Cheryl Bruno is fascinating! Mother of 8, expert on Freemasonry and early Mormonism, maker of Mormon tarot cards, author, poet, historian, and very good friend. This presentation is altruistic. Cheryl is the first historian willing to go on the record to publicly say that we have a valid argument that Joseph was not a polygamist! Thank you, Cheryl, for your courage and honesty! But, we too often hurt ourselves by my muddying the water with arguments that are not good. She wants to help our community be able to gain more credibility by focusing on the good arguments, and letting go of the bad ones. She is doing this for us. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!
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Links:
Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration, by Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, Nicholas S. Literski
Secret Covenants: New Insights on Early Mormon Polygamy, by Cheryl L. Bruno (Editor)
Cheryl Bruno Response to Brian Hales
Cheryl’s and my discussion on Brian Hales and Steven Pynakker
Transcript:
[00:00] Michelle: 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, her historical work that she does. But I have a 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 Hyrum’s (mainly and Joseph’s) Freemasonry. I think it’s something that we really need to be aware of. The 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 then 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 helped 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 18 forties, Mormonism, Mormonism, and Freemasonry, Mormon fundamentalist movements and William Marks, 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 esoteric, did I say that? Right? Esoteric? Is that how you say it? Ok. Which, um, I’m gonna do my best to define that. And you tell me if I’m, 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. Perfect. OK. And so, um anyway, then also she has more publications than I was able to count her many articles up here 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?
[03:31] Cheryl Bruno: Oh, I don’t know if I could even tell you that without revealing. Oh, OK. But um like I would say 40 years, I’ve been working on certain aspects of Mormon history.
[03:45] Michelle: That is incredible. And so OK, so I’m gonna 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? Yes,
[04:18] Cheryl Bruno: 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 bit.
[04:30] Michelle: 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
[04:45] Cheryl Bruno: really, it’s required reading for Mormon historians, I would say,
[04:49] Michelle: 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 of 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 and 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, are you the Director of Residents Life at an el elderly care facility? Is that what you’re doing for your day job? That’s amazing. In Monterey California where she lives. So, that’s a little bit about Cheryl. I wasn’t able, I hope it’s ok to ask. I wasn’t able to find information about your family. Um, you have Children and
[05:47] Cheryl Bruno: yes, I have Children, which is a drop in the bucket compared to you. But they’re all over the music. Yeah. Um, there, there’s seven girls and one boy, seven of them served missions. Um, they’re all great kids and I have 20 grandchildren.
[06:07] Michelle: Ok. 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, ok. So all of this historical work you have done has been along with having eight Children and your master’s degree and your career.
[06:31] Cheryl Bruno: I do not have a master’s degree. No, I, I have eight Children and no master’s degree.
[06:37] Michelle: Ok. Ok. You did graduate work but didn’t finish the, the masters? Ok. Ok. So I had my
[06:47] Cheryl Bruno: first child and left the university. So never. Ok.
[06:53] Michelle: Oh, well. Amen, sister. I hear you. That’s in my path as well. So, yeah. So, ok. 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, I, I had um fallen for not known that I had fallen for, um which I didn’t anyway, Brian Hill’s claim that the scrape being scraped out an affair, written over it and, and you know, the Webster’s dictionary affair doesn’t necessarily in that time period didn’t necessarily con note um adultery, right? But Cheryl sent me the minutes from Oliver Cow’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 is very helpful with that. So thank you for always engaging so, so well and with so much kindness and clarity. I appreciate that.
[08:04] Cheryl Bruno: Oh, thanks for that wonderful introduction. That’s fabulous. Oh,
[08:07] Michelle: 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 Cecily. And I wanted to ask you so, Cecily, the first thing that comes to mind for me is that 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 Saint Cecilia or is it Cecily Duchess of York or can you tell me what that?
[08:39] Cheryl Bruno: Yeah, it doesn’t really have a, it doesn’t really have a meaning. It’s just a woman. It’s just a name for a woman.
[08:47] Michelle: 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, ok. Yeah. Anything I missed or anything else you want to add.
[09:02] Cheryl Bruno: 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, it’s an 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.
[09:28] Michelle: OK. I feel like you just opened a giant can of worms. So let’s talk about that for a second. Oh, that’s
[09:33] Cheryl Bruno: with my esoteric that goes with my esoteric. And I, I’m not a witch and I don’t really believe, you know, in tarot like um that you can tell the future 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.
[10:17] Michelle: OK. So I recently had some um some friends on 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 of the planets or the signs in 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. So you see connections with sort of the symbolism in Mormonism and Freemasonry and with tarot and OK.
[11:02] Cheryl Bruno: Absolutely. Yes. And there’s a lot of, 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 cart, right? That’s a symbol. And immediately to your mind, if you’re a Mormon, so many things come into your mind, just see that one little hand cart. 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 handcart 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 say, 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 car, you’ll start to get into touch with your feelings about those particular, um, you know, aspects. So, OK. And
[12:09] Michelle: 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. Oh, ok. I’m so glad that we talked about this. And I’m wondering, are you going to read my tarot on this conversation? Now?
[12:35] Cheryl Bruno: We’ll definitely have to do that.
[12:38] Michelle: Ok. OK. 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 edition of that original one? Because I think a lot of people would be really fast by this. Ok. 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.
[13:03] Cheryl Bruno: 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,
[13:11] Michelle: ok. That’s so funny. Yeah. Like, I think, I think it’s interesting because I do think that there’s
[13:16] Cheryl Bruno: something wrong with people that go, um, are into that path, right? I don’t want to, like, work
[13:22] Michelle: out that I think that as Mormons, we’ve adopted a lot of just Chris, 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, look, can’t look at symbolism on Taro, right? But I think it’s usually a lack of understanding to, to, it’s just these are different aspect 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
[14:13] Cheryl Bruno: my way.
[14:16] Michelle: Good. Ok. 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. Ok. 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
[14:38] Cheryl Bruno: many, I would not say it was anywhere near over 60? Um, ok, I would say it would be published articles like, I don’t know, 10, you know. Ok, on 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 that even have a few poems on there. So, um, I’ll see that.
[15:20] Michelle: Well, that’s actually where I want to start if that’s ok 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 response to Brian Hales. And so I wanted to, well, I can scroll down and show you maybe I to 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 gas lit by 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 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 II, 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, OK, 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 Hales interpret that Brian Hales interprets history responsibly. His history rather than being descriptive is prescriptive. He tells the reader how they should interpret the evidence rather than le 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, 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 gonna 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.
[17:55] Cheryl Bruno: I do plan on writing a book on adoption in the future. So that, OK, that’s one of my topics of interest.
[18:03] Michelle: That’s amazing. So, and, and I’m, I, I am gonna like, uh I’m gonna bug you to come back and talk to me about it. 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 of 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 on to 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? At this point,
[18:53] Cheryl Bruno: I was gonna kind of keep that into my chest. But um, ok, I didn’t, I didn’t went blank.
