For nearly a decade, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been engaged in a top-down rebrand meant partly to solidify its focus and bona fides as a Christian religion.
The U.S. Department of Defense, led by conservative evangelical Pete Hegseth, appears unconvinced.
On Friday, spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed on social media a report that the department had trimmed its list of recognized religious affiliations, used by its chaplains, from more than 200 to 31.
The Latter-day Saint faith was among those to make the cut. But there was a catch.
The list denotes 20 faiths as Christian, including Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Baptist and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Not, however, the Utah-based faith.
Asked by The Salt Lake Tribune if this omission was intentional, a member of the department’s press team pointed to the statement posted by Parnell.
The Office of the Secretary of War is announcing a significant change to the Department’s categorization of religious affiliation. In a long overdue move, we reduced the list from over 200 unmanageable categories to 31. With this move, we are returning to the original intent of… https://t.co/dgHX5ytzjJ pic.twitter.com/eho537O08J — Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellASW) June 5, 2026
“This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions,” he wrote. “Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups.”
However, an accompanying video by Hegseth seemed to suggest the change wasn’t entirely one of streamlining bureaucracy.
“In previous administrations, our Chaplain Corps was infected by political correctness and secular humanism,” he said. “…Faith and virtue were traded for self-help and self-care. We started correcting that drift [in December], and today we’re going further.”
Asked if the church planned to respond, a spokesperson for the faith pointed to the FAQ portion of its website. It reads: “Latter-day Saints believe God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to save all mankind from death and their individual sins. Jesus Christ is central to the lives of church members.”
Utah Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, both members of the church, took to social media Saturday to condemn the seeming snub, with Curtis stating he is “working now to ensure a correction is made.”
Among those eliminated were Unitarian Universalists, various Wiccans, deists, atheists and others, according to Military.com, the first to report the news.
Oh wow, the stupid, intolerant trash that listens to and praises a stupid sack of shit like Doug Wilson, is in fact, intolerant garbage?
Not even Nostradamus could have predicted this.
The Mormons are now finding out that the fascists goals will always have an ever expanding pool of “enemies” in order to remain in power, and they thought they would he the exception to this rule.
The government recognizing some religions and not others is contrary to the founding principles. Too bad the Supreme Court is corrupted by all those Opus Dei reactionaries, otherwise the regulation would be thrown out immediately as unconstitutional.
We are at the stage where the ingroup is restricting. Cool.
Among those eliminated were Unitarian Universalists, various Wiccans, deists, atheists and others, according to Military.com, the first to report the news.
Weren’t the fuckin’ “Founding Fathers” deists? lol
That was what jumped out at me too. Yes, they were (depending on the individuals and how you interpret their various letters and essays on the matter) either deists or Unitarians. Thomas Paine wrote the famous deist essay Age of Reason, for example.
Basically “God created us, but has been hands-off ever since. It’s up to us to create a good world where people can exist in harmony, instead of counting on God to do it.”
If you believe Yeshua is the ‘Son of God’ and died for our sins, you are a Christian. It is that simple. Nobody else other than Christians believe it. Mormons believe it. They are Christian.
Ah yeah, every conservative minority ever. “But we were on your team guys!?”
I love this.
You might be asking why? Every Mormon I know is a staunch Trump supporter. The fact that it’s coming back on them so quickly is just chef’s kiss.
The thing is, when you get into the actually truly religious Christians (the mormons, the jehovah’s witnesses, etc), you will find a large percentage of them are good people who are so filled with the actual “Love of the Lord” that a guy like Trump can’t get into their heads. They’re immune to his hateful bullshit.
Doesn’t mean they’re immune to buying the regular Republican bullshit about the economy or military or whatever issues draw them to the right. They’re still in a cult, just not the hateful wing of it.
Half the Mormons I know hate his guts. But that’s sample size and social bias, probably. The only Mormons I willingly still associate with hate the dude’s fucking guts.
