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The first time I went through the temple was in 1969 just before I left to go on my mission. It was in the St. George, Utah temple where they still had live actors then. The endowment ceremony was unusual for me and did not know what to think of it. I guess I felt like I was being anointed for godhood or being a queen someday in Heaven which I liked but felt vulnerable with how it was carried out. Once it came to the covenants and commitments it was all very strange to me but also felt it was symbolism to help you remember the purposes of this life and prepare for the next stage in Heaven. I have always liked the law of eternal progression, and that we are little gods in embryo. I would think about how Adam and Eve were asked why they were giving animal sacrifice and building an altar and they said they knew not. Jesus also told the one leper to go bathe in the dirty Jordan river 7 times and did not understand why. So, if you have faith this is from God then you can trust and go ahead with it. My husband, who was a convert at 23 and went through the St. George temple in 1973 felt like he had just gone through a Klu Klux Klan meeting after hearing the penalties and oaths. Sometimes we would do washings and annointing for an hour before our session but it all felt kind of crazy to us. So, we often fasted and prayed before going to the temple so we could get a testimony of this work. It never came and we did not enjoy the ceremony. We did go talk to a lds church historian in our ward about it and he told us that we have to remember that this was the wild west time and you had to really scare people to keep their mouths shut. I remember a young man who I taught in the Investigators class got baptized and I went through a session with him. Later, I asked him how it was for him and he gave me this look, like…so weird. I always wondered whether people who talked about how wonderful it was, were saying it just because it was the thing to do like in the story, “The emperor has no clothes.” Without a testimony of this church or temple work, I do not think it is beneficial. But, if you do have a testimony, I am sure it feels right. This is important because just going along with something can get you to follow cult leaders, like Jim Jones, Jeff Warren, or the Waco Texas fiasco. I like this group because we respect each others experiences. Roy wrote:Old-Timer wrote:The difference between how the wording was in the LDS temple and how it is in Masonic ritual is a GREAT example of how Joseph took things and altered them to fit his own theology. The oaths are radically different, and the central issue is that many people have assumed the meaning of the temple rituals was the same as the Masonic rituals.
They are two very different oaths.
I agree with you completely about the wording used in the penalty phase (bad pun
👿 ) after 1930. I believe that an unbiased reading of the words themselves would support your premise. But I do still believe that the word “penalty” is a holdover from the masonic origen. Had I been included in the committee that made the 1930 changes, I would have recommended replacing the word “penalty” with “solemn oath,” “promise of resolve,” or “oath of conviction” (nod to mom3).I don’t think the difference is all that great. The masonic version is graphic verbally but in the earlier temple version the verbal is softer i.e.” rather than reveal the …I would suffer … my life…to be taken” with the demonstration depicting graphically the way life might be taken.
GBSmith wrote:I don’t think the difference is all that great. The masonic version is graphic verbally but in the earlier temple version the verbal is softer i.e.” rather than reveal the …I would suffer … my life…to be taken” with the demonstration depicting graphically the way life might be taken.
The temple penalty wording prior to 1930 was even more explicit.
Roy wrote:GBSmith wrote:I don’t think the difference is all that great. The masonic version is graphic verbally but in the earlier temple version the verbal is softer i.e.” rather than reveal the …I would suffer … my life…to be taken” with the demonstration depicting graphically the way life might be taken.
The temple penalty wording prior to 1930 was even more explicit.
Yes, my understanding is in the “old” days (pre 1930) had wording nearly identical to the Masonic ritual.
Reading this thread has stirred up old memories of stories that I think went around (in some circles at least) in the early 70s or before of how apostates that revealed sacred temple elements ended up dying in strange accidents. (Some details were given that are fuzzy to me and I don’t care to repeat.) Now that I say that it makes sense to me that stories may have continued from the 1800’s, I can certainly see things like that spreading around frontier Utah.
Mormon myth are among the worst, but most pervasive, sources of “doctrine” Missionaries drowning, 3 Nephites, 16thC catholic priests prophesying.
