110: Joseph Smith and Freemasonry with Cheryl Bruno

Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy where we explore the scriptural theological and historical case for plural marriage I am so excited about this episode this was a fun one for me Cheryl Bruno is a well-respected um historian I don’t want to call her an LDS or a church historian she is a

Member of the church but she’s not employed by the church to do her history or historical work that she does but I have thought highly of her for a very long time and I was so excited to finally get to engage with her I really hope that everyone in our community will

Listen to this episode with Open Hearts open minds open eyes and um I think we could probably have a really great discussion in the comments as she presents her evidence of Joseph’s and hyrams hyams mainly and Joseph’s Freemasonry I think it’s something that we really need to be aware of the

Evidence that is out there I love that she was willing to come on and do this whole presentation just for us to help us and she says a lot of incredibly important things in this episode that I hope our community will listen to and she says a lot of really important

Things that I hope the broader historical Community will listen to because I thought this was an incredibly important good valuable conversation so I also want to as always thank those who help make this podcast possible to help keep it going I want to remind everyone of our website and all of the exciting

Things that we have started and where the information will all be available and I thank you for joining us as Cheryl Bruno and I take this deep dive into the very murky water of Mormon polygamy and the slightly less murky water of Mormon Freemasonry welcome to 132 problems I am so excited to be here today with Cheryl Bruno who is one of my heroes I’ve been watching her from afar for a little bit for for a while ever since I learned about her and I have to say she’s just

Get she’s a quote amateur historian or an untrained historian who has become quite the professional historian she’s amazing and so here’s I just want to tell you a little bit about Cheryl what I found she is a writer a poet and an independent researcher she specializes in 1840s Mormonism Mormonism and

Freemasonry Mormon fundamentalist movements and William Marx which I’m excited about because I I’m hoping that Cheryl will come on for repeated discussions because there are so many things I’m dying to talk to you about so um oh and esotericism did I say that right esotericism is that how you say it

Okay which um I’m gonna do my best to Define that and you tell me if I if my understanding is correct but it reminds me of like sort of ancient mystery Traditions it’s kind of sacred knowledge that’s held for only the the small group of the initiated and so it kind of goes

Along with our temples did I understand that correctly that’s right that’s right perfect okay and so um anyway then also she has more Publications than I was able to count her many articles appear in many Publications including the Journal of Mormon history so and you’ve presented at so many historical

Conferences as well how long have you been working on Mormon history when did you get started oh I don’t know if I could even tell you that without revealing how old I but um like I would say 40 years I’ve been working on certain aspects of Mormon

History that is incredible and so okay so I’m going to want to talk more about that but her recent book that I believe was published in August of 2022 method infinite Freemasonry and the Mormon restoration is incredible I I always try to read things before but

I was not able to get very far into this yet but looking over the chapter titles and what I started on I’m so intrigued and so excited to learn more so this is an incredible book that I believe didn’t it take something like 20 years to get

It prepared yes it did yes it did and I was involved in it for about 10 years but um different of us all of us were working on it for about 20 years and it’s quite a book so yeah I think it is I I now I I

Haven’t read it yet but I feel like I need to because I feel like it’s essential for me to fully understand my faith to understand this aspect of it or this you know this this perspective of it at least and so I think really it’s required reading for Mormon historians I

Would say yeah but I don’t even think just for historians I feel like just to understand the temple to understand to just make these connections from the beginning from the first Vision like you draw in Masonic elements of the first vision and of the Book of Mormon

There are a lot of masonic elements that I I would I’m really curious to learn more about so it’s really exciting so just to wrap this up um Cheryl served in LDS mission to Montreal Canada she earned a bachelor’s in a Bachelor’s of Science and Recreation management which

Is really fun and then um did graduate work in educational psychology at BYU and I believe you currently are do are you the director of Residence Life at an El Elderly Care Facility is that what you do for your day job that’s amazing and monterre California where she lives

So that’s a little bit about Cheryl I wasn’t able I hope it’s okay to ask I wasn’t able to find information about your family um you have children and yes I have eight children which is Dro in the bucket compared to you but they’re all over

The yeah there’s seven girls and one boy seven of them served missions um they’re all great kids and I have 20 grandchildren okay that’s fabulous I think that should be front and center in all of your bio all of your bios everywhere because that’s I I love that

You did you know I just love when people have their families and their their career I think it’s amazing so okay so all of this historical work you have done has been along with having eight children and your Master’s degree and your career I do not have a master’s

Degree no I okay I have eight children and no master’s degree okay okay so you did graduate work but didn’t finish the the Masters okay okay so well got married had my first child and left the university so never well amen sister I hear you that’s

Been my path as well so yep so okay thank you for filling me in on that I’m excited to know that and maybe you did tell me that in one of our exchanges that we’ve had we’ve had I just I just have to say that I have loved engaging

With Cheryl we haven’t engaged a lot but every time that she has um engaged with me it has been with so much kindness and Clarity and also just like excellent sources I remember one time I was say I I had um fallen for not known that I had

Fallen for um which I didn’t anyway Brian Hills claimed that the scrape being scraped out an affair written over it and and you know the Webster dictionary Affair doesn’t necessarily in that time period didn’t necessarily canote um adultery right but Cheryl sent me the minutes from Oliver cry’s excommunication hearing which very

Clearly shows that it absolutely was adultery and I I was like thank you I will never say that again you know I just love um getting more information and Cheryl’s very helpful with that so thank you for always engaging so so well and with so much kindness and Clarity I

Appreciate that oh thanks for that wonderful introduction that was fabulous oh yes yes oh I wanted to share one more thing I found that um a book of poetry I believe about heavenly mother that Cheryl was a contributor to and you wrote a poem called message to sesily

And I wanted to ask you so sesily the first thing that comes to mind for me is the The Importance of Being Earnest with my theater background but I’m assuming that’s not what you’re referring to and so is it St Cecilia or is it cesil

Duchess of York or can you tell me what that yeah it doesn’t really have a it doesn’t really have a meaning it’s just a name is just a woman it’s just a name for woman oh that’s beautiful anyway it’s a beautiful poem so I’ll put the

Link to it in the show notes because I thought it was I thought it was beautiful and I was happy to learn that you had that you had contributed to that so anyway okay yeah anything I missed or anything else you want to add well yes

You have missed that I have done a set of tarot cards so Mormon tarot cards I have created a set of Mormon tarot cards and so that’s um I really am pretty proud of those there was a limited edition of about 500 sets that are all sold out now one day I’ll do

Another edition of them but um I love them they’re really awesome okay I feel like you just a giant can of worms so let’s talk about that for a second oh that’s with my esotericism that goes with my esotericism now I’m not a witch and I don’t really believe you know in Tarot

Like um that you can tell the future or anything through tarot but I I love symbolism and I love art and so I feel like um tarot has been um a way for many artists to express themselves over the years so I that’s what I did I expressed

Myself through a Mormon tarot set and it’s really fun to use and like what it what it does is when I when I read someone’s tarot it kind of brings out some of their unconscious feelings about Mormonism A lot of times so um that’s what’s been so fascinating about it okay

So I recently had some um some friends on well new friends who taught me about started to teach me about theological astrology right the signs in the heavens and I’m totally fascinated and intrigued and it’s so interesting how it’s like no don’t talk about the stars or the

Rotations or the planets or the signs and the heavens because that’s witchcraft right so I’m enjoying sort of bridging these gaps and understanding how um how all of these ideas come together so it sounds like you’re kind of Bridging the Gap with tarot so I’m curious to so you see connections with

Sort of the symbolism in Mormonism and Freemasonry and with tarot and okay absolutely yes and there’s a lot of symbolism there’s a lot of symbolism in Mormonism and it’s not just Masonic but um masonry has a big part of it but um we have so many symbols like um you see

A um hand card right that’s a symbol and immediately to your mind if you’re a Mormon so many things come into your mind just seeing that one little hand card maybe if you’re not a Mormon you won’t exactly feel quite the same as we

Do when we when we see that hand cart we think sacrifice we think so many things when we see that hand cart um and so that’s a symbol and there are many and the hand card is on one of my tarot cards and I have many things like that

That um so when you see that um so maybe I’ll be reading your tarot and that card will come up and I I’ll say well what sacrifices have you made lately what have you done that’s really hard what you know and you’ll you’ll with that hand hand cart you’ll start to get into

Touch with your feelings about those particular um you know aspects so okay that’s so I wanted to ask you that so with your tarot cards you you created your own you didn’t just do an artistic set of traditional tarot cards you brought Mormon symbolism into tarot and created a whole

New okay I’m so glad that we talked about this and I’m wondering are you going to read my tarot on this conversation or after it now we’ll definitely have to do that okay okay good because I’m so curious about all of this and that sounds beautiful I would love to see I just

Would love to see this set so will you please let me know when you make another one or if you run a bigger addition of that original one because I think a lot of people would be really fascinated by this okay thank you for filling that

Part in for me that’s fascinating and um and it’s so funny that you have to clarify that you’re not a witch I do because people people ask me that when I say I’ve um created Mormon tarot cards oh are you a witch yeah so okay that’s so funny yeah like I think I

Think it’s interesting because I do think not there’s anything wrong with people that go um are into that path right I don’t want to like wi that’s I think that as Mormons we’ve adopted a lot of just CHR like like Christendom has this kind of proprietary access to the Divine and anything else

Is evil right so so if you’re a Christian you can’t have crystals or stones and you can’t think of the signs in the heavens and you certainly can’t do te look can’t look at symbolism on tarot right but I think it’s usually a lack of understanding to to it’s just these are

Different aspects and ways of knowing that might be fascinating I think it’s good for us as Mormons to recognize that I don’t think that the founders of our religion had that same fear of other ways of knowing and other right like I don’t think Joseph Smith would have been

Like symbols no that’s obviously not how he approached totally agree yes my way of good okay so I think I want to clarify for anyone please don’t be afraid God has not given us the spirit of fear if tarot sounds weird maybe we all just need to learn more about it

That’s a possibility so okay well I so one more part I have to include in Cheryl’s introduction because of her many Journal articles articles have you it’s over 60 isn’t it do you have an idea of how many oh I would not say it was anywhere near over 60 um okay I

Would say it would be published articles like I don’t know 10 you know okay around there um and um I have a million book reviews I have lots of book reviews so maybe maybe you’re thinking book reviews I’ve done many book reviews um not all of them have been published but

Um they’re online and I have um a site at academia.edu and you can read all of my uh works there the published works even have a few poems on there so um if you you’ll see that well that’s actually where I want to start if that’s okay because my favorite book review of

Cheryl’s that I’ve read so far is this one right here that I think that all of my listeners will really want to read so this is this is Cheryl’s site right Academia and this will be linked below and this is Cheryl’s book review it response to Brian hailes and so if I

Wanted to well I can scroll down and show you maybe I’ll just stop sharing and just read um a few portions from this if that’s all right because I have to tell you Cheryl I feel often really sort of gaslit by his historians you know like a lot of historians will tell

Me off the air what they what they think about Brian Hill’s work but then they have to play super nice when we’re officially recording that’s happened several times you know and and also even if they are so critical of his methods and his approach they still let him set

The narrative is how it feels to me you know so this was refreshingly honest and so so so wonderful to read for those of us who feel like why is he being taken so seriously and it’s and you were kind and you were you know you weren’t like mean

Or anything but I just wanted to I I I recommend that everybody read this review because I think when you have felt gas lit for so long it just gives you a piece of yourself back and you’re like okay this is right this is correct

You know and so um so early on in the article um Cheryl quotes somebody that’s singing like saying very High Praise of Brian and she says I do not agree that Brian hailes interpret inter that Brian hailes interprets history responsibly his history rather than being descriptive is prescriptive he tells the

Reader how they should interpret the evidence rather than letting the evidence speak for itself see is this just not so good for all of us to read this from a really well-respected historian I find this thorough I find this throughout the volumes it is in his

Handling of the evidence that he and I will have to agree to disagree in many places his own evidence overwhelmingly supports interpretations at variance with those he himself provides so good to read and then Cheryl uses adoption and so adoption is something I’m going to want to talk to

You about more go I don’t know how much you have you might have it in this presentation but it seems to me you’ve obviously done a lot of work on this which I find fascinating so I’m hoping if we that we can talk about that

Sometime I do plan on writing a book on adoption in the future so that will that’s one of my topics of Interest that’s amazing so and and I’m I am gonna like I’m G to bug you to come back and talk to me about it as well so

Um but anyway and then she so she using adoption goes through Brian’s arguments and shows I think it’s 10 or 12 things that he does techniques that he uses that are just not good historical practice um and so anyway so I’ll let and then at the end so she uses adoption

To kind display what is not um well done in Brian’s work and then this is how this is what comes a little bit later in the article she says what I have said about adoption can be extrapolated onto Brian’s handling of Joseph Smith’s polygamy I think and and

I should clarify I don’t want to speak for Cheryl you strongly believe that Joseph was a polygamist right yes I was gonna kind of keep that unto my chest but um okay blank yes well I I think at a future time also we could discuss some of that

Evidence I mean some of that evidence and I can explain my perspective and and you know I’d love to hear your review of my work as well I think it’d be really helpful to help you know I will talking a little bit about this but okay okay

Okay that’s good so I’ll finish this sentence she says um this is this also um applies to Joseph to Brian’s handling of Joseph Smith’s polygamy I think think Brian misconstrues polygamy in the same way that he misconstrues adoption yes the volumes are important but they are also dangerous because they present the

Historical sources in a light that does not reflect Joseph’s polygamy as understood by the early Latter-Day Saints he is not responsible in retrieving a collective memory of polygamy that is representative of the majority of sources the idea that plurality of wives is merely an appendage appendage to the greater

Principle of Eternal Marriage and that monogamous eternal marriage is normative is a clear departure from the early understanding of the term taught in navu and we can talk about that and in Utah until the turn of the century ultimately it is dishonest history this book is not about Joseph Smith’s polygamy it is

About how the modern church can accommodate the historical record so good spoton so well stated so I have to thank you for that I know that my audience is going to storm that article and that book review and love it so we did three or four book reviews of

