Count me as disappointed-all that secrecy…and you find out that you get to wear a funny hat (looks like a hairnet, if you are a male), and some funny white robes. Then you you get to shake hands with some dude behind a curtain. The “celestial lounge” is boring-no cocktails or music.
Not a big reward for your teenage years spent ringing doorbells and explaining the religion to guys wearing wifebeaters who reek of stale beer! Not to mention paying tithes.
Where does all the fun stuff take place?
More than “influences” - about 80-90% is basically nicked from masonic ceremony with words slightly changed.
Not in craft masonry; it’s pretty much all about the building of king solomon’s temple.
I think the loonies behind the holy blood/holy grail book postulated that hiram abifff was based on a pharoh but, well, they’re loonies (and/or people who have got very rich off very historically dubious claims, which is not the same thing)
Tell me about it. I was sorely disappointed the first time I went through. This is it?
Hey now. You get to mill around in a room and, if it’s not too crowded, sit on a couch.
Behold, these are the mysteries of godliness: a not-so-tastefully appointed Marriott lounge circa 1975.
And as an added bonus, its a meeting of Mormon without the green punch and red jello. Or was that the red punch and green jello?
In the afterlife, when you get to practice polygamy again. 
For the men maybe. Spending eternity as a plural wife popping out spirit babies with which to populate our planet/s sounds much less than heavenly to me.
Well yeah. Why do you think I quit? (The reasons were numerous actually.) Because the idea of being one of a hundred brood mares for some effeminate douchebag for eternity did not sound like a reward to me. I’d be all 
, wha? And how exactly is that supposed to entice me to follow all the rules and wear the silly underpants? :dubious:
Good thing I am not Mormon. I wouldn’t be able to resist using a joy buzzer for the secret handshake. Probably give God a heart attack, I hear he is pretty old.
There is a much more fun thing that happens in the 1st craft degree of Masonry, and that theme (lets say it’s analagous to guinness) is hugely expanded on in the 3rd degree that make both of them brilliant spectacles, at least when they’re done by men who’ve learned their lines and performing emulation ritual which is all I’m familiar with.
Out of interest to what extent were you ex-mormons cynical by the point you did these ceremonies for the first time?
I have a question about Latter Day Saints(Mormons) and God as they worship him. I hope this question isn’t too much of a hijack.
If God the Father was once as we are, a living, physical being, does He also then have a wife. How is she depicted, or is she? Does she, if she’s there, have a name?
I apologize if this question is too disrespectful.
Wait is this part true? I don’t give a crap about funny underwear or wackadoo rituals, - every religion has quirks, but taking a vow to destroy the USA? How recently was this vow still actively taken? Wikipedia doesn’t seem to say.
Oath of Vengeance against the USA that read:
“You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.”
That hasn’t been done for almost a hundred years.
If you wanna punish religions for things done in their past (which I’m cool with by the way because it exposes what SHITE they are) then there are much worse things with all the mainstream abrahamic ones.
He was so fascinated by pluralism that he decided to apply it to marriage.
The Oath of Vengeance was discontinued in 1927. But yes, it was real.
Yes, God the Father has a wife (actually, presumably multiple polygamous wives). Mormons refer to her as “Heavenly Mother” but are prohibited from praying to her. Some feminist Mormon women were disciplined in the 1990s for talking about her and advocating praying to her.
I was not. Mormon men typically first go to the temple (this is called “receiving your endowments”) just before they go on a mission at 19 or 20, although this age was just lowered to 18 for men and 19 for women as not enough people have been signing up for missions.
At the Missionary Training Center in Provo, we were required to attend the temple once a week during the eight weeks we were studying Japanese. On the way home we stopped off in the Tokyo Temple and that was the final time I went.
Like many ex-mormons, I felt that the temple experience was bazaar and not spiritually uplifting. The teachings were just part of what I had already known, so listening to that for an hour wasn’t exciting. Prior to 1990, we also had to make signs of penalties such as having our throats slit if we were ever to revel what went on. This is another reason I have little sympathy for people who whine* it’s sacred, not secret.* No. Mimicking ways that other Mormons can kill you for exposing bazaar practices is in no way sacred.
One cite I just found said 1927. That’s similar to what other cites I’ve seen in the past. Pretty scary stuff.
Thread winner.
ETA: It looks like I missed Erdosain’s post on the date.
Within the last 100 years?
Mormons generally “receive their endowment” as part of a major milestone in life - either immediately before serving as a missionary, or immediately before getting married. Early in the ceremony, the initiates are advised that they will be expected to make covenants, and they are invited to walk out if they can’t honor the obligations “of their own free will and choice.” But they do not yet know what the covenants will be, and their friends and family are all in attendance giving them sympathetic thumbs-up don’t-worry-it’s-weird-but-not-painful encouragement. Walking out of the ceremony would also mean walking away from the mission or wedding. I have a couple of female friends who were allowed to go to the temple when they were 24ish with no marriage prospects. But there was still plenty of peer presure to play along.
I went in 1997, so I didn’t experience the five points of fellowship, pay-lay-ale, the penalties (decapitation and disembowelment for those who reveal the handshakes and passwords), the oath of vengeance against the USA, or the Protestant minister on Satan’s payroll. My first temple was Salt Lake, where instead of the video they still act out the live play and move from room to room throughout the ceremony. All the other temples except Manti (where I was married) now use the video. I found the whole thing to be surprisingly non-spiritual. I’d been taught my whole life that I must prepare for the “sacred” temple. And it turned out to be just a 2-hour meeting where you dress in a robe, learn handshakes, chant, and make an oath to wear baggy undergarments.