Today while following a link, I became entwined in Google research on Secret Societies in America and Europe. Although Mormonism was never mentioned in the discussion of Freemasons, Illuminati, Knights Templar, Skull & Bones, etc...I found much of the signs, symbols, and imagery so similar to the Mormon temple.

Then I saw this image on this link (not the top one....go 2/3 down the page).
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2016/secret-societies/

It was an OMG moment. Other than the color, it was just like the alters in the Mormon temple endowment and sealing rooms...even with chairs for spectators/witnesses.

It just confirms it was all copied...and a cult!

I was a Masonic “Rainbow” girl at 16-17. When I went through the temple at 23, I thought—-I’ve done this before.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2021 10:31AM by kathleen.

Kathleen, do you know what the difference is between Rainbow Girls and Job's Daughters?

The big difference used to be how you could join. To be a Job’s Daughter you had to be related to a Mason. Rainbow allowed sponsorship.

There was also the fact that in many states there was one or the other. In Minnesota we did not have any Rainbow Assemblies until I was an adult. We had 93 Bethels when I was in Job’s Daughters.

Even when I was a naive eighteen year old getting prepped to "take out your endowments" that cute saying 'It's not secret, it's sacred' set off my BS alarm.
Isn't swearing not to tell anyone the very definition of secret?

The BOM Gadiantons were modeled after the Masons. Anti-Masonic sentiment reached its height in the mid-1820s, when the BOM was being written. The Anti-Masonic political party was formed in Joseph's Smith's stomping grounds (upstate New York) in 1828. One of the reasons for the creation of the party was the disappearance of William Morgan, a prominent Mason apostate in upstate NY, whose widow later became a plural wife of JS. Masons bad = Gadiantons.

Years later, Smith joined the Masons. Suddenly, Masons good and have nothing to do with Gadiantons. Smith felt free to copy Masonic stuff for his own purposes and jam them into the temple.

William Morgan's widow became one of JS's wives.

I am not sure what the significance of this is.

Ya...I ready about the Anti-Mason party/movement yesterday. But I was not aware of the William Morgan incident...or his widow. Wow!

Here's the details from Wikipedia (William Morgan):
"Members of Freemasonry criticized the Mormons for their adoption of Masonic rituals and regalia.[52] In 1830, Morgan's widow, Lucinda Pendleton Morgan, married George W. Harris of Batavia, a silversmith who was 20 years older.[13] After they moved to the Midwest, they became Mormons.[13] By 1837, some historians believe that Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris had become one of the plural wives of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.[53] She continued to live with George Harris.[13] After Smith was murdered in 1844, she was "sealed" to him for eternity in a rite of the church.[13] By 1850, the Harrises had separated.[13] When George Harris died in 1860, he had been excommunicated from the Mormons after ceasing to practice with them.[13] That year, Lucinda Morgan Harris was reported to have joined the Catholic Sisters of Charity in Memphis, Tennessee, where she worked at the Leah Asylum. She had been widowed three times.[13] In 1841, the Mormons announced their vicarious baptism of William Morgan after his death, as one of the first under their new rite to posthumously offer people entrance into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

As a BYU freshman nevermo who had voraciously studied everything I could get my hands on about Mormonism, I found myself in George Durant's BOM class. At some point, he put a lot of emphasis on the wickedness of "secret combinations" and explained what those would entail.

It was some time later that I found out about the details of the Mormon Temple ceremony and lights were flashing left and right about the fact that, indeed, the ceremony had all the hallmarks of the secret combinations the esteemed professor had warned us against.

#breakingshelves

Not only is the altar the same, there are similarities in the costumes, and some of the wording is copied verbatim (return and report, we will go down).

The excuse of course was that the Masons stole it from Solomon’s temple, that they helped build. In reality, they went back a few centuries, not three millennia.

The technical term for accusing someone else of doing exactly what you yourself did is “projection”.

Back when I attended the temple, I rationalized that Satan created all those other cults to try and make us ~think~ the temple was cultish. Riiiigght.

This was the standard answer I got when ever I brought up any similarities between "pagan" religions and Christianity or anything and mormonism.

Collegiate fraternities and sororities borrowed from the Masons as well.

