In one of John Dehlin’s first podcasts (September 14, 2005), he interviewed Greg Kearney, a member of FAIR (Foundation of Apologetic Information and Research, a pro-Mormon think tank), and a several generation Mormon and master mason. Greg attended BYU, and is the member of a Farmington, Maine ward that has been around longer than any wards in Utah! He gave an interesting history of Mormons and Masonry. John discussed Greg’s background for the first almost 20 minutes, and at that point the conversation got into the history of Masonry and how it influenced Joseph Smith.
This has been a podcast I’ve wanted to transcribe for years, ever since I heard it. Greg has given a great background on the history of Joseph Smith’s involvement in masonry. I got a chuckle because I had a visitor to my blog claim on my previous post, Masonic Ceremony, that “Even the best apologists have trouble explaining where the temple rites came from. It doesn’t require a rocket scientist to connect the dots.” I responded “What apologists are you talking to? Every apologist I know is well aware of [1) Joseph Smith is inducted into Masonry and is introduced to its secret handshake, multiple visual symbols, penalty enactments, etc. 2) One month later God reveals the Mormon temple endowment to him. 3) The newly revealed endowment bears remarkable similarity to the Order of Free Masons.]” This transcript is proof.
While I’ve always been familiar that the LDS Endowment ceremony had similarities to masonry, I wasn’t clear what those similarities were, or what the differences were. While the LDS Endowment ceremony uses a dramatization to discuss the creation of the world and atonement, Masonry tells a completely different story. With masonry, an initiant plays the role of Hiram Abiff. In the Masonic rite, Hiram was a stone mason commissioned by King Solomon to build the temple. Three ruffians try to force Hiram to tell them the masonic secrets. Hiram refuses and is killed. In the masonic dramatization, the initiant is ritually killed using the tools of a mason.
Kearney explains that Joseph believed the story of Hiram Abiff was true, and even some freemasons today believe that too. However, the masonic ceremony is of medieval origins, and is simply an allegory to tell the story. Kearney tells that Joseph served as chaplain of the masonic lodge, and was named a master mason on sight, without having to go through the actual masonic ceremonies. As chaplain, he was able to witness the ceremony, and adapted many of the ritualistic elements for purposes of the LDS endowment. He changed the name of many symbols. For example, masons use an apron for use in stone making; however, Joseph changed the apron to have symbolic meaning to cover our nakedness. Smith adapted many masonic elements for LDS purposes.
There are lots of cool things to learn in this interview. Among the cool things I learned was that Joseph’s father was a mason in New York, as well as his brother Alvin. Joseph also made the masonic call of distress as he was killed in Carthage Jail. Kearney also explains that the endowment and covenants are different than the ritual itself. Church leaders have separated the covenants from the ritual, so that is why the endowment has changed several times in our lifetimes.
It is a really interesting conversation. I posted a transcript of the last hour on my blog. It was about 21 pages in Microsoft Word, so I figure most of you probably wouldn’t want to read the whole thing here, but check it out if you’re interested. (If you’d like to read more of what Kearney has written for FAIR, click here. You can also listen to the audio of the interview at Mormon Stories.)
What are your thoughts? Does it bother you that Joseph used Masonic elements in the Endowment? Were you aware of the similarities?
Wheat & Tares 
I have read a number of books and articles on this subject and, sure it bothers me. But Joseph Smith was hardly the first to borrow elements from one religious tradition to form a christian ritual. Baptism, of course, is similar to the Jewish ritual cleansings performed in mikvehs. Elements of the seder/Passover meal were transferred by the Savior from it’s original connection with the Exodus to representing His body and blood. (Forgive me if I’m going over territory covered by Br. Kearney. I haven’t heard his podcast.)
The temple changes made in 1990 did away with a number of the Masonic crossovers, such as the Five……….(still feel uncomfortable calling things by name even though they are no long apart of temple ritual). I would certainly look favorably on the removal of more, although no one is rushing over to get my opinion. I realize that something mundane – like the portion of the mountain that Moses was standing on – becomes sacred because God declares it to be sacred. So, just like the teaching in the D@C that it doesn’t really matter what emblems are used for the sacrament (I’m personally holding out for the day we use milk and cookies), I’m content with the symbols currently used in the temple.
