Why did Joseph Smith become a freemason?

[Comprehend]

**chilling**


Kat - as a first time offender, with a guilty plea you are sentenced to 90 days probation.

 

[PHOTOTAKER]

I am guessing nobody actually bothered to read my posts that have thoroughly answered the questions... sounds about normal.

i read it. it was good, this is one area that i tend to stay out of. i know enuff to be dangus and not enuff to make a comment.

 

[PHOTOTAKER]

I read them, Comprehend, and thought you did an excellent job of addressing the OP. I'm just trying to give Sola the benefit of the doubt. That's why I accepted his apology. At the same time, I think he needs to give us the benefit of the doubt, too. When people are under such constant attack as we are, we can hardly be expected to react any differently than we do when we see disparaging remarks posted about us -- even if the poster did so innocently.

i agree, Jesus said there is a time to say nothing. some times saying less is more powerful then giving alot... "if you live by the sword you die by the sword"

 

[FFH]

Sola, I think it is pertinent topic.

We need to delve into things like this to find out what really went on in those early days of the church.

I've learned something by reading this thread...

Thanks to Comp for filling in the gaps for us.

[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]

 

[FFH]

Freemasonry and the latter Day Saint Movement

Good link thanks.


Been reading the stuff you've been posting.

Good stuff and good job Comp This is something I've been meaning to study up on but kept putting it off.

From personal observation of those associated with these groups, when I was in high school, I would have to say these things are better left alone/avoided altogether. It didn't sound like Joseph Smith was all that involved with it anyway, but did it to better relationships with his neighbors. I fell into the trap of doing that too when I was in high school. I thought it would help build positive relationships with those not of our faith, but it seemed they were the ones trying to persuade us...

We need to remember to stay away from organizations like this for they seem to offer nothing of eternal significance and seem to be a waste of time and dangerous in my opinion...

 

[Comprehend]

Good link thanks.

FFH - the link to the Wiki page isn't that good. It is actually fairly inaccurate and says so at the top of the page. There is a good deal of anti-mormon information in the Wiki article such as Fawn Brodies literary droppings.

Here is a better link:

The Relationship of Mormonism and Masonry, Pres. Anthony Ivens

 

[FFH]

Here is a better link:

The Relationship of Mormonism and Masonry, Pres. Anthony Ivens

Okay thanks I'll take a look at it.

 

[jonny]

I would say that Joseph Smith became a mason because many of the people he associated with were masons, his family (father, grandfather, etc) were masons, and it probably interested him. A lot of leaders, such as the founding fathers of our country, were masons. For some reason baptists and some other fundamentalist Christians have determined that Masonry is the same as Devil Worship. Since these people think that sneezing wrong is devil worship, it doesn't bother me. It also doesn't bother me that Joseph Smith was a mason. Honestly, who cares?

 

[Comprehend]

Actually, the temple ceremony and the masonic ritual do not really resemble each other at all in substance or method. You would have a very difficult time finding very much in common.

there are similarities though, and there is an excellent reason. God taught Adam all the necessary rituals and they were passed down through generations and over time, it has permeated all times and peoples. If one knows what to look for, one may find bits of the temple ceremony not only in Masonic rituals, but also Egyptian temples, far-eastern temples, Jewish ritual, etc etc etc.

coincidentally, this topic is addressed in this month's Ensign (our church magazine):

Full article here
February 2007 Ensign, Why Symbols?

Why Is Some of the Symbolism Connected with the Temple Found Elsewhere in the World?

“Let me suggest that the reason why temple building and temple worship have been found in every age, on every hand, and among every people, is because the gospel in its fullness was revealed to Adam, and that all religions and religious practices are therefore derived from the remnants of the truth given to Adam and transmitted by him to the patriarchs. The ordinances of the temple in so far as then necessary, were given, no doubt, in those early days, and, very naturally, corruptions of them have been handed down the ages. Those who understand the eternal nature of the gospel—planned before the foundations of the earth—understand clearly why all history seems to revolve about the building and use of temples.”6
“The same comparative studies that discovered the common pattern in all ancient religions—a phenomenon now designated as ‘patternism’—have also demonstrated the processes of diffusion by which that pattern was spread throughout the world—and in the process torn to shreds, of which recognizable remnants may be found in almost any land and time. …
“Did Joseph Smith reinvent the temple by putting all the fragments—Jewish, Orthodox, Masonic, Gnostic, Hindu, Egyptian, and so forth—together again? No, that is not how it is done. Very few of the fragments were available in his day, and the job of putting them together was begun, as we have seen, only in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Even when they are available, those poor fragments do not come together of themselves to make a whole; to this day the scholars who collect them do not know what to make of them. The temple is not to be derived from them, but the other way around. … That anything of such fulness, consistency, ingenuity, and perfection could have been brought forth at a single time and place—overnight, as it were—is quite adequate proof of a special dispensation.”7

 

[FFH]

Some symbols are similar because the Masons got them as remnants from ancient christianity. When our church was restored, the same symbols that were used anciently were used again. God gave the symbols to His church, they were diffused through society from the church to masons.