Freemasonry started in England in the early 1700’s as a fraternity based on the old mid evil stone cutting guilds and the legend of the Knights Templars discovering the secrets of Solomon’s temple.

The stone mason guilds became politically powerful because they were needed to build complicated stone structures. They had the mathematical and building secrets and swore oaths of secrecy.

The American revolution was successful because masons used their secret network to pass information and freemasonry was so well established in England and America that the crown would never break it up.

So one purpose of masonry is to keep secrets secure. Joseph and Brigham borrowed that concept.

In the 1830s and beyond, Freemasonry-based clubs and societies were rampant. Every adult male belonged to at least one, and often several.

It is frequently claimed that the Masons were angry at Smith for stealing their ceremonies. I propose that they were angrier about his sexual predation independent of his co-opting of their rituals.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2021 09:50PM by slskipper.

The problem with mormon masonic lodges was the number of members and the speed they were promoting people.

Joseph was a third level mason within a week of joining.

I read several accounts of the masons taking away the charters of the mormon lodges because one lodge had more members than the other non mormon lodges combined.

I think they had a valid concern the mormons would take over masonry is several counties.

Joseph ripped off the Masons and they remembered. For years no Mormons were allowed in my home town’s local lodge. Apparently Joseph gave the Masonic distress call before he fell out the window to his death. I’m sure the Masons watching it all go down we’re thinking “FU A-Hole!”

I didn't really think about the Mason/Mormon connection till I walked past a Masonic temple in my neighborhood and looked at the symbols on the building. They were the same symbols stitched into the temple garments: a square and compass, both tools of the stone cutting (masonry) trade. Why the F are stone mason tools stitched into garments? I think it would be much more appropriate to have a cross - a recognized christian symbol- stitched into the garments than stone cutter tools.

Joseph was just copying the masons. He wasn't creative enough to come up with something original.

Interesting that Mason and Mormon both start with the letter "M" and end in "on." Coincidence? Maybe he wanted them to sound similar.

As outta the cult and Finance Clerk note, JS started Mormonism as an anti-Masonic church. The Masons were indeed the basis for the Gadianton Robbers and all the prophesies about "secret combinations." That he would later become a Mason and expropriate their ceremonies is another of the many ironies of LDS doctrine.

Maybe this was a way to get acceptance in the wider world of resistance to their Restoration?

EB,

As you know, Free Masonry was in the 1820s hugely unpopular in frontier America, being viewed as a sort of anti-American and anti-democratic "new world order." The Morgan murder in 1826 intensified that anti-Masonic paranoia, which received another fillip when Andrew Jackson, who was a Grand Master and perceived as an aspiring tyrant, was elected president in 1829.

I don't think JS was intentionally trying to enhance his credibility with the "secret combinations" stuff. My guess is he was caught up in the same passions as everyone else, particularly after the Morgan affair. That his ideas resonated so deeply in a religious way was probably another of those serendipities from which his career benefited greatly.

But anti-masonry diminished considerably as time passed and especially after Jackson left office in 1837 and JS soon came to see the social advantages--and later the opportunities for plagiarism--proffered by the organization. His purported relationship/polygamous marriage to Morgan's widow may have encouraged him further to explore Masonry.

So my hunch is that JS was simply writing and teaching things that, like the revivalism and restorationism and anti-Catholicism, were all around him. Creating a religion like Mormonism requires a syncretic mind but also a lot a lot of luck and a lack of principle--like using anti-Masonry to gain power and then adopting Masonry to enhance that influence.

Hyrum Smith was a mason. He joined the craft in Palmyria. There were some anti-Masonic movements in the 19th century but I never read any accounts of Joseph being anti-Mason.

The Smith family practiced folk magic. It was popular in the day. Joseph had a reputation of being a good douser. Dousing is when you hold two rods loosely in your hands and when you cross water in the ground the rods move.

Dowsers were hired to find the spot to dig a well. Joseph was hired because some people thought he could douse for buried treasure or gold in the ground.

There was great excitement due to the Erie Canal opening up the west and Palmyria was right on the canal. The Mormon Church grew out of this excitement and some of the silly beliefs at the time. Joseph exploited his reputation of being a good douser into building a whole church fueled by the excitement of a new magical land of opportunity, buried treasures, magic and the native Americans being lost Hebrews.