What is really fun is to go through the Ramses the Great exhibit and the temple portions of it and compare. Or some of the Chinese.
When I first learned of the similarities between masonry and the endowment years ago, I totally bought into the story that masonry was based an ancient endowment ceremony, and that the similarities were merely a sign that Joseph Smith received direct revelation. I didn’t even consider the idea that Smith could have gotten his ideas for the endowment from masonry.
What bothers me now is that I so easily followed a post-hoc fallacy:I either invented or selected a narrative that validated what I expected to be true without sufficiently considering alternatives. When faced with evidence to the contrary, it took years for me to deal with the cognitive dissonance. In fact I’m still dealing with it. But at this point I’m not bothered as much by the ceremonial similarities as I am by the new understanding that I’m not smarter, more faithful, or less prone to bias than everyone else.
I am not convinced that Joseph borrowed much from masonry, considering that some of the endowment was known in 1836 and even earlier.Here’s a neat lecture, make of it what you will
whizzbang, two responses: First, that assumes that Joseph knew nothing of Masonry before 1836, which is contested. Given that both Alvin and Joseph, Sr. were masons, Joseph certainly could have learned about masonry before he was himself made a master mason. Besides, masonry was so ingrained into American life that you didn’t really need to be a mason to have been exposed to a good deal of masonic symbolism.
But more importantly, nobody is claiming that the concepts and principles that make up the endowment are taken from masonry. In fact, I think it is just the opposite: he took concepts and covenants that were already present in the pre-Nauvoo revelations, were a large part of the Kirtland temple experience, and were independent of masonry (such as becoming clean from the blood of this generation, obedience, sacrifice, purity, chastity, consecration, being endowed with power from on high) and organized them into a liturgy whose delivery was modeled on the masonic liturgy. The delivery may have been borrowed from Masonry, but I don’t think anyone is seriously saying that the concepts of the endowment come from masonry. The same symbols have very different meanings in masonry and in the endowment.
Nicely said.
“What are your thoughts? Does it bother you that Joseph used Masonic elements in the Endowment? Were you aware of the similarities?”
“What are your thoughts?”
Nothing. Maybe someday I will think about it?
“Does it bother you that Joseph used Masonic elements in the Endowment?”
No, but the next time I read the Doctrine and Covenants, I’ll pay attention to stuff on the temple.
“Were you aware of the similarities?”
No. (Not surprisingly.)
Rich:
A couple questions from me. Since 1820, did anyone ever claim to see God, the Father and Jesus Christ? I really don’t know.
And like the first question, did anyone ever claim to receive priesthood keys?
Now this may have a lot to do with the comments I’ve made, but I really don’t know the answers to what I have asked.
Whizzbang, the 1836 version of the endowment is much different than the Nauvoo endowment. In 1836, the endowment consisted of what we would now call simply the Initiatory. The Kirtland endowment has no masonic elements.
It wasn’t until Joseph got to Nauvoo when we got the endowment as we now know it, and the Nauvoo endowment is entirely different than the Kirtland endowment. The Nauvoo endowment borrows heavily from freemasonry.
It probably should be pointed out that the central focus of the LDS endowment ceremony – the story of creation and the Savior’s role, which closely resembles the OT account – bares no resemblence whatsoever to the central story of the masonic ritual. In that story, Hyrum Abiff, who is portrayed as a central figure in the building of Solomon’s temple, is murdered in a plot by 3 persons to obtain a secret word.
In D&C 91 Joseph Smith received revelation about how to treat the Apocrypha. Please note that was said of that body of writ (which the Catholics regard as scripture), “Many things contained therein that are true”. Of course, since many things were also NOT true, hence why it wasn’t necessary to translate them.
