The other day I was reviewing a slide deck for work. I came across a slide that had this text: “If all the animals living near the equator were happy, Thanksgiving and New Years would fall on the same day.”
I spent several minutes trying to figure out what this meant. Was it an aphorism or wisdom saying I wasn’t familiar with? Was there context I was missing? Was there a typo or omission that, if corrected, would clarify the meaning for me? I was stumped, but also reluctant to ask for clarification–what if it made me look stupid?
Finally, it occurred to me that this may just be auto-generated text to fill space. Usually auto-generated text is something like “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua,” but I reached out to check and, sure enough, it was placeholder text left in inadvertently.
I laughed at the amount of time I spent trying to find some meaning in what was actually nonsense. It reminded me that, as humans, we are meaning-makers. It’s part of what makes us human. It can bring us happiness and satisfaction (some argue that finding “meaning” in life is more important than “happiness”). But it can also cause us to, well, just make stuff up or see stuff that isn’t really there. Maybe not as extreme as in A Beautiful Mind, but I mean, I am kind of shocked to think about all of the things that I used to think were “real” that probably aren’t.
For example, a couple of weeks ago someone over at By Common Consent posted about the possible etymology of the term “telestial.” Now, I mean no disrespect to the author, and if people find that interesting to debate about–that’s fine! You do you. But I couldn’t help but think, “well, how about the answer is, Joseph Smith was completely making stuff up and it sounded good to him???” I didn’t make that comment because I didn’t think it would be productive or respectful. It did, however, remind me of so many debates we might see in the Bloggernacle or the now-defunct High Priest group about what Joseph Smith or scriptures or other leaders “meant” by certain things, as if those statements reflect an actual version of reality somewhere.
Another example I thought of were all my years spent trying to understand various components of the endowment. I spent years contemplating these things. I heard some pretty good theories too. Then a couple of things happened. First, some of the things that I had spent years trying to understand disappeared from the ceremony – poof! Guess they were not all that significant? Second, and only quite recently, I learned that some of the things I’d wondered about actually originated in the pre-1990 penalties (which pre-dated my temple experience by about 12 years). Divorced from that original context, I was making up all sorts of possibilities for what God was trying to teach me through those symbols. Now I believe that I was pretty much dead wrong.
That’s not to say that people can’t find meaning–even multiple meanings–in symbols. That’s part of what is cool about symbolism–it can express many levels of meaning to different people in different contexts. That’s fine. I mean, I hope that’s fine–I was an English minor. If it’s not fine, that was pretty much a big waste of my education. So if people continue to find meaning in those symbols in the temple, or want to talk about the etymology of the word “telestial,” again, you do you.
But I still struggle to the extent that religion claims that a symbol points to some ultimate reality that, in fact, isn’t there. So perhaps it’s not that I have a problem with symbolism but I do have a problem when the historical context of something is misrepresented or obscured. When that happens, we may find ourselves too busy trying to figure out what animals on the equator have to do with Thanksgiving and New Year (“they don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving on the equator!!!” was an actual thought I had) to have time to get through the rest of the slides, which actually contained the content that was valuable.
What do you think?
- Have you seen the human tendency to create meaning go too far? Do you think religious folks are particularly susceptible to this? What are the pros of meaning-making? What are the downsides?
- Are there particular issues you see in Church where people bend over backward to create meaning where there may not be any? Or where their meaning-making is based on incorrect factual assumptions? Is this harmless, beneficial, or problematic?
Wheat & Tares 
I totally relate to the paragraph about ascribing meaning to the signs and tokens that turned out to be vestiges of weird, discontinued temple practices. I had a very similar experience.
Also, Telestial is a portmanteau of Terrestrial and Celestial. I will die on this hill.
“Are there particular issues you see in Church where people bend over backward to create meaning where there may not be any?”
Sure, all over the place — it seems to be what humans do, and most of it is non-malevolent.
One example:. The white sheets we use to underlay and cover the bread and water sacrament trays have become, to some, symbolic representations of the the Savior’s burial cloths — but there is nothing special about them — really, they are there just to keep the flies off — the cloths are not an integral and essential part of the sacrament ordinance.
Elisa: I bet you’ve read Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. I learned from him some fundamental truths: we (humankind) make things up…we believe in all kinds of myths. That’s how we cope. That’s how we survive. Religion is a subset of these myths and the COJCOLDS is a subset of religion. A broken clock is correct two times a day but that doesn’t make it correct.
Great piece, Elisa. And great comments.
