Secret Combinations:

The Hermetic Influence on

Mormon Cosmology and Temple Worship

By
Shawn Higgins

May 18, 2014

Eugene Lang College
Senior Thesis

Table of Contents

Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Chapter 1: Spiritual Antecedents of the Latter-day Saints in New England .......................8
Chapter 2: Royal Arch Freemasonry and the Continental Occult Revival........................14
Chapter 3: Golden Plates: Enoch in the Age of Reason....................................................20
Chapter 4: Book of Mormon: Anti-Mason Bible ..........................................................24
Chapter 5: Ye Shall go to the Ohio................................................................................31
Chapter 6: The Sublime Degree.........................................................................................37
Chapter 7: The Lodge and The Temple.............................................................................41
Chapter 8: Is There No Help For The Widows Son? ...................................................51
Chapter 9: I Discover A Disposition In The Sheep To Scatter .....................................55
Conclusion: Saints and Symbols in the Twentieth Century ..............................................60
Bibliography .66

Introduction

The influence that hermetic philosophy played in the construction and

development of the Mormon temple ceremony and cosmology will be the focus of this
thesis. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), otherwise known as the
Mormon church, began in the early nineteenth century American frontier as a part of the
wider restoration movement. Infused over time with hermetic philosophy, the Mormon
church evolved into a complex and sophisticated temple cultus. Scholar James E.
Talmage, in his 1912 work, House of the Lord, once described the role and efficacy of the
Mormon Temple Endowment ceremony this way:
The Temple Endowment, as administered in modern temples, comprises instruction
relating to the significance and sequence of past dispensations, and the importance
of the present as the greatest and grandest era in human history. This course of
instruction includes a recital of the most prominent events of the creative period,
the condition of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, their disobedience and
consequent expulsion from the blissful abode, their condition in the lone and dreary
world when doomed to live by labor and sweat, the plan of redemption by which
the great transgression may be atoned, the period of the great apostasy, the
restoration of the Gospel with all its ancient powers and privileges, the absolute and
indispensable condition of personal purity and devotion to the right in present life,
and a strict compliance with Gospel requirements.1
I will explore the trajectory of the Churchs history and some of the reasoning
behind its evolving practices. When confronting the meaning behind the Endowment
ceremony, I am reminded of a passage from the prominent phenomonologist of religion
Mircea Eliades work, Myth and Reality:

James Edward Talmage, The House Of The Lord: A Study of Sanctuaries Ancient and Modern (Salt Lake
City:Deseret News, 1912) 99-100.

In one way or another one "lives" the myth, in the sense that one is seized by the
sacred, exalting power of the events recollected or re-enacted.!"Living" a myth,
then, implies a genuinely "religious" experience, since it differs from the ordinary
experience of everyday life. The "religiousness" of this experience is due to the fact
that one re-enacts fabulous, exalting, significant events, one again witnesses the
creative deeds of the Supernaturals; one ceases to exist in the everyday world and
enters a transfigured, auroral world impregnated with the Supernaturals' presence.
What is involved is not a commemoration of mythical events but a reiteration of
them. The protagonists of the myth are made present; one becomes their
contemporary. This also implies that one is no longer living in chronological time,
but in the primordial Time, the Time when the event first took place. This is why
we can use the term the "strong time" of myth; it is the prodigious, "sacred" time
when something new, strong, and significant was manifested. To re-experience that
time, to re-enact it as often as possible, to witness again the spectacle of the divine
works, to meet with the Supernaturals and relearn their creative lesson is the desire
that runs like a pattern through all the ritual reiterations of myths. In short, myths
reveal that the World, man, and life have a supernatural origin and history, and that
this history is significant, precious, and exemplary.2
Therefore, it is my aim with this thesis to take a historiographical approach to
examine the tributary of hermeticism that helped shape the early Mormon movement, its
development as a temple cultus, and its arrival into the twenty first century. I will
demonstrate how hermetically injected Freemasonry fused together with antebellum
American Christianity to create Mormonism.
The complex cosmological system of Mormonism that developed in the early,
fragile, Jacksonian Democracy of the United States has several sources. This senior thesis
seeks to reassess the traditional narratives of the history of the Latter-day Saints in favor
of a more expansive historical understanding. The religious and cultural antecedents of
early Mormonism can be found in the perfectionist sentiments of humanist philosophy
during the hermetically rich Italian Rennaiasance. The impact of hermeticism would
reverberate well into seventeenth-century Europe and antebellum America.
2

Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York: Harper Collins,1963).

The occult revival of Continental Europe plays an important role in the evolution
of the Mormon praxis of worship. The Mormon Churchs early incarnation had, by the
time of Joseph Smiths martyrdom in 1844, developed into a fully elaborate temple
apparatus; the infrastructure of which owes its genesis to the governing bodies of
Freemasonry, specifically the Royal Arch variant of the craft.
Central to the Royal Arch tradition is the preservation of mysteries with ties to the
prophet Enoch. Having received a vision, tradition holds, Enoch constructed a
subterranean temple whose architecture was comprised of nine superimposed arches.
These arches protected a triangular golden plate that was inscribed with the ineffable
characters he experienced in his vision. To preserve its secrets for future generations,
two pillars engraved with arcane knowledge were erected outside of the temple in
anticipation of the Flood. According to this tradition, millennia pass before King
Solomons architects, while building his temple, discovered and restored the secrets of
Enochs golden plates. Restoration is a cornerstone of Royal Arch Masonry, not only of
the ancient mysteries but also of the priestly office of the Melchizedek. These ideas,
popularized and further developed on the European Continent, would make their way to
colonial America.
I will discuss how Masonry provided an important institutionalized fraternal order
in the social and political landscape of colonial, revolutionary, and early republican
periods. Historian Samuel Morris Brown has suggested that the fraternity provided

experimentation in solidarity and respite from sectarian strife and acted as an apparatus of
network building outside of established institutions3.
I will explore how Joseph Smith expanded his missionary efforts further west into
the American frontier in 1830. He found a community in Kirtland, Ohio who embraced
his teachings and offered a new home for his church away from New York. This small
city in the wilderness was to Joseph Smith the Zion he had been looking for. It was here
where his first temple was constructed and dedicated to God. This early temple worship
consisted of simple rituals such as the ceremonial washing and anointing of the body and
sealings and blessings patterned off of biblical rites. Building the temple left the church
in debt, however, and after a fraudulent church sponsored banking scandal and circulating
rumors of Smiths sexual indiscretions, the Saints began looking for a new home. They
found it in the swampy woodlands of Nauvoo, Illinois.
The Mormon Church had its most theologically controversial developments in its
new home in Nauvoo, Illinois. The developmental doctrines of polygamy, baptism of the
dead, exaltation (apotheosis), and the Temple Endowment Ceremony, coalesced into the
religious transformation from church of restoration to that of a locus of human
transfiguration. The alchemical aspects of the hermetic tradition will be explained in this
portion of the paper. I will discuss the ways Masonic rituals, at this time, helped inform
Smith on sacred ordinances that would factor into the Mormon Temple Endowment
Ceremony. I will examine the parallels in the use of symbolic vocabulary (tokens, signs,
penalties, creation narratives, ritual anointing) evident in both the Mormon Temple
Endowment and the Masonic initiation ceremonies.
3

Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven as it is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of
Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 172.

Many felt that the Masonic practices adopted in Nauvoo strayed too far from the
simple truth and allure of the original teachings in New York and Ohio. Smith began to
feel that some of his detractors were plotting against his life, and subsequently he had
them excommunicated. These excommunicated members, in conjunction with those
critical of the Church, published an unapologetic critique of Smith in the Nauvoo
Expositor. With Smiths blessing, the suppression and destruction of the Expositors
printing press was carried out. The backlash proved to be Smiths ultimate undoing.
Supporters and opponents of the prophet began to riot, prompting the arrest of Joseph
Smith. On June 27th 1844, a mob stormed his cell and murdered Smith. It was circulated
that his final words were a Masonic distress call. Oh Lord, my God is there no help
for the widow's son?4
Securing a successor to Smith during this time of anxiety proved to be
tumultuous. Many claimants to the title were vying for control over the destiny of the
Church. The group splintered into various factions, but the majority followed Brigham
Young as the next leader and prophet of the Mormon people. The work that had begun
with Smith was to be carried out and fulfilled by the successor. Young kept the basic
Masonic template of the temple ceremony and augmented it with revisions and
expansions as the Nauvoo Temple was nearing completion. The Mormons were not long
for Nauvoo, however, and once again the community had to flee further west for security.
The Mormons viewed this difficult period as their exodus and Brigham Young, their
leader, was their Moses. Those who reached Utah only had their belief fortified.

Reed C. Durham Jr., Is There No Help For The Widows Son? (Presidential Address Delivered At The
Mormon History Association Convention, April 20, 1974).

Construction on the Salt Lake temple would tell the story of these people, through
hermetically rich symbolism and ceremony.

Chapter 1
Spiritual Antecedents of the Latter-day Saints in New England
Two seminal and provocative works stand out when discussing the hermetic history
and formation of the Mormon Church. Michael D. Quinns Early Mormonism and the
Magic World View, and John L. Brookes The Refiners Fire: The Making of Mormon
Cosmology 1644-1844. These works focused on the role that the supernatural, ritual, and
folk magic of nineteenth century New England played in the development of Joseph
Smiths revelatory cosmology and The Book of Mormon. The exhaustive research of
these scholars provides detailed and convincing evidence of the hermetic origins behind
Joseph Smiths Book of Mormon and the ritual practices he implemented.
In The Refiners Fire, Brooke, a professor at Tufts, finds parallels between ancient
alchemical and hermetic traditions and Mormonism. He argues that these traditions,
which are thought by scholars to have originated in Greco-Roman Egypt, blended with
radical Christian sects during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and later made their
way to the New York frontier via New Englands sectarian emigrants.
He posits that the cosmology of Joseph Smiths Mormon religion can only be
understood when placed on a stage larger than Antebellum America. Brooke writes:
[at a] conjunction that reaches back not simply to a disorderly antebellum
democracy or even New England but to the extreme perfectionism forged in the
Radical Reformation from the fusion of Christianity with the ancient occult
hermetic philosophy. The milieu of antebellum American hinterlands can explain
the context of the Mormon emergence but not the content of its cosmology. For this
content we need to look beyond milieu to memory, to diffuse the divergent trails of
cultural continuity that prepared certain peoples-and a particular young man-for the
building of a religious tradition that drew deeply from the most radical doctrines of
early modern Europes religious crucible.5
5

John L. Brooke, The Refiners Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996) xvi.