His of his set so there’s okay so there are more yeah there’s one of them that talks about the little the scrape um the word so um yeah there’s I I’ve talked about Brian Hill several times and then I think we had we had a um uh a back and

Forth at Sunstone one year and then I think he was a little bit um challenged by my reply to him and so he asked me to do the next year he challenged me to come on the next year for a rematch so we had a rematch the next year so that

Was really fun and I think those um sessions are out there online somewhere too where you okay so so we will if those are available we will be certain to link those below because I think people would love to watch that I’m curious how Brian takes it when you go

Head-to-head because his his my interactions with him have not been Pleasant you know okay I was just gonna say that Brian is um very classy on how he has responded to me he’s always been very kind and um he he does say that he’d like to um just look at the

Evidence and let’s just talk about the evidence let’s not get into personalities and that kind of thing and that’s what I love to do and I think that’s what you like to do Michelle too is that you I’ve never heard you say oh this person is just a I don’t know they

Don’t have a PhD so they don’t know anything or you know um there’s no that none of that in your work um so I think Brian kind of wants to do that but yet in his writing he doesn’t quite achieve um that and I I will say about Brian is

I do greatly respect what he’s done with polygamy for quite some time he was the only person who you I mean when you wanted to talk about Joseph Smith’s polygamy you had to engage with Brian’s work because he was the one he and um Don Bradley were the ones that had

Brought together all the sources and you didn’t have that anywhere else so for quite some time he was a go-to person and I really admire him for um putting those things out not everyone puts out their um their sources like he has he’s really done a great job at that um now I

Believe he has not interpreted them um quite the way that other people would and so I I try to show that in my in my reviews but um let me just go on to say that um Michelle when you started doing your work on polygamy on Joseph Smith’s

Polygamy this was what two years ago and I first saw I started two years ago but I didn’t really get into Joseph heavily until about a little over a year ago but yeah mhm okay so it’s maybe a little over a year ago when I first became aware of

132 problems and I thought who is Michelle stone Michelle Brady Stone she’s a safety kid she’s on cookies and milk and yellow balloons you know so what does she have to say um and over this um past two years I feel like you have put yourself you have um studied

The sources so well and become such an expert on it that you are now the go-to person anyone who wants to talk about Joseph Smith’s polygamy needs to engage your work that’s just what it is any Mormon historian who wants to talk about Joseph Smith’s polygamy if they’re not

Talking about your work then I don’t I would have to discount them because they are not going to the expert so I no longer feel that Brian hailes is in that position not to say that I agree with everything you say but I do believe that your work must be engaged with and

Especially um this last um when was it this last month you did the work on the Deeds yeah that was amazing work I don’t feel like anyone has covered that like you have and even has an understanding of that like you have so kudos to you this is

Fabulous wow thank you so much that’s like like thank you okay I’m gonna hold it together if if you were just sending me this to a text I’d be like oh my gosh okay I’m just gonna take it and stride as a professional okay thank you Cheryl I really appreciate those sentiments oh

My gosh okay no you know how much work you’ve done that’s amazing and other people have done a lot of work on polygamy not necessarily um the just the the focus that you have um I don’t know anyone Todd Compton doesn’t work on that focus and really the only person that

Does is Don Bradley or um yeah Don Bradley does and and um um and Brian right yeah but um they don’t have the perspective you have and I don’t think they’ve gone quite as far digging as you have into these things like deeds and um other sources that you’ve covered and

Especially also I think your anniversary edition talks about um biblical polygamy and how it relates and I don’t know if anyone that has done that if they have um you know I just haven’t seen it but um that’s incredible work as well thank you so much I really do

Appreciate that so okay okay breathe and move on um so anyway sorry I just I respect your work so greatly so that means a lot coming from you and I I completely agree with you about Don Bradley I think he is a I mean about Brian hails the work that he has brought

Forward like when you start having his Repository sources and all of the um summaries he’s written with the links below it is so immensely helpful like he really yes his work has just been essential and so helpful so I’m so thankful for that I agree with you that

The problem is in his interpretation of the sources that he’s gathered and I do think he he also really wants to be a nice guy I guess I have just felt like he approaches me with a lot of condescend he’s very condescending toward me he’s a good person and he has

Great motives um and he’s very good person and um have you met him in person oh well I’ve interviewed him other than that I haven’t met him life over yeah and I would I do want to say like like I know I’m go I go after him

Quite hard I hope I go after his ideas although you know sometimes the condescending approach is difficult but but I would love to continue to engage so I’m happy to know that he has had continued engagement with you even though you’ve been critical of his work so that gives me hope because definitely

No hard feelings on my end so okay thank you I think he and also Don Bradley especially um are great people to go to to discuss something if you’re trying to get a handle on um you know any aspect of Joseph Smith’s polygamy and um they

Even though they may not agree with you um are willing because in many ways they haven’t agreed with me but um but um are very willing to chat on the phone discuss something you know a lot of times for me when I’m trying to get my mind around something I like to just

Have someone that I can talk to about it and then sort of get myself I I talk myself into what I you know my analysis totally right so um so they are great people to talk to about that and are very willing to I’m sure that if anytime

You wanted to say oh well I have this document and what do you think about it you know um they would they would pick up the phone and talk to you for hours about that so okay okay I’m glad I’m going to try this gives me hope because I

Um I I did try to do that several times with Brian message him and say okay I’m finding this it looks like this to me and and his approach would be I just don’t know how I can help you when you this is a document that we’ve known

About for years and you’re just finding it now and it’s already all dealt with and who do you think you are kind of is how it’s been and so that’s been hard right and um so but Don and I have had some good engagement he’s um come on the

Program twice so far I guess you’ve seen I’m still hoping he’ll get into the sources and the evidence with me maybe part of the difference is that I’m kind of I’m I’m countering their very thesis and so that might be part of why it’s a little bit harder for them to want to

Engage with me and so um so I can understand that but but that gives me hope I’m GNA keep try well I shouldn’t say Don is engaging with me I just want us to engage on the sources as well so okay thank you Cheryl so I know should

We move on to the meat of the presentation let’s do it okay so Cheryl has put this beautiful presentation together and I’m going to go ahead and add this to the stage so do you want to kind of introduce what you’re going to be talking about okay so I am talking about free

Masonry in NAU and um Freemasonry as you said um when you were discussing my book is huge subject we can start all the way back in 1830 we can talk about Freemasonry and um I guess you’ll have to go to my book for that if you want um

But right now we’re just going to talk about Freemasonry and no Vu and the reason why I um wanted to do this presentation and I really appreciate Michelle letting me um come on and do this for your audience is because when we have people that are have decided

That um Joseph Smith did not live polygamy I think that is actually a very viable um thought a a very viable hypothesis let’s just put it that way um and many things that you’ve said um have changed my mind about U Joseph Smith’s polygamy and so I I really love

What this movement has done but the problem I see is oft times I see some of your audience will um use Freemasonry and say that Joseph never practiced Freemasonry and put that into their polygamy argument and what I want to do is show you why that should not be part

Of your polygamy argument and it actually Waters down your polygamy argument to people that know anything about Joseph Smith and Freemasonry so I I titled it Freemasonry and NAU the documents because what I want to focus on is what we do know and um we are

Going to have holes here as well um and I want you to make your own decision I want the audience to make their own decision um I will talk about how I analyze these documents but in we’ll H what we’ll have here is we’ll have a

Resource for people to go to they can go to this episode and they can look at these documents and then make their own decision about what that means for Freemason no Vu oh this is incredible I’m so excit okay thank you for ex explaining it that way and putting it

Forward I think I just want to kind of resonate with some of what you said I think that you’re right that um we tend to lose credibility when we decide well Joseph didn’t do any of these things and that’s a danger to like to people making

This claim because then it’s it makes us all look like we’re ignorant rather than informed right and so exactly and I think the other thing that’s interesting is how you brought up tarot in the introduction I think that often is a knee-jerk reaction over Mason is bad so

I’m judging Freemasonry as negative and so therefore Joseph didn’t have anything to do with it and it and and so okay this is immensely helpful so I hope that people will watch this I told Cheryl that Freemasonry is not something I have studied anything like I would need to to

Feel like I have the same understanding of it that I’m gaining of polygamy so I really appreciate her bringing all of this to give me kind of a jump start into this topic so please listen with an open mind and I hope you learn learned from even just the one book review I

Referred to of Cheryl’s work how accurate and honest and and intelligent she is so be so please be willing to take this seriously okay thank you okay another thing before we go on to the next slide too is just that um I see a lot of people because I have engaged

With some people on the different Facebook sites um trying to um give my perspective on masonry and what they’ll do is they’ll say but um and they’ll and they’ll put up a podcast and they’ll say well listen to this podcast about this person who and you’ll go to the podcast

And it’ll have the spooky music you know and it’ll have you know and that’s same thing it’s trying to scare you about Freemasonry so if you’re scared about Freemasonry and you feel Freemasonry is satanic of course you’re going to want to say well Joseph wouldn’t have had

Anything to do with that you know and so then they say well well and I and I point them to my book and they’ll say well you’re just trying to promote your book have you done any podcasts about it and you know so I’m now we’re doing a

Podcast about it but um I don’t know I in this podcast we will focus on documents so um so there’s both that now Michelle can you put some music on for us the spooky music as we go forward is that what you want all right let’s go to the next slide perfect

Okay so I want to talk about a little bit of vocabulary first before we get into it so um the kind of masonry that Joseph Smith was involved in is called Blue Lodge or York right masonry where you have three degrees you have the Entered Apprentice degree and when you

Get the Entered Apprentice degree you’re initiated into this degree degree then there’s the fellowcraft degree you’re passed into the fellowcraft degree and then you are a Master Mason you’re raised to be a Master Mason and so um once you’ve gotten all those three degrees you are a Mason and um this is

There are other degrees um you’ve heard of like the 32nd degree but all those other degrees are usually considered a pendant degrees and it usually they think of once you’re Master Mason that’s the the ultimate degree that everything else is just kind of um like

Um added to that you know and it’s not like you you go up in line you know um so Royal Arch Masonry is so if we were going to impair it if we were going to compare it to like Scouts which I’m so glad we don’t do anymore Boy Scouts it’s

Like you can increase your rank you know become the eagle but then these are like just additional merit badges you would get to add to your eag is that okay yes it’s very similar to that so Royal Arch Masonry Joseph Smith was not involved in Royal Arch Masonry um even though I

Think he was quite fascinated by it and um in the society which he lived there were many ways he could learn about Royal Arch Masonry because people would expose those degrees and write exposes and things that he would have had access to and um there were many people in his

Immediate environment who were Royal Arch Masons who he um could have gotten this information from and I think he was very interested in Royal Arch Masonry but he was not a Royal Arch Mason and we’ll talk a little bit about Royal Arch Masonry later so the second thing is we

Have the lodge and the Grand Lodge and I like to to a Mormon audience I like to compare this to a Ward and a stake so the lodge the the Masonic Lodge is like a Ward and then you have several lodges in a state and they will be presided

Over by a grand Lodge which is like the Stak okay so we have our lodge officers um the master of a lodge is called the worshipful master and this is where we get a lot of confusion because there’s Master Mason which is just your plain

Old mason a lot of people see that word Master Mason and they think it’s like some Grand position you know but it’s not it’s like a regular member of the ward is a Master Mason okay they’ve been baptized you know and so now they’re a Master Mason but the um officer is the

Worshipful master so he’s like the bishop okay so you’ll say um he’s the master of the lodge or the worshipful master of the lodge and a lot of people get that confused and say oh so and so was a Master Mason so they must have had jurisdiction over this Lodge well no um

Because they’re not the master of the lodge so then you have The Grandmaster is like your stake president he is the master of the Grand Lodge so he’s The Grandmaster is the stake president so does that make sense perfect sense yes thank you for explaining this yes good

Good good so now um for the lodge um every Masonic Lodge has to have a dispensation which is just permission to start work as a lodge okay so once you have a dispensation you’re under dispensation and then Lodge has to go through a period of time to kind of

Prove themselves for usually it’s about a year before they actually get their Charter okay so navu Lodge never got its Charter it was under dispensation okay um and then the installation has to happen because um all of the officers of the lodge have to be installed so it’s like if a bishop

Would needs to be set apart and given that authority to um work as a bishop so once the lodge gets its dispensation the lodge has to be installed and all the officers have to um be you know get their Authority and then they they can work they can make other Masons raise

Masons and eventually get their Charter okay okay okay yes I’m I have so many questions I’m sure you’re GNA get into more so I’ll hold my questions until oh Until the End unless you want me to ask as we go along you tell me well yeah go

Ahead and ask and if you have questions let’s let’s okay so are you going to talk about how this was like George Washington was a Mason and is that you know like this was not frightening to them at this was just part of the culture and really quite ubiquitous am I

Understanding that correctly yeah let’s talk about that because I don’t have that in this presentation but um okay uh when in the early days of the United States um Masons were quite common about one in every eight men was a Mason and it was usually the people the higher

Class of society and um it often had to do with if you wanted a political office that would kind of help if you were a Mason but then in the 1830s um there was a big Scandal that happened in masonry and it was called the William Morgan Affair where William Morgan threatened

To expose Masonic secrets and then he disappeared and they assumed that Masons took him away and eventually murdered him we don’t know that for sure but um everybody assumes that that that’s what happened and so most of the Masons in the United States saw that happening and

We know that um Masons have secret Oaths that they um that they promise not to reveal their ceremonies and um a lot of times they’re bloody OES they promise you know if they don’t if they reveal the ceremony they’ll get their head chopped off um so but to most Masons

This is very symbolic okay and when we okay this is a symbolic oath it isn’t like I’m really going to go chop somebody’s head off or you know if they reveal our secrets so when this happened to William Morgan most of the Masons in the United States said wait a second that’s not

What I signed up for I thought this was all symbolic and if it’s not going to be symbolic I’m having nothing more to do with it so um they uh the the lodge was just completely decimated in the United States um many had to go um you just had Lodge after Lodge after

Lodge everybody quit and they had to they had to go under so um that’s what happened in and and William Morgan the William Morgan Affair happened very close to where Joseph Smith was living it was in bavia New York so he definitely would have known about what happened there and um