People can ascribe good meaning, and bad meaning, where none is intended. People can get so caught up in symbolism that they can’t see the forest for the trees. Sometimes I wonder if Searching for Symbols and their meanings is Sexier than Service.
Looks like the original quote is from Ocean’s Twelve, and was in fact meant to confuse someone by making him try to find meaning in a phrase that everyone else knew was nonsense. So a perfect example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUQd55xFbfw
When it comes to the sacrament, I think that we all know the basic meaning behind it (bread = body, water = blood). However, there are some members who like to add additional symbolism to the sacrament that is frankly both frivolous and asinine.
For example, during my mission, one of the MP’s counselors scolded the missionaries for taking the sacrament with their left hand. His reasoning was this: since we make our covenants with our right hand in the temple, then we should use that same hand when we partake of the sacrament since it’s “the covenant hand” (I kid you not). Also while I was growing up, multiple YM Presidents told me that the sacrament should be administered (blessed, prepared, passed) in long-sleeve white shirts because they “add to the dignity of the ordinance” (words from the previous handbook). Elder Holland even stressed this by saying:
“May I suggest that wherever possible a white shirt be worn by the deacons, teachers, and priests who handle the sacrament. For sacred ordinances in the Church we often use ceremonial clothing, and a white shirt could be seen as a gentle reminder of the white clothing you wore in the baptismal font and an anticipation of the white shirt you will soon wear into the temple and onto your missions.”
When I was the Deacons Quorum President, I was forced to turn away a kid from passing the sacrament by my Bishop because…………………….he was wearing a purple dress shirt. He was brand new to my ward, and was so excited to wear his best and participate in an ordinance with other boys his age, but apparently his best wasn’t good enough for the Bishop. He didn’t come back to Church after that, and that encounter still haunts me.
Of course, I can understand the use of symbolism in order to add meaning. As someone on the autism spectrum, I am mainly a visual learner, and symbolism helps me be more immersed in my environment (especially the temple). Nevertheless, it can be taken too far.
@tygan oh that’s amazing! I had no idea. Thanks for the tip.
So one of the things that I struggle with, even now being more than a year post-Mormon, is the number of odd things that I don’t know any better. Reading the BCC post on the origin of the word telestial was the the first time it ever dawned on me that telestial was not a real word and was something Joseph Smith made up. I hope I haven’t used that word with my scientific colleagues in conversation, but who knows, I might have.
@Elisa, I think you have mentioned the Hidden Brain podcast in your posts or comments sometimes. Reading your post, I couldn’t help but think of a recent Hidden Brain podcast that talked about an experiment where subjects were asked to explain why they chose one person’s picture over another person’s picture, only the trick was that the researchers actually showed the subjects the picture they had not chosen. Still, about 75% of the subjects didn’t catch the subterfuge and most effortlessly explained why they preferred the (not actually) chosen picture! We really are amazing story tellers, even to ourselves.
I too spent a lot of time trying to parse out the meaning of every temple ritualistic movement and wording. While I had the advantage of going thru the endowment before the 1990 change, and believing even from being on my mission that Joseph used masonic rituals to create the endowment, I am embarrassed to realize how much time I invested investing every little thing with layers of meaning. Not sure exactly how that was supposed to draw me closer to God, but at the time I seemed to think it would.
When we look at clouds, are minds are hard wired to see patterns in them (faces, animals, trees, etc). There is an evolutionary reason for this, and it spills out into all aspects of our lives as we try to find patterns and reasons for everything that happens to us.
Here’s a good example. The first chapter of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, by Lawrence Wright, relates how Paul Haggis, a well known producer and director, advanced through the ranks of Scientology, then became a grandmaster (I forget the actual title) and received access to the secret scrolls of wisdom. He was allowed to enter the super secret room and given a couple of hours to read the secret scrolls. After about fifteen minutes of reading, he thought to himself: “This is it? This is the secret wisdom? It’s just a bunch of baloney.” That’s what started him on his road out of Scientology. I’m sure there were many Scientology grandmasters who were able to conjure up some meaning out of what they read. Some do. Some don’t But it’s projected, not objective, meaning.
Instead of feeling embarrassed about occasions where we have looked for meaning that may not have been there, what if we look at it from kind of a process theology perspective and understand these as meanings that we create, and co-create with God? Is meaning less real if it is created by our mind? Probably in some external ways, but I think it may be possible to invent meanings that bind people in relationships or that communicate truths that come alive by virtue of our commitment to them.
