What are the connections between freemasonry & the LDS Temple endowment? Cheryl Bruno discusses the latest findings in her book "Method Infinite." Check out our conversation...

https://youtu.be/hq9qe90sirA

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Freemasonry & Mormonism

Interview

 GT  00:31  I feel bad because we have not talked about your amazing book on Freemasonry. I didn't prepare you that that was going to be a question, but is that something that we can talk about?

Cheryl  00:44  Yes, I'm not saying I remember every date on that either.

GT  00:49  That's okay, because it's been a few years since I read that book too. Do you remember when it was published? Um,

Cheryl  00:55  2022.

GT  00:56  okay, so it's been two years now.

Cheryl  00:58  Wow! I remembered a date.

GT  00:59  There you go. You wrote that with Nick [Literski] and Joe Swick. There we go. Why don't you introduce us to the topic of Freemasonry? I've heard an argument that Joseph introduced Freemasonry, because there are all these secrets. It kind of does relate to polygamy in the fact that, okay, I'm going to swear you to secrecy for masonry. Then now you have to keep the polygamy secret too. What do you think of that argument?

Cheryl  01:39  In our William Marks book, we do talk about these. We have a chapter which talks about the several organizations that Joseph Smith set up to induce loyalty in his followers. One of them is Freemasonry. One of them is the Quorum of the Anointed, the Council of 50, even the Nauvoo Legion, the Danites, those are all organizations that came together to really that were secretive. People who were loyal to Joseph Smith could come together and have a community. I think Mike Quinn maybe did a study of who the people were, who were connected in at least, like, three or four ways through those organizations. There were a lot of them, and that's your core group.

GT  02:30  William Marks would have been a Freemason as well.

Cheryl  02:34  Yes, he was a Freemason, and he was in all of the different groups.

GT  02:36  The Quorum of the Anointed.

Cheryl  02:39  Not the Danites; He wasn't in Danites.

GT  02:41  Okay.

Cheryl  02:42  He was definitely Council of 50, Quorum of Anointed, Freemason, Nauvoo Legion.

GT  02:46  Quorum of Anointed would be those that had received the endowment. Is that right?

Cheryl  02:49  Right.

GT  02:50  Okay. Do you agree with the argument that Joseph introduced Freemasonry to the Church to help people keep secrets about polygamy?

Cheryl  03:05  Not so much. I think that loyalty was a part of it, but not necessarily polygamy that I see. To me, he was fascinated. Joseph was fascinated by Freemasonry and the way that it taught like ancient truths. He was very into presenting things in a way that was Masonic. He liked the Christian view of Freemasonry looking back at the Old Testament from a Christian lens. I think he really brought that into Mormonism a lot. So he was just fascinated by Freemasonry. I think he felt that Freemasonry was a true principle that had become apostate over the years. This is what we talk about in the book, a lot. In Joseph's mind, there was a true masonry and a spurious masonry. It was almost the same as he thought about Christianity, where, over the years, it had become apostate and it needed a restoration. In the same way he was trying to restore true Freemasonry to the earth. I think that's what he was doing in creating this lodge in Nauvoo, and then bringing all these men into the lodge. Now you have power in the state of Illinois, in the Masonic organization. He, I think, was on his way to restore, to fix Freemasonry into what it should have been, or what he thought it should have been.

 

Did Joseph Rip off Freemasonry?

GT  04:46  Okay. What do you say about people, especially critics of the Church let’s say, that just basically say the LDS endowment is just a rip-off of Freemasons?

Cheryl  05:00  Yeah, I don't see that at all. I see Joseph Smith as a ritual genius. What was happening in the area in his in the United States at the time, you have to look at that. What they were doing was many people were getting the three basic Masonic degrees and then going and creating new degrees. We had, like an Indian degree. We had one with Abraham meeting Melchizedek, that little story. People would create these degrees, and they were Masonic degrees, like extra appendant degrees. They were called so they were appendant to the three degrees of blue lodge masonry. So he what he was doing wasn't any different than this. What he was doing was using Freemasonry, using that system to create another degree. It wasn't unusual, and it wasn't odd, and it doesn't bother me at all. So, like I said, I'm a practicing member of the Church. To me, it fits with my Mormon mindset, very well. I don't have any anxiety over the fact that he used Freemasonry and created a ritual.

