Through the Veil: A Mormon Fundamentalist Temple Experience

AUB temple, Ozumba, Mexico

 In the autumn of 1992, I drove early in the morning with my parents to a large house at the bottom of a ravine at the Point-of-the-Mountain in Bluffdale, Utah - only a mile, or two, from the Utah State Penitentiary in Draper.  The air was crisp, and I got out of the car, carrying a plastic bag of neatly-folded white clothing.  We walked towards the ordinary looking two-story house, and I felt a flood of nervous energy.  I didn't know what to expect as we walked, not to the front door, but through the garage door.  The garage was dark, empty, and nondescript with cold, cement floors.  At the back of the garage, there was a short set of steps that led to a heavy door.  Above the door was a sign that said: "Holiness to the Lord".

We knocked at the door, and we were admitted into a waiting room.  The cold sparseness of the garage belied the opulence of the waiting room.  The carpet was clean, and the walls were freshly painted, adorned with hardwood trim.  The chairs were luxurious and cushioned.  The waiting room was already filled with other people waiting, wearing jackets and street clothes in the chilly morning, carrying bags with them, so we took a seat.  My future bride and her parents were among them.  She smiled brightly at me, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.  But she didn't say anything to me.  No one said anything.  Everyone in the room was hushed and not speaking.  At the head of the room, with a chair facing towards us was Owen Allred, the man I regarded at the time as my prophet, the senior member of the Priesthood Council of the Apostolic United Brethren, or the AUB.  (Except that no one in the AUB called it that.  They called it "The Work", or simply "The Group".)

Brother Owen was usually a gregarious and good-natured old man.  His customary way of greeting me was to punch me on the shoulder, sometimes hard enough to nearly knock me over.  Once when I grew a goatee, he grabbed my facial hair and yanked until there were nearly tears, demanding, "What's this?"  But he almost always ended each rough encounter by grabbing my head, bumping my forehead to his, growling, "I sure love you, brother!"  But not today.  In this waiting room, Brother Owen didn't even look up at me.  He was solemn, dressed in his white suit.  He silently made marks in a white ledger he carried, and, as I watched him, he never looked more like a prophet.  

Owen Allred and me, 1994

In the silence, I studied Owen and the room.  I tried to gauge the feeling in there.  One thing I noticed on the door were golden stars arranged in the pattern of the Big Dipper.  When I went to sacrament meetings, when I sang hymns, there was a certain feeling I got.  The feeling in this room was... different.  To this day, I don't know how else to describe it, but there was a palpably different feeling from regular worship.  This was more primeval, more powerful.  Soon, I was the first one called into the washing and anointing room...

So, why am I telling the story of my receiving the temple endowment as a practicing Mormon fundamentalist?  Because the temple ceremony has become relevant in online discussions following depicted dramatically on the FX/ Hulu limited series, Under the Banner of Heaven.  The internet is abuzz with discourse about the more bizarre and hidden aspect of Mormon worship.  Ex-Mormons speak freely about how troubling and traumatic the experience was for them.  Faithful Latter-Day Saints remain quiet and reticent on the subject.  I suppose, among believers, it rests upon me to recount my experiences going through the temple ceremony since I am unafraid to discuss the particulars.  I have made a great study of the endowment, its archetypal sources, and its history of practice among Mormon polygamists.  As open as I am, however, there are some things I am unwilling to disclose or discuss, mainly the things I have covenanted not to reveal.  You can read all about those things online anyway.  They're not hidden.

The temple endowment ceremony is relatively new among Mormon fundamentalists.  The initial division between polygamists and the LDS Church was ephemeral in the 1920s.  At first, excommunications for post-Manifesto plural marriages were pro tempore and for show for the government who was watching to make sure that Mormons fulfilled their promise to end the practice of polygamy.  Even those who were excommunicated seemed to not be totally rejected by the greater LDS community.  For instance, Patriarch John W. Woolley was no longer allowed to sit near the podium in his ward during sacrament meetings after being cut off from the church, but he was still afforded a place of honor in a separate chair just to the side of the podium.  In the early days of fundamentalism, the children of fundamentalists were still able to attend church functions, including going on missions, including going to the temple.  So, whenever a fundamentalist family wanted their children to receive their endowments, they sent them to the LDS Church.

The AUB Council circa 1990

This was in keeping with the commission given to Lorin C. Woolley, the founder of the fundamentalist movement, that they were not to interfere or duplicate anything that the church was able to do.  After all, it was still the Lord's Church, even if it was in an "out of order" state.  Fundamentalists were told that they were not to organize, not to recreate any of the church's  auxiliaries.  They were to perpetuate plural marriage only.  This was their calling - to keep alive the one principle that the church had done away with until the church was ready to accept polygamy again.  And so, polygamists sent their children to make covenants in the temples of the LDS Church.