[19:01] Michelle: Yeah. 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 would be really helpful to help you a
[19:15] Cheryl Bruno: little bit about this.
[19:17] Michelle: But OK. Ok. OK, that’s good. So I’ll finish this sentence. She says, um this is, this also applies to Joseph Brian’s handling of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. I 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 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 Nauvoo 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 spot on 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, so I did about
[20:31] Cheryl Bruno: three or four book reviews of his, of his set. So there’s 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, I replied 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 sessions are out there online somewhere too where
[21:15] Michelle: you, 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 uh my interactions with him have not been pleasant. You
[21:34] Cheryl Bruno: know, I was just gonna say that Brian is um very classy and 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, uh 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 and Joseph Smith’s polygamy, this was what, two years ago and I first saw
[23:22] Michelle: 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.
[23:29] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. So maybe uh a little over a year ago when I first became aware of 132 problems and I thought she was Michelle Stone. Michelle Brady Stone. She’s a safety kid. She’s uh 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 has historian who wants to talk about Joe Smith’s polygamy. If they’re not talking about your work, then I do, I would have to discount them because they are not going to the expert. So I no longer feel that Brian Hall 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 last month you did the work on the deeds? 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.
[24:54] Michelle: Wow, thank you so much. That’s like, thank you. Ok, I’m going to hold it together if, if I just send me this text, I’d be like, ok, I’m just gonna take it and try it as a professional. Ok. Thank you, Cheryl. I really appreciate those sentiments.
[25:13] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. So now you know how much work you’ve done? That’s amazing. And other people have done a lot of work on polygamy not necessary. 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 Brad hills. Right. 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 singly 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.
[26:07] Michelle: Thank you so much. I really do appreciate that. So, ok, ok. 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 John Bradley. I think he is, I mean about Brian Hall, the work that you brought forward, like when you start having his repository of sources and all of the um summaries he’s written with the links below. It is so immensely helpful. Like he really, 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
[26:55] Cheryl Bruno: and he has great motives. Um And he’s a very good person. And, um, have you met him in person?
[27:02] Michelle: Oh, well, I’ve interviewed him other than that I haven’t met him in life. But, yeah, and I would, I do want to say, like, like I know I’m, 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, ok, thank you.
[27:33] Cheryl Bruno: 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 get myself. I, I talk myself into what I, you know, my analysis, right? So, um, so they are great people to talk to about that and are very willing to, I’m sure that if any time you wanted to say, oh, 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, ok,
[28:31] Michelle: ok, I’m glad I gotta try. This gives me hope because I am, I, I did try to do that several times with Brian message him and say, ok, I’m 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 and 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 gonna keep, well, I shouldn’t say Don is engaging with me. I just want us to engage on the sources as well. So, ok, thank you, Cheryl So I know, should we move on to the meat of the presentation? Let’s do it. OK. So Cheryl has put this beautiful presentation together and I’m gonna go ahead and add this to the stage. So do you want to kind of introduce what you’re gonna be talking about?
[29:47] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. So I am talking about Freemasonry in Nauvoo 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 gonna talk about Freemasonry in Nauvoo 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 very viable hypothesis. Let’s just put it that way. Um And many things that you’ve said um have changed my mind about uh Joseph Smith’s polygamy. And so I, I really love what this movement has done. But the problem I see is oftentimes I see some of your audience will um use freemasonry and say that Joseph never practice Freemasonry and put that into the polygamy argument. And what I wanna do is show you why that should not be part of your polygamy argument and it actually waters down your polygamy ar argument to people that know anything about Joseph Smith and Freemasonry. So I, I titled it Freemasonry Enough with the documents because what I want to focus on is what we do know and um we are gonna 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 have 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 Freemasonry in Nauvoo.
[31:53] Michelle: Oh, this is incredible. I’m so OK. Thank you for explaining it that way. I’m 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, 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 masonry is bad. So I’m judging. Free masonry is negative. And so therefore, Joseph didn’t have anything to do with it and it, and, and so, ok, this is immensely helpful. So I hope that people will watch. 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 jumpstart into this topic. So please listen with an open mind and I hope you 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. Ok, thank you.
[33:10] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. 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 a 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 the 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 gonna wanna 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? OK.
[34:20] Michelle: The spooky music as we go forward. Is that what you want?
[34:24] Cheryl Bruno: All right, let’s go to the next slide.
[34:26] Michelle: Perfect.
[34:28] Cheryl Bruno: OK. So I wanna 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 Wright 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 fellow craft degree you’re passed into the fellow craft 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. And then 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.
[35:38] Michelle: 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 eagle. Is that ok?
[35:55] Cheryl Bruno: 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, right, exposes and things that he would have had access to. And um there were many people in his immediate environment who are Royal Arch masons who he um could have gotten this information from. And I think he was very interested in a royal arch masonry, but he was not a royal arch mason. And we’ll talk a little bit about royal art 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 stake. Ok. 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. Ok. 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. Ok. 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 grand master is like your steak president. He is the master of the grand lodge. So he’s the grand master is the steak president. So, does that make sense?
[38:07] Michelle: Perfect sense. Yes. Thank you for explaining that. Yes. Good,
[38:10] Cheryl Bruno: 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. Ok. So once you have a dispensation, you’re under dispensation. And then the lodge has to go through a period of time to kind of prove themselves. So usually it’s about a year before they actually get their charter. Ok. So Nauvoo lodge never got its charter. It was under dispensation. Ok. 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. Ok.
[39:16] Michelle: Ok. Yes. And I have so many questions, I’m sure you’re gonna get into more. So I’ll hold my questions until, until the end. Unless you want me to ask as we go along, you tell me,
[39:24] Cheryl Bruno: well, yeah, go ahead and ask. And if you have questions, let’s
[39:28] Michelle: ok. 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. This was just part of the culture and really quite ubiquitous. Am I understanding that correctly?
[39:42] Cheryl Bruno: Yeah. Let’s talk about that because I don’t have that in this presentation. But, um, ok, uh, when in the early days of the United States, uh, Masons were quite common about one in every eight men was a mason and it was usually the people of 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 18 thirties, 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 oaths, 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. OK? And when we say, OK, uh this is a symbolic oath. It isn’t like I’m really gonna 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 gonna 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 under. 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 Batavia, New York. So he definitely would have known about what happened there. And
[41:51] Michelle: um OK, so can I ask you a couple of questions? So, so um I have three thoughts. I want to 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 my other thought is when you’re talking about symbolic oats, 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, and my understanding that is so then you
[42:47] Cheryl Bruno: wouldn’t be saying that anymore if that had really happened, you know, and then
[42:51] Michelle: you,
[42:51] Cheryl Bruno: you said that you’d go, no, no, no, don’t say that
[42:55] Michelle: what happened. Ok. Got it. Ok. 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, the, the, 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? So,
[43:38] Cheryl Bruno: yes, but that’s very complicated. And I have to point you to my book to really get a, you know, a deep understanding of that. Yeah.