The blue lodge of Masonry, which is the common entry group for all adult male Masonic organizations,states candidates for initiation must believe in God or a Supreme Being, not Jesus.
My family has been Masonic for generations and my father told me
that Christianity is not a requirement for membership and they will actually place the holy book of a non-Christian candidate's religion on the altar when they are initiated, if the initiate so requests. Once a candidate becomes a Master Mason, they can then join many other specialized Masonic groups, some of which are Christian. Our local Shrine club had several Jewish members.

The LDS temple is like a fraternity initiation. You pledge loyalty to your frat. They give you a new name. You get the secret handshakes. It’s all based off of free masonry. People love being part of secretive and exclusive groups.

We got into Club 33 at Disneyland. You ring the buzzer, you state your name and say you have a reservation. They open the door and you are escorted upstairs where you eat at a nice buffet and look down at all the people who can’t get in or even know it’s there.

33 companies that helped Walt finance Disneyland. You have to remember people thought Walt was nuts. You have to be an employee of one of these 33 company’s to get access to Club 33. The private club is Disney’s way of thanking the investors who took a chance because without them, there would be no Disneyland.

The temple is the church’s exclusive club. Some of the members love having that special card that grants them access. Then the mother of special clubs is the second anointing given to the most loyal members. Mormonism is all about loyalty to the organization. Special clubs are a great way to cement loyalty.

Discussion of this topic always reminds me of the Masonic handshake picture of Hinckley meeting George W Bush. Can't count the number if times I have met people who use one of the handshakes. Usually I give no reaction.

And yeah, the similarities are glaring. I've done the same at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, to the same effect.

When you see the public face that the Masons want you to see, it's still obvious that Smith cribbed the whole damn thing.

Tyson

Ex Mo and 32nd degree Freemason here. I was a Mormon for most of my life. Left 7 years ago. Been a Freemason for 30 years. here's my take on all this:


Yes, JS cribbed it. Adopted it is more accurate. The history between the early Mormons and Freemasonry is fascinating. In a nutshell, both Hiram and JS Senior were Freemasons. Anti-Masonry was rampant in upstate New York. After the Mormons moved to Missouri and founded Nauvoo JS was made a "mason at sight" by the Grand Master (master of the Grand Lodge of Illinois - every US state has one) - a privilege that only the Grand Master can bestow. At the time, Mormons were a powerful voting block and Nauvoo was fast becoming the second largest city in the state after Chicago. A few weeks after his being made a mason at sight (ok I need to explain - being a made a "mason at sight" means that you don't have to actually learn the very long ritual work - all the pluses without any of the pain), JS was initiated, passed, and raised (the first 3 degrees), which means that he witnessed the ritual work first-hand for the first time. A few weeks after that, he claimed that an angel revealed the rituals to him (which were super Masonic, with a few exceptions). He advised the 12 and early brethren to join lodges. Possible reason was that he wanted more political influence/be recognized as legit and turn down the heat against Mormons. JS was uber political. He just used the Fraternity for his own ends. After a while (don't remember exactly how long) he started founding lodges without charters from the Grand Lodge of Illinois - a huge no-no (Lodges require a charter (permission) from the Grand Lodge to be considered legit) So, all lodges in Nauvoo were suspended (kicked out), and their members no longer considered Masons.

The long and short of all this is that the temple ritual derived from Masonic ritual, even though (of course) the early leaders claimed that they had "the priesthood" and the "true ritual." When the Mormons arrived in Salt Lake they didn't start lodges, which indicates that it was just a means to an end in Illinois, IMHO. The Grand Lodge of Utah excluded Mormons until the 1990's I think (maybe earlier - there was a lot of bad blood because of the Nauvoo fiasco), but rescinded the ban. Mormons may join Masonic lodges freely now, although Mormon leaders (in my experience) strongly discourage it.

We Freemasons are a bunch of freethinkers, and religious dogma/authority doesn't sit well with us. There's nothing anti-Mormon in Lodges - the worst I've seen is some eye-rolling if you mention Mormonism. And yes, seeing the similarities was one of the books that ultimately broke my bookshelf - but just one. And no, I'm not going into any more details about Masonic rituals. I thought of doing a lodge education night about Mormon temple rituals, but we don't discuss religion in lodges, so I never actually did.