This really sums up the questions, concerns, accusations, etc. which have come up concerning the connections between the Masons and the Mormons... It seems as if our adversary is working overtime to confuse and spread rumors, even to the point of making some LDS doubt the origins of their own religious ceremonies.

Joseph Smith received direct revelation concerning all temple ceremonies and symbols. Whether we share the same symbols or not with the Masons seems to be irrelevant....

I would think Satan knows these ceremonies and symbols and uses them to gain his own following by changing them slightly or radically so they are rendered eternally insignificant...

 

[FFH]

I would think that Joseph Smith and many others were temporarily distracted by the Masonic order because it so closely paralleled what Christ was doing with his true church.

We as LDS need to recognize that everything that goes on in our temples is a result of pure revelation from Jesus Christ who is directed by the Father...

Thanks Comp for posting that article in the Ensign which is so amazingly timely in order to help us with this thread. Just received the Ensign in the mail today and will definitely read over that article again...

God seems to show up and explain things just when we need them explained. This question about the connection between the Masons and the Mormons has always bugged me and it seems there are many, even amongst ourselves, who think Joseph Smith was influenced by the Masonic order in establishing our temple ceremonies and symbols... It's good to finally get this out in the open and discuss it so we can dispel the rumors and lies Satan has perpetuated concerning this.

Bottom line Joseph Smith received direct revelation from Jesus Christ concerning ALL temple ceremonies and symbols....

 

[SoyLeche]

Selections from Richard Bushman's "Rough Stone Rolling", pages 449 - 452

Portions of the temple ritual resembled Masonic rites that Joseph had observed when a Nauvoo lodge was organized in March 1842 and that he may have heard about from Hyrum, a Mason from New York days. The Nauvoo endowment was first bestowed just six weeks after Joseph's induction. The similarities were marked enough for Heber Kimball to quote Joseph saying that Freemasonry "was taken from preasthood but has become degen[e]rated. but menny things are perfect." Joseph often requested revelation about things that caught his attention. His revision of the Bible had sparded questions that resulted in revelations such as the vision of three glories. Tensions in South Carolina brought on a revelation about coming civil war. He had a green thumb for growing ideas from tiny seeds. Masonic rites seem to have been one more provocation.

Joseph became an "Entered Apprentice" Mason on March 15, 1842. Jonas [the Grand Master of teh Grand Lodge of Illinois] dubbed Joseph a Mason "on sight" to allow him to officiate as chaplain while bing installed. The next day Joseph rose through degrees of "Fellow Craft" and "Master Mason." Impressed though he must have been, his journal entry for the installation expressed most pleasure in the celebration following the initiation.

Masonic instruction would have attracted Joseph. Masonic candidates sought light, a powerful word in Joseph's revelations. Biblical imagery was mixed generously with a conglomeration of symbols - grips, signs, tools, architecture, objects, scriptures, stories, actions, many of them references to the craft of masonry. After the ceremony initiating members into a higher degree, a lecture summarized the symbols and their importance for instilling virtue and brotherhood. The outcome was a circle of committed brethren, loyal to each other to the death, forming a bulwark against a wicked world.

Intrigued by the Masonic rites, Joseph turned the materials to his own use. The Masonic elements that appeared in the temple endowment were embedded in a distinctive context - the Creation instead of the Temple of Solomon, exaltation rather than fraternity, God and Christ, not the Worshipful Master. Temple covenants bound people to God rather than to each other. At the end, participants entered symbolically into the presence of God.

On the surface, the temple resembles the cloistered, brotherly world of the lodges. But the spiritual core of the Nauvoo endowment was not male bonding. By 1843 women were sitting in the ordinance rooms and passing through the rituals. Adam and Eve, a male-female pair, were the representative figures rather than the Masonic hero Hiram Abiff. The aim of the endowment was not male fraternity but the exaltation of husbands and wives.

The Nauvoo endowment is more akin to aspects of Kabbalah, the alternative Jewish tradition that flourished for centuries alongside rational Judaism. As one compmentator explains, Kabbalah's central impulse was a desire to encounter God... Joseph's governing passion was to have his people experience God. To be sure, Joseph was not seeking a mystic God known through some transcendent fussion. Joseph's God existed in time and space in a bodily form. Nonetheless, the fundamental trajectory of the endowment coincided with the passions and expectations of mystics for centuries past and especially with the Kabbalistic dream of conjunction with the divine.