It doesn’t seem to stretch the imagination that Smith could examine the Masonic rituals for what truths they contained. Likewise examining Egyptian papyri (and translating ‘reformed’ Egyptian wouldn’t necessarily give the Prophet credentials to interpret Egyptian artifacts) would lead to the Book of Abraham, though w/o doubt the script we have today was not necessarily contained within the scrolls themselves. Smith could have and likely did receive direct revelation, which would be necessary if many ‘plain and precious things’ were missing.
While it’s undeniable Joseph used masonry for significant parts of the endowment, the differences are pretty crucial. There are also suggestions that Joseph *may* have been exposed to secondary masonic elements. (The interview touched on this but didn’t delve into it) So both the temple and the Relief Society have interesting parallels to what’s called adoptive masonry that came out of France originally.
There are also pretty strong parallels between the endowment and the renaissance Art of Memory as well as medieval Everyman plays. While it’s true that masonry comes out literally of masonic guilds it’s important to note that at the end of the 16th century it was transformed fairly significantly in Scotland into what became masonry. A lot of that transformation was adding elements from renaissance speculations and discoveries of old texts. So it’s probably incorrect to just point to the masonic guilds that built the cathedrals. It’s in these renaissance areas that you get more interesting infusions of things that themselves often originate in late antiquity.
The other thing to keep in mind is regardless of the origins of masonry (and frankly it’s hard to know all the intellectual influenced from the 1590’s through 1650’s let alone the later semi-related trappings of the 18th century) if you look to late antiquity there are lots of strong parallels to the endowment. Initiation rituals of various groups requiring signs and tokens. Ideas of heavenly ascents and meeting messengers. Some of those *may* have influenced masonry through circuitous routes. (The discovery of gnostic, hermeneutic and other pagan texts or traditions were a big part of what created the renaissance and masonry really is at the border of the end of the renaissance and birth of modernism) We should be careful not to make any strong claims. But it’s hard to read a lot of the texts of late antiquity and not notice parallels.
Let me also add that the Kirtland Temple is much different than modern LDS Temples. The Kirtland Temple was OPEN to the public. In fact, there is an interesting story that when Joseph purchased the Egyptian papyri and mummies, they actually gave tours of the temple to see the mummies. The Kirtland Temple was a meeting place, much more akin to the Tabernacle now. Even the original Nauvoo Temple was open to the public.
It wasn’t until Brigham moved the saints to Utah that the temples became private, and Tabernacles were constructed (usually adjacent to the temple) for large gatherings.
If you go to the Kirtland Temple today, the Community of Christ has kept the Kirtland Temple as it was in Joseph’s day–open to the public. The Initiatory rites were done on the 3rd floor of the temple. Tour guides there of course aren’t familiar with these initiatory rites, but they do acknowledge that the LDS Initiatories were performed only on the 3rd floor. The first and 2nd floors are nearly identical to each other with the famous Priesthood podiums on each end. I’ve got an interesting transcript about the history of the Kirtland Temple that talks about the mummies and shows a photo of the pulpits at each end of the 1st and 2nd floor, if anyone is interested.
Thanks for the info about the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples being ‘open’ to the public. I didn’t know that myself, interesting that the Church didn’t make a point of it. Methinks that the Nauvoo temple was ‘open’ simply b/c it wasn’t finished until the Saints were closely to leaving Nauvoo in 1846, with the endowments done rather quickly after dedication, and then the temple itself being essentially abandoned not long thereafter.
The CoC, in their Independence ‘Temple’, does continue that ‘tradition’ of how Kirtland was operated, with it being more like a ‘mega’ Church building than the temple that LDS are familiar with. It’s actually quite nice, IMO.
MH, I mostly agree with your statement that the Kirtland and Nauvoo temple rites differ in important ways, but it is important to recognize the similarities–the same concepts–that persisted even after the Nauvoo liturgy was developed. Things like becoming clean from the blood of this generation, obedience, sacrifice, purity, chastity, consecration, and being endowed with power from on high all figure significantly in the Kirtland temple experience; even though they were not, at that early time, expressed obviously in the form of the rites they are a huge part of the revelations related to the Kirtland temple. These concepts persist even after Nauvoo, where they get organized and formalized into the liturgy that we now call the endowment. I would suggest that it is these concepts that are the heart of the endowment.
