Freemasonry & The Early Nauvoo Endowment Ceremony

Introduction and Episode Context

John Dehlin 0:00 Hello everyone and welcome to the Joseph Smith Podcast brought to you by Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is January 21, 2026 and we are here for part 29 in our series with historian Dr. John Turner covering his important book Joseph the Rise and Fall of an American Prophet. Today we are going to be covering again chapter 24 in his book. We're going to be talking about the year 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois with Joseph Smith. The chapter's called Upper Rooms. Last week we talked about the Book of Abraham and the Plan of Salvation and Theosis and all sorts of innovations that spring forth from Joseph's 1842 time period and his work on the Book of Abraham and everything that came from it. But we left off two really important parts of chapter 24 of John Turner's book. One is the introduction of Joseph Smith and many of his colleagues to or membership in the Masonic Lodge, the Freemasonry. You know, what Joseph and his colleagues experiences were in Freemasonry in Nauvoo in 1842 and then how that influenced potentially the Mormon temple ceremony and other aspects of life in nauvoo in the 1840s. And then we're also going to be talking about the formation of the Relief Society, what the Mormon Church today would call the largest female led organization in the world. Some would take issue with that characterization, but it's certainly, at least on the rolls, a 7,8 million plus membership of women. I may be overestimating there of Latter Day Saint women throughout the world. Well, it turns out this Relief Society that today is a women's organization run by the Mormon Church, it has its founding in Nauvoo, Illinois in the 1842 time period by Joseph Smith and by his wife Emma. And we're going to be talking about its emergence. And maybe the biggest question of all for today is at least as far as what I took from this important chapter is to what extent among for all the other reasons that Joseph Smith created or affiliated with the Masonic Lodge and Masonry and created the Relief Society. To what extent were Masonry and the Relief Society important parts of Joseph Smith trying to manage his reputation, try and promote secrecy and prevent damage from happening to his reputation and to the reputation of the Church. That's what today's about. And John Turner, thanks for your patience with that really lengthy introduction.

John Turner 3:13 Well, well, thanks to everyone for their patience with this series. 29 episodes. That's quite something. I am excited to be back. I'm excited that in terms of the book and podcast. We're in 1842. There is so much going on in Nauvoo the rest of the way, and I'm excited to talk about it with you.

John Dehlin 3:39 Likewise. Really quickly, I want to thank the donors to Mormon Stories podcast that make this series possible and those who have donated specifically to John Turner's appearance via the donorbox.com Joseph SmithLink we couldn't do it without your support. This series is best consumed chronologically, in sequence. So for those of you who are able and willing, pause this episode if you haven't already, go back to episode one, watch it all the way through. You'll get a lot more out of today's episode. You can find this series standalone on Spotify, standalone on YouTube as its own playlist under the Mormon Stories Podcast channel. And of course we've integrated it into the Mormon Stories podcast feed as kind of a weekly release. But again, if you want to support this series and see if we can get John Turner to even consider continuing the series, to talk about Brigham Young and his work with Brigham Young, or even if you just want to support the series as it's currently constituted, just go to more donorbox.org Joseph Smith and that's how to continue contributing. All right, so John Turner, let's jump in to chapter 24, a second look at it. And maybe we should start with whatever you want to say about the Freemasonry and Joseph's interest in Freemasonry. And I don't even mind jumping back to just reminding our audience about the William Morgan affair and even about whether you agree that the Book of Mormon was an anti Masonic document to some extent, whether you see that as being a credible assertion, as building groundwork for today's episode.

Broader Context for Understanding Nauvoo in 1842

John Turner 5:41 Yeah, so great questions, and I do think a little bit of broader context is useful for figuring out what's going on in 1842. First of all, if people are not familiar with Freemasonry, I think it might be hard to understand why it had so much appeal in the Revolutionary era and the early American Republic. That was in part because Freemasonry was an institution that brought men from a variety of different backgrounds together for social and economic purposes. So one individual referred to Freemasonry as that religion in which all men agree. So something that could at the very least bring Christians of different backgrounds together, cut across some of those sectarian boundaries, maybe bring together sort of orthodox believing Christians and people who are a little bit more free thinking. So that's one reason why Masonry had had such appeal and why so many of the say Founding Fathers were Freemasons. Then in the mid-1820s, Masonry became something that was scandalous. That was connected to the murder of a man named William Morgan, who lived in Canandaigua, New York, which isn't very far from Palmyra. He was murdered for making plans to reveal the rights, the rituals of Freemasonry. These, technically, these were secret. They were already in circulation elsewhere. But nevertheless, Morgan's publishing plans, you know, they, they brought about his demise. And that made anti Masonry a powerful cultural and political force. In the late 1820s, there was an anti Masonic political party that was competitive in elections, especially in the Northeast. And I do think that moment of anti Masonry influenced some of Joseph Smith's early texts, namely the Book of Mormon and then even more explicitly the Book of Moses. You know, Joseph's translation of the early portions of the Book of Genesis in which Cain forms a compact with Satan and becomes Master Mahan. M A H O N. And I,

John Dehlin 8:52 I always pronounce that Mahan for Mormons. Master Mahan. But I would trust your pronunciation over mine. But just to give Mormon, Mormon speak. It's Master Mahan is how I pronounced it.

John Turner 9:04 Yeah, we'll go with your pronunciations, John De Lin, because as a historian I'm so used to just reading these things and then when I have to say them, I, I feel like it's a 50. 50.

John Dehlin 9:17 It's the book of Moses that talks about Cain being Master Mahan.

John Turner 9:22 Exactly. And I read that as a clumsy code for Master Mason.

John Dehlin 9:28 Oh, wow, that's interesting. So Joseph just changing the letters a bit and basically saying Satan or Cain was the original, what evil person?

John Turner 9:42 Original, original even person who essentially forms this covenant agreement with Satan and then that sort of compact is then passed down among the descendants of Cain. I also think the Book of Mormon itself has a really strong anti Masonic flavor, especially now. You're going to probably have to help me with the pronunciation again. The Gadianton robbers. Gaddy Antonio, Gaddy Anton. I'm just going to embarrass myself all day long.

John Dehlin 10:14 You know the facts. I know a couple pronunciations.

John Turner 10:18 Makes us a good team. So you can get a sense, I think that in the late 1820s, I think very much in keeping with the political social culture of that moment in the Northeastern United States, Joseph Smith has this deep suspicion of secret societies and Freemasonry in particular. Now there are. He probably also knew something about Freemasonry. So his brother Hyrum Smith was a Mason. There's speculation that Joseph Smith Sr. Might have been as well. I don't think that's documented.

John Dehlin 11:05 In the late 1820s they had already

John Turner 11:07 become Masons early to mid-1820s. So prior to the publication.

John Dehlin 11:11 So how can Joseph Smith hate Masonry? You may not know the answer to this, but how can he suspect and. Or hate Masonry? And his dad and brother are Masons.

John Turner 11:22 Yeah.

John Dehlin 11:23 Or did they, or did they go inactive or something with Masonry?

John Turner 11:26 I think they went inactive. I don't know that for absolutely certain. But for many Americans, the murder of William, William Morgan in 1826, that's a turning point. What had seemed like a at least benign, if not benevolent and useful organization became in the minds of many Americans something malevolent. So it's a big cultural shift now. That shift, however, doesn't persist. You know, that the notoriety that Freemasonry has in the wake of the William Morgan murder, that fades. So by.

Anti-Masonic Themes in the Book of Mormon

John Dehlin 12:15 Before we talk about the fading, can I ask you a couple questions? So just to spell this out, I only know about this because Grant Palmer talked about this in his book An Insider's View of Mormon Origins. He basically gives five primary sources for the Book of Mormon, I believe, and one of them is anti Masonry rhetoric, which I would have never even suspected. But tell us what aspects of the Book of Mormon narrative that you remember can be associated with or seem to be anti Masonic in theme? And if you can't remember, I can prompt you. Yeah, this is on the spot. I'm kind of asking you on the spot.

John Turner 13:02 You're going to have to prompt me.

John Dehlin 13:04 Beyond the gaddy and Robbers secret combinations, something about judges being corrupt and these Gaddy and Robins, secret combinations influencing judges in the government that otherwise would be dedicated to freedom. How's that?

John Turner 13:25 Yeah, so.

John Dehlin 13:25 And secret murders. Secret murders, right.

John Turner 13:28 So I think, I think one thing that makes this a hard question is that these aren't exactly, I don't know, incredibly singular motifs. Right. Corrupt judges, even secret combinations. However, I do think in the context of anti Masonry in the late 1820s, the Gandhi, Anton robbers and this persistent concern about secret combinations, I understand anti Masonry as the inspiration for those, for that theme in the Book of Mormon. And then as I said, I think it's even more explicit in the Joseph Smith translation, slash the Book of Moses.

John Dehlin 14:14 Okay. Was there a concern in the anti Masonic dust up that. Because I always hear George Washington was a Mason, Thomas Jefferson was a Mason, like all the founding fathers were Masons. Was there a concern by the 1820s in the wake of the William Morgan murder, that like the Freemasonry had infiltrated the government at a dangerous level.

John Turner 14:46 That is a great question. I think I need to brush up a little bit more on my history of Masonry, so I'm going to have to punt on that one, John.

John Dehlin 14:59 That's fine. That's fine. This is great because we can two things. We can invite our viewers and listeners to tell us what they know, and then we can always have you do a little brushing up and come back on the subsequent episode to tell us what you've learned. It's fun. This is part of the fun process because I realize I'm putting you on the spot to ask you to speak outside of what's in the book.