Okay so oh can I ask a couple of questions so so um I have three thoughts I wonder remember all of them so my first of all my understanding has been that really the revolution couldn’t have happened without Freemasonry that it was really an important part of even the

Establishment of America and that’s useful to know for people who were like no Freemasonry bad right if and then yes my other thought is when you’re talking about symbolic Oaths I think I heard you say in a presentation um like we all remember as at least little girls saying

Um cross my heart and hope to die stick a needle in my eye about keeping a secret we all remember that so what it sounds like to me is that you’re saying that some little girls who said that one of them actually stuck a needle in another little girl’s eye and like and

Killed her because she broke the promise that she had made right and so am I understanding that is so then you wouldn’t be saying that anymore if that had really happened you know and then my God your daughter said that you’d go no no no don’t say that but that’s what

Happened okay got it okay and then my third question is hearing this and you know I always go through different ways of thinking about things until I settle on something you know with enough evidence but one way that that occurs to me to maybe think about this as you’re

Talking about it is that um is it possible and I have I do not know anything but is it possible that like masonry they believed existed to pass down these ancient as an ancient mystery tradition to pass down this ancient knowledge and then it fell out of favor because it had

Served its purpose because Joseph Smith now was restoring what it was truly supposed to be about is that a way that some people might think about that okay so yes but that’s very complicated and I’d have to point you to my book to really get a you know a deep

Understanding of that yeah okay great all right so you ready to go on so yes um well let me just um continue just for a minute on what you were talking about um so when the lodge was decimated there were very few masons in the United

States then um it kind of went through a little bit of a Renaissance just for a time and then went fell back out and now we don’t really know anything most of us know nothing about masonry right because it’s not in our culture but um in the

1840s that’s when it was going through this little Renaissance and there were several people who wanted to build The Lodges back up and this is when Joseph Smith began the lodge in nvu and so um the people who wanted to Abraham Jonas was one of the Masons who wanted to

Build The Lodges back up and he saw Joseph Smith doing this in NAU and he got very excited and wanted to um give him some um support in in building up masonry um among the Mormons just because that’s what they wanted to do was get it get it back popular again

Okay so Abraham Jonas wasn’t a Mormon but he was excited about the Resurgence of Masonry right right he’s our he is our grand master in Illinois he’s our stake president of masonry in Illinois we’ll talk about okay perfect and so one more question so masonry is a Fraternal

Order and it’s complicated for those of for me at least with no familiarity familiarity with it to understand the difference between a Fraternal Order and a religion right so it wasn’t a religion but yet they had sacred stories and sacred rituals can you help me understand yes the difference there okay

Yes um so actually they like to call um Masons like to call it the handmade of religion that masonry is the handmade of religion because they do use a lot of religious stories um symbolically um and I think that um masonry back in the 1840s the masonry that Joseph Smith would have encountered

Was very Christian although we you know they talk about they talk about many things in the Old Testament they have King Solomon’s Temple but they have the Christian view of these things right is it kind of um okay I do explain this a little more in

My book as well but okay so they are it’s not maybe that will help people understand it’s not like they’re not Christians because they’re Masons they are Christians and they say masonry is a way to enrich their Christianity exactly exactly now when um the during the big anti-masonic movement um after William

Morgan um they a lot of people were trying to say Masons are not Christian uh sort of like how they say Mormons aren’t Christian right so um so there’s a big there was a big anti-masonic movement and um and um they wanted to to say that and and you see that I think

Most people that talk about masonry today will also say oh they’re not Christian the people in the higher higher up they believe in the devil you just don’t know that when you’re a you know when you’re down um it it would be like saying I always like to compare

This to Mormonism because we understand Mormonism right and so it would be like saying you know Michelle is just a Mormon uh a member she does not understand that in the highest echelons among the general authorities they all believe in the devil she just doesn’t get that you know and she would never

Sacrificing babies in the holy of Hol unless she was a general Authority you know and by then you know she’s indoctrinated and blah blah blah so that’s what they often say about Freemasons and I just can tell you that it’s not the right way to look at it

Because we do not and I you know I don’t want to say there’s never anyone any Freemason that was a horrible person because I’m sure there were but it’s not part of the organization the institution that that’s good I love how you said that I love how we’re talking

About not losing credibility because when you make those kind like there are conspiracy theories and there are conspiracy theories right and when you look at all the evidence and say hey this looks like a conspiracy versus oh they all have a secret that they won’t tell us and there’s no evidence for it

That’s the negative kind kind of like you’re saying so okay thank you for clarifying all of this very helpful okay let’s go on okay so um I want to talk about some of the Masons that we have in early Mormonism um Joseph Smith Senor we’ll start with him um we mostly believe that

Joseph SM senr was a Mason um but I cannot tell you that for sure because we have records that show that the a Joseph Smith was a Mason but there were nine Joseph smiths in the area at the time and so we can’t really tell for sure

That this is our Joseph Smith and I give evidence in my book um what what we know what we don’t know and um I really cannot come down and tell you for sure that Joseph missor was a Mason okay um but are these roles are these Masonic

Roles we’re looking at did you already say that and minut these are for ham Smith so hyam Smith was a mason in okay so now I’m talking okay let’s go to hyam Smith we know that h Smith was a Mason because in novu um all the people that

Were already Masons came together to uh organize a lodge and they all told where there were masons from no I was made a mason in genua I was made a mason in Palmyra and so ham Smith told everybody what lodge he was from now when you go

Back and you look at the lodge minutes to see if he was there we can find and these are the lodge um minutes these are this is um a record that shows that hyram Smith paid his dues in Palmyra as a Mason okay so and we cannot find

Another hyram Smith in the area who was local you had to be in order to be a Mason you had to have lived in the area for a year and you had to be couldn’t be just a transient person coming in and and being a member of the lodge you had

To you know so you probably would appear on the sensus records and that kind of thing so so we’re pretty sure if you go to just switch over to the next slide real quick we’ll come back to this but um this is kind of um you can see it a

Little bit better um this is the return of Mount Mariah lodge number 112 and then you see down there Smith hyram and the dues that he paid okay 50 cents so this is okay 1827 to 1828 so we have this record with hyam he’s the only hyam Smith and we have

Hyam later on saying I became a in this Lodge in Mar Lodge yes okay all right okay so now we have three we have many family members Joseph Smith family members his uncles were um his uncles were members of a lodge um he had a um Joseph Smith senior’s brother-in-law was

A member of a lodge Joseph Smith’s cousin was a member of Lodge and then he also had many acquaintances the dery you recognize some of these names the dery the chases almost everybody who was at Moors Academy was a Freemason so um the doctors that worked on Joseph Smith leg operation or

Freemasons is Mor’s Academy where hyram went to school for a time that was so it is possible that he like like I’m not trying to make other people not Masons I’m just thinking about that M the Joseph Smith mystery whether that’s our Joseph Smith and so it is possible that

Hyam was introduced to Freemasonry in Moors Academy so he could have been the first one in the small Smith family that’s a possibility too right okay definitely is a possibility yes um and then we have um the cowry family were all Masons um and they were also Royal

Arch Masons and this is where Royal Arch Masonry comes from in Mormonism uh the cowries were the ones that were the Royal Arch Masons Warren cry it was the brother of alare cryy and he was in Mormonism for a short time and was a

Royal Arch Mason um and then we have n k Whitney who was also a Royal Arch Mason and he’s probably the most well-known Mormon who was a Royal Arch Mason a lot of people want to say that heby Kimbell was a Royal Arch Mason he was not a

Royal Arch Mason and we know this there’s several sources that tell us that he had applied to certain Lodge to be a Royal Arch Mason but that was right when the Morgan Affair happened and that LOD went under before it could make uh HEB Kimble a Royal Arch Mason so he was

Not a Royal Arch Mason he was a Master Mason your plain old Garden variety Mason that was Hebrew so and I’m assuming if if he so heever SE Kimble was a blue Arch Mason no is that correct yes blue L Mason and I’m assuming then briam young was as

Well because they were such good friends do we have yes and we will talk about that also so okay so go on to the next slide and there is the petition where okay so we had about 40 members that I can find um who were living in navoo who

Were Masons before they came to navu okay so they had they had been the already Masons when they came into Mormonism and um they are the ones that got together these include John C Bennett they got together to to send a petition because this is what you do

When you want to start a lodge you have to send a petition to the closest Lodge to you and ask them to give you a recommendation and they will recommend you to the Grand Lodge and then the Grand Lodge will give you a dispensation to work so um bodley Lodge was in Quincy

Illinois and they were the nearest Lodge to Nauvoo and here is the um a um copy of um the boldly Lodge minutes um which I have to give a shout out to Nic lurki because he has really researched these minutes of all these lodges that were in the area now Mormons

Would not have had access to these minutes so they could not have touched these minutes these were from other masons in other towns that had you know close control over their minutes and they would not have been giving them to anyone so um they wrote in their minutes

A communication was received from John Bennett and others of the city of navu wishing for this Lodge to recommend to the Grand Lodge of the state certain individuals whose names were there in contained to be appointed Masters and wardens of a lodge to be established at

Said City NAU but as these persons were unknown to this Lodge as Masons it was thought prudent not to do so the letter was returned to brother H Rogers with instruction that’s the secretary with instructions how to act upon it so they would not recommend nov Lodge um and I

Don’t know that they were necessarily anti- Mormon that they they wouldn’t recommend the lodge it could have been anti- Mormon but um I think basically they were just saying well we don’t know these people so how can we recommend them they’ve never been to our lodge to

Visit we don’t know if they can pass because when somebody came to your Lodge to visit they’d have to give you certain handshakes or certain signals that would prove that they were Masons and the people from navu had never done that in bodley Lodge and so they didn’t even

Know if they were regular Masons so they their and so what normally what somebody would do is they’d go okay well we’re gonna get to know you we’re g to become friends with you we’re going to visit your Lodge we’re going to let you visit us and that you know and then maybe

Later you’ll you’ll accept our um our petition but let’s go to the next slide and see what actually happen Okay can I ask you really quickly sources these documents you’re looking at are they available online I know that my listeners like to go look at things are

These things they can no these are the original documents that you would have to go to um bodley Lodge um to see and the reason why um Nick was able to see them and photograph them I think it was because he is a a Mason and so they

Trusted him but we do have photographs and there I that’s why I included this so you can’t now you can go now you’ll be able to go online and see it because here it is perfect so this is the repository for it that’s that’s excellent and then I also just a really

Quick question what um you said the certain handshakes do they have a name for those in like I know in Mormonism we have names for the C for the certain handshakes do they call them the same thing in masonry and is it also something that you’re not supposed to

Say well I mean I don’t know that they I mean that you you can say well this is the one for the um Entered Apprentice but I don’t know that they call it by like I wasn’t talking about that I just I don’t are we okay to say like signs or

Tokens Ken will cut that out if we’re not like are they called signs and tokens and masonry yes yes okay yes and that’s okay to say right um they’re not quite as I mean they are are pretty secretive but not quite as bad as Mormons are where we can just never talk

About it um there are certain things that they can talk about and certain things they probably won’t talk to you about um um okay usually what it is is if it’s made public if it’s out there in a history book or something like that they can point you to that history book

And say well yeah you can read about the signs and tokens in such and such a history book and yeah okay so and one more question as we’re going on so I know there’s a lot of um concern or suspicion about groups like skull and

Bones or ow and key now how do those compare to so I I would say now those to me I don’t call those masonry I really wouldn’t say they’re connected with masonry at all I think they’re secret organizations okay I was say I’m not saying they’re connected I just wanted to know is

Masonry was it in N time similar to how that is now or are they completely different um I would say they’re different I would say they’re to me they’re just completely different um so what I would compare them to and I and I am not familiar I probably shouldn’t

Even say anything about Skull and Bones because the only thing I know about skull and bones is people accuse um russle M Nelson of being a member of skull and bones is that who they I I don’t think I think there’s evidence he wrote about it in an early biography he

Was skull bones so he was a member of Skull and Bones so that’s about all I know about it um but what I’m thinking is to me those are like fraternities like I was a member of a sorority in college right and um I mean I don’t think of it as being

In the least satanic you know I mean we did stuff we did fun stuff on campus and we you know gave money to the I remember I remember a um an interview on TV when I think it was John krey and George W bush were running for

Office and it was the first um I I’m not an expert at this at all but I do remember seeing this it was the the first debate I I I think the first presidential um final where both candidates were members of skull and bones and so um the interviewer brought

It up I can’t I can see his face but I can’t think of his name someone’s going to remember he died of a heart attack a little while later and he asked them about it and I think I think they just were like we’ve we’ve made like like I

Think it’s more of a secret society that doesn’t want to be known than just a sority is my understanding but I don’t I’m certainly not an expert so okay so anyway that was I I can’t really speak to that but I I would say that it’s really not connected to masonry at all

It would be more connected to another secret society type of secret society um okay so we shouldn’t we shouldn’t put masonry necessarily in that same category that’s not how the people thought of it at that time right right so okay thank you okay so maybe it’s

Like Masonic like you know so anyway so what happened instead of um going back to bodley Lodge and making friends um the Mormon masons in navoo instead kind of went over their heads and they petitioned another Lodge Columbus Lodge and Abraham Jonas who I um mentioned before was the master of Columbus Lodge

And he was about to become The Grandmaster of Illinois or you know our stake president in Illinois um but he was still the master of Columbus Lodge he saw this petition and what he did was he endorsed them gave them the recommendation and then based on his own recommendation he then acted as

Grandmaster to issue the dispensation so that’s a little little fishy just a little fishy um Bly Lodge was put out by that they were not happy with how that happened do you think he did it just because he was so excited that there was another Lodge foring absolutely absolutely here’s these Mormons let’s

Make them a lodge let’s you know let’s get all these Mormons in here and and also the fact that there were 40 of them that was very impressive so um so that’s what he did and this happened in 1841 and he also did it usually this would happen while the Grand Lodge was

