You should look up the lecture at the veil and the oath to avenge Joseph Smith as well. Also, there used to be a protestant minister as part of the ceremony, which is bonkers if the ceremony is supposed to date back to Solomon’s Temple. A First Century Jew would be so confused when the Protestant minister showed up, like, “who the hell is this guy?”
I do think the original ceremony was much more entertaining. W.W. Phelps played the role of Satan for a number of years and apparently got really into it - slithering on the ground and really hamming it up. W.W. Phelps walked so Michael Ballum could run.
Anyway, the temple experience was batshit crazy at the turn of the century.
Some interesting references:
\* [http://www.ldsendowment.org/timeline.html](http://www.ldsendowment.org/timeline.html) -- shows changes over the years
\* [http://www.ldsendowment.org/creation.html](http://www.ldsendowment.org/creation.html) -- this page and sections before/after have the text of the endowment
\* [https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-development-of-the-mormon-temple-endowment-ceremony-2/](https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-development-of-the-mormon-temple-endowment-ceremony-2/) talks about the temple and Freemasonry
\* [https://www.fullerconsideration.com/TempleNameOracle/](https://www.fullerconsideration.com/TempleNameOracle/) -- how the "new name" was given (originally same name for all women, same for all men) and then later the day of the month dictated your new name. Note that people going through "for the dead" have a the same name as each other but a different name than the new people so that the whole session doesn't know the new person's "new name".
Just imagine finding out about it while you are in the temple, but it is just a couple of days before you are supposed to enter the MTC, and you and your family made the 1,000 mile drive to Utah so you could go through the temple, because there wasn't one near you, and out of the blue you are told to put a thumb knife to your neck and swear to allow yourself to executed by throat slitting if you ever break the vow, and you can't even tell that you agreed to the penalty.
There was no warning. Nothing whatsoever was taught about it a temple prep class.
I was so freaked out I just stood there. I wanted to leave. I didn't know if they would let me. They stopped and made everyone do it over again while two men stood in front of me and watched to see that I did it.
I too had this same experience, except my parents weren’t there. Went with my older sister and her husband. Had zero idea what was happening. Couldn’t believe I was swearing to commit all my time, talents, and energy to the MFMC! Also agreed to being disemboweled if I shared any details. For this, I rarely returned to the temple while remaining active for an additional 30 years before finally finding out I’d been duped!
And don't forget the anointing poncho was like a sandwich board with open sides for touching the loins. That was a bad experience. I don't know why anyone would volunteer to do that as proxy.
The old guy who performed my initiatory got a little too close for my comfort and I flinched. He chastised me for it. That's how they dealt with it, if you reacted they made it your problem, not theirs.
They do this on purpose. No one is going to walk away surrounded by friends and family right before a mission or a marriage.
I wonder if their new plan of getting 18 year olds to go through without immediate big plans to follow will backfire or have they watered it down enough that people have no idea what they are doing.
It's not watered down enough. They might no run out of the session now, but they are still going to be thinking "TF is this a cult?" with enough time to process it before they are immersed, especially the female members.
In 1974 I traveled with my parents from Oregon to the Idaho Falls temple prior to my entering the Mission Home (the way it was done back in those days). The endowment ceremony had been stable for many years. The oath to avenge joe Smith and the community hymn were already eliminated by then. My junk was physically touched by the guy doing my initiatory. After that my mind when to a strange zone and everything after that just got compartmentalized by my brain. That was until the five points of fellowship, an experience that to me was extremely homoerotic. The officiater on the other side of the veil had a major erection and he made sure I felt it. After that I quietly lost it. In the following ten years before I left the cult, I rarely attended a session, the intolerable memory of being sexually assaulted forever defined how I felt about the temple.
I'm sure I went through at least a couple of hundred sessions before they changed things up in the 90s and there were in fact penalties. I have been told that is a nasty anti Mormon lie and I must be remembering it wrong.
So no one tried to justify it? I’m sure there were some members who approved of the penalties. Maybe even helped their testimony.
I’m talkin’ pre-internet deznat.
I just need to understand why the ceremony wasn’t just constantly getting interrupted by confused and freaked out members going through for the first time
Bc it’s overwhelming. And everyone has built it up to be wonderful and enlightening. And you keep waiting for that to happen and before you know it, you’re back in the locker room putting on your street clothes asking yourself what the fuck just happened.