John Turner 15:22 No, that's not a problem. And I'm actually, I make a practice in my classes at my university. Questions are great answers. Not absolutely guaranteed. No worries.

John Dehlin 15:34 But you're. But, but I think you're not in any way alone in, in your, your, your perception that the Book of Mormon is heavily influenced by anti Masonic rhetoric. I think so, yeah. In the 1820s. Okay.

John Turner 15:51 I mean, so when I, when I read, when I read the. The Book of Mormon the first time that, you know, that st. That concern for secret combinations of the gandhianjean Robbers, that stood out to me as an unusual theme. I think the atmosphere of Anti Masonry explains it. Early readers of the Book of Mormon sometimes referred to it as the Anti Masonic Bible. And they did so because that's how

John Dehlin 16:23 it was perceived at the time by some. You're saying.

John Turner 16:26 Exactly. And that's because I think it's really hard for us to understand, you know, the power of Anti Masonry in the late 1820s, early 1830s. I mean, it was, it was a huge social and political movement in the northeastern United States in particular. So early readers of the Book of Mormon were therefore quite attuned to that theme.

John Dehlin 16:54 Okay. And just a little bit of what I can do, just kind of researching as we're talking, some of the elements that get listed are the Gadian Robbers, Kish Kuman, who is an assassin, who's acting, you know, under secret command. Yeah. Mention of secret combinations, chief judges that are corrupt. Kishkumin puts a band together, the Book of Mormon, mentions oaths and penalties, signs and tokens. It's, you know, just this idea that secrecy is evil. Right, right. The democracy can be infiltrated, that people can be murdered to preserve, you know, the secrecy and the secret combinations. And that God doesn't ultimately like secrecy, which is really ironic given what happens in Nauvoo. Right. If The Book of Mormon is anti secrecy, then the Book of Mormon is sort of anti Nauvoo developments in some ways.

John Turner 18:01 I do think there are some contradictions and I think some of those themes, they had broad resonance even beyond Freemasonry. So the, the concern about corrupt rulers and sort of cabals of judges, officials, you can find that that's pretty standard fare for, you know, sort of English political culture in the 18th century stretching into the American Revolution. I do think, you know, for me it's the, it's, it's a fairly basic observation, but the robbers, the secret combinations and then things like you said. And I, I see this even more starkly with Cain and his descendants in the Book of Moses. Master Mahan is a real oaths, oaths and penalties. You know, I think that that is, you know, Masonic language.

John Dehlin 19:11 Anti Masonic language.

John Turner 19:12 Because in this case.

John Dehlin 19:14 Yeah, really quickly, the last thing I'll mention from just my quick Internet research, it lists ether 8 in the book of Mormon as, quote, the smoking gun chapter. It says many scholars point to ether 8 as the clearest anti Masonic polemic. Ether 8, 1825 explicitly warns modern gentiles or Americans about secret combinations overthrowing free governments. It's a modern political warning, not an ancient narrative. And then it says that D. Michael Quinn called Ether 8, quote, unmistakably reflective of Jacksonian era anti Masonic paranoia rather than ancient American history. Close quote.

John Turner 20:03 Yeah, that's a powerful.

John Dehlin 20:05 Does that resonate at least as possibly interesting? John Turner?

John Turner 20:09 Yeah, well, as, as if people have listened to the earlier episodes, they'll know I understand the Book of Mormon as a late 1820s production of Joseph Smith, so. Absolutely. Now, I don't know if I'd go so far as to call that an absolute smoking gun because those, you know, I do think those themes have, have really broad resonance, but in broad strokes, I definitely see the culture in which Joseph lived being a key fundamental source for the text that he created. So. Absolutely.

John Dehlin 20:50 Yeah. Okay, excellent. Well, that's great. Great background. We really invite our viewers and listeners to share in the comments of this episode what they've learned about Joseph Smith, Mormonism, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moses and Freemasonry, because we could even possibly have a future episode digging more into this if the information warrants it. But either way, we're all excited and interesting about this. Okay, so keep going. John Turner. William Morgan's assassinated. They eventually find his body. We don't know to what extent Joseph Sr. And Hyrum disaffiliated at some point with their Masonry participation.

The Rise and Fall of Masonry Before Nauvoo

John Turner 21:34 I, I think, I do think they did. So I think then what's perhaps hard to understand also, but makes some sense is by the 18, mid-1830s, everybody's moved on essentially, or almost everybody's moved on from anti Masonry. And you can think about, you know, parallels from the last 10 years in our country. There can be this enormous event, whether it's January 6th, whether it's a pandemic.

John Dehlin 22:11 Nine, eleven.

John Turner 22:12 Exactly. And inevitably something that powerfully shapes a relatively short stretch of time, it fades. And so by the mid-1830s, masonry has regained its sort of prior respectability. Now there are definitely some die hards who are still going to be opposed to the fraternity, but lodges are regrowing their membership. Masonry appealed to Americans for the same reasons it had earlier in the 19th century. And you know, just as an example of why Masonry could have a lot of appeal, the leading figure in Illinois among the Freemasons was a man named Abraham Jonas. Jonas was, I think, the first Jewish resident of Quincy, Illinois. And Masonry created a space in which somebody like Abraham Jonas could socialize and cooperate with people from, you know, totally different, usually Christian backgrounds. And a lot, you know, there are, there are powerful figures in Illinois, Illinois politicians who are also Freemasons, such as Stephen Douglas. And I wouldn't exactly call him a overall powerful figure, but John C. Bennett was also a Mason. There were other church members who I think in most cases prior to 1830, had affiliated with the Masons. Newell K. Whitney, I think, Heber C. Kimball. And so once the Fuhrer over the Morgan murder and that political fallout fades, Masonry is no longer sort of culturally toxic. And one other thing I would say that speaks to Joseph Smith's changing priorities is Joseph did come to change his mind a bit or evolve his thinking on the issue of secrecy. So we talked a few episodes ago how in 1838, Joseph had supported the Danites, a society of men loyal to church leaders who swore oaths to defend the church and its prophet. And that was a very rudimentary sort of secret society. But particularly after Mormon Missouri collapsed and Mormon Nauvoo grows, Joseph felt a keen need for secrecy and loyalty.

Joseph Smith's Emerging Polygamy and Need for Secrecy

John Dehlin 25:43 Yeah, yeah. And of course, we've already spent a couple episodes talking about Joseph's emerging polygamy in Nauvoo. Is it 1840 or 1841 where he starts in earnest? I think it's 1841, right?

John Turner 26:00 1841, yeah.

John Dehlin 26:03 So he's doing this polygamy in earnest. What, he's probably got what, eight, ten wives by 1842, would you say?

John Turner 26:12 By the spring of 1842? Yes.

John Dehlin 26:14 And his John C. Bennett already started his spiritual wifery by this point?

John Turner 26:19 Yes, that is also true.

John Dehlin 26:21 Have we already covered John C. Bennett's spiritual wifery yet, or is that in a future episode?

John Turner 26:26 That is coming up next time.

John Dehlin 26:27 Okay, so an emerging, very compelling need for secrecy, because is it fair to say that in 1842 Joseph would have perceived the polygamy secret getting out as being an existential threat to both him and his movement?

John Turner 26:52 Yes. And as this episode proceeds, we'll talk about the way that he emphasizes that to members of the Relief Society in particular, some of whose leaders are among our women who have been sealed to him. So absolutely. Now, I think Joseph, he's not really resting the secrecy of polygamy. He's not really resting at making it hinge on people either joining the Masons or in what becomes the endowment ceremony, you know, swearing oaths. And understanding the penalties for revealing secrets is first and foremost, he's introducing plural marriage to people whom he trusts. But there is this general concern to form organizations, the Masonic Lodge, the Relief Society, and also the group of at first, those men who have been endowed, of people who get trained in the principle of being circumspect and not revealing secrets.

Personal Connections to Freemasonry

John Dehlin 28:24 All right, so, John Turner, if it's okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask you in the audience to indulge me for just one second of my early history, because this is kind of important. So. So I'm, I'm in the MTC, it's 1990. I'm in the, I'm in the mission training center in Provo, Utah, in the first two months of my mission, learning Spanish so that I can go to Guatemala. And this young, she was probably, I'm going to say, if I was 19, she was 16. The 16 year old daughter, Mormon daughter of a Stake presidency member from my home, Katy, Texas, ward slash Stake. She writes me on my mission while I'm in the mtc. I had not learned anything about real church history. I'd only really experienced the correlated church history up to this point. And she writes me this letter, this young Tina Prince, sweetest, you know, Molly Mormonish girl you would ever meet. And she writes me this shocking letter that says, john, I just want you to know I've left the church and I need you to know before you go serve on your mission for two years that what caused me to leave the church was that I found out that Joseph Smith was a Freemason and that that temple ceremony that you just went through to get your endowments out to then go on your mission, that was heavily inspired by and influenced by Freemasonry. And Joseph Smith was a Mason. And those oaths and handshakes and signs and tokens and penalties that you learned, those are all straight out of the Freemason Handbook. Do you know what I wrote in response to Tina Prince? John Turner?

John Turner 30:23 I am just going to guess that you told Tina Prince that she was totally wrong about that.