[43:45] Michelle: Ok. Great. All right. So, are you ready to go on?
[43:48] Cheryl Bruno: 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 18 forties, 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 Nauvoo. 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 Nauvoo and he got very excited and wanted to um give him some um support and 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.
[44:51] Michelle: Ok. So Abraham Jonas wasn’t a Mormon, but he was excited about the resurgence of masonry.
[44:58] Cheryl Bruno: He is our grand master in Illinois. He’s our steak president of Masonry in Illinois. We’ll talk
[45:06] Michelle: about perfect. And so one more question. So masonry is a fraternal order and it’s complicated for those, 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 on there. OK.
[45:35] Cheryl Bruno: Yes. Um So actually they like to call um masons, like to call it the handmaid of religion. That masonry is the handmaid of religion because they do use a lot of religious stories um symbolically. Um And I think that um masonry back in the 18 forties, 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 that kind of um OK, you explain this a little more in my book as well.
[46:13] Michelle: But so they are, it’s not may 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 as a way to enrich their
[46:24] Cheryl Bruno: Christianity. Exactly. But now when um 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 fleck 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 uh 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 be
[47:27] Michelle: sacrificing babies in the unless
[47:31] Cheryl Bruno: she was a general authority, you know, and 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.
[47:56] Michelle: That’s good. I love how you said that. I love how we’re talking about not losing credibility because when you make those like there are conspiracy theories and there are conspiracy theories, right? And when you look at all of 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. OK, thank you for clarifying all of this. Very helpful.
[48:21] Cheryl Bruno: OK, let’s go on. OK. So, um I wanna talk about some of the masons that we have in early Mormonism. Um Joseph Smith senior, we’ll start with him. Um We mostly believe that Joseph Smith senior 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 Smith senior was a mason. Ok. Um But are these
[49:10] Michelle: roles, are these Masonic roles we’re looking at, did you say that
[49:15] Cheryl Bruno: because these are for Hiram Smith? So Hiram Smith was a mason in. Ok. So, no, I’m talking. Ok, let’s go to Hiram Smith. We know that Hiram Smith was a mason because in Nauvoo, 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 Yanai, Gua. I was made a mason in Palmyra. And so Hyrum 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 Hiram Smith paid his dues in Palmyra as a mason. Ok. So, and we cannot find another Hiram Smith in the area who was a 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 census 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 and we’ll come back to this. But, um, this is kind of, um, uh 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 Hiram and the dues that he paid. Ok, 50 cents. So this is ok, 1827 to 1828.
[50:52] Michelle: So we have this record with Hiram. He’s the only Hiram Smith and we have Hiram later on saying I became a mason in this lodge lodge. Yes. Ok.
[51:01] Cheryl Bruno: All right. So now we have three. We have many family members, Joseph Smith’s family members, his uncles were um his uncles were members of the lodge. Um He had a, um, Joseph Smith senior’s uh brother-in-law was a member of a lodge. Joseph Smith’s cousin was a member of a lodge. And then he also had many acquaintances. The DPH, you recognize some of these names. The der the chases. Almost everybody who was at Moore’s Academy was a Freemason. So um the doctors that worked on Joseph Smith leg operation were Freemasons
[51:39] Michelle: is Moore’s Academy where Hiram went to school for a time. That was so it is possible that he like, like I’m, I’m not trying to make other people, not masons. I’m just thinking about that, the Joseph Smith mystery, whether that’s our Joseph Smith. And so it is possible that Hiram was introduced to Freemasonry in Moore’s Academy. So he could have been the first one in the small Smith family. That’s a possibility to, right? Ok,
[52:03] Cheryl Bruno: definitely is a possibility. Yes. Um And then we have um the Cowdry 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 Cres were the ones that were the Royal Arch Masons Warren Cowdrey. It was the brother of Ver Cry and he was in Mormonism for a short time and was a Royal Arch mason. Um And then we have Nel 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 Hebrew C. Kimball was a royal arch mason. He was not a royal arch mason. And we know this, there are 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 lodge and under before it could make uh Hebrew C Kimball 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.
[53:12] Michelle: So, and I’m assuming if, if he, so Hebrew C Kibble was a blue arch mason. Is that correct? Yes, Blue Mason. And I’m assuming that brick and young was as well because they were such good friends. Do we have?
[53:24] Cheryl Bruno: And we will talk about that also? Ok. So go on to the next slide and there is the petition where? Ok. So we had about 40 members that I can find um who were living in Nauvoo, who were masons before they came to NAVOO. Ok. So they had, they had been, they 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 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 Bodley Lodge minutes, um which I have to give a shout out to Nick Lasky because he has really, really search 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 of communication was received from John C Bennett and others of the city of Nauvoo wishing for this lodge to recommend to the Grand Lodge of the state, certain individuals whose names were there and contained to be appointed masters and wardens of a lodge to be established at said city Nauvoo. But as these persons were unknown to this lodge, as masons, it was thought prudent not to do so. The letter was return to brother H Rogers with instruction, that’s the secretary with instructions how to act upon it. So they would not recommend NAU 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 Navoo had never done that in Bowley Lodge. And so they didn’t even know if they were regular Masons. So they refuse their. And so what normally, what somebody would do is they’d go, ok, well, we’re gonna get to know you, we’re gonna become friends with you. We’re gonna visit your lodge, we’re gonna 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 happens.
[56:24] Michelle: Can I ask you really quickly these 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 know.
[56:33] Cheryl Bruno: These are the original documents that you would have to go to um Boley 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 mason. And so they tested him, but we do have photographs and there, I, that’s why I included this. So you can, you can go, now you’ll be able to go online and see it because here it is. So this is
[56:58] Michelle: 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 cert 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
[57:17] Cheryl Bruno: know that they, I mean, that you, you can say, well, this is the one for the entered apprentice, but I don’t know that they call it by like
[57:26] Michelle: what we do. Why was I talking about that? I just, I don’t, are we ok to say, like, signs or tokens? Can I cut that out if we’re not, like, are they called signs and tokens and masonry? Yes. Yes. Ok. And that’s ok to say, right?
[57:40] Cheryl Bruno: 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, 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.
[58:11] Michelle: OK. 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 Alan Key. Now, how do those compare? Oh,
[58:26] Cheryl Bruno: I would say no to me. I don’t cause I really wouldn’t say they’re connected with masonry at all. I think they’re secret organization.
[58:37] Michelle: I say I’m not saying they’re connected. I just wanted to know is masonry? Was it in that time similar to how that is now or are they completely different?
[58:45] Cheryl Bruno: 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 bones is people accuse um Russell M Nelson of being a member of skull and bones is that
[59:05] Michelle: they, I don’t think, I think there’s evidence that he wrote about it in an early biography.