My sister converter to the faith in like 2007, I think? She was always a-political, like to the point of not really having paid attention whatsoever from my understanding (we did not grow up together). While she is still a member officially, and religiously believes, she has left the state of Utah, left the church, no longer attends, and her and her husband don’t really associate with any other mormons after 2016. The hatefulness of Trump being supported by her community really upset her and she had to leave. The final nail in the coffin, the thing that spurred her to get genuinely politically active, was Israel/Gaza. Now I don’t think the church would take her back if she begged. Not that she would. Lol
Sean Parnell confirmed on social media a report that the department had trimmed its list of recognized religious affiliations, used by its chaplains, from more than 200 to 31.
I’m curious which others were dropped. That’s a lot of faiths.
They dropped atheism and I’m not even sure how that works.
“What religion are you?”
“Oh, I’m not religious, I don’t really believe in any religion.”
“…I said, what religion are you?”
Wicca at least, obviously a lot more but that was the one I looked for on the new list.
I think that since they believe Jesus is the gatekeeper to Heaven, they do qualify (according to Jesus).
I understand Christian reluctance to accept Mormons as “neighbors in Christ”, as it is a more modern sect and was a blatant scam to the point of absurdity with no mysterious missing pieces to tantalize the imagination.
Maybe this reveals more about Christianity then they would like.
I’ve read the Book of Mormon, it’s weird, almost silly.
Hegseth is a wicked and despicable drunkard, but let’s be honest, Mormons were never Christians, and if people started to consider them as such, they might as well consider Muslims and Jews as Christians too. I am more surprised that Jehovah’s Witnesses are considered Christians on that list.
So sad to see misinformation being the 2nd comment in a thread.
Speaking strictly as an ex-Mormon, I’m going to have to disagree with you there. Personal lived experience, they’re definitely Christian. They’re also a cult, and the religion is based on a pack of lies, but no bones about it; they do, in fact, believe in Jesus. They put Joseph Smith on the same level as St. Peter, but they don’t worship him.
I don’t get why people say they aren’t Christian. Every time someone tries to explain it to me, it’s a wildly different set of guidelines every time.
I don’t get why people say they aren’t Christian.
The traditional guideline is the Nicene Creed. I dont know if LDSers would sign up to that.
Mormons believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, that makes them Christian. Sorry that you don’t like that, but it is what it is.
This is really the core of it. If someone starts nitpicking over the other details, they’ve just joined a crowd of ~46,400 other groups all called Christians arguing in a similar way.
Also it’s understandable the source would focus on Mormons but I find Unitarian Universalists getting cut way more offensive. They’re like the care bears of religion, come on now.
Unitarian Universalists
We are kind of interested in joining up as a family, and it’s more about the community than any kind of doctrine.
Personally, I’d probably join a pagan/OTO thing but that might not be the best model for the kids, LOL.
One of my favorite stories about the UU, though, was that someone said they learned how to read Tarot at one of the church events as a teenager - and later became a Wiccan or pagan, I forget which. I’m picturing some of the church ladies I know/have known and thinking how they’d react to the divination stuff. Never mind later becoming a literal pagan.
I had a friend that was really involved in UU (now ordained), and one of the great things they do is sex education. Age appropriate and queer affirming, better than anything you get at public school.
The impression I get is some UU congregations lean more pagan, while some lean more Jesus, but in general they’re all willing to welcome everyone. My local one hosts atheist meetups even. The sermons are usually more focused on social justice and history than focusing on holy texts - I’ve attended just for some medieval history lectures.
Really, it seems the perfect space to get all the social connections of church without all the extra baggage. If I had kids I’d be 100% taking them every Sunday.
“And you get a planet, and you get a planet. But not you, until 1978.”
It’s fan-fic all the way down.
Bro, all of Christianity is a fan-fic.
Jesus never once sought out a literate person to write down his teachings in his lifetime. Everything we know about him was written by his fans quite a while after his death. The New Testament was cobbled together by several different writers and then attributed to the apostles.
If that ain’t fan-fic, I don’t know what is.
