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In order to goto the temple my church said I need to attend church every Sunday for a year. It’s too hard, pretty much impossible. I’m not a crowd person. Going where there are tons of people gathered, is like information overload to my senses. I get extreme anxiety and need to leave for air. I often wonder what I might see inside a temple though? Being the way I am. I’ve seen pictures of temples and there is a faint dome of light surrounding these buildings! I can only speculate that this is the veil being lifted. The temple in my town had a renovation last year, they opened the temple to the public for about 2 weeks. I jumped on that offer and finally got to see inside. It felt way different than outside. I felt a powerfull presence inside the temple but I couldn’t see them. I walked through with my brother. Afterwards I asked him if he could feel it? He said feel what? I said I could feel hundreds of eyes watching us I just couldn’t see them they were being hidden from me or just outside of my range. I want to go back after the dedication but I cant get in. So I am sort of stuck. I cant advance and I’m not quitting. The crowd issue is one of my biggest weaknesses. I dont know how to fix it or get past it. screwloose wrote:
In order to goto the temple my church said I need to attend church every Sunday for a year. It’s too hard, pretty much impossible. I’m not a crowd person. Going where there are tons of people gathered, is like information overload to my senses. I get extreme anxiety and need to leave for air.
Attending the temple can have the same effect. It sounds like you haven’t been to the temple yet. For your first visit, It can be a 2 to 3 hour program.
Depending on which temple you attend, it can be very crowded. Some of the places you go in the temple can be very confining. You dress in small
cubicles much like a locker room. You do initiatory work in small confined places with 2 other people present. Some ordinance rooms can seem small and confining. If you have a period of anxiety, it is difficult to get outside. You would have to change from temple clothes to street clothes.
My advice would be: think about it very carefully. And talk to people you trust who are willing to talk about their experience of going through for the first time.
screwloose wrote:
In order to goto the temple my church said I need to attend church every Sunday for a year. It’s too hard, pretty much impossible. I’m not a crowd person. Going where there are tons of people gathered, is like information overload to my senses. I get extreme anxiety and need to leave for air. I often wonder what I might see inside a temple though? Being the way I am. I’ve seen pictures of temples and there is a faint dome of light surrounding these buildings! I can only speculate that this is the veil being lifted. The temple in my town had a renovation last year, they opened the temple to the public for about 2 weeks. I jumped on that offer and finally got to see inside. It felt way different than outside. I felt a powerfull presence inside the temple but I couldn’t see them. I walked through with my brother. Afterwards I asked him if he could feel it? He said feel what? I said I could feel hundreds of eyes watching us I just couldn’t see them they were being hidden from me or just outside of my range. I want to go back after the dedication but I cant get in. So I am sort of stuck. I cant advance and I’m not quitting. The crowd issue is one of my biggest weaknesses. I dont know how to fix it or get past it.
Sounds like you have a couple things working against you here:
1) Leadership roulette. I don’t think most bishops or stake presidents would put an
everySunday requirement on people, but it is what it is, no one can change leadership roulette. By the same token, most leaders will recognize if you’re making the effort. You can wait for new leaders, and it might get better – but it might not and may even get worse. 2) Choices that you make (based on your posts here). You have chosen not to take medication and I presume that includes not seeing the doctor who prescribes them for other therapy. Anxiety, even extreme anxiety, can be treated. You might have to admit to yourself that because of your condition your leadership might have deep concerns about you going to the temple for fear of disruption.
One important thing to remember is that, in our doctrine, all the ordinances of the temple will eventually be provided to everyone (post-mortem). Therefore, the focus of our lives should be on how we live our lives and not on whether or not we go to the temple. screwloose wrote:I often wonder what I might see inside a temple though? Being the way I am.
Remember how many visions and interactions with the divine have happened outside the temples (sacred grove, mountain tops, dessert mountains, while out hunting in nature, while sleeping in houses, on boats in the sea, etc etc etc).
I think you can expect that God knows our situation and won’t withhold things from us whether we are in or out of the temple. Those details are not as important to God as they are to a leader following the process of asking members to prepare to go to the temple for greater blessings.
