Mormon Lion

[chimp]

A couple winters ago I was in Utah on a ski/snowmobile trip.
I had my camera with me and went to downtown Salt Lake City in order to look at the architecture and interesting stuff like the Mormon temple and museums etc.
I was looking through the photos I took and came across this picture of a lions head that is on one of the buildings across the street from the Temple.
Something struck me odd about this lion so I did a double take and noticed that the lions left eye is looking up instead of straight ahead and the eyelid is more open.
I noticed that the Mormons had tons of different symbols adorning their buildings and structures. Almost as much as even the Masonic Temples. Aand hell I wasn't even allowed to go into the temple. I can only imagine what kind of stuff is inside their sacred temple.
Anyhow..enough babbling.
Does anyone know of any significance to this lions left eye? I doubt it is because the mason/sculptor had a sense of humor

[seedlessstinky1]

hhhhhmmmmpppph.....I know the lion you speak of.....never paid enough attention to it i suppose....It seems like they have them in other places in SLC too. I know i've seen em a few times.....lol

I dont know the message behind it, however i do know there is some really trippy architecture goin on in just about all the temples here. I've been inside it at christmas time when its all lit up with lights,,,,fuggin aye thats nuts...That was roughly 12 or more years ago. The entire structure and weird feeling you get just being there is i dunno odd to say the least....I wanna take LSD and go for a tour...

The lions eye.......HHHHmmmmppppphhh....I'm gonna do some researchin and maybe go downtown and have a staring contest with it......Will report back soon......I know i know this but yet i dont...will research....

Coool observation chip.......

[chimp]

Originally Posted by seedlessstinky1

The lions eye.......HHHHmmmmppppphhh....I'm gonna do some researchin and maybe go downtown and have a staring contest with it......Will report back soon......I know i know this but yet i dont...will research....
.

Cool man, I am pretty curious about it now.. I tried googling it but didn't find anything about it.

[mycowarrier]

If your really interested in Mormomism i recommend these books:

"Leaving the Saints" by Martha Beck
"The God Makers" by Ed Decker/Dave Hunt

Both are Against the mormom Cult. With good reason. There are death threats against anyone revealing their most gaurded secrets.

[chimp]

Thanks, I'm really not interested in Mormonism.

The lions eye just struck me odd and I figured it would ya'll too so I shared.



The skiing is good in Park City thats why I went to Utah..Getting to check out the temple in Salt Lake was just a bonus.

[chimp]

My ex-wife, her parents were mormon and she was a an ex-mormon.

She decided to go back to the church after we had been married for 5 years..thats why she is my ex-wife I suspect...but thats another story.

Anyhow, even her father wore those undergarments...both her mom and her father were odd to say the least.

[chimp]

I guess I forgot to post the picture..any how it's up now on the original post

[Mr. Clean]

Originally Posted by hyphaenation

Now about that lion statue and its left eye ...

ya think it might be a simple error? i'm not sure how big the statue is, it looks like the sculpter may have had to work each side of the face one at a time. even the best of barbers slip and make your sideburns come out uneven, and a human head is a lot smaller than that lion

just a thought.

[chimp]

I doubt is was a simple error. Craftsmen of that caliber don't let mistakes like that slide. Whoever did the work would have been compelled to "fix" the error. Besides that I don't think that the person who commissioned the work would have let it slide. If memory serves correctly it is a church owned building.

BTW it isn't a statue..it is part of the building itself. I wish I had seen this when I actually took the picture because there are quite a few of these lions on that building. I wonder if they are all the same?

[chimp]

Maybe when you go look at em seedless you could see if they all look that way?

[Mr. Clean]

Originally Posted by oibchip

Maybe when you go look at em seedless you could see if they all look that way?

yeah, that would be interesting. if it's only that one, it might lend more credibility to my simple error theory. maybe craftsmen of that caliber don't make mistakes, but i know people get lazy & cut corners all the time. i can imagine it now-

"just forget about it, it's only that one lion. nobody will notice."

let's say it was deliberate, what significance do you think the left eye might have, chip?

