Its doctrinally incorrect to say the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) is a Protestant denomination. According to Church doctrine all other Christian denominations are apostasies. Only the LDS possesses the latter day revelations of Jesus Christ and is the true Christian faith. This dogma is no different than the Roman Catholic Church's which maintains its transmission of true doctrine is received directly from the early church founded by Saint Peter in Rome. A fundamental difference in belief between the LDS and other Christian churches is it's concept of the Godhead. Whereas most Protestant denominations are monotheistic, accepting a single god in the form of a trinity, the LDS holds that there are innumerable gods composing a heavenly hierarchy and that God was once as man is now. These startling ideas were first presented to the Saints by Joseph Smith in one of his last sermons in Nauvoo, Illinois known as the "King Follett Discourse". Brigham Young, the immediate successor to Smith, claimed later that the Prophet taught him Adam was God in human form though there is no historic evidence that Smith held this view. Where these ideas may have originated, other than from divine revelation, was the subject of intense historic research during the two year period the LDS was confronting the Salamander Letter controversy and the correspondence was considered possibly authentic.One aspect of early Mormonism that has been studied and accepted by scholars and even the LDS was it's leaders association with various forms of Freemasonry. Dr. Reed Durham an LDS historian stated: There is absolutely no question in my mind that the Mormon ceremony which came to be know as the Endowment, introduced by Joseph Smith to Mormon Masons had an immediate inspiration from Masonry. The "immediate inspiration" is understandable because Smith was initiated into the cult (March 15, 1842) in the same second floor office where he founded the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo. The Temple itself was adorned with Masonic symbols. Every prominent male Mormon in Nauvoo also became a Mason. Smith explained that
Freemasonry represented a corrupted "remnant" of the true priesthood which God intended him to restore. Two days after being entered as a Master Mason he founded a "Female Relief Society" along Masonic lines with lodges, rituals, degrees and orders similar to a French version called "Adopted" Masonry. Orthodox Freemasonry as practiced in Illiinois at the time did not include women. Eventually every officer of the Society became Smith's spiritual wife and consort. His first wife, Emma, presided as the Society's first "Elect Lady". Smith was undoubtedly aided in his masonic exertions by John Bennett, a disreputable frontier gynecologist and Mason. His brand of Masonry was apparently of the libidinous variety. Arriving in 1840, he enjoyed a meteoric rise in Nauvoo becoming mayor and assistant president of the Church. In 1841 the idea of "spiritual wifery" or plural marriage was introduced. According to a contemporary Nauvoo newspaper editor, it was Dr. Bennett who introduced esoteric Masonry concepts to Joseph Smith. Bennett experienced an equally rapid departure from Nauvoo in 1842 after being excommunicated for alleged sexual improprieties. Alarmed by the irregularities instituted by Smith and his followers, the Illinois Grand Lodge removed all authority from the Mormon lodges.But Smith's association and knowledge of Freemasonry goes farther back than Nauvoo. The Smith family originated in Vermont. Two of Joseph's uncles became Masons there. After relocating to upstate New York, his father became a Master Mason in 1818. His older brother and life long companion Hyrum entered a Palmyra, N.Y. lodge around 1826 about the time Joseph began work on the Book of Mormon. Joseph associated with other Masons like Brigham Young. Around 1836 be became intimate with Lucinda Young, the wife of another Mason, who eventually became one his "spiritual wives". She was the widow of the noted Captain William Morgan of Battavia, New York. Morgan was murdered presumably by Masons for exposing their secrets in 1826. The murder touched off a period of nationwide anti-Mason agitation. Thus, the young Smith was steeped in all things Masonic. His story of the discovery of the Golden Plates bears strong similarities to the legend of Solomon's treasure as noted by historian John L. Brook:
Freemasonry provides a point of entry into this very complex story. As it had been in Vermont, Masonic fraternity was a dominant feature of the cultural landscape in Joseph Smith's Ontario County. . . . The dense network of lodges and chapters helps explain the Masonic symbolism that runs through the story of the discovery of the Golden Plates. Most obviously, the story of their discovery in a stone vault on a hilltop echoed the Enoch myth of Royal Arch Freemasonry, in which the prophet Enoch, instructed by a vision, preserved the Masonic mysteries by carving them on a golden plate that he placed in an arched stone vault marked with pillars, to be rediscovered by Solomon. In the years to come the prophet Enoch would play a central role in Smith's emerging cosmology. Smith's stories of his discoveries got more elaborate with time, and in June 1829 he promised Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris that they would see not only the plates but other marvelous artifacts: the Urim and Thummim attached to a priestly breastplate, the 'sword of Laban,' and 'miraculous directors.' Oliver Cowdery and Lucy Mack Smith later described three or four small pillars holding up the plates. All of these artifacts had Masonic analogues.. . . Smith's sources for these Masonic symbols were close at hand. Most obviously, Oliver Cowdery would have been a source, given that his father and brother were Royal Arch initiates; one Palmyra resident remembered Oliver Cowdery as 'no church member and a Mason.' . . . A comment by Lucy Mack Smith[Joseph's mother] in her manuscript written in the 1840s, protesting that the family did not abandon all household labor to try 'to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles, or sooth-saying,' suggests a familiarity with Masonic manuals: the 'faculty of Abrac' was among the supposed Masonic mysteries [Refiner's Fire, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 157-158].
The early Mormon Church's incorporation of esoteric ideas went deeper than mere Masonic ritual and symbols. Esoteric concepts entered its theology too. Church leaders in Utah would later claim that Mormonism was the "true Masonry". Michael Quinn, a prominent historian of the occult said in his seminal study of Mormonism's occult roots, Mormonism and the Occult World View: "To be sure Masonic rituals also shared some similarities with the ancient mysteries, but these were not linked to any concept of heavenly ascent, which was fundamental to both the occult mysteries and to the Mormon endowment. Therefore, what similarities may exist between Freemasonry and Mormonism seem more appropriately to be regarded as superficial, whereas the ancient occult mysteries and the Mormon endowment manifest both philosophical and structural kinship." (Ibid., p. 190). Indeed, the purpose of the Mormon rituals was for the mortal faithful to attain Godhood. The following is from a description of the Mormon ritual of the Second Endowment:The second anointing is an extension of the initiatory. One could say, in fact, that the second anointing completes the initiatory: where the initiatory promises future blessings contingent on initiates' faithfulness, the second anointing actually bestows those blessings. Unlike the endowment or temple marriage, the second anointing is not regarded as essential for salvation. Relatively few Saints receive the second anointing; indeed, the rite is so rarely spoken of that most Saints around the globe are probably unaware it exists. Presumably the rite is administered to General Authorities and their wives, as well as to other couples with whom the hierarchy is acquainted, in recognition of extraordinary faithfulness....The second anointing is administered only to married couples, on the recommendation of a member of the First Presidency or the Quorum of the Twelve....The officiator pronounces upon the husband additional blessings as the Spirit directs. Typically he is blessed with the Holy Spirit of promise; the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the power to bind and loose, curse and bless; the power to live as long as life is desirable; the power to open the heavens; the power to attain to Godhood; and the sealing up to eternal life.... [emphasis mine]
Brooke, ibid, notes the "striking parallels between the Mormon concepts of coequality of matter and spirit, of the covenants of celestial marriage, and of an ultimate goal of human godhood and the philosophical traditions of alchemy and Hermeticism, drawn from the ancient world and
fused with Christianity in the Italian Renaissance." In sum to be a fully endowed Mormon is to be initiated into the possibillity, through conjoining with a celestial mate (mysterium coinunctionis), of becoming a new Adam-- god. To fully understand the ramifications of these doctrines, I will discuss another major influence, the ancient Jewish mystic tradition, Kabbalah, in a future post. Suffice it to say here that according to the later reformulation of traditional Jewish Kabbalah man contains a divine spark and that attribute reflects a fundamental duality in creation summed up by the cryptic words attributed to the legendary Egyptian philosopher-priest Hermes Trismegistos, "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One." [Emerald Tablet] . An adept may use his powers to merely transmute metals, but the higher calling is to transform himself.