If we do all we can, God will speak to our souls however he is going to do it. We should not put limits on how God can speak to us. However, I do manage my expectations on it. I don’t expect to see it in the temple, but I’m open to it…I don’t see it outside the temple but don’t expect it can’t happen while out hiking in the mountains.
Minyan Man wrote:
screwloose wrote:
In order to goto the temple my church said I need to attend church every Sunday for a year. It’s too hard, pretty much impossible. I’m not a crowd person. Going where there are tons of people gathered, is like information overload to my senses. I get extreme anxiety and need to leave for air.
Attending the temple can have the same effect. It sounds like you haven’t been to the temple yet. For your first visit, It can be a 2 to 3 hour program.
Depending on which temple you attend, it can be very crowded. Some of the places you go in the temple can be very confining. You dress in small
cubicles much like a locker room. You do initiatory work in small confined places with 2 other people present. Some ordinance rooms can seem small and confining. If you have a period of anxiety, it is difficult to get outside. You would have to change from temple clothes to street clothes.
My advice would be: think about it very carefully. And talk to people you trust who are willing to talk about their experience of going through for the first time.
Probably best to go during the week in the daytime. Saturdays is when they get really busy. Other days are slower. You’ll need an escort for your first time through the endowment… but…
It might be best to discuss your issues with your bishop, and request a part-recommend which will get you in for baptisms. Unfortunately you go in as part of a group, so it is busy but the baptistry is my favorite part of the temple.
Part recommends are much easier to get. If you go during a quieter period it is possible to “chill” in some parts of the temple. Especially if it is quiet. There aren’t really windows on temples. Well, there are, but they are often stained glass or smoked. Most of the rooms are windowless, so it’s easy to lose track of time.
I wasn’t thinking about the limited use recommend Sam. That’s a good point. You don’t necessarily have to go with a group, at least not at our temple. The baptistry has times they’re open for people to come in and appointments are also possible. Sometimes there might be a group there and you just get added in (much more likely on a Saturday) but sometimes not. In our area there has been a push to get new converts to the temple in the first two months because supposedly when that happens they tend to stay active (I think it’s “everybody who has ever eaten a pickle has died” sort of data, but whatever). So those people have been able to go without being part of a group. Ours is one of the small temples so going to the baptistry does get you into the “main part” of the temple and there is a particular feature in ours that they like to show off that even people going to the baptistry are usually shown. Been days, I wasnt sure if I was coming back here anymore. I have alittle more info about things and had a couple more supernatural experiences. Had one yesterday afternoon that scared me pretty bad, I’ve told my family but not my mother for fear she would panic. I do take medication but it has never stopped everything I see, some does get through. I was sleeping yesterday about 2pm. In my dream I was sitting on my bed thinking about something. I felt funny, looked behind me, on the top of our food storage a mans head popped up! Soon as I knew who it was he smiled a wicked smile before going back down behind the cans. It was satan himself! I saw every detail of his face, eye color, face wrinkles, shape of his nose, he had an arrogance about him I wanted to punch him in the face! I took a swing at him but he slipped back down behind the cans. I then woke up with a cold shiver going up my spine, followed by anger at the entire thing. He didnt appear as a monster just a man. If I were an artist I could paint his picture. Usually in my dreams I never see peoples faces very clear or at all. This was the only time in my 41 years to see a face clear as if he was right there in the room with me. It scared me pretty bad. I’m still shaken by the experience. Such arrogance! Seeing satan is a pretty scary thing but I recently saw jesus too. I surround my bedroom with pictures of the savior. At the foot of my bed on the wall there is a favorite of mine. Was a few days ago. I was looking at it. The normal yellow background turned blue and was giving off light. The picture became a doorway to wherever the lord is at. I saw clouds behind him that were moving. His hair was blowing in the wind. I could see him breathing. The picture turned into a TV screen except real like a window. I believe the lord was really there looking at me! I saw his real face. As I was watching him his left hand started glowing orange and giving off light! The center of the light was the hole in his hand. I think he was just telling me that he is watching over us. This incredible visitation lasted a good 45 seconds. Then it started fading away untill only the flat picture remained. He was gone from my room. I see white lights on his pictures sometimes, pretty often actually, but never this. I think seeing his face brought on the visitation by satan. That sounds like a special experience Screwloose. Perhaps the negative is a counter balance to the good. To let us know that hope is not lost and we are not forgotten. I am glad you are able to maintain perspective and learn from these experiences. I like Roy’s point about seeing balance. Screwloose, I, too, have been attacked by Satan. I, too, have seen the Savior. I, too, have dealt with some hella wacky spiritual shiznit. I figured it was all part of me developing my spiritual gifts such as discernment and godly knowledge that was spoken of in my patriarchal blessing. I am not schizophrenic. I have gone to therapy and have my own diagnoses (PTSD being the big main one), but no schizophrenia here. Because I have gotten migraines w/aura several times I’m pretty confident in being able to tell the difference between an hallucination, the spiritual, and the physical.
