|
return to table of contents
12Secret Oaths and Grips After this Gnostic instruction, Elohim administers the first of several oaths to Adam and Eve and to the temple patrons. Eve, because she was the "first to eat of the forbidden fruit", covenants to obey her husbands law "in the Lord." All the women temple participants swear to obey their husbands as gods as long as their husbands obey Elohim. This is called the Law of Obedience. Adam (and the men) swear to obey Elohim in the Law of Sacrifice. Patrons covenant to sacrifice all they possess, "our lives if necessary," in defense of the Mormon Church. Initiates then learn the First Token and Sign of the Aaronic Priesthood. (See First Token of Aaronic Priesthood Chart). The "penalties", or penal signs as they are called in Masonry, all represent grisly methods of having your life taken, i.e. throat slit from ear to ear disemboweling, etc. These penalties are often unnerving in themselves to the naïve, young LDS people who take them upon themselves. Patrons are instructed that the oaths are: "&most sacred and are guarded by solemn covenants and obligations of secrecy to the effect that under no condition, even the peril of your life, will you divulge them&" Temple patrons are told in plain language that when they enact the "penalties" they are depicting "different ways in which life may be taken." The Mormon agrees to his own execution if he ever reveals the temple secrets. Documentations of "Blood Atonement" (ritual slayings in Mormonism) is beyond the scope of this document, but ample evidence for such activity is readily available. (33) In older versions of the Endowment ceremony, these oaths were more explicit and were implicit permission for murdering Latter-day Saints who had violated or revealed the oaths. In the past half-century the wording of the oaths has been softened. Such oaths are a violation of Christs command in Mat. 5:33-37 (see also James 5:11). Calling upon God to witness blood oaths also violates the Third Commandment: "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." (Ex. 20.7) I believe these oaths are extremely blasphemous and incur the gravest spiritual consequences. |