Customer Reviews

Leaving The Saints: How I Lost The Mormons And Found My Faith

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From the get-go, I found Beck's telling of the multiple layers of the LDS culture to be insightful and accurate.
Certainly all cultures have different levels of trust, but the way the LDS Smile while planning hurtful things against their 'brothers & sisters' in their highly competitive society needs to be told.
EVERYONE looking into Mormonism needs to consider 'alternative' sources of information & opinions, else the SHOCK of learning all there is to know will come like an Earthquake.
Mormonism is a Simon Says, top down hierarchical TRIBE (yes, the use that term!)that is now (Jan 2012) madly trying to appear "Mainstream" in order to usher in the selection of either John Huntsman or Mittney Romney to do their bidding from 1000 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. They're Throwing Overboard (at least temporarily) most of the unique/weird things of Mormonism; witness Hinckley saying on Natl television "I don't know that we teach that" about one of mormonisms most peculiar yet well-understood OFFICIAL teachings: That people (here on earth now) may 'progress' to the point of becoming Gods & Goddesses, to rule & reign over their own planet someday IF they obey ALL the details of the LDS gospel.
I cannot judge whether or not Ms. Beck suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her father or Anyone; but I do know that the Mormon church has paid 100's of Thousands of $ to keep it out of official records in legitimate court proceedings...

Wow- this is a non-fiction work that reads like a great mystery! It does discuss child abuse so if you are very sensitive to that, as I am, you will experience some of this as rough sledding. But, I found it to be worth it.

The book was in good condition. I really liked it and it was hard to put down!

For an ex-Mormon living in Utah, parts of this book will ring so true it's eerie, and this will provide a nice insight into Mormon culture for interested outsiders. Other parts, however, the author is clearly making up, though it's unclear whether she is simply lying or if she actually believes some of the things she says and is simply deluded--or delusional (for instance, her completely credulous account of her "near-death experience").

This creates a certain problem of trust for the reader regarding the parts that are not obviously true or false: one is not sure what to believe, and cannot simply take the author's word for it. This applies, unfortunately, to the central claim of the book: that Beck was sexually abused by her father, a prominent Mormon apologist. While sexual abuse certainly occurs in the Mormon church, and its officials undoubtedly downplay or even help to cover it up, it's impossible to know whether her specific claim is true.

For one thing, her "memory" of what happened is so bizarre that one ought to be skeptical. Secondly, though she tries to dismiss it, there is such a phenomenon as unscrupulous therapists implanting suggestions in the minds of already disturbed patients, and it is as plausible to think this was the case for Beck (her mantra prayers of "please...please...please..." eventually answered--really--by a talking ball of light are one example of how disturbed she is) as that her memories are genuine. For one thing, it is odd that these memories would "surface" after decades when she begins seeing a therapist--although the phenomenon of repression is also very real, especially when coupled with post-traumatic stress. And while she claims that there is actual physical evidence of abuse in the form of supposedly otherwise inexplicable scarring, the reader is simply told this repeatedly with no evidence given.

Her portrait of her father as alternately befuddled and obstinate is amusing, though, but again no evidence is given for his abuse, in turn, at the hands of his mother. His war-time experiences certainly could have messed him up, though.

I hate to belittle Beck's story, but she really gives us very little reason to believe her, and some reason to doubt her; and besides, she occasionally seems to belittle it herself, as when she inexplicably drops inappropriate jokes in the middle of the most serious moments of her narrative, one example of how obnoxious her style can be.

On the whole, her conversion from Mormonism to a New Age brand of Buddhism is almost a step backward. The search for a rational critique of Mormonism continues.