Mormon connection to Masons explored ahead of 'Da Vinci Code' sequel

Salt Lake City Tribune ^ | 1/13/06 | Peggy Fletcher Stack

[TFFKAMM]

Dan Brown clearly enjoys playing with legends, history, symbols and secrets. And readers' minds. In his best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, Brown wove all these - real and imagined - into a breathless mystery about Christianity, Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine that has spawned an industry of de-coders eager to separate fact from fiction.
    Now that he has turned his attention to the mysteries of Freemasonry, the centuries-old fraternal order, the new book also might deal with Mormonism.
   But rather than announce the Da Vinci sequel in a news release, Brown embedded tantalizing clues to its subject on the book's jacket. Written in typeface that is slightly larger and bolder than the rest (it requires a magnifying glass to find them all) are the words: is there no help for the widows son.
    "O Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow's son?" was used historically as a Masonic distress call, but when journalist David Shugarts plugged it into Google, the first hit was a 1974 speech given by an LDS Institute of Religion teacher, Reed C. Durham, at the University of Utah.
   Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reportedly began to utter the call as he fell from a second story window after being fatally shot by a mob in a Carthage, Ill., jail in 1844, Durham said.
   In an electrifying presidential address to the Mormon History Association meeting in Nauvoo, Ill., he traced close parallels between Smith's account of digging gold plates out of a New York hillside and Masonic tales of Enoch and buried treasure. Smith wore a "Jupiter talisman," or what his wife called "his Masonic jewel," and LDS temple ceremonies bear a striking resemblance to Masonic rituals, he said.
   The

	The Winding Staircase, like all Masonic symbols, is illustrative of discipline and doctrine, and opens to us a wide field of moral and speculative inquiry. (Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune)

speech was so controversial that Durham's superiors in the LDS Educational System forced him to issue a public apology.
   The speech was never published but was surreptitiously taped and has floated around on the Internet for years.
   It may have also caught Brown's attention, Shugarts speculates, and may provide one plot twist in Brown's next book, tentatively titled The Solomon Key. Brown confirmed in a speech last year that the book's mystery will be set in Washington, D.C., where many architectural features were drawn from Masonry, and will feature the same lead character, Harvard-professor-turned-detective Robert Langdom.
   Getting a jump on the novel's historical context, Shugarts has written Secrets of the Widow's Son: The Mysteries Surrounding the Sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
   He provides a broad history of Mormonism, including its brush with Masonry in the 19th century. It also offers nuggets about Masonic history such as these: At least eight signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons, as were 13 U.S. presidents including George Washington. A Freemason released Paul Revere from British custody on the night of his famous ride, after he determined that Revere was a Mason. Mozart's "Magic Flute" and Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King were written as Masonic allegories.
   The Washington Monument and a similar monument on Bunker Hill in Boston, were not just coincidentally shaped like an Egyptian obelisks, but intentionally designed to honor Masonic allusions to ancient Egyptian mystical wisdom.
   Much of the symbolism is mathematical, even geometrical, which could explain why the fraternity has attracted rationalists such as Voltaire, Goethe, Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain.
   "We've heard from Masons

	One of the rooms in the Temple. The Salt Lake Masonic Temple was completed in 1927 and was built in 1 year, 3 months, and 22 days. The architect of the temple was Carl W. Scott and George W Welch. (Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune)

that they feel that [Brown is] going to do them justice," says Dan Burstein, who wrote the introduction to Shugarts' book. "He seems to be favorably disposed to thinking of Masons as an important historical underground movement, pushing the world towards democracy and enlightenment."
   Today there are nearly 2 million Masons in the United States, with 2,250 members in 29 Utah lodges.
   "We have a lot of Mormons who are Masons in this state, but we don't know exactly how many," says Ridgley Gilmour, Grand Master of Utah Masonic Lodge. "Anyone with a belief in God can petition to join but we don't ask what religion they are."
   Gilmour was adamant the Masonry is not a "secret society," but a fraternal order with large-scale charitable giving built on deeply held American values of family, God and country.
   "The only secrets we have are little signs and passwords which we use because it's an ancient custom, and, frankly, it's fun,'' Gilmour says.
   It remains to be seen how much Mormon history will feature in the novel, (Brown's wife reportedly was raised in the LDS Church) but if the reaction to Durham's 1974 speech is any indication, any link between the two could be controversial in Utah.
   For his part, Nicholas S. Literski, an active Mormon and Mason living in Nauvoo, thinks Latter-day Saints misunderstand the similarities. But they are significant.
    "Everybody wants to obsess over supposed similarities in ritual," he says. "But that's just one aspect. Everything about Joseph and his family was tied into Masonic legends."
   
