"I learn something new every time I go to the temple"

[EternityIsNow]

I learned that the temple was very opposed to the BoM. For example, the BoM regularly bashes secret combinations, but the Nephites built temples, presumably with LDS type endowments. So they knew their temples were promoting secret blood oaths to be used for God, yet their prophets in the BoM say that Satan is the author of those types of combinations. IIRC the BoM also describes some of the oaths that those Satanic secret combinations used, which sounded to me like the temple oaths. Very conflicted.

Of course, now I realize that the BoM was written as an anti-Masonic novel, but that is surprising given that Joseph Sr and Hyrum were Masons and Joseph had asked many questions about that. So either Joseph reversed his position at some point regarding Masons, or maybe he had no view and the anti-Masonic part of the BoM came from someone else. Which makes me wonder who would have wanted all the anti-Masonic philosophy in the BoM, probably not the Smith family.

I think the temple raises an interesting BoM authorship question.

[nibbler]

What is a healthy navel?

Orange juice mixed with cough syrup?

[Corsair]

What is a healthy navel?

Orange juice mixed with cough syrup?

Well played.

[deacon blues]

One of the things that struck me about the temple when I first went there is just how little of it was new. I came out very disappointed that I didn't actually learn anything from it when I took my endowment out.

This bothered me too. I had latched onto a "the temple is God's university" meme that was being passed around in the early 1970's, and as I came out I tried to think of anything they taught that I didn't already know from seminary or Sunday school. There wasn't anything. Of course if you asked a person to tell something new they learned in the temple they might say, "I was pondering this, and the Spirit told taught me this" or "It's too sacred to talk about."
Remember, what you learn in the temple, stays in the temple.

[Hagoth]

However, one thing I seriously did learn in the temple came from one live session I attended before 1990. Satan totally wears his own apostate apron and it looked like it was ripped off from the local Masonic temple. It was light blue with a couple of embroidered symbols including a Greek column and probably a square and compass over an angled "grid" background

Me too! And it makes perfect sense when you think of it in terms of George Miller's suggestion that it's all about two forms of masonry. If you haven't listened to those Mormon Expression episodes, go dig them up. The idea is that Adam got the true (what Brigham called "celestial") masonry from God and Cain got a counterfeit masonry from Satan. And the rest of history, at least the version written by masonic historian George Oliver, hinges on that. Those emblems of Satan's "power and priesthoods" come directly from the masonic apron, just as the apron itself is borrowed from masonry.

This is George Washington's masonic apron. Look familiar? You'll notice there's a beehive on there too.

[Ghost]

So dial it up and at least get some decent CGI going there.

Did you know that when they developed the first film version of the ceremony, the LDS Church licensed footage from Disney's Fantasia?

[RubinHighlander]

So dial it up and at least get some decent CGI going there.

Did you know that when they developed the first film version of the ceremony, the LDS Church licensed footage from Disney's Fantasia?

No I didn't know that! I doubt they showed the part with the dinosaurs!

It would be fun if those first early versions of the film were out on the web somewhere. If anyone tracks them down, put up a link.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

In the 40's, if your husband wasn't a member you couldn't even get in to learn anything.

Excerpt from the LDS 1940 General Handbook of Instructions, Pg. 131,132:

“Special Cases—Recommends may be given to wives of members of the Church who have not had their own endowments only if husbands are absolutely willing that the endowments should be given to their wives. Before such recommends are issued presidents of· stakes will be expected to personally interview husbands in order to assure themselves that the husbands have no objection to endowments being given to their wives. Husbands must express their willingness and consent in writing, and this written consent is to be attached to the tempIe recommend, which must be signed by the bishop of the ward and the president of the stake, or, in the case of people living in missions, by the president of the branch and the president of the mission. Recommends will not be accepted at the Temple for these special cases unless the letters of consent accompany them. Women should not be urged nor requested to take advantage of this rule. It is a privilege to be granted those who have proved themselves worthy and are desirous of receiving these blessings.

Under no circumstances is a recommend to the Temple to be issued to a wife whose husband is not a member of the Church. Experience has shown that the results of giving endowments to women whose husbands are not members of the Church have led to regrettable and unfortunate conditions.”

[Hagoth]

In the 40's, if your husband wasn't a member you couldn't even get in to learn anything.

It must have been pretty obvious in RS which sisters had non-LDS husbands because they would have been intellectual dwarves in comparison to the women with vast reservoirs of knowledge gained from temple exposure.

[Fifi de la Vergne]

In the 40's, if your husband wasn't a member you couldn't even get in to learn anything.

Excerpt from the LDS 1940 General Handbook of Instructions, Pg. 131,132:

“Special Cases—Recommends may be given to wives of members of the Church who have not had their own endowments only if husbands are absolutely willing that the endowments should be given to their wives. Before such recommends are issued presidents of· stakes will be expected to personally interview husbands in order to assure themselves that the husbands have no objection to endowments being given to their wives. Husbands must express their willingness and consent in writing, and this written consent is to be attached to the tempIe recommend, which must be signed by the bishop of the ward and the president of the stake, or, in the case of people living in missions, by the president of the branch and the president of the mission. Recommends will not be accepted at the Temple for these special cases unless the letters of consent accompany them. Women should not be urged nor requested to take advantage of this rule. It is a privilege to be granted those who have proved themselves worthy and are desirous of receiving these blessings.

Under no circumstances is a recommend to the Temple to be issued to a wife whose husband is not a member of the Church. Experience has shown that the results of giving endowments to women whose husbands are not members of the Church have led to regrettable and unfortunate conditions.”

I believe this policy was still in place as late as 1984. Right after I joined, I attended a RS lesson about the temple taught by a woman whose husband wasn't a member. She was very emotional about the fact that she had to teach this lesson even though she'd never been to the temple and couldn't go to the temple because her husband wasn't LDS.

[wtfluff]

As I suspected. No accounts of any grand revelations in the temple. No accounts of "learning something new" each time. No insights in to the marvels of eternity. No accounts of figuring out just how important the three tassels on the shoulder of the toga are, and what they represent.

The folks who "learn something every time they go to the temple" are just making sh** up, or just playing the usual "I'm more mormon than you are" to make themselves feel superior.