When Jesus’ disciples looked for the meaning of a man’s blindness as the result of someone’s sin, his answer rejected the premise and, in my favored reading, acknowledged the absence of inherent meaning in such events altogether. Instead, he says it’s an occasion to show the works of God, and that he must do such works while it is day. In other words, in our reaction to events lies the opportunity to create meaning out of the world, order out of chaos.
I’ve made meanings out of ‘whisperings of the spirit.’ One in particular – I was on the plane on the way home from my mission and couldn’t avoid watching the in-flight movie (even though I was still a missionary and thus was sinning by watching a movie (at least I didn’t wear the headphones so I couldn’t listen to it)). I had an odd emotional surge – flipping from euphoria to almost crying. I interpreted that to mean God was telling me something significant about my near future and what I had to do to be worthy of this blessing I was sure he was promising me. It never happened, of course, and really what happened was just an emotional reaction to a huge life transition. It didn’t have any greater meaning.
Trying to understand the whisperings of the spirit has produced some odd beliefs. I’ve had some genuine spiritual experiences too, but believing that all my prayers would be answered if I could only understand what the Holy Ghost was telling me left me making meanings out of scraps and random ideas.
If all the animals at the equator were happy, then they would have good reason to give thanks for the start of a new year. That’s the meaning that I just made up.
But what do I know? I spend most days hanging out at the 7-11 listening to the Weekend.
@your food allergy, I get that. I’m still trying to put my finger on what’s bugging me about this.
Symbols and meaning are fine. But at some point I feel like a line is crossed where we are making meaning out of absurdities, not so much thinking those absurdities are *symbols* but thinking they represent a *reality.*
So in the telestial example, it’s not about that being a “symbolic” word. It’s claimed to be a “real” word signifying a “real” place.
Likewise with the temple, I thought the symbols had an origin I no longer think they have. They might still be useful to people as symbols, but the factual background behind them is fake.
Anyway, that’s the distinction I am wrestling with. Spending time on stuff that is actually not what it purports to be is different to me than finding meaning in things we understand to be symbols.
“The truth is a matter of the imagination,” said Genli Ai. (From Ursula K. LeGuin in her last paragraph of the introduction of *The Left Hand of Darkness.* Ace edition/March 1969.
Once as a teenager I woke up from a dream in the middle of the night filled with the most powerful manifestation of the Spirit I had ever felt. I was certain I had had not only a dream, but a vision. But I could not remember it! I tried for years to recall any detail of it, sometimes fasting and praying to remember, convinced something very important had been revealed to me that night and feeling so inadequate for not knowing what it was. About 25 years later I finally was able to piece together the significance of that “spiritual” manifestation.
I had experienced an orgasm.
Hey, they are talking about you on r/Mormon hehehe. This quote, I felt not to make any attempt to understand it. I just felt happy and moved onto reading your post. Egypt Joseph told the guys in prison, don’t interpretations belong to God?
The Spirit reveals the deep and hidden things. Just sit back and enjoy the ride Mr expert.
I can’t help but feel there is a bit of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” syndrome going on with the temple symbolism. It might be everywhere, but at least where I live it’s very en Vogue to profess loving the temple and the symbolism without ever having to explain your understanding of the symbolism, what it means to you, or why you love it. I think there’s probably a lot of us in the congregation thinking “Am I the only one who doesn’t see it?” But nobody wants to say it.
Well, since the subject of taking the sacrament with one’s right hand has been raised, I will offer up the following unedifying experience, as the single worst experience of my mission in Taiwan. I, by the way, am proudly left-handed.
Anyway, in 1978, I was serving as District Leader in a small branch outside of Taipei. We had an old man who had lost his right hand in the Chinese Civil War. He was breaking the bread for the Sacrament one Sunday, using his left hand. To my horror, the First Counselor stood up and stated that he could not bless the Sacrament because he did not have a right hand. The two men briefly struggled for possession of the bread tray, and the old man wisely gave up, because the First Counselor had a glint of strangeness in his eyes. Fortunately, God had caused three investigators, who had promised me and my companion that they would for sure come to Church that day, to forget.
The rest of my mission actually went quite well. And I now sit on the front row at Church, and alternate using my left and right hands to take the Sacrament. Call me a Pharisee-in-reverse, but it is a point I feel strongly about.
Oh, and the temple sealer who married me and my wife was worried because ours was the 666th sealing he had performed.
I am not making any of this up.
Someday I will progress to faith, hope, and charity. But in the meantime, when confronted with laughing or crying, I prefer to laugh.