John Dehlin 30:29 Worse. Okay, I said, tina, never write me again. This is the end of our friendship. And I completely cut off that friendship. Obviously, I've apologized to her. One of my very first Mormon Stories episodes ever was interviewing a master Mason who was also a Mormon. His name is Greg Kearney. And y' all can go back into the archives. First 10 episodes of Mormon Stories. I interview a master Mason who totally annihilates the idea that Freemasonry is truly ancient, because that's the line that I was sold. It's that Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when they did temple stuff, David, Solomon, when they did temple stuff, they did what we now understand to be the Mormon Temple ceremony. That's the way they were doing as Jews in their ancient temples. But that ancient temple ceremony got corrupted, and it was the Freemasons that helped revive it, to then have it be ready for Joseph Smith to restore as part of the restoration of all things. And it was Greg Kearney who disabused me of this notion that the Masonic Temple ceremony was actually ancient. But I'm probably getting ahead of you. Why don't you tell us your understanding as a scholar of whether or not we can say that Freemasonry ceremonies have their roots in David and Solomon's Temple?

John Turner 32:05 Well, yes.

John Dehlin 32:06 No.

John Turner 32:07 So that's. That's legend that developed. And that's such a. It's such a great quiet. That's such a great. That's such useful context because, yes. Now, I think among the Freemasons, there's a wide range of, I would say, responses to and understanding of rights. Now, as I mentioned, for many American members of Freemasonry, the appeal was sociality, upward mobility, political connection. But then there were these rituals that hearkened back to Solomon's Temple and the figure of Enoch. And so for some members of the fraternity, those rituals had appeal. For others, you know, those were a bit of a sideshow to what really mattered. But, yes. So I think there probably were definitely Masons who. For whom the rituals were not that significant. And they would have understood that they did not, they did not stretch back into ancient times. For Joseph Smith, I do think the rituals were definitely part of the attraction. It wasn't just the secrecy or the political connections. He also liked the substance. Some of the themes of the rituals, the idea of key words that had power, the oaths, tokens, penalties, handshake, pageantry, aprons, you know, all of that had appeal to Joseph Smith. And as what you said alluded to, Joseph ends up teaching that that Masonry was or is something that's ancient, that elements of it have degenerated, that it has this ancient connection to priesthood, and that Joseph is restoring it to perfection much the way Joseph teaches that he is restoring an imperfect Bible to its original perfection. I think that would be. That's a good analogy for understanding the way he explains this.

John Dehlin 35:05 Fascinating. That's so fascinating.

John Turner 35:08 And let me, let me add one more thing. John de Lynn, please. Which also speaks to you, you know, not being too pleased with that letter that you got from Tina. From Tina. So for a long while now, this, this is, you know, the connection between Mormonism and Masonry has been a point of controversy and even scandal. Now, that wasn't the case in 1842. You know, that, you know, Joseph Smith has followers who, you know, they write about this in very forthright ways, that there's a connection, a clear connection between Masonic ritual and what becomes known as the Endowment ceremony by, and I've mentioned sort of like the shifting place of Freemasonry in American culture, like from something that's understood as uncontroversial and good and then notorious and then good again. By the late 1800s and into the 20th century, you know, that esoteric part of Freemasonry once again start seeming weird, cultish, maybe a bit scandalous to many Americans. A lot of Christians, Protestant Christians, begin teaching that Masonry and Christianity are not congruent. They're not sort of two things that respectable people can do at the same time. And so at that point, the LDS Church begins to feel pressure, I think, to distance itself from this past connection between Masonry and Mormonism. And I think that still very much colors discussion of the subject today in a way that it didn't back in 1842.

John Dehlin 37:20 I love it. Okay, so remind us now. Okay, so, you know, I think you've already mentioned in a past episode that bizarrely, one of the most bizarre turns in 19th century religious history is that William Morgan's widow ends up a Mormon. Right. And ends up as a plural wife of Joseph Smith. Right.

Joseph Smith's Early Links to Masonic Figures

John Turner 37:42 She and her second husband convert and are baptized into the church, I think in the mid-1830s. Then Joseph lives for a brief time with Lucinda Pendleton Harris and her husband, I think, George Harris in Missouri. And it seems, although it's not as easy to document as some. It seems that she is sealed to Joseph by early 1842. So, yes, that is a very strange twist of things.

How Freemasonry Came to Nauvoo

John Dehlin 38:23 Yeah. So what. You've probably already mentioned this, but. So Joseph is. He's in Nauvoo. It's 1841, it's 1842. What do we know about, like, what gets Mason Freemasonry on his radar in the 1841-1842 time frame to kind of get this ball rolling to where it ends up being incorporated into his temple ceremony?

John Turner 38:51 So, great question. And actually, unfortunately, it's a little bit nebulous. I don't think Joseph himself is the prime mover in establishing a Masonic Lodge in Nauvoo. So Nauvoo, there's a group of Nauvoo men who receive a dispensation from Abraham Jonas, the Grand Master of the Illinois Lodge. They get that dispensation in October of 1841. There are some initial lodge meetings in late December of 1841. I think Joseph was probably involved by that point because there's a reference in Brigham Young's diary In very early 1842 that refers to Joseph in the context of the lodge. I think it's likely that men like John C. Bennett were significant in getting this off the ground. Probably also men like Newell K. Whitney. I'm not 100% sure. I think essentially Masonry had been on Joseph Smith's radar screen for some time over the previous few years. The historian Samuel Brown, he's got a nice line in his book In Heaven As It Is on Earth, in which he says that Joseph toyed with Masonry until he found sort of a purpose for it or something like that. And I think, and then we know that Joseph definitely goes through and is initiated as a Mason in mid March of 1842. He is quickly raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason. Some people speculate because of those earlier references that I mentioned, that that might have been sort of a recapitulation of an initiation that could have taken place several months earlier. I think he's definitely taking some inspiration from Masonic motifs when he begins using phrases such as key words, grand key words, in the production of the Book of Abraham early in 1842. So I think there's sort of an engagement, at least over the few months that stretch from the end of 1841 through March of 1842. Joseph then introduces what becomes known as the endowment ceremony in May of 1842.

John Dehlin 42:10 Okay, so just to restate, John C. Bennett was a Mason and we know that he is mayor of Nauvoo and co president of the church. I think by 1840, 1841, is that right?

John Turner 42:23 He's one of Joseph's assistant precedents.

John Dehlin 42:26 And you mentioned Stephen Douglas, who was influential in Joseph's legal, you know, experiences. Stephen Douglas and many other Illinois state politicians and office holders were also Freemasons. So like you say, it's certainly in the zeitgeist. Yeah. You mentioned as sort of a precursor on the top of page 271, that Joseph's penchant for secret organizations can at a minimum be tied to the Danites in Missouri, where he started to need a secret group to help protect him and to help do his and the church's bidding. You used the quote last week of Joseph's quote about secrets. Do you want to retell us his famous quote?

John Turner 43:24 Sure. So I'll give you the longer version. In basically Mid December of 1841, this is recorded in Wilford Woodruff's journal. Joseph publicly talks about secrecy. I think. I think it's a Sunday discourse sermon says, the reason we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us is because we do not keep them, but reveal them. We do not keep our own secrets, but reveal our difficulties to the world, even to our enemies. Then how would we keep the secrets of the Lord? And then Joseph says for himself, I can keep a secret till doomsday.

John Dehlin 44:09 That's awesome. That's an awesome quote. Like I'm. I'm, you know, I'm mindful of the modern debate we're having over whether or not Joseph practiced polygamy. Because even though there's quite a lot of historical evidence that suggests that he did, there's a lot of people that never said Joseph and I were polygamists, you know, or, or yeah, Joseph came and told me that I should be a polygamist or whatever. And you just have to, if you're being fair, you have to realize that there's all sorts of things in history that people don't write because they're secret or sensitive.

John Turner 44:46 Right, Absolutely. So both. You know, a lot of the activities of a Masonic lodge are really banal. They're just men meeting weekly or monthly, initiating new people dealing with membership business in terms of both the endowment ceremony and plural marriage. Yeah, these are, these are secret activities that Some people refer to in writings from the time. A few people like William Clayton have a great deal to say about plural marriage. But other people do keep very circumspect.

The Masonic Temple Ritual Examined

John Dehlin 45:37 Yeah, let's talk really quickly about if you don't mind, the Masonic Temple ritual itself and what we know about it. You write about it on page 271 of your book. I'll never forget. I'm in Guatemala. My predecessor on my mission in Puerto Barrios baptizes owner of a hardware store in Puerto Barrios and he's a Mason and he drives around with a skeleton hanging from his rearview mirror in his truck. And I think it's Hiram Abiff. And he tells me, do you know who that is? That's Hiram Abiff. And he in Spanish starts talking about Masonry to me as a wet eared Mormon missionary. And I had no idea of who Hiram Abiff was or anything about the actual ceremony. So tell us a bit about it.

John Turner 46:35 Yes, well, Hiram, it's not an unusual name in the early 1800s. We know because of Hyrum Smith. Right. So let me just very briefly capitulate, you know, talk a little bit about the rituals of craft Masonry. I'm not an expert on them, so I don't know all that much beyond what is in what I summarize in the book. But in order to achieve the rank of Master Mason, and this is what Joseph Smith would have experienced at least In March of 1842, a candidate, an initiate, is blindfolded. And then in this rite, sort of in this passion Tree plays the role, assumes the role of Hiram Abiff, who is understood as the architect of Solomon's Temple. It's not a biblical figure. It's, I think it's a legend that may or may not be specific to Freemasonry.