[59:11] Cheryl Bruno: He was a member of S 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, give money to the people.
[59:35] Michelle: II, I remember, I remember a, um, an interview on TV when I think it was John Kerry and George W Bush were running 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 think, 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 gonna 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 sorority is my understanding, but I don’t, I’m certainly not an expert. So, OK, so anyway, that was, I, I
[1:00:22] Cheryl Bruno: 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.
[1:00:32] Michelle: Um OK, 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, ok, thank you.
[1:00:41] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. 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 Nauvoo 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 Grand Master of Illinois or, you know, our state 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 grand master to issue the dispensation. So that’s all a little fishy, just a little fishy. Um Bley Lodge was put out by that. They were not happy with how that happened. And
[1:01:42] Michelle: you think he did it just because he was so excited that there was another lodge for me. Absolutely,
[1:01:47] Cheryl Bruno: absolutely. There’s these Mormons, let’s make him 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. Ok. So, um, this paper that you see comes from the Novo Lodge minute book and it, um, they have copied the dispensation into their minute book. But for those of you who are suspicious of the Novo Lodge 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. Ok. So the dispensation was reported in the minutes and it corroborates the dis dispensation that we have in our novel Lodge minute book. So that is the most worshipful grand master announced that since the last annual community of the Grand lodge, 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 Nauvoo County of Hancock. And then at the same time, they announced that the dispensation was given to these other three people, Stephen H Burton master, um DC Davis, Senior warden and Christopher Williams Junior Warden to form a new lodge in the town of Montrose County of Lee Iowa territory. So Montrose was right across the river from Nauvoo 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? Ok. So do you have any questions about that or? No?
[1:03:54] Michelle: I think this is interesting. So this is why I’m starting to see the fear of the Mormons taking over so that
[1:04:01] Cheryl Bruno: you see it, you’ll see it in a minute too even more. But, ok, so here’s how the officers were elected. So when they give him the dispensation, they told him who their three main people would be, you know, that like the first presidency. Ok, 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 get their dispensation met at Hiram Smith’s office on December 29th, 1841 and they uh they elected other officers. So it’ll tell you right there who the other officers were. Um first of all, Hiram 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 Pine of Wisconsin or something. Um was going to be out of town um for a while, they elected Hyrum Smith to be the senior warden pro tempore. They call that PT or pro TEM. 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 Nel K Whitney was treasurer, our Royal Arch Mason. Um Charles Allen, senior deacon. Now Hebrew C Kimball is 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 you’re um, Sunday school president. Ok. So you are c Kimball who everyone is so scared of in masonry was not very powerful in the lodge. Ok. He
[1:05:45] Michelle: was the, so I’m, 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 Hebrew C Kimball in the lodge. Can you fill us in on that a little bit for those of
[1:05:57] Cheryl Bruno: us? I have no idea why everyone is suspicious of Hebrew C Kimball in the ledge. But they are, they’re always maybe because Hebrew C Kimball is implicated in many other things in, you know, um your um view of history, right? Um So in the polygamy, I
[1:06:17] Michelle: mean, I mean, not my view of history. Do you mean do you mean implicated in polygamy? And?
[1:06:22] Cheryl Bruno: Right. So we have being implicated. So because he was implicated in polygamy, they want to throw everything Masonic on him, you
[1:06:32] Michelle: know, so they’re saying that he was a real
[1:06:35] Cheryl Bruno: right? That he was a real mover and shaker behind all of this.
[1:06:40] Michelle: He forged the records and he kind of thinking for clarifying that.
[1:06:46] Cheryl Bruno: So, 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 is 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 the proper qualifications to come in to the lodge. Ok. So,
[1:07:08] Michelle: so Hiram was the Hiram was one of the leaders in this. Ok.
[1:07:14] Cheryl Bruno: So yes, and we’ll go more into what Hiram did too. But at this point, he is um the second person down the senior warden. Um pro tempura, he’s acting as senior warden,
[1:07:25] Michelle: right? Ok. But Joseph isn’t yet. So this, I guess this is kind of why I think maybe Hyrum 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
[1:07:39] Cheryl Bruno: 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 bona fide Mason. And neither. So.
[1:07:55] Michelle: Ok. 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.
[1:08:06] Cheryl Bruno: 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 for 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 sits 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 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. If
[1:09:30] Michelle: OK, that’s great. Perfect. Thank you. OK. OK.
[1:09:35] Cheryl Bruno: So now here’s a little chart I did that shows all of the men who were masons um, in Nauvoo 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 were, I think it 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. Ok. 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 lodge had maybe seven or eight people in the lodge. They were very small. This was the time they were trying to rebuild. Ok. 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 boldly lodge saw this too. All of a sudden you’ve got this huge lodge that’s over with filming your lodge. That’s gonna automatically become the power behind masonry in Illinois. You know, you can already see this before they make their first mason. You can already see that. Even if they never make another mason in the lodge, they’re already a force to be reckoned with in masonry. So, ok. Yeah, so we recognize so many of these names too. Um John C Bennett was in there and Hiram 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.
[1:11:31] Michelle: So it was John Smith. Joseph’s uncle. That’s because I’m seeing there, Scoville, we know him. Hiram.
[1:11:39] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. So, ok. Ok. So let’s go to next slide. Ok. 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 records and the lodge was doing sneaky things and, and this is true. They are right. The lodge was doing
[1:12:03] Michelle: Lodge.
[1:12:03] Cheryl Bruno: Yes, there are problems with the records, but I’m gonna 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. OK.
[1:12:26] Michelle: 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 of polygamy or is it OK, that’s the same argument for masonry. Yeah. So they’re
[1:12:38] Cheryl Bruno: 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. 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. Ok. So they weren’t supposed to be doing anything yet. Ok. They weren’t like the bishopric had not been set apart yet. So, ok, 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 are 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 age 36 merchant Willard Richards is one. Brigham Young is one. Now, here’s our evidence that Brigham Young was not a mason before Nauvoo 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, ok, um I’m from this lodge, I’m from that. See, um right there I have their lodge membership. They declared their lodge membership they can. Now, if Brigham Young was already a mason, he would have, that’s what he would have done. He was 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 masons already before they even have the authority to do so. Ok.
[1:15:00] Michelle: Ok. Ok. 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? I think they
[1:15:15] Cheryl Bruno: were just, I think they were just so enthusiastic that right? And I don’t know that it was necessarily just John C Bennett, I think um 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. Ok. And um sometimes they would have an extra meeting because it was like a holiday. The Saint 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 Novel 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? Ok. I’ll tell you why in a little bit. But, um, 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 set. Right. You’re not going to be, 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 gonna take quite some time to do and if you’re meeting once a month, you’ll never get all these people done. Right.
