I'm a both a Temple Endowed Mormon and a Freemason.

From my own personal experience of having gone through both the Masonic Temple rites and the Mormon Temple Endowment ceremony; the two ceremonies are far too similar to be coincidental...

http://www.ldsliving.com/Church-Addresses-Similarity-Between-Temple-Endowment-and-Masonic-Ceremonies-in-New-Topics-Article/s/90214

"[Kimball] told Pratt that Joseph believed Masonry was 'taken from priesthood but has become degenerated.'"

Well, there you have it. That should settle everything. Ignore your lying eyes. Listen to what Joseph said. Ignore that he was up to his eyeballs in Masonic lore way back. Ignore the fact that he made the widow of William Morgan one of his plural wives. Ignore the apron and the five points of fellowship. "Joseph believed...." "Joseph said...." "According to Joseph...."

Couldn't be that he was lying about that just the way he lied about everything else, right?

Joseph said that the papyrus writings found with Chandler's mummy were in Abraham's own handwriting. What an amazing coincidence! Or miracle! Abraham's own handwritten record had somehow found its way to Joseph's home!

Joseph said that he translated the Kinderhook plates.

Joseph said that the Book of Mormon copyright would be successfully sold in Ontario.

Joseph said that he and his buddies in righteousness would find gold and silver in Salem, MA.

Joseph said...

It takes a special kind of gullibility to believe anything that Joseph said.

If Joseph got revelation to restore something that had become a degenerate and bastardized ritual in Masonry, why did the five points of fellowship and the exact masonic penalties continue to be key elements up until the 1990s. Just how imprecise and widely off the mark can "revelation" be and still deserve to be called revelation?

no, no, no. it was a stepping stone. simple explanation. joe wouldn't lie.

Mental gymnastics....

Joseph Smith apparently passed through all three degrees of Freemasonry, and then ripped off the Masonic ceremonies for his own fraudulent operation--it is so completely obvious, if you familiar with both sets of rituals.

To learn that he justified his rip-offs to people who spotted them even at the time, in the same way he justified his church-creating and Bible-rewriting --- "I'm RESTORING what they all got wrong since ancient times" -- truly comes as no surprise. Claim that your VICTIM is the one who's ACTUALLY in the wrong...the defense of shameless, sociopathic fraudsters since forever.

Masonry 'seems to have been a Stepping Stone or Preparation for something else,' referring to the endowment.

i like that one Joe, a stepping stone, we all know how you go for stones. seer stone, stepping stone,,,,,whatever. this is even better than claiming he didn't copy from the masons, he joined the masons and just happened onto the "stepping stone"

straight from the mormon article dancing around their explanation:

Kimball wrote of the endowment, noting that 'there is a similarity of priesthood in masonry.' He told Pratt that Joseph believed Masonry was 'taken from priesthood but has become degenerated.' Joseph Fielding, another endowed Latter-day Saint and a Mason, noted similarly in his journal that Masonry 'seems to have been a Stepping Stone or Preparation for something else,' referring to the endowment.

Masonry 'seems to have been a Stepping Stone or Preparation for something else,' referring to the endowment.

i like that one Joe, a stepping stone, we all know how you go for stones. seer stone, stepping stone,,,,,whatever. this is even better than claiming he didn't copy from the masons, he joined the masons and just happened onto the "stepping stone"

straight from the mormon article dancing around their explanation:

Kimball wrote of the endowment, noting that 'there is a similarity of priesthood in masonry.' He told Pratt that Joseph believed Masonry was 'taken from priesthood but has become degenerated.' Joseph Fielding, another endowed Latter-day Saint and a Mason, noted similarly in his journal that Masonry 'seems to have been a Stepping Stone or Preparation for something else,' referring to the endowment.

Aren't pampers a stepping stone for depends?

someone forgot to mention the Kirtland Anti-Banking Society!

(is the rumor of a chest 'filled with ("genuine") coins / money shown to potential investors documented?)

Remember, Simon Says....

er.... Joey says!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2019 04:48PM by GNPE.

Just seeing Michael Ash being quoted in the link made my head hurt.

dunnanddone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm a both a Temple Endowed Mormon and a
> Freemason.

Thus, you've been well done twice by rebungnified sister cults.

Both scams were crafted by the same Masonic conspiracy long ago set up to entice the gullible masses.

These are cults designed to ensnare men and get hold of their souls and cash.

I Hope you can somehow disentangle yourself from their bogus schemes and live as a free man.

In what context do secret handshakes and bloody oaths of secrecy best fit?

Do such things make more sense in a secret society of people who secretly help each other advance in society and use positions of power and public responsibility to illegitimately favor fellow secret society members (at the expense of outsiders)?

OR...

As part of a set of rituals that supposedly were set up by an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful god who has no need for secrecy of any kind and whose sole purpose is to give light, knowledge and wisdom to all who are pure of heart?

If a Mormon can't honestly answer that and get the OBVIOUS correct answer, I know that they're not ready to be honest about their belief system.

There was a time in Utah where Mormons were banned from being Masons, until sometime in the mid to later 1970's when that changed.

My maternal grandfather was a lifelong Mason who spent his adulthood in Utah. He detested Mormons with a passion. So much so, I highly suspect he may have been part of the reason behind the ban on Mormons being allowed to become Masons until well after he died in 1973. Only after then was the ban lifted.

Grandpa was buried with full Masonic rites. May he R.I.P.

He didn't speak to my mother for 14 years after she converted to Mormonism, until on his deathbed. It probably about broke her heart he did that, but that was typical of grandpa as he was that passionate about his dislike for Mormonism. If that gives you any idea about how obstinate he was toward the ban on Mormons being able to become Masons for as long as he lived!

All my ancestors joined the church when Joseph was alive, my family stuck with it and were very TBM and I never had a reason to doubt, then I ran into this issue.

Repeatedly on my mission, when contacting non-members, I heard the accusations that the Mormon temple ceremony ripped off masonry. I was told by my trainer that it was because both were secret, involved oaths and handshakes and used aprons. I was told that they were baseless accusations and the temple endowment ceremony wasn’t similar to masonry. I believe that and didn’t doubt or look into anything that could be considered antagonist to the church. Years later, I was walking through a book store and saw a book written by a mason in the 1800s, called Duncan’s Ritual, detailing the entire Masonic ceremony. The book didn’t even mention Mormonism, so I figured it was safe to buy to disprove the anti-Mormon accusations. Wow!!! I was blown away. My shelf immediately broke and couldn’t be repaired.

Here is what I noticed was plagiarized by Joseph:

Wrapping of the mallet, aprons, symbols, seeking light and knowledge.
The penalties
Most of the handshakes
Most of the signs
The position of the temple robes
Five points of fellowship
Ideas of the oaths, obey rules of masonry, loyalty to masonry, definition and ban of inappropriate sexual relations.
Similarly wording of the tests at the veil and the tests given to masons with each degree.

It’s so obvious that it’s a rip off of masonry that I couldn’t believe Mormonism after that. The book is now on archive.org. Here is the link to check it out yourself.

https://archive.org/details/DuncansMasonicRitualAndMonitorOfFreemasonryComplete18663rdEd/page/n64