John Dehlin 47:49 And if it's okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna interject parallels to the Mormon Temple ceremony experience as you're going through this. So already we've got a temple, right. And then we've got somebody who's, who's acting as an officiant to a process, a proxy kind of idea. And in the Mormon Temple ceremony you go through as Adam or Eve. So this idea of it's in a temple and you're sitting as proxy of a previous historical figure. You're already starting to outline the actual LDS endowment. But keep going. Is it okay if I do that?

John Turner 48:30 Just draw those parallels, interject whenever, whenever you want.

John Dehlin 48:34 Okay.

John Turner 48:34 So then as Hiram Abiff the candidate is murdered, not actually murdered. This is Just reprised for his refusal to reveal the secret Master's word. Then the master of the Lodge, who will be playing the role of King Solomon, raises the candidate, so resurrects the candidate and whispers in his ear a substitute for that master's word.

John Dehlin 49:14 And so there's definitely whispering in the ear of words in the LDS endowment.

John Turner 49:20 And then. And then, yeah, the initiate acts out the consequences that he will suffer if he, unlike Hiram Abiff, betrays that word, betrays Masonic secrets he'll have.

John Dehlin 49:39 And in the LDS endowment, you're definitely taught secret words or slogans or phrases. And then when I went through, I absolutely would act out hand signs of cutting my throat, disemboweling myself, cutting out my heart as penalties for revealing the secrets of what I was being taught in the temple that day. So keep. Yeah, keep going.

John Turner 50:07 No, that.

John Dehlin 50:07 That.

John Turner 50:08 That's right. So in the rituals of Craft Masonry, an initiate would act out having his throat slit, abdomen disemboweled. And of course, there's also. It's not just about punishments. It's also about rewards for those Master Masons who remain true. They would anticipate a glorious celestial eternity. They would, by vocalizing a password, enter into. This is a quote from William Morgan's expose. They would enter into the Celestial Lodge above where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides.

John Dehlin 51:11 Yeah, and obviously there's.

John Turner 51:14 And, you know, there. There are also hand grips. You know, there's a lot. There's. There's pageantry along the way as well. And there's also. There's also robe and apron. So I don't know if you have an image that you can share on the screen, but in the book, I include an image of Joseph Smith's own Masonic apron, which is held in the Community of Christ archives.

John Dehlin 51:52 So.

John Turner 51:52 So, I mean, we can see exactly what Joseph Smith would have worn in 1842.

John Dehlin 52:00 Okay. And John Turner, since you mentioned it, here I have a photo, a reproduction or a photo of Joseph Smith's Masonic apron. It's got that g. It's got two symbols that will be very familiar to our. To our Mormon viewing audience. It's got the compass and the square. Those are two of the symbols that are, you know, sewn into the garment tops of all Mormons who wear garments. And. Yeah, the All Seeing eye. A lot of these images on this apron, the All Seeing eye and the compass in the square and the star are all symbols that are actually also chiseled into the Salt Lake City Temple. The Salt Lake City Temple. And I believe the Kirtland Temple, but maybe not. But, you know, I know that I've seen at least one or two Mormon temples that have handshakes, stars, moons, the sun, all seeing eye and squares and compasses. All of that Masonic imagery chiseled into the stone of the temple. Not to mention the fact that the Mormon garments have a compass and a square sewn into them. That's all it sounds like. That's all Masonic residue. Fair.

John Turner 53:40 Mostly fair. I mean, to be particular, there's a lot of intersection between biblical imagery and motifs and Masonic imagery and motifs. So the sun, moon and the stars. I think the inspiration for that is actually a passage in the Book of Revelation may also have influenced the Freemasons. I'm not sure. But, yes, in broad strokes, what you said is true. And you can definitely date that to Nauvoo. You can look at the architectural drawing for the horizontal angel on the Nauvoo Temple weather vane. That includes a square and a compass, which were understood by Freemasons, I think, as symbols of morality, restraint and industry.

John Dehlin 54:40 Industry. Wow, that's interesting. And then just to really put a fine point on it, the Masonic. As I understand it, the Masonic handshakes are like thumb on the knuckle, thumb between the knuckles. Even the handshake where the pinkies are kind of interlocked in the index finger is touching the wrists. Those handshakes and the penalties, the slitting of the throat, the disemboweling, the cutting out of your heart, those are all directly taken from the Masonic ritual. Correct.

John Turner 55:18 So technically, John Dehlin, you have a bit more experience with some of these than I do, so I'm going to defer to you. I don't know. I don't know if those are identical, but I think you also have to think about this in. It's also useful to think about this in broad strokes. Why have handshakes? Why have penalties? Why have oaths? Why have key words? Now, Masonry wasn't the only thing that inspired Joseph Smith in some of those directions. He was clearly interested in handshakes. We talked a few episodes about his suggestion that if you meet a spirit and you don't know if it's the devil or an angel, offer to shake hands with it. So he's been, you know, has a prior interest in handshakes, but in broad strokes, yes. All of these flow out of Joseph's engagement with Freemasonry.

John Dehlin 56:23 Okay. And in here, I. I found on the Mormon Storage website, actually, you know, a depiction of Masonic hand grips and basically what you see is various handshakes where thumbs are being placed on various parts of the knuckle of someone's hand. These are the past grip of a master Mason, the real grip of a fellow craft, the apprentice to the past grip of a fellow craft. And then the final handshake is called the real grip of a master mason or the lion's paw. But these are all various types of handshakes that you know that are viewed as Masonic. And there's much more. And the only other thing I think is worth mentioning is that all of this stuff appeared in the Mormon Temple ceremony as I went through it in 1988, up through 1990. And it was all stuff that the movie the God Makers pilloried in the 1980s and the evangelicals came after the Mormon Church really hard about the Masonic origins and the violence of the Masonic origins that made it into the Mormon Temple ceremony. And then in 1990, all of that stuff was taken out, including the the five points of fellowship and you know, the use of the term Pele El. All these things were removed by 1990. So somebody who began going through the Mormon temple after 1990 is going to have exposure to none of these things. But those of us who went through before 1990 will have experienced all of them. And it does beg the question, why were they ever removed in the first place? Why were they put there in the first place if they then had to be removed? But that's just. We did actually an LDS discussions episode on the connection between Freemasonry and the Mormon Temple ceremony where we show a lot more images and we go into a lot more depth. Instead of trying to read adjudicate all that here, I'll have Julia list that as a link in the show. Notes John Turner. You wanted to take us to the emergence of the original, what, Nauvoo Endowment. Correct. Let's go there.

Origins and Structure of the Nauvoo Endowment

John Turner 59:03 So maybe also to speed the story up, Justice Gauche. So there are hundreds of Mormon men who are initiated into the Nauvoo Lodge starting in March of 1842. It quickly becomes by far the largest Masonic lodge in Illinois. Joseph has been telling church members that there are things they are only going to receive once the temple is completed. They're going to get grand key words. Or in early May of 1842, he says he's going to reveal certain signs and words to the elders when the temple is built. But in that same month, in early May of 1842, Joseph moved ahead and revealed more to a select group of trusted men. Nine of his most Trusted associates to start with. Those included his brother Hyrum Smith, a number of the apostles, also Bishop Newell K. Whitney. All of these men either had been or had recently been initiated as Masons. And Joseph gives them what Willard Richards, an apostle and one of Joseph's scribes, simply refers to as instructions concerning the priesthood. This is what later becomes known as the Nauvoo Endowment ceremony. And in terms of the details, we don't have a lot of very contemporary sources, Brigham Young's later record.

John Dehlin 1:01:16 Because it was top secret, right?

John Turner 1:01:18 Because it was secret, right. So there's, you know, Willard Richards wrote a little bit about it. He said that the purpose of these instructions was to secure the fullness of their blessings so that they would come up and abide in the presence of Elohim, God in the eternal worlds. Essentially, they would repeat the signs, tokens, and key words that would allow them to pass by the angelic centuries and enter into God's celestial presence. Brigham Young, I think a few decades later, his recollection is that he and the other initiates were taken into. This is on the second floor of Joseph's red brick store in Nauvoo. They're taken into one of the upper rooms. They're washed, anointed. They had their garments placed upon them. Joseph then gave each man a new name and taught them key words that included signs, tokens, and penalties. Then they proceeded into the larger upper room, which had been divided into smaller compartments with curtains. And so then they passed through a series of rooms, received a series of keywords, signs, tokens, penalties. And we know that by a few years later, this had evolved into an endowment, endowment in which a man and a woman reprise the roles of Adam and Eve. It's possible this is all men at first. So it's possible that from the get go that men were reprising the role of Adam. It's also possible that that's an innovation that came a little bit later. We just don't know.

John Dehlin 1:03:38 And, and the Masonic Lodge is all men, and for a long time it was all white men. One thing I didn't realize is the Masonic Lodge was segregated for a long time. So eventually they let there be black Masons, but black Masons had to have their own lodges. The white and black didn't mix in the Masonic lodges, I think for, for a long, long time. And again, this washings and anointings thing first appears in Kirtland. We talked about that previously. Right?

John Turner 1:04:13 Correct. So the, the, the washing and anointing, that is a carryover from from Kirtland. So to some extent, this is an expansion of rituals that Joseph had introduced six years earlier. But the garments, the new name, the keywords, the signs, the tokens and penalties, those reflect Joseph's engagement with Freemasonry, really, over the prior half year, I think it'd be best to say.

John Dehlin 1:04:48 And John Turner, help me make sense of this. As I'm remembering right, when Zion's camp failed, Joseph's response was that he had a promise for. Wasn't it an endowment from on high?

John Turner 1:05:04 Yes, an endowment of power from on high.

