Posted by:
Slippery Treasures
(
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Date: February 03, 2019 11:23PM
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