In the fourteenth century humanism developed in Italy in part as a response to

questions surrounding the philosophy of government. A renewed interest and study in the
culture of Classical Greece and Rome galvanized intellectual life. Literary works that
were lying neglected in cathedrals and monastic libraries were approached with a
renewed enthusiasm. This was a time when Ottoman conquests saw the transferal of
Greek manuscripts to western cities. Scholars fleeing the destruction of the Christian
commonwealths in the east provided an opportunity for western scholasticism to
rediscover ancient texts. Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch places the advent of hermetic
scholarship during this time period:6
Among the flood of new and strange material from the ancient world, which might or
might not be valuable if put to use, was a set of writings about religion and philosophy
purporting to have been written by a divine figure from Egypt, Hermes Trismegistus. In
fact they had been compiled in the first to third centuries CE, at much the same time as
early Christianity was emerging. Some were then codified in Greek in a work now
known as the Corpus Hermeticum, and others later translated into Latin and Arabic.
Some dealt with forms of magic, medicine or astrology to sort out the problems of
everyday life; some appealed to the same fascination with secret wisdom about the
cosmos and the nature of knowledge which had created Gnostic Christianity and later
Manichaeism. So this hermetic literature chimed in with many traditional Christian
preoccupations, and it became newly accessible after the 1480s when the Medici in
Florence commissioned Marsilio Ficino to translate into Latin the available sections of
the Corpus Hermeticum. Humanists savoured the cheery prospect that with more
investigation, hard work and possibly supernatural aid, more ancient wisdom might be
more fully recovered. Equally exciting were the possibilities opened up by the
increasing attention that Christian scholars paid to Cabbala, the body of Jewish
literature which had started out as a commentary on the Tanakh, but which by the
medieval period had created its own intricate network of theological speculation,
drawing on sub-Platonic mysticism like the gnostics or the hermeticistsThese themes
were to play a great part in intellectual life and discussion throughout sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.7

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (New York: Penguin Books, 2011)
574-78.
7
Ibid.

I place hermetic philosophy not in opposition to Christianity but view it rather as a

constellation of concepts and ideas that took root and flourished in a Christian matrix.
The cross-cultural transmission of ideas in Renaissance Europes religiously diverse
periods manifested in heterodox exegeses within the context of Christianity, as seen in
the experiments of the Radical Reformation. In the Americas, whether conscious or not,
these beliefs found vehicles in the folk magic of lived religion.
The world that Joseph Smith grew up in was not adverse to magical practices. The
use of seer-stones, scrying for buried treasure, and beliefs in spirits were commonplace.
The young Joseph Smith was incontestably a treasure seeker, and the evidence of his
involvement in these practices is well documented. Quinn writes: Joseph Smith
(founding prophet and president of the new church) had unquestionably participated in
treasure-seeking and stone divination. Evidence indicates that he also used divining rods,
a talisman, and implements of ritual magic.he adds: "two-thirds of Mormonism's first
apostles had some affinity for folk magic8
Smith came to know and practice this divining craft by the oral and written
traditions that were passed down through his family and his community. The years
predating the future Mormon prophets birth saw the compilation of an ever-growing
expanse of occult manuals and grimoires. The most notable of these works that were
likely found near the Smith residence in Palmyra/Manchester were Ebeneezer Siblys
New and Complete Illustration of the Occult (1784), Cornelius Agrippas pseudoepigraphic Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, Reginald Scots compilation of magic rites

D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998)
240.

10

The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), and Francis Barretts The Magus (1801).9 Smith
would also have had readily available to him cheap paperbound books with guidelines
and illustrations explaining various magical rites.
The Smith family had in their possession religious artifacts and tools that were to be
used in ritual magic acts: a Jupiter talisman, and a dagger ornamented in planetary sigils
to be used in conjunction with The Magus, and small folded parchments used for magical
rituals called lamens.10
In Clay L. Chandlers essay, Scrying for the Lord: Magic, Mysticism, and the
Origins of the Book of Mormon, he remarks on the connections of these texts and their
relationship to the Smith household in particular. The divination and treasure seeking that
Smith was participating in is a belief system in which subterranean spirits guard precious
metals buried under the earth. Knowledgeable magicians can ascertain and retrieve the
spoils. Chandler cites the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy There are spirits of the
earth, which inhabit the groves, woods and wildernesses....and keep treasures, which
oftentimes they do transport from one place to another, and The Discoverie of
Witchcrafts reference to a christall stone (seer-stone) used to discover the whereabouts
of these treasures.11
Joseph Smith used seer-stones to aid in his treasure seeking and he likely
inherited this practice from his mother, Lucy Mack Smith.12If the Smith family did not
own these grimoires, they were at least aware of the information they contained.
Chandler makes an interesting observation regarding how and why Joseph Smith
9

Ibid., 100.
Ibid., 83-85, 98-116.
11
Clay L. Chandler Scrying for the Lord: Magic, Mysticism, and the Origins of the Book of Mormon,
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol.36 No.4 (2003): 48-49.
12
Quinn, 42.
10

11

emerged as a Prophet in that time and place. Using Robert R. Wilsons Prophecy and
Society in Ancient Israel he cites:13
Intermediaries are often found in societies undergoing stress and rapid social change.
Sudden economic reversals, wars, natural disasters and cross cultural contact can all
lead to social instability. Under such conditions a society may seek to restore its
equilibrium by renewing its contacts with the supernatural world. Intermediaries may
have a role in this process.14
Chandler follows with Jan Shippss insight on the political atmosphere:15
The Situation throughout the union was unsettled and things
were extremely fluid in this period when all America seemed to be streaming westward
after the Revolution. A new physical universe was there to contend with. A new
somewhat uncertain political system existed and Americans had to operate within it.
The bases of social order were in disarray, and as a result of the nations having cut its
ties with England and her history, a clear lack of grounding in the past was evident 16
The hermetic tributaries that flowed into and through New England and the
American frontier exposed Joseph Smith to the larger matrix of Christian discourse. His
fluency and charismatic command of folk magic and Christian scripture made him an
ideal candidate for prophethood in the turbulent post-revolutionary years and the cautious
optimism of Jacksonian democracy. Joseph Smith was the man that would synthesize the
hermeticism that manifested in the various outlets of American religious belief and
practice and build a home for them in his new religion. He augmented the promise,
wonder and bounty of America by siphoning what he believed to be the magic of an
ancient past.

13
14

Chandler, 75.
Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1980) 31.

15

Chandler, 76.
Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana and Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1987) 33-34.
16

12

17

17

Seer stone used by Joseph Smith. Smith's widow Emma passed it on to relatives of her second husband,
Lewis Bidamon. (Wilford Woodruff Museum)

13

Chapter 2
Royal Arch Freemasonry and the Continental Occult Revival
The Mormon constellation of hermetic philosophy and renewed dispensationalism
that would take root and evolve, would not have happened without the accumulated
traditions and predispositions of the prepared people in the culture to which Joseph was
preaching. If folk magic in Smiths time was one vehicle for operating and
communicating with the unseen world outside of the parameters of main line Christianity,
then the organizational body known as Freemasonry was an equally important tributary
of hermetic philosophy to the community of New Yorks Burned-over district. In
laying the groundwork for the Mormon/Mason connection, this chapter will briefly
explore the history of Freemasonry and its transmission to the Americas.
The origins of Freemasonry are shrouded in obscurity. It can best be described as
a fraternal order whose ethical infrastructure is modeled on a set of rituals and symbols
that are connected to the imagined architecture of King Solomons Temple and its chief
architect, Hiram Abiff. This brotherhood, which also goes by the monikers Speculative
Masonry and The Craft, owe its origins to the guild systems of practical operative
Masonry. Evidence of a cleavage between operative and speculative Masonry can be
found in the British Isles in the seventeenth-century, but there is uncertainty on how and
when this split actually occurred.18
If we distance ourselves from Freemasonrys claim of an ancient lineage we can,
however, trace its origins back to the medieval guilds of the Stonemasons, whose
governing infrastructure of tiered hiearchy and reputation for preserving ancient secrets
18

Christopher McIntosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in
Central Europe and its Relationship to the Enlightenmen (Albany: SUNY Press, 2011) 39.

14

began to arouse the interests of gentleman intellectuals throughout the seventeenthcentury. The lodges of speculative Freemasons, by the eighteenth-century, had
supplanted their operative counterpart as a fraternal enlightenment institution. Brookes
has argued that the transformation process from operative Stonemasonry to speculative
Freemasonry owes its origins in the broader environment of late Renaissance
hermeticism, the rumors of a secret network of mystics and the Rosicrucian brotherhood.
Freemasonry fostered an image of an elite brotherhood tasked with the preservation of
occult secrets. For those seeking the arcane ancient and mystical knowledge of antiquity,
Freemasonry was seen to be the answer.19
By 1717, the first Grand Lodge was established in London, and with the arrival of
this governing body, organized Masonry was formally introduced to the world. At its
inception, only two degrees of initiation were offered: Entered Apprentice and Fellow
Craft. The degree of Master Mason was incorporated not long after, rounding out
what would be known as the craft degrees.This tri-gradal system offered the initiates,
in each successive degree, instructions in morals and Masonic symbolism; incorporating
an extensive choreography of passwords, handshakes, secret signs and penalties for
revealing its secrets to non-Masons.20
Around 1730, the movement was adopted by the French educated classes, which
contributed to Masonrys continental foothold and expansion. In that same decade
Masons in Paris erected their own Grand Lodge that in 1773 was christened the Grand
Orient de France. In France, Masonry would continue to develop in ways that deviated

19

Brooke, 94.
Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (New York: Random House,
2012) 46.
20

15

from its sister lodge across the channel. The inclusion of mystical and chivalric elements
to the rituals significantly altered the egalitarian tone and style of craft masonry.21
The roots of these conflicting interpretations are inherent in the craft. The
organization is egalitarian in the sense that its members are equal and united in their
reverence for the Great Architect of the Universe, abandoning sectarian and dogmatic
strife in favor of creating a fraternity where all men are brothers. The other side of
Masonry, however, is an organization with a highly elaborate system of secret rites and
ritual symbolism of ancient gnosis that are revealed in a gradation of degrees to be
protected from the profane. As Christopher McIntosh states in The Rose Cross and the
Age of Reason This dichotomy in Masonry was both a strength and a weakness: a
strength because it meant that Masonry could appeal to a wide spectrum of opinion; a
weakness because the two approaches were bound to come into conflict.22
The Scottish migr Andrew Michael Ramsay, a member of the household of the
Stuart pretender, published a speech in 1737 that tied Masonrys origins to the Crusades.
This etiology contributed to the chivalric developments in Masonry, conjuring up a
knightly mythic past where Freemasonry had been created and transmitted by the Knights
Templar.23 According to Ramsay the sacred information the Templar Order was thought
to have discovered in the Holy Land was preserved and passed down to Scottish Lodges.
Masonry in France and the rest of Europe continued to branch out and develop into
competing institutions with divergent views. After Ramsays death, in 1743, the lodges
that believed the legend of Scotlands role in providing refuge for the medieval Templar

21
22

McIntosh, 40.
Ibid., 40.

