Wintergreen--You can thank IWannaKnow for that shiver--not me. I agree, though, that it is indeed chilling. Way back on an earlier thread, I posted some links to information about the occult beliefs of Joseph Smith and the history of treasure seeking:
http://earlymormon.com/TopicalGuide.pdf
I think I was trying to locate info on the origin of the jar idea. I did find an article about the Journal Jars but found the stuff on treasure seeking at the same time.
There is also is intriguing book, "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View",written by a practicing member of the LDS church concerning the history of the occult and treasure hunting of the early Mormons. I found this quote on Amazon interesting:
"Among the practices no longer a part of Mormonism are the use of divining rods for revelation, astrology to determine the best times to conceive children and plant crops, the study of skull contours to understand personality traits, magic formulae utilized to discover lost property, and the
wearing of protective talismans."
The reviews (there's lots of them) make for interesting reading too.
And then there's the Mormon Alliance. I can't quite wrap my mind around this site. It both exposes and denounces ritual abuse. It's interesting that a lot of the info was written around the time of 1985-90. This is at the end of the time of the Satanic "hysteria" (I'm still not convinced it was all hysteria) but also when the Mohler children were allegedly abused. I can only read that huge site for a short while before getting sick as there's lots of disturbing information there. So many people are yelling and screaming about the lack o believability in this case. It is strange and far-fetched. No one could deny that. But look at this quote:
http://mormonalliance.org/casereports/volume1/part1/v1p1c06.htm
"In addition to all combinations of sexual intercourse; genital, anal, and oral; between child and adult (male or female) and child and child (forced),
victims are penetrated genitally or rectally with all kinds of objects, and are
forced to submit to sexual activity with animals.
[They] are tortured in many ways. They are shocked, drugged, burned, beaten, cut, buried alive until consciousness is lost, covered with insects, locked in a freezer until unconscious, hung upside down, chained, carved upon, and made to ingest vile matter, including blood, urine, and feces....
They are
forced to participate in all of the crimes, including sacrifice of animals (which may be the children's own pets);
the torture and sometimes murder of babies, including in some cases the infants of young girls required to bear children specifically for sacrifice;
the torture and sometimes murder of adults; and
the systematic disposal of bodies. Some victims have been forced to choose which person will be the next sacrifice, sometimes having to choose between one of their own siblings and another, or one baby and another. The victims are repeatedly told that they are bad or evil, that it is their fault the dog or baby has to die, that
no one will ever love them or believe them if they report any of the activities of the cult."
My note: You'll notice that the Mohler disclosure follow this "playbook" almost to the letter. Remember the forced anal penetrations, the bestiality, the babies, the murders? In the book about Jeffrey Lundgren, the RLDS cult leader and killer (executed in Ohio in 2006), there is a lot of testimony concerning his fascination with feces (sorry, but it's in there), bondage, mind control, twisted sexual paraphilias, and intimidation of others.
and this:
"Mattis and Bell describe the "dual socialization" forced on these children, so that "
outwardly they have the social values of the community" but are secretly taught an inverted set of values: "pain is good, torture is good, lying for the cause is righteous, human life is a cheap commodity, and so forth".
The victims are programmed to dissociate, so that they do not recognize or remember parts of their own experience or personality. They are trained to deny accusations, tell conflicting stories, retract their own reports, hurt themselves, or even try to commit suicide if they begin to tell."