Comparatively, Mohammed had three scribes take down his words. If the story of Moses is to be believed, he delivered the Ten Commandments on a stone tablet with his own hands. Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon himself (or translated it himself from golden tablets if you believe that). Aleister Crowley wrote his own holy books and graded them with a system to let readers know which documents were sacred and which ones were commentary. The teachings of Buddha are similar to Jesus in that they were passed down orally for generations before they were written down, but nobody is claiming that those documents were penned by the Buddha or anyone who knew him in his lifetime.
So, as far as claimed prophets go, the story of Jesus is one of the most fan created documents of them all.
Yeah I remember learning about Islam and the story about how it’s supposed to be the untranslated word of god, directly from an angel or whatever, rather than just some shit a handful of people wrote 3 decades after it allegedly happened, and thinking that gave them a much firmer claim on the truth.
Of course they’re all bullshit, but at least they kind of address that issue in Islam
It’s all bullshit, my dude. Do you really want to go down that road?
But they also believe that anyone can become a god, which, in the eyes of others, denies the uniqueness of the divinity of Jesus.
That’s how other denominations define it though. They all fall under the sect of Christianity because they believe in and center their teachings around Jesus. Not because they have other beliefs as well.
Edit:I may have misused denomination and sect but point being there is a larger grouping of “people following Jesus and his teachings central to their religion” And dozens of smaller groupings that go about that process differently.
, denies the uniqueness of the divinity of Jesus.
So does the triune god
Not really, since all three are still the one, unique god.
unique
Poor Zoroaster, never getting recognition
Is that the only thing that matters in defining a Christian? Mormons have a whole other testament, which no other Christian denomination does.
Is it in continuity with Protestantism? Yes, but I think the addition of a whole other holy text is enough of a ruptural break from Protestantism to consider it something new
I have a Muslim friend whose mom grew up in a Mariam cult (Mary, mother of Jesus), and their household feels more Christian to me than a Mormon one does.
To be fair though, I’m pretty sure Mormons would describe me as having grown up in a Mary cult (Catholicism).
Mormons have a whole other testament, which no other Christian denomination does.
The older variants of Christianity have more books of the Bible (the Apocrypha, and others) than are recoginized by Protestants. So I’m not sure that’s enough to disqualify the Saints.
In that case, why are protestents considered Christians when most of them also have a different Biblical cannon from the Catholic Church?
There’s no easy way to do it; I consider “Christian” the umbrella term for anyone who considers Jesus to be their savior, then get more specific about type from there.
This is the way. You’ll see some people get red-faced over the “Nicene creed” and so on.
Bringing up the Nicene creed is not really quite the flex that some xtians seemingly think that it is, though. If anything it only serves to highlight all the problems of trying to define something like “True Christianity”.
First of all, it’s clear the fractures were coming very early. Also, they apparently had to vote on what is alleged to be revealed holy scriptures, and what they mean.
This is all rather problematic. You’d think a divine creature(s) would be able to construct a way to know what is absolutely, without question and without debate, what is the real, unaltered true original texts (something like a digital signature for example) and how to interpret it.
We definitely do not have that. Instead we have endless centuries of scribblings from apologists, lots of violence and schisms and declarations of heresy and apostasy.
Also, they apparently had to vote on what is alleged to be revealed holy scriptures, and what they mean.
It’s also worth noting that the Emperor was looking over their shoulders as they voted, and expressed a firm opinion as to which way the vote should go.
And as for knowing what the true texts are, early Christians just didn’t engage with that notion in the same way as modern people do, when we use textual criticism and other techniques. It was known that sacred texts and traditions would drift over time (Islam includes a critique of earlier monotheistic religions in that regard), but the very early churches recognized a large number of holy books (everyone and their dog who had any connection to Jesus had a gospel attributed to them, and there were lots of other oddball works like the Shepherd of Hermas), and only much later was there an effort to establish a baseline set of canonical works-- which largely meant excluding anything that might support the Gnostics or might not agree with the authority of the Church or the notion of the Trinity.
That’s why there are different denominations within the sect of Christianity. It’s all Christianity because it centers on Christ and his teachings. But it’s done in a million flavors.