    The Mormon connection: Smith's father, Joseph Smith Sr. joined a Masonic lodge when the family moved to Palmyra,

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N.Y., in 1816. Later, Smith's brother Hyrum also joined. From them, Smith heard the story of a lost sacred word that was engraved upon a triangular plate of pure gold. The word was the name of God.
   It makes sense that he would go searching for such treasure in the large American Indian burial mounds near his home, says Literski, author of the forthcoming book, Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration.
   And when Smith reported finding an ancient record written on plates of gold, he used "distinctively Masonic language to describe the experience," Literski says.
   The church, which claimed to restore ancient truths of Christianity lost through the ages, attracted many members of the Masonic fraternity who traced their own roots back centuries and had similar esoteric teachings.
   By the 1840s, many Mormon leaders in Nauvoo, including Smith and apostles Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, became Masons and organized a lodge there under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of Illinois. It wasn't long before nearly every male member of the church in the area had joined. At the same time, Smith introduced LDS temple rituals that included secret handshakes, signs and symbols like the all-seeing eye, the compass and square (tools of the mason's trade) and the sun, moon and stars that echoed Masonry.
    Soon, though, other Masons felt that the Mormons were dominating the fraternity. In 1842, the Nauvoo Lodge was suspended. Many Mormons believed that Masons contributed to the murder of their prophet.
   Antagonisms built up between the two groups. In Utah in 1860, Masonic lodges were established but they prohibited Mormons from joining. At the same time, Young forbade Mormons from joining and refused to allow any Mason to hold

priesthood leadership positions in the church, Literski says.
   It wasn't until 1984 that LDS President Spencer W. Kimball removed the prohibition against Latter-day Saints becoming Freemasons. Later that year, the Grand Lodge of Utah removed its own ban on Mormon membership so that, in the ensuing years, many Latter-day Saint men have returned to this part of their heritage.
   
    In the novelist's mind: Shugarts says it was not his intention to be a plot spoiler for Brown's sequel. He couldn't do that if he wanted. But he did offer a primer on Masonry and Mormonism for those who will want to explore, as they did with Da Vinci, just how much of what Brown writes is really history.
   "I had to push out in every direction possible," Shugarts said in a phone interview from his Connecticut home. "I read five books about Mormon history and thousands of Internet Web sites. I tried to be thorough and fair."
   Though he only dedicated four or five pages to Mormons in a 200-page book, he's already heard from unhappy Latter-day Saints who accuse him of misreading or a biased approach to LDS history, a charge he rejects.
   "Prior to embarking on my research, I had no particular opinion of Joseph Smith or the details of the founding of the [LDS ]Church," he wrote to one critic. "But I had met a few Mormons and they always impressed me as fine people. After delving into the story of Joseph Smith, I understood a lot more about LDS. I remain impressed that Mormons are fine people."
    It will be interesting to see if Brown sees them that way as well. Literski isn't worried.
   "He'll weave a good conspiracy," Literski says, "but no matter how inventive Dan Brown gets in terms of the connection, he will fall short of just how deep

that story does go."
   Even in Smith's day, there were Masons who believed the legends were historical truth and saw Freemasonry as a deeply spiritual, mystical quest. Other, more sophisticated members, discounted the old stories, wanting to refocus it along the lines of a charitable and benevolent institution.
    The Smiths were about as far into mysticism as you can get, Literski says. "Joseph was rebuilding Solomon's temple with all the legendary baggage that came along with that."
    Seeing the relationship between the two groups forces Mormons like Literski to revise his ideas about how God interacts with a prophet.
   "You cannot understand what is going on in Joseph's mind unless you can know what he is seeing, hearing, feeling and touching," he says. "That gives me a stronger position of faith than would this idea that revelation is ex nihilo. Joseph was not a puppet."
    ---
   Contact Peggy Fletcher Stack at pstack@sltrib.com or 801-257-8725. Send comments on this article to religioneditor@sltrib.com.
   