[1:17:05] Michelle: I see. Ok. So it’s to just get everyone through. So it’s kind of like what was happening in the Navoo Temple in 18 forties, right? It is the same thing. Ok. So this was the rush to initiate, I guess in Mason is 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
[1:17:26] Cheryl Bruno: 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 to 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, 1842. The installation for the lodge, by the way was March 16th. So this is, this is January. Um Brigham Young says I was taken into the lodge. Do you dispute that Michelle that? 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.
[1:18:17] Michelle: Nope, I, I have no reason to dispute that. So,
[1:18:20] Cheryl Bruno: um do you feel that the, that the cipher has been incorrectly translated there?
[1:18:27] Michelle: I, I have would have no reason to, well, I don’t know Masonic cipher, but no, I don’t have an argument with
[1:18:33] Cheryl Bruno: that. Ok. 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. Uh 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 Brigham made a few mistakes, see those little red letters, this is where he made a couple of 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
[1:19:15] Michelle: let me ask you this if he was just barely a mason. How did he know Masonic cipher?
[1:19:21] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. So, um, actually, if you had any boy scouts, they probably know the pig pin cipher, right? Do you have any, I don’t know, 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 and it was a little bit of a secret, but not, I mean, a lot of people knew what it was. And I think Brigham Young was interested in masonry enough to have learned the cipher, right?
[1:19:51] Michelle: So maybe he was a mason hobbyist. He just learned the cipher and then wrote it in his journal because he felt cool because now he’s kind of a mason. So he can use this. Is that what you’re thinking happens? Ok.
[1:20:03] Cheryl Bruno: 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 do. Well,
[1:20:19] Michelle: let me ask you a question. Do you think that was, would meet? Like is wedded 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 that I
[1:20:42] Cheryl Bruno: 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 ma s or sealed and married.
[1:20:54] Michelle: Well, it’s usually sealed and wedded. It’s either it’s either was or saw a, it could be Joseph, saw Agnes or Joseph was Agnes.
[1:21:03] Cheryl Bruno: 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 of writing my sonic 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 was Agnes and that’s as far as I can really go, um, with interpreting that. So,
[1:21:53] Michelle: ok, 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 addition interpretation of what those letters might mean is you would agree that up for grabs like, yes, do you personally look at this as strong evidence of Joseph’s plural marriage to Agnes Cobra?
[1:22:14] Cheryl Bruno: 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 nature is he was taken into the lodge in January, right? It’s not all about,
[1:22:47] Michelle: ok, but it’s like when you find your birth certificate and, and learn you were born two months before nine months before your parents were married. That’s what we see here.
[1:22:57] Cheryl Bruno: He was like, I don’t know, 40 years old and he made that connection one time and he was like, wow, 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
[1:23:19] Michelle: slide. Well, and I want to just point, I, I, I’m not, I’m frustrated that brain is not remembering right now, but I just want to add one thing to the um was in the second line because um I think like when I looked up the scriptures that we actually refer to about bring Aaron 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.
[1:23:48] Cheryl Bruno: Oh yes, I, I actually watched one of them. I did. Yes, go
[1:23:52] Michelle: ahead. So I’d be, I’d be curious to know what you think of a couple of those, but I think that it says, oh and I’m and I’m gonna maybe I’ll fix it later, but I think it says, washed anointed and sanctified. And I think that was 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 sym temp symbolic of temple it seems like it would be wash anointed and sanctified or maybe something else along those lines. That’s actually a phrase that is ever used.
[1:24:26] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. Makes sense. Yes. But also, you know, you have to deal with the fact that Agnes’s name is there. Ok. So that’s, that’s to me that’s what, whether whatever it means, we probably will never know 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? Ok. Why is her name?
[1:24:50] Michelle: And are 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? But he wasn’t do recording all of them like, right? But,
[1:25:07] Cheryl Bruno: but also the other thing is, and he doesn’t, he doesn’t use it very much 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 it was not necessarily the polygamist, you mean
[1:25:39] Michelle: he was brought in too early because
[1:25:41] Cheryl Bruno: that he’s made a mason that he’s been made a mason.
[1:25:44] Michelle: 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 writing, right? The last one, the petitions that are dated too early. Also, it, the people you would be trying to hide this from would be the mason. You wouldn’t write it. Sonic cipher in order to hide it.
[1:26:07] Cheryl Bruno: Right. That’s true. Yes. Yes. That’s true.
[1:26:09] Michelle: Yes. 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.
[1:26:25] Cheryl Bruno: Yeah. Although, although the thing is that, as I said, it was a, uh, 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,
[1:26:39] Michelle: 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, I don’t know each, II, I want to know every single place that happened. So I can look at that. That would be
[1:26:55] Cheryl Bruno: interesting to have, um, those all together that would be very interesting. And I’ve thought that before. 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 wedding. Do you remember that?
[1:27:22] Michelle: So, so which document are you talking about? Do you remember off the top of your head?
[1:27:26] Cheryl Bruno: Um I’m thinking this is Hebrew C Kimball and I’m not quite sure. So I have to go. This is
[1:27:34] Michelle: 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
[1:27:41] Cheryl Bruno: it 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.
[1:27:52] Michelle: Well, and also how I think another thing that need 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 in the sonic 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 and we
[1:28:26] Cheryl Bruno: haven’t even talked about some of the problems as you know. So yeah, so I use it as corroborating evidence, but um don’t use it as your primary source, right?
[1:28:39] Michelle: OK, perfect. All right. Thank you. OK.
[1:28:42] Cheryl Bruno: 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 Novo Lodge minute book and it says that the most worshipful grand master who is Abraham Jonas um presided and opened the lodge in due form. In the third degree of masonry, did everything correctly organized and opened a grand lodge. Um and then directed the Grand Marshal John C Bennett 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 March Master was there. We have the lodge officers installed an immense number of persons assembled on the occasion from 5 to 10, 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 Wilfred Woodruff’s journal at 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 15th. It was the day before the relief society was organized and they all marched together the grand master um gives them permission to, to start working the lodge.
[1:30:19] Michelle: Ok. So this is all well known. The only problem with it is that they were installing people or accepting petitions and making masons before they had authority to do so. So. Ok.
[1:30:30] Cheryl Bruno: Yeah. OK. So next slide, there’s the grow, I just put that in because it, 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 5000 people all standing around there too? That was in before my. So, so um yeah, it’s, it gives just a little picture of how it was so. Ok.
[1:30:58] Michelle: That’s amazing. Ok.
[1:30:59] Cheryl Bruno: Ok. So next slide, OK. Here’s the authorization to confer degrees. Abram Jonas au authorizes the lodge to give Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon their degrees. OK. 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 Sidney Rigdon 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’ve 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 are 40 people that knew masonry very well. Um, it wasn’t just a couple of people got together and did it wrong. They were, they knew how masonry was supposed to work, right. So many masons. So Abraham Jonas comes in and is 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
[1:32:10] Michelle: was in on that. Like he was like, this is a problem, but I’m gonna do this other crooked thing.