Edit:I may have misused denomination and sect but point being there is a larger grouping of “people following Jesus and his teachings central to their religion” And dozens of smaller groupings that go about that process differently.
Yes, but when you add a whole other testament, featuring even more teachings of Christ, than surely there’s something distinct about that theological baseline of Mormons from your average Christian
How does having more scripture that centers on Christ make them less Christian? Is it really any different than just having a bunch more recorded sermons from any teachers of Christ? It all centers on Christ, so whether they have no scripture or infinite scripture their belief and their teachings are centered on Christ, which is what makes a religion christian.
Right? I find it interesting how certain xtians are certain that other xtians are not “real” xtians. Most especially when the xtians that seem to be most certain that they are the real xtians seem more like Paulians when you look a lot closer at what they emphasize…and Paul never even met the character of Jesus from their text!
I personally find it all rather wild. BTW, I was raised as an xtian, at least nominally. Also, my parents and just about everyone I knew viewed LDS with very much side-eye.
The point is that virtually all of this stuff is made up. When people are like, bu-bu-but the Mormons say that Mormon men can have their very own planet where they are a god - I can only shrug. They worship the same guy, though, and you guys are all making unprovable claims, sooooo this sounds like a real playground “but MY dad can beat up YOUR dad!” kind of thing to those of us that reject it…
So do Muslims =]
No they don’t. Jesus is a prophet in Islam, but he’s not deified
My fault. I thought prophet fits under divinity.
Depends on denomination and sect.
So what makes Mohammad special? He is just a prophet but for some reason he has much more weight.
He’s the last one, that’s all. But still a man.
Yeah I don’t get why that point is controversial? If Mormons are Christian then why aren’t Muslims? They both had a new prophet reveal the errors of the new testament, creating a doctrinally distinct new religion.
The central figure in Islam is Muhammad. Hence, not Christian. The central figure in Mirmonism is Jesus Christ. Hence, Christian.
This really isn’t that hard… Believe in the divinity of jesus and that he died for your sins, that’s the core of Christianity which Mormons adhere to
Different sects of the same cult all of them. Differentiating is pointless really. All clinically insane and a danger to society.
I don’t think the Quakers or the Unitarians are a danger to anyone.
Checkmate fundies! So brave tips fedora
Atheists also can be dangerous to society. What is this New Atheist revival shit? It’s fucking cringe. Go read some Terry Eagleton and come back later
What part of atheism is dangerous? They just don’t believe in a god(s).
Also, what qualifies as “New Atheist” and why is it cringe? I’m not familiar with Terry Eagleton - is he part of the New Atheists or is he some critic of it?
What part of atheism is dangerous? They just don’t believe in a god(s).
I’m not saying Atheism, the lack of god belief, is dangerous. I’m criticizing the position that religion is somehow the source of the world’s problems.
Also, what qualifies as “New Atheist” and why is it cringe?
The “New Atheist” movement of the 2000s was a reaction, on the one hand, to a genuinely problematic encroachment of Evangelical Christianity into American public life.
On the other hand, a blanket unnuanced opposition to religion as a concept, caused a lot of these ostensibly liberal atheists to be cajoled into supporting the same War on Terror being Championed by the Evangelical Christians they opposed so much.
For the New Atheist, Islam was, “the motherlode of bad ideas” and that we should be waging wars in the middle east, not because of Gog and Magog or whatever Bush was on about, but because Islam was illiberal, and that the US should impose secular liberalism in places like Iraq, by force.
New Atheism got a lot right about the ways reactionary religiosity was damaging at home, but ended up walking hand-in-hand with those same people, when it came to blindly supporting disastrous US foreign policy.
And I’m calling if cringe, because is the same millieu that birthed the sterotype of the fedora tipping le euphoric Reddit Atheist. Many of whom would themselves go on to be the exact kind of “anti-SJW” online influencers who would help meme Trump into the Whitehouse in 2016.
I’m not familiar with Terry Eagleton - is he part of the New Atheists or is he some critic of it?
Eagleton is an Atheist, but is also very critical of the New Atheist movement. Both for the reasons of supporting US imperialism like I mentioned above, but also because he takes issue with the philosophical underpinnings of the movement.