In session you know that he would that he would give this dispensation but he did it while they were out of session and so kind of sneaky okay so um this paper that you see comes from the navul minute book and it um they have copied the dispensation into their minute book

But for those of you who are suspicious of the navul minute book which we will talk about in a while um let’s go to the next slide um it is also talked about in the proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Illinois and so we have corroboration that this actually happened okay so the

Dispensation was reported in the minutes and it corroborates the dis dispensation that we have in our navu L minute book so that says the most worshipful grandmas announced that since the last annual communication of the Grand Ledge he had granted a dispensation to George Miller Master John D Parker senior

Warden and Ln that’s Lucian Scoville Junior Warden to form a new Lodge in the city of NAU County of hanok and then at the same time they announced that a dispensation was given to these other three people Stephen H Burton master um DC Davis Senior Warden and Christopher

Williams Jr Warton to form a new Lodge in the town of montros County of Lee Iowa territory so montros was right across the river from navoo and this was also a Mormon Lodge these are three Mormons um Burton Davis and Williams were all Mormons and so now we have two

Mormon lodges who are working um in this area okay so do you have any questions about that or no I think this is interesting so this is why I’m starting to see the fear of the Mormons taking over so this getting that oh yeah you’ll see it

You’ll see it in a minute too even more but okay so here’s how the officers were elected so when they give him the dispensation they told him the who their three main people would be you know the like first presidency okay so you have your your master your uh senior Warden

And um your Junior Warden but then you also elect other officers so here um these Masons once they got their dispensation met at hyam Smith’s office on December 29th 1841 and they they elected other officers so it’ll tell you right there who the other officers were

Um first of all hyram Smith um since the senior Warden they um that that was appointed was I think he was out of town on a mission or some other maybe he was in the pioner of Wisconsin or something um was going to be out of town um for a

While they elected hyam Smith to be the senior Warden prot tempore they call that PT or protm um he’s just going to act as a senior Warden while the other person is not there and then we have John C Bennett was elected secretary n k Whitney was Treasurer our Royal Arch Mason um

Charles Allen senior Deacon Now Hebrew SE Kimble was elected Junior Deacon this is a very Junior position in the lodge this is not master of the lodge this is not anything special in the lodge it’s like your um Sunday school president okay so you are hey Kimble who everyone

Is so scared of in masonry was not very powerful in the lodge okay he was so I’m I I’m embarrassed but I haven’t I’m not even up enough on the Mason debate to know why everyone is so um suspicious of hey Kimble in the can

You fill us in on that a little bit for those of us I have no idea why everyone is suspicious of Hy Kimble in the ledge but they are they’re always maybe because HEB SE Kimble is implicated in many other things in you know um polygamy your um view of History right

Um so in the polygamy well I I mean I I mean not my view of History do you mean do you mean implicated in polygamy and therefore right right so we have being implicated so because he was implicated in polygamy they want to throw everything Masonic on him you know oh so

They’re saying he was the real right that he was the real mover and Shaker behind all of this right and he forged the records and he is that kind of what they’re thinking okay okay thanks for clarifying that so um and here we see that he was not um and I’ll show you

More later about what he does in the lodge but here he’s elected as Junior Deacon there’s um two stewards and there’s also a Tyler who is the person that stands outside the lodge and makes sure that everyone that comes in has proper qualifications to come in to the

Lodge okay okay so so hyam was the hyam was one of the leaders in this m so yes and we’ll go more into what ham did too but at this point he is um the second person down the senior Warden um prot tempor he’s acting as senior Warden okay

Right right okay and but Joseph isn’t yet so this I guess this is kind of why I think maybe hyram got involved at that school and brought it and was and really liked it but this is something that Joseph isn’t yet involved in that we don’t have not yet involved in but you

Know as you’ve read in my book um I think he was already heavily involved in in um bringing um certain things from masonry into Mormonism but he was not yet a um Bonafide Mason and neither was okay so the things that were sort of the Mason stories or the Mason like how

Cultural was it did everyone know the Mason stories kind of like they might know the Bible stories yes so um I I like to compare it to Superman so you cannot live in the United States and not know who Superman was you’ll probably know um that his relationship with

Kryptonite you know you know that he has powers you know um now if you lived before the comic book era you have no idea what that even means what you know um and so everyone in the culture knew a little bit about masonry just because your your father was a mason or your

Brother was a mason or your uncle or you know someone who you had very close ties to was a Mason and they just naturally would say oh I’m going to the lodge tonight or you know little things come out um so it’s interesting because my daughter my oldest daughter the first

Time she went through the temple she came home and she was like Mom everybody says stuff about the temple all the time like let’s return and Report they’ll just say things like little things from the temple and she never had an idea that these came from you know from the

Temple and have just kind of entered our culture but masonry it’s even more so because you know it’s coming from masonry um so they they Joseph Smith would have known a lot about masonry and been able to bring that into Mormonism before he was even a Mason as if okay

That’s great perfect thank you okay okay so now here’s a little chart I did that shows all of the men who were Masons um in NAU before the lodge started and you see there’s about 40 people um the members um that were already um on the record books before The dispensation or

I think says 32 um it’s very small there you can’t really see it but um um so there were 32 of these people that started that first Lodge okay and then there were several others that were kind of um going to come in in the next few weeks or

Something and so this is amazing because if you look at Illinois Illinois had a few lodges um I can’t remember the exact number right now but let me say it was under 10 and each l had maybe seven or eight people in the lodge oh it small at

This point were very small this was the time they were trying to rebuild okay and so to see this many people come in now you were saying just a minute ago this is threatening yes this was very threatening to see this huge all of a sudden and bodley Lodge

Saw this too all of a sudden you’ve got this huge Lodge that’s overwhelming your Lodge that’s gonna automatically become the power behind masonry in Illinois you know you already see this before they make their first Mason you can already see that even if they never U make another Mason in the lodge they’re

Already a force to be reckoned with in masonry so wow okay yeah so we recognize so many of these names too um John C Bennett was in there and ham Smith of course but if you read some of these names you’ll you’ll recognize some of these names so they’re also well known

In Mormonism as well so is John Smith Joseph’s Uncle that’s because I’m seeing lucious Scoville we know him Hami John that’s Joseph’s uncle right yes right right okay okay okay so let’s go to next slide okay so now what happened in and I’m going to tell you um

Because a lot of people will say oh there’s problems with the record s and the lodge was doing sneaky things and and this is true they are right the lodge was doing Lodge yes there are problems with the records but I’m going to tell you what they are and we know

What they are we know what the problems were and they weren’t the problems that some people think they were so um you know uh I will be very transparent and show you what was going on behind the scenes okay okay and tell us the controversy so people so

So are they saying that the irregularities with the records are because they were later forgeries like seems to be the case often in polygamy or is it okay that’s the same argument for masonry people make so they’re saying because there were forgeries in the polygamy documents that there must

Be forgeries in the um Masonic documents and there were forgeries in the Masonic documents and I’m going to show you what they were so what they were was this is a page from the minute book written in John C Bennett’s hand on December 30th 1841 and this is before our lodge um got

Permission to start working before the officers were installed okay so they weren’t supposed to be doing anything yet okay they weren’t like the bishop brick had not been set apart yet so how can they do anything no they could not stand get up on the stand yet because

They have not been set apart so um but you’ll see in this page that um there a huge amount of people petitioned for membership they submitted and in masonry before you become a member you have to submit a petition a committee has to look at your petition and investigate

You and make sure that you are qualified to become a Mason and then everyone votes on it and if the vote goes through then they make you a mason so here are a bunch of petitions that come into the lodge um Joseph Smith is one um age 36

Merchant Willard Richards is one Brigham Young is one now here’s our evidence that Brigham Young was not a Mason before NAU because if he was look how many men in the slide before were already Masons and what they did was they came together and they said okay um

I’m from this Lodge I’m from that see um right there I have their Lodge members they declared their Lodge membership they came now if briam young was already a Mason he would have that’s what he would have done he would said okay my home Lodge is blah blah blah and I’m one

Of the founding members but instead he was one of the first to petition for membership so this is going to be the first time that Brigham Young has ever made a Mason and we have that evidence but we also have evidence here that they are sneakily starting work and trying to

Bring in tons of Mas already before they even have the authority to do so okay okay okay so is this um so you said this is so again John C Bennett is such a villain and so untrustworthy so do you put this kind of at the feet of John C

Bennett or is this just all of them were being how much was ignorant how much Wasing they were just I think they were just so enthusiastic that they just excited okay right and I don’t know that it was necessarily just JY Bennett I think in fact I personally could talk to

You forever about John C Bennett and I know there are many many problems with John C Bennett but in other areas John C Bennett I think was um kind of almost admirable and one of the places um I see him is as a Mason he was a

Secretary um and he went to every single meeting and they were holding meetings like most Masonic lodges in the state would generally hold one meeting a month okay and um sometimes they would have an extra meeting because it was like a holiday the St John’s day they would

Have an extra meeting that month or they would get together to do a certain project but basically they met together once a month the navu lodge was meeting weekly at this point and soon they would be meeting daily and then they’d be meeting three times a day soon um why

Okay I’ll tell you why in a little bit but um okay but you can kind of see an intimation of this because look how many people want to be Masons on the very first day they’re getting these petitions for I haven’t counted them but like what is it like 30 people or

Something on that page there that want to join the lodge and it takes a while it’s like having someone go through an endowment session right you’re not going to be a and and in masonry you couldn’t you could just do at the most three people at a time right so in order to

Give all these people make all these people Masons it’s going to take quite some time to do and if you’re meeting once a month you’ll never get all these people done right I see okay so it’s to just get everyone through so it’s kind of like what was happening in the navu

Temple in 184 exactly it’s the same thing okay so this was the rush to initiate I guess in Mason why they were meeting so often and so what they did wrong here or tricky is that they started accepting petitions before they had the authority to do so

Right so now we think maybe even let’s go to the next slide yes go to the next slide so we think maybe even they were not only accepting petitions but they were actually making people Masons before they had um authority to do so because we see and you’re probably

Familiar with this because of your polygamy this is a polygamy document and this is in Brigham Young’s Journal supposedly um gives the date of his admission into the lodge as January 6th 18 42 the installation for the lodge by the way was March 16th so this is Jan

This is January um briam young says I was taken into the lodge do you dispute that Michelle the let’s not look at the second part let’s just look at that first part where he says I was taken into the lodge nope I I have no reason

To dispute that so um do you feel that the that the cipher has been in correctly translated there I I have would have no reason to well I don’t know Masonic Cipher but no I don’t have an argument with that okay so it’s very clear to me that this is

Masonic Cipher and I don’t think anyone there’s not a lot of people the Joseph Smith papers are a little um hesitant to say that this is the correct translation but they don’t also don’t push against it either um because it’s pretty clearly Masonic Cipher and it’s not that difficult to decipher and

Although although briam made a few mistakes see those little red letters this is where he made a couple mistakes in the cipher but it was usually just either leaving out a DOT or putting in an extra dot you know a little small mistake that would have let me ask you

This if he was just barely a Mason how did he know Masonic Cipher okay so um actually if you had any Boy Scouts they probably know the pig pen Cipher right do you have anys who are Boy Scouts ask them they probably know this Cipher because they were taught this Cipher and

It’s not like I mean it wasn’t a huge secret I know it’s a little bit of a secret but not I mean a lot of people knew what it was and I think brigam Young was interested in masonry enough to have learned the cipher right so

Maybe he was a Mason hobbyist right he just learned the cipher and then wrote it in his journal cuz he felt cool cuz now he’s kind of a mason so he can use the cipher is that what you’re thinking happens okay that’s what I’m thinking so

He says he was taken into the lodge now um you can read this several ways I was taken into the lodge Jay Smith was and then Agnes dot dot dot we don’t know what he wants to say about Agnes there’s a little dot well let me ask you a

Question do you think that W would me like is wetted and sealed like would you read that and say oh I know what he’s saying wetted and sealed because that’s a common phrase we always use and of course you would also you would include the and in the acronym is

That would that be your reading of that if you just came to it without I really don’t take a position on this because I can see that it would go either way because there are other records where they say what married and sealed and use Mas or sealed and married or well it’s

Usually sealed and wedded it’s either wed it’s either W or S so it could be Joseph saw a Agnes or Joseph was Agnes you pray so I can see that point of view and I can also see the point of view that this is just kind of

Um he wants to start talking about something with Agnes Smith because it’s a Agnes s um but he I don’t know gets tired writing in mixonic Cipher or he realizes he shouldn’t say anything more or who knows so I really um I have not taken a position on the interpretation of this

All I know is it says I I know I agree that it says I was taken into the lodge J Smith W Agnes and that’s as far as I can really go um with interpreting that so okay so we can interpret the letters to make to like we’re pretty sure that

We have the right letters so we have the right literal interpretation but the additional interpretation of what those letters might mean is you would agree that’s up for grabs like yes do I would do you personally look at this as strong evidence of Joseph’s plural marriage to

Agnes k um I would see it as um maybe a corroborating document if you had another document that had the acronym you know then it might be a corroborating document but I would not see it as um very strong evidence that you know of polygamy so I wouldn’t this

Is a polygamy document but you know what the explosive nature of this document is not the polygamy in it the explosive of nature is he was taken into the lodge in January right what is that all about okay right it’s like when you find your birth certificate and and learn you were

Born two months before n months before your parents were married that’s what we’re seeing here right that’s my dad he was like I don’t know 40 years old and he made that connection one time and he was like whoa so that’s that’s exactly exactly what it is so um here we have

This document that seems to say that Brigham Young was made a Mason before um they had really the authority to do so so let’s go on to the next slide well and I want to just point I I I’m not I I’m frustrated that my brain is not

Remember in right now but I just want to add one thing to the um W in the second line because um I think like when I looked up the scriptures that we actually refer to about bring Aon and his sons to the Tabernacle right and it

Says and I and I need to look at the scripture but I I I’ve covered this in one of have you watched the temple episodes I did by chance no did a oh yes I I actually watched one of them I did yes go ahead so I’d be C I’d be curious

To know what you think of a couple of those but I think that it says oh and and I’m going to maybe I’ll fix it later but I think it says washed anointed and Sanctified and I think that W when we use that exact same so for me there are

