Further Light and Knowledge

I'm completing a fun assignment this week for a folklore class at USU. We are gathering folklore items to be included in a national database. Most of the class is young mormon kids in Utah, and about half are gathering LDS folklore. There is a great deal of that already in the database, and very little of it comes from anything but a TBM perspective.

Anyway, I thought it would be great to do this from an extmormon point of view. Not necessarily critical (although that is welcome), but also not concerned with maintaining a positive image for the church. I am specifically gathering items of unofficial LDS traditions or customs. I'll explain more below (with examples). I am turning in what I've got this coming Friday, but thought I would be remiss if I ignored this community. If you have one or more items you'd like to share, post them below. I will PM you, as the database requires some information about contributors as well as a release form (which can be signed electronically). There is also a field on that release form to specify anonymity, which means your name will not be published with the information or be available to anyone accessing the database. </fine print>

So, as far as these items of "folk custom" go, they are traditional (though not necessarily old) or customary practices of members of the church that exist outside of official doctrine/practice.

Items already included in my project include the custom of taking the sacrament with the right hand, and some of the various reasons given for the practice. The church has no official stand on this, but the practice is very entrenched among many members. This one was pretty simple.

Another more complex tradition, and the sort of thing I haven't been able to get out of any TBMs, is the "Order of the Underwear". My LDS scout troop went to a week-long scout camp every summer. Each year the week began with a sacrament service held in the woods at camp, including admonishments from the bishopric, who then left. The next 6 days were utter anarchy. At the end of the week, we would gather in a circle around the campfire. Each boy would throw his rattiest, nastiest old pair of tighty-whiteys on the fire and swear never to reveal that which had occurred at scout camp (although it was never anything more than typical adolescent hijinks). This custom affirmed to us that, although our faith was pretty strict, there really was a time and place for everything and we had an outlet that wouldn't necessarily get back to our families. Of course, word did eventually get out and some of the dignified matronly types in the ward decided that it was a mockery of the temple. I don't think they would have been more disturbed if we had been holding black masses. After that we all swore never to do it again and made sure that the uptight kid (we all knew who told) was asleep the last night before holding the ceremony. We then put the fire out by peeing on it. This tradition has been going on in that scout troop for well over thirty years, now.

Finally, mission traditions are also welcome. Example: I served in Colombia, which has a certain reputation. There were little stores on every corner, selling eggs, toilet paper, etc. Among other things, they sold salt and seasonings in little cellophane packets that were kept stapled in strips on cardboard backers. They looked for all the world like little packets of cocaine. The custom was to tell the greenies that there was a code word for houses that sold cocaine - "hielo". Means ice. Anybody with a fridge sold ice. But that was usually the houses with the little stores. So they had the signs up, and we'd go in for a cold drink and tell the greenies to pretend they didn't notice anything. It took months for some of these guys to figure out what was really being sold in the packets.

Anyway, I hope some folks feel like contributing.

See also HERE.

Would the delightfully quirky and amusing "fence-sitter"...er...folklore fit into the database?

If it doesn't belong in the database, then is that because it's official doctrine? Is it simultaneously folklore and official? Was it official folklore in the past, but isn't official now (as of 2006), and thus remains unofficial folklore that is still widely believed by members of the Church in the absence of other explanations? Did Holland have authority in 2006 to make it unofficial? Did he clearly do so? If not, did he have apparent organizational authority (under the organizational laws of the Church (Utah)) to make it unofficial? Does the legal doctrine of apparent organizational authority count when assessing changes to religious doctrines? If not, how can we tell when something isn't official anymore? Or when it ever was?

LDS folklore is complicated.

-JV

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Be the life of the ward party with Images of the Restoration!

I was always told that missionaries weren't allowed to go swimming, or to the beach, because "satan controls the waters." Dunno how true the rule aspect is, since I've happily never been on a mission.

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Fear will keep the local systems in line.

They're using the old "insurance purposes" card nowadays, but I think that's bollocks. I believe that rule has been in place for many decades and as far as I remember the "satan controls the waters" thing was the reason. I could be wrong, but...

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The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. ~ Arthur Miller

We ignored that on my mission (well, we didn't swim much, except for the righteous ZLs). There was a person we needed to teach across a channel of water. We could ride out bikes down and across a bridge for a two hour ride (each way), or just take a small boat across. We took the boat, and didn't tell the APs. The ZLs disapproved, but we didn't care.

Basically, because Joseph Smith was too prideful to admit he couldn't paddle a canoe with the best of 'em, missionaries aren't supposed to be near open water. When I consider how many stupid things I learned in church that were probably caused by a GA who was too proud to admit a flaw, I am flabbergasted.

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I reject your reality and substitute a Star Trek episode of my own choosing.

Double post. I blame society, and not my own personal flaws. I think I'll give a talk about the evils of the internet next conference.

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I reject your reality and substitute a Star Trek episode of my own choosing.

No using face cards. But I don't have any documentation of that.

Also, no ouija boards. They invite evil spirits into the home.

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It is (or was, when I was a mish) in the Little White Bible of missionary rules. Not the Satan explanation - just the policy against swimming. And like many policies in the church, folklorish explanations are derived to explain the reason behind the rule. Although the whole business about Satan controlling the water comes from D&C 61 and is basically the result of Joseph Smith not being able to navigate a fuckin' boat.

I had a companion who hypothesized that the prohibition against swimming and beach-going was to keep horny missionaries from seeing lovely young ladies in swimming suits. Seems as good an explanation as any to me.


The prohibition against card playing is from Joseph F. Smith (via Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed.):


And here's one against Ouija boards, from a manual published by the church:

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Apostasy loves company.

Reminds me of the blood oaths in the temple. Even though they have been removed--meaning that they couldn't have been doctrinal in the first place, and are therefore anything but "sacred"--they are still considered too sacred to talk about. Always wanting it both ways...

You could talk about a lot of the goofy beliefs from the past that are well documented. BY is a good source for these. Quakers on the moon, or the idea that gold and silver veins grow inside mountains, etc. I seem to recall some folk medicine involving tobacco and bruised cattle...

Or, you could talk about beliefs that current Mormons are taught in Primary which are actually folklore. The idea that JS translated the from the plates while reading from them at a desk with a sheet hung between him and his scribe is folklore that is currently kept alive in paintings and such. The various explanations for polygamy (shortage of men, etc.) are folklore. The idea that all Native Americans descended from Lamanites is evidently folklore. You could go nuts with this.

More along the lines of the right hand sacrament thing, on my mission there was always disagreement between the missionaries and the local Utahans about ordinance protocol. In particular, the locals believed that when standing in a circle, the person voicing the ordinance places both hands on the head of the recipient, while the missionaries (from outside Utah) believed that this practice broke the all-important hand-on-shoulder chain. I actually saw arguments between missionaries and bishops break out over an unsuspecting convert just waiting to get confirmed.

I forgot that Dr. Pepper doesn't count as against the Wow.

Rated R movies are also a good one. I had a thread here about it some time ago.

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My mission owned a boat called the LDS Messenger. Not sure why Stan didn't ever succeed in sinking it. We must have been uber-righteous.