[1:32:15] Cheryl Bruno: He was in on it because, and everyone wonders, people who write about this wonder why did um Abraham Jonas because usually what it’s 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 me 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 to the temple, we have somebody to whisper in our ear. If we forget what we’re 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.
[1:33:19] Michelle: 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 it’s
[1:33:27] Cheryl Bruno: not breaking a rule because as the, um, as the grand master Abraham Jonas had, he could do that. Now, he could actually, if somebody was 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, ok, you know, since you’re the president of the United States, let’s go ahead and make your mason and 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 were several instances of this happening, but it was pretty unusual, um, that it wouldn’t happen all the time and we’ll see later that it was disputed
[1:34:11] Michelle: but this is where Joseph was made a mason.
[1:34:14] Cheryl Bruno: So, yeah, this is where this is where um, Abraham Jones says, you, you go ahead take his petition, vote on it, make him a mason right away.
[1:34:24] Michelle: OK? 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. Um Is there anything really about it?
[1:34:35] Cheryl Bruno: 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 Roundy, who was um 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’ handwriting um where he says in virtue of the power and authority and vested as a grand master. Then he says, um receive the petitions of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon and act on the same instant her. And should the ballot be unanimous in favor of said Smith and Rignt at a full meeting of said Nauvoo Lodge? Then in that case, the said lodge is authorized to confer the three several degrees of Ancient York masonry and the said Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon as speedily as the nature of the case will admit. Ok.
[1:35:45] Michelle: Ok. The, the case will admit. Do you think that means as quickly as they can pass off all the things or how do you interpret that? I’m just curious too. I
[1:35:57] Cheryl Bruno: think that actually Joseph with his interest in masonry could probably pass it off. Um, I don’t know, 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,
[1:36:11] Michelle: and then I know that my, my grandmother um when she went to 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’ve, I’m, I’ve, I’ve thought of that as an 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.
[1:36:44] Cheryl Bruno: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. 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 large minute book. Now, this is one reason why I tend to um, the large 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 in that case, in
[1:37:21] Michelle: general, OK,
[1:37:23] Cheryl Bruno: 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 Sidney re didn’t get their degrees, which again, I don’t think people dispute that too much. OK. So go on. And then here is a journal entry from um Joseph Smith’s 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 Da da da. In the evening I received the first degree in Freemasonry in the novel 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. OK.
[1:38:11] Michelle: OK. 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 wanna know if you’ve, so this is the history draft, which is different than Joseph’s journal. So, have 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 you
[1:38:39] Cheryl Bruno: go to the next slide because I think I have the um
[1:38:45] Michelle: oh the book, this is the Book of the Law of the Lord. So this is the original journal. OK? I just wanted to know if you had looked at all three versions. Ok? Or go to the
[1:38:53] Cheryl Bruno: next one too. Let me see what the next one is. No. OK. 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 novo lodge um at the grove near the temple, Abram 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.
[1:39:23] Michelle: Ok. So this is a different day. This isn’t the same entry. So the
[1:39:27] Cheryl Bruno: same day, the 15th and the 16th. Yeah, same thing is happening.
[1:39:31] Michelle: So these two are the same entry. This is also
[1:39:34] Cheryl Bruno: the same thing happening. You just, it’s just a little bit different.
[1:39:39] Michelle: Yep. Yep. Ok. There. So it’s interesting. This one, this second one we’re looking at is um ok, Ok. 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 be 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. Ok.
[1:40:02] Cheryl Bruno: 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 either, but um, what I want to talk about, oh, go ahead.
[1:40:22] Michelle: Well, I just have a 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 draft? We’re gonna talk
[1:40:43] Cheryl Bruno: a little bit about that in just a few minutes. So let me get that. Ok,
[1:40:48] Michelle: great.
[1:40:51] Cheryl Bruno: So, no, not yet because look at what he does, um, officiated as Grand chaplain. The word grand means he’s officiating in a ST calling before he has made a mason. Ok. And ok, calling, I say ST calling because I 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. Uh, the grand chaplain is a 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, so they’re 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 officiating in.
[1:41:54] Michelle: So remind me the date of this, this is Tuesday and Wednesday of
[1:41:58] Cheryl Bruno: the March 15th, 1842.
[1:42:02] Michelle: Ok. I just wanna 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
[1:42:16] Cheryl Bruno: that. But if you can pull it up, that would be perfect.
[1:42:20] Michelle: 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 sometimes it is my um my like suspicion radars go up when there are claims like this, that don’t seem to add up time wise, you know? Ok. So I’m curious, yeah,
[1:42:42] Cheryl Bruno: go ahead and I’ll show you that we have other evidence for that too. But um but a few moments
[1:42:49] Michelle: 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
[1:42:59] Cheryl Bruno: go to the one right before the slide right before if you,
[1:43:05] Michelle: yeah, let me get back there so I can change it. OK.
[1:43:08] Cheryl Bruno: This is the draft which isn’t that the original one? And then the second one is the one cleaned up
[1:43:14] Michelle: or no, you know, so the draft, so the, so the original journals should be the originals and it’s 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 not that
[1:43:36] Cheryl Bruno: clean, it’s got cross out, it’s got, you know,
[1:43:39] Michelle: the drafts are always like that. So the draft would be written after the, so the original journal should be messy. Then the draft always has the cross out 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,
[1:43:58] Cheryl Bruno: 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,
[1:44:13] Michelle: but um and it’s always a little suspicious to me when a lot more stuff is added later without source notes or additions 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, OK, why are they doing that? What’s that about? You know, because usually
[1:44:35] Cheryl Bruno: when we look at it and we say, why is it happening? And this can be very instructive to us,
[1:44:42] Michelle: right? So, yeah, so I’m so I’m not challenging, I don’t, you know, enough to challenge any anything you’re saying, other than there’s something fishy going on here, I wonder what it is.
[1:44:52] Cheryl Bruno: So let’s keep going for a minute because like I said, I’m going to just address this. Um So go on to the next one. OK. Um So here are the original signatures in the Nauvoo 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 signature, actual signature. 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 are already Masons in the Novel 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 amazing.
[1:45:52] Michelle: 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, you know, William Clayton often signed his signature. This looks to me from here like Joseph’s a signature,
[1:46:06] Cheryl Bruno: 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 people who are saying Joseph Smith was never a mason. Um I can’t agree with you. I see too much evidence that he did join at least join the lodge. Ok. 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? Ok.