Much more obvious possible interpretations because you never include the and in an acronym and if you were going to say was for something s temp symbolic of Temple it seems like it would be washed anointed and Sanctified or maybe something else along those lines that’s actually a phrase that is ever used okay

Interesting sense yes but also you know you have to deal with the fact that Agnes’s name is there okay I know so yeah that’s that’s to me that’s what whether whatever it means we probably will never know um for sure I don’t know how we could know that for sure um but

We do see Agnes’s name there why is her name why is her name and are there well so let me ask you this do we have how much Masonic Cipher do we have Brigham using did Brigham like because we also have to ask why would he include this one wedding in Masonic

Code if he wasn’t doc recording all of them like right but but also the other thing is and he doesn’t he doesn’t use it very M all that much but um but like some people want to say well he and this is what I have said in the past as well

Um that he is using the code and so there was something to hide so it would be polygamy but now when I’m telling you this now you see that there was something else he may have wanted to hide with this code right and maybe was not necessarily the polygamy do you mean

He was brought in too early because yeah that he’s made a Mason that he’s been made a Mason well so my question there thanks for letting us go back and forth on this because I find this so interesting but my question there is first of all we have that whole paper

That you showed us in John Bennett’s right right the last one the petitions that are dated too early also if the people you would be trying to hide this from would be the Masons right you wouldn’t write it Sonic Cipher in order to hide it right that’s true yes yes that’s true

Yes that’s true and so it seems to me that it’s more like a hobby I’m having fun and I feel cool then I’m I’m trying to keep this secret so that’s actually an important Insight because I think that shows that both of those would not be done to try to keep them

Secret yeah although although the thing is that as I said it was it may be a corroborating document you do have others who um write in Masonic Cipher or in other codes um to hide polygamy um so are you talking about on the back page of the Journal of Joseph’s supposed

Journal is or may I I need to I don’t know each I I I want to know every single place that happens so I can look at them that would be interesting to have um those all together that would be very interesting and I’ve thought that before is let’s put all these together

And see exactly what they say but um as I recall um whenever it’s in the codes either the Masonic Cipher or the shorthand a lot of times they’ll use shorthand um they they used shorthand to conceal the um Partridge sisters weddings do you remember that so so

Which document are you talking about do you remember off the top of your head um I’m thinking this is he SE Kimble and I’m not quite sure so I okay so this is something we can get back into someone and people can discuss it in the topics that have that have time

To look up all the sources so yes and that would be fun for somebody a fun project for somebody to do is see like when was the code used and what was what were they saying in the code and was it always about polygamy you know right well and also how

I think another thing that needs to be challenged is why were those weddings recorded were they making a comprehensive list were they like like like why would Brigham have written this what did he record other supposed marriages of Joseph’s in Masonic Cipher like like there are I think people like

People like to use this as Smoking Gun evidence which I find really problematic it is interesting but there are at least there are problems with it in any direction you want to interpret it yes we haven’t even talked about some of the problems as you know so yeah so okay again I

Said use it as corroborating evidence but um don’t use it as your primary source right okay perfect all right thank you okay so let’s go on um so now we have the installation of the lodge on March 16th 1842 this is also a page from the navage minute book and it that the

Most worshipful Grandmaster who is Abraham Jonas um presided and opened the lodge in due form in the third degree of masonry did everything correctly organized and open a Grand Lodge um and then directed The Grand Marshall John C bannett to form a procession according to ancient usage in order to proceed to

The Grove near the temple for installations which was accordingly done so let’s go to the next slide because this is just from the minute book we also have um a um record from the times and Seasons which talks about the same thing the Masonic Celebration The Grand Master

Was there we have the lodge officers installed an immense number of persons assembled on the occasion from five to 10,000 people were there and this isn’t the only um news article that that covered it so let’s go to the next slide and this is where it’s mentioned in Wilford woodruff’s Journal that the

Masonic Lodge was formed established and organized we have several sources that shows this date this is you know pretty no one has contested this um this date of March 15 it was a day before the Relief Society was organized and they all March together The Grandmaster um gives them permission to to start

Working the lodge okay okay so this is all welln the only problem with it is that they were and installing people or accepting petitions and making Masons before they had authority to do so so okay yeah okay so next slide there’s the Grove I just put that

In because it gives me a picture of you know kind of where they were when they got the when they had the installation this little installation but also can you imagine like 5,000 people all standing around there too that was in before microphon so so um yeah it’s it’s

Gives just a little picture of how it was so okay that’s amazing okay okay so next slide okay here’s the authorization to confer degrees Abraham Jonas authorizes the lodge to give Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigden their degrees okay but you know what maybe they already had their degrees as we saw in

Brigham Young’s Journal he said Joseph Smith was so maybe Joseph Smith and Sydney rigon and maybe a few others already had their degree but Abraham Jonas comes to town he looks at that and he goes wait a second you guys are doing this all wrong You’ whether it was and I

Think that it wasn’t that they didn’t know what they were doing because the amount of Masons there 40 people that knew masonry very well um it wasn’t just a couple people got together and did it wrong they were they knew how masonry was supposed to work right so many

Masons so Abra Jonas comes in and like no no um you aren’t supposed to do that but let’s go ahead and make Joseph and Sydney Masons really fast so that they actually have the authority um you know real quick so that’s why Jonas was in on

That like he was like this is a problem but I’m gonna do this other crooked thing he was in on it because and everyone wonderers people who write about this Wonder Why did um Abraham Jonas because usually what is supposed to be is if you don’t know masonry very

Well usually you get that first degree and then you have to learn you know certain things um you have to memorize certain things and it usually takes about a month before they get the next degree and then it goes maybe a month and then they get that last degree um

And so by the time they get all three degrees they’re well versed and they know what they’re supposed to say during the ceremony like in Mormonism when we go through the temple we have somebody to whisper in our ear if we forget what were supposed to say you know but Masons

Didn’t do it that way you had to know what you were supposed to say and there was a lot more that that you had to Know Than what happens in the temple so um so for the for him to give the authorization for Joseph and Sydney to

Get those degrees all three of them immediately um that’s a little unusual now it has happened before but it’s just a little little unusual so is it so it’s not necessarily breaking a rule it’s just how would they have learned all of that that fast is that um so it’s not

Breaking a rule because as the um as the grandm Abraham Jonas had he could do that now he could actually if somebody was a like a big wig in society if the president of the United States came to your Lodge and said you know I want to

Be made a Mason you know right away can I do this you know Abraham Jonas would have had the authority to say okay you know since you’re the president of the United States let’s go ahead and make your Mason we’ll do it right away today

You know so he had the authority and so it’s not and it had happened in the past there was several instances of this happening but it was okay pretty unusual um that it wouldn’t happen all the time and we’ll see later that it was disputed but this is where Joseph was

Made a mason so yeah this is where this is where um Abraham Jonas says you cut you go ahead take its petition vote on it make him a Mason r away okay okay and so this isn’t disputed by people who understand the historical documents it’s not disputed that Joseph Smith became a

Mason this day and went through is there anything about it not really but if you have any questions because this does come from a page from the lodge minute book so let’s go to the next page the next slide so this is the actual document written by Abraham Jonas

With his signature which we have because um this was donated to the church in 1908 by Elizabeth Roundy the daughter-in-law of Shadrach Ry who was a a um an officer in the lodge and who would have had the access to these um documents who brought them across the

Plains and so we have the actual document in Abraham Jonas’s handwriting um where he says in virtue of the power and authority and me vested as a Grandmaster then he says um receive the petitions of Joseph Smith and Sydney rigon and act on the same instant and

Should the ballot be unanimous in favor of said Smith and rignet at a full meeting of said NAU Lodge then in that case the said Lodge is authorized to confer the three several degrees of ancient York Masonry on the said Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon as speedily as

The nature of the case will admit okay okay here’s the actual the of the case will admit does do you think that means as quickly as they can pass off all the things or or how do you interpret that I’m just curious to know how um I think that actually Joseph with

His interest in masonry could probably pass it off um I don’t he prob knew syney Ron probably did too because he had you know his family um so I think those two could have passed it off and it would have been no problem and then I

Know that my my grandmother um when she went through the temple the first time and I I’m not certain but I think maybe there was a little bit more in her day that they had to memorize and she was given everything she needed to say as a

Spiritual gift so the very first time she went through she was able to say it all so I guess i’ I’m i’ I’ve thought of that as an in interesting possibility as well if you know like anyway just because that’s part of our family history that I was that my grandmother

Taught me told me interesting okay yeah yeah yeah okay so um the next one here’s where they received the three degrees in two days on March 15th and March 16th 1842 um and this again is the lodge minute book now this is one reason why I

Tend to um trust the lodge minute book in a lot of cases is because I see so they they repeated that one document that we have from Abraham Jonas when they wrote it in the minute book they did it word for word and they did it

Correctly you know and so okay so that okay in that case trust the book in general okay yep gives us a little bit of trust in the minute book so this again is from the minute book and we see that Joseph Smith and Sydney rigon get their degrees which again I don’t think

People dispute that too much okay so go on and then here is a journal entry from um Joseph Smith history draft which we know is in the handwriting of Willard Richards who people do not trust um but Willard Richards writes in the in the voice of Joseph Smith I officiated as Grand chaplain

Um uh in the evening I received the first degree in Freemasonry in the nav Lodge assembled in my general business office Wednesday the 16th I was with the Masonic lodge and Rose to the sublime degree which would be Master Mason okay okay so I have a question for you I have

A question for you on this document not that I’m arguing about Joseph’s polygamy I just want to know if you’ve so this is the history draft which is different than Joseph’s Journal so you compared this to so you know this is something that actually is quite important in in

My work and in this perspective is the original Journal which is already suspect in some ways compared to the draft history which is this version and then the finalized history so have you I have go to the next slide because I think I have the

Um the B this is the book of the law Lord so this is the original Journal okay I just wanted to so know if you had looked at all three versions okay or at least and go to the next one to let me see what the next one is no okay go back

All right so then in this one in the book of the love of the Lord it says officiated as Grand chaplain at the installation of the N L um at the Grove near the temple Abraham Jonas being present a large number of people assembled on the occasion the day was

Exceedingly fine all things were done in order and Universal satisfaction manifested admitted a member of the lodge in the evening Wednesday the 16th continued with the lodge okay so this is a different day this isn’t the same entry so no this is the same day the

15th and the 16th yeah same thing is happening so these two are the same entry this is also they’re the same thing happening except you just it’s just a little bit different words yep y okay so it’s interesting this one this second one we’re looking at is um okay

Okay I’m not sure if this is the original yeah yeah it’s not the original Journal because it’s too nice so that’ll a fun investigation to go on to just see what’s going on with that because there’s something about these documents I would want to understand better okay

Yeah so and I think in the original one I don’t know why I don’t have it there um that it’s very summarily discussed like like raised in Lodge or something like that you know um so I don’t know why I don’t have that one either but um

What I want to talk about oh go ahead well I just have a quick quick question would you agree um because you kind of said people don’t trust Willard Richards but do you agree that the um the draft history like the seeing the original journal and then the draft history and

Then the finalized does that give you pause in general about the trustworthiness of the finalized church history and the the drafts yes I’m gonna talk a little bit about that in just a few minutes so let me get to that okay okay yeah okay great all right so you to

The next slide so no not yet because look at what he does um officiated as Grand chaplain so the word Grand means he’s officiating in a stake calling before he is made a Mason okay and calling I say stake calling because it’s just a way for us to to understand

What’s happening on the Grand Lodge level he is officiating as a grand chaplain which isn’t you know a huge um calling you know or position the grand chaplain is in huge position but it is a position in the Grand Lodge which he’s officiating as how can he do this before he’s made a

Mason you know right so they giving him a honor Abraham Jonas is allowing this to happen because Abraham Jonas is present and um giving him some kind of Honor that he really shouldn’t be officiated in so remind me the date of this this is Tuesday and Wednesday of March 15

1842 okay I just want to see if I can look it up because I do think it’s interesting the additions in the various versions you know I’m just curious to know what would what the original Journal might say and why they would add more that but if you

Can pull it up that would be perfect so let me see if I can find it March 15th 1842 Journal I’ll just see if I can do it fast um so that we can know because it sometimes it is my um my like suspicion Radars go up when there are claims like

This that don’t seem to add up TimeWise you know so I’m curious yeah go ahead and I’ll show you that we have other evidence for that too but um but go a few moments later so all we have is what you are sharing which is the this is the

Original Journal which is fishy to me because it’s so cleaned up you go to the one right before the slide right before if you yeah let me get back there so I can change it okay this is the draft which isn’t that the original one and then the

Second one is the one cleaned up or no no so the draft so the so the original journals should be the originals and this kind of irregularity that makes me go what’s going on because that’s too clean to be Joseph’s original Journal so maybe this is something I’ll have to

Look into a little bit later to see what’s going on because this is this it say not all that clean it’s got cross out it’s got you know the drafts are always like that so the draft would be written after the or so the original Journal should be messy then the draft

Always has the cross outs because that’s where they’re altering the original journal and then we get the finalized right and so so I’m super curious about this but I don’t know the answers right now but okay but yeah we can we can look that up because I do think like it’s

Sort of in my head somewhere that it does mention that but not in this full you know not mentioning the grand chaplain part and um yeah but um and it’s always a little suspicious to me when a lot more stuff is added later right right right without Source notes

Or addition or where you know what I mean there’s no way to corroborate it and and when we see the pattern of them repeatedly doing this it is always like okay why are they doing that what’s that about you know because usually the closer that’s when we look at it and we

Say why is it happening and this can be very um instructive to us right so yeah so I’m so I’m not challenging I don’t know enough to challenge the any anything you’re saying other than There’s Something Fishy going on here I wonder what it is is how it looks so

Let’s keep going for a minute like I said I’m going to just address this um so go on to the next one okay um so here are the original signatures in the navu LOD minute book and you can see that these are all original signatures right

You can see that each man has a different handwriting often a different pen um so this is um I would say that these were all their correct signatures they actual signatures sure and so you see that um the first um and on both sides both columns those first I don’t