Essentially, he argues that New Atheism is premised on a set of category errors, wherein they misunderstand religion as a primitive version of science, which means they misunderstand modern American Protestantism, and then apply their critiques of that misunderstood Protestantism across all religions, without actually meaningfully understanding or criticizing any of it.
He has a book about this called Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, if you’re interested
I’m criticizing the position that religion is somehow the source of the world’s problems.
It’s one source, but very much not the only source. And I’m reasonably sure someone could do a root-cause analysis to show that it’s not a primary one. The root cause is more “believing things without evidence” or “not recognizing when you’re being conned.”
The root cause is more “believing things without evidence” or “not recognizing when you’re being conned.”
I don’t even think that’s correct. Problems like war, social stratification, etc. Don’t come down to people’s wrong beliefs. They’re material.
“Not recognizing when you’re being conned” can’t be a root problem because it begs the question, why are people conning others in the first place? What systemic factors are incentivizing that behavior?
This is my issue with ‘anti-theism’ as a position. It’s entirely idealist and focuses entirely on people believing the wrong things, and not at all on the material factors that drive those beliefs to begin with.
What’s an Atheist? I’m just a normal person who grew up in a normal family, instead of a cannibalistic and/or genital mutilating cult.
Would you say that, in this moment, you are euphoric?
You don’t genuinely believe that the only people who circumcise their babies are people who believe in God, do you?
No but it’s but it is a hit factor of why it is done. Someone was religious and then says I don’t want my son looking different then me. And so on and so on.
Mormons
Oh, that’s what Latter-day Saints are. Yeah, no, not Christian even by the loosest definition.
This is hilarious because when I was unfortunately living there (and generally speaking here, of course), if you called a mormon a christian, it was seen as an insult. At least back then, they typically thought of themselves as better than (with a lot of things, but in this case, better than christians). Now that the christian fascists are in charge of the country, the mormon church suddenly wants in on the grift and they claim that they were always christian.
Also, Mike Lee is a dumbass.
I’m honestly surprised by your comment. Is this based on one specific experience you had with someone?
I have also lived there, but I never met any member of that faith who would be offended by being called a Christian. It has always been the opposite experience for me.
I had this experience with multiple people in high school, actually. Maybe it was just where I grew up? I was fairly close to Utah county (although, thankfully, not in it) which could have changed things.
The first time I had someone get offended over it, I kind of brought it up in a joking but curious manner. They explained that they don’t consider themselves Christian and that the bible should never be used on its own (meaning it should always be supplemented by the Book of Mormon). While that’s definitely just the base of the Mormon religion, they very much explicitly told me that they were not Christian, and were not very happy at all. This was especially confusing to me because they do use the bible, just not as their primary text.
Another time in high school, it somehow came up in a conversation with a few (Mormon) of my peers, and while this time they weren’t unhappy to my face, they did the whole fake, friendly smile thing (the same one they used when they made fun of me for not being Mormon) and laughed at me, basically saying that “no, silly, we are not Christian.”
It was a long time ago and the exact details are fuzzy, but I do remember several times where they did not appreciate being called Christian.
I think that may have been more to do with high school kids not understanding their own religion. Mormons have always been Christians. The kids probably thought christian meant the same as protestant. Which Mormons definitely disagree with. They consider themselves restorationists, not protestants. But they’ve always thought of themselves as Christians.
It’s definitely possible, yeah, but I don’t think they came up with the idea of being offended all on their own. They had seminary next door to the school and would go there every day as part of their schooling (don’t even get me started). Even the middle schools had seminary. I guess my point is that these kids at least partially understood their religion, as they had to go to seminary daily AND go to church on Sunday. I would be surprised if that idea was something that they organically thought of on their own, especially because it wasn’t just one or even two kids with that line of thinking. I fully believe that someone was telling them to think that way.
Maybe it’s a Utah thing. Mormons in Utah and Mormons outside of it may as well be two separate religions at times.
Yeah, this is probably it. Utah is a huge bubble.
