I have heard that the Mormon temple ceremony is basically stolen from the Masons. Is this true? If so, what specifically? The symbolism, handshakes, dress, what? Where can I find some good information on this? Thanks!

I personally like mormonthink.com for mormon stuff here is the link. Good luck http://mormonthink.com/templeweb.htm. Personally I don't think that website gets enough traffic...

This gives a good side by side comparison.
http://packham.n4m.org/mason-endow.htm

Large parts of the mormon temple ceremony are word for word identical to the masonic ceremony.

If you know the LDS secret handshakes, check out these Masonic handshakes:
http://www.ephesians5-11.org/handshakes.htm

There's also a good article in this 1994 Diaglogue:
http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=17325&REC=5

That's amazing! I always thought it was lifted from the Keebler Elves given the baker's hat attire required.

Just sayin'...

Ron

I don't know your situation, but if you are a member and want to stay a believer, be careful.

Of course, if truth is more important to you than it is to the leaders of THE CHURCH, then keep on reading and power to you.

I don't know how the apologists can keep a straight face when they proudly declare that old Joe didn't steal anything from the Masons. "He simply restored the fullness of those ceremonies". Yeah.... whatever...


Stunted.

This doesn't need to end anyone's "church career". If you want a good apologist perspective on it listen to this podcast by greg kearney http://mormonstories.org/?p=14. He does a very good job at handling it actually. He is a mormon and a mason and is very honest about the issue. I think it is the least of the churches issues. He seperates the presentation of the endowment from the endowment proper; or what is being taught. The presentation of the endowment IS LARGELY MASONIC, what is being taught is not. It is a fascinating interview and I would recommend it to anyone who has the time.

If you are not someone who has left the church and you do not want to and this issue bothers you listen to this first. Any of the mormonstories podcasts are awesome by the way. John Dehlin is a great guy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2010 02:28PM by evolution.

evolution Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This doesn't need to end anyone's "church career".
> If you want a good apologist perspective on it
> listen to this podcast by greg kearney
> http://mormonstories.org/?p=14. He does a very
> good job at handling it actually. He is a mormon
> and a mason and is very honest about the issue. I
> think it is the least of the churches issues. He
> seperates the presentation of the endowment from
> the endowment proper; or what is being taught.
> The presentation of the endowment IS LARGELY
> MASONIC, what is being taught is not. It is a
> fascinating interview and I would recommend it to
> anyone who has the time.
>
> If you are not someone who has left the church and
> you do not want to and this issue bothers you
> listen to this first. Any of the mormonstories
> podcasts are awesome by the way. John Dehlin is a
> great guy.

So, is this like the BOA, where "the presentation" is largely (actually, entirely) Egyptian, but what is being "taught", is not?

Theater of the absurd...

Sorry what I was saying is that COMPARED TO things like the Book of Abraham, the historocity of the book of mormon, polygamy, Joseph Smith himself, the first vision, adam-god theory, blood atonement, Brigham young not giving blacks the priesthood, and a million other things...the use of masonry in the temples is much easier to defend THAN those things.

That is what I was trying to say, just to clarify. I'm not saying it isn't an issue, definitely JS took the endowment from masonry I'm not arguing that at all, I'm just saying that compared to other things it is, to me, a small one if you listen to the mormonstories podcast.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2010 06:12PM by evolution.

Of course it doesn't help that the temple ceremonies appear to have been lifted. But there are so many great reasons to leave the church. I never went through the temple other than to get sealed to my father and stepmother as a child and didn't find all this stuff out until long after I had left.

All the violation of personal boundaries, abuse of trust, accepting money from poor people to enrich what is essentially a corporation. Then there's the whole god thing. There isn't one. ALL the religions are untrue. Some of them provide some emotional benefit but most do not. And there are some that do nothing but take from people who can ill afford to give, financially as well as emotionally. The LDS church is in that category in my mind.

This was the "sure sign of the nail" for me with regard to mormonism being a fraud. I was not bothered in the slightest that they used the masonic framework to teach hidden and higher truths, or that they removed them when they discovered the symbols no longer had the same meaning with the modern audience.

