Tales from the High Priest Crypt - Mysterious priesthood blessings
Posted: Sun May 10, 2026 2:30 am
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ncoln.html
I enjoy finding these little Mormon anecdotes. I think it makes the Mormon audience, intently listening, believe more strongly in their collective "powers." These stories are often multi-dimensional, too. It's not enough of a miracle that the priesthood blessing worked, it's also a miracle that the priesthood holder said something they couldn't have known about. Two birds with one stone. There's an implicit art to telling a good Mormon folk tale, and it has a pattern. Just like a good Mormon blessing/prayer.
I mentioned to Marcus in another thread that I wish someone would collect all of these Mormon stories (tm). They're genuinely fascinating, and a very Mormon cultural phenomena. I've seen similar stories watching documentaries about the FLDS, with very similar language around priesthood, miracles, authority, and so on. Teenage girls talk about how strongly and unmistakably they felt the spirit to be sealed to a man old enough to be their father.
These kinds of folk tales have a very powerful binding force, keeping members bound to each other and to their beliefs.
Spooky. Similar to Dan's account of water dousing, it's not subject to much examination or prodding as to the accuracy of the supernatural events described in the story.DCP wrote:A week or two ago, I posted here some extracts from a book by Reggie Anderson, written with the assistance of Jennifer Schuchmann. The book is entitled Appointments with Heaven: The True Story of a Country Doctor’s Healing Encounters With the Hereafter (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, 2013). I want to mention here another passage that caught my attention, partially at least because I’ve had a couple of roughly similar experiences myself.
The book tells a story about a boy who was brought in by his mother one night while Dr. Anderson was working the overnight shift in the emergency room. The boy had bumped his head. It didn’t seem very serious at first, but then the boy began vomiting and the mother grew worried. Dr. Anderson examined him and concluded that there was nothing to be concerned about. He was intending to give her a sheet of information on head injuries and then send the two of them home.
“”Well, his scan looks good,” he heard himself say, “but I think we should send him to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital to get a CT scan of his head.”
“I had no idea why I said that. I wasn’t intending to say it, but the words slipped out of my mouth. I looked at the nurse. She stared back at me like I was a lunatic. Even the mother looked a bit confused.”
Out of the room, the nurse questioned him. The boy seemed healthy, after all. Now, they would need to find a neurosurgeon in the middle of the night, make arrangements at the Vanderbilt University hospital, order an ambulance to transport the boy and his mother to Nashville, and so forth. They would need to do lots of paperwork.
All Dr. Anderson could respond was “God just told me to send him.” To this day, he writes, he doesn’t know what prompted him to do what he did. He expected the neurosurgeon to call and say that the boy was fine.
When the neurosurgeon did call, though, four hours later, he asked why Dr. Anderson had sent the boy. Anderson responded that he didn’t know.
“Well, I’m glad you did,” the neurosurgeon said. “I just got out of surgery. We evacuated a hematoma from his brain. If you hadn’t gotten him here in time, he would have died.”
The story struck me because, on at least two occasions, one of them a particularly clear case, I’ve heard words come out of my mouth during priesthood healing blessings that I had not intended to say and that seemed decidedly imprudent and unrealistic given the realities involved . . . and that were fulfilled. I know what it’s like.
I enjoy finding these little Mormon anecdotes. I think it makes the Mormon audience, intently listening, believe more strongly in their collective "powers." These stories are often multi-dimensional, too. It's not enough of a miracle that the priesthood blessing worked, it's also a miracle that the priesthood holder said something they couldn't have known about. Two birds with one stone. There's an implicit art to telling a good Mormon folk tale, and it has a pattern. Just like a good Mormon blessing/prayer.
I mentioned to Marcus in another thread that I wish someone would collect all of these Mormon stories (tm). They're genuinely fascinating, and a very Mormon cultural phenomena. I've seen similar stories watching documentaries about the FLDS, with very similar language around priesthood, miracles, authority, and so on. Teenage girls talk about how strongly and unmistakably they felt the spirit to be sealed to a man old enough to be their father.
These kinds of folk tales have a very powerful binding force, keeping members bound to each other and to their beliefs.