It really is. I hate visiting other than the nature.
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Never forget that the LDS church is one of the biggest real estate holders in the US. They own billions and billions of dollars worth of real estate, all tax exempt. They make tons of money off of that, along with the 10% minimum tithe. They’re probably one of the richest organizations in the US.
There needs to be stronger regulations on religious organizations. But something outside of taxing them. Taxation gives representation. And I don’t want religion feeling like it has a right to be heard in politics. There are enough religious zealots already trying to ruin government.
Taxation gives representation.
Not so, and that was never the case. For example, nobody gets special treatment for paying excise taxes or sales taxes.
That’s fair, for sure. However I would also argue that they already feel like they have a right to be heard in politics, and are already engaging in plenty of corruption and lobbying.
I agree, I just don’t want to to gain any extra legitimization or support from a legal standpoint
Completely understandable.
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Take some shrooms and go digging in some field, I’m sure you’ll be able to start something based on what you find!
Make sure to bring your magic hat.
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In my experience, nearly every xtian denomination thinks they are better than other sects. Otherwise, why would they choose that particular lifestyle brand?
Also: I remember my amusement when I first learned that LDS refer to outsiders, including non-Mormon xtians and Jews, as “gentiles”.
Some use gentile to mean anyone not in the religion. Most understand it in the biblical sense despite this.
Definitely. I think Mormons excel at this however, I don’t fully know how to explain it though. Growing up non-Mormon (a gentile, as you say, lmao) in that area was… interesting. I was sometimes bullied for it, not in a physical sense but they would definitely make fun of me, to my face but mostly behind my back. In a way, it was almost more insidious than normal bullying, because they’d be all cheery and happy to my face and then they’d make fun of me when I wasn’t around or when they thought I couldn’t hear them.
Utah is a huge bubble, and most people there don’t end up leaving, even when they become adults. The primary way Utah Mormons experience the world outside of their bubble is through their missionary programs and other church functions. Where Christians are pretty much everywhere in the US and don’t have a “home base” bubble, Mormons are the opposite. This makes them feel super empowered to put themselves above the other religions, if that makes sense.
Leopards have a steady diet of faces these days.
I’d feel bad for the Mormons, but they’re a bunch of shitheads, like most religious organizations.
Muslims also believe in Jesus. Does that make them Christian as well?
No, Christ isn’t the center of it. Christ to Muslims is like Abraham to Christians in a way. It’s not a perfect analogy but gets the gist across.
I’d define a Christian as someone that thinks Jesus of Nazareth’s time on earth and his teachings were the most supernaturally important of anyone ever.
Muslim’s believe Muhammad’s teachings were more important. I think Bahai’s revere Jesus similarly to muslims. I don’t really know what Mormons believe, but I think they’d meet my threshold for Christendom. The fact that they also want to be called Christian is a major tick in their favour.
Muslim’s believe Muhammad’s teachings were more important.
Only because they believe that the revelation to Muhammad was faithfully recorded at the time, while the Christian record of Jesus’s teachings was corrupted by being an oral tradition that changed and was corrupted. Islam believes that there were 99 prophets, Muhammad being the last. And they all taught the same thing. Abraham was a Muslim, so was Jesus. And all the prophets were mortal men, not semi-divine figures.
As a Thelemite, we don’t expect to be included in the first place.
Are there any communities here on Lemmy for thelema? Not a practitioner myself, but I love learning about it. And anthroposophy.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
I started one on Lemmy World when I first joined, but abandoned it when I moved to DB0 due to lack of interest from other users. I would be happy to start one on DB0 if people were interested, and I am always open to DM’s if you have any questions or would like to discuss it. I would never try to convert anyone, but I’m always available to any aspirant or interested party. I consider it part of my personal duty as a magician.
Love is the law, love under will.
(Apologies for the weird mumbo jumbo at the beginning and end of that, it is a Thelema thing that makes sense when you’re initiated. Thanks for understanding or tolerating it to those who think I’m a weirdo, lol.)