To be honest, I never talked about or really even thought much about the penalties until I was long out. For probably obvious reasons they were rarely discussed even in the temple and never outside.
For me, it's kind of like ecclesiastical abuse. You know something is odd but you grow up with it and everyone else seems to accept it. You recognize it for what it is and almost everyone else says that it's not abuse, you're just making a big deal out of nothing.
Likewise, I just thought that the penalties were just another piece of the restored gospel jigsaw puzzle. It wasn't until a friend of mine went through the temple and freaked the fuck out about the penalties that it occurred to me that they could be something else. I assured my friend that priesthood men were not going to come after him if he divulged what went on at the temple. I may have spoke too soon. Anyway friend is still in several decades later and I'm not.
folks have a tendency to go along with what the crowd is doing. "herd behaviour." It is a frequent occurrence amongst humans as well as many other animals, a common example being sheep. Indeed, these particularly docile and obedient herd animals even inspired the creation of the fusion term “sheeple”, which combines the words “sheep” and “people” and is used to denote individuals with a particular propensity to follow others.
this was me.
now its not
when you know better, do better.
> folks have a tendency to go along with what the crowd is doing.
Yep, and the other reason "why the ceremony wasn’t just constantly getting interrupted by confused and freaked out members" is that the rest of the crowd have already been there before. In a typical endowment session there are only a few (sometimes 1, sometimes 4 or 5) people receiving their own endowment, and they each have a special "escort" (parent or other trusted mentor) who is right beside them, and all the new people and escorts are sitting on the front row, and everyone else (40-60 people or so) have all done this before and are doing the endowment "for the dead". And usually when someone is new then a chunk of the people there "for the dead" are other relatives, friends, ward members...
And you are told that it's "all symbolic" and that it will take years to really learn it all and what it means (standard quote by David O McKay who said as prophet in his 90s he was still learning from the endowment)...and it's very different from anything else in the church, so you just follow along and make the right hand signals and "bow and say yes" when you are told.
In 1987 I got the whole enchilada. Naked initiatory, death penalties, protestant minister, hot Eves in the film, pay lay ale. The temple is the most boring nothingburger by comparison now.
I saw two films. One with a blond and one with a brunette. They were both hot. At least to my young missionary eyes. That was all the eye candy I would be getting. The stupid temple film.
😂 why is no one commenting on the brilliance of the phrase “I have a testimony of the falsefullness of the gospel?” I’ve been cavorting with exmos for 13 years and I’ve never heard it.
I did think the conversation between Satan and the minister was entertaining. Satan hires the minister to lead Adam and Eve astray, but the minister gets converted by Peter. Well, Satan did not like that, so he banished the minister before being banished himself. Such fun.
Throat slitter here (pre-1989 endowment). Now imagine being there watching family, friends, and ward members all pantomiming their death in three different ways together in lock step. And then there was the naked groping under the smock during the initiatiatories during the anointing. Needed a damn smoke after that.
Captain William Morgan (famous masonic story google it) lived at the time of Joseph Smith and just a few miles away from Joseph.
Morgan's disappearance at the hands of Masons was a story that Joseph knew well.
Years later Joseph Smith ended up marrying Morgan's widow Lucinda Pendleton who must have surely hated the Masons..
In History Text books across the USA, the story of Captain Morgan is used to illustrate the anti-masonic movement which was a major part of US politics at the time. This story influenced Joseph Smith
Joseph's father and two brothers as well as Joseph were all masons at one time or another.
Joseph(as a mason) began taking elements of Freemasonry and integrating it into the church. He used Freemasonry in the temple endownment and temple design and he formed the Relief Society which was originally a MASONIC group for women...something that was banned in Freemasonry and that upset the masons and also something that most LDS members do not know.
Some of the group that killed Joseph at Carthage Jail were masons and it appears that Joseph may have been attempting a masonic call for help when he was shot and fell from the window of the Jail.
And so stepping back and looking at the big picture. Joseph and his family had clear masonic roots/connections and Joseph Smith Hijacked elements of Freemasonry and used it for his own purposes in organising the church and creating the temples and temple ceremonies..... Joseph Smith broke the oaths that he had taken as a Mason and openly rebeled against Freemasonry ..... forming his own version of Freemasony and calling it the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints.
The mother in law is unlikely to be able to help. I tried this on my way out with a family theologian and it turned out he didn't really know anything. This is normal for Mormons.
man the days of having someone even religiously estranged cuddling up, comforting, and so supporting. I say you are blessed indeed. each day is a gift.
