Ever since the introduction of the Mormons temple endowment ceremony in 1842, similarities between the sacred LDS ritual and the Masonic rituals for the Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason have been commented upon.

One element in particular was very similar – the penalties assigned for violating oaths of secrecy. While the penalties were removed from the LDS temple ceremony in 1990, they were a prominent part of the ritual for over a century and many men and women today remember their use.

But just how similar were these components of Mormon and Masonic ritual?

BBC to the Rescue

The secret nature of each have historically made it difficult to compare. Several years ago the BBC created a multi-part documentary on Freemasonry. As part of that documentary, and with the assistance of Master Masons, they recreated scenes from the masonic ceremonies depicting the penalties. This gives us a reliable source to examine those elements.

Non-essential

Since the penalties have been eliminated completely from the Mormon Temple ceremony they cannot be said to have been essential to the purpose and efficacy of the ceremony. As non-essential components, they do not have the sacred character of the names, signs and tokens that each faithful temple goer promises to never reveal. Because of this, it would not be a violation of the temple oath to review those penalties.

1984

In 1984 a sub rosa audio recording of the LDS temple endowment was made. By extracting only those non-essential parts of the recording which refer to the penalty and were subsequently removed or significantly altered we are able to compare the similarities between LDS and Masonic ritual on the question of the penalties without violating Mormon covenants.

To be clear, a Mormon going through the endowment ceremony today promises to never reveal certain specific elements of the ceremony. These are special names, signs (postures of the hands and body) and tokens (special handgrips). This post and the video below do not violate those promises. The church itself has started openly discussing and showing elements related to the temple ceremony. It recently published video of the garments as well as the Temple Robes on the Mormon Newsroom website and Youtube channel. Both the garment and temple robes are essential parts of the Temple ceremony, however no promise is made to never disclose them. Temple robes are also publicly displayed in LDS funerals, as the deceased is clothed in the robes for burial.

Comparison

It is now possible to compare the reenactments of the freemasonry ritual with the audio recordings of the now removed and non-secret portions of the 1984 LDS temple ceremony to see just how similar they are. The following video does just that:

As you can see, critics who claim that Joseph Smith appropriated elements from Freemasonry in the original endowment ceremony have credible reasons for their claims. These are not the only similarities.

Conclusion

While Mormons today who are unfamiliar with Masonic ritual may be surprised to see these similarities, there were a large number of men in Nauvoo at the time of the introduction of the endowment who were Freemasons at the time. These similar elements would be very familiar to them and Joseph is recorded as having acknowledged a connection between Masonry and the Endowment. (This will be the subject of a future post so stay tuned)

While critics accuse Joseph of simply plagiarizing Masonic elements and re-tooling them with his own theological foundation and goals, faithful Mormons aware of these connections are usually adamant that Joseph did not “steal” Masonic ritual, but rather used the ready vocabulary and symbolism to convey a very different message and purpose using familiar ritual elements. It is important to these Mormons to draw this distinction because to have the Endowment ceremony be derivative of and originate from an archaic fraternal society, rather than divine revelation, would be an unacceptable proposition.

I agree.

Resources

BBC Documentary Series on Freemasonry: youtube.com

Audio recording of 1984 Temple Ceremony: youtube.com

Video from inside endowment room: lds.org