STRANGE EVENTS the night after my first Temple Experience

[_Daheshist]

My bishop sent me on a mission. He paid for it. He told me that two of his sons refused to go (one did go...he had three sons), so he wanted me to go and he'd pay for it because he was going to pay for three sons to go, but only one did. I agreed, because I wanted to go on a mission, but I could not find a job in which I could save up enough money. His wife told me that he sent me on a mission after a Voice told him to send me. He heard of Voice while waking up one morning, in his bedroom, according to his wife, say: "Send Darrick on a mission" three times. I never asked him about it. It was good that I got away, because my drunken father was trying to fight with me all the time. Why? for example, he came home drunk and dropped his dinner plate on the floor. I used three paper towels to clean up the mess. He said he had the right to kill me, because I was wasting his money on three paper towels when "one" paper towel would have done the trick. In truth, he was a drunk and a gambler, and gambled away most of his money, and needed to verbally abuse and beat and BLAME others in order to make himself feel better. He beat my mother, and also beat many of his girlfriends over the years. He was drunk every single day, and screamed and threatened all of us every single night (and during the days too on the weekends). If I was not home, he would often torture the dog. If my mother tried to stop him, he'd threaten to beat her, and sometimes did.

And, yes, he was always VERY popular with women! He committed adultery often, and I know of at least one other person he fathered in an adulterous affair. Men like my father are always, always, very popular with women.

Had I not gone on a mission, I am absolutely sure I would have killed him, or vice versa.

Anyway, it was decided that I attend my first Endowment in the Seattle Temple before I go to the MTC. But a couple of days before, I got the flu, badly. I had a temperature of 102. I later found out I could have gotten my first Endowment in the MTC, as many missionaries did who lived in areas where there was no Temple close. But, I guess my bishop and Stake President did not know that. So, three days before I was to leave the the MTC, my bishop says: "You need to get your Endowments tomorrow". I said, "But I'm sick! I have the flu!" He said, "Don't worry about it. You need to do this!"

So, the next day, I was feeling worse, but my bishop picked me up, and off to the Seattle Temple we went. I was feeling horrible! My temperature had soared, I was stuffed up, sneezing, tired as hell, pain everywhere. Anyway, I got through the Washings and Anointings, then the Endowment in one room, with a film. The film was BAD. I mean, childish. The acting was bad. The sets were bad. The quality was bad. I mean, a high-school class could have done better. Cheap. Not a "B" movie, but a "D" movie.

I really did NOT like the changing of the clothing while we were sitting in the cinema seats. Very awkward! Very clumsy. The Temple Robes were ridiculous! I think whoever designed them was trying to make us look like clowns, and I guess we were.

I was trying to "figure out" the Endowment. I remember thinking about the various things, and trying to "figure out" what they meant, but it was no good. I knew they were "symbols" but I couldn't figure them out. It all appeared to me to be very cheap and tacky. The whole thing seemed to me like dressing up a poodle in high heals, stockings, false eyelashes, and a wig; just some sort of cheap perverted joke that was not funny at all.

The part in the film with the devil and the minister was played so sarcastically that a young women started laughing. I looked around, and all the other men were ASLEEP except for me and some other guy. Talk about a BORING MOVIE!!! I would cough about every 30 seconds, and I felt dizzy and very, very sick.

I remember when the time came for us to learn the "Signs and Tokens". I could not get them right, and some old Temple Worker came over to me and looked at me with a snarl on his face, put his nose one inch from mine, and tried the handshakes on me, and I'd get it wrong and he would VIOLENTLY throw my hand down, try it again superfast, I'd get it wrong again, and he's violently throw my hand down again! Had he just a little patience, and gone over it slowly one time, I probably would have gotten it right. He then just rolled his eyes, and shook his head, and walked away.

Finally, I got to the Alter, and the guy prayed for what seemed like an hour. I was not sure I could hold my position (with the arm), because I was weak. I almost collapsed. Finally, thankfully, he finished. He spent most of the time thanking God for the Brethren.

I finally go to the Veil, and thankfully the little old man in the Good Humor Suit reminded me what to say, but there was no way I could remember all that stuff, especially since I was sick. I walk through the veil opening, and remember seeing a BLANK WALL (that separated the veils from the Celestial Room). A "thought" came into my head which SCARED me: "This is Mormonism...a blank wall". I thought at the time the Devil inspired that thought. Now, I recognize that God inspired it.

Anyway, because it was my first Endowment, I was taken into a small room where we were told the symbolism of the Temple would be "explained" to us! Wow! Great! I thought. We were taken into a small room which was like the waiting room in a doctor's office, and a recording was played for us which basically said that the Endowment is a Parable and that if we strive to be worthy we'd have the Spirit and the Spirit would explain to us what it means. That's it.