16

were broadly denominated as the Scottish Rite of Masonry.24 Scottish Rite came to
represent the mystically-charged rituals that extended past the three tiered craft degrees.
The lodges that offered degrees past master mason were referred to as red Masonry; the
craft degrees were known as blue Masonry.25 Throughout the rest of the eighteenthcentury, red masonry continued to incorporate hermetic and millenarian philosophies.
The critical role of Ramsay as the chief architect who infused the earlier modes of
hermetic philosophy to Masonry cannot be underestimated and, as Ill explain in later
chapters, by extension to the later developments of LDS temple worship. Ramsay had
traversed and experimented with different schools of Protestant thought, including a brief
membership in the Philadelphian Society, before eventually converting to Catholicism in
1715. It was in Holland in 1710 that he was introduced to Catholic quietism, and
recognized in this movement the universal and mystical practices that prior generations
saw in Familism and Rosicrucianism. Through the vehicle of Freemasonry he found a
home for his new hermetic religion, one that fused elements of the Rosicrucian corpus
and quietist mysticism.26 It was the work of Ramsay that not only changed the
possibilities of Masonry, but also helped pave the way for the greater European occult
revival.
Colonial American Freemasonry was originally established under the patronage
of the London Grand Lodge and took their cue from their parent body overseas.
Therefore the rites and culture in these branches reflected the enlightenment disposition
of their English founders. Prior to the American Revolution these outposts were limited

24

Brooke, 95.
McIntosh, 40.
26
Brooke, 95.
25

17

to the few coastal towns of New England and the Tidewater. During the Revolution,
Masonry spread among the officers of the Continental army, but it was not until around
1790 that the movement became truly widespread.
The trans-Atlantic and trans-national movement of people during and after the
American Revolutionary war likely contributed to the exposure of the European occult
revival to the American colonies. The Hessian mercenaries that aided the British and the
French allies of the Americans would have brought with them the Red Masonry of the
Continent and shared it with their colonial counterparts. Whether directly inspired by
Masonry or not, what is evident is the rapid influx of hermetic literature being published
in the early republic in the last two decades of the eighteenth-century. 27It is in
Freemasonry that we see a clear hermetic lineage that would provide pervasive
resonance in the Americas.

27

Ibid., 98.

18

28

28

The veils in the Royal Arch degree Michael W. Homer, Similarity of Priesthood in Masonry: The
Relationship Between Freemasonry and Mormonism, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol.27
No.3 (1994): 39.

19

Chapter 3
Golden Plates: Enoch in the Age of Reason
Joseph Smiths discovery of the Golden Plates buried beneath the Hill
Cumorah is crucial to the canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Believers claim that Smith was divinely guided to recover an ancient and holy record that
was lost to time. The story is a unique addition to Christian discourse but not to Masonic
tradition. The Enochian myth in the Royal Arch tradition predates Smiths discovery,
and the thematic structure of the two accounts bear a striking resemblance to one another.
At least since the 1820s and possibly even earlier, The Smith household had
realized in Masonic mythology a means to unlocking the ancient order of things, a
history of a lost sacred message that had been corrupted over the passage of time.29 Born
into a family with a long history of experiments that embraced antinomian sentiments30,
Joseph was, from an early age, exposed to a constellation of theologies that would inform
his career as a prophet.
Among the Masonic works that were circulating in the new Republic was
Thomas Smith Webbs Freemasons Monitor or Illustrations of Masonry. This work had a
significant impact on the shaping of the Masonic Ritual in North America, specifically
the high degree Masonry of the York Rite.
His work in promoting these lodges earned him the moniker Founding Father
of the York Rite.31 It is his description of the degree of the Knights of the Ninth Arch
that shows what The Enoch myth would have looked like in the time of the Smiths.
29

Brooke, 253.
Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Random House,
1971) 3.
31
Norris G. Abbot Jr., Founding Father of the York Rite, Northern Light Vol.2 No.1. (1971).
30

20

It is my intention at this time to give you a clearer account than you have yet been
acquainted with, masonry; of which at present you barely know the elements. In
doing this it will be necessary to explain to you some circumstances of very remote
antiquity. Enoch, the son of Jared, was the sixth son in descent from Adam, and
lived in the fear and love of his Maker.Enoch, being inspired by the Most High, and
in commemoration of a wonderful vision, built a temple under ground, and
dedicated the same to God. Methuselah, the son of Enoch, constructed the building,
without being acquainted with his fathers motives.This happened in the part of the
world, which was afterwards called the land of Canaan, and since known by the
name of the Holy Land.Enoch caused a triangular plate of gold to be made, each
side of which was a cubit long; he enriched it with the most precious stones, and
encrusted the plate upon a stone of agate, of the same form. He then engraved upon
it the ineffable characters, and placed it on a triangular pedestal of white marble
which he deposited in the deepest arch.When Enochs temple was completed, he
made a door of stone, and put a ring of iron therein, by which it might be
occasionally raised; and placed it over the opening of the arch, that the matters
enclosed therein might be preserved from the universal destruction impending. And
none but Enoch knew of the treasure which the arches contained.And, behold, the
wickedness of mankind increased more, and became grievous in the sight of the
Lord, and God threatened to destroy the whole world. Enoch, perceiving that the
knowledge of the arts was likely to be lost in the general destruction, and being
desirous of preserving the principles of sciences, for the posterity of those whom
God should be pleased to spare, built two great pillars on the top of the highest
mountain, the one of brass to withstand water, the other of marble, to withstand
fire; and he engraved on the pillar of brass the principles of the liberal arts,
particularly of masonry.32
According to this tradition, after the burial of the plates, many centuries pass until
they are re-discovered by Solomons Masons while work is being excavated for his
Temple to God.
The same divine history particularly informs us of the different movements of the
Israelites, until they became possessed of the land of promise, and of the
succeeding events until the Divine Providence was pleased to give the scepter to
David; who, though fully determined to build a temple to the Most High, could
never begin it; that honor being reserved for his son.Solomon, being the wisest of
princes, had fully in remembrance of his promises of God to Moses, that some of
his successors, in fullness of time, should discover his holy name; and his wisdom
inspired him to believe, that this could not be accomplished until he erected and
consecrated a temple to the living God, in which he might deposit the precious
treasures.Accordingly, Solomon began to build, in the fourth year of his reign,
32

Thomas Smith Webb, The Freemasons Monitor (Salem: Cushing & Appleton, 1808) 283-289.

21

agreeably a plan given to him by David his father, upon the ark of alliance. He
chose a spot for this purpose, the most beautiful and healthy in all of Jerusalem.
The number of the grand and sublime elected , were at first three, and now
consisted of five; and continued so until the temple was completed and dedicated;
when king Solomon, as a reward for their faithful services, admitted to this degree
the twelve grandmasters, who had faithfully presided over the twelve tribes; also
one other grand master architect. Nine ancient grand masters, eminent for their
virtue, were chosen knights of the royal arch, and shortly afterwards were admitted
to to the sublime degree of perfection.You have been informed in what manner the
number of the grand elect was augmented to twenty-seven, which is the cube of
three: they consisted of two kings, three knights of the royal arch, twelve
commanders of the twelve tribes, nine elected grandmasters, and one grand master
architect.This lodge is closed by the mysterious number. 33
The network of Royal Arch lodges that existed in America can explain the
Masonic symbolism that is prevalent with Smiths discovery of the Golden Plates. The
accounts of their discovery in a hollowed out stone chamber; submerged beneath a hilltop
has striking similarities to the Enochian myth of the penultimate degree of the York
Rite.34
The dialogue between the Masonic tradition and what would eventually become
the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony laid down its roots in the mid 1820s, given
that Josephs brother, Hyrum, had successfully petitioned for initiation into the York Rite
between 1825 and 1827.
The York Rite of Masonry that Hyrum was exposed to would have had three
distinct levels: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason, and would
have included the requisite instructions in morals and symbolism, secret signs,
passwords, handgrips, and penalties for revealing secrets. Though the exact level of
Hyrums involvement is unknown, it appears that it was a favorable experience that was
33

Ibid.
Brooke, 157.

34

22

more than likely related to Joseph.35 Joseph Smith would cultivate and recycle the
symbolic imagery in the works he would later produce.

35

David J. Buerger The Development of Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony, Dialogue: A Journal
of Mormon Thought. Vol. 20.4 (1984): 85 (hereafter cited a Development of Mormon Temple).

23

Chapter 4
Book of Mormon: Anti-Mason Bible!
Freemasonry in the generation of the American Revolution was largely a paracivic social club for white male property owners. The fraternity provided an important
meeting space outside of church for solidarity and networking amongst upwardly mobile
men, providing respite from the sectarian political and religious landscape.36
By the 1820s American Masonry was in the process of a complex transition; one
that saw an evolution into an exceedingly more populist and spiritual brotherhood. This
stems, in large part, from the fissure that had already occurred between the red and blue
factions of Masonry.
Masonry, did, at times, meet with suspicion and hostility. Nativists, evangelicals,
and a growing segment of the population were becoming weary of the potential threat of
extra-democratic power and secret combinations they saw in this group.37The anxieties
and tensions orbiting American Freemasonry were about to intensify as a result of a chain
of events.
By 1827 America no longer had the looming threat of European monarchists
encroaching on her borders, but a fear of the Republics demise was, nevertheless, on the
rise. The uneasiness began in the frontier of Western New York, in September 1826, at

36

Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven as it is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of
Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 172.
37
Ibid., 172.
Quinn offers this insight into the meaning of secret combination: For two years from 1827 until Joseph
Smith began dictating the currently published translation secret combination was widely used in New
York state a synonym for conspiracy. Quinn, 203.

24

the same time and place where the seed that would become The Book of Mormon was just
beginning to germinate.38
In the town of Batavia, New York, a printing press had been razed and its owner
had been found severely beaten by a gang of masked men. In the publishers office were
fresh proofs of what had most recently been printed: William Morgans expose on the
secret rites and oathes of Freemasonry.
Nine days later Morgan was abducted and secretly transported to the town of
Canandaigua. In Fort Niagara, Morgan was rumored to have been placed on a mock trial
by members of the Batavian Masonic Lodge on trumped-up charges of theft. After the
trial, Morgan mysteriously vanished and it was believed he was murdered by a nefarious
network of Freemasons.39
In January of 1827, five prominent Masons in Canandaigua were put on trial for
Morgans murder. The whole region was captivated by the Masonic intrigue at the center
mysterious disapearance. The public fascination turned to anger, however, when three of
the accused Masons were acquitted and the remaining two served out a sentence of less
than twelve months.40
Further trials were held the next month and with each acquital, anti-Masonic
sentiments grew ever stronger. Morgan and the Masons became the topic of the time.
Wild speculations and conspiracies were focused around the brotherhood, ancient
murders and mysteries were attributed to the supposed design of a ruthless, sinister and
international secret fraternity.

