So, there you are; a worthy, temple going devoutly true believing Mormon who has endured to the end. sat in the celestial room after yet another session. You rise, get the top of the staircase, trip and fall head over heels to your death.

When you get to the pearly gates, the angels ask you for the secret names, signs and handshakes.

Whoops, you can't remember them. Will you still get in?

Your brother, a complete apostate who left the Church under a cloud, denounced the Holy Ghost and was an active Mormon, dies at the exact same moment as you.

Difference is, he can remember all that secret stuff. Does he get in?

You'll get to the veil and offer the first token of the Aaronic Priesthood and the Lord will be like, "um...are you sure?"

Just sayin'!

as symbols in the belief system. That is universal. Every religion has it's symbols that represent certain beliefs and adherence to them.

Human beings are very adept at creating a life after they die that suits their beliefs. The fun part is it's not limited to someone else's ideas. We can make up our own!

Have a little fun, imagining what life is like after we die, without a body, presuming there is a life after we die, of course.

I haven't ever found any factual evidence, so that leaves it open to human imagination that is never lacking in that department.

So, why not create your own heaven!?

...The problem, of course, is that they don't know what they're symbolic of. I guess that's one of the reasons behind that "too sacred to talk about, uh, yeah, yeah yeah...too sacred to talk about, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah" song and dance routine they go into anytime somebody starts asking too many questions.

There are a few who think and think and think about it really hard and come up with their own interpretation of what the symbolism means. Problem is that all of the ones who do that usually come up with wildly different interpretations.

Absent the fact that everyone in Mormondumb is embarassed about the temple ritual content because they (deep down) really don't have a clue and aren't willing to face the fact that Joseph Smith simply ripped off Masonic secret-society signs and tokens for use in his own super-secret polygamy club, nobody can really explain why any of it should be "too sacred" to talk about openly.

Joseph Smith introduced the handshakes (borrowed and adapted from Masonry) a few weeks after he, himself became a Master Mason. Along with the handshakes were their name, sign and penalty, also borrowed from Masonry.

They all made sense in terms of the medieval guild system. Back then there was no way to authenticate someone's credentials. You couldn't e-mail some organization to check and written documents could be forged or stolen.

So the guilds had secret signs that the members learned at each level. Let's say you are a Mason and show up to help build a cathedral or a castle. How do they know you are a member of the Mason's guild? How do they know what level of proficiency you have attained? If you are not competent the building you work on may collapse.

Let's say you claim to be a member of the Mason's Guild who has reached the level of "Fellow Craft Mason." Then the "project engineer" takes you into a private room and you give the secret handshakes, signs, names and penalties associated with the rank of Fellow Craft Mason. This proves you are the real deal.

Of course in such a system secrecy is of paramount importance. That is why there were penalties associated with each token and sign. That is why you would, as part of Guild ritual, symbolically slit your throat or symbolically disembowel yourself while promising never to reveal these things under penalty of "having my throat cut from ear to ear and my tongue torn out by the roots." This last phrase was borrowed verbatim from Masonry into the Endowment. In the 1920s is was changed to "suffer my life to be taken." In 1990 it was eliminated altogether in the Endowment.

In the Medieval Guild System all this makes perfect sense. In a religious/Christian context it makes no sense at all.

Oh, and by the way, even Masonic Historians have debunked the claim (common in Joseph Smith's day) that Masonic ceremonies dated back to Solomon's Temple.

In the context of an supposedly omniscient god deciding who will get to heaven or not, nothing could be as silly as some secret handshake. Such things only makes sense for secret clubs led by non-omniscient men, and even there they are pretty silly.

I can imagine it now- The level one apprentice who only knows the first handshake builds the firewood lean-to in the back. The level fifteen master mason who knows all the passwords and handshakes builds the flying buttresses in the cathedral. The foreman is the grandmaster who sorts them all out.

Not to mention the fact that what went on in Solomon's Temple(goat barbeques) is all spelled out in the Old Testament.

Yes, so bring a goat if you don't know.

Isn't it a wonder we all just jumped into this restoration business no questions asked.

Idk how it all happened. I just feel stupid!

They made sense at one time. Now days we do background checks! :-)

real?

If so, the Jews should be doing it too right?

And honestly I have heard nor seen of it.

And what I have read shows NO SUCH thing.

So yeah....hmmmm!

The one thing about the handshakes...as has been noted, they are symbolic, but I could never figure out WHAT they were symbolic of. I mean letting someone put a finger over the first and second knuckle on the hand? What?