John Dehlin 1:05:07 So it seems like from at least Zion's camp failure forward, Joseph was always telling the saints, you're going to get an endowment of power from on high. And I'm working on it. Be patient. And so it seems like this Nauvoo Freemasonry temple endowment is just sort of a continuation of Joseph's intent to make good on that promise and maybe to expand it. Is that fair?

John Turner 1:05:42 So I think there's some carryover, but I do think there's a bit of a distinction or there's some new things as well. So Joseph talking about an endowment of power that actually predates Zion's camp, it's in Joseph's early 1830s revelations, but it's sort of a consoling idea in the wake of Zion's camp, that endowment of power then comes to pass in Kirtland, and it's this Pentecostal experience of the inrushing of the Holy Spirit and visions and speaking in tongues and elders being equipped to go out into the world on missions. In Nauvoo. I do think it's a bit different. I think there's this emphasis on secret knowledge and instruction that will facilitate the celestial exaltation of those who are. Are initiated into this rite. And that reflects the ongoing development of Joseph's thought and. And theological ideas between Kirtland and Nauvoo.

John Dehlin 1:06:59 I just think that's a really important thing to mention. We could talk about the secrecy of the Masonic, the Freemasonry elements. We could talk about the violence of them. We could talk about polygamy, which we will in just a second in the Relief Society. But I think we would miss the importance and the full impact of what Joseph was doing if we didn't mention that part of what he was doing with all of this was to, in the minds of his followers, grant them power, special power on Earth and a pathway to Godlike exaltation in the next life. Is that right?

John Turner 1:07:43 No, I think that's quite Right. So Joseph explains this.

John Dehlin 1:07:47 Who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want special power in this life and exaltation and then godlike exaltation in the next life. Who doesn't want that?

John Turner 1:07:56 Well, a lot of people did want that. Right. It was, it was a really powerful. That's a powerful idea. In the next year, just a, just. It's. Before the Church's annual conference In April of 1843, Joseph teaches this. The white stone mentioned in the Book of Revelation is the Urim and Thummim, whereby all things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms will be made known. And a white stone is given to each of those who come into the celestial kingdom, whereon is a new name written which no man knoweth, save he that receive, receiveth it. The new name is the key word. So, you know, Joseph is teaching, you need to receive this instruction in order to come into the celestial kingdom. I think, you know, Joseph, he introduced the idea of the celestial kingdom way back in 1832 in Nauvoo. Joseph is really actively, I think you could say, figuring out and then teaching his followers what they need to do in order to attain that power and glory. And so this is one, one part of that answer.

John Dehlin 1:09:34 I think it's fascinating just to, just to reiterate what you've already told us, that another important thing that the Masonic parallel between the Mormon Temple endowment in Nauvoo and the Masonic Lodge is a promise of what, celestial eternal greatness?

John Turner 1:09:54 Well, I would say celestial glory to some extent. So, you know, simply, I think in Masonic sources it would be a little bit more just gaining entrance into something like God's Celestial Lodge. So a continuation of this sociality on earth, in heaven. Joseph is far more invested theologically in the idea of degrees of power and glory. Now I think there are elements of that in Masonry because there's sort of always another degree, there's always another right that one might pursue and receive instruction in. But for Joseph, you know, eternal power and glory, they are paramount concerns.

Keywords, Oaths, and Penalties in the Endowment

John Dehlin 1:10:57 Okay, so it's that and it's keywords, oaths, penalties. You write this, this is in your book. Freemasonry was the inspiration for the keywords oaths and penalties, including gestures symbolizing the macabre punishment individuals would suffer should they reveal the ritual's content. The robes, caps and aprons also represent Masonic influence because the Masonic Lodge, they wear interesting looking caps, robes and aprons. I was going to just note in the modern Mormon Temple ceremony attire, the apron is green and it basically just represents A fig leaf that Adam and Eve would have worn. So I'm surprised to see that Joseph Smith's apron wasn't a green fig leaf. It was literally a bunch of Masonic symbols and gestures that was, that's, that's new and interesting to me, at least in my current mind.

John Turner 1:12:05 Yeah, I think, you know, I think sometimes it's possible to get hung up on arguing about whether a particular detail definitely comes directly from Freemasonry or also reflects Joseph's more long standing engagements with biblical motifs and imagery. There's a lot of crossover between Masonry and the Bible. I don't think it's necessary to, you know, it's not always necessary to re. Render a judgment on whether a particular detail is absolutely Masonic versus Biblical. There's a lot of overlap and intersection. I think one phrase that you like to use, John Dehlin, is that everything is remix. And so, you know, Joseph is encountering these ideas in Freemasonry. He's recasting them for his own purposes. You know, he doesn't just directly take say the story of Hiram Abiff. Joseph loves the book of Genesis, especially the early chapters of the book of Genesis. So it's not surprising that ultimately he finds inspiration there for this new instruction that becomes the endowment.

John Dehlin 1:13:42 Fascinating. And again, it's interesting and important to understand that at the beginning of the emergence of the Nauvoo Endowment, women weren't yet involved, which I think I probably guessed, but I didn't guess that Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden story and the green apron fig leaf stuff, that comes a bit later than when it's originally introduced. That's interesting.

John Turner 1:14:10 Yeah, and I think we're not a, we can't be 100% certain about exactly what Joseph introduces in May of 1842. The sources are really sparse. As I said. Willard Richards simply refers to this as instructions concerning the priesthood. So the term endowment might not have been used right at the start. There are, you know, compartments through which men progress. The story of Adam might well have been there at the get go, but certainly there was no Eve accompanying them at this point.

John Dehlin 1:14:49 Okay, so a couple, couple more nerdy questions about Freemasonry, if that's okay. One is, what, what is it? You know, for some reason this reminds me of Zelf and you know, Joseph just seeing some bones and saying that's Zelf, the white Nephite who's dead. You know, just his ability to sort of like or the papyri and, and the mummies. It's just like, oh well, yeah, that's, that's, you know, a papyrus written by the hand of. Of Abraham and of Joseph of Egypt. You know, just how he was able to just encounter something in the physical world and immediately both draw a parallel to his religious worldview, but incorporate it into his theology and doctrine. Is it wrong to put his engagement with Freemasonry and its incorporation into the endowment sort of on that same level of habit or penchant that Joseph had with both the zelf and the papyri and the mummies? Is there a parallel there? I don't even know that I understand my own question.

John Turner 1:16:13 So, you know, the first thing that. That stands out to me is these bursts of creative activity that can have all sorts of different inspirations. I think that's the through line here. And for Joseph, these bursts of creative activity, they often come in very concentrated times. So the Book of Mormon, couple of months, I mean, the second go round at least, but absolutely, when Joseph encounters the papyri and the mummies in the summer of 1842, there's just these bursts of. Bursts of activity, textual production. Then Joseph kind of sets it aside. I do think his engagement with Freemasonry is similar. It. It's just a spur. It's a catalyst for all of these ideas to come forth. And, you know, Joseph Smith, he's often kind of in a rush through things. So it seems so characteristic that he would be raised to these additional Masonic degrees within, I don't know, 24 hours. That seems so characteristic of Joseph. I also think, you know, one. One other theme that I try to follow throughout Joseph's life is he had, you know, he had capacity for mirth and fun and pleasure, and he did like secret things. Whether that's the Book of Mormon plates, whether that's running through the woods, whether that's hiding out from. From lawmen. And as I said, he's an extrovert.

John Dehlin 1:18:04 He's an extrovert and he likes to do stuff with people.

John Turner 1:18:07 He likes to do stuff with people like. So you can see why this would appeal to him. And he loved the pageantry, he loved the rights, he loved the sociality, he loved the meetings. And I think because. And you sort of alluded to this in terms of the church getting, you know, fierce criticism for evangelicals over this connection with freemasonry in the 80s. I think we are still living in a time where the idea that Joseph would have been engaged with Freemasonry and taken inspiration from it, well, that's. That seems scandalous because I think across traditions. We generally like our religious leaders to get all of their inspiration directly from God, not from this lodge that might have a dubious reputation at certain times. But for Joseph, this is not a scandalous thing. It's not scandalous to become a Mason in May of 1840, in March of 1842, for Willard Richards and Heber C. Kimball, it's not scandalous that there's this content overlap between the Endowment and Freemasonry. They're very forthright about it. When they write about it that summer, they don't see this as scandalous. They see it as, you know, it's a feature, not a problem.

John Dehlin 1:19:39 And I appreciate your patience with me. It may feel like I'm drawing this out, but there's an element that's really important to the lived Latter Day Saint here. And I'll just say it briefly. Prior to 1990, what are you taught? That the Mormon Temple ceremony is direct revelation from God. It's the most sacred thing in Mormonism. It's the most secret thing in Mormonism. And not only can you not talk about it to outsiders, you can't even talk to it about to your own parents or your own siblings or your own children or your own spouse outside of the temple. Like, you can only talk about the Mormon Temple in the Mormon Temple. And you never talk about any of these details. And it's all direct revelation and the most sacred thing. So, like, you go and you're just thinking, this is going to be the coolest thing and the most important spiritual thing ever. And then you experience that. I've interviewed hundreds of people on Mormon Stories podcast, literally, who all have the same story. They go to the Mormon Temple thinking they're going to have this divine spiritual experience that's direct revelation from God, the most sacred ceremony. And then you do a bunch of creepy, weird violence stuff that makes you question whether you even believe the church is true anymore. Because for so many people, it ended up feeling violent and cult, like, not spiritual and exhilarating. And so it's like this crash moment where you're in this car wreck, dripping with blood, metaphorically saying, what in the world is happening to me right now? And then just miraculously, one day, the church takes all that stuff away, or most of it away, and just says, these are not the droids you're looking for. It was never really about those things. It's about the covenants you make. And we just took out the stuff that wasn't important. And those of us who went through before 1990 are like, what? What Just happened here. I thought that was revelation and why was it there to begin with? And the church wants to just have this new narrative of just like, none of that was important. What's important is the covenants you make. And you're just going, what is happening right now? Does any of the past matter? And by the way, how long did you know that Joseph had been a Mason? How long did you know that this temple ceremony was inspired by Freemasonry? Again, like, I responded to my friend Tina, never write me again, you anti Mormon bad person. You know what I mean?

