The clearest evidence of Masonic influence on the Mormon temple ceremony would be a passage-by-passage comparison of the texts. However, both ceremonies are open only to members in good standing who have made personal covenants not to divulge the proceedings. Thus, published accounts of either ceremony come from disaffected members. Although such disaffection does not necessarily make the accounts unreliable, quoting sources which reveal exact ceremonial language presents an ethical dilemma to those who have themselves promised not to reveal that wording. What use could or should be made of documents from individuals who have chosen to ignore those covenants? For those who have personal reasons to share those scruples related to promises of secrecy, public comparisons and contrasts become problematic. Let me simply summarize what such a comparison might suggest and indicate additional sources of investigation for the interested reader.

Three elements of the Nauvoo temple endowment and its contemporary Masonic ritual resemble each other to a very marked degree and are sometimes identical. These are the tokens, signs, and penalties. Although there seem to be sufficient reasons for not quoting the parallel portions of the two ceremonies here, the two accounts which may be most useful for the purposes of comparison are those of Catherine Lewis and William Morgan. William Morgan's account is the previously cited 1827 book of the York Rite's Masonic ritual (the same rite introduced in Nauvoo—see esp. pp. 23-24, 53-54, 76-77, 84-85) which led to his disappearance and presumed murder. Catherine Lewis joined the LDS church in 1841 in Boston. After Joseph Smith's death in 1844, she moved to Nauvoo and was among those who received their endowment in the new temple. Lewis received the ordinance at the urging of Heber C. Kimball and one of his wives. Apparently repulsed by his subsequent proposal of plural marriage, she left Nauvoo and published a book in 1848 which includes a description of the Nauvoo temple ceremony.

Other similarities with Masonic rites may include the prayer circle which required Masonic initiates to assemble around an altar, place their left arms over the person next to them, join hands, repeat the words of the Most Excellent Master, and give all the signs from initial ceremonial degrees. Michael Quinn has pointed out that nineteenth-century American Protestant revivals also had prayer circles in which, "when the invitation was given, there was a general rush, the large 'prayer ring' was filled, and for at least two hours prayer ardent went up to God." Two additional Masonic elements which may have temple echoes are the receiving by initiates of a "new name" and the donning of a white apron as part of the rite. The original apron used in the Mormon endowment had a white background with green fig leaves sewn to it; this apron now is constructed of green fabric. Also, an explanatory lecture always follows the conferral of each Masonic degree ceremony, a practice not unlike the temple endowment's lecture at the veil.

This pattern of resemblances provides strong indications that Joseph Smith drew on the Masonic rites in shaping the temple endowment, and specifically borrowed the tokens, signs, and penalties. The creation and fall narrative, the content of the major covenants, and the washing and anointings have no parallel in Masonry. Thus, the temple ceremony cannot be explained as wholesale borrowing from Masonry; neither can it be explained as completely unrelated to Masonry.