Growing up in the Mormon church, I was taught that to gain a testimony (no, not a statement given in court) I had to pray to God and ask with “a sincere heart and real intent” to gain an answer. If I did so, the answer would come to me in a soft, peaceful feeling. And that would mean that whatever I was praying for was confirmed by the Holy Ghost. If my mind wandered and I had trouble focusing, or I felt confused, then that was the Holy Ghost telling me that whatever I was praying about was against God’s will for me. Make sense? Not really.

To be a good Mormon in good standing with God, church leadership, and your community, you need to “gain a testimony” of certain things. What a testimony translates to in real terms, is a strong conviction that God told you something is “true”. For example, if you want to go into one of their super secret temples you have to tell your church leaders in two separate interviews that you have a testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet of God who restored God’s one and only exclusive club on the face of this planet. And the only way to gain that, is through the Mormon’s own branded experience.

Let’s break down the testimony gaining process and examine what’s going on here.

First, Mormons create a problem that you didn’t know existed otherwise. The first thing they’ll tell you is that God only wants to be worshiped one way, His way. And guess what? The Mormons know His correct way. It’s been revealed to them. The great creator of the universe, Alpha and Omega, destroyer of Nations — he’s selected a group of people who comprise less than 1% of the world’s population and told them how he wants everyone to worship Him. Only the Mormons can tell you what all the rules are you need to follow if you want to make it back to Heaven and be with your family forever and ever.

Then, the Mormons will tell you that there is a way to solve that problem that you didn’t know existed. You gotta read their sacred text. You gotta start playing by their rules (or commandments), and as you’re obedient you’ll feel God throwing little blessings down on you from Heaven as a sign that you’re doing things right (but maybe not, because this whole life is a test and sometimes that means doing things you don’t understand and cashing in those IOU notes for blessings on the other side after you’re dead). But most importantly, you gotta spend some time down on your knees in prayer pleading with God to tell you that it’s true. Mormons teach that if you follow the process correctly, you too will “know” what they “know”.

Next, they’ll use a spiritual sounding voice and tell you a personal experience of how they received their answer. This is very important. This is the point they bare their testimony to you. They lay it all out there. They show you what you too can gain if you follow the instructions correctly. They will look you in the eyes and tell you that they know with certainty, without a shadow of doubt, with every fiber of their being, that what they are telling you is God’s honest truth and it was revealed to them through the Holy Ghost.

After that, Mormons explain what you’re going to experience as long as you play by the rules. You’re going to feel the Holy Ghost. And what does He feel like? Well, it’s different for everyone! No one feels him the same! But when you feel him, you’ll definitely know that’s what it is. You’ll probably feel peaceful, or clarity, or joy, or like your heart is swelling, or anything good. You’ll definitely feel something that feels like good. If you don’t feel something good it’s because you’re not doing it right. You’re not doing it with a “a sincere heart and real intent”. If it doesn’t work the first time, try it again. But really want it this time. You have to honestly, wholeheartedly, want an answer. Keep at it, you’ll get it. Then we’ll schedule a baptism date, or let you advance in the priesthood, or go on a mission, or go into their super secret temple rituals.

Okay.

They create the whole experience for you from beginning to end. They tell you why it’s so important that you “know” these things (it’s only your eternal salvation and stuff at stake here). So if you are going to feel this ambiguous feeling that they’ve attempted to describe to you, you have to really really really want it. That’s what they mean by “a sincere heart and real intent”. How convenient.

You see, only the people who really want to or think that they’re going to feel this feeling are the ones that have this experience. And that only happens after they’ve invested time in talking to Mormons who share their testimony and experience, spend time reading their scripture, start following their flavor of commandments, and praying to ask God to give them that good feeling so that they know what they know. If you’re cynical about the experience and think you’re not going to have the great privilege of feeling the Holy Ghost, you won’t. It’s that simple. And they will straight up tell you that without acknowledging that it all sounds like a scam.

The brain is a powerful thing. It’s so complex that scientists are continuing to discover new things about it’s capabilities. If you really believe in something, it rings true to you. Whether or not it happens to be true. Take flat earthers for example. They really believe the earth is flat. In fact, they claim (without any evidence) to KNOW that it’s flat. That doesn’t change the fact that the earth is round. Yet they know it’s not.

What we believe is influenced by our experiences, what we know, what we choose to accept as truth, and how we feel about things. Obviously, feelings can be deceiving. Look at the flat earthers.

Anyone who’s gone to therapy learns about CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT is about how thoughts, feelings, and behavior are related to each other. Influence one, and it affects the others.

I was struggling with depression, and consequently my feelings were either muted, sad, unmotivated, or empty. For someone struggling with depression, the best intervention to help them claw their way out of the suffocating and debilitating depression into a more manageable amount of depression, is to focus on behavior and thoughts to influence their feelings. My therapist had me set goals to change my reclusive behavior and to make time to simply be around other humans. I started by going to the mall and just sitting on a bench watching people walk around. Eventually I worked my way up to performing at an open mic night on the guitar. I came a long way in therapy. The other thing my therapist did was to help me have better, more encouraging thoughts about myself and others. He had me give myself pep talks every morning in the shower which at first sounded ridiculous, but over time proved to really help my self-esteem and motivation. Acting and thinking positively affected how I felt.

So let’s apply CBT to the Mormon branded testimony gaining experience. First, they implant new thoughts into your mind that they’re right and everyone else is wrong, and you can find out for yourself. If this really piques your interest in knowing if they’re right, your behavior falls in line with what they want: read scriptures, attend church, follow their rules, pray to God. You start gaining new insights and opinions about something you didn’t know much about before which are now on your mind.

Your thoughts and actions become focused on figuring out if the Mormons are right. You say their version of prayer and asked to know. By now, your thoughts and behavior are in alignment. You believe that at least some part of you sincerely wants to know. And that’s enough. You now have “a sincere heart and real intent”. What do you think you’ll feel at the end of your journey? Congratulations, you have a testimony of some aspect of Mormonism, whether or not it is actually true.

But imagine if you don’t read their book. You don’t attend church. You don’t listen to other tearful testimonies. You don’t think about Mormonism or its teachings at all. Someone off the street says, “hey, have you prayed about Mormonism?” You kneel down on the spot and pray, “Dear God, is Mormonism true? This guy is asking me.” You’re not likely to have the same experience. You haven’t invested any time into it, of course you’re not going to get an answer. Or maybe you do all the steps they ask of you, but you don’t care if they’re right or not because you have no intention of going to church every week until you die. You pray just to humor them. You’re not likely to have the same experience.

So here’s a though experiment. Say in your mind 5 times “I know the Flying Spaghetti Monster is my lord and savior.” Do this at 9AM, 12PM, 5PM, and 9PM every day for two weeks. Say it with feeling. If you can’t believe it, somehow will yourself to believe it. Pretend super hard. At the end of two weeks, find a quiet, peaceful place where you can meditate and pray. Then pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Beg him to reach out with a spiritual noodly appendage and touch your soul. If you really want to feel something, I bet you’ll feel something. A warmness, a calmness. What could that be? Nothing more than the experience you created for yourself through CBT.

I know cognitive dissonance is true, and share these things in the name of my lord and savior, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, ramen.

Brother Ghost