Anyway, I got dressed, and met my bishop outside. While he drove us home I remember thinking, "My God! I don't believe it anymore. Mormonism is not true! My God! That Endowment CANNOT be from God! What do I do?" A feeling of absolute HORROR came over me. I really did not believe in Mormonism after all. Instead of a spiritually-uplifting experience, I was HORRIFIED by the Endowment. Not just because it was badly made, cheap, and tacky. I just KNEW that God had nothing to do with it. I remember thinking, "Darrick, get a hold of yourself! You were NOT spiritually prepared, and you're ILL! That's all. You'll feel better later!" So, I put the thoughts out of my mind.

By the time I got home, my temperature was up, and I was feeling worse than ever. I remember it was perhaps 8pm or so, but I climbed into bed anyway. Then I heard the voices. Everywhere in my room. Like people talking to each other. Some were close, others were near a corner. I would say it sounded like about 8 people, all talking to each other, in languages I did not understand. One voice, a woman, was very close to me. NOT voices from the other side of the wall, but voices clearly and distinctly "IN" my room, sharing the same space, but up in the air. It seemed like she was talking to somebody else, in a language I never heard. The language or languages did NOT sound like Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Polish, Italian, Hindi, French, Hebrew, Farsi, or Arabic. I've heard all those languages. I've never heard a language as these voices spoke. I could not understand what they were saying, but it SCARED me horribly. I remember, as a man of 22 years of age, pulling the covers over me like a kid scared of the dark. Along with the voices, I remember hearing a fog-horn, that seemed close by, but I lived quite a ways from any ships, too far to hear any fog horns, and it was not foggy and rarely became foggy where I lived. Thankfully, in a few minutes, I was asleep. I did live one-half block from a large graveyard.

I had heard that once you've been endowed "the veil becomes thin". I honestly do not know if the voices I heard were simply the result of me being very sick with the flu, with a very high temperature, or because the "veil" had gotten thin and I could now "hear" the Spirit-World which was around me.

Well, a few days later, I left for the MTC. Had I known what was going to happen in the future, I would have not gone on a mission. Yet, had I stayed home, my Dad would have killed me or vice versa. So, I guess, I suppose, I HAD to go on a mission. It was the far lesser of the two evils. I could not find a job in which I could support myself, so, it was either a mission or dealing with my drunken/abusive father every night (and also during the day on the weekends). I did have some good times on my mission, but two of my companions were BULLIES who made my life a misery. Bullies have made my life hell all my life. I have Asperger's Syndrome, and all Aspies are "bully magnets". Bullies would crawl naked over a mile of broken glass just to “F” with an Aspie. But, I had several really good companions. I tracted out a number of people who were later baptized by other missionaries, but I "converted" only one young woman, whom a later companion had sex with (yes...but not while I was companions with him) and was excommunicated and sent home. I waived to him goodbye at the Greyhound station. A typical "Utah Elder" who did not believe in God or the Afterlife, and only went on a mission because his parents pressured him to. So you can see, Alpha Males have tormented me all of my life, and continue to do so. This reminds me of a verse by Baha'u'llah, founder of the Baha'i Faith, in which he said:

"This Netherworld is the abode of demons."

In other words, our Material World is "Hell" where "demons" (bullies, tyrants, socio-paths) torment us. I've been tormented by many, many, many "demons" all of my life; flesh and blood people. Bullying men, and lying/deceitful/game-playing women. Some of them have called themselves "Latter-day Saints".

The great Shi'ite Muslim "Seer", Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i, said that "hallucination" was not confined to our imagination, but during hallucination we were actually "seeing" or "hearing" another dimension which he called Alam-i-Mithal (The World of Archtypes). Alam-i-Mithal is the "interface" between our material world at the lowest Astral Plane. In other words, an "hallucination" is just not the thoughts of our brain, but we are actually "glimpsing" into another real dimension; a world of "symbols". For example, like in the Book of Revelations. The World of Archtypes. For example, the wife of the bishop who sent me on a mission, once was very ill, and she had an hallucination that her friend was holding a knife and was ready to strike at her with the knife. A doctor would say "That is only an hallucination". But, Shaykh Ahmad would say that she saw the woman as she truly was; in the world of Archtypes. In other words, if I SMILE in your face, but really I seek to STAB YOU IN THE BACK, in the World of Archtypes, I would appear with a hateful face, holding a knife, trying to stab you in the back.

So, as far as the voices I heard, I really heard them. Was I just "hallucinating"? Again, I was very ill at the time. Were the voices just thoughts that existed in my head and no place else, or did my "altered state of consciousness" take me, at least part way, to another dimension? Perhaps when I'm dead, I'll know the answer to that.

[_Daheshist]

Anyone else have similar experiences after their first temple endowment?