[irrelig]Walk through the LDS Temple without going to the trouble of getting baptized, attending church, and paying tithing to an organization that regularly discriminates against minority members of society. Want to know the secret handshake and fraternal passwords that get you into Mormon heaven?

Guests Chris and Mike give us their own personal experiences and walk us through it, step by bizarre step. Listen here.

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30 Responses to “56: Mormon Temple Ceremony”

  1. Hi Guys,

    Currently, your RSS feed is giving me a parsing error:

    XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity
    Location: http://www.irreligiosophy.com/irrelig_rss.xml
    Line Number 1, Column 2

  2. Which browser are you using? This will help us figure out the issue.

  3. The first character of the RSS document is a space. Maybe that’s what the parser is bitching about.

    To quote the XML 1.0 Bible (5th ed) section 2.8, “XML documents SHOULD begin with an XML declaration which specifies the version of XML being used.” Thus saith the W3C.

  4. Hi!

    Opera 10.50 (browser) doesn’t read the RSS at all.
    PS! You have listeners in Norway as well. If you don’t know where it is, it’s just next to Sweden 🙂

  5. When I try to update it on ITunes I get an (!) .

    🙁

    This may be related to the two other reported errors. Or maybe not. Maybe the internet just hates me right now.

  6. I’m getting this on Firefox in CA.

    XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity Location: http://www.irreligiosophy.com/irrelig_rss.xml
    Line Number 1, Column 2:
    -^

  7. I think it’s due to that rogue space at the beginning of the file. I’m away from my home computer atm, but I sent Leighton an email. Hopefully he can fix it before I get home at 10pm.

  8. Dietrich says:

    It’s working with Firefox 3.6, qtime applet installed.

    Great episode. Now I know why my old neighbor pinched my hand. He fucking revealed the handshake thingy of the nail. Gonna have to go kill him now.

  9. Leighton says:

    I just cut out the space. Don’t know how long it will take to refresh up here, but hopefully that takes care of it.

  10. Works now.

    Please go back to your patients.

  11. Your boys failed to mention one imortant factoid about the new name that is typical sexist shit. A wife can and is supposed to tell her hubby what her new name is but the husband is forbidden to tell the wife his. They sounded like they were single so it makes sense they didn’t know that.

  12. Oh and by the way, great episode. I belly laughed more in this episode than any other. The image of the old man putting your garmy bottoms on has me laughing as I’m typing now. “Use my head to steady yourself…”. ROTFLMAO!!!

  13. somewhere in greece says:

    I heard the whole podcast. Two conclusions:

    1) Michael and Chris deserve triple-distilled trappist belgian beers

    2) The Eastern Orthodox Church has a good case if it decided to sue for plagiarism of the anointing bit.

  14. Wow. Hearing a personal account is so different from reading the rather dry accounts I’ve found online. The ability of humans to believe wacky shit is amazing. It seems that there’s nothing you can’t convince millions of people to believe. I used to find it implausible that any human, even a fictional one, would choose to worship, oh say, Cthulhu. But not anymore.

  15. Angry Budgie says:

    Its like the lamest cult ever. If I’m going to join a religion with a super secret temple ceremony, I don’t want to wear a stupid “shield”, have some old guy feeling me up with oil, watching a boring movie, and putting on “special” underwear.
    I want blood sacrifices, ominous latin chanting, black robes and hoods (or red), black mass, and actual spell casting.

  16. Travis Megee says:

    I was a Freemason. There are 3 initial degrees of Freemasonry: Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and then Master Mason. You can go on to other degrees in Yorkright and Scottishright. I never went past my 3rd degree. It is not difficult to be raised all the way to MM in a single day. It usually entails paying the normal fees and then going through the indoctrination. Those that do that usually do not have to memorize the oaths. Mine was a longer process whereby I learned my oaths and then progressed. When you finish your oath you are raised to the that particular degree and then when you attain the MM degree, it is called the sublime degree. There are many books out there on Freemasonry that can give accurate information. When I was in middle school I was in DeMolay as well. That was all back when I was delusional about deity’s.

  17. Travis Peterson says:

    One of the best shows yet. You could do 10 shows in a row with these guys. can’t wait for you to have them on again..

    P.S. do you have an update on the gay Penguins?

  18. Agentsarahjane says:

    The oiling part made me laugh, because I recently watched the Red Dwarf episode “Terrorform” where Rimmer’s self loathing was a Cthulhu-like god on a moon that forms itself to people’s psyches. Some Vestals oiled the bound Rimmer so it would be for him to slip down the monster’s gullet.
    Maybe the mormons can start using ketchup?