John Turner 1:22:16 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:22:16 Like, why weren't we told this? How can you remove it without explaining why it was removed? And how could it have been revelation then, but still revelation now when you've gutted it? And so there's this accounting of not giving us the full history and then changing it, but never explaining why it was changed. That's all. And just the horrificness of the violence of the experience itself, that is never accounted for to this day in the life of a lived Mormon over the age of 56. You know what I'm saying? And so it seems just like I'm beating a dead horse or eating the gristle or focusing on the gnat or the fly on the rear of the historical horse. But I just have to tell you, John Turner, trust me on this, for so many millions of Mormons, this is like, slow down. What just happened here? We've never talked about this and there's never been an accounting for it. Does that make sense at all?

John Turner 1:23:25 That makes total sense. And I think, yeah, obviously I don't have personal knowledge. One book that I've read recently that I enjoyed is Jonathan Stapley's, recently published. I think the title is Holiness Unto the Lord. And he talks a bit about his first experience and how fortunate he was to have a relative who could sort of be with him and help him, you know, understand and process what he experienced. I think one of the things that you point to is it can be really fraught if you have a lot of buildup for a ritual and you don't have knowledge about it in advance and you have super high expectations, and then the reality doesn't meet your expectations, you know, And I don't. I guess one other thing that occurs to me, and I often like to think about parallels, you know, between the Mormon experience and other traditions. So the idea of having a secret ritual only for a select group, or maybe for insiders, but not for outsiders, that's certainly not unique to Mormonism, makes me think of what it might have been like for some early Christians who were not privy to the Eucharist, to the sacrament, to the Lord's Supper prior to their baptism. And that was such a really anticipated ritual that was only for insiders, that was not revealed to the world. That fueled all sorts of rumor and scandal among non Christians. And I wonder, you know, we think of, we might think of the Lord's Supper, the sacrament as something. Well, that's pretty unobjectionable because you're just sitting, you know, he's just sitting there having in your case a little water and bread, in my case, some grape juice and bread. But for a lot of early Christians, there must have been tremendous buildup before partaking of the Eucharist for the first time. And I wonder if some people were disappointed or even, you know, had some of those feelings that you articulated.

Religious Ritual, Remix, and Meaning

John Dehlin 1:26:07 Yeah, just to process this, this idea that everything is remixed, every doctrine, every theology, every ritual, not just in Mormonism, but in any religious tradition. It's never a thing got revealed from God and then we do it. It's like there's not a doctrine or element of theology or of scripture or of, or ritual that isn't always under some sort of evolution. It seems. I know I'm speaking in very broad, sweeping terms, but it just seems like the one constancy in religious ritual, doctrine, theology, scripture is change, constant change over time. And any point you think that at this point in time, this thing that got delivered was the thing from God, you're setting yourself up for disappointment as a religious believer, it seems.

John Turner 1:27:06 And yet at the same time, institutions often feel, I don't know, pressure is the right term, but there's often a need for a sense of permanency and unchangingness at the same time as things are changing. Yes, those are whole hard to hold together. I mean, I also think in terms of ritual. One, one reason why ritual is often so powerful in the context of religion is from familiarity. You know, it's. It's powerful. Well, I'm thinking in my own context, it's really powerful to have your infant baptized. Sorry, I know the Book of Mormon says it's an abomination, but it's powerful to have your infant baptized because you've seen 50 baptisms. If you'd never seen a baptism and you just walked into your church and suddenly your minister took your baby and, you know, started doing things and walking around with it, it'd be a little off putting. So tradition, tradition, you know, it's. It's tradition and familiarity and repetition. And I think that's, that is one reason why I think for some Latter Day Saints, the Endowment Ceremony becomes more meaningful with repetition and why it could be so, you know, maybe uncomfortable for some people the first time, but, you know, I'm sure there's just a massive range of emotions we may need or

John Dehlin 1:28:45 want to break the Relief Society out episode out into a separate episode. Because I do want to just ask a couple more questions questions, and also just to make one point, because I think this is valuable stuff worth talking about. So I appreciate your patience, John Turner. I was sitting next to my stepbrother the other day. I was at a Hale Theater performance of Frozen. And my stepbrother, you know, he's a faithful Latter Day Saint, he and his wife Carol. And I'm like, hey, what are you up to, Robin? And he's like, oh, well, I'm a temple worker now. And I was like, oh, wow, cool. What do you do? And this guy's super smart, super good, kind. And he's like, yeah, I'm a sealer in the temple and I, I seal people. I see a living people in marriage and I seal dead couples in marriage and I seal living people to dead people. And he's like, I do it. I do two shifts a week and I work 10 plus hours a week in the temple. And he says it's the most beautiful, important, spiritual part of his life. And when he enters that Draper temple, he feels like he's entering his own home, interacting with the best people in the world, doing the most important divine work he could possibly do. And again, this is not a dumb guy. This is a super smart, kind, charitable, good hearted guy. And that's how he spends his leisure time. Performing sealing ceremonies for living and dead people in a Mormon temple as part of the endowment and sealing ceremony. And all of that is a legacy of Joseph Smith and what he's doing in Nauvoo in 1842. It's affecting people's lives today in very, very meaningful ways.

John Turner 1:30:40 No, that's absolutely true. And it also speaks to the fact that the, the same things can affect people's lives in all sorts of different ways. I, I often think about that issue of, of Remix one. You know, one thing, if you, if you don't mind a little digression, I love it. So I teach a class that is an introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam in a single semester. And none of these are particularly creative approaches. But one of the things that we do is we look at some intersections between different Texts and traditions. So we look at the fact that the ancient Babylonian flood myths probably influenced the Book of Genesis flood account. And then much later in the semester, we look at the fact that there is a lot of biblical and extra biblical inspiration for portions of the Quran. Now that can often be really uncomfortable for some believing Christians, maybe some believing Jews, less commonly, certainly uncomfortable for Muslims to look at some of those intersections. So the Quran itself, you know, provides, also provides an explanation. Then also early in the semester, we've taken a look at, at those first two chapters of the Book of Genesis, which Christians historically and, and many Jews have translated as in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth period. And then the earth is a formless void. You know, the, there's water, there's, there's wind. Now often translated in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and there was darkness and water. So it basically gets to that question of does God create everything out of nothing or does God bring order and form out of chaos and formlessness? And I'm not a Hebrew scholar, so I don't really try to resolve the Hebrew, but I often tell my students, look, whether or not God created this world out of nothing, or God created this world out of pre existing stuff, or whether or not this world has come to be in some other way, if you look at the world, it's absolutely beautiful and stunning. And I try to use that as, as a parallel than later, later in the class, you know, whether or not Moses just sat down and wrote the entirety of the Torah, or whether or not scribes in the 5th century brought together a bunch of traditions into what we have, these are still remarkable texts. And I think, you know, you can, you could have that same sort of discussion about the endowment ceremony. The positive things that you pointed to, they're there. Regardless of whether or not Joseph had this revealed to him directly from God or whether he took a lot of inspiration from Freemasonry. And likewise, you know, that's true of things that might be less likable. So, you know, I'm, I guess that's a long way of saying I'm comfortable with this idea of remix. I understand why it can be really challenging for people within traditions. Like we'd all like to have our own traditions get everything directly from God. But I just think there's, there's usually, I think maybe always there's just big chunks of complex humanity and messiness there. And the fact that things change over time, I think on some level That's a reflection of the fact that over time, humans come to recognize some of that messiness and want to refine it, love it.

John Dehlin 1:35:42 That was beautiful. And. And it puts prophets or leaders of religions in a tough spot because just like Joseph, they want to innovate, they want to improve, they want to develop and enhance new cool theology and ritual. But they. And they want to be able to adapt and even improve things. But they also were stuck with having their believer, their. Their. Their followers continue believing that what they previously did was of God. And even though they're changing it to something totally different, that was of God then and this is of God now. So still believe that what we're doing is ultimately inspired from God, even though we may be reversing or changing or adding to or taking away. All along it was all of God, even though it's constantly changing. And that's just a tough sell. It's a tough tightrope to walk as a prophet or a religious leader.

John Turner 1:36:42 It is really tough. Right. So one of my favorite books on Mormon history is by Kathleen Flake, former Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies at uva. She has this book titled the Politics of American Religious Identity. It's about, among other things, the Reed Smoot trial hearing in the early 1900s. Similarly, for a similar time period, Thomas Alexander's book Mormonism and Transition is also really good. I'm bringing this up because in the late 1800s, early 1900s, the LDS Church, you know, grudgingly and slowly divested itself of plural marriage, ended the gathering to Zion. Zion, and basically distanced itself from theocracy, enormous shifts, and at the same time had to preserve a sense of stability and permanence, which it ultimately managed to pull off. And that is. That is tough. Yeah, it's a bit of a tightrope.