38

Brodie, 63.
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
39

25

Anti-Jackson politicians saw in this fervor the making of a new political party,
The Anti-Mason party. Opponents of Masonry claimed that the fraternity was a threat to
free government. They portrayed Freemasonry as a dangerous cabal intent on infiltrating
the inner machinzations of the Republic with aims exerting a secret agenda. The fact that
a high ranking Mason, Andrew Jackson, was president, added validity to their concerns.
It was in the thick of this event, centered in the Western New York wilderness,
that Joseph Smith was composing The Book of Mormon. This backwoods frontier was
thrust into the center of American geo-political intrigue. Some claim that Joseph Smith
included veiled anti-Masonic rhetoric in The Book of Mormon as a response to the events
that were unfolding around his community. The Book of Mormon references a group
known as the Gadianton Robbers, a secret society bound by a sacred oath and rites to the
protection of their fraternity, with the avowed goal of overthrowing the democratic
Nephite Government.41 Those who claim that Smith intended the The Book of Mormon to
reflect an anti-Masonic sentiment most often cite this passage from The Book of
Mormons Helaman 2.42
And when the servant of Helaman had known all the heart of Kishkumen, and how
that it was his object to murder, and also that it was the object of all those who
belonged to his band to murder, and to rob, and to gain power, (and this was their
secret plan, and their combination) the servant of Helaman said unto Kishkumen:
Let us go forth unto the judgment-seat. Now this did please Kishkumen
exceedingly, for he did suppose that he should accomplish his design; but behold,
the servant of Helaman, as they were going forth unto the judgment-seat, did stab
Kishkumen even to the heart, that he fell dead without a groan. And he ran and told
Helaman all the things which he had seen, and heard, and done. And it came to pass
that Helaman did send forth to take this band of robbers and secret murderers, that
they might be executed according to the law. But behold, when Gadianton had
41

Ibid., 64-65.
The Book of Helaman is one of the books that make up The Book of Mormon. It is the history of the
Nephites and the Lamanites covering the time period between 52 BCE and 1 BCE.
42

26

found that Kishkumen did not return he feared lest that he should be destroyed;
therefore he caused that his band should follow him. And they took their flight out
of the land, by a secret way, into the wilderness; and thus when Helaman sent forth
to take them they could nowhere be found.43
In The Book of Mormon, the Gadianton Robbers become so powerful that they
ultimately orchestrate the events that culminate in the genocide of Moroni and the
Nephite people. According to The Book of Mormon, Moroni issued this grave warning to
the people of the 1830s before burying the Golden Plates on the Hill Cumorah:

And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations to get power and
gain, until they shall be spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed, for
the Lord will not suffer that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them,
shall cry unto him from the ground for vengeance upon them, and yet he avengeth
them not; wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be
shewn unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins and suffer not that these
murderous combinations shall get above you.44
Although the doctrinal emphasis in The Book of Mormon is on Jesus Christ, one
of its chief social commentaries centers around the notion of secret combinations.
Twentieth century writers, such as Fawn Brodie, in an exegesis of The Book of Mormon,
have interpreted these passages as referring specifically to the Anti-Masonic fever pitch
that blanketed America during the 1820s. Michael D. Quinn, however, has noted that
Palmyra newspapers in 1828 printed anti-Masonic publications that described
Freemasonry as a secret combination. Quinn has argued that this term soon gained
traction in the popular lexicon of the region to refer to situations that had nothing to do
with Masonry. Whether one believes, as Martin Harris45 claimed, The Golden Bible is

43

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989) 2 Helaman 2:8-11.
44
Ibid., Ether 8:22-23.
45
Martin Harris (May 18, 1783 July 10, 1875) was an early convert to the LDS movement who helped
finance the first printing of The Book of Mormon and also served as one of Three Witnesses who testified

27

the Anti-masonick Bible or not , his views may not have wholly reflected Smiths own.
The Book of Mormon as anti-Masonic appears to reflect the currents of these passages in
only a superficial capacity.46

In any case, Masonry proved difficult to fully dismantle. After staying out of the
limelight in the decade following the Morgan incident, Masons began to slowly
reassemble in the 1830s, with a renewed focus on the higher degrees. By the 1840s
Freemasonry had reclaimed a degree of popularity, along with a cache of pseudoMasonic Fraternities, which would last until the last decades of the nineteenth-century47.

Joseph Smiths actual membership will be explored in later chapters, but the
controversies surrounding the fraternity during the composition of The Book of Mormon
must be recognized. While not a member himself at the time, his exposure to the
fraternity must be acknowledged. Masonry was present in the Smith home when his older
brother joined the Mount Moriah Lodge No. 112 of Palmyra, New York48 during the
zenith of the Morgan/Mason drama. Whatever his views on the craft may have been in
the 1820s, what is certain is that by the 1840s in Nauvoo Illinois, Mormonism would be
referred to by some as Celestial Masonry.49

David Holland, in his book Sacred Borders, offers what is perhaps the best

that they had seen Joseph Smiths golden plates The Book of Mormon had been translated. Larry E. Morris
The Life of Martin Harris: Patterns of Humility and Repentance, Ensign, 1999, 37.
46
Quinn, 202.
47
Brown, 72.
48
Durham.
49

Ibid.

28

summary:

While sleuthing historians have made a cottage industry out of finding half-buried clues
of antebellum class anger, racism, nationalism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Calvinism, antiMasonry, or anti-Universalism woven into the subplots of the book, the text itself is
preoccupied with two overarching themes: the divinity of an atoning Christ and Gods
revelatory abundance.50
That revelatory abundance is precisely what will inform the next phase of Mormon
development, as Smith and his followers venture further into the American frontier and
encounter an ever expansive range of concepts and ideas.

50

David Holland, Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America (New
York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2011) 46.

29

51

51

An illustration from the anti-Masonic Almanac published in 1831.

30

Chapter 5
Ye Shall go to the Ohio!

The whole process of publishing The Book of Mormon broadened Smiths

religious imagination, causing him to re-evaluate his own role and purpose. He began to
develop an expanding sense of what this revelation could be; not merely a revealed book,
but a new church. As more people began to accept Josephs Golden Bible and
revelations as the divine word of God, a small following of neighbors, mostly farmers
and teachers, began to coalesce. On April 6th, 1830 The Church of Christ was
established.52
Soon his followers began to delve into the mysteries of this new tome from God.
Questions began to arise pertaining to a particular passage in which Christ, upon his
arrival in the Americas, gave his Nephite apostles the authority to baptize.53 They
questioned whether or not the authority to baptize others still held true. In response,
Smith received a message from John the Baptist; he was to re-instate the ancient
priesthood of Aaron. Poor farmers were elevated into priests, elders and teachers, and
their mission was to seek out others to join them.54
By September of 1830, Smith had sent a handful of missionaries further west to
preach to the Native Americans. Smith believed that the natives were the descendants of

52

Bowman, 28-31.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989) 3 Nephi 11:18-22.
54
Bowman, 28-31.
53

31

the Nephites and Lamanites, themselves descendents of the house of Israel.55 His plan
was to rebuild the city of Zion, a city that was crucial in heralding Christs return. The
return of the Native Americans back into the fold would offer critical aid in the
construction of the New Jerusalem.56
Soon came word from Ohio. The missionaries had encountered a minister named
Sidney Rigdon, an imposing orator and well-educated theologian. Impressed by The Book
of Mormon, he and several others in his congregation were baptized in this new faith.
These new converts formed the core of a new Mormon community in Kirtland, Ohio. The
following January, Smith and his followers in New York made the decision to relocate to
Ohio. Smith had found his Zion.57
The dream of a New Jerusalem was, at the heart, the promise of Joseph Smiths
new scripture. The Book of Mormon, though his most pivotal text, was not the only work
he produced. In 1831, 1835, and 1844 several editions of revelations, dutifully recorded
by faithful, eager scribes, were published under the title Doctrine and Covenants. During
these years he tasked himself with producing new translations of the Bible; clarifying and
rewording texts from the King James Bible as well as revealing lost tomes of ancient
prophets. Thematically, what was emerging in these varied revelations and reworked
texts was the emphasis on Zion, a perfect and harmonious society living in bliss and in
accordance with the commandments of God.58
Smiths scriptures were divided into two fields: revelation and

55

Lamanites, Nephites, Jaredites, and Mulekites make up the four groups believed to have settled in the
ancient Americas according to LDS. M. Dallas Burnett Lamanites and the Church Ensign, 1971.
56
Bowman, 28-31.
57
Ibid.
58
Ibid., 32-33.

32

commandment; both decreed from heaven, and most often in the voice of God.
Typically these instructions confronted immediate circumstances that the fledgling
Mormon community had encountered. At times they were addressed directly to particular
individuals, and at other times they were an extended theological discourse of a
cosmological nature, the authority of priesthood, eschatology, and the afterlife.
The continued revelations from God offered an evolving religious tradition. On
February 16th of 1832, a dramatic revelation was received by Smith and Rigdon when the
two men together contemplated the verse from John 5:29.59: And shall come forth; they
that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the
resurrection of damnation.
While pondering the verses meaning, they received what Mormon
publications later termed The Vision. The two men were allowed to peer into heaven
and witness the throne of God, the throngs of the faithful, and the casting out of Satan
from heaven.
The Vision offered insight on the St. Pauls degrees of glory for the
resurrected bodies, such as the sun, the moon, and the stars, and affixed to them the three
levels of heaven: the Celestial, the Terrestrial and the Telestial. Each of these heavens
would serve as host to the degrees of saved individuals.
The highest heaven (Celestial) was reserved for those Christians who had fully
received the ordinances of the gospel; the second tier (Terrestrial) was for those
honorable men of the earth who were not Christian; and the last tier (Telestial) was
filled by the wicked, the liars and sorcerers and adulterers.
59

The Bible: Authorized King James version. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

33

All but the sons of perdition who denied Christ to his face would receive
nothing at all. This meant that all would receive a degree of salvation that was worthy of
ones merit. Heaven was now realm of salvation for communities of similar thinking
individuals. Mormonism had adopted one of its most salient theological developments;
salvation in communal terms and the optimism of humanitys potential to gain it.60
Smiths further exegesis into the Christian scriptures revealed new meanings
wrestled from its terse, and, at times esoteric, narratives. Delving into subtlety and
ambiguity of the Bible, he amended, clarified, and augmented the Holy Book until he
declared: Many important points touching the salvation of man, had been taken from the
Bible, or lost before it was compiled.61
These projects in translations, which complimented The Book of Mormon, were
called the Book of Moses. This work included the Book of Abraham and the Vision of
Enoch. The emphasis, again, in all these works is the communal utopia of Zion. The
prophet Enoch oversees the construction of Zion in The Book of Moses and says: The
Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in
righteousness; and there was no poor among them.62
In Kirtland, Smith was going to repair the commandments that had been victim of
apostasy; he was going to recreate the ancient society of Zion by rebuilding its walls, its
temples, and its priesthood. As the Mormon prophet matured into his role, his attention

60

Bowman, 32-33.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989) Section 76 (hereafter cited as D&C).
62
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989) Moses 7:18-19.
61

34

was focused on revolutionizing the social order. Therefore it was unsurprising that
challenges to his authority were beginning to arise.63
In an atmosphere that fostered personal revelations it was natural that many
people began to receive their own divine messages, some that ran counter to Smiths
message. To consolidate his authority as prophet he had to impose a system of order.
Smith created a hierarchy that expanded and categorized different priestly offices.64 There
was the lower priesthood that had previously been revealed,Aaronic,and the higher
priesthood of Melchizedek. 65 He also experienced a vision of the prophet Elijah, who
granted him the secret keys of dispensation which he promised to reveal to his flock
when they were more fully prepared for its meaning.66
Offices such as Deacon, Elder, Seventy were grouped into one of these
priesthoods. These men were ordained and organized into Quorums that were led by a
president. Smith was president of the whole church, and he took two counselors to form
the First Presidency of the church under which these quorums convened. This turned
Mormonism into a sacramental religion; salvation was acquired through rites that the
priesthood was required and empowered to administer. Believers held that the priesthood
office enabled one to access the powers of God to cast out demons, heal, bless, and
consecrate. Smith, by institutionalizing access to God, had alleviated the problem of
excessive charismatic tendencies that might potentially rival his authority, while at the
same time, inadvertently created an infrastructure that would provide stability and
survival after his assassination.