Know 15 or so signatures on both sides are all men who were already masons in the na’vi lodge and then the little orange arrow is pointed to Joseph Smith’s signature and it comes down quite a way but it does not look like it has been inserted by a scribe who was

Trying to say that Joseph Smith you know was aazing I would trust this and I can’t zoom in on it right now but it looks to me like Joseph’s legit signature not like William Clayton’s right right you know William clayon often signed his signature this looks to

Me with from here like Joseph awell signature right so I would not be suspicious of this at all that Joseph Smith did become a Mason on that date and did sign the minute book um and there he is he’s a mason so okay people who are saying Joseph Smith was never a

Mason um I can’t agree with you I I see too much evidence that he did join at least join the lodge okay um at least it was made a Mason on that day and maybe there were fishy circumstances behind it yes there were but um I wouldn’t dispute

Just the fact that he was made a Mason does that make sense okay absolutely and so when you have I’m just curious to ask when you have engaged with people on this topic in the different groups you’ve been in have they brought forth evidence that we are leaving out or do

You feel like they’re just not familiar with the evidence I think they’re not familiar because there they say oh the minutes books were I don’t trust those minute books they were forged and blah BL blah blah blah and so then I say that’s when I say well look at this um

Yeah you know does it look like it was forged doesn’t me go on to the next page then they’re just overgeneralizing they’re just overgeneralizing and not and they oh he Kimbell or William Clayton William Clayton just took those large minutes and and fudged them okay

So here’s a set of slides I have John C Bennett as I said he went to every single meeting until he was excommunicated from the church and so he was the secretary he kept the minutes and this first page is an example of a page that was written um with John C

Bennett as secretary you can see over there now Hyrum Smith on that day was acting as the master of the law because um the ma actual master was not there and so often they chose hyam Smith to act as the master of the lodge when the

Master of the lodge wasn’t there and he actually hyam Smith in that first year acted as the master of the lodge more than anyone else did including the regular master so hyam Smith was very involved and you see there his his original signature in the minutes but

Then look at the next page um so the next page is William Clayton as they say William Clayton um then took the minutes often after um John C Bennett left but then go to the next slide where we have Henry G Sherwood was acting as a secretary so he was taking

The minutes then we have John forgus who was also a secretary proem took the minutes and then go to the next slide we have Howard Corey um who is acting as secretary then we have Thomas bulock who has his very distinctive handwriting there acting as secretary and then I

Think I have one more slide of it um Waterman Phelps who was ww phelps’s son and we have Hosea Stout so we have many people and these aren’t all I mean I think there are like five or six more um which I didn’t include because um in

Some cases I thought that it sort of looked like they had kept the minutes and then later William Clayton just copied it looked kind of to me it looked like it was maybe William Clayton’s handwriting but um in all of these cases we have different secretaries keeping

The lodge minutes and so it was not just William Clayton who you know was had sole possession of those minutes and was faking them you know we don’t see evidence of that this is this is evidence that no This was um this was a record that was pretty

Faithful to what was happening let me see what I have on the next slide okay oh whoops I went to oh okay I also can I point out one thing also that the the records that we do know that were create that were um altered after the fact what

The work that Willard Richards did with the journals and um you know and if you watch my temple episodes the I think in the last one I go into that a bit those all came down in church history and are part of our narrative that’s not the

Case with the navu lodge so there wouldn’t be a reason for them to to alter those minutes the same way as there would be the reason to alter records of other things I guess I’m I’m trying to support what you’re saying that like we just don’t have any

Evidence that that things were fudged or so as we go on we will see that yes there is um but but when as I said we know what was fudged and we know why they fudged it and it wasn’t um the reason why some of these people are saying it didn’t

Have to do with polygamy so let’s go on just real quick um so here we have in the um Grand Lodge of Illinois records um navu submitted their return to the Grand Lodge of Illinois and we see that we have um they tell us who the officers

Are and then they show the number of Master Masons 243 people have been made masons in the navu LOD now remember there was another Lodge across the river what were they doing you know they were also making Masons but here we have just the NAU Lodge look at the lodge right above I

Don’t know if you can see that but this is um both St John’s Lodge is right above look how many members they had they have 10 members okay and that’s how the other lodges were and then you have navu we’ve got 243 members already that first year

Before they even are an official Lodge they’re still under dispensation so something is happening here take note what is happening and everyone in the state was looking at this and going whoa what’s going on now to me just in my personal opinion Joseph Smith had to know this was happening because there

Weren’t a lot of things happening in navoo that Joseph Smith didn’t know about some of you may say that polygamy was happening that he didn’t know about but I would say even if I accept the fact that Joseph never um lived polygamy or taught it um I would say that he knew

It was happening right well I would I just want to clarify I agree he absolutely knew it was happening as I think is evidenced by how often he spoke out against it how he knew that people were using his name and he knew that PE because the reports were coming in and

So he and ham are on record frequent like with all of the newspapers and all of the so anyway so I I agree that he knew it was happening yeah and I will show you that Joseph Smith attended the lodge frequently so in a minute um so he

Did know this was happening so um so um I think you mean you mean he knew that this many Masons were being made did he think about how angry other lodges were becoming about it did he know about the animosity absolutely absolutely and I’ll show you that too so let’s go on let’s

Go on to the next slide okay this is just um a picture which I love of Joseph Smith’s Masonic apron it does have wow um cant comes from um from um The Community of Christ owns this now and it’s actually um laa Makai has shown this at several points um um gotten it

Out and let people look at it and see it so it’s um it’s made out of silk and it has blue that little Fringe around it is like a light blue Fringe and it’s printed with ink onto the silk and so the Community Christ owns it the Providence is through F Henry Edward

Edwards who was a son-in-law of Frederick Madison Smith so we can see how it was passed on through the Smith family and if you don’t believe that go to the next slide we also own John Taylor’s Masonic apron which is the exact same print um and you see the blue um Fringe

Around there the the silk you can see a little bit better in this um picture and this is located in the daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum and was donated by Ida Taylor Whitaker again coming through the family so um then go to the next slide and these are Masonic aprons that

We have in existence about the same time time period that were very similar where they’re made out of the same kind of material and they have the same blue kind of Fringe around but they do not have the same print on them they were in other lodges and um go back real quick

To just to John Taylor’s that’s a little different and then go to look at it and make a picture of it in your mind and then go back to that’s the same pattern those the same patterns same yeah they they belong to were they Mass producing them somehow I

Mean well they must have been Mass producing them we don’t have 246 of them but but we do have a couple of them showing um so so this isn’t like this is something that was being made and all all of those 246 would have needed an apron so Joseph would have gotten one

When everyone else did they had them made okay okay all right they they were made somewhere by somebody um so I I love these I think they’re just so cool they’re so cool okay so let’s go to the next slide and I’m assuming you understand the symbolism on all of these

I want to see if they all have meic symbolism and you know some of the symbolism is in on the navu temple and also in Salt Lake so um you can see some of these some of them have beehives um some of them have the sun with the

Little face on it them yeah they all have the pillars and that okay there’s a lot of okay very interesting yeah okay so let’s go to the next okay so this to me this is my Smoking Gun and um I if somebody wants to try to refute this

Evidence this is my best evidence that I have on all the set of slides this is from bodley Lodge minutes which remember that bodly Lodge was the one that they submitted their petition to so bodley Lodge says um resolved the bodley lodge number one of Quincy request of the

Grand Lodge of the state of Illinois that a committee be appointed at the next annual meeting of said Lodge to make inquiry into the manner that the officers of the navu lodge UD under dispensation were installed by The Grandmaster of this state that was Abraham Jonas and by what Authority the

Grand Master initiated passed and raised Mr Smith myth and Rigden to the degrees of Entered Apprentice fellowcraft and Master Mason at one and the same time so they are objecting to the fact that they got to get their degrees so fast okay okay so yeah that can’t be questioned if

We have it in those multiple sources okay right this is not a Mormon Source this is coming from a different Lodge and they are objecting to the fact that Joseph Smith was made a Mason well so absolutely okay right so that’s we know so anyone that tells me Joseph

Smith’s not a Mason I want to tell them you are you have not looked at the evidence you know like please yeah tell me how and I want to really I want to emphasize your point because to me this isn’t like I well let me ask you this do

You get a sense of the reason they want to have Joseph not be a Mason is it because of this idea that it it weakens the temp yes there associate with him okay I don’t think that first of all I don’t think many people don’t want Joseph Smith to have brought um things

From masonry into our Temple ceremony because they want that to have been revealed from God now there’s several you can get around that um theological um you can make theological arguments that will get around that but I think that’s one of the the motivations is they don’t want Joseph

Smith to they don’t want to say okay Joseph Smith was made a Mason and then a couple weeks later he initi ated the temple ceremony and we have mesonic elements in that and so what was that all about they don’t want to have that happen so they just want to say oh it

Just came to him the Lord revealed it to him and he was never a Mason and then other people as we said before other people are thinking this is a satanic institution Joseph Smith never would have been involved in it he was a prophet he would have known it has to do

With Satan and he just wouldn’t have been a Mason right okay so yeah I see those two motiv I mean okay that’s helpful thank you so and I think it is really I I like what you stated like guys please look at the evidence because if we want people to

Take us seriously in the polygamy debate where there is a discussion to be had right I think even if you don’t agree you would agree there’s a discussion to be had a legitimate discussion that’s not the case with the masonry it looks like and so let’s not so I feel like

It’s funny because when I when I’ve engaged people on like Hemlock knots and some of the other Facebook groups that discuss this um I have done it I feel altruistically that I am saying I am helping you you know I think you have an argument to make don’t use this it’s

Part of your argument because I can so easily blast you away and then I put up my evidence and I’ve I’ve shared these documents on these sites and people will not look at them so I’m hoping that you have the um you know the the cache that

Um some of your um of your fans well and for those who are adamant that Joseph was never a Mason maybe I’ll lose all credibility with them at this point but I do hope I do hope that they will look at these documents because I

Like I want to be taken seriously as a credible amateur historian because I am I the documents are how I make my conclusions and so we can’t afford to do that I will be curious to see what I kind of wish you had watched at least my

Fourth part on the temple before we had this conversation because I’m curious um to know what your thoughts would be on that and how that might play in to what we’re talking about so okay I even talk about it today but let’s go on because we’re we’ve got a long conversation here

But okay so um more accusations okay so John C Bennett when he left the church um was um I feel kind of um there were many reasons why he should not have been excommunicated one of them was that they were saying that he was um that he had been kicked out of masonry

From another Lodge before he came into navoo and um and um he said no I wasn’t and they said and and um even the grandm said go ahead and kick him out of the navu lodge because we know that he was kick out of another Lodge in Ohio um

Pickaway Lodge but when we go back and look at the pickway lodge um minutes we see that Bennett was right he was never kicked out of pickway Lodge he demitted honorably from that Lodge which is what happens when you move to another state or something you the lodge it’s it’s

Like moving from the Ward The Ward you know gives your records to the next LOD right so he should not have been kicked out of navu Lodge there was not a reason for him to so he was Furious for good reason I think um he was so mad and um I

Think Joseph Smith had promised him certain things and then those didn’t happen and so he was very angry and so he made many accusations um because out of his his anger and out of his Fury and sometimes those accusations went a little bit um what’s that word um that you go over and

Above um you you they were exaggerated if yeah anyway exaggerated so um so there there are some things that are exaggerated but then there are things that I look at I look at his accusations and I look at the minute books and I say you know what this accusation was

Actually what was happening so the first accusation I want to talk about is he said Bennett said he Joe Smith and five others were entered passed and raised before the lodge was installed by the grandmas and that they all passed through a second time afterwards so we’ve looked

At that and that makes sense that accusation probably is not exaggerated that’s probably a correct accusation of what happened we just talked about that so then his second one he said that record the one that he kept as secretary that record was sealed up and a new one

Commenced the second was sealed up and a third commenced and then a new record book procured and such part copied as they were willing should’ go to the Grand Lodge this is a little confusing for people who aren’t um but I want to just say first of all before I go into

That a little bit more I want to say I accept this as a valid accusation okay his SEC his first accusation was right on this second one I think is also right on so go to the next slide let me see what I’ve got there

Um okay a little bit later on I’ll make that more clear but um here’s where he says oh yeah here’s just the same thing that that um okay no this is a little different 63 persons were balloted for in one ballot okay so that’s another accusation you weren’t supposed to when everybody try

Petitions the lodge and says I would like to join the lodge now they’re supposed to be voted on by the members and each member is supposed to say you know this person we vote Yes this person we vote no this person we vote Yes and there’re supposed to be done

Individually but what navu LJ was saying was here’s 63 people is everybody okay with it yes okay let’s go you know and so John Bennett said that’s not supposed to happen so can I ask you a question about this one because when we have that original paper with all of those you

Know when they were when they were doing funny business John Bennett was heavily involved in it and Joseph Smith actually wasn’t at the time so here John Bennett is making accusations to point at Joseph Smith of what he himself was doing that actually Joseph wasn’t doing well no I

Think that Joseph was involved in it um but we know we know for sure hyram was because remember we saw that he was acting as Master most of the time um and I believe that Joseph Smith was also heavily involved in this um and he’s acting as the grand Chaplin during the

Big procession and he’s you know being made a Mason and all his buddies are joining in the lodge and you know I mean I really feel that he was involved okay but I guess the point I wanted was also involved yes Bennett was really heading

Out in this he was the one that wrote the letter to request it so his accusations are against himself at the very least against himself but he on the other hand he knew what was happening because he was part of it right so now he’s saying I know because I was

Involved in all this I know that here’s what they he’s not say he’s not saying that in his letters he’s saying they did this and they did this he’s not saying I did it well he he’s fudging because he says um the records were made to appear

As though okay so right and then I have one more question on this just because so do we have record of Jo of hyam because we you said we know hyam was involved and you suspicion Joseph was involved do we have records of Joseph and hyam denying this accusation by

Bennett no no no okay they they didn’t they didn’t deny this um okay so go on let’s do um what is this oh okay here’s where it gets fun because what they did was in order to make it so back when we have benit um handwriting and all those