John Dehlin 1:37:57 And it's a tightrope.

John Turner 1:37:59 And if I could point us to what we're going to talk about next time.

John Dehlin 1:38:03 Okay, wait. I have a couple last questions about freemasonry.

Deeper Questions About the Endowment Ceremony

John Turner 1:38:07 Go for it.

John Dehlin 1:38:08 Okay, so how fair is it to say that in addition to the ritual and the promises of celestial glory and the fellowship of the saints and all of that pageantry and mirth and ritual and even the Book of Abraham plan of salvation stuff. Yes, to all that in Joseph Smith, incorporating freemasonry into an early endowment, if there's a pie chart, how much of it, also was Joseph needing a mechanism of enforcing secrecy amongst followers that he needed to stay quiet about polygamy? Because if it got out, it would be an existential threat to him and the Church. If there were a pie chart of how much the incorporation of Masonry was to help keep secrets, what percentage would you give that slice of the pie? I know it's an impossible question, but is it significant? Is it significant in your mind?

John Turner 1:39:21 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:39:22 It shows up thinking, how do I keep this secret? How do I keep polygamy secret? Masonry plus endowment will help keep polygamy secret to help keep me and my church alive or not. Am I making that up or do you have any guess?

John Turner 1:39:39 Yeah, so that's such a good question. So I actually see it more in Joseph's instructions to the Relief Society.

John Dehlin 1:39:52 Okay.

John Turner 1:39:53 When it's also organized in the spring of 1842. Because Joseph is very explicit when he talks to the women about the need to keep. Keep things on the down low. And in particular, even if there's iniquity or moral failures to deal with that in a way that doesn't put it all before the world to see. So I see that. I see that instruction in Masonic secrecy. I see that as a very important theme in the organization of the Relief Society, the Endowment ceremony. I'm actually, I don't think keeping a lid on polygamy, although the lid is being cracked open at exactly the same time. I don't see that as a problem. Primary motivation. And there's a couple of reasons for that. There are at least you know, Joseph at first initiates nine men into what becomes known as the Endowment. He hasn't told all of them, namely his brother, Hyrum Smith. He hasn't told all of them about plural marriage. So at least Hyrum is still in

John Dehlin 1:41:20 the dark as far as we know. Is it possible he told Hiram but we just don't know that he told Hiram? Or is it pretty clear Hiram didn't know about polygamy in spring of 1842?

John Turner 1:41:31 I think it's pretty clear he doesn't because Joseph has Brigham Young tell Hiram about it a year later.

John Dehlin 1:41:39 Okay.

John Turner 1:41:40 And Brigham has to bring Hiram around on the point. So I. I don't think so. I think also these other men like Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, Newell K. Whitney, I think Joseph has pretty clear bonds of trust with them.

John Dehlin 1:42:06 Now, what percentage of those nine men did? Do we know how many of those men did know about polygamy?

John Turner 1:42:14 So all of those apostles did. I have to check at the time.

John Dehlin 1:42:19 So only Hyrum, everyone but Hyrum was a polygamy confederate by this point?

John Turner 1:42:26 I think so. I'd have to look at the list of the nine. I mean, Neil K. Whitney, definitely, because he's definitely in the know soon, but probably already knows the apostles. Absolutely. Brigham Young's already proposed plural marriage to one young woman by this point, I think I would say more generally. Joseph very much by this point likes the idea of having a small circle of men that he can trust. Certainly for some of those about polygamy, he also is quickly going to find himself under siege. So the lid's blown off of polygamy by John C. Bennett, just really a month, six weeks after what we've talked about today. And some of those who are initiated into the Endowment in May of 1842, they comment it's either Willard Richards or Heber C. Kimball. They comment later that summer that despite everything, Joseph feels safe because essentially he has a small group of men he can trust. I think he just liked. He sort of liked that vibe. And you can see Joseph repeat this a couple of years later when he forms the council of 50. And by that point, you have a much larger group of men and women who have been initiated into the Endowment. And so now you see Joseph again creating yet another group, swearing them to secrecy. I think he just. He liked the idea of, let's keep bringing people into a, you know, smaller inner circle.

John Dehlin 1:44:42 Okay, so while it's. Let me just restate. So while it's true that at least the majority, if not almost all of those early endowment participants were in the inner polygamy circle, with the exception of Hiram, what you think is most going on here is Joseph wanting and needing to create an inner circle of trust with his closest trusted friends.

John Turner 1:45:13 Correct.

John Dehlin 1:45:14 And that in the endowment, that was a big motivating force in Joseph's mind and heart for the creation and evolution of the endowment ceremony.

John Turner 1:45:24 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:45:24 Is that right?

John Turner 1:45:25 Yeah. And I do think, you know, I also do take Joseph's theology here seriously. I mean, I do think, as I said, I think throughout the Nauvoo period, he's sort of figuring out and teaching what do men have to do on Earth in order to achieve the highest degree of celestial power and glory. This is part of that answer. And he. I mean, if you wanted to put it in really sort of, I don't know, loose terms, he's sort of trialing it with these nine men and then rolling it out to a somewhat larger group of men and then women a year later.

John Dehlin 1:46:13 And in this eight, in the spring of 1842, origination of the Endowment ceremony inspired by masonry, is there this idea of sealing people to each other, Sealing people for Eternity together, sealing families together. Or is Joseph not incorporating that in the original endowment?

John Turner 1:46:37 Not in the original endowment.

John Dehlin 1:46:39 Interesting. Interesting. That's interesting.

John Turner 1:46:42 So the following spring is when you can first find Joseph clearly teaching that men and women need to be sealed in marriage in order to achieve exaltation. So he may have. Well have articulated that as he introduced plural marriage in 1841 and 1842, but you can find that clearly taught by the. By the next year.

John Dehlin 1:47:13 Okay, so, John Turner, thanks for your patience with this. Really quickly, a couple more questions. I'll ask you in a second about the broader Masonic leadership and community in the state of Illinois. But Joseph is creating this endowment ceremony with people who are already Masons before he invites them to learn about and participate in the original Mormon endowment. Do we know what these existing Masons thought about Joseph performing, I don't know if the word is remix or bricolage. Joseph adapting, changing and incorporating, and some might say bastardizing or perverting this sacred secret Masonic ceremony into his religious ritual where his peers concerned? And then I, I want you to answer whether Illinois Masonic leadership caught wind of this and whether it ends up being a concern for them.

John Turner 1:48:18 So great questions. And I don't know if I have the full. I don't have the full scoop at the forefront of my brain to answer the question really well. But, yes, let me sort of speak to the second half of that first. What the Mormons in Nauvoo do with their lodge does raise eyebrows in part, as I mentioned before, it becomes by far the largest lodge in Illinois. And they're not doing everything by the book. For instance, Joseph and Sidney Rigdon, they shouldn't have advanced right after being initiated as apprentice Masons. They shouldn't have advanced the next day to the degrees of fellow craft Mason and then Master Mason. Then you have hundreds of men join the Lodge in short order. I forget what it maxes out at. I think more than a thousand men. And once, once there's all sorts of scandal about John C. Bennett on the one hand, but Joseph's own activities in Nauvoo. And there is, you know, some, you know, there are some exposes of the endowment ceremony in, in Nauvoo. There's a lot of criticism directed at the Nauvoo Lodge. I think the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge loses its dispensation from the Illinois Grand Lodge a few years later. I'm not 100% sure about that. But yes, the Mormon Masonry does raise objections from other Masons.

Did Masons Play a Role in Joseph Smith's Death

John Dehlin 1:50:24 And do we know. I've heard some alleged that Joseph's ultimate martyrdom, his killing in Carthage jail, was at least inspired by some Illinois Masons that didn't like the fact that he was changing or altering the temple ceremony. And an accompanying question would be, if Richard Morgan could get killed for divulging Masonic secrets, why wouldn't people be equally alarmed? And why wouldn't this be equally dangerous for Joseph to be bastardizing and then remixing and then sharing Masonic rituals in his weird, you know, derivation of the Masonic ritual from their point of view? Why wasn't that dangerous of Joseph to do? Why didn't this threaten his life, you know, from the perspective of, of Masonic leaders throughout Illinois and elsewhere?

John Turner 1:51:28 So that's a fantastic question. And there have been, there certainly have been authors who have alleged that sort of Masonry was a contributing factor to, in the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Here's my own sense is that. And you know, we'll talk about this down the road. The people who were the prime movers in Joseph's death In June of 1844, they were not primarily upset about his Masonic activities or divulging or adaptation of Masonic ritual. These were men who had become Joseph's avowed political enemies in the early 1840s in Hancock County, Illinois. They didn't really need Masonry as an additional motive to want to kill him. I think it's, it's fairly well known that when Joseph falls out of the window of Carthage jail, you know, his last words are the beginning of the Masonic cry of distress. O Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow's son? And I don't think, I mean it. I sort of think it's reasonably documented that Joseph may have uttered the beginning of that. Definitely. You know, fraternal bonds were not going to save Joseph from his political and legal opponents in June of 1890 in 1844. But I don't think that Freemasons on the basis of Freemasonry were conspiring to kill him.

John Dehlin 1:53:40 Okay. Okay. Thanks for answering. Thanks for answering that as well. All right. Well, I think, I think I'd rather have this episode be self contained because we're pretty much at two hours and I don't want to shortchange the formation of the Relief Society. And so let's just tie it up and just ask what else do you think is worth mentioning about the Masonic Lodge in Nauvoo? The early emergence of the, of the endowment ceremony and Joseph Smith during, you know, the 1842 spring time period? Anything else you Want to mention before we talk about next episode?