  19. Travis Megee says:

    Smith took a lot from Freemasonry. Listening to you describe the tokens, signs, and such, brought back memories of my indoctrination into the masonic lodge. I always wondered how much he took from them. He took a lot from the rituals for ascending through the degrees of freemasonry. WOW….

  20. Buffalodavid says:

    A short list of words, phrases and concepts directly lifted from Freemasonry:
    Signs and tokens AKA handshakes
    “I did not so receive it, neither so I shall impart it.”
    Square and compass
    The hands raise above the head and lowered at certain intervals while reciting something
    The Five Points of Fellowship

    Not mentioned in the show, but stolen anyway:

    The Beehive symbol is from the second degree

    BTW, Freemasons have two definitions of a square. A 90 degree angle, or one forth part of a circle. Any quarter circles lying around?

  21. Those guests were great. I do hope you have them back. I remember once my friend, a mormon who was pretty much falling away from his faith, went with another friend to a talk given by an ex mormon. He had photos or something of temple rituals and my mormon friend nearly freaked out.

  22. I was raised in a family that was very Mormon. But in high school I began having doubts. Long story short, I left the Mormon Church before I had a chance to go through the temple.

    There was a part of me that always regretted this, even if just a little bit. I was curious about what went on in the temple. To most Mormons, the temple is EVERYTHING. All the things I was taught in church growing up where designed to produce an obedient and temple worthy Mormon.

    Turns out the ultimate goal in Mormonism is swap some secret handshakes!?!? What the fuck! The more I learn about my heritage and Mormonism, the more retarded I realize it is. I’m very glad I did’t waste any time and energy on this temple bullshit.

    Thanks for the great podcast guys. This one is going to be tough to top.

  23. I’m what they call a “Lapsed Catholic”. While the main church has no secret rites, there are societies within the church that does.

    My dad was a “Grand Knight” of the Knights of Columbus. When I was in college he had me go through the “first degree” so I could get a life insurance policy. I went through the ceremony, got the insurance and forgot about it.

    Maybe you guys should do an episode on why people are drawn to religion. My personal opinion is that humans are social animals and need a reason to socialize. Autocrats use this and uses a supernatural entity to give credence to his teachings.

    Also, have you ever noticed that there isn’t a single major modern religion founded by a woman? Why is that?

    Great Podcast.

  24. Angry Budgie says:

    There actually a few religions founded by women or who had major female figures two that are quite recent are of course are Seventh Day Adventist with a very prominent female founder and in Japan there is a religion called Tenrikyo founded by a woman, with over 2 million followers. I found more stuff while I wiki’d it of other religions with female founders or multiple founders some of which were female.

    Rather quick and dirty but….

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_as_theological_figures

  25. What if you have no hands? Are you not allowed to participate in the ceremony?

  26. Angry Budgie says:

    That reminds me…

    I was once told if I didn’t say the sinner’s prayer out loud I couldn’t go to heaven growing up in the evangelical setting. Than I thought….wait what does God do about the mute! Does sign language not cut it? Are they all damned to a fiery, but much less screamy hell?

  27. Taiki, that is actually an interesting question I have never thought about. I’m sure, since the church already believes in vicarious work for the dead, they would have someone with hands act as their proxy.

  28. Alyson Ward says:

    The next time I see those two young men in white shirts and black neckties pedaling around town, I’m gonna give them one of those special handshakes. That ritual sounds like something little boys would invent to keep icky girls out of the tree house.

  29. Loved the podcast. Having lived in DC for several years and always passing the intimidating looming-in-the-sky Mormon Temple on the Beltway in Maryland …. I had always wondered about the secrete ceremonies conducted inside. Thanks for letting us in on all the fun! The scary thing that I came to personally find out is just how mobilized and infiltrated Mormons are in federal government positions, school boards, government operating contractos, etc. Having Human Resources, Employment, and other office staffed with prominent Mormons DID dictate how workplace operations were (or were not) carried out. This notion that religion and secular society are separate is bullshit. Religion stifles, indoctrinates, limits public freedoms and more.

    So, it’s good to be able to laugh at their most holy and sacred doings. What a farce!

  30. I’m surprised you guys didn’t mention Michael Ballam as Satan in the temple movie.
    Here’s a link of the cast for the Temple Endowment movie.
    http://www.salamandersociety.com/media/movies/templemovie/