63

Bowman, 45-47.
Ibid.
65
Brooke, 194.
66
Ibid., 256.
64

35

After establishing his priestly hierarchy, he was now able to begin the process of
building his temple for the rites to be performed. In January 1833, Smith received a
revelation67 that commanded him to build a temple to the Most High in Kirtland, Ohio.68
Before the Kirtland Temple was dedicated on March 27th 1836, Smith introduced to his
priests the ordinances that can be considered the proto-endowment ritual. These
ceremonies were in preparation for the coming spiritual gifts that would be received in
the House of the Lord. It was a simple, staged ceremony comprised of the washing and
anointing of the body, and of sealings and blessings. This ritual was patterned after
similar descriptions found in the Bible (Lev.8; Mark 6:13; Luke 4:18,7:38,44; John 13:16
Tim. 5:10; James 5:14). After washing and perfuming each other in an adjacent building,
Smith and his associates entered the unfinished temple. Here the office of the First
Presidency consecrated oil and laid hands on each others heads, and they proceeded to
bless and anoint one another to their respective offices.69
The prolific developments in doctrinal revelation from Smith, as well as the
evolving sacramental praxis of worship that occurred in Kirtland, was instrumental in the
transformation of Mormonism. This was now a church that was distinctly unique amidst
the rival restoration sects that peppered the geography of the early republic. As the
fortunes turned against Smith and his followers in Ohio, he was forced to abandon his
Zion for a new promised land. The Churchs journey further into the west would yield
even more provocative doctrine.
67

D&C 88:119.

68

Homer, 25.
David J. Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (Salt Lake City:
Signature Books, 2002) 10-12 (hereafter cited as Mysteries of Godliness).
69

36

Chapter 6
The Sublime Degree

Joseph Smiths early exposure to Freemasonry has already been discussed,

therefore I will now turn my attention to the events that led to his consideration, and,
eventual endorsement, of the fraternity in Nauvoo. We cannot be entirely sure of his
motivations for joining Freemasonry, but we can observe some factors that would have
made the prospect an appealing one.
Ever since fleeing the heated political atmosphere in Kirtland, and narrow run-ins
with adversaries both inside and outside the church, his ever-present fear of enemies may
have convinced him that aligning himself with an oath-bound fraternity dedicated to
morality would offer an extra buffer of protection for him and his Church members. The
secrecy demanded from all Masonic initiates may have, in his mind, reinforced the
secrecy of the endowment oaths of the Church, especially to those familiar with both.
It is also possible that Smiths growing pre-occupation and fascination with
translations and re-interpretations of ancient texts, specifically his Book of Abraham, in
the spring of 1842, inspired him to explore the possibilities of tapping into the mysteries
to which Freemasonry claimed to have access. 70His spiritual vernaculor already possesed
hints of shared hierophonies with Freemasonry, joining the group officially would
provide Joseph a reference model for his own sacred re-enactments.
The influence from close personal acquaintances, no doubt, offered some measure
of inspiration for seeking out the fraternity as well. It was in Joseph Smiths brief stay in
Far West, Missouri, in the interim period between his resettlement from Kirtland to
70

Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple, 87.

37

Nauvoo, that he met George and Lucinda Harris. Lucinda, who had first been married to
William Morgan, became very close to Smith, eventually becoming one of his first plural
wives. His relationship with the wife of the man whose mysterious disappearance was
linked to the publishing of Masonrys secrets would certainly have provided yet another
layer of insight in the craft.71
Other notable Mormons, all of whom had prior membership in Masonry before
accepting the Church, included Deputy Grand Master of Illinois James Adams, Heber C.
Kimball, Brigham Young, and John C. Bennett. Of these men, it was Bennett who most
likely accelerated Smiths adoption of Freemasonry as a means to end persecution against
the Church. These former Masons petitioned the Illinois Grand Lodge in the Summer of
1841 for the right to establish a lodge in Nauvoo. Authority was granted by a Grand
Master who had the hopes of Mormon support in an upcoming election.72
Joseph Smiths first official experience with Freemasonry occurred five months
before the first Nauvoo incarnation of the Temple Endowment Ceremony, when on the
30th of December 1841 he petitioned for membership in the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge. The
lodges investigation proved favorable and he was formally initiated as an Entered
Apprentice Mason on the 15th of March 1842. The next day he and Sidney Rigdon, by a
special dispensation from the Grand Master, were advanced at sight through the three
several degrees of the Ancient York Masonry.73 Smith had achieved the rank of Fellow
Craft and Master Mason. His elevation to the sublime degree, without his having any
prior participation in the fraternity and without the customary thirty-day waiting period

71

Ibid.
Brooke, 246.
73
Ibid.
72

38

between degrees, is highly unusual.74 Smiths rapid ascension to Master Mason was likely
a political manuever orchestrated by the the Grand Master who sought Mormon support.
Within a few months the Nauvoo lodge had nearly three hundred members, exceeding in
rank more than all of the other lodges in Illinois combined. The Mormon enthusiasm for
Masonry, however, began to raise the suspicion of the Illinois Grand Lodge who feared
that Nauvoos brand of the craft diluted Masonrys ancient landmarks75 by admitting so
many applicants too quickly.
Smith had his own designs for Masonry, and it mattered little that it alienated the
Grand Lodge. The day after he was elevated to Master Mason, he met with his wife,
Emma, and nineteen other women, to establish an order called the Female Relief Society.
Founded as a charitable association with express purpose of providing aid to the poor,
Masonic terminology was often employed when Smith referred to the society. He
expressed his wish that these women be sufficiently skilld in Masonry to keep a
secret.76
Over the next several weeks , Joseph participated in other lodge meetings,
witnessing, studying, and dissecting the Entered Apprentice initiation five times, the
Fellow Craft initiation three times, and the Master Mason initiation five times. By the
Spring of 1842 Smiths language began to incorporate a distinctly Masonic vernacular.
On May 1st he described the keys of the Kingdom:
Certain signs and words by which false spirits and personages may be detected
from true, which cannot be revealed to the Elders till the Temple is
completedThe devil knows many signs but does not know the sign of the Son of

74

Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple, 90.

Brooke, 247.
76
Ibid.
75

39

Man, or Jesus. No one can truly say he knows God until he has handled something,
and this can only be the Holiest of Holies.77
The keys of the Kingdom would be revealed in a language reminiscent of Masonic
meaning. The key, a symbol of Masonic secrecy, was populated with a vocabulary of
signs, tokens, and handgrips designed to protect its secrets. The same would be true of
Mormon temple ritual:
The keys are certain signs and words,which cannot be revealedtill the Temple is
completed.The rich can only get them in the TempleThere are signs in heaven,
earth and hell, the Elders must know them all to be endowed with power.78
The full power of the priesthood could now be revealed. Its articulation was aided
by augmenting the Masonic vocabulary that Smith had been scrupulously dissecting. The
Nauvoo period is the clearest example of how the symbolism of Masonry penetrated
Mormonism resulting in a hermetic church.

77
78

Ibid.
Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple, 89.

40

Chapter 7
The Lodge and The Temple
On May 4th and 5th 1842, not even two months after his Masonic initiation, Joseph
Smith revealed the Nauvoo Temple Endowment Ceremony to his trusted confidantes in
the upper story of an adjacent house as the temple was being prepared for construction.
What follows is a brief synthesis of the Mormon endowment ceremony and the Masonic
parallels that helped define its infrastructure.
In the beginning of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony the initiates
prepare their bodies by ritual washing. This is followed by self-anointing with holy oil. S
symbolic act meant to ritually remove the sins of the world and begin the transition into
the Celestial Kingdom.79 Joseph Smith first introduced this initiatory rite in October 1835
back in Kirtland, Ohio. After being forced to leave Kirtland, Joseph Smith received a
revelation on January 19th, 1841, regarding this rite in the temple ceremony:
And again, verily I say unto you, how shall your washings be acceptable unto me,
except ye perform them in a house which you have built to my name? For, for this
cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear
it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that
those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world
was.Therefore, verily I say unto you, that your anointings, and your washings, and
your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for
your sacrifices by the sons of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places
wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments, for the
beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, honor, and
endowment of all her municipals, are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house,
which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name.80
The washing and annointing reflected the earlier Kirtland incarnation. Joseph
Smith described the rite this way: "[we] proceeded to cleanse our faces and our feet, and

79

80

Ibid.
D&C 124:37-39 and 88:74.

41

then proceeded to wash one another's feet." According to Mormon Scholar, Boyd K.
Packer, this rite is mostly symbolic in nature, but promising definite, immediate
blessings as well as future blessings.81
The initiate is next clothed in ritual garments to participate in the miracle play of
the Temple Endowment Ceremony. According to Packer, the garment represents sacred
covenents. It fosters modesty and becomes a shield and protection to the wearer.82 He
adds: In the temple you will be officially clothed in the garment and promised
marvelous blessings in connection with it.83
Next, the initiate receives the new name they will use in the Celestial Kingdom.
On April 2, 1843, Joseph Smith provided instructions84 concerning a white stone
mentioned in Revelation 2:17: And a white stone is given to each of those who come
into the celestial kingdom, whereon is a new name written, which no man knoweth save
that he receiveth it. The new name is the key-word.85
Throughout the ceremony, the initiate (who is referred to as Adam for the
remainder of the ceremony) is taken through a dramatization of the history of the world.86
The Masonic elements echoed in this phase can be seen in the conferral of the new name
and the donning of the white apron. The original apron used in the Mormon Temple
Endowment ceremony utilized a white apron with a green fig leaf sewn to it87, as well as

81

Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980) 154.
Ibid., 75.
83
Ibid.,155.
84
Homer, 44.
85
D&C 130:11.
82

86
87

Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple, 93-94.