At least until the schism between mainstream members and fundamentalists grew wider.  There came a day when the children of polygamists were no longer welcome in the church, and a whole generation of plyg kids grew up with no knowledge of the endowment.  The temple was simply a beautiful yet impregnable building viewed from afar, a symbol as cold and as unwelcoming as the church who had cast them out.  Fundamentalism still continued to garner new adherents from the church, and most of them had experienced the temple ceremony while in the church.  But the temple doors were effectively closed to all older fundamentalist families.  As the LDS Church altered the garment pattern, Rulon Allred made a practice of placing the old-style long garments on newer fundamentalists who were wearing the newer church garment, but that's the extent of temple-style work done by fundamentalists.  (It should be pointed out that the LeBaron tradition possibly has a much different story.)

Rulon used to instruct his people to pray for the doors of the LDS temples to be opened up to them, so they could enter into them again.  They pray for this even now.

Then came the lifting of the priesthood ban by the LDS Church, which allowed all worthy members to enter the temples, regardless of race or color.  (I have a lot to say on this subject at a later date.)  The question came to the AUB Council - with the lifting of the priesthood ban, would the Lord still accept of endowments done by the Mormon Church.  So, they decided to convene a meeting, presided by Owen Allred, to pray over the matter.

On January 23, 1981, the AUB Council met in Crescent, Utah to pray about what to do about temple work.  Half of the council was old enough to be endowed, and the other half had not.  They split into two groups - one group dressed in temple robes to pray, and the other group in a separate room prayed on their own.  They reconvened and wrote their impressions on a piece of paper, and the consensus was that they should begin temple work.  After they reached a decision, Owen began to dictate the words of a revelation.  The scribe was so shocked what was happening that his jaw dropped and his pen dropped, and he missed much of the wording.  But this is what he got:

"The word of the Lord unto my servants:

 "I have waited this long time for you to present yourselves before me in this manner.  I have heard your prayers and will answer you according to your desires in regards to keeping all of the laws and ordinances of the Priesthood, as well as the ordinances of My House alive on the earth, in as much as I am unable to accept the ordinances in My House.

 "I am your Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified for the sins of the world.  It is your calling and responsibility to keep alive these principles in this dispensation lest they be taken from the earth and the earth be destroyed.

"Remain humble and prayerful.  Do not become proud in your callings lest you be destroyed in the spirit.  Seek me in prayer, clothed in the Holy Robes of the priesthood, united in faith and I will answer all of your righteous desires.  I am your Lord, Jesus, Christ.  Even so.  Amen."

This revelation is still relatively hidden from the AUB.  Most still don't know about it.  When it was published anonymously in 1994, Owen, over the pulpit, called it a "betrayal".

From this point on, they started to prepare to administer temple blessings.  The first step was to create a script for the ceremony.  They obtained scripts of the modern endowment in both English and Spanish on the downlow from the LDS Church.  They purchased documents from unaffiliated historian and polygamist, Fred Collier.  One of the Council members, Bill Baird, had been to the temple so many times as an LDS member that he filled the monthly temple quota for his ward by himself.  He had been taken under the wing of the Cardston Temple president and taught the intricacies of the ceremony.  So, the AUB took all of these items and created the endowment, which is close to the 1877 St. George ceremony.

AUB Endowment House (LH), Bluffdale, UT

Next, came the construction of a facility wherein to administer these blessings.  A nondescript house in Bluffdale, Utah was outfitted inside to be an endowment house, which was where I was married.  Next, they constructed a temple in the AUB colony in Ozumba, Mexico.  I have spoken to people who were at the dedication.  It was reportedly a pentecostal experience.  Many reported seeing their departed in the temple.  The night of the dedication, they closed the temple up, only to notice the lights left on inside.  Someone went in to turn the lights off, but they were already off.  They reported an unearthly glow coming from inside the building.  They also planned on building a temple in Pinesdale, Montana, but the funds were diverted to build a school instead.

When my family joined the AUB in 1991, the group had been administering endowments for about five or six years. Our path to fundamentalism had been a long one, and my parents, who once had gone to the LDS temple at least once a week, had not attended in protest for many years and were happy to again have a chance to dress in their robes.  They were giddy to travel down to Mexico with the Council and spend a week in that temple.