[usagolden]

eyes arnt perfect
look at your own eyes
that lion's eyes look more like a persons, too
Maybe it is a Jesus reference
or maybe an one eye to God, one eye on man
it is definately deliberate

[Raoul Duke]

That's kinda what I was thinking USAgolden. The eye looks like it is looking upward towards the heavens. Gotta love that Southpark episode though!

[chimp]

Originally Posted by Mr. Clean

let's say it was deliberate, what significance do you think the left eye might have, chip?

I really do not know. I am an atheist so it is difficult for me to try and "get into" the mind of a person/group of persons motivations for doing stuff like that.


USAgolden has a decent theory though.

Like "Hey I am a lion and I am watching you people...then I am telling god whats going on so you better be nice or god is gonna know. God may tell me to bite you or rain down fire and brimstone"

Maybe something like that?

[seedlessstinky1]

I know of some other lions out in Ogden city on one of the Hotels.....Which is what our suspect building in SLC used to be. The buidling is now the Joseph Smith Memorial Center. Or BLDG. used to be called Utah Hotel. It was turned into the joseph smith center in the early 90's i do believe.

The sculptures definately mean somethin...When i go to read the research on the BLDG. it kinda dead ends...dont give ya mush...Plan on borrowin a camera and takin a bunch of pics and all that. My dad is really into that kinda thing, so maybe i can get a side kick or two.....

This has sparked my interest like no other. I asked some people about it yesterday and they didnt seem to have mush of an idea about what i was talkin about. I'll try and get some of the Hotel in Ogden and see if the same people errected the two Bldgs...I think the one in ogden is haunted...i heard the one in Slc was too. Anywho.... i got some cool pics and stuff to show ya too....That temple definately had quite a few masons workin on it. 4 sure. But i find SLC a mystery city anyways...kinda eeery in a way....I get the whillies sometimes....lol here ya go....

I hate to seem lame for being so interested...but pic 1 is the Jospeh Smith memorial Bldg. pic 2 is the inside of the building. pic 3 is the temple pic 4 is temple square pic 5 is of a star...theres shit loads of em from five to six sides, from upright to upside down. then the hand shakin in the next pic 6. then ya got Joseph smith with who knows in pic 7. then just one of the temple towers.

Cant wait to get down there and do some exploring....hidden images all around us. The walls of the temple in pic 3 have 9ft thick walls at the base and 6ft at the top...incredible.

[seedlessstinky1]

...A few more...

1. temple
2. Some writings
3. The all seein eye
4. craftsmanship
5. My favorite symbol in Salt Lake City. This is way bad ass. It goes acrossed the street.

well the gargoyles are sweet too.....

[chimp]

Please stay on topic..no making fun of religions please.

[hyphaenation]

Young had a variety of nicknames, among the most popular being "American Moses,"[2] (alternatively the "Modern Moses" or the "Mormon Moses")[3] because, like the Biblical figure, Young led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, in an exodus through a desert, to what they saw as a promised land. Young was also dubbed the "Lion of the Lord"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young

They called Brigham Young , first governor of Utah "Lion Of The Lord"

Maybe this is part of the puzzle.

[seedlessstinky1]

Originally Posted by hyphaenation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young

They called Brigham Young , first governor of Utah "Lion Of The Lord"

Maybe this is part of the puzzle.

Good point hyp....check this out.... http://www.utah.com/mormon/lion_house.htm

[chimp]

Wow, I didn't know that Brigham young was such a controversial figure.
It sounds like "The Lion of the Lord" has a correlation huh?
Here's some other pics I dug up from that trip I made out there..I shot over 500 pictures that week,
Some more architecture pics as well as a couple I snapped while inside the "mormon" museum..the faces are clay imprints of Joseph Smith. I think they were called is "death masks"
I did notice the heavy Native American influences in some of the art there as well

[chimp]

I forgot to resize the pics...sry

The picture of the two people in paradise depict two men..not what I originally thought was an adam and eve depiction.

and the symbol in the middle of the door knob looks like a mushroom cap or something like that.