How Joseph Smith could have tied into this line of religious inquiry remains a mystery. Scholars have pointed to Kabbalistic books in the possession of Alexander Neibaur, a Jewish Mormon convert who knew Joseph in Nauvoo. But these came on the scene a decade after Joseph's revelations defined the endowment of power as an encounter with God. We can scarcely imagine him steeping himself in Kabbalistic literature in Manchester and Harmony. More reasonable is Harold Bloom's conclusion that Joseph's desire for God's presence came out of his own religious experience and genius. He had an uncanny ability to recover long-lost traditions for use in modern times.

 

[SoyLeche]

Something else I learned from this book. At Carthage, as he went to the window:

With one leg over the sill, he raised his arms in the Masonic sign of distress. A ball from the doorway struck his hip, and a shot from the outside entered his chest. Another his hunder the heart and a fourth his collarbone. He fell outward crying, "O Lord my God!" Landing on his side, he struggled to sit up against the curb of a well and died within seconds.

I wonder if the purpose of going to the window was not to try and escape, as I have always believed, but to give this sign in the hopes that any fellow Mason in the mob would come to his aid. Apparently it didn't work though.

 

[FFH]

I wonder if the purpose of going to the window was not to try and escape, as I have always believed, but to give this sign in the hopes that any fellow Mason in the mob would come to his aid. Apparently it didn't work though.

I think this supposed act, if it's true, sends a strong last message.

There was no lasting or real brotherhood amongst the Masons.

 

[Katzpur]

These Masonic rituals have no lasting eternal significance and have only a false sense of brotherhood.

I don't think they claim to have eternal significance, do they? The Masons do a lot of good and since the Church is not opposed to its members belonging to the fraternity, I think you're being overly harsh.

Please let's not use this thread as an excuse to trash the Freemasons. They get enough of that without our help.

 

[FFH]

He wasn't "heavily involved" at all.

I said may have been because that's what others tend to accuse us him of and it seems like he may have been, to some degree or at some point, until he was better instructed by the Lord concerning the true eternal "order" which he established, not based on any incomplete Masonic traditions...

 

[FFH]

Masonry tries to help. There is nothing satanic or evil about it. Remember the 12th article of faith...If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

How can you say there is nothing lasting with the masons when it has existed for so long? It is much older than the modern church.

President Benson also has a large number of honerable grandsons. I am very good friends with one of them, he graciously let me live at his house while waiting for my own, he eats dinner at my house regularly and I weight-lift with him three times a week. I can confidently tell you that I have not personally known a man who more closely resembles the Savior than this one. The fact that somebody in his family has left the church is meaningless anecdotal evidence. Big deal. (oh yeah, and he and I are both masons).

I just want people reading this thread, both Mormons and those not of our faith to realize the temple ceremonies came about by direct revelation from God and are not the result of a modified Masonic ritual....

The revelations concerning the ceremonies and symbols could of course not be published due to their sacred nature, which causes people to speculate as to their origins....so we have no way of proving the origins of these sacred saving ordinances performed in LDS temples.

Seems like this matter boils down to another thing we must accept by faith.... In other words we have to have faith that what goes on in the temple is a result of direct revelation from Jesus Chirst who is directed by our Heavenly Father in this and other matters.

 

[DeepShadow]

I just want people reading this thread, both Mormons and those not of our faith to realize the temple ceremonies came about by direct revelation from God and are not the result of a modified Masonic ritual....

I agree. The question is, can you defend this point with me without attacking Masonic beliefs?

.

 

[Comprehend]

I just want people reading this thread, both Mormons and those not of our faith to realize the temple ceremonies came about by direct revelation from God and are not the result of a modified Masonic ritual....

The revelations concerning the ceremonies and symbols could of course not be published due to their sacred nature, which causes people to speculate as to their origins....so we have no way of proving the origins of these sacred saving ordinances performed in LDS temples.

Seems like this matter boils down to another thing we must accept by faith.... In other words we have to have faith that what goes on in the temple is a result of direct revelation from Jesus Chirst who is directed by our Heavenly Father in this and other matters.

I have already thoroughly explained that we did not get the temple ceremony from masons with church writings. Trying to trash an organization with less than factual information is exactly what other people do to our church and now you are doing it to the masons. Even if any of what you said were true, would it have made it any less likely that the church took it's ceremony from the masons?

 

[SoyLeche]

Well this is serious stuff and should not be allowed to be associated or tied to the LDS relgion in any way in my opinion....

Well, I'm sorry, but it IS associated and tied to the LDS religion in at least some way. Deal with it.