Ibid., 91.

42

Masonic square and compass.88

The miracle plays are continued in the next phase of the ceremony. The sacred
dramaturgy re-enacts the Creation and the Fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of
Eden. The scenes included three Creation gods: Elohim, Jehovah, and Michael. The
initiate, as the surrogate Adam, experiences the fallen condition and the redemptive
powers of the Mormon priesthood.89
In the third phase of the ceremony, initiates have revealed to them the First and
Second Tokens of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods. Handgrips, signs, and
coded passwords are taught to the initiate before they finally reach the goal of the veil
that separates the temporal world from celestial kingdom.
On their path to the veil, the initiate witnesses further ritual re-enactments. Here
they experience an encounter between Adam, Satan, and an assortment of sectarian
preachers representing the apostasy of the Christian church. The initiate is then robed in
priestly garments whereupon they form a prayer circle and chant in the pure Adamic
language.90 In the Masonic counterpart of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony,
the initiates encircle an altar, places their left hand around their neighbor, joins hands and
repeats the words of the presiding masters.91
Likewise, the lecture at the veil92 was not unlike the explanatory lecture that

88
89

Brooke, 249.
Ibid.

90

Ibid.

91

Ibid.

92

L.John Nuttall Journal, 7 Feb.1877, Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young
University, Provo, Utah.

43

followed the conferral of degrees in the Royal Arch tradition.93The language used in the
tokens94 and penalties95 of the Mormon priesthood had exact parallels in Freemasonry96,
progressing in the first three degrees to the higher degrees of the Royal Arch. The penalty
for disclosing secrets, the priestly handgrip and bodily signs, all had Masonic
antecedents.97 Parallels with Royal Arch extended to the use of the temple veil as a locus
for ritual catechisms as well as the employment of ritual actors representing God.
The similarities between the ritual drama of creation in the Mormon Temple
Endowment Ceremony and its Masonic counterpart were more fully realized in the higher
Masonic degrees. The seventh degree of the Royal Arch addressed the initiate on the
Creation and Fall in Eden. In this narrative, a scroll taken from a golden box, is given to
Adam and passed down several generations until it is received by King Solomon who
eventually buries this encrypted knowledge in a vaulted arch. In the twenty-eighth degree
of the Scottish Rite, an actor representing Adam guides the candidate through the ritual
and engages in a discourse on the quintessence of the Elements, the fire of
Philosophers and the Philosophers Stone. Here, seven cherubim, including Michael,
are present with Adam at the Creation, reminiscent of the plurality of the three Mormon
creation gods.98
Since the beginning of the formation of his church, Smith had been promising to
fully reveal the keys of dispensation and immortal perfectibility. The advent of the

93

Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple, 91.

Homer, 45-46.
95
Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London: Latter-day Saints Booksellers Depot, 1854-86) 3:332.
96
Durham.
94

97
98

Brooke, 249.
Ibid., 249-250.

44

Temple Endowment Ceremony in Nauvoo began to realize that promise. The surrogate
Adam of the Mormon ritual dramaturgy could experience the cosmic history and gain the
promised keys of admission into the celestial kingdom.99
Those faithful who participated in the Temple Endowment Ceremony were
rewarded with the highest level of heaven. For believers, this was an apotheosis in a
cosmos that rejected creation ex nihilo, where matter and spirit have existed for eternity
and are integrally connected.100
The Temple Endowment Ceremony continued to develop as more secret and
controversial doctrines were adopted. In the spring of 1843, Smith revealed that only
through a special sealing ritual could a marriage on earth be guaranteed to last through
eternity in the heavens.
The three degrees of heavenly glory in the celestial kingdom were linked to three
degrees of marriage. Only those who had been sealed in the new and everlasting
covenant of celestial marriage would have the opportunity for exaltation in the celestial
kingdom.
Celestial marriage would help realize the promise of apotheosis, having a plurality
of wives and their multitude of children would increase the familial kingdom and
transfigure the dutiful Mormon patriarch into higher degrees of glory.
With the expanse of the endowment ceremony through continuing revelation,
there came with it an expansion of the hierarchy of priesthood authority. As I have
previously discussed, the Melchizedek priesthood was granted the authority to seal up
the Saints to eternal life. The keys of dispensation that were promised in Kirtland were
99

Ibid.

100

Ibid., 253.

45

finally divulged in the autumn of 1843 with the inauguration of the ritual of the second
anointing.101 The second anointing102 would be the the fullness or the highest conferred
blessing of priesthood offices (The Aaronic Priesthood ,The Melchizedek Priesthood).
On August 27th 1843, Smith gave a lecture on the orders of the priesthood. The
Aaronic Priesthood maintained the power of ministering ordinances and the patriarchal
power of Abraham. The Melchizedek Priesthood, installed in 1831, granted the Saints
the kingly powers to administer endless lives to the sons and daughters of Adam.
The ultimate priesthood of the second anointing was the realization of the fullness of the
priesthood.
The ultimate priesthood power the spirit power and calling of Elijah, enabled
the Melchizedek access to the Keys to the Kingdom of God. Giving these priests the
authority to perform all the ordinances belonging to the Kingdom of God. First
announced in Kirtland in 1836, and elaborated upon in 1842 with the revelation of the
provocative doctrine of baptism for the dead, the most powerful of these ordinances103
was the ability to perform a sealing [of] the hearts of the fathers unto the children and
the hearts of the children unto the fathers [,] even those who are in heaven.104
The powerful reward that came with the blessing of the priesthood of the second
anointing was the nearly uncompromised ability of achieving godhood in the highest
degree of the celestial heaven by being sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. In a
sermon regarding his penultimate revelation, Smith all but assured those who were sealed
in the temple by the ordinance of celestial marriage and received the second anointing
101

Ibid., 250-256.
D&C 132.
103
Brooke, 256.
104
B.H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 6 volumes
(Provo: BYU Press, 1976) 6:25153.
102

46

would be guaranteed divinity in the celestial kingdom:

Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from
everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all,
because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they
have call power, and the angels are subject unto them.Verily, verily, I say unto you,
except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.105
Joseph Smith had triumphantly claimed the powers to unite the living with dead
in one singular sacred universe of apotheotic soteriology. Smith had unlocked and
fulfilled the cryptic passages of the Books of Malachi and Revelation in a theology of
ordinances fused to his temple cultus. The Mormon temple allowed the individual to
experience a ritual transfiguration that restated the tenets of a hermetic tradition.106

The concept of alchemical marriage popularized in the medieval Rosicrucian text,

The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, had encouraged varied interpretations
of sexual and marital unions. Rosicrucianism, which greatly influenced the institutions of
speculative Freemasonry,107 provides another connection of hermetic tradition to the
Mormon Temple Endowment. At least one Masonic text, the lecture on the philosophical
lodge in the rite of the Knight of the Sun, espoused an alchemical theory of elemental
marriage that would have been available in Nauvoo in 1840.108

Joseph Smith had, towards the end of his life, gravitated towards an ancient
understanding of a dual-gendered divinity that lay at the heart of hermetic theology, and
105

D&C 132.

106

Brooke, 257.
Quinn, 206.

107

108

Brooke, 258.

47

he had purportedly spoken of a vision of The Father seated upon a throne and the
mother also.109

Celestial marriage, it can be argued, mirrored alchemical marriage. Mormon

cosmology, by this point, had developed clear parallels to hermetic cosmology. The
radical developments of the Nauvoo Temple Endowment Ceremony, and the alchemical
work of transmutation, both focused on the issue of Creation and Redemption.

In the sacred dramaturgy enacted within the Mormon temple complex, the
surrogate Adam experiences the Creation, the Fall, redemption and admittance into the
Celestial Kingdom by the authority of its priesthood. As we have seen, the expansion of
ordinances later included the sealing of celestial marriage. The Alchemical tradition
centered on experiments intended to distill the prima materia from corrupted elements,
replicated Creation and dissolved the said corruption that resulted from the Fall in hopes
of a material redemption. The marriage of the elements of mercury and sulphur (the
hermetic Sun King and Moon Queen) would fuse in sexual union, and the seed that was
produced would experience its own sequence of tiered exaltation. The seed of the
alchemical marriage would die, decay, and be washed before achieving its final state of
quintessence, the corporeal manifestation of immortal perfection otherwise known as the
philosophers stone, or in hermetic parlance, the primal Adam. We see in both the
Mormon endowment ceremony and alchemical theology the corrupting outcome of the

109

Linda P. Wilcox, The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven," in Lavina Fielding Anderson and
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987) 6477.

48

Fall being overcome and divine perfection being realized.110

The Alchemical ability of achieving salvation without the means of grace was
ascribed to Freemasonry, as seen in the Locke-Leland letter that was affixed to many
Masonic manuals. This informed the public on the many secrets that the Masons
purportedly kept. Among other things, Masonry preserved the universal language; the
way of winning the faculty of magic, and the ability to conceal the art of
transmutation of metals.[and] the skill of becoming good and perfect without the
helpings of fear and hope. 111

Within these new revelations of Mormon theology, divine grace was only what
opened the universal door to salvation, but it was individual merit and obedience to the
laws that determined the exact positioning of divine exaltation that one would receive in
the afterlife. The Mormon priesthood held the sole authority to minister the ordinances to
grant entry into eternal life and exaltation. The sacred powers of this ecclesiastical class
transcended the earth and heavens; by sealing souls to the celestial kingdom, they
commanded God to save and exalt the Mormon faithful.

The priestly powers of the ordinance, like the alchemist, channeled and
manipulated the magical currents that ran through the visible and invisible worlds.
Though divine in origin, this power could be siphoned and controlled by the proper
authority. To Joseph Smith and the Mormons, this authority was granted to the office of
the priesthood of the second anointing. Salvation and apotheosis was not subject to the
110
111

Brooke, 257-59.
Ibid.

49

doctrine of grace alone; rather it came through humble servitude to a sacred ordinance
resulting in a new sin-free dispensation. Mormons, if they followed the authority of their
prophet, were inherently
perfectible.112

113

Chapter 8
Is There No Help For The Widows Son?!
Joseph Smith unabashedly utilized Masonry in the Endowment Ceremony. Just as
he had translated and re-interpreted scripture to restore what he understood to be the lost
Christian truth, so, too, would he restore Freemasonry to its uncorrupted truth.

