NOM

What do you think about individual Mormon's ability to gaslight themselves and that they do so all the time?

It's the community's greatest trick. Each person guards their own cell to make sure they don't escape.

I never thought about it as gaslighting, but the mental gymnastics I did to keep myself believing it all those years, that's pretty much what that is!

It was enough to convince myself that my eternal salvation was on the line if I didn’t wear the authorized pattern day and night as instructed.

But I realized a few things now:

1. I was born in the covenant to goodly parents.
2. I was blessed by a father who held the priesthood.
3. I attended from the time I was born until my mid 30’s.
4. I had milestone priesthood advancements.
5. Pressure to go on a mission.
6. Endowments and garment shackled
7. Pressure to marry young.
8. Fear that my eternal salvation getting would get pulled out from my grasp for unworthiness
9. Guilt and shame cycle. Guilt and shame cycle.
10. I was foreordained in the heavens above and chose to follow the plan of Jesus, my savior and king.

The system kept me in and I was just taught that it was all true and the most important thing on earth.

So I don’t blame myself for it.

I blame my parents!

Red Ryder wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:51 pm

It was enough to convince myself that my eternal salvation was on the line if I didn’t wear the authorized pattern day and night as instructed.

But I realized a few things now:

1. I was born in the covenant to goodly parents.
2. I was blessed by a father who held the priesthood.
3. I attended from the time I was born until my mid 30’s.
4. I had milestone priesthood advancements.
5. Pressure to go on a mission.
6. Endowments and garment shackled
7. Pressure to marry young.
8. Fear that my eternal salvation getting would get pulled out from my grasp for unworthiness
9. Guilt and shame cycle. Guilt and shame cycle.
10. I was foreordained in the heavens above and chose to follow the plan of Jesus, my savior and king.

The system kept me in and I was just taught that it was all true and the most important thing on earth.

So I don’t blame myself for it.

I blame my parents!

If only they hadn't been so "goodly"

Is "The Shelf" analogy a form of gaslighting oneself?

Young Fluffy: "Tight-like-unto-a-dish Jaredite submarines??? Yeah, that couldn't have happened. Well... With god, all things are possible! Magick!" Young Fluffy then puts the "that couldn't have happened" thought on "The Shelf" and attempts to not think about it for... Eternity.

When Boyd Packer said "A testimony is found in the bearing of it" he might as well have said 'members, go gaslight yourselves."

I am trying to decide how much of keeping a testimony of TCOJCOLDS fits the concept of gaslighting as I understand it. I think deacon's example is almost textbook.

But what about all the other things members do to keep a testimony? Do they qualify as gaslighting? The more I think about it, the more I see gaslighting aspects to testimony strengthening activities that members are supposed to do daily. The point of those activities is to construct a whole other version of reality from the one we observe ourselves and instill a preference for that version of reality in spite of evidence to the contrary.

By reading scriptures we immerse ourselves in worlds where powerful God magic actually works. The scriptures also give us wonderful gaslighting tools such as Satan who can be used endlessly to explain how our own observations that contradict church teachings can be magically wrong through the influence of unseen agents.

By building our social lives around the church we put a God spin on the beneficial effects of social interactions and service, rather than seeing the inherent value of those activities for most who engage in the same with good intentions.

Prayer serves the purpose of connecting us with an alternate reality where God is actively involved in our lives. So when we use prayer to set goals and ask for help with them, our successes get credited back to that version of reality. And if we fail after praying, the alternate reality has a testing trickster of a god we need to keep believing in. Then the most mundane of positive occurrences are God's doing. Found car keys are used to overrule the overwhelming evidence of a god who cannot possibly be both good and powerful if so many evil things are allowed to happen to the innocent who have surely called out to Him in their time of need.

So yes, I think members do gaslight themselves in the sense of forcing themselves to see the reality they wish to see, that they are taught and indoctrinated to see, rather than the one they observe. That seems to be a major part of the genius of high-demand mind control.

Maybe there is the "sunk cost" factor also. It seems the older generation may be more concerned about "saving" the younger generation from leaving the fold right?

DPRoberts wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 04, 2023 12:56 pm

So when we use prayer to set goals and ask for help with them, our successes get credited back to that version of reality. And if we fail after praying, the alternate reality has a testing trickster of a god we need to keep believing in.

Yes. I used to beg God endlessly to send me confirmation of the truth of the church, the BoM, etc. No answer. Or sometimes the opposite answer. So I switched to auto-gaslighting mode. If I make myself more worthy, work harder, obey better, have more faith, THEN God might find me worthy enough to send me a message. In the meantime, I obviously don't deserve it.

Hagoth wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 07, 2023 4:12 pm

DPRoberts wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 04, 2023 12:56 pm

So when we use prayer to set goals and ask for help with them, our successes get credited back to that version of reality. And if we fail after praying, the alternate reality has a testing trickster of a god we need to keep believing in.

Yes. I used to beg God endlessly to send me confirmation of the truth of the church, the BoM, etc. No answer. Or sometimes the opposite answer. So I switched to auto-gaslighting mode. If I make myself more worthy, work harder, obey better, have more faith, THEN God might find me worthy enough to send me a message. In the meantime, I obviously don't deserve it.

Perhaps you need to stop mocking god by getting down off your high ... er ... tapir?