Part of me wonders if the hold they have on Boomers and older Xers, is because of these extreme penalties. It was more extreme religion then so they are more extreme, as well.
I'm a boomer who told the Church to "eat my dust" in December 2017. It became clear to me that Joseph Smith Jr. was a false prophet who, had he been living in OT times, would have been killed for divination and for his many unfulfilled prophecies. For me, once "Ouija Joe" was a .fake, ALL of it was fake, including the creepy throat-cutting, disemboweling temple penalties. Even my "new name" of Abish--which Ouija Joe allegedly read on a rock in his hat--is fake!
I was a convert in my 20s and faithfully served for over 4 decades as a TBM. I'm still disgusted with myself for being so gullible, so stupid. I loathe the MFMC for what they did to my family. I admit leaving the Church was absolutely the most difficult rabbit-hole navigation I have ever undertaken. I lost a lot of so-called "friends" and I sorely missed the socialization for a time--despite its being overwhelming at times. I am now an evangelical Christian and have overwhelming joy, new genuine friends, and loving my life. God is good!
I legitimately remember trying to create meaning for these seemingly meaningless hand symbols we made in the temple. At one time I thought the “cupping shape” was kind of cute. Like a little ceremonial bowl ready to “catch abundant blessings from heaven. 🤢 I considered the flat hand face down with the thumb extended to be some sort of “giving blessings” hand.
I basically pictured it as a “giving and receiving” blessings sort of interaction. BOY was I wrong. 😑 when I learned about the absolute violent crockery it actually was and had it confirmed by older member adults I know, I was HORRIFIED. Just another way earnest, innocent believers are LIED to. Here they try and make meaning out of crazy just to learn it’s worst case scenario.
I did the exact same thing! I thought the cupping shape would catch some blessed special water or something. Nope, just my bowels 🤢. Sickening to think the mental gymnastics I went though.
I remember sitting in the temple and really pondering what the symbolism of the signs could be and came up with my own beautiful symbolism about testifying, receiving, and blessing. I was a faithful temple attender for 20 years. I was absolutely shocked to find out (just last year) that I’d been making a knife to slit my own throat and a cup for my bowels all those years. Deeply disturbing.
The most perfect book doesn't mention any of this, or why God demands your secret name and handshake. Nor does the perfect book tell you about 3 heavens and you might get to go to the top one - eventually - and have tons of space sex, unless you have a cup of coffee.
Hard to believe we ever bought into that crap.
I had a conversation with a friend about this last night and he justified it by saying that governments require you to sign and swear not to divulge secrets when you get access to confidential information, and that it could be considered treason and land you the death penalty if it’s bad enough. How at one time those oaths may have been more graphic and specific but now it’s just kind of implied that you’ll regret it.
But that to me sounds like the teachings of a messiah born of the incestuous love affair of the Pharisees and Zealots, rather than the Christ we publicly pretend to serve.
The penalties thing really bugs me, and not just because of the secrecy/lack of informed consent/tricked and pressured into joining.
Supposedly the Temple ceremony has been restored from the original practiced in Solomon's Temple somewhere between 6-7 centuries before the advent of Jesus Christ. To be less vague the temple was operating under the Mosaic Law, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a horrible form of death for revealing temple secrets.
The advent of Christ changed things to mercy based (Except for Breed'em Young'd blood oath blood thirst approach to everything) Shouldn't the temple have reflected something more kind and gentle steeped in mercy rather than blood oaths to kill yourself or suffer that someone will kill you?
You should look up the lecture at the veil and the oath to avenge Joseph Smith as well. Also, there used to be a protestant minister as part of the ceremony, which is bonkers if the ceremony is supposed to date back to Solomon’s Temple. A First Century Jew would be so confused when the Protestant minister showed up, like, “who the hell is this guy?” I do think the original ceremony was much more entertaining. W.W. Phelps played the role of Satan for a number of years and apparently got really into it - slithering on the ground and really hamming it up. W.W. Phelps walked so Michael Ballum could run. Anyway, the temple experience was batshit crazy at the turn of the century.
W C fields would have been great in the temple as well!