I just kept working on my spiritual gifts as directed by “the Spirit” and discovered some amazing things.
Some of those “evil” spirits aren’t actually evil. They are trying to get your attention because they are trying to “cross over”. Crossing over is about having the faith to follow the Light, but they are stuck with things of this world after death (often due to a traumatic death), and don’t know how to do it, or how to find it, but they can see your light is responsive to them so they go after you using fear tactics when they are just asking for help. So, I would ask God to set up angels right outside your home with a door way, so that any who want to cross over, will see the light they are actually looking for and “cross over” to receive the healing they need. Our own scriptures speak of some of these angels by name, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. (D&C 128:21)
This is what I have done, and only occasionally now is more required. I will share one such experience with you.
I had a recent experience of being constantly harassed and feeling physical pain that made no sense, and I was like NO, ALL Y’ALL STEP OFF, I AIN’T REWARDING YOU FOR BAD BEHAVIOR and Archangel Metatron told me, you need to write down one ghost story (I had agreed to upon occasion writing down the different experiences of certain spirits, but only as directed by The Spirit – aka: angels and guides). I was grumpy but I did it anyway. It was two East Asian kids being chased by a large vehicle in the dark and being crushed to death. They were already injured from that same vehicle and the driver finished the job. I was like wtf is this? I had the impression to look up kids being crushed to death on purpose by a truck, and discovered a horrifying practice in China. (You can read about it here:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/why-drivers-in-china-intentionally-kill-the-pedestrians-they-hit-chinas-laws-have-encouraged-the-hit-to-kill-phenomenon.html I got mad at Metatron, I was like WTF!? THIS HURTS MY SOUL. I’m trying to feel better about life and you give me THIS CRAP to read!? And he calmly was like, Yeah, now imagine how many traumatized ghosts there are. I was like Oh shi-. And suddenly knew why I had to learn about all of this, to help those souls. I connected with China and those dead souls, and I tried bringing in archangels but people who saw them were confused by them. And I was like, why? It’s the light they are looking for. Then I was like wait. They’re CHINESE. They need KUAN YIN. So I asked for Quan Yin, the compassion Goddess/Angel, who is like a Chinese female Jesus, and she opened her arms wide and said, “Oh, my wonderful children, I love you so much, come to me.” And OMG, their faces were so shocked and lit up with joy, and all those confused spirits who had been wrongly killed ran to her in joy and tears and it was like she was hugging everyone individually at the same time and like she was the gateway to home. It was so beautiful.
That’s the end of hte story.
I believe in science and in the spiritual. I believe in YES to reason, and YES to faith. I LOVE Western medicine. I also LOVE energy healing and other spiritual work. There is wonderful balance between them. I have been blessed immeasurably by both. I’m not sure what other criteria you meet for schizophrenia, but being aware of the spiritual side of things and hearing the voices of those without bodies while also being aware of the physical reality is not schizophrenia. You may have a spiritual gift and schizophrenia at the same time, but either way you seem to be handling it fairly well, and that’s pretty badass.
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