People and then we have you know people made Masons now here’s where they stuck in people’s names later this is April 7th after the lodge has already now they have now they have permission to make Masons so you see on the top one gustavis Hills and

LD I don’t know who that is I can’t see the handwriting very well Samuel H Smith all those people in blue Inc were made Masons on April 7th and then they’re sticking in in different ink other people’s names who were made Masons before they had permission to and then

Sticking them in here these days so that’s why I’m telling you this is where we have evidence of what was being fudged this was being fudged okay do you know whose records these are who wrote these records what what this looks like’s handwriting still okay um April

7th so he wasn’t he’s still the secretary but then go on to the next page let’s see what we got um let’s see this is February 3D so but this is again um okay oh I think what you’re showing is that those names had only petitioned and were being

Added later that is that what you’re showing right so these are balloted for so this is when they the lodge votes and um to let them in so the top one is February 3rd and this is before the lodge was installed and this is Bennett’s handwriting and he’s writing

All these people that were that were petitioned and then the second one on the bottom is when we stick those same people’s names in later on April 7th to to make it seem like the petitions of those people were received on April 7th rather than on February 3rd okay yeah

And this is Bennett doing this because see that’s his handwriting where he Bennett is complicit in this so he is you know helping to fake these records so I’m looking for particular slide so go on um okay um uh let’s see um so again same kind of thing

Petitions of or the one on the left petitions of 42 men all the that whole um highlighted uh section 42 men were removed and placed later in the record and um Bennett’s signature indicates the record was made before May 7th which is when he was kicked out so he was Ben was

Helping to do this um okay so go on again there’s a certain slide okay here it is this will help you understand what Bennett was accusing them of he said that there was a large minute book and I call it 1A this was written by johnc Bennett he said in the newspaper that

This record was sealed up I think this is where where we have most of the evidence of what was actually happening although we can see much of it but maybe in there we have evidence that Brigham Young was made a Mason on a certain day

Or you know um and then we do not have that minute book we don’t know where it was um minute book 1B um was also written by John C Bennett some of the corrections were made in that book but this book he said was also sealed up we’re missing this book we

Don’t know what the corrections are okay in that book now we do have minute book onec this was also written by John C Bennett so all of these were being faked by John C Bennett but he says there were three different versions of this minute book

And um so we do have ask question would minute does minute Book C give us indication that it’s a third part in a series that there would be previous ones no can’t do we have any indication that those other books existed other than Bennet Bennett’s claim and I’m not okay

So I and I don’t know why it would matter at this point I’m not but I’m just curious okay yeah we we have no corroboration we don’t have coroporation of that um so what we do have is we have this bit minute book one so I think that

All of these were pretty much exactly the same except for fudging like the dates of when people were made Masons um why would we have C preserved and not a or b do you think because okay so what this is is this is a bunch of loose

Pages cut out of a book um and all we have are the loose pages and the reason why we have them is because on um June 24th 1843 they were placed in the lodge Cornerstone these loose Pages were put in the Cornerstone and that Cornerstone was there undisturbed from 1843 to

1953 when they um they found they opened up the Cornerstone and they found these pages of the navo minute books so we never had the these Pages until 1953 so I would say that these were um well we know these were undisturbed they were not um fixed or changed or anything else

From June 24th which is a year before Joseph Smith dies to 1953 so these are Pages how do we know they’re from Book C I’m just curious if it was just so we don’t have any of these minute books just we have some loose pages from Book

C that so what I’m saying is there’s a minute book one and a minute book two I think there were three different phases of minute book one but I’m not sure about A and B we just have John C Bennett’s word for it but we do know

That there was a minute book one and a minute book two so that’s why I call it a and C because we don’t know that there we know that there’s at least a there’s at least C minute book one C because we have the evidence we have those pages

Okay but in any case there’s one and two and that’s John Bennett’s accusation that they were fudging so it’s kind of like that first draft and then the finalized copy and it was John Ben doing it okay so book one those pages are all written by John C Bennett as Secretary

Of the lodge okay but they do have those um what those couple slides before where he’s made those changes so we can see those and those were the ones come out of the come out of the Cornerstone okay and then we also have in Salt Lake City we also have okay keep

Going go back to I’m sorry okay so we also have minute book two which is an actual book in which the large minutes are written and those are written by William Clayton and the other scribes that I was talking to about so what William Clayton did was he took

Before these minutes in the loose Pages written by John Bennett were put into the Cornerstone he copied them into this new book so we have William Clayton’s handwriting so if we only had minute book two we could say well all those early pages that were written by

John C Bennett were actually written WR by William Clayton but we can’t say that because we have John C Bennett’s handwriting we have the loose pages and so we know that um this was not um forged right right so okay so go ahead say that again I’m sorry I

Missed what you said we know that the early Pages written by John Bennett were actually written by John Bennett and then copied by William Clayton into a new book okay and so is this important to you are we is this still evidence of Joseph that he was made a Mason is like

I’m just trying to understand so what is this what I’m using this for is that when people say oh it was all done by William Clayton and um you know there weren’t even any original um minutes or even when people say things were fudged I can say well yes I know exactly what

Was fudged and I can show you what was fudged and here’s where the problem lie and here’s exactly what the evidence is um but the evidence that you think was forged was not the issue there were other issues okay right okay yes that’s why I’m getting into all these issues

Because I don’t want to say I can’t just say like um um and be honest I can’t just say oh no we can completely trust this minute book right right so I can’t say that but then people want to say well you even say we can’t trust that

Minute book but I have reasons why I don’t trust the minute book um and I have Reas specific ways where I do trust the minute book so that’s why I go into whole big long thing okay yep that’s really helpful and for me part of what

I’m seeing here from because from my um come from the the the the documents I look at I’m seeing interesting patterns of John C Bennett making accusations of what he was doing right and of William Kon Clayton um re-recording records that were already made like that’s interesting to see it what’s happening

Even with the Masonic Lodge so okay right so right here I have a quote from John Heek who many of you know um uh is a document a specialist in in early Mormon documents and um a lot of people use John haek to say um because I think

He was the first one that pointed out these discrepancies in the early church histories in William Clayton especially so um people I check to say oh we know all these documents are spous you know we know that there all these documents oh if it was written by William Clayton

Throw it out you know we’re gonna throw out the baby with the bath water because nothing William Clayton ever wrote could ever possibly be but John Heek has addressed that issue and said I don’t understand what the commotion is about except to extend what with 132 is an obvious spirous document without an

Original source and make everything in church history similarly suspicious it isn’t everything in church history isn’t suspicious we either have an original doc an original document contemporary with Joseph or we don’t and what John says is 132 is not an original document and he has his reasons for believing

That and but he says don’t say we have to throw out every single historical document because um you know so you cannot extend what we are saying about 132 to the navu LJ minutes is all yeah don’t overgeneralize don’t overgeneralize I I he he says this so

Well right here he’s exactly I I agree completely so yes yeah I really like this quote okay so go on to the next one and um this is a lot of people want to point to a man named Ron Karen who has written a book called the

Exoneration of Emma Joseph and hyam and many people will throw his words in my face to try to disprove what I am saying and so I want to talk about does Ron Karen say does I haven’t I haven’t read his book does he say that they were not

Um Masons that that Joseph was not a Mason is that yes he says a lot of things about well he says Joseph never lived polygamy but also that Joseph was not aason and he says he re Kimo was a Royal Arch Mason and he says you know it

Was all conspiracy by heby Kimble and others and um so he says many things and this is one of the things he says is that um that hyam um acted as worshipful master let’s see oh wait a second he says Um a more common explanation that aligns with one historically with our historically established patterns would be that hyam Smith joined the Masonic Brotherhood in New York we know that happened before the church began then lost interest thereafter he had little to nothing to do with it from that point forward so

Ron Karen does not believe that hyam Smith was involved with the Masonic Lodge he had little to do with it he lost interest he admits that ham Smith was a mason in New York but in Illinois he didn’t however hyam acted as worshipful master and signed to the

Minutes as such while George Miller the real master was working in the Wisconsin Pioneer and we have this over and over again um on days that he did not act as worshipful master he actually acted as worshipful master like I don’t know I haven’t checked it out 90% of the time

Or even more oh okay on days that he did not act as worshipful master that first year he usually acted as senior Warden um the first organizational meeting of the lodge took place in hyrum’s office with and attendance we can see that in the minutes I have that circled there hyam attended every

Meeting before the lodge was installed so he had an interest in getting the lodge going in navoo he was one of the movers and shakers that wanted that Lodge to happen he held the organizational meeting in his office and he was part of that um and then after

That first year where he was um acting as worshipful master he was actually elected worshipful Master on November 10th 1842 and attended virtually every meeting in 1843 now remember in 1843 they were holding meetings three times a day and often on Saturdays as well so maybe six days a week they were holding

All these meetings and hyam very occasionally went out of town but other than that he was always there and wow for Ron Karen to say he lost interest you know and little to do with the lodge is incredibly ignorant of what the documents say you know okay and yeah so

And I I not as familiar with this but I do know I’ve read a sermon that hyam gave and I I think to the Relief Society is what’s coming to mind and he’s telling them to keep a secret and he said we’ll see if you’re good Masons do

You remember that Smith yes it was I thought it was ham that did that I thought it was in this presentation okay good we’ll get to it okay yep so I hope we have more time very okay so here here are pages from the minutes um all

Different dates and what is circled as Joseph Smith’s name in attendance because in the minutes they kept the names of every single person who came to the meeting okay and so what I want to show you is you cannot see and um admittedly um these may be later you

Know they may have copied them into the book later instead of having them there but um early on the the book was copied early on right so the one that was put in the um Cornerstone remember I told you that date it was put in before 1843

And sometime in 1843 so even if they were written over Joseph Smith would have had access to these and it shows that his name is just in there with everybody else’s name you know so this first set oh this first set is the the Cornerstone Lo PES the second set or

Other is William Clayton’s book too okay William Clayton and other and other scribes um because you can’t say it was William Clayton’s minute it was it was written by many scribes right and what would be the reason for wanting to implicate Joseph Smith into masonry after the fact what why would that be

Something they would want to do I guess is what I’m confused about like do you know what I okay Ron Karen and many others say that Joseph and even before I wrote the book some people would say oh Joseph came to three meetings of the

Lodge when he was made a Mason and then he never attended again but he here’s evidence that he was attending the lodge regularly right no so my question is the people who are the people who are saying that Joseph wasn’t a Mason and these are fraud forged records do they tell us why

What the motive would be to forge these records why would they want to make Joseph appear to be a Mason if he wasn’t what why would motive do they answer that question no the motive is just the people that are saying it you know we want to say that well the motives we

Talked about earlier we want to say that we have a motive but what would their motive have been they would not have motive right we know why they wanted to we we can say very clearly why they wanted to paint Joseph as a polygamist we know the for that there would I mean

If I want to really rack my brain I could say maybe they wanted to give the lodge legitimacy through Joseph Miss name being there but then why wouldn’t they make him a more an officer of the loder you know what I’m saying and the lodge didn’t continue the lodge wasn’t

Like a big legitimate thing in Utah the lodge didn’t continue to be they wouldn’t have a reason to want to build up the lodge so that doesn’t even work I don’t okay right right right okay yeah all right okay so there’s Joseph Smith’s name um here’s another um um thing by

Ron Karen in his book where he says um let’s see um this is the mindset of the number two man who formulated the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from 1839 in England to his death in 1868 I.E throughout the church’s infancy and formative years it requires a

Peculiar mindset to continue following leaders who openly displayed this I think I wanted to start with with uh let me start down a little further the Royal Arch Master Heber Kimble both initiated and built the Masonic organization Lodge and Temple in navu only to hijack its Temple worship doctrines rituals and

Ceremony and infus them with Joseph’s hijacked Church Brigham couldn’t and didn’t perform this aspect of the plan so he is blaming a ma all of navu Masonry on the Royal archmil which who I have shown was not a Royal Arch master and who had a subordinate kind of role in the lodge

And he couldn’t have machined all these things could not have done this on his own and he’s saying that it’s all due to Hebrew Kimble he he makes many accusations about Hebrew Kimble that are completely out of line um so also the other thing was that um he was not part

Of building the Masonic temple and he did not initiate Temple worship doctrines rituals or ceremony I don’t know do you know do you know if um Ron Karen provides footnotes for this I don’t see any on this page are there like does he does he provide evidence or

Sources because um from what you’ve showed us I’m wondering what evidence he could he would use no he doesn’t have evidence he doesn’t have evidence things so let’s go to the next slide which is also him saying um talking about the navu LDS temple and this is something that’s been picked up

By many people and I do not want you to pick this up please do not pick this up but Ron Karen says the NAU Temple is um okay the navu temple was always Masonic from the day they conceived it in February 1843 to the day they laid the

Cornerstone on June 24th 1843 it was still a masonic temple when they deposited their Masonic minute books into its Cornerstone it was M basically what he’s saying is he’s conflating he thinks there was one temple in NAU and it was the Masonic temple and that’s the one the na Temple

Is only Masonic is what he’s saying he’s saying all these Masons got together they built a temple and that’s the one that we have today that was rebuilt by Gordon be Hinkley was it that we have that we say is the LDS temple that was never an LDS temple that was always only

A masonic temple and that that there was one temple in novu and it was the M that it was the Masonic temple and LDS church didn’t have a a church temple in navoo so what does Joseph Smith talked about the navoo temple often what does he think that he’s talking about he thinks

He’s talking about the Masonic Lodge or the Masonic temple often people will call a masonic lodge a masonic temple there’s another I’m just trying to understand how he can say Joseph wasn’t a Mason and the only Temple was the Masonic temple when Joseph’s constantly he doesn’t think Joseph had anything to

Do with the temple building or he thinks that was other people so he thinks that was Mason so here’s what he says um um let’s see when Gordon be Hinkley began building the eldest Temple over the foundation of William weeks’s navu Masonic temple that he designed and oversaw the building aspect as the

Architect from this point for the LDS church not only changed the historicity of this NAU Temple but they also what’s that word had to reach further back into history and attempt to change the historicity of the Kirtland chapel and create the illusion that Joseph also built that structure as a temple so I’m

