Translation (Mormonism)

Did You Know?

• Similar beliefs about translation were held by the Buchanites in 18th century Scotland.
• St Clement, a 1st-century bishop of Rome, used the term 'translation' in the same context in his first letter, as translated by Cyril C. Richardson, appearing in 9:3.
• Annalee Skarin's husband Reason also disappeared soon after she did.

State of terrestrial body

Translated beings are changed so that they do not experience pain or death until their resurrection to immortality. Both translated and resurrected beings are eternally young and fit, not subject to illness or injury, and serve as ministering angels performing tasks that require a physical body, such as ordinances involving the laying on of hands. According to Parley P. Pratt, a translated being has a terrestrial body, which differs from the terrestrial glory of heaven, just as the present world is considered telestial but is not the telestial glory.

Annalee Skarin

Annalee Skarin, raised in the LDS Church, claimed to have invented a meditation technique allowing anyone to translate themselves directly into Heaven. She wrote a book titled Ye Are Gods, in which she also claimed to see directly into the Spirit World using what Mormonism calls the spiritual eye. Shortly after publication, she was excommunicated because high-ranking members perceived the book as seriously blaspheming Mormon belief. However, it was later shown that she faked her translation and went into hiding with her husband in southern Oregon and later northern California to increase book sales, and she physically died of natural causes.