112

113

Ibid., 261.
An illustration of Order Lodge which appeared in John C. Bennetts History of the Saints in 1842

50

Masonry, as the Mormons performed it, was becoming increasingly more unorthodox in
contrast to the Illinois Lodges traditional practice. Smith, it would seem, initially
embraced Masonry before subsequently altering it in a process that modified, expanded,
and amplified it by the authority of his continuing revelation.114
Early Mormon leaders understood Freemasonry to have originated in Solomons
temple and had, alongside the Church, been corrupted by the Great Apostasy. Joseph
Smiths expansion and revisions of Masonic rituals was thus understood to be another
example of the Prophets miracle of restoration.115
An excerpt from a letter written by Heber C. Kimball to Parley Pratt, two
prominent Mormon apostles, provides insight into the connection:
We have organized a lodge here of Masons since we obtained a Charter. That was
in March, since that there has near two thousand been made masons. Brother
Joseph and Sidney was the first that was received into the Lodge. All of the twelve
have become members except Orson Phe hangs back. He will wake up soon,
there is a similarity of priesthood in masonry. Brother Joseph says Masonry was
taken from priesthood but has become degenerated. But many things are perfect.
We have procession on the 24th of June, which is called by Masons St. Johns day
in this country. I think it will result in good. The Lord is with us and we are
prospered.116
I have suggested that the culture of Masonic hermeticism helped shape the story
of the discovery of the Golden Plates, The Book of Mormons structural narrative. and
Smiths early experiments in translation and prophecy. The Nauvoo endowment and its
elaborate temple complex was Smiths victory over the corruptions of contemporary
Freemasonry.
Mormonism and Freemasonry shared a common lineage in the priestly

114

Durham.
Homer, 64.
116
Heber C..Kimball to Parley Pratt, 17 June 1842, LDS archives.
115

51

genealogies that preserved the hermetic keys to mysteries that they claimed had been
handed down since Creation. According to Mormons, the pure Masonry of Adam, Enoch
and their descendants had been corrupted by Cainite usurpers. Joseph Smith, as prophet,
had uncovered and restored the Adamic keys in their original authoritative form. Smith
declared that the true heir of Adams paradisial powers was the Mormon priesthood, not
the Freemasons. To the Mormons, the true extent of Masonic corruption was made fully
manifest in Smiths martyrdom in his Carthage jail.117
As had happened in Kirtland, where the Mormon settlement had collapsed under
the stress of economic tensions and dissenting opinions, Nauvoo was approaching a
similar fate. Rising gentile (non-Mormon) hostility, economic depression, and the
emergence of influential dissenters rallying against the authoritarian hierarchy of the
church. Charges of polygamy, which had been leveled against the church hierarchy since
Kirtland, became the focus of a newspaper campaign against Smith. The Nauvoo
Expositor, a paper created by these dissenters , published an attack on Smith on June 7th,
1844. Three days later, its office was destroyed by the orders of the city council.118
This act of aggression on Smiths part was instrumental in galvanizing his
detractors to take action against him. Illinois Governor Thomas Ford threatened to raise a
large militia if Smith refused to turn himself in. Initially fleeing across the Mississippi in
hopes of reaching the safety of the Rocky Mountains, Joseph had a change of heart and
returned to Illinois, prepared to meet his fate. He reportedly said the following to a band
of loyal militia men before turning himself in:
I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summers morning. I
have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward all men. If they take my
117
118

Brooke, 253.
Ibid.

52

life I shall die an innocent man, and my blood shall cry from the ground for
vengeance, and it shall be said of me He was murdered in cold blood!119
On June 27th, 1844, while he awaited his trial in a Carthage jailhouse an armed
mob stormed his cell and opened fire. Joseph attempted an escape through a window
before the fatal shot found the Mormon prophet. His last words were reportedly an
attempted Masonic distress call: O Lord My God, Is there no help for the widows
son120 Among the possessions found on the martyred prophets body was an alchemical
Jupiter Talisman engraved with hermetic sigils.121

119

Roberts, 6:555.
Brooke, 253.
121
Durham.
120

53

122

122

Joseph Smiths Jupiter Talisman.

54

Chapter 9
I Discover A Disposition In The Sheep To Scatter

In the turmoil that followed Smiths assasination, very little ordinance work was
done for over a year.123 Rival claimants clamored to fill the role of spiritual heir to the
prophet and lead the church. From the moment Brigham Young asumed leadership in
1844 he kept the construction of the temple before the Saints and used the promise of its
completion as a catalyst for galvanizing the church and keeping them together:
I discover disposition in the sheep to scatter, now the shepherd is taken away. I do
not say that it will never be right for this people to go from herebut I do say wait
untilyou are counseled to do so.stay here in Nauvoo, and build the temple and
get your endowments; do not scatter; united we stand divided we fall. It has been
whispered about all who go into the wilderness with [Lyman] Wight and [George]
Miller will get their endowments, but they cannot give an endowment in the
wilderness. If we do not carry out the plan Joseph has laid down and the pattern he
has given for us to work by, we cannot get any further endowmentNorth and
South America is Zion and as soon as the Temple is done and you get your
endowments you can go and build up stakes, but do not be in haste, wait until the
Lord says go.124
Before his death Joseph Smith instructed Brigham Young to develop the
ceremony after its initial introduction in Nauvoo:
Brother Joseph turned to me [Brigham Young] and said: Brother Brigham this is
not arranged right, but we have done the best we could under the circumstances in
which we are placed, and I wish you to take this matter in hand and organize and
systematize all these ceremonies with the signs, tokens, penalties and key words. I
did so and each time I got something more; so that when we went through the
Temple at Nauvoo, I understood and knew how to place them there. We had our
ceremonies pretty correct.125

123

For Mormons an ordinance is a sacred, formal act performed by the authority of the priesthood.

124

Roberts, 7:253-55.
Nuttall Journal 1877.

125

55

Young and the other apostles could sense an impending defection from the temple
and its ordinances and issued a warning as to what was at stake:
[Emmett] has led you forth from our midst and seperated you from the body and like a
branch severed from a tree. You must and will perish together with your posterity and
your progenitors unless you are engrafted again thereon before you wither and die126
In response to the warnings, the Saints donated time, money, art, furnishings, and
other materials to make the temple attic ready for use. In 1845, the leaders in the church
hiearchy began to administer the endowment to the general membership and the first of
these ceremonies was performed in the Nauvoo temple on December 10th.127
We have documentation of these early ceremonies from the diaries of Heber
Kimball and William Clayton who chronicled the ordinances. Claytons records describe
the annointing and prepatory ritual for the endowment, the temple arrangements, Youngs
presiding over the ordinances, group initiation, impressions of the dramaturgy of the
endowment journey, weddings, the spontaneous innovation of dancing, and the second
anointing.
Heber Kimballs diary entry about the endowment ceremony focuses primarily on
the way the participants embody Adam that anticipates a sacerdotal chain of being:
The ideas advanced by brother Lyman are good and true. We have been taken as it
were from the earth, and have traveled until we have entered the the Celestial
Kingdom and what is it for, it is to personify Adam. And you discover that our God
is like one of us, for he created us in his own image. Every man that ever came
upon this earth, or any other earth will take the course we have taken. Another
thing, it is to bring us into an organization, and just as quick as we can get into that
order and government, we have the Celestial Kingdom here. You have got to honor
and reverence your brethren, for if you do not you never can honor God. The man
was created, and God gave him dominion over the whole earth, but he saw that he
never could multiply and replenish the whole earth, without a woman. And he
made one and gave her to him. He did not make man for the woman; but the
woman for the man, and it is unlawful for you to rise up and rebel against your
husband, as it would be for man to rebel against God. When the man came to the
veil, God gave the key word to the man, and the man gave it to the woman. But if a
man dont use a woman well and take good care of her, God will take her away
126
127

Roberts, 7:378.
Buerger, Mysteries of Godliness, 71.

56

from him, and give her to another. Perfect order and consistency makes heaven but
we are now deranged, and the tail has become the head. We have now come to this
place, and all your former covenants are of no account, and here is the place where
we have to enter into a new covenant, and be sealed, and have it recorded. One
reason we bring our wives with us is, that they make a covenant with us to keep
these things sacred. You have been anointed to be kings and priests, but you have
not been ordained to it yet, and you have got to get it by being faithful. You cant
sin so cheap now as you could before you came to this order. It is not for you to
reproach the Lords anointed nor to speak evil of him. You have covenanted not to
do it.128
The weeks following the first endowment ceremonies, the men who made up the
top tiers of the Church hiearchy and their wives received their second annointing. The
leading brethren began performing adoption sealings that tied men of lower priesthood
rank to the men of higher ranking priesthoods, as well as children to parents. By the
time the temple was closed on February 7th 1846, over 2,000 couples had been sealed
for time and eternity. A few women were sealed to their current husband for time, but
chose for their celestial husband a deceased man, typically Joseph Smith himself. This
time also saw the sealings of several polygamous marriages.129
The brief tenure with the Nauvoo temple demonstrates the Saints emphasis on the
second annointing during this time period. Though the endowment was sporadically
performed after the Saints migrated further westward, anticipating a time when another
edifice would be dedicated, no record exists of the second annointing for the following
two decades as the Mormon exodus to Utah was underway.130
On July 7th 1852, the endowment ordinances were performed in the Old Council
House, the first permanent public building erected in Salt Lake City. On May 5th 1855, a
new building called the Endowment House was constructed for the sole purpose of
administering the ordinances until church leaders decided to have it razed on October 16th

128

George D. Smith, An intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature
Books, 1991) 226-67.
129
Buerger, Mysteries of Godliness, 90-91.
130
Ibid.

57

1884. No endowments or second annointings for the dead were performed in the
Endowment House.
Endowment for the dead was first introduced in Nauvoo by Joseph Smith, and
Brigham Young increased its public discussion in Utah. The first recorded endowments
for the dead occurred January 11th 1877, eleven days after the Salt Lake temples
dedication. Young restricted the conferral of these ceremonies to Utah temples believing
that it would otherwise destroy the object of the gathering.131 The only LDS temples at
this time were situated in Utah. The Kirtland temple had been disowned by the Father
and the Son.132 and the Nauvoo Temple had burned to the ground.
The St. George Temple endowment included an expanded lecture at the veil
with an explanatory summary of theological concepts taught in the endowment and
references to the Adam-God doctrine. Young taught in this lecture that Adam:
had begotten all the spirits that was to come to this earth, and Eve our common
Mother who is the mother of all living bore those spirits in the celestial
world[They] consequently came to this earth and commenced the great work of
forming tabernacles for those spirits to dwell in.133
The origin of the Adam-God doctrine can reliably be traced to Brigham Young in
Utah, and it seems unlikely that that similar ideas were present in Nauvoo.134 Though
some innovations like this did occur, the endowment ceremony underwent only minimal
structural change from its introduction in Nauvoo through the end of the nineteenthcentury.135
By the time the Saints reached Utah and began to prepare the Salt Lake City
temple, Masonrys allure to Young and the Church hiearchy were beginning to wane.