If you treat the temple endowment as symbolic of accepting Jesus as the messiah, determining to live by his gospel, and remaining true and faithful in order to enter the presence of God (both in this life and the next), then the “penalties” just become part of the general symbolism. Also, the changes over time don’t matter, if taken in that light. If anything, the church has been TOO SLOW in modernizing the rite, so I’m not going to cry foul that they have modernized it at all. On Own Now wrote:If you treat the temple endowment as symbolic of accepting Jesus as the messiah, determining to live by his gospel, and remaining true and faithful in order to enter the presence of God (both in this life and the next), then the “penalties” just become part of the general symbolism. Also, the changes over time don’t matter, if taken in that light. If anything, the church has been TOO SLOW in modernizing the rite, so I’m not going to cry foul that they have modernized it at all.
Well Said!!! We can modernize the rite, the garment, and allow symbolic interpretations.
:angel: Thank you so much everyone for taking the time to discuss this topic. I still find it odd why it has to be odd symbolism. I guess I still need to process this. It wasn’t odd when it was instituted. It is now, which is why some of it has been removed. Try to remember that it isn’t odd to a lot of members, especially the older generations.
The best resource I found in resolving many of the temple symbolism changes and masonic similarity questions is when I listened to one of the earliest Mormon Stories podcasts with Brother Kearney. A master free mason and a full believing Mormon. Essentially he describes that there is no question whatsoever that JS borrowed many of these symbols from free masonry as a vehicle or delivery system to teach eternal truth to a population that was largely illiterate. It could be interchanged with boyscout signs or any other delivery mode if JS felt he could of conveyed the truths the Lord wanted us to learn that way. It is the covenants themselves that are eternal…the contents inside the “vehicle” that are to be focused on, not the delivery method itself .. or the changes to that vehicle. For me, all Temple Change Concerns faded away nearly over night with that single Podcast. Many other resolution of faith questions on other issues have not come near as easy however. Old-Timer wrote:Veiling faces is a cultural artifact that I hope is changed at some point. Seriously, it’s cultural, not eternal in any way.
It’s hard for most men to realize how hard it is for many women, and any positive symbolism that might have existed in the past has been lost in our modern culture.I don’t like veiling. Maybe there is something about it in the books that cover the period before 1846. But, fwiw, on page 100 in Devery Anderson’s “The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000”:
President Lorenzo Snow informed me he had not been able to obtain information why women were required to veil their faces when at prayer in the Temple. — Samuel W. Richards diary, Sept. 12, 1894Samuel RIchards isn’t a principal character in the history and there’s no context given.
Having participated in Freemasonry now for some years one of the reasons I joined was to gain those items (even if in part) that I was not able to receive having been a post 1990 endowed member. Those penalty signs before they are issued in a Masonic Temple are explained to the candidate to be purely symbolic and symbolize the fact that we would “rather those things happen to us then divulge our secrets and hidden mysteries”. To top it off I feel it a shame that we no longer participate in the “Five Points of Fellowship” Because it is at that point in Masonry that we establish our complete fraternal bond one to another. Encyclopedia of Mormonism- “The philosophy and major tenets of Freemasonry are not fundamentally incompatible with the teaching, theology, and doctrines of the Latter-day Saints. Both emphasize morality, sacrifice, consecration, and service, and both condemn selfishness, sin, and greed. Furthermore, the aim of Masonic ritual is to instruct-to make truth available so that man can follow it.”
Re. the Five Points of Fellowship, I thought this was interesting: http://www.wheatandtares.org/7503/the-sacred-embrace-as-five-points-of-fellowship/ I’m old enough for the old film, the less old version, the penalties, etc., and I have to say that the five points were something I could relate to. It helped me think of the resurrection as a very personal, tender event. I never liked the film. (Haven’t seen the new one.) I like the quiet, low-tech interactions in the initiatory and at the veil.
Ann wrote:Re. the Five Points of Fellowship, I thought this was interesting:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/7503/the-sacred-embrace-as-five-points-of-fellowship/ I’m old enough for the old film, the less old version, the penalties, etc., and I have to say that the five points were something I could relate to. It helped me think of the resurrection as a very personal, tender event. I never liked the film. (Haven’t seen the new one.) I like the quiet, low-tech interactions in the initiatory and at the veil.
Thank you Ann for the Link. Great points about why the five points of fellowship and the endowment ceremony itself is losing symbolic meaning as our modern life has little to no context for such things. It reminded me of another article that I liked very much called, “The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism.”
https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/141-32-41.pdf I recommend it to anyone that would like to better understand the context of the creation of the temple endowment.
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