   

[wolfcreek]

My parents were divorced when I was 2 and I spent the majority of my youth living with my Grandparents. I just seemed odd that my Grandfather took me to church with him but, never ever mentioned anything about FM. (My GM told me not to ask)

[Bullfrogg]

Past Master here, and a member of the
True Order

[BunnySlippers]

*

[Chode]

And to you... there's a Lodge almost everywhere, you can just sit in for fun.
i try to make it a point to visit the local Lodge where ever i travel.

[Lochlainnach]

I think you're right...to a point. William Faulkner said the best fiction was more real than any reality. Now, of course he was a fiction writer--but he has a serious point. One that illuminates the problems with fiction like Dan Brown's.

There is Literature, and then there is fiction. Literature tries, for the most part, to be of Faulkner's statment--true to life, meant for a purpose beyond publicity and money. Literature is meant to last the ages (to some extent) and influence society in a meaningful manner--whatever that means. Some may call it pretentious, but at least its typically heartfelt and meant to spark minds.

Then we have fiction, the kind of books you throw away after reading, or lose and never think of again. These are the books that get made into movies. And sadly to say, most writing that comes out in America today is fiction. Even nonfiction books like "A Million Little Pieces" seem to fall into the fiction category. Hm. That people talk seriously of Dan Brown's books baffles me...and scares me, and seems indicative of the cultural lowering of the bar, as it were, that elevates people with seeming no talent into the spot light.

[Chode]

Greetings...!!!

8^)

[Nasty McPhilthy]

"Wow. I hope Dan Brown waits until Christmas to put out his book so everyone can fight over another amazing yarn about fictional conspiracies."

Care to name another of the fictional conspiracies?

By the way, welcome to FR.

[PeterFinn]

Hmm. It's not enough to smear the Catholics, the atheists have to take a few potshots at the Mormons, too.

[GOP_1900AD]

With DaVinci Code Brown managed to tar Roman Catholics, Jews, and Christ himself. If this new one tars Free Masons and LDS, then he'll have nearly all his bases covered. After that, he'll probably go after the Protestants. Will Mr. Brown's lies go down in history as sort of a grotesque replay of "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" writ large? Will a rising totalitarian axis use his writings as part of the justification to liquidate the Judeo-Christian part of the world?

[TFFKAMM]

Well, you have to admit he's a canny self-promoter. Mr. Brown realized that there was a vast, largely-untapped audience of readers out there who want to believe that the West's major spiritual institutions are based in lies, deceit and power-mongering, and that they'd consciously suppressed a "Goddess Civilization" that bears a remarkably convenient resemblance to hippie and feminist utopianism.

To understand just how badly and deeply the moonbat element wants to believe DVC is more than "just a work of fiction," I present to you this piece by a columnist well-known to Freepers.

[uglybiker]

	Masonic
Send FReepmail if you want on/off The Masonic List
The List of Ping Lists

[TFFKAMM]

Great graphic! Is that one of David Icke's famed "Lizard People" in the East?

[JCEccles]

The guy that did that was arrested by a Mormaon Sheriff, Appeared before a Mormon Judge and Jury. Was convicted by the Mormon Jury, and went to prison.

I'm fairly certain he was executed by firing squad.

[Dan(9698)]

I hear those Masons are a real 'crafty' bunch.

They made really good jars for canning fruit.

[Dan(9698)]

...bash the Catholics...

I bet there is a connection there also or didn't your family can fruit and vegitables?

[RobRoy]

"People discuss the darn thing like it's real."

It IS reel! Which reel? The last reel of this vintage motion picture, "High School Madness".

Sorry. Had to do it...

[Radix]

Brown ripped off ideas from a couple of other authors that I have read in the past. I am not Catholic though I was raised in that faith. He did a real hatchet job on the Catholic Church which some might feel is deserved. I don't.

I was not aware about a connection between Masons and Mormons. That is intriguing. I may have to read his next book, but not certain yet.

I think that it would be quite optimistic for either Masons or Mormons to anticipate a fair shake from this guy.

I still can't believe how many books he has sold.

[Dan(9698)]

I'm fairly certain he was executed by firing squad.

As they taught it in Church History, he went to jail.

In any event, he was punished and the Church isn't covering it up. It is taught in seminary class.

[nopardons]

Oh goodness gracious...here we go again. When this new book comes out, there'll no doubt be a deluge of crazy anti-Masonic threads. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh...........

[nopardons]

Then join our anti-antiMasonic ping list. We can use you to help refute the crazies here. :-)