131

Roberts, 6:307-8.
Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London: Latter-day Saints Booksellers Depot, 1854-86) 2:32.
133
L. John Nuttall, Memoranda, For Presidents W. Woodward, Geo. Q. Cannon, and Jos. F. Smith, 3
June 1892, Nuttall Papers, Special Collectioms, Lee Library.
134
Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple, 99.
135
Ibid.
132

58

Symbolism continued in Utah through the efforts of Brigham Young who caused
its usage to expand-both as to variety and frequency. While Young had been a
Mason and personally owned Masonic handbooks, after Nauvoo troubles with
gentile Masons (including their probable participation in the Martyrdom and
subsequent persecution and expulsion of the Saints), he had no love for the group.
Yet the ornamental trappings planned for the Salt Lake Temple (originally
extensive but much diluted after his death in 1877) demonstrated a continuing
implementation of Josephs selected Masonic symbols.136
The dismantling of Masonic influence began with Joseph Smiths death. It would
be a trend that continued with each succesive generation . Joseph Smith died believing he
restored the apostacy of Masonry.

136

Allen D. Roberts, Where Are the All-Seeing Eyes?: The origin, Use and Decline of Early Mormon
Symbolism, Sunstone Magazine 49 (1985): 39.

59

Conclusion

After the death of their beloved Prophet in 1844, many Latter-day Saints harbored
hostile feelings towards their persecutors and hoped to avenge their fallen leader. While
still in Nauvoo, Brigham Young amended the endowment ceremony to include an oath of
vengeance:
You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to
pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and
that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto
the third and fourth generation.137
This blood oath became a major point of contention to both Mormons and The
United States government in the early parts of the twentienth century. The controversy
centers around the election of apostle Reed Smoot to the 58th Congress of the United
States on January 20th, 1903 as a Republican Senator representing the state of Utah. A
United States subcommittee conducted a series of hearings from 1904-1906 to decide
whether or not Smoot should be allowed to serve. The committee was concerned with
whether the Mormon covenant of obediance would conflict with Smoots oath of loyalty
to the United States Constitution.
The negative press surrounding these hearings led to the de-emphasis of this oath
in the endowment ceremony, and by 1912, David H. Cannon described a new
interpretation of the law of retribution:
To Pray to the Father to avenge the blood of the prophets and righteous men that
has been shed, etc. In the endowment house this was given but as persons went
there only once, it was not so strongly impressed upon their minds, but in setting in
137

Proceedings Before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the
Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, A Senator from the State of Utah, to Hold
His Seat, Smoot Hearing 4 vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1906).

60

order [of] the endowment for the dead it was given as it is written in 9 Chapter of
Revelations and in the language we importune our Father, not that we may, but He,
our Father, will avenge the blood of martyrs shed for the testimony of Jesus.138
In 1919, at the beginning of his administration, LDS president Heber J. Grant
created an apostolic committee charged with the task of changing the emphasis on the
law of retribution, as well as revising many other procedures linked with endowment
ritual and temple clothing. The committee codified and simplified the temple endowment
ceremony that was originally drafted in 1877. One major reason for this reform was to
ensure that the ceremony was identical in all temples. By 1927 this LDS perestroika
elimated the oath of vengeance, drastically reduced the length of the ceremony, modified
the torturous Masonic penalties of disclosure, altered temple garments and strict
adherence to the Word of Wisdom139 became a pre-requisite for temple admission.140
When the LDS Church adopted Protestant American societal norms the cost was
identity. Two passages from Max Webers The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism describe the Protestant normative:
That great historic process in the development of religions, the elimination of
magic from the world which had begun with the old Hebrew prophets and, in
conjunction with Hellenistic scientific thought, had repudiated all magical means to
salvation as superstition and sin, came here to its logical conclusion. The genuine
Puritan even rejected all signs of religious ceremony at the grave and buried his
nearest and dearest without song or ritual in order that no superstition, no trust in
the effects of magical and sacramental forces on salvation, should creep in.141
In favor of sober utility as against any artistic tendencies. This was especially true
in the case of decoration of the person, for instance clothing. That powerful
138

St. George Temple Minutes K9369R, Confidential Research Files (1912) 110.
The "Word of Wisdom" is the name of a section in The Doctrine and Covenants. It also shares the name
of health code based on this scripture.
140
Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple, 103.
141
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (NewYork:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), 105.
139

61

tendency toward uniformity of life, which today so immensely aids the capitalistic
interest in the standardization of production, had its ideal foundations in the
repudiation of all idolatry of the flesh.142
The emphasis of societal integration resulted in the creation of The Correlation
Committee in 1961. This group was established by the LDS Church to encompasses and
legislate their philosophy of governance. The LDS doctrines such as prophetic, and
sacerdotal authority were amalgamated with strategies borrowed from the corporate
world of business. The idea of Correlation is the belief in a strong central authority, and
uniformity in procedure and discourse. This group, therefore, acts as a policing body to
promote orthodoxy.143
Throughout the rest of the twentieth century modern technology was implemented
to streamline and augment the endowment. The ritual dramaturgy evolved into a filmed
affair and the temple architecture itself began to adapt to facilitate the wide-screen
concept of 1960s American movie theatres. The architect of the Oakland Temple, Harold
Burton, designed the two endowment rooms to facilitate large projections. Projectors
were used to display photo murals that indicated the room changes of the live endowment
ceremony. 144 Technological advances in computer science enabled Saints to effeciently
categorize research for the Genealogical Society for their work in ancestral sealing.145
Declining rates in attendance since the 1970s may suggest that many Latter-day
Saints do not participate extensively in endowment rituals for the living or the dead.
142

Ibid., 169.
Frances Lee Menlove A Forty-Year View: Dialogue and the Sober Lessons of History, Dialogue: A
Journal of Mormon Thought Vol.39 No.3 (2006): 88.
144
The wide-screen concept introduced in early-1960s American movies influenced Church architect
Harold Burton in designing the Oakland Temples two endowment rooms. He planned huge projection
areas that required the use of 35mm film, although curtains reduced the total screen size. After the temple
was dedicated in 1964, 4x5 slide projectors were used to produce photo murals depicting room changes
found in live endowment presentation. (Buerger 1984, 108).
145
Buerger, Development of Mormon Temple,114.
143

62

Confronting the possibility of economic issues associated with long distance travel being
the cause for lowered attendance, the LDS church has responded with the strategic
construction of numerous scaled-down temples in areas of high member density. 146
Another possibility for declining attendance may lie in the appeal of the ceremony
itself to twenty-first century Saints. The symbolism that was critical in the evolution of
endowment ceremony may have a different meaning to modern members of the Church.
The decline in architectural symbolism in modern temples suggests that modern Saints
feel a discomfort with their use. Perhaps a lack of fluency in the symbolic vocabulary that
their nineteenth century counterparts used can be attributed to the efforts of the Church
itself. Some modern Church leaders look back upon the symbolism utilized by earlier
generations with embarrasment and even suspicion as the push for greater integration into
normative American society took precedence. As Allen D. Roberts states in his essay,
Where Are the All-Seeing Eyes?, from Sunstone Magazine:
The Salt Lake Temple, depicted either in elevation or perspective, is the most prominent
image identified with Mormonism. Along with the trumpteting Angel Moroni, minimodels of the temple have found their way into stationary, Church pamphlets,
Christmas cards, retail packaging, and tie tacks. The bas-relief worlds on mammoth
Church Office Building may also be considered symbols of the burgeoning international
Church. All of these symbols, however, seem intentionally nave, safe, and lack depth
and vitality when compared to the theologically provocative all-seeing eye, clasped
hands, and sun, moon, and stars, all of which, scripturally founded, beckon us to search
for truth and to improve the quality of our lives. Our symbols of today are not intended
to remind fellow Saints of our common worship and heritage as much as display a
particular image to those outside the faith. Our particular art, music, architecture,
graphics, books, periodicals, advertisements, and television spots are programmatically
designed to put forth a corporate image of Mormonism as clean, happy, unique,
suuperlative, all-American yet worldwide. The attempt is to underscore Mormon
orthodoxy and inspire conformity. Saints of 1979 have needs quite different from those
of a struggling colony of kingdom builders. 147

146

147

Ibid., 118-119.
Roberts 1985, 41-42.

63

On April 5th 2014, The LDS Church addressed 20,000 Latter-day Saints in its
184th General Conference. Jeffrey R. Holland, of the churchs Quorum of Twelve
Apostles, said, in the opening session, addressing both internal and external protestations
of Church policy:
[LDS leaders] know full well that the road leading to the Promised Land, flowing
with milk and honey, of necessity runs by way of Mount Sinai, flowing with thou
shalts and thou shalt nots, Unfortunately, messengers of divinely mandated
commandments are often no more popular today than they were anciently"148
Because some members view their policies as harsh or anachronistic, LDS leaders
are accused of being provincial, patriarchal, bigoted, unkind, narrow, outmoded and
elderly. Holland continued:
If people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand
much, comfortable gods, who not only dont rock the boat but dont even row it,
gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, then tell us to run along and pick
marigoldstalk about man creating God in his own image149

The LDS church has evolved, changed and most importantly survived to be the
global faith that it is today; and since its early incarnation in Kirtland, the Temple has
been a crucial element of salvation to its followers.Though no new temples were
announced at the session, LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson stated that when all
the previously announced temples are completed, there would be 170 temples worldwide.
The versatility of Mormon Church allows it to navigate through seemingly
dichotomous narrows. I see a fascinating inverse parallel with the development of
correlation and the time in Nauvoo. The Church was able to adopt the uniformity of the
148

Peggy Fletcher Stack Message to Mormons: Prophets Not Always Popular, The Salt Lake Tribune,
April 5, 2014, accessed May 18, 2014, http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57778654-78/church-ldsconference-gods.html.csp.
149
Ibid.

64

corporate business world with the same ease as it did when adopting the symbolic
vocabulary of the Masonic world. This is not because the Church has fundamentally
changed; it is because the Church, since its inception, was able to succesfully marry
American ideals to ancient hermetic tradition. That is the very essence of this faith, the
ability to inhabit two identities at once. It is both corporate and magical, hermetic and
mainline, uniform and deeply personal. The Mormon church is not simply a hermetic
church, it is the hermetic church. At Smiths helm, hermeticism found a home in a host
church and allowed it to grow to fantastic heights. Through viewing the hermetic
experinents of the Radical Reformations we can see the many failed attempts of this unity
in other churches. As I have shown, the loss of symbolic meaning may be lost on newer
generations. That does not mean, however, that it is not there. Whether the hermetic
dramaturgy is filmed or performed is of little consequence. What is relevant is that
hermetic beliefs are engaged with daily by the Mormon faithful. There seems no doubt as
to the fate of these sacred edifices, as Monson himself declared:"We are a templebuilding and a temple-attending people."150

150

Ibid.

65

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71