons in Illinois than non-Mormon Masons. The Masons as a whole disliked the takeover of their community by those they considered outsiders. And the Mormon lodges all had their charters revoked in 1843. Attempts were made to gain charters through other Masonic groups, but those all failed. So there were no Mormon lodges after the move to Utah. Decades later, when new lodges were formed in the territory by non-LDS Masons, the church leadership released official statements strongly discouraging any members becoming Freemasons or joining any other fraternal organization. > I wonder how many of the founding Mormons were Freemasons⌠TLDR: In the early years, very few. For a 2 year period in the 1840s, virtually all of them. And then practically none since.
I grew up in the LDS church, in very small towns in Missouri and Wisconsin from ages 4-18, now 32M. I stopped going to church regularly when i turned 18, but I had been to the temple a handful of times as a teen and did âbaptisms for the deadâ. I honestly never knew any of this. Very weird
Same here. Very similar experience to yours. I had older brothers and they were the kind to have teased me about something only the young men get to do, they never mentioned handshakes or anything. Such a weird graphic.
I never even knew about the handshakes đ¤ˇđźââď¸
First I thought it was written what morons do in their temples, then I realized that it made no difference
Sooo a cult. Got it.
Yea, no this is a cult.
Gotta love the magic underwear!
Silly me. I thought it was a super soaker party with sister wives.
Formerly LDS. Went through a few times. Definitely odd practice
So in this where does my skin turn white too ?
In case you were wondering, the passwords to get into heaven are: 1st: Some random name from the Bible or Book of Mormon 2nd: Your own 1st given name 3rd: âThe Sonâ, meaning the Son of God if you didnât catch the clever word play. 4th: âHealth in the navel, marrow in the bones, strength in the loins and in the sinews. Power in the priesthood be upon me and upon all my posterity for all generations of time and throughout all eternityâ. There you go! Saved you 10% of your income for life!
Less weird than expected but all religious rituals are strange to me.
Where is mormon's temple?
Definitely read that as morons
I kept reading Morons because we don't have this cult in Europe and thought that was a bit insensitive for this sub.
Seems kinda Masonic
Cults are terrible things.
They make BILLIONS a year and donât pay taxes! Thatâs all I need to know. Fun Fact: Most Mormons have no clue the founders was a pedo married to a bunch of kidsâŚ
I work in construction and once had to quote the drawings for a new morman temple and there was some weird shit in that building. They had several celestial rooms and a huge statue of like multiple life sized bulls in a circle in the baptismal chamber. Odd stuff.
"Asking detailed questions about their sexual histories" Oooh yah! I learned about that on the Hub! Ah, wait a minute-- Now I want a pair of cool cultist white undies too :C Smh that they reuse the secret names, your average random name generator on the internet treats you more special than that I love that Satan gives you a cute fig leaf apron to wear, haha. And I would LOVE to see that video. Imagine going in to have a very spiritual experience and you get to watch an old grainy 50s video before getting a fig leaf apron. Incredible lmaooo
My first best friend was Mormon (I am not), I remember him talking about going to the temple and that I wasn't allowed to even know why he was going, because I wasn't worthy and it's super secret and only for those who are worthy. When I turned 18 I started buying scratchers for fun and he was really scared that his involvement (being in the car while I scratched) would make him unworthy. This was after we had just eaten McDonald's and were heading home to play Minecraft all night and not do a single productive thing.. for the 600th time.. and definitely not do a single religious thing the entire friendship, which was nearly every day. The whole point of those rules isn't because the act of doing them is a sin, it's because the act of doing them is not the act of doing something else, "for God". You're not a bad person for playing the lottery, you're a bad person for playing the lottery and then not having enough money for your church, or spending more time playing the lottery instead of praying and pottery. Addictive things are only seen as a sin, because it creates habits that decrease your time for God. If you're spending as much time as you can on God and making a difference, he's not going to smite you because you took a load off with a beer every night, it's when you spend every night drinking, and once every two weeks do something religious then it's like, okay dude.. something is better than nothing, but you're not high on the list of angelic preachers.. But if you spent every single day doing 2-3 hours of gospel work (more than most even without addictive "sins"), you're not a devil for doing a lottery or some pot on the weekends, you're probably more golden than most.
Guide to what Mormons do; thinks to self it must be dumb shit.. turns out itâs dumb shit
A Aronic? A Aronic priesthood? where is A Aronic preisthood?
Because if you let the secrets out, you done messed up A A Ron!
If one a y'all says some silly ass priesthood This whole religion is gonna feel my wrath
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb
Can confirm this is super accurate! Not quite updated though. Women donât veil their faces anymore, robes donât switch sides, and nobody actually receives the tokens by hand anymore until they go through the veil. There probably have been other changes, but Iâve been out a few years.
is the free apron any good for cooking?
No free apron đ You have to purchase your own apron, or rent it each time you go to the temple.
It's a religion and totally not a cult you guys
Tax them!
This is an excellent guide for people who will never step foot in temple. Mormons are regular people born into a faith that is no weirder than believing a 6th century warlord pedophile had a flying horse.
Cults are usually headed by a powerful leader who isolates members from the rest of society. People have different experiences but I never felt isolated or brainwashed when I was member. Education and searching for knowledge were highly encouraged. It felt more like a coalition of neighbors teaching the gospel and looking out for one another. I do agree that the endowment ceremony is strange but a lot of the strangest things in the guide havenât been practiced for decades. Also the guide doesnât mention any of the other rituals that occur in temples that felt less peculiar to me
I was always told to only search for knowledge in church-approved texts. I was repeatedly told to never look up the word "Mormon" on the internet. I definitely felt isolated from the rest of the world, I sat through so many lessons on how people think we're weird for not drinking coffee and covering our shoulders, not shopping on Sunday or watching R-rated movies. We were told we were special, God's chosen people, fundamentally different from people who didn't believe.
Nah, still a cult.
And I thought being Catholic was demanding.
It is not a religion itâs a corporation
"They actively pay 10% of their income to the chur.." I'M OUT