Masonry and the Endowment

[SeattleUte]

Interesting. I had the same thoughts when I saw it.

I am very excited about getting more blue in my portfolio soon.

I'm pretty sure they had Reformed Egyptian depicted on the temple walls of the sets.

[Rosebud]

I'm reading this book right now. It's taught me that we're pretty reductionistic in any assumption that strictly relates Mormonism to Masonry simply because Masonry is only one small piece of a larger hermetic culture Joseph, his family and many of the early members of the church were exposed to. Brooke makes some fairly convincing connections between troubling aspects of early church history and common occult practices of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I'll admit that sometimes his thoughts are a stretch. OTOH, the information he presents is providing new insight (at least for me) into where the ideas presented in the endowment and the King Follett discourse may have sprung from. Joseph wasn't thinking in a vacuum. Fairly common stuff it seems.......

[FMCoug]

Not sure how I missed this thread but I am more familiar with free masonry than the average bear. I grew up in a Masonic Children's home and was active in DeMolay before and for a while after I joined the Church. So I am probably more knowledgeable than most non-Masons.

To answer some of the questions above.

The organization for adult women is called Eastern Star.

2. Young men (youth) are members of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeMolay_International"]DeMolay International - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Crown.gif" class="image"><img alt="Crown.gif" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Crown.gif/220px-Crown.gif"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/d/d5/Crown.gif/220px-Crown.gif[/ame]. Like the Masons it has lots of ritual, etc. and was designed to be preparatory (not dissimilar to the Aaronic priesthood in that respect). There are offices you go through, rituals, etc. The allegory told has to do with the life of Jacques DeMolay, so the story revolves around that. I quit just as I was in line to become the Master Counselor in our Chapter.

3. There are two organizations for young women. [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Order_of_the_Rainbow_for_Girls"]International Order of the Rainbow for Girls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Rainbowgirlslogo.jpg" class="image"><img alt="Rainbowgirlslogo.jpg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d3/Rainbowgirlslogo.jpg/225px-Rainbowgirlslogo.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/d/d3/Rainbowgirlslogo.jpg/225px-Rainbowgirlslogo.jpg[/ame] and Job's Daughter's. Job's Daughters seems to have been a bit more formal in terms of the rituals, officers, etc. but I don't know for sure.

4. Adult masonry has all kinds of offshoots from the normal Grand Lodge stuff. The Shriner's are the most well-known but you have the Scottish Rite, Knights Templar, all kinds of stuff.


A few other notes from my experiences:

Masons are incredibly generous. We lived well. Tickets to DisneyLand, Knott's, Sea World, etc. all the time. Vacations to Santa Cruz, Yosemite, and some other locations. There was also a place at a trailer park in San Diego on mission bay that had been donated that we'd go to all the time. (De Anza).

The Masonic Youth organizations had dances and other activities all the time. At least in our local area (SoCal), the Rainbow Girls tended to be hotter and more "giving" than the Job's Daughters.

The clown cars, motorcyles, etc. the Shriner's have are way cool. They used to come to the home a few times a year and we got our own private parade, etc. I have ridden in / driven some of them.

The Hollywood lodge had the best by far of the Chrismas parties we were paraded around too. We'd get a stocking as usual but there was always a bundle of silver dollars in it. The marionnette show at the Monrovia lodge was cool when I was younger.

Being driven around Southern California in old school bus painted brown with "MASONIC HOME FOR CHILDREN" on the side kind of sucks.

The home I grew up in no longer houses children. In the 90's they added an old folks home part of it. A few years ago (in the last ten or so) they shut down the kids part of it. I didn't realize it at the time but not too long before that apparently there was an abuse lawsuit with an undisclosed settlement. You have to believe two plus two equal four. I have no idea what the details were but I hope it was worth it ...

[Sullyute]

This is probably as good a place as any for this interesting article. It talks about the start of the Anti-mason movement in the 1820's and 1830's based on the murder of William Morgan, who was working with a newspaper to reveal the masonic secrets. This movement changed American politics at the time.

Although Joseph embraced the Masons later in life (and I believe his father and Hyrum were Masons earlier), but I wonder if this anti-masonic movement was an influence for the Gadianton robbers in the Book of Mormon.

And of course, Joseph married the murdered individual's wife:

William Morgan’s lonely widow, Lucinda Morgan, would herself go on to further renown. She moved west and reportedly remarried a man named Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons—a group that, like the Freemasons, would soon find itself the target of future political crusades.

[Paperback Writer]

Although Joseph embraced the Masons later in life (and I believe his father and Hyrum were Masons earlier), but I wonder if this anti-masonic movement was an influence for the Gadianton robbers in the Book of Mormon.

And of course, Joseph married the murdered individual's wife:

I've long thought the same thing - that BOM references to secret combinations is analogous to Free Masonry. However, the quandary is that the relationships among Free Masons probably also furthered the colonies path towards declaring independence from England. One can see a similar parallel of secret combinations in the French resistance during German occupation during WWII. So a secret society can be good when trying to overthrow or undermine a tyrant such as England leading up to the American Revolution or occupied France during WWII.

But a secret society being a threat to a legitimate, democratically elected government? That's where the Free Masons come in, as detailed in the linked article, and that was blown out of proportion for political gain. The Free Masons a threat to democracy and liberty? Hardly! But that's all in retrospect - that was not the feeling in 1830.

Anyway, the Gadianton robbers and their secret combinations is still a puzzle to me but I've long thought its BOM's influence was Free Masonry. The question of a modern context for the Gadianton robbers and their secret combinations once came up in my BOM II class at BYU taught by Reed Benson. Another student asked the question and Bro. Benson asked the class if anyone would like to respond. I was the only one to raise his hand and I mentioned Free Masonry as a possible influence. Bro. Benson dismissed that notion and went on to explain that it was a reference to Communism. I learned that Joseph McCarthy was apparently right all along.

[DrumNFeather]

Re-reading this thread is like opening up a time capsule.

[pellegrino]

I've long thought the same thing - that BOM references to secret combinations is analogous to Free Masonry. However, the quandary is that the relationships among Free Masons probably also furthered the colonies path towards declaring independence from England. One can see a similar parallel of secret combinations in the French resistance during German occupation during WWII. So a secret society can be good when trying to overthrow or undermine a tyrant such as England leading up to the American Revolution or occupied France during WWII.

But a secret society being a threat to a legitimate, democratically elected government? That's where the Free Masons come in, as detailed in the linked article, and that was blown out of proportion for political gain. The Free Masons a threat to democracy and liberty? Hardly! But that's all in retrospect - that was not the feeling in 1830.

Anyway, the Gadianton robbers and their secret combinations is still a puzzle to me but I've long thought its BOM's influence was Free Masonry. The question of a modern context for the Gadianton robbers and their secret combinations once came up in my BOM II class at BYU taught by Reed Benson. Another student asked the question and Bro. Benson asked the class if anyone would like to respond. I was the only one to raise his hand and I mentioned Free Masonry as a possible influence. Bro. Benson dismissed that notion and went on to explain that it was a reference to Communism. I learned that Joseph McCarthy was apparently right all along.

Good on Bro. Benson for employing the Socratic method in class!

[wuapinmon]

When I think of modern Gadianton, the drug cartels are what come to mind. Shadow governments, failed states, wanton violence.