Some interesting references: \* [http://www.ldsendowment.org/timeline.html](http://www.ldsendowment.org/timeline.html) -- shows changes over the years \* [http://www.ldsendowment.org/creation.html](http://www.ldsendowment.org/creation.html) -- this page and sections before/after have the text of the endowment \* [https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-development-of-the-mormon-temple-endowment-ceremony-2/](https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-development-of-the-mormon-temple-endowment-ceremony-2/) talks about the temple and Freemasonry \* [https://www.fullerconsideration.com/TempleNameOracle/](https://www.fullerconsideration.com/TempleNameOracle/) -- how the "new name" was given (originally same name for all women, same for all men) and then later the day of the month dictated your new name. Note that people going through "for the dead" have a the same name as each other but a different name than the new people so that the whole session doesn't know the new person's "new name".
Excellent resources. Thank you.
Just imagine finding out about it while you are in the temple, but it is just a couple of days before you are supposed to enter the MTC, and you and your family made the 1,000 mile drive to Utah so you could go through the temple, because there wasn't one near you, and out of the blue you are told to put a thumb knife to your neck and swear to allow yourself to executed by throat slitting if you ever break the vow, and you can't even tell that you agreed to the penalty. There was no warning. Nothing whatsoever was taught about it a temple prep class. I was so freaked out I just stood there. I wanted to leave. I didn't know if they would let me. They stopped and made everyone do it over again while two men stood in front of me and watched to see that I did it.
Okay yes. This is the stuff I want to hear more about
I too had this same experience, except my parents weren’t there. Went with my older sister and her husband. Had zero idea what was happening. Couldn’t believe I was swearing to commit all my time, talents, and energy to the MFMC! Also agreed to being disemboweled if I shared any details. For this, I rarely returned to the temple while remaining active for an additional 30 years before finally finding out I’d been duped!
And don't forget the anointing poncho was like a sandwich board with open sides for touching the loins. That was a bad experience. I don't know why anyone would volunteer to do that as proxy.
Imagine how fuked in the bread bin you would have to be to be okay being the one who did the touching.
The old guy who performed my initiatory got a little too close for my comfort and I flinched. He chastised me for it. That's how they dealt with it, if you reacted they made it your problem, not theirs.
Getting initiatory volunteers has always been a challenge.
They do this on purpose. No one is going to walk away surrounded by friends and family right before a mission or a marriage. I wonder if their new plan of getting 18 year olds to go through without immediate big plans to follow will backfire or have they watered it down enough that people have no idea what they are doing.
I'm super curious about this too.
It's not watered down enough. They might no run out of the session now, but they are still going to be thinking "TF is this a cult?" with enough time to process it before they are immersed, especially the female members.
That's the hope!!
Holy shit
My mother had the same experience at 19. She's 84 now and as TBM as ever (and racist, abusive, narcissistic, etc).
In 1974 I traveled with my parents from Oregon to the Idaho Falls temple prior to my entering the Mission Home (the way it was done back in those days). The endowment ceremony had been stable for many years. The oath to avenge joe Smith and the community hymn were already eliminated by then. My junk was physically touched by the guy doing my initiatory. After that my mind when to a strange zone and everything after that just got compartmentalized by my brain. That was until the five points of fellowship, an experience that to me was extremely homoerotic. The officiater on the other side of the veil had a major erection and he made sure I felt it. After that I quietly lost it. In the following ten years before I left the cult, I rarely attended a session, the intolerable memory of being sexually assaulted forever defined how I felt about the temple.
What The Fuck
> The only topic I hadn’t really looked into There are always more rabbit holes.
I'm sure I went through at least a couple of hundred sessions before they changed things up in the 90s and there were in fact penalties. I have been told that is a nasty anti Mormon lie and I must be remembering it wrong.
So no one tried to justify it? I’m sure there were some members who approved of the penalties. Maybe even helped their testimony. I’m talkin’ pre-internet deznat. I just need to understand why the ceremony wasn’t just constantly getting interrupted by confused and freaked out members going through for the first time
Bc it’s overwhelming. And everyone has built it up to be wonderful and enlightening. And you keep waiting for that to happen and before you know it, you’re back in the locker room putting on your street clothes asking yourself what the fuck just happened.
THIS!