Going to adjust several things here okay so we have I think I think his confusion and other people’s that take this up and I I’m addressing this I know that you do not um do this but I’m addressing this is because many people have taken this

Up okay and um so the confusion comes in because the architect of the navu LDS temple was William weeks and also he also is the architect of the Masonic Lodge Hall Temple whatever you want to call it but we know that the navu LDS temple was located on 50 North Wells

Street where it is today the Cornerstone was laid on a April 6 1841 its dedication was April 30 1846 after Joseph Smith was dead the M msonic Lodge or Masonic temple is located at 3155 Main Street the Cornerstone was laid on a different day June 24th 1842 the dedication was April

5th 1844 before Joseph Smith died okay okay so evidence all well right but but this seems so bizarre to me it doesn’t even warrant debunking because it’s so strange I I I I mean ex reason why I must to debunk it because it is okay so so um it’s so off

The- wall that when people who want to say Joseph Smith Never practiced pogam me and connect this with that no one listens to that good no one listens to them because they’re like that’s stupid the temple there were two temples we know that so what you’re saying about polygamy we can also

Discount must be this dumb okay this is good and and you know what I don’t know um like I said I haven’t read Ron Karen’s books and maybe he has some really good arguments I don’t want to throw out hate to Ron Karen but it is good with every and maybe he would

Retract some of this now if he you know if he had better sources so so no you don’t have to like I don’t know I I I I don’t know the situation I just I want to like make a plea to people please read all sources critic

Not like this is exactly the problem that both sides do if it’s their if it’s favorable to them then they just accept it all and don’t challenge it and that’s always gonna get us into trouble and I cannot tell you how many people say but

Ron Karen says to me I have studied this for years and years and years and people are gonna say but Ron Karen says there was only ever one Temple so let’s go on really fast with just a little bit of the documentation oh so he says it reaches back to Kirtland this is

Something I think maybe Michelle do know um but he says many people in your um circles say that Kirtland Temple was never called the Kirtland Temple well I agree that it was often called the house of the Lord it was often called the Kirtland Chapel however do not say it

Was never called the Kirtland Temple because it was called the Kirtland Temple here’s a document a deed by my guy William Marx a deed um by William Marks to meet staffen and Company on in 183 called in the Stone Temple called also the house okay so they’re calling

It The Chapel house and they’re calling it a temple later on in the document um from the south side of said temple so here is one document that call go to the next slide and here are more placees papers in the Kirtland High Council minutes where uming about the book of

Abraham um and translate and print those records taken from the catacombs of Egypt now in the temple they kept those records um from the book of Abraham in the kland house of the Lord which here they’re calling the temple okay and this is 1837 um later on in the document on uh

November 6th 1837 it says the High Council met brother William Marks and then repaired to the temple Okay so got the ctland house of the Lord being called a temple go to the next slide real quick this is so helpful for me because I did my first episode on the temples and I

Referred to the curland temples and I had many people correct me that it was never called a temple so so trying to be more careful so this is really helpful to me yes so um these documents in this on this slide come from courtesy of John

Haek who as you know has um many many documents early Mormon documents and so these are um um notices and newspaper articles from his collection um 1833 1836 and 1838 long before the um the Nauvoo period where um they’re calling that Kirtland building the Temple okay

Okay okay so it’s not just once or twice okay no so let’s just move on and please do not refer do not say oh that Kirtland building was never called the Temple because yes it was um the only reason you you don’t have access to all the

Documents right okay and I didn’t even understand the full implication of why they needed to say that I didn’t understand other than they’re trying to again separate it out from the Nauvoo Temple is my we can separate it from we can separate it from the Nauvoo Temple

Because they did not do the same kind of endowment so yes that is the point that’s the major point you to make but even there the navu according to William week’s um design that Joseph Smith approved and was involved in it wasn’t designed to do the

Kind of endowment they ended up doing in it it didn’t have the separate rooms it didn’t have the dividers it was actually just a larger version at least my understanding is it was just a larger version of the Kirtland Temple they were very similar okay well I would have to

Get into it with you that would take many many hours so let’s let’s let’s set that aside let’s set that aside ler have to about the only point we have to worry about now is that it was called a temple back in Kirtland days so I had showed

You of that so now we have the navi Temple Cornerstone being laid on April 6 1841 here’s the thing in the times and Seasons that talks about um you know how that that’s the DAT of the Cornerstone we also have um Thomas B Sharp was present with the laying of that

Cornerstone and he reported it in the Warsaw signal let’s go on to the next um slide we’ll just go through these really quick um here’s here’s the Warsaw signal um thousands of people were assembled during the laying of this Cornerstone this is the LDS temple which was rebuilt

By Gordon be Hinkley Cornerstone was laid April 6th 1841 no no um controversy there yeah controversy okay go to the next slide um so here is I believe this is the side where we had the Cornerstone um a deposit was made in the Southeast Cornerstone and this is just a

Little um remembrance of someone who told about things that were left in that Cornerstone we had the papers the times and Seasons the navu neighbor um coins a little anyway so just more more evidence that this is a Cornerstone of the temple keep going so this is all still based on

Ron Karen’s claim yeah I’m still refuting him and and this is where I show that the navu meic call um here’s their building committee and remember he said Hebrew Kimble was the one that was in charge of building this Masonic Scoville Scoville Samuel Ral and eron Johnson with William weeks as the

Principle architect do you see um heby kimbell’s name in there no he was not involved okay go on um this is the Masonic Lodge Cornerstone which was a different building okay so here we have Joseph Miss Journal handwriting of Willard Richards Saturday June 24th this is the journal you’re talking about right where

It’s yeah it’s original um most likely it is on the celebration of St John’s day in NAU also many many people were um were present on the laying of this Cornerstone keep going this is on Main Street they even mentioned Main Street there these are um um paper articles same thing keep

Going um Masonic Lodge Cornerstone okay so this in this Cornerstone which we see a really good picture of and we can tell that that’s the Masonic Cornerstone because it has Meredith Helm who was by then had taken over from Abraham Jonas and now he is The Grandmaster of the

Grand Lodge and they put his name on that Cornerstone and this is also where they put those minutes those um paper minutes in there okay so go on different locations here’s the map of no showing and this is fun because um it talks about the um the little uh

Ceremony and they said that um that um they formed a presession in do Masonic form in front of the hall and then walked to Main Street where the corner stone for a masonic temple was laid by the worshipful master so that’s that second orange arrow um hyam Smith two

Masonic hymns were sung after which they proceeded to the Grove near the temple so that it’s mentioning in that one um um document two different temples two different places they just walked in a circle around it yes that’s all it was right from one Temple to the other

Temple and those were in there I show exactly where those were located um so they are two separate buildings thank you very much okay go to the next page um we also have the architectural plans for um the Masonic H and the Masonic temple which are different and go and

The photographs yeah yes yes so really there just is no there just is no let’s I I really did want to cover that though because I just want to show you that there’s just no reason and I want to tell you that if you’ve been saying this

This is how you look to other people who know the two that there were two different buildings you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about so don’t connect that with another argument which does have some Merit right yeah please don’t suly our argument with that one you’re exactly right don’t don’t

Taint it that’s just not helpful not helpful at all yeah oh and you know what it’s okay like like I said said when I was claiming that um affair didn’t it’s true that Affair doesn’t necessarily mean adultery in the 1840s that’s all true but when I was saying that argument

And you corrected me I just said oh my gosh thank you I will never s make that argument again so it’s okay to not know something and then and then just not say it anymore that’s just fine yeah okay so hopefully they listen to this they’ll know that’s not something you should and

You know what it’s so great also if you see someone making this claim or if there are past threads I’m saying this audience if there past threads where you’ve seen these claims made please just go ahead and Link this video that will be really helpful okay good thank

You for your good work to save us from ourselves sure I appreciate it then people don’t have to do the argument over and over again they can just you know come here and see where the evidence is and what the documentation is so okay and I know I went rush

Through it but really um you could minutely examine all of these and see that there is no there’s no evidence of any funny business and any of that stuff so yeah okay so here we have um now we have we are moved on to

1843 um at the end of 1842 hyam Smith is now elected a worshipful master which you can see in the minutes is very important because he makes these oh my goodness they’re amazing so um now we have a new master of the lodge and it is hyram Smith so

Let’s go on okay who was that scribe I haven’t seen this kind of that is also William Clayton but he’s made a beautiful he’s really fancy that day okay so um now hyam Smith was very involved he did not lose interest in the Masonic Lodge he was very involved and

We have his signature on several papers these are membership certificates which when you became a member of the Masonic Lodge you have a certificate and there is hiring um um original autograph on those certificates of masonry so I mean we we do know that Joseph Smith was involved

But at the very least even if you want to say Joseph Smith didn’t have a lot to do with the msonic lodge which I believe he did but even if you want to say that at the very least we have so much evidence that hyam was behind much of

Was yeah deeply heavily involved it was his project practic and this was when this was when the Masonic Lodge went from that 243 people to 1,500 masons in NAU and some people say that if Joseph and ham weren’t killed that virtually every man would have been

Made a Mason and I believe that’s true um interestingly enough the Mason the Masonic Lodge was important enough that even after because a lot of people say that masonry was a preparation for the temple so maybe they got prepared as Masons and then they then they had the temple

Ceremony later and then they didn’t need masonry after more anymore but that’s not true because we have some people that were that um after Joseph Smith died and briam young was making I’m giving people the endowment they got their endowment and weren’t Masons yet but then later became Masons after they

Got their endowment so masonry was still important in Lau even after the temple ceremony was going on okay okay so they didn’t see it that way we might want to explain it that way but that wasn’t that wasn’t how they saw it that wasn’t how they saw okay so you mentioned the

Relief Society minutes and this is um what you were talking about this is an epistle from Joseph Smith and other church leaders the next page will show which church leaders signed the epistle or um yeah they did sign the epistle but this is just the secretary writing it in

The minute book um March 31st 1842 says mentions masonry in connection with the sisters um there may be some among you who are not sufficiently skilled in masonry as to keep a secret I’ve written a um an article that you can look up online that talks about the connection of Relief Society with

Masonry so you can you send me that link so I’ll be sure to include it my Academia site again um so it’s called Keeping a Secret the na reliefs Society um so keep on going the next page of that um says again mentions masonry let this epistle be had as A Private Matter

In your society and then we shall learn whether your good Masons and it was signed by Joseph Smith president at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we also have ham Smith hey Kimbell Ward Richards Vincent Knight and briam Young’s um names connected with that document so

Okay okay and then I’ve come to the end here is a picture of the upper room in Joseph Smith’s store and I hope that later on that we can have a conversation about um Temple work because I do believe that Joseph Smith was the instigator of the endowment of the novoo

Endowment that started in and um I can show what he brought in from masonry and several of the documents you’ve already discussed that I would like to use but I think you put a little different spin on them than I would but this you can see

Here it is a good place for um for um um Masonic Lodge meetings to happen as well as as the endowment ceremony to happen so you agree with the May 4th and May 5th 1842 date for the or the original endowment okay I would do believe that

It was in the its final form we know that it’s you know it did change but um a lot of people don’t know exactly what it was sort of like this presentation um you don’t know exactly what changed so you just want to say it changed right um

But were there Masonic handshakes there were there you know symbol what was what was in the original um ceremony and what did Brigham Young change we know he changed it but um do we know exactly what was changed and how and why and Etc so so that’s an interesting conversation

I’m super curious yes I would love to have that conversation because I I really questioned the May Fourth and Fifth dates I don’t agree with those and but but I’m so wide open to learning more so i’ would love to have that conversation but I am open to Joseph

Being a Mason like I’m not saying that um I don’t that I don’t think the temple came from Joseph’s or I don’t I I question how much involvement Joseph had in the in the endowment but it’s not because I think he wasn’t a mason or you

Know what I mean so I I guess we both have different part it’ll be an interesting conversation because there’s so much to sort out and there is less there’s less evidence in that conversation that there than there is in masonry but I do want to just show with

This preliminary um presentation that we do have lots of evidence um that can show that Joseph Smith was a mason so you can feel very confident in that he was okay that’s great great so I’m going to to go ahead and take this off this was incredible this was so fascinating

To me and yes really fun but um but I still like I mean we’ve taken all we we didn’t get to talk about William Marks or about Joseph’s about the temple endowment and so will you please please come back often I would love to we have

So much to talk about okay I hope that we can all this entire audience give Cheryl Bruno a giant Collective huge thank you really for saving us from ourselves because I I’m so involved in my own research that I’m not involved in these conversations I haven’t been involved in the

Conversations of masonry like you have and so I’m I’m really thankful that instead of just writing us off completely you’re willing to say hey this is what is a good this is this is a worthwhile controversy to discuss this is yes you have good arguments you know stick with your good arguments

And I think when we have a conversation about the temple it will be more um you know two-sided because there are two sides you know we can look at both sides but with the masonry there really is no other side that no other leg to stand on

So um separate that from separate your conversations about masonry from your conversations about whether Joseph Smith lived to polygamy okay Cheryl thank you so much for all of this and I am really looking forward to talking to you again wasn’t that fascinating I think some of my favorite takeaways are first of all

That a well-respected historian published everywhere well generally well respected by everybody has acknowledged that we have a valid argument right and I I know that we have a valid argument it’s just nice to see people being willing to engage with it I have so much respect for Cheryl for her Clarity her

Honesty her willingness to engage I am looking forward to having more conversations with her another one of my big takeaways was that we don’t need to be afraid of things we don’t understand let’s just let the evidence speak for itself and if it if if the evidence is

Not what we expected to see or not what we want to see let’s just have curiosity dig in and see what it might mean I think that if there is evidence of um Joseph’s and hyrum’s Freemasonry that makes me more curious about free masonry

Right and and and I just want to let go of my biases and dig in with an open heart and continue to learn more so a huge thank you to Cheryl for putting all of this together and I am I just I just love her I’m really excited to continue

To engage I’m hoping she’ll come on at least two more times to have really important fascinating conversations and again thank you to each of you for joining along this journey and I will see you next Time

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