The connections between Mormonism and Freemasonry are about as subtle as a neon sign in a pitch-black desert. Some people act like it’s some deep, conspiratorial discovery that Joseph Smith, the so-called “prophet,” borrowed heavily from the secret handshakes and goofy rituals of the Masonic lodge.

To be clear, the term “borrowed” is just a polite way of saying plagiarized. Mormonism certainly didn’t just spring from a burning bush of divine revelation—it crawled out of the smoky backrooms of Freemason halls, clutching their symbols, their theatrics, and their obsession with secrecy like a child caught red-handed in the candy jar.

But let’s start with the fairy tale. Joseph Smith supposedly received a “special revelation” from an angel—because why settle for Scripture when you can have your own personal cosmic UPS delivery? Supposedly, this “angel” told him about some golden plates hidden in the ground.

And what do you know? Conveniently, only he could translate them. Thus, the Book of Mormon was born, one of the great works of fiction that somehow convinced millions of people that God was handing out VIP backstage passes to salvation through secret knowledge.

By 1830, Smith had launched his Church of Christ, which would eventually morph into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. From the very beginning, it was a traveling circus of false prophecy, shady finances, and angry neighbors.

Smith’s first church in Kirtland, Ohio, folded under “monetary issues,” or financial bungling. And the Missouri branch rebranded with a shinier name. But even with a facelift, the locals weren’t buying it. Enter the 1838 Mormon War, in which thousands of Mormons were booted from Missouri like unruly tenants finally evicted after refusing to pay rent.

So where did the vagabond prophets land? Nauvoo, Illinois, a freshly built city complete with its own temple, which just happened to look suspiciously like a Masonic lodge dressed up in Sunday best. And wouldn’t you know it, the Mormon leaders themselves—Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and others—weren’t just spiritual guides. They were all practicing Freemasons. Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum? Both card-carrying lodge members. But we’re supposed to believe the overlap was pure coincidence? Please.

Now, a quick pit stop into the Masonic world. The Freemasons trace their roots back at least to 1598 in Scotland. What started as a glorified stonemason’s guild turned into a pseudo-religious fraternity obsessed with symbols, secret oaths, and vague talk about a “Supreme Being.” They’re famous for their charity drives, sure, but they’ve always been far more invested in their mysterious handshakes and winking allusions than in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here’s where the overlap gets too obvious to ignore. Mormon temples and Masonic lodges share the same toolkit of symbolism. The All-Seeing Eye? You know it from the dollar bill—God’s supposed cosmic surveillance camera. Both camps use it.

The square and compass? A Masonic staple, proudly embroidered on early Mormon temple garments.

The sun and moon, the pentagram, the beehive, the clasped hands—all recycled, rebranded, and repackaged by Joseph Smith’s crew as if the world had never seen them before. You’d think the man invented geometry itself.

Walk into Nauvoo’s temple in the 1840s, and you’d swear you stumbled into a Masonic initiation. The overlap wasn’t just symbolic, it was functional. Smith himself joined the lodge in Nauvoo in 1842, and soon, over 1,500 Mormon men were “dual citizens” of both cults. Call it what it was: Freemasonry in a Sunday dress.

After Joseph Smith’s Masonic crash course, he rolled out the Mormon Endowment ceremony, which (shocker) mirrors Masonic rites down to the secret handshakes, the new names, and the over-the-top drama of initiation. Participants swore oaths, donned sacred undergarments, and pledged secrecy under penalty of death.

That minor detail was dropped in 1990, but the handshakes and theatrical piety remain. Masonic halls and Mormon temples became near-mirror images of each other… robes, names, oaths, and all the hollow pomp of a Broadway production that forgot it wasn’t supposed to be a comedy.

And yet, despite the glaring theft, Mormon apologists twist themselves into theological pretzels trying to downplay the similarities. “They just use some of the same symbols.” Right. And I suppose Coke and Pepsi are identical just because they both sell soda in aluminum cans. No, this isn’t parallel invention, it’s blatant imitation. Joseph Smith didn’t stumble on divine revelation, he raided a Masonic lodge like a burglar and called the loot “scripture.”

The lesson here isn’t subtle. Whenever you see a so-called Christian group placing “special revelation” above or alongside the Word of God, your heresy alarm should be blaring loud enough to wake the dead. The Bible doesn’t need Freemason handshakes, secret names, or golden plates dug up from a backyard excavation site. It interprets itself. And Smith, apparently too lazy or arrogant to read to the end of Revelation, missed the part where God explicitly warns against adding to His Word.

Sixteen million Mormons today are proof that a polished counterfeit can still fool the masses. But the counterfeit never becomes the truth, no matter how ornate the temple or how elaborate the ceremony. Mormonism is Freemasonry’s wayward child dressed up as Christianity, and Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God. He was a conman with a flair for pageantry.