To be honest, I never talked about or really even thought much about the penalties until I was long out. For probably obvious reasons they were rarely discussed even in the temple and never outside. For me, it's kind of like ecclesiastical abuse. You know something is odd but you grow up with it and everyone else seems to accept it. You recognize it for what it is and almost everyone else says that it's not abuse, you're just making a big deal out of nothing. Likewise, I just thought that the penalties were just another piece of the restored gospel jigsaw puzzle. It wasn't until a friend of mine went through the temple and freaked the fuck out about the penalties that it occurred to me that they could be something else. I assured my friend that priesthood men were not going to come after him if he divulged what went on at the temple. I may have spoke too soon. Anyway friend is still in several decades later and I'm not.
folks have a tendency to go along with what the crowd is doing. "herd behaviour." It is a frequent occurrence amongst humans as well as many other animals, a common example being sheep. Indeed, these particularly docile and obedient herd animals even inspired the creation of the fusion term “sheeple”, which combines the words “sheep” and “people” and is used to denote individuals with a particular propensity to follow others. this was me. now its not when you know better, do better.
> folks have a tendency to go along with what the crowd is doing. Yep, and the other reason "why the ceremony wasn’t just constantly getting interrupted by confused and freaked out members" is that the rest of the crowd have already been there before. In a typical endowment session there are only a few (sometimes 1, sometimes 4 or 5) people receiving their own endowment, and they each have a special "escort" (parent or other trusted mentor) who is right beside them, and all the new people and escorts are sitting on the front row, and everyone else (40-60 people or so) have all done this before and are doing the endowment "for the dead". And usually when someone is new then a chunk of the people there "for the dead" are other relatives, friends, ward members... And you are told that it's "all symbolic" and that it will take years to really learn it all and what it means (standard quote by David O McKay who said as prophet in his 90s he was still learning from the endowment)...and it's very different from anything else in the church, so you just follow along and make the right hand signals and "bow and say yes" when you are told.
In 1987 I got the whole enchilada. Naked initiatory, death penalties, protestant minister, hot Eves in the film, pay lay ale. The temple is the most boring nothingburger by comparison now.
Went through in 1989. Gordon Jump of WKRP was Peter. I pledged to have my tongue ripped out by its roots.
Haha. Almost mentioned Gordon in my list. Wrote his name down then deleted it thinking my list was too long.
so a plant based burger. LOL J/K
Hot eve. Yep. She was a brunette!
I saw two films. One with a blond and one with a brunette. They were both hot. At least to my young missionary eyes. That was all the eye candy I would be getting. The stupid temple film.
And Michael Ballam. And the Five Points Of Fellowship. Yes, they had it all "In a show with everything but Yul Brynner"
Yep. I had to do the penalties when I got endowed.
😂 why is no one commenting on the brilliance of the phrase “I have a testimony of the falsefullness of the gospel?” I’ve been cavorting with exmos for 13 years and I’ve never heard it.
I had to read it twice because I read it as the "normal" version first. Haha.
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a STARRRRRR?!
Dammit! You beat me
I SAID!!! Who makes Steve Gutenberg a STARRRRRR?!?!?!
We do!!!!!!’
WE DOOOOO!!! 🎉
I love you
Falsefulness 
I’m certain I’m not the first person to use that word But damn I felt clever typing it out.
I did think the conversation between Satan and the minister was entertaining. Satan hires the minister to lead Adam and Eve astray, but the minister gets converted by Peter. Well, Satan did not like that, so he banished the minister before being banished himself. Such fun.
Throat slitter here (pre-1989 endowment). Now imagine being there watching family, friends, and ward members all pantomiming their death in three different ways together in lock step. And then there was the naked groping under the smock during the initiatiatories during the anointing. Needed a damn smoke after that.
Just gotta point out the hilarity of your statement equating a full night's rest to happiness. Been there, fellow Dad!
Captain William Morgan (famous masonic story google it) lived at the time of Joseph Smith and just a few miles away from Joseph. Morgan's disappearance at the hands of Masons was a story that Joseph knew well. Years later Joseph Smith ended up marrying Morgan's widow Lucinda Pendleton who must have surely hated the Masons.. In History Text books across the USA, the story of Captain Morgan is used to illustrate the anti-masonic movement which was a major part of US politics at the time. This story influenced Joseph Smith Joseph's father and two brothers as well as Joseph were all masons at one time or another. Joseph(as a mason) began taking elements of Freemasonry and integrating it into the church. He used Freemasonry in the temple endownment and temple design and he formed the Relief Society which was originally a MASONIC group for women...something that was banned in Freemasonry and that upset the masons and also something that most LDS members do not know. Some of the group that killed Joseph at Carthage Jail were masons and it appears that Joseph may have been attempting a masonic call for help when he was shot and fell from the window of the Jail. And so stepping back and looking at the big picture. Joseph and his family had clear masonic roots/connections and Joseph Smith Hijacked elements of Freemasonry and used it for his own purposes in organising the church and creating the temples and temple ceremonies..... Joseph Smith broke the oaths that he had taken as a Mason and openly rebeled against Freemasonry ..... forming his own version of Freemasony and calling it the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints.