The interior picture is the temple where the Mormon TAbernacle choir used to do their thing I think.

[hyphaenation]

and the symbol in the middle of the door knob looks like a mushroom cap or something like that

Beehive ?

Nineteenth-century leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consciously created symbols to buttress their community. The most persistent of these pioneer symbols was the beehive.

Its origin may relate to the statement in the Book of Mormon that the Jaredites carried "with them Deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee" (Ether 2:3). The Deseret News (Oct. 11, 1881) described the symbol of the beehive in this way: "The hive and honey bees form our communal coat of arms…. It is a significant representation of the industry, harmony, order and frugality of the people, and of the sweet results of their toil, union and intelligent cooperation."

Working together during this early period, individuals contributed specialized talents and skills for building an integrated and well-planned community in a hostile environment. Community, not individuality, created this persistent symbol. The beehive has appeared on public and private Mormon buildings (such as temples, tabernacles, and meetinghouses, Brigham Young's Beehive House, and the mercantile institution ZCMI) as well as in folk art and on furniture.

Today it appears as a logo of some Church-related organizations, on the seals of the state of Utah and of two universities, on Church Welfare products, and on some commercial signs in Utah. It links the Mormon community across time while symbolizing the Mormon pioneer past.

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/d...eehive_eom.htm

[chimp]

Originally Posted by hyphaenation

Beehive ?

Yeah, that makes sense.

[chimp]

The 8th pic in the post above with the outstretched shaking hands (above the front door to the temple) is interesting too. The eclipsed sun/moon on the right side and the full moon/sun on the left.

[dial8]

That lion looks in pain...anguish. His eyes are reflecting his misery. What that misery is about I dont know.

[datsun]

Originally Posted by oibchip

A couple winters ago I was in Utah on a ski/snowmobile trip.
I had my camera with me and went to downtown Salt Lake City in order to look at the architecture and interesting stuff like the Mormon temple and museums etc.
I was looking through the photos I took and came across this picture of a lions head that is on one of the buildings across the street from the Temple.
Something struck me odd about this lion so I did a double take and noticed that the lions left eye is looking up instead of straight ahead and the eyelid is more open.
I noticed that the Mormons had tons of different symbols adorning their buildings and structures. Almost as much as even the Masonic Temples. Aand hell I wasn't even allowed to go into the temple. I can only imagine what kind of stuff is inside their sacred temple.
Anyhow..enough babbling.
Does anyone know of any significance to this lions left eye? I doubt it is because the mason/sculptor had a sense of humor

This reminds me of the adage," as above so below". Wiki entry follows.




As above, so below




The Magician displaying the Hermetic concept of as above, so below.


These words circulate throughout occult and magical circles, and they come from Hermetic texts. The concept was first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the words "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing"[19].
In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other[

[hyphaenation]

Symbols used in the Endowment and the meanings of those symbols are sacred to Mormons. They view the meaning of the symbols as knowledge (an endowment) from God. For this reason, the only acceptable place for Mormons to discuss the symbols or their meaning is within the walls of a temple.

From the LDS Church itself.
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/mormon/endowment/

For this reason much of the info out there on these symbols is either from ex-mormons or people who are speculating ... like us.

[chimp]

I do know that there are certain parts of the temple where only people who have been married in that temple are allowed to enter.

That is what my ex-inlaws told me and they have been LDS their whole lives,

[seedlessstinky1]

This site here has some good veiws on symbolism...well this is what they say their symbols mean....but as they say even they arent sure on some of them....or they jsut dont say.....they say...."may be this or that" I call bullshit. They know they have hidden messages in their temple and surrounding buildings....lol....

If ya scroll down just a little bit they'll tell ya about it.

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/saltlake/

crazy they have a spot there for the dipper....hhhhhmmmmm

[chimp]

I found this excerpt at thgis site

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/search?...w=checked&bw=1

1. Morm. 5: 24
   24 Therefore, repent ye, and humble yourselves before him, lest he shall come out in justice against you—lest a aremnant of the seed of Jacob shall go forth among you as a blion, and tear you in pieces, and there is none to deliver.
   