Joseph Smith's Creative Engagement with His Culture

John Turner 1:54:31 Yeah. I mean, I would say for me, it's an example of the way that Joseph Smith creatively engaged with the culture that was around him now, I think sometimes in ways that were a little bit more artful and sophisticated than others. I mentioned we talked before about, you know, Cain perhaps being master Mason, but that wasn't, you know, maybe that's not the, the absolute most sophisticated use of, of source material. I do think for, for Joseph in 1841, 1842, Masonry is a catalyst for his development of theology and ritual. And after sort of the mid-1800s, Masonry again becomes something that seems very esoteric. That might seem a bit scandalous in 1842 when Joseph introduces, you know, when Joseph supports the Lodge people of Nauvoo enthusiastically support it. Now that's in part simply because Joseph is endorsing it. And, you know, I think to some extent, whatever Joseph was going to endorse in 1842, his people were going to, were going to embrace. But I think there is a, you know, there's a palpable enthusiasm in response to Joseph. There's not, you know, there's not a tremendous amount of criticism at the time. It's something that his people embrace that he uses creatively. A lot of the scandal comes later.

John Dehlin 1:56:41 And on the one hand, a lot of critics of the church want to say, well, look, Joseph just, he just plagiarized stuff. He gets three degrees of glory from Swedenborg and he gets, you know, he gets his ideas from all. He gets the temple ceremony from the Masons and he gets a bunch of the Book of Mormon from Isaiah. He's just plagiarizing and incorporating. He's clearly a fraud. On the other hand, where are prophets going to get ideas and innovations from if not from their surrounding culture? So another person could say, of course he's influenced by and inspired by the things that surround him. What say ye, John Turner, about this Tarot Gibbons notion that one of the best things about Joseph Smith was that he was, I think in Tarell Gibbons, his words, an inspired syncretist or he engaged in bricolage. Do you, John Turner, see that as not only a feature but as an inevitable reality of being a human being, prophet or not?

John Turner 1:57:52 So I guess I'm sort of of two minds on this one. So. And again, if I could do an analogy. So a lot of Jews and Christians over the centuries have criticized or lampooned the Quran as plagiarizing the Bible and therefore not of value. And, you know, Especially if you're an outsider. That seems a, you know, it seems sort of a funny standard for other traditions that they have to be totally original. And so while I do think, for instance, the Quran makes use of say, the Joseph narrative and the Moses narrative from the Book of Genesis, the Quran recasts those stories in ways that are theologically creative. And it kind of makes them, it makes them belong to a new tradition as well. And so I'm broadly sympathetic to that sort of religious creativity. I don't think it's really something that traditions need to run away from. In the case of Joseph, you know, sometimes I think the counter side to this or the other side to this is some claims that instead of sort of foregrounding that cultural engagement claim something that's more direct revelation. So for instance, the Book of Mormon, I see that as Joseph's creative engagement with the Bible and with his own culture. Joseph, do you think it's disrespectful to

John Dehlin 1:59:44 call that fan fiction?

John Turner 1:59:46 No, I don't. I mean, okay, so that's flippant, but I don't think it's wrong. But, but you know, Joseph, Joseph didn't, wasn't, of course, not going to say for a number of reasons, I'm going to do some fan fiction. Right? No, he's, he's claiming he got this directly from God, essentially. And with say the Book of Abraham, Joseph's claiming he got this somehow, that this is on the papyri. So I don't have any, you know, any problem living with a lot of ambiguity, remixing, cultural engagement, catalysts for creativity. I think all of those things are true. I think what's harder in the case of Joseph Smith is you can't necessarily square that with some of his own claims because it's harder to roll out new scriptures and rituals as this is my creative engagement with pre existing tradition and my culture rather than this is a revelation. These are on golden plates, these are from papyri.

John Dehlin 2:01:09 And that seems to be the great pivot that the Mormon Church is trying to make in the 21st century. It was very clear that the Book of Abraham prior in the 19th and 20th centuries, we all knew what the Book of Abraham was as Mormons. It was a papyrus written by the hand of Abraham that Joseph translated into English. In the 21st century, the Mormon Church. Now I don't know if it's a sleight of hand or a pivot, but now they're saying forget Egyptian, forget translation. We don't even know what the word translation Means somehow Joseph produced the Book of Abraham text as revelation, and the papyrus was used as a catalyst for inspiration. And it's kind of the same thing with the Mormon Temple ceremony. Prior to 1990, we all knew that the temple ceremony as Mormons was revelation from God, an ancient ceremony that Solomon and David performed in the temple that Joseph restored. And it was the one true temple ceremony. And we had never really heard of Masons. Now, in the 21st century, it's sort of like, hey, we got rid of all that Masonic stuff. We're making a gazillion changes. And it's the covenants and the Christ stuff that's important to the endowment ceremony. Everything else was just ways that Joseph delivered the important stuff. But what is Revelation anyway? It's this ongoing pivot that the Church is having to make. Basically, as we've already outlined, we're still prophets, this is still God's work. And yes, we're gutting and changing and reinterpreting words to mean totally different things, to sort of bridge. To Bridge the 19th and 20th centuries with the 21st century and the emergence of scholarship and the Internet. Right.

John Turner 2:03:07 That is a tough task. I would not want to lead a church.

John Dehlin 2:03:10 I don't either in the Internet age.

John Turner 2:03:13 I'll leave that to others. So maybe as a closing note that we'll look ahead to next week's subject, Willard richards. In early 1842, he writes a letter to his wife, and he says this. The grand secret of the Gospel is for us to live by every word of the Lord, to live by revelation, present revelation, do what God requires of us and not what he required of somebody else. So that principle that we might be doing things based on today's revelation, which is not what was revealed not just a thousand years ago, but a hundred or ten years ago, that's a principle that Joseph Smith was teaching in 1842, and a way to make sense of change by foregrounding the authority of current prophets.

The Emergence of the Relief Society

John Dehlin 2:04:21 So is that connected to the discussion of the emergence of the Relief Society or something else?

John Turner 2:04:29 Well, it's connected to the emergence of, you know, Joseph's teaching about polygamy in 1842, which is something that has to be addressed at least as far as rumors go in the earliest Relief Society meetings.

John Dehlin 2:04:51 Yeah, and so that's. Yeah. If I had to sort of tell people what's in store in the next episode, it's sort of like, yes, it's the formation of the Relief Society in Nauvoo, Illinois, but it's also an exploration of to what extent? A key drive, a key driver in the formation of the Relief Society was not only to have a female version of Mormon Masonic ritual and the priesthood. By the way, was the Relief Society originally a female version of Mormon priesthood, which I think your book seems to argue that it kind of might have been an extension of the priesthood offered to and through women? But then also, to what extent was all of that Relief Society business motivated by Joseph's desire to keep secrets and to manage the possibly explosive practice of polygamy in Nauvoo? Fair.

John Turner 2:05:59 Well, fair. And we'll definitely have our hands full.

John Dehlin 2:06:03 Okay, well, that's what next episode's about. Well, John Turner, as always, our episodes are like children that create baby new episodes. We think we're done with a chapter. We thought we were done with chapter 24. And yet chapter 24, as we can quote Al Pacino, pulls us back in. It looks like chapter 24 is going to have three episodes instead of one or two.

John Turner 2:06:35 I don't think you'd be ideally suited to be a rigorous book editor. I think they'd get too long.

John Dehlin 2:06:46 Well, for better or for worse, that's what Mormon Stories is about, is trying to go in depth. And I think we've done that today, and you've been very patient. So thank you, John Turner, for your generosity with me and my audience in allowing us to really go deep. The people that are listening to this episode just keep telling me how much they love it. So I hope you're getting the same feedback.

John Turner 2:07:09 I. I get a lot of nice feedback. I love having these conversations. I love it when people email, when people comment, and I really appreciate people listening, subscribing, supporting. I think this is, you know, this. This series and certainly today's episode, it shows there. You know, we're only Talking about, really, 17 years of history from when Joseph sort of bursts onto the scene with the golden plates until his murder. There's so much that takes place. A lot of it's really complex. There's a lot of things to untangle. There's a lot that we know. There are also some unknowns. So it. Yeah, it takes time and care to sift through all of it and try to make some of that history make sense to us almost 200 years later.

John Dehlin 2:08:10 Well, thanks again, John, for your excellent scholarship and your generosity with us. And we look forward to next episode.

John Turner 2:08:17 You got it. Thank you, John Delenn, and thanks to

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin 2:08:20 our viewers and listeners for joining us today on Mormon Stories with the Joseph Smith Podcast. Please buy this book for yourself and friends and family, your bishops, your stake presidents, your missionaries. Joseph Smith the Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner thanks to all those who donated to Mormon Stories and to this series. If you value this content and you want to see it Continue, go to donorbox.org Joseph Smith Become a monthly donor and we are paying John Turner for his participation and your donations make that possible. We love your comments, but please comment in the YouTube comments on this episode. We read every one. We love it when Dan Bogle and Ganesh and all these other great viewers and listeners and scholars and amateurs give us their points of view. Please comment. Please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com I forward those emails on to John. Please like and subscribe. We're trying to hit 300,000 YouTube subscribers. Please subscribe to this channel and just mostly thanks for your support, everybody. Be good to each other, be kind to each other and we'll see you all again soon on another another episode of the Joseph Smith Podcast and on Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care everybody.

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