So while I’m not disagreeing with you that Kirtland did not have any obvious masonic elements the way Nauvoo did, I do think there is more continuity between the two than your statement might suggest, and I think it’s fair to say that Kirtland involved more of what the endowment is today than just the initiatory. You’re right that physically, the ceremony was essentially just washings and anointings. But I think the Kirtland revelations make clear that there was more going on than just the physical ceremony, and those additional concepts associated with the temple are the same concepts that become formalized in the Nauvoo liturgy, even as the delivery of those concepts in that liturgy borrows heavily from freemasonry.
Yes, JKC, you’re right. I think that is essentially what Greg Kearney is saying as well. The endowment is the covenants, but Joseph used the Masonic imagery to teach these concepts, and borrowed liberally from Masonry during the Nauvoo period, where he was the Masonic chaplain.
Yes, that’s what I understood Greg to be saying as well, MH. I don’t mean to downplay the masonic influences on the endowment liturgy; they are there they are pretty much undeniable. I only meant to point out that I think it’s a mistake to see Nauvoo as a break from Kirtland, or to see masonic elements introduced in Nauvoo as displacing or supplanting the Kirtland endowment. I’m not sure that’s what you were suggesting, but I think somebody could get that from your comments if they weren’t playing attention.
Not bothered a bit: Joseph encountered the Masonic ritual at the precise moment he had a need to communicate several points of newly-developed theology. Had Joseph been born in 1975 and given revelations in the current day, I have no doubt that the “modern” endowment would draw on technology and current cultural tropes to tell a similar story and have participants make similar covenants. Imagining what the endowment “first” revealed in 2015 might look like fun and slightly irreverent thought experiment. (Patrons make covenants on iPads? More special effects? More interactive experience? Use of the Internet as a metaphor for the lone and dreary world? Celestial rooms that look more like nightclubs or research labs and less like hotel lobbies?)
Like anything else, you can view this through an eye of faith or an eye of skepticism. Through the eye of faith, Joseph found elements of truth in the Masonic ceremony and (re)placed them into the context of a grander truth.
But even looking at it faithfully, damage is still done. It sorta kills the typical rationale used for proving an apostasy, including by Talmage in The Great Apostasy. For instance, did Hellenism corrupt Christianity, of did Christianity find elements of truth n Hellenism and integrate them? Depends on which eye you want to use.
We’ve had to dismount our high horse.
“It sorta kills the typical rationale used for proving an apostasy, including by Talmage in The Great Apostasy.”
You say that like it’s a bad thing. 🙂
I admire Talmage for his contributions, just as I admire B.H. Roberts, whose work the Great Apostasy was largely based on. But they both got some things wrong, I think, because they pretty much uncritically accepted as truth the pro-protestant, anti-catholic histories that they based their work on. In my view, re-examining that narrative would be positive. And, I think, would not really be much of a change at all for the church doctrinally speaking. Sure, speculation about the causes of the apostasy has been a long tradition, but beyond the statement that priesthood authority was lost, there’s not much more that our doctrine actually requires us to believe about the apostasy.
I should also say, even if you accept that traditional speculation about the causes of the apostasy, I don’t see that as inconsistent with the idea of adopting truth from other traditions. You can consistently believe both that Christianity found elements of truth in Hellenism, and that it also adopted false doctrine from Hellenism and was thus corrupted. You can consistently believe both that Hellenism corrupted Christianity, and that Joseph Smith adopted elements of truth from freemasonry. It’s not a either/or proposition.
JKC, thanks for chiming in. I agree with everything you’ve said, and appreciate you clarifying my points if they were unclear to others.
Yes, the Masonic similarities have bothered me. I’ve done a lot of study on this, prayed about it, and pondered for decades. I think my trouble stems from growing up being taught that revelation always came to Joseph like the revelations in the D&C–word-for-word dictated from God. I was taught that the temples rites were thus revealed, and probably shown to him in vision. It seemed foreign to me to consider that any other organization could have anything so sacred from God as a part of their rites and rituals, and symbols.