[seedlessstinky1]

http://www.parkinsonarchitecture.com/firmhistory.html

This is the architect....The one in Ogden is different than i thought...

http://www.parkinsonarchitecture.com/famous_utah.html

This is on the hotel...or Bldg...

[chimp]

This link is a good one for the symbolism of some of the temple.
However, notice the liberal use of "can" and "may" though.

The site didn't truly clarify the meanings of these symbols.

Interesting.

[hyphaenation]

http://www.davidbokovoy.com/?p=148

Enos as Sacred Hunter Before God

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enos_(Book_of_Mormon)

[chimp]

I have been trying to search around to see what significance the left eye has as opposed to the right eye..and I can't seem to find any religious meaning there.

[johnnydigital]

The majority of Mormonism's rituals and symbols come from those of the Freemasons, who's ceremonies where attended by none other than Joseph Smith himself.

Smith incorporated masonic symbols such as....
* All Seeing Eye
* Apron
* Beehive
* Square and Compass
* Emblem of the clasped hands
* Five points of Fellowship
* Special Garments applied to initiates
* Garment Markings
* Special handshakes
* The phrase: "Holiness to the Lord"
* Moon symbol
* New Name given
* Blood/death oaths of secrecy with morbid gestures and words describing penalties agreed to if secrets are revealed. (Mormons going through the temple post-1990 may not be familiar with these. Consider yourself lucky.)
* Location (possession of) Throne of the "Holy of Holies"
* Star symbols, Sun symbols
* Tabernacles, Temples

Perhaps the Lion and its eyes relate to a masonic symbol?

[~Hippie3]

and those trace back to the kabbalah , ancient jewish mystic writing,

[seedlessstinky1]

Havent been able to come up with anything truly solid for an explanation. I've tried. I've asked. Looked. N the only thing i can come up with is it had to do with something the original architech did. Salt Lake was basically run by mormons back then so i imagine it was strongly influenced by them but somehow i almost wonder if the architech had his own little symbolism goin on. I will continue my search until i have come up with something, anything to shed more light on the matter. Thanks for the cool thread chip.

[chimp]

I have been looking too and still haven't found anything.

[johnnydigital]

The lion is clearly a reference to Brigham Young, who's house has pretty much the exact same lion sculpted into it... today called "The Lion House". What intrigues me is the eyes looking up and down.

[seedlessstinky1]

Originally Posted by oibchip

I have been looking too and still haven't found anything.

Just this past weekend while in conversation, my brother mentioned the Lion in question. I had asked him about it when this first came up. He's been reading a lot the past few months on religions around the world. He supposedly found what the lion represents.

Now i do not have any quotes or excerpts for that matter of this info, just that it makes the most sense, givin the lay of the land downtown...Gotta see it to believe it....kinda thing.

The lions eye is looking up at Moroni(sp) who sits atop the one of the towers blowing his trumpet. The other eye is looking at Brigham Youngs "lion house." Which is what is actaully called. The only question i have about that is who did it. Cause i think BY was dead when the construction first broke ground. Pretty positive actually. soooooooo.....yeah. Thats my conclusion.

[syvel]

there's really nothing all that special inside of them
except for the carpets.... they're the most comfortable carpets I've ever walked on.... the rest is just a bunch of supersticious bullshit

[chimp]

Originally Posted by seedlessstinky1

Just this past weekend while in conversation, my brother mentioned the Lion in question. I had asked him about it when this first came up. He's been reading a lot the past few months on religions around the world. He supposedly found what the lion represents.

Now i do not have any quotes or excerpts for that matter of this info, just that it makes the most sense, givin the lay of the land downtown...Gotta see it to believe it....kinda thing.

The lions eye is looking up at Moroni(sp) who sits atop the one of the towers blowing his trumpet. The other eye is looking at Brigham Youngs "lion house." Which is what is actaully called. The only question i have about that is who did it. Cause i think BY was dead when the construction first broke ground. Pretty positive actually. soooooooo.....yeah. Thats my conclusion.

Thanks