Learning about the temple penalties #mormon #lds #ldstemple #exmormon

Introduction

Most teenagers searching the internet for homework help do not expect to find instructions for ritual disembowelment. Yet that is exactly what happened to one young Mormon who stumbled across references to the temple penalties while browsing online. Convinced she had found a crude anti-Mormon fabrication, she called her mother over to share the laugh. The laughter died in her throat when her mother turned pale. The gesture representing a knife slicing from ear to ear and the pantomime of spilling one's bowels were not hostile inventions. They were real oaths that her mother, and millions of other faithful members, had once sworn in the most sacred spaces of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This is the hidden history that the church's public curriculum ignores. Before 1990, the endowment ceremony required participants to mime their own violent deaths while swearing never to reveal the ceremony's details. Understanding what actually happened in Mormon temples, and why the institution buried these practices, requires looking past the polished visitor center narratives and into the documented record.

The Mechanics of the Pre-1990 Endowment

The temple endowment ceremony, presented as essential for eternal salvation, underwent significant changes in April 1990. Prior to that date, initiates learned specific "signs and tokens" accompanied by what church leaders termed "penalties." These were not abstract spiritual consequences. They were graphic physical simulations.

Participants stood in a prayer circle formation and pantomimed three specific acts of lethal violence against themselves: Drawing a thumb across the throat to signify having the throat cut from ear to ear Placing a hand on the chest and drawing downward to represent the breast being torn open and the heart and vitals removed