GT  06:15  Okay, so you're the expert here. But to my knowledge, Joseph Smith, Senior was a Mason. There were some masons in the family. Of course we have the is it called the Dale Morgan affair. Who was the guy that got murdered?

Cheryl  06:36  William Morgan?

GT  06:37  William Morgan, the William Morgan affair, maybe you should tell that story, because that happened right before the publication of The Book of Mormon.

Cheryl  06:46  Okay, first of all, I have to go to Joseph Smith Senior. We have some evidence that Joseph Smith Senior was perhaps a Mason. But the thing is, Joseph Smith is a really common name, and so it's not positive. We do have positive evidence that our Joseph Smith Jr was a Freemason. But his father, Nick, Joe and I all believe that he was a Freemason. We give reasons in our book of why we believe this, but we cannot nail it down that he was proof positive a Freemason.

GT  07:20  Because his name is so common.

Cheryl  07:21  Yes. And see, we have a lodge that has a member named Joseph Smith, but there were nine Joseph Smith's in the area that could have been that person. So, we've battled that out with Dan Vogel a little bit.[1]

GT  07:36  Oh yes.

Cheryl  07:37  So, I mean, I can't [say for sure.]

GT  07:38  I’m going to ask you some. Dan Vogel questions too.

Cheryl  07:40  Oh, no. I can't say that I know for a fact that he was. I believe he was. We do know for a fact that some of his brothers were. We have cousins of Joseph Smith, uncles of Joseph Smith, and we have many of his neighbors. We have the people that worked on his leg operation. We have so many close people.

GT  08:03  They were Masons as well?

Cheryl  08:05  Yeah, they were all Freemasons. And so, you can read our book and see how many of his close associates and his family members were Freemasons. And so, yes, that makes a big difference in that he knew about Freemasonry from a very young age. Talking about the William Morgan affair, an incident happened very close to where Joseph Smith lived in New York, in Batavia, New York, where a certain man named William Morgan was threatening to expose Masonic secrets. He was writing a book. Before the book was published, it was eventually published with all the secrets revealed. Before the book was published, allegedly, a group of Freemasons kidnapped him and killed him. Then we never know what happened to him in the end. I believe that it was Freemasons that kidnapped him and killed him. But again, we don't know that for sure. We have to say, alleged, but what happened in the United States at the time was these Freemasons. Freemasonry was a big thing in the early United States.

GT  9:09  George Washington was a mason.

Cheryl  9:11  People of very high caliber were Freemasons. They would participate in these symbolic vows. They would slit their throat before revealing their Freemasonry secrets. You know different ways that they would be put to death rather than reveal Masonic secrets. And so, I think that most of the Masons that that participated in these vows, saw them as symbolic. They're symbolic vows. Right? It's like saying, cross my heart and hope a dead eye, stick a needle in my eye. You're not really going to stick a needle in your eye. But then when these masons,

GT  9:53  Nor do you hope to die.

Cheryl  9:54  No, exactly! So, when these Masons saw that actually, people would put someone to death for revealing Masonic secrets. They were like, Okay, I'm out. I'm not going to be part of this. So that started the decimation of Freemasonry in the United States. People left the lodge by the millions. Then there became anti Masons who would go around and reveal the ceremony by holding little plays in public places and showing what happened during the ceremony.

GT  10:25  It sounds like The Godmakers or something.

Cheryl  10:27  Right. Joseph Smith would have been very aware of what happened in Masonic lodges from a very young age, and continuing all the way through.

GT  10:37  William Morgan, I believe he died in 1826.

Cheryl  10:41  Yeah.

GT  10:42  Joseph married Morgan's wife. Right? Supposedly?

Cheryl  10:46  Yes. William Morgan's wife married again, George Harris. George Harris and the two of them joined the Mormon Church and moved to Missouri and lived very close to where Joseph Smith was living in Missouri. It is believed that he, at that time married her, Lucinda Morgan.

GT  11:03  That's a very interesting tie,

Cheryl  11:06  A very interesting tie.

GT  11:07  That would have been 1840s when Joseph married Lucinda Morgan?

Cheryl  11:11  1838 or 1839. 1838 probably.

GT  11:16  Okay. See you're good with dates. But anyway, the point, let me go back. So, if I'm right on the year 1826 when he died,