[1:46:45] Michelle: Absolutely. And so when you have, I’m just curious to ask when you have engaged with people on this topic and 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
[1:46:59] Cheryl Bruno: think they’re familiar because they, they say, oh, the minute books, I don’t trust those minute books they were forged and blah, blah, blah and So then I say that’s when I say, well, look at this. Um you know, does it look like it was forged? Doesn’t, to me go on to the next page then
[1:47:17] Michelle: uh they’re just over generalizing, they’re just over generalizing and
[1:47:21] Cheryl Bruno: they say, oh, Heber C Kimball or William Clayton. William Clayton just took those large minutes and, and fudged them. OK. 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, Hiram Smith on that day was acting as a master of the lodge because um the ma actual master was not there. And so often they chose Hiram Smith to act as the master of the lodge when the master of the lodge wasn’t there. And he actually Hiram Smith in that first year, acted as the master of the lodge more than anyone else did including the regular master. So Hiram 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 Forges who was also a secretary pro TEM took the minutes and then go to the next slide. We have Howard Coy um who is acting as secretary. Then we have Thomas Bullock 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 son and, and we have Jose 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.
[1:49:56] Michelle: OK. A I went to, oh, ok. 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, 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 NAU 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, 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
[1:50:41] Cheryl Bruno: on, we will see that. Yes, there is. Um But, 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 Nauvoo 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 Nauvoo Lodge. 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 Nauvoo Lodge. Look at the lodge right above. I don’t know if you can see that. This is um Bo Saint John’s Lodge is right above. Look how many members they had, they have 10 members. Ok. And that’s how the other lodges were. And then you have n food lodge. 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 of 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 NVA 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.
[1:52:35] Michelle: 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. He knew that people were using his name and he knew that because the reports were coming in. And so he and Hyrum are on record frequently, like with all of the newspapers and all of that. So, anyway, so I, I agree that he knew it was happening
[1:52:57] Cheryl Bruno: 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, you
[1:53:08] Michelle: mean, you mean he knew that this many masons were being made? He think about how angry other lodges were becoming about it. Did he know about the animosity?
[1:53:19] Cheryl Bruno: Absolutely. And I’ll show you that too. So let’s go on, let’s go on to the next slide. OK. This, this is just um, a picture which I love of Joseph Smith’s Masonic Apron. It does have covenant. The covenant comes from, um, from um, the community of Christ owns this now and it’s actually um Lock Mackay 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 a 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 provenance is through F Henry Edwards 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 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, 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 are the same patterns they
[1:55:20] Michelle: belong to. Yeah, they, they belong to. Were they mass producing them somehow? I mean, they must
[1:55:27] Cheryl Bruno: have been mass producing them. We don’t have 46 of them, but we do have a couple of them showing. Um
[1:55:34] Michelle: So, so this isn’t like, this is something that was being made in all of those 246 would have needed an apron. So Joseph would have gotten one when everyone else did they have them? Ok. OK.
[1:55:47] Cheryl Bruno: They were made somewhere by somebody. Um So I, I love these, I think they’re just so cool, so
[1:55:56] Michelle: cool. OK.
[1:55:58] Cheryl Bruno: So let’s go to the next
[1:56:01] Michelle: slide and I’m assuming you understand the symbolism on all of these. I want
[1:56:05] Cheryl Bruno: all my son symbolism and, you know, some of the symbolism is in, on and another 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.
[1:56:23] Michelle: They all have the pillars and that, ok. There’s a lot of very interesting.
[1:56:28] Cheryl Bruno: Yeah. OK. Let’s go to the next. OK. 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 set of slides. This is from Bowley Lodge minutes which remember that Bowley Lodge was the one that they submitted their petition to. So Bodley Lodge says um resolved the Bowley 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 Nauvoo Lodge UD under dispensation were installed by the grand master of this state that was Abraham Jonas and by what authority the grand master initiated past and raised Mrs Smith and Rigdon to the degrees of entered apprentice fellow craft 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. Ok. Ok.
[1:57:36] Michelle: So, so yeah, that can’t be questioned if we have it in those multiple sources. Ok.
[1:57:41] Cheryl Bruno: This is not a Mormon source. This is coming from different lodge and they are objecting to the fact that Joseph Smith was made a mason. Well, so, right. So that’s the gun we know. So anyone that tells me Joseph Smith is not a mason? I want to tell them you are, you have not looked at the evidence, you know, like please tell me
[1:58:04] Michelle: and I want to, 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? Uh Yes, they want to disassociate with him. OK.
[1:58:23] Cheryl Bruno: 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, OK, Joseph Smith was made a mason and then a couple of weeks later, he initiated the temple ceremony and we have Masonic 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? So, yeah, I see those two motivations.
[1:59:23] Michelle: I mean, OK, 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
[1:59:48] Cheryl Bruno: 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 as 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 cachet that um some of your um of your fans
[2:00:30] Michelle: and for those who are adamant that Joseph was never a mason, maybe I’ll lose all credibility with them at that 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 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 part on the temple before we have this conversation because I’m curious to know what your thoughts would be on that and how that might play in to what we’re talking about. So, ok,
[2:01:06] Cheryl Bruno: so I can even talk about it today, but let’s go on because we’ve got a long conversation here. But ok, so um more accusations. Ok. 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 Nauvoo. And, um, and, um, he said, no, I wasn’t. And I said, and, and, um, even the grand master said, go ahead and kick him out of the navoo lodge because we know that he was kicked out of another lodge in Ohio. Um, Pickaway Lodge. But when we go back and look at the Pickaway Lodge, um, minutes, we see that Bennett was right. He was never kicked out of Pickaway Lodge. He demit it honorably from that lodge, which is what happens when you move to another state or something. You the the lodge, it it’s like moving from the ward, the ward, you know, gives your records to the right. So he should not have been kicked out of Nauvoo Lodge. There was not a reason for him to and 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 oh, what’s that word? Um that you go over and above um you, you were
[2:02:53] Michelle: exaggerated if
[2:02:54] Cheryl Bruno: 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 and I want to talk about is he said, Bennett said he Joe Smith and five others were entered past and raised before the lodge was installed by the grand master. 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 the 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 parts copied as they were willing to go to the grand lodge. This is a little confusing for people who aren’t. Um But I wanna just say, first of all, before I go into that a little bit more, I wanna say I accept this as a valid accusation. Ok. 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 hm hm. Ok. A little bit later on, I’ll make that more clear. But um, here’s where he said, oh, yeah, here’s just the same thing that, that um, ok. No, this is a little different. 63 persons were balloted for in one ballot. Ok. So that’s another accusation you weren’t supposed to when everybody try Petitions 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 they’re supposed to be done individually. But what NAVOA was saying was here’s 63 people. Is everybody OK with it? Yes. Ok. Let’s go. You know. And so John Bennett said that’s not supposed to happen.
[2:05:06] Michelle: 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
[2:05:26] Cheryl Bruno: well. No. And I think that Joseph was involved in it. Um But we know we know for sure Hiram was because remember we thought 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 chaplain during the big procession and he’s, you know, being made a mason and all his buddies are joining the lodge. And, you know, I mean, I really feel that he was involved.