Meanwhile we’re STILL waiting to find out where the Brass Plates of Stonehenge came from …
p, I suggested this last time you mentioned it. Here’s the link:
Oh gosh. I just remembered another one. Buckle up everybody because this one’s a doozy….
My mission president always insisted that Jesus’s actual birthday was April 6th because that was when the church was organized in 1830. He theorized that since Jesus was born in early spring (which is true), then April 6th would be the correct date because “Jesus chose that date for a reason in this dispensation!!!”
Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar…
Sometimes trying to find meaning in nothing is just a human quirk and can serve us well. But what bothers me, and possibly the author, is when false meanings are given the status of eternal truth and used to oppress groups or individuals who are not in power. These false meanings can also be used to gaslight those who see through them, and are used to undermine people’s self-worth, self-confidence, and trust in themselves.
At least this has been my experience. When I heard, before going, that I would be required to obey my husband in the temple, I was horrified and devastated. I immediately thought of 19th century wedding vows, outside of Mormonism, that had similar language. I thought about how feminist pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton refused to obey her husband in her wedding vows. So I thought, this stuff in the temple must be a hold over from the sexist 19th century. But if you ask any orthodox member about that type of language in the temple, they will bend over backwards to find a higher spiritual meaning. They will downplay your concerns. Tell you to pray more or claim this is merely something we don’t understand. They refuse to acknowledge the obvious and evil sexism.
Then fast forward to 2019, and this language is magically removed but shifted elsewhere with preside. Women are still not queens and priestesses to God and still have to bash their heads against a wall mentally to find some kind of pro-woman loving meaning for why their eternal destiny isn’t the same as men’s. I tried to find these meanings for years. This struggle put me into a depression and caused strain in my marriage. In reality the answer was so simple: sexism was invented by men, is never from God, and all sexist interpretations and meanings aren’t valid. I left the church a few years ago. But the gaslighting and lack of support about these issues really pushed me out the door.
I still do think that the search for meaning and eternal truths is incredibly important. People can develop their own symbolic frameworks that really help them in life. For example, I struggle with PMDD and have tried to be more loving and accepting of my cyclical struggles throughout each month. It helps me to see seasonal changes in nature, and to know that life isn’t meant to be lived at the same pace all the time. Maybe there is no connection between the seasons and women’s bodies, but that symbolism helps me feel like I’m more connected with nature and that periods aren’t some kind of curse.
Never, ever debunk a story that has meaning in church. I once made an off-the-cuff remark about the miracle of the gulls. (Any northern Utah farm boy knows how gulls gather to eat bugs when fields are plowed or disked. No miracle needed.) The ensuing gnashing of teeth was pretty severe. I have the scars to prove it.
Southern State, I grew up in the 80s being told that Jesus was born on April 6th. Pretty sure everyone believed it in my ward. My mom may have a book/pamphlet proving. I was in my 30s before it even occurred to me to question it.
As some of us may recall, I have a favorite quote about symbols. Flannery O’Connor was at a dinner party with several literary figures, including Mary McCarthy who described the Catholic Eucharist as a symbol. O’Connor replied “If it’s just a symbol, then to hell with it .” While reading this thread, I’ve been puzzling over why symbols have never provided justification nor edification for me. What came up for me was the Ring of Power. The Ring isn’t a symbol of power; it is power. Contrast it with the winged crown that the Aragorn wears: it is merely symbolic of kingship. We know that even without coronation, Aragorn is the king. And were the crown to be destroyed, as were so many beautiful things in Middle Earth, he would still be king.
I think symbols are “weak” because one must impose an order and meaning on them, where, in fact, there may be none. One does not need to search for the meaning of symbols if one has the thing itself.
Vajra2,
I also have always felt symbols were so weak as to often be meaningless, or sometimes even dangerous because they are so easy to misunderstand or read wrong. And I really like your analogy of the difference between the ring of power, and symbolic power. I remember a discussion in an AP English class in high school where the class was discussing the symbols in some novel. Everything was symbolic of two or three things, and I was ready to scream, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!” If something can be symbolic of several things at once, does it have any meaning at all? To me the symbols because so vague and with multiple meanings that they lost all meaning.