Thelema has always been super fascinating to me. I’d love to learn more if you have resources to direct me towards. There’s actually a Lemmy server specifically for religions. I started one over there for Episcopalians, but it’s been so long I’ll have to dig up the info on it as I don’t remember the sever name. Philosophy and religions subs are the thing I miss most from the other site
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
I think I’ll start a Thelema community when I’m back home at my computer, and I’ll send you the info when I do. Thanks for your interest—it has reignited my desire to have a place on Lemmy for people to learn about the Law.
Here are resources for you:
https://sacred-texts.com/oto/index.htm This is an online collection of our sacred texts. The ones marked class A are considered to be channeled from supra-human contact as the result of magickal operations. Our primary text is Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law) which is document CCXX in this list.
https://m.youtube.com/@Arcanumluminarium/videos?ra=m
Our primary fraternal organization is the Ordo Templi Orientis. Lon Milo DuQuette is the archbishop of the OTO, and he does daily videos that are easily digestible for a new person who is interested in Thelema. This link is a collection of those videos, and new ones come out almost every single day.https://m.youtube.com/@TempleoftheSilverStar?ra=m
The Temple of the Silver Star is an academic and initiatory organization that both teaches and performs the rituals of Thelema. They have instructional videos, as well as books on how to live your day to day life as a modern Thelemite. Their founder, David Shoemaker, can be reached via Instagram or email for questions and initiatory possibilities.Further suggested reading would be Perdurabo by Richard Kaczynski, which is a scholarly biography of the life and teachings of Aleister Crowley. Also, I would recommend Living Thelema by David Shoemaker for a handbook about living life as a Thelemite in the new millennium. Another good one is Adventures of a Magus, which is a textbook style guide to performing our rituals with included diagrams and pictures—it is great for visualizing what this stuff actually looks like. Lastly, I’d recommend In The Center of the Fire by James Wasserman for a history of the modern OTO as it was reformed in the mid 70’s.
I would like to add that the best way to find out if Thelema is bullshit or not is simply to try it out. There is no commitment required to do our rituals (do what thou wilt, after all). I became a Thelemite because I tried it and it worked. It defies logic sometimes, but it has transformed me as a person exactly as advertised. Maybe it’s my brain chemistry that is wired for this and other people aren’t, maybe I’m delusional, or maybe magick is real on some fundamental level—I choose not to look a gift horse in the mouth. The practices of Thelema have made me a more confident, open minded, brave, and compassionate person, plus my love life got way more exciting and I met a bunch of cool friends. To me, that is delivery of the only promise we make: that you will Know Yourself through these practices.
I have been (and currently am) a member of multiple initiatory organizations, and I have never been asked to do anything that violates my morals or that I believe is harmful to anyone. I have been tested and pushed to find my limits, but it has all been consensual and joyous, even after all these years. Results may vary, but I feel safe in recommending the path to anyone since my experience and the experience of my friends has been largely positive.
Lastly, if you would like to meet some real life Thelemites, the best way to do so is to visit an OTO lodge. They are in most states in the US, as well as many countries around the world. Their primary public ritual, the Gnostic Mass, can be attended by anyone who shoots them an email and expresses interest.
https://a.co/d/0gYBMq61
All rituals have been published in books and are only secret as a matter of personal honor, so if you have anxiety about any part of the system, you can pick up a copy of The Secret Rituals of the OTO and read up on exactly what will happen in each grade. That said, there is a true beauty in going in blind—it will give you a raw version of the experience that I believe makes initiation more impactful. That decision is very personal though so…do what thou wilt.Love is the law, love under will.
That’s cause there not. They’re Mormons. They believe in Christian fan fiction, not actual Christianity. Pretty sure they don’t even teach the bible, as least not as much as the BoM.
Broken Clocks. All religions are fake anyway.
They do teach the bible, but not in the same way. The Book of Mormon is an addendum/supplement to the bible, and they use it to help “understand” what the bible “really” means, and they use the bible to clarify things in the BoM as well.
Basically, they carry and read both.
Well IDK if it was you that downvoted me but thanks for basically confirming what I said.
My instance has downvotes disabled.
