Sacred Light

If you allow these old white men to dictate your underwear, you just might, possibly, be in a CULT! Family members did tell us some things to prepare us, before that cold March day in 1991 when we first went through the temple, even though you are not suppose to talk about what goes on in the temple to people who have not been through it; they told us what would happen because they didn’t want us to be freaked out during the actual ritual. How you received the garments back then could be uncomfortable, surprising, and even upsetting to some people if you were not prepared. You receive your new underwear before you do anything else in the temple. I was told by a trusted family member that I would be naked with a large cloth 'shield' covering me that was open on both sides for access to my body during the ritual. They also said that a woman would touch me on several parts of my body with both water and then oil as she prayed over me. I was told it was a beautiful ceremony ...

Knowing  about what was going to happen in the temple and experiencing it are two completely different things. This was supposed to be a happy day for me. Yet, I felt grim inside as the day wore on. This is what I had been told my whole life had to happen if I wanted my family to be together forever in the next life. Yet, as I did everything that first time through the temple, I had this unsettling feeling of how insane it all was, unusual underwear, crazy clothes, women with veiled faces, men in foolish hats, obsessive rituals, extreme covenants, odd signs, peculiar tokens, bizarre handshakes, and ‘new names’ all just to get into Heaven?! Plus, it was being drilled into me that if I didn’t live up to everything that I was promising to do that day, I would absolutely be under Satan’s influence and power. Those thoughts were overshadowing my joy at finally being a ‘forever family’. First, I participated in the 'washing and anointing' ceremony. You have to have on their sp...

Albert Einstein said, “Teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the archaic doctrine of a personal God, to give up the source of fear which has placed vast power in the hands of the clergy and priests . Such a doctrine is not only unworthy, but fatal, and has done incalculable harm to human spiritual progress.”  Participating in the Mormon temple rituals definitely did harm to my personal spiritual progress. For decades I believed I was a wretched sinner, whom God could not love without intervention on my behalf. This was a terrible lie that I was clutching tightly in my hands until it was promptly released from my grasp through the discovery of the true history of the church. Once their deception was fully realized in my heart, letting go of those terrible beliefs of my unworthiness, my worthlessness, my shamefulness, and my un-deservingness of living life on my own terms was effortless and immediate as if those once treasured truths had turned into red hot co...

"...Ceremony is essential to humans: It’s a circle that we draw around important events to separate the momentous from the ordinary. And ritual is a sort of magical safety harness that guides us from one stage of our lives into the next, making sure we don’t stumble or lose ourselves along the way. Ceremony and ritual march us carefully right through the center of our deepest fears about change…" ~ Elizabeth Gilbert I am not going to reveal anything that can’t already be found on the internet about the Mormon Church and their temples. Everything I reveal about the temple in this post, and any future posts as well, is from my personal perspective, and my numerous memories from participating in the L.D.S temple ceremonies many, many times. These next two posts will contain my own opinions based upon my experiences and my own interpretation of being a member of the Mormon Church for forty two years, and an endowed member of the church for twenty years. Before I dive into...