However, after long awaiting my own temple covenants, and hearing a lifetime of amazing stories regarding the temple, I couldn’t wait to go. I was 25 years old and marrying the same day. I was well prepped by my parents. I was fasting. I had read books and scriptures. I was as prepared as I knew how to be. I just looked forward to it as my day to make the greatest of covenants to my beloved Heavenly Father.
This was in 1979. I felt a chill (in my heart, not just physically) during the initiatory. I didn’t want to feel that way and pushed back against it repeatedly. I took deep breaths. I told myself that it was the foreignness that made me feel so awkward and wanting to run…..I teared up because I hated feeling this way in the place I had longed to go to for so long. Everyone thought I was feeling the spirit and smiled and patted my back or shoulder. Then as I went on into the endowment it got sooo much worse. It wasn’t just foreign, it was strange, weird-strange, violent, and completely uninspiring. I kept looking at my groom who just smiled like this was perfectly normal and good. I looked at my parents, siblings, new relatives, friends, and the officiators—-they were all doing these things as if this was wonderful and good. I felt like a knife was stuck in my nauseated stomach because I wanted to just run out of there. Nothing at church, Seminary, Institute or YSA conferences—nothing we did in any other meeting was remotely like this. Literally, on a gut level I felt prompted to run out of there and not do this stuff.
But I pushed it down, swallowed the bile in my throat, prayed for help like I’d never prayed before—please, I’ve waited so long for this, help me see the good, help me feel peace from the spirit…….and I did what I was told and finished the ordinance. As we sat in the Celestial room waiting to go into our sealing I heard the same question over and over n my mind—what have I done?
In the sealing I listened to the words very carefully, trying to put the endowment behind me for now. I kept waiting for my husband to give himself to me and for me to receive him, but then it was over. We were to inherit thrones, dominions, and many other things we aren’t even supposed to want or value in this life. They had tried to tell me I couldn’t wear my wedding gown, not because it wasn’t throat-to-wrist-to-ankle modest, but because it wasn’t as “plain” as it ought to be—though it only had a few pearl-like beads on a small area, so they made me wear a blouse under it. Then with what I was wearing to be sealed I truly couldn’t comprehend why this was required. Later when I asked my patents, Bishop and other stalwart family friends there, they didn’t know why either.
I remember after the drive home, after the festivities, when the quiet of the night was left just to me and my thoughts, I wept for a long, long time. I went over and over the things of that day, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t find a way to put it together with the God I knew. I asked over and over—Is this another side of you that will help me know you more and to become more like you? But the darkness stayed dark, the night long, with gentle snoring the only answer that came.
The greatest day of my life turned into a very conflicting trial to my innocent, naive heart. The decades have passed with monthly and often weekly temple attendance. The study, prayer and pondering have continued. But the darkness has remained, and no peace ever came regarding these rituals. I do find peace in the quiet of the celestial room, but never in any of the ordinances. I have felt the spirit too many times to count for the truths of the gospel and guidance in my life and for my family. But I never felt the spirit once in regard to the ordinances. I love the covenants—they lift my soul. I just wish I could have made them some other way, just like Eve wished there could have been some other way to do what she was required. And I wish it was all done equally and not patriarchally because patriarchy, no matter how we benevolently spin it is unfair to
women.
So, yes, it bothers me to see the Masonic similarities. But it is also my hope. In the deep recesses of my soul I have a quiet hope that these rituals are from another man-made source. I have hope that the way it was all done in 1979 and up to today was actually not revealed from God, but that He has allowed us this method of making the necessary higher promises that make us better people and more like Him.
“being taught that revelation always came to Joseph like the revelations in the D&C–word-for-word” — actually, there is a lot of history of how Joseph Smith would receive revelation and then strive to translate it into words, often praying with others and reworking the text.
I think as we have gained historical distance we have lost sight of that. Prophets are not divine Dictaphones.
Well said, Stephen Marsh. As I’ve put it in the past, the idea that prophets just say what God tells them word for word and have no ability to change or affect the message in any way looks more like demonic possession than divine prophecy.