There are other ways that symbols are weak. Their meanings change over time. An extreme example of meaning change is the swastika. At one time the swastika was a respectable religious symbol shared by several cultures, now it is only associated with one very evil political movement. Other symbols just sort of evolved to have different meanings over time, such as how some flags such as the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag that has been usurped by extreme right wing Christian Nationalists and racists. Or, I heard one black friend say that if someone has the American flag in his Facebook profile, that he knows they are racist. Talk about a changed meaning. If the meanings change over time, can we really trust their meaning.
Meaning is at best ambitious and have multiple meanings. Now I have heard that the multiple meaning of symbols is one of the beautiful things about symbols. But if you want to communicate truth, no it is not beautiful, but confusing. If you want to convey emotion, multiple meanings might be good. If I look at a cloud and see different things in that cloud, then there is no harm done. But if I take temple symbols and find a different meaning, then that can do harm. Let me give an example. When I got my own endowment, it was on the day I was married and sealed, and my husband took me through the veil. When my husband went through, “the Lord” took him through. To *him* that symbolized how he loved me as much as God loved him, a perfect love. But to *me* it symbolized that God loves my husband, but doesn’t love me. Putting everything from the temple together, I realized that the person who was to take me through the veil was “the lord” small case, no capital on “lord”, because it was my lord in the old sense of the word that a husband was his wife’s lord. Not God, but who was to be my god. So, the symbolism crushed me. I didn’t read it as my husband loving me, but as me becoming his property.
We had a thread a few weeks ago where someone voted for trump because someone else interpreted some old writings to forecast it. He also claimed to be seeking truth but only if it came from sources he believed trumpworthy.
Southern State and ReTX, Bruce R. McConkie in one of the Mortal Messiah volumes and Jeffrey Chadwick in a BYU Studies article also say that Jesus died on April 6.
Elisa: “So in the telestial [I’m getting the red-dotted-line-this-is-not-a-word] example, it’s not about that being a ‘symbolic’ word. It’s claimed to be a ‘real’ word signifying a ‘real’ place.”
It’s was funny to me when “telestial” finally clicked in my brain. By then it was just another example of fabrication. Mormonism has too many “real” claims for those who are stepping away. Will the church quietly slide to more symbolism to keep that kind of member, or stick with literal everything?
Very interesting post and comments.
@Southern Saint – when I was a teenager, my nephew died when he was a few months old. It was heartbreaking for my sister and the entire family. This nephew was born on April 6. Family members took great comfort in this. They saw it as sign of Heavenly Father’s awareness of their loss and suffering and as acknowledgement that my nephew, like the Savior, was pure and innocent. I think it’s nice that humans can make meaning out of tragedy. In some ways it is critical to survival. However, this illustrates to me the extent that symbols are completely a product of our own imagination. I don’t believe in a God who would just give my sister concrete signs of his love and comfort, while so many others suffer similar losses without experiencing similar reassurance and comfort.
@Southern Saint – ugh, white shirts. It’s so cruel. Over the years, I seen similar things far too often. The last few years I attended church, I would only wear colored shirts (and during the pandemic without a tie!), despite serving in leadership positions. It was my subtle way of standing up to a culture that forces extreme conformity. I currently work in a job where I dress up 90% of the time. I refuse to ever wear a white shirt. I see it as a sign of oppression.
As a young adult, I had a branch president whose people skills were off the charts. He was a master storyteller and could connect with anyone. We had an EQ meeting once that he brought several dozen random objects to. and distributed to the class. He then taught us about his process of finding meaning in everyday objects, which he then would use to teach a gospel principle. He coached us a bit and helped us to develop our own object lesson using the item we had selected. The experience showed me we can find meaning in anything if we try hard enough. It also taught me to question and not overthink the symbolism church leaders place in things. Symbolism has sticking power–you will remember the story longer–but symbols are just made up.
Maybe this answer is over the top, but I think right now too much emphasis is being placed on the historicity of the BofM and OT. Neither is good history, and with the OT there are doctrinal, ethical, and moral problems galore. Attempts to find relevance in OT stories are frequently stretched to the limits. And what’s with the 7 dispensations?
Roger, possibly this was brought over by the British converts from the Brethren movements. Whole congregations were baptised at a time…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nelson_Darby
John Darby is usually acknowledged as the origin of dispensationalism.
When Job was given new children, does it symbolize eternal families?
Current issue of Liahona magazine, page 44 – the eternal perspective of God (not lawsuits or focus groups and pilot programs) has given us the Family Proclamation and Come Follow Me.
@chet, good example and YUCK. That take on Job treats women and children like disposable objects / accessories whose only role is to shape Job – not to have any kind of independent value. But then again that is kind of how the Church treats women and children.