What bothered me is that they did not replace them with anything, they just dropped them. So they do not have discernment, they don't know how to prophesy, they don't see anything, they are afraid to revelate, and they have no concept of eternal cosmology.

Oh and they don't know how to run businesses either, so what they hell are they getting their ministerial stipend for? Oh, that's right. Old widow stories and global diminished self worth and guilt. I forgot.

Sorry my post was dumb earlier. I was just saying for me it wasn't as big of an issue. I hit that issue pretty early in my crisis of faith, and I had it handled by I felt like a good apologist. Don't get me wrong it made me think less of the endowment (not that I had that high of an opinion of it anyways), but compared to all the other crap I found out about I didn't mind the masonry issue near as much. But that is just me, I definitely understand people who are bothered by it, but a lot of people know about it.

My mom still thought the old "masons got part of the endowment from solomon's temple" myth till a couple weeks ago, until she got excited about this BYU opera called the magic flute which is about masons. She brought up the myth and I told her it wasn't true, I told her masonry started in the 900s ad, and I even gave her a good apologist perspective on why JS may have used it to be nice to her (I am young and I haven't left the church YET, although I am definitely going to soon.) Anyways I think she believed me, and she went to the opera and BYU handed out a pamphlet on the opera and it had a few paragraphs on free masonry and it said that "Freemasonry began with guilds of stone makers and cathedral builders IN THE MIDDLE AGES." So as much as I hate a lot of things about BYU at least maybe it cleared up that dumb legend for some people.

But there certainly still is some stuff. Clearly JS stole large chunks for his new ritual from the Masons.

JS Sr. and Hyrum were both Masons in the NY days.

There's an old Mormon Stories podcast that discusses the relationship between Mo-ism and Masonry and it deals with the Temple. As I recall there are few if any specifics but Greg Kearney the guest is both an active Mormon and a Mason.

http://mormonstories.org/?p=14

Stunted is right though— if you want to still believe, be careful what you go looking for. In my view true-believing-Mormonism and accurate history don't mix too well.

Yeah the blood oaths were from the masons and the "5 points of fellowship" were from the masons.

rather than later.

I worry if I hadn't seen it for myself I may have taken a while to accept that things like the 5 points or the penalties were for real. Straight from Masonry.

Also my family had little issue discussing generalities about the temple ceremonies so I knew there was some sort of serious oath that participants made.

Still I've run into younger TBMs online that doubt such thongs were real. They write them off as "anti lies."

It's kinda funny whan you think about it.

The prophet can't even get an original ceremony! Despite bringing the gospel out of obscurity, he needs to use the most obscure ceremony to copy for his own.

Several years ago, my first major WTF moment came when a new member finally went through the temple for the first time. Two weeks later he resigned his membership. When asked why, he said he was a Freemason and we had stolen the ceremony.

Couple that with my Bornagainst coworker who liked to show me how evil the masons were, and the sudden realization that I had those evil marks on my undies...I soon began to consider very heavily that I was just an overglorified Freemason.

Of course, my Bishop said it was BS, and my High Council Rep said it was interesting, but that we make eternally binding covenants and that is what really matters, but my WTF shelf groaned and creaked under that weight for a long time.

Not only is it mostly from the Masons, but it was of course ripped off from them without proper accreditation. In other words, it was stolen. Does a Prophet of God do that? How does one reconcile thievery with the character of a supposed prophet? Would any of the Apostles from the Bible (apart from Judas the traitor) do that?

Blindly excusing all of the stolen temple rites (and dozens of other documented lies, distortions, changes, and wicked activity by JS et.al) is the end result of a belief system that teaches that God was once a man. It goes like this: God was once a man, and of course men sin, so he must have sinned at one time. Hence it is okay that the originating "prophet" is a thief and a liar, because no one is perfect, at least not until they become a god.

Yep, it was one the first things to seriously make me question whether the church was inspired of God. I was familiar with the masonic ceremony, and so when I went through the endowment for the first time, all I could think was, "Joseph Smith ripped this off from the masons!"

Definitely agree that no accreditation was given to the masons. Although when did JS ever give credit to Ethan Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Solomon Spalding, or anyone else that helped keep the ideas coming?