So it was that I got engaged and found myself in the endowment house in Utah, in the waiting room across from Owen Allred.  They called me into the washing and anointing room, which was awkward, but it was my dad who performed it.  Then the garment was placed upon me - the long garment with long sleeves, all the way to the wrist and all the way to the ankles, complete with string ties.  The garment was hot and itchy and uncomfortable to wear under your clothing. 

From there, I was escorted to the Creation Room by my father.  I was the first one in there.  My dad took me up front to be seated.  He placed both hands on my shoulders lovingly and looked into my eyes.  His eyes were teary.  He told me that my future bride and I had been selected as the "couple at the altar", and that it was a great honor for me.  Then he left me by myself.  As I sat there alone, I remember hearing clearly the voice of LaMoine Jenson in the next room, the next leader of the AUB, gossiping to someone about different members of the Group, mentioning them by name, saying that they had been teaching false doctrine.  It was a startling moment for me.  I could see neither, but I could hear them clearly.  I don't think that they were aware that anyone could hear them.

People began to file into the room after their own washings and anointings, and, once everybody was there, the endowment started.  It is essentially a passion play, and the AUB performs it live.  No movie like the LDS Church.  In fact, later, I saw some of the actors in church meetings, people I had never seen before the endowment, and I continued to think of them in my mind as the characters they played for a longtime after.  "Oh look, there's Satan!" "Hey, there's the Preacher!"  There were plenty of temple workers there to help me with the change of clothes and to guide me through the prescribed gestures.  (Yes, there were penalties.)  There was nothing really new in the endowment for me, nothing that I hadn't already learned in my scripture studies, but I remember things making more sense to me at the time.

My bride on our honeymoon

At the veil, my dad helped me through, and then I brought my wife through the veil.  One good thing about the AUB, being believers of "patriarchal order", or allowing fathers to administer ordinances for their own family as much as possible.  In fact, when the time came for my bride and me to be sealed, Owen Allred called my father up to perform my sealing.  Owen explained, "Your father is sealing you both, but it is through my authority.  Just like my name will be the one on your marriage certificate as the officiator."

So, my father performed the sealing ceremony while I stared at my blushing bride.  Then we left the building as an endowed, married couple, long garments beneath our clothes, our skin still slick with olive oil as they use it quite liberally during the anointing.

That was the extent of my endowment experience within the AUB.  I got invited to another session a couple of months later, but I was sick, so I declined going.  I got invited to one of their monthly prayer meetings.  These meetings were by invitation only, and those in attendance would dress in the robes and pray in the true order.  There were so many people in the prayer room that there was a circle within the prayer circle.  At that meeting I went to, Dave Watson, the current leader of the AUB, was called to the Council.

Fundamentalist temple

You have to understand - the AUB has about 9,000 members, and only one endowment house available in the U.S. They only have one session per month.  The waiting list to go in and do work for the dead is six months long.  And many members aren't even aware that the AUB does work for the dead.  When I asked Ron Allred, a Council member, why this was so, he retorted, "Then don't tell them!  If they don't know about it, maybe they're not supposed to know!"  The AUB suffers from an elitist mentality, which is one of the reasons why I left/ was thrown out eventually.

With my one and only experience being endowed, I used to practice the signs in front of the bathroom mirror so that I wouldn't forget.  When I was tossed out of the AUB, I got involved with several other groups before I settled on becoming an Independent Mormon fundamentalist, without formal church or group.  And everywhere I have been, I have done temple work.  I served as a temple worker for over twenty years.  At one point, I had the entire ceremony memorized inside and out.  I studied the meaning and origins of the symbols, searching out older archetypes.  I studied Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, Wicca, Egyptian and Eleusinian Mysteries, pagan tradition, gnosticism - anything that would help me understand the endowment better.  I have performed endowments in houses that were repurposed and redecorated to serve as makeshift, temporary temples.  I have entered endowment houses and fundamentalist temples.  Several groups have temples outside of the LDS Church.  Christ's Church has two temples.  The FLDS have a temple (although I suspect that they have little understanding what goes on in one).  The same can be said of many, many groups.  The endowment is alive and well...

So what do I think about the endowment as portrayed in Under the Banner?  Well, I have a hard time seeing anything like that depicted for television.  It's too sacred for me.  It's something that, for me, is beautiful and not ominous. That said, it was done beautifully and tastefully.  The costumes were immaculate.  The set was realistic.  Do I think that people can use the teachings of the temple to justify harmful, and even violent acts and behavior?  Of course.  Although I think that arises from a lack of understanding, and that is our fault.  We make something so sacred and secret - yes, secret is the word - that we offer no instruction or explanation.  People go in unprepared and leave baffled.  Temples should be places of learning, not bewilderment.  How can you agree to a covenant or oath if you have no idea what it is you're swearing?