Joseph Smith: America's Hermetic Prophet

Part 5

While ceremonial magic was a virtually unknown--or at least, little documented--element in Mormonism as encountered by Joseph's followers, other occult aspects in his religion were openly evident. The most obvious was its irregular Masonic connections. In 1842, two years before his death, Joseph had embraced Masonry. But long before his own initiation as a Mason in Nauvoo, he had traveled in company with Masons--a society which included, among other prominent disciples, Brigham Young. His earliest connection with the Craft probably came with his brother (and close life-long companion) Hyrum's initiation as a Mason around 1826, just shortly before Joseph began work on the Book of Mormon.⁶

Sometime before 1826, Joseph may even have had contact with the historically important Masonic figure, Capt. William Morgan. Morgan published the first American authored exposé of Masonic rites at Batavia, New York in 1826; his disappearance (and assumed murder) just before the book's printing was widely judged an act of Masonic vengeance and sparked a national wave of fierce anti-Masonic activity. Given their close geographic proximity--they lived about twelve miles apart--it is quite possible Morgan and Smith met; one nineteenth century Masonic historian even suggested that Smith influenced Morgan.

Interestingly, in 1834 the widow of William Morgan, Lucinda, converted to Mormonism along with her second husband, George Washington Harris. Harris was also a Mason and former associate of William Morgan. Joseph Smith became closely acquainted with George and Lucinda around 1836, and sometime thereafter he entered into an intimate relationship with Lucinda. Eventually Lucinda became one of his ritually wed "spiritual wives"--a relationship which fully evolved despite her still being married to Harris.

The Prophet's intercourse with Masonry after 1841 became extremely complex. In June of 1841, efforts to establish a Masonic Lodge at Nauvoo began, and a few months later a dispensation for the Lodge was granted. On March 15, 1842 the lodge was installed, and that evening Joseph Smith was initiated. The next day he was passed and raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason. Two days later Smith organize a "Female Relief Society", perhaps intending it to be a Masonic auxiliary, or the beginning of an "adoptive", androgynous new Mormon Masonry. Eventually ever officer of the Female Relief Society also became a spiritual wife and consort of Joseph's, with his first wife Emma acting as president of the Society (a situation understandably complicated by the fact that Emma did not completely understand Joseph's relationship with the other women).

These last three years before his murder in 1844 were unquestionably the most creative period in a uniquely creative life. Shortly after his Masonic initiations, Smith began formulating the rituals that would be instituted in his own Mormon Temple, then still under early phases of construction in Nauvoo. Six weeks later a first version of this "endowment" (as the ritual was subsequently called) was given by Joseph to a "Holy Order" of nine disciples, all of whom were Master Masons. Many elements of the "endowment" ritual directly paralleled Masonic ceremony, a fact plainly evident to participants. Smith explained to his followers that Masonry was a remnant--even if somewhat corrupted--of the ancient priesthood God had commissioned him to restore in its fullness. In turn, essentially every prominent male figure in the Mormon Church who was present as an adult in Nauvoo became a Master Mason.

Another unusual element entered the matrix of Smith's creativity around this time. From his associations with ceremonial magic and then Masonry, Smith had almost certainly heard of "Cabala". But in 1841 a Jew raised in the Polish borderlands of Prussia, educated at the University of Berlin, and familiar with Kabbalah, joined the Mormon church, migrated to Nauvoo, and there became Smith's frequent companion and tutor in Hebrew. Documentation has recently come to light suggesting this individual, Alexander Neibaur, not only knew Kabbalah, but probably possessed in Nauvoo a copy of its classic text, the Zohar. Joseph likely became familiar with the Zohar while under the tutelage of Neibaur. Indeed, it appears Smith's April 7, 1844 public declaration of a plurality of Gods was supported by an exegesis on the first Hebrew words of Genesis (Bereshith bara Elohim) drawn from opening section of the Zohar.⁷

During the period after 1841, Joseph introduced the practice of plural "celestial marriage"--what later evolved into Mormon polygamy in Utah--to a small group of his most trusted followers. In this era not only men, but a few women--like Lucinda--secretly took a "plural" spouse. The sacred wedding ritualized by Smith was a transformative union that anointed men and women to become "priests and priestesses", "kings and queens", and then ultimately Goddess and God--the dual creative substance of Divinity in eternal, tantric intercourse. The ceremony was intended to be performed in the holiest precincts of his new Temple. By late 1843 Joseph revealed several ritual extensions to the "endowment", all ultimately incorporated into Mormon Temple ceremony. This legacy of mysterious initatory rituals revealed by Joseph Smith between 1842 and 1844 remains little altered as the sacred core of Mormonism.

Fifty years later, at the end of the nineteenth century, leaders of the Utah church would still occasionally state in private that the Mormon temple ritual embodied "true Masonry"--a fact unknown to most modern Mormons. But then, of course, almost all of this history is unknown to the average modern Mormon. Even well-educated "Latter-day Saints" today seldom understand the origins of the compass and square embroidered upon the breasts of the ritual garment worn by temple initiates. The relationship of these temple rituals' development with Joseph Smith's occult vision and the concurrent introduction of Masonry in Nauvoo is now, however, becoming the subject of intense renewed interest.