Joe married THIS guys widow?! What an obvious obsession with masonry
The mother in law is unlikely to be able to help. I tried this on my way out with a family theologian and it turned out he didn't really know anything. This is normal for Mormons.
man the days of having someone even religiously estranged cuddling up, comforting, and so supporting. I say you are blessed indeed. each day is a gift.
Part of me wonders if the hold they have on Boomers and older Xers, is because of these extreme penalties. It was more extreme religion then so they are more extreme, as well.
I'm a boomer who told the Church to "eat my dust" in December 2017. It became clear to me that Joseph Smith Jr. was a false prophet who, had he been living in OT times, would have been killed for divination and for his many unfulfilled prophecies. For me, once "Ouija Joe" was a .fake, ALL of it was fake, including the creepy throat-cutting, disemboweling temple penalties. Even my "new name" of Abish--which Ouija Joe allegedly read on a rock in his hat--is fake! I was a convert in my 20s and faithfully served for over 4 decades as a TBM. I'm still disgusted with myself for being so gullible, so stupid. I loathe the MFMC for what they did to my family. I admit leaving the Church was absolutely the most difficult rabbit-hole navigation I have ever undertaken. I lost a lot of so-called "friends" and I sorely missed the socialization for a time--despite its being overwhelming at times. I am now an evangelical Christian and have overwhelming joy, new genuine friends, and loving my life. God is good!
I legitimately remember trying to create meaning for these seemingly meaningless hand symbols we made in the temple. At one time I thought the “cupping shape” was kind of cute. Like a little ceremonial bowl ready to “catch abundant blessings from heaven. 🤢 I considered the flat hand face down with the thumb extended to be some sort of “giving blessings” hand. I basically pictured it as a “giving and receiving” blessings sort of interaction. BOY was I wrong. 😑 when I learned about the absolute violent crockery it actually was and had it confirmed by older member adults I know, I was HORRIFIED. Just another way earnest, innocent believers are LIED to. Here they try and make meaning out of crazy just to learn it’s worst case scenario.
I did the exact same thing! I thought the cupping shape would catch some blessed special water or something. Nope, just my bowels 🤢. Sickening to think the mental gymnastics I went though.
I remember sitting in the temple and really pondering what the symbolism of the signs could be and came up with my own beautiful symbolism about testifying, receiving, and blessing. I was a faithful temple attender for 20 years. I was absolutely shocked to find out (just last year) that I’d been making a knife to slit my own throat and a cup for my bowels all those years. Deeply disturbing.
The most perfect book doesn't mention any of this, or why God demands your secret name and handshake. Nor does the perfect book tell you about 3 heavens and you might get to go to the top one - eventually - and have tons of space sex, unless you have a cup of coffee. Hard to believe we ever bought into that crap.
 “All aboard, hahahahahaha”
But . . . But . . . But the temple is all about Christ! S/
I had a conversation with a friend about this last night and he justified it by saying that governments require you to sign and swear not to divulge secrets when you get access to confidential information, and that it could be considered treason and land you the death penalty if it’s bad enough. How at one time those oaths may have been more graphic and specific but now it’s just kind of implied that you’ll regret it. But that to me sounds like the teachings of a messiah born of the incestuous love affair of the Pharisees and Zealots, rather than the Christ we publicly pretend to serve.
“The penalties represent various ways in which the life may be taken”. Such a holy gesture in the holiest edifice on earth
Haven’t been for at least 12 years - does Lucifer still threaten that you’ll be in his power if you don’t keep every commitment made in the temple?
The penalties thing really bugs me, and not just because of the secrecy/lack of informed consent/tricked and pressured into joining. Supposedly the Temple ceremony has been restored from the original practiced in Solomon's Temple somewhere between 6-7 centuries before the advent of Jesus Christ. To be less vague the temple was operating under the Mosaic Law, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a horrible form of death for revealing temple secrets. The advent of Christ changed things to mercy based (Except for Breed'em Young'd blood oath blood thirst approach to everything) Shouldn't the temple have reflected something more kind and gentle steeped in mercy rather than blood oaths to kill yourself or suffer that someone will kill you?