[2:05:55] Michelle: Ok. But I guess the point I wanted to, 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,
[2:06:08] Cheryl Bruno: but 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 he’s
[2:06:17] Michelle: not saying. 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,
[2:06:25] Cheryl Bruno: he, he is fudging because he says um the records were made to appear. And so OK. So,
[2:06:33] Michelle: right. And then I have one more question on this just because so do we have record of Jo of Hiram? Because you said we know Hiram was involved in new suspicion. Joseph was involved. Do we have records of Joseph and Hiram denying this accusation by Bennett?
[2:06:49] Cheryl Bruno: No, no, no, they didn’t, didn’t, you didn’t deny this? Um OK, so go on, let’s do um What is this? Oh OK. Here’s where it gets fun because what they did was in order to make it. So back when we have Bennett’s 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. And now they have, now they have permission to make Masons. So you see on the top one, Gustavus 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 ink 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. Ok. Do you know
[2:07:55] Michelle: whose records these are, who wrote these records? This
[2:07:59] Cheryl Bruno: looks like still 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 3rd. So, but this is again, um, ok,
[2:08:22] Michelle: I think what you’re showing is that those names had only petitioned and were being added later. Is that what you’re
[2:08:28] Cheryl Bruno: showing? Right? So these are ballot, of course. 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 Bennetts writing and he’s writing all these people that were, that were petitioned. And then the second one on the bottom is when stick those same people’s names in later on April 7th to make it seem like the petitions of those people were received on April 7th rather than on February 3rd. Ok. 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 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 Bennett was helping to do this. Um OK. So go on again. There’s a certain slide. OK. 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 one a this was written by John C. 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 the minute Book one B 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 OK in that book. Now, we do have Minute Book one C, 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
[2:10:54] Michelle: questions, 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, I can’t really, we have any indication that those other books existed other than be Bennett’s claim. And I’m not. Ok. So, and I don’t know why it would matter at this point. I’m not, but I’m just curious. OK, we, we have no
[2:11:13] Cheryl Bruno: corroboration. We don’t have corroboration of that. Um So what we do have is we have this minute book one C. 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
[2:11:30] Michelle: would we have C preserved and not A or B do you
[2:11:33] Cheryl Bruno: think? Because? Ok, 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 novel minute book. 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 the year before Jesus Smith dies to 1953. So these are pages.
[2:12:28] Michelle: 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, right? So what
[2:12:36] Cheryl Bruno: 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 B and C because we don’t know that there was, we know that there’s at least A B, there’s at least C minute book one C because we have the evidence we have those pages,
[2:13:02] Michelle: but in any case, there’s one and two and that’s John Bennett’s accusation that they were fed you. So it’s kind of like that first draft and then the finalized copy and it was John Bennett doing it. Ok. So
[2:13:13] Cheryl Bruno: book one, those pages are all written by John C Bennett as secretary of the Lodge. Ok. 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 that come out of the, come out of the cornerstone. Ok. And then we also have in Salt Lake City, we also have, ok, keep going. Go back to, I’m sorry. Ok. 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 list pages written by John C. 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 by William Clayton, but we can’t say that because we have John C Bennett’s handwriting, we have the list pages. And so we know that um this was not um forged, right
[2:14:34] Michelle: Right. So, OK, so we just go ahead, say that again. I’m sorry, I missed what you said, you know that the
[2:14:40] Cheryl Bruno: early pages written by John C Bennett were actually written by John C Bennett and then copied by William Clayton into a new book.
[2:14:47] Michelle: OK. And so is this important to you? Is this still evidence of Joseph that he was made a mason? Is like, I’m just trying to understand.
[2:14:57] Cheryl Bruno: 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 problems 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. Ok. Right. OK. 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? 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 ways where I do trust the minute book. So that, that’s why I go into the whole big long thing.
[2:16:01] Michelle: Ok. Yeah, 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 Clayton, um rerecording records that were already made, like that’s interesting to see it, what’s happening even with the Masonic lodge. So,
[2:16:26] Cheryl Bruno: ok. Right. So, right here, I have a quote from John Hayek who many of you know, um uh is a document uh specialist in in early Mormon documents. And um a lot of people use John Hayek to say um because I think he was the first one that pointed out these discrepancies in the early church histories in William Clayton’s especially. So um people ha check to say, oh, we know all these documents are spurious. You know, we know that there are 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 bathwater because nothing William Clayton ever wrote could ever possibly be. But John Hak has addressed that issue and said, I don’t understand what the commotion is about except to extend what with 132 is an obvious spurious 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 Nuvo Lodge minutes is all. Yeah.
[2:17:59] Michelle: Don’t overgeneralize, don’t overgeneralize. I I, he, he says this so well, right here. He’s exactly, I, I agree completely. So, yeah,
[2:18:07] Cheryl Bruno: I really like this. Ok, 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 Hiram. And many people will throw his words in my face to try to disprove what I am saying. And so I want to talk,
[2:18:30] Michelle: 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,
[2:18:39] Cheryl Bruno: he says a lot of things about, well, he says Joseph never lived polygamy, but also that Joseph was not a mason. And he says Hebrews C. Kimball was a Royal Arch mason and he says, you know, it was all conspiracy by Hebrew C. Kimball and others. And um so he says many things and this is one of the things he says is that um that Hiram um acted as worshipful master. Let’s see. Oh, wait a second. He says, um do, do, do, do do a more common explanation that aligns with one historically, with our historically established patterns would be that Hiram 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 Hiram Smith was involved with the Masonic lodge. He had little to do with it. He lost interest. He admits that Hiram Smith was a mason in New York, but in Illinois, he didn’t. However, Hiram acted as worshipful master and signed the minutes as such. While George Miller, the real master was working in the Wisconsin pioneers and we have this over and over again. Um And they said 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 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 Hiram’s office with Hiram in attendance. We can see that in the minutes I have that circled there. Hiram attended every meeting before the lodge was installed. So he had an interest in getting the lodge going in Nauvoo. 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 Hiram very occasionally went out of town. But other than that, he was always there and Ron Karen to say he lost interest, you know, and it had little to do with the lodge is incredibly ignorant of what the documents say, you
[2:21:30] Michelle: know. And yeah, so, and I, I, I’m not as familiar with this, but I do know I’ve read a sermon that Hiram 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? I thought it was Hiram that did that. I thought
[2:21:50] Cheryl Bruno: it’s in this presentation.
[2:21:51] Michelle: Ok, good. We’ll get to it. Ok. Yeah. So I hope to have more time. Very good. Ok. So
[2:21:56] Cheryl Bruno: 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. Ok. And so what I want to show you is you cannot see. And, um, it 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, oh,
[2:22:53] Michelle: this first set is the cornerstone and the second set or other is William Clayton’s book too. Ok.
[2:23:01] Cheryl Bruno: Clayton and other and other scribes um because you can’t see it was William Clayton’s minute. It was, it was written by many scribes, right? And
[2:23:10] Michelle: 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. But do you know what I Ron
[2:23:22] Cheryl Bruno: 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, and here’s evidence that he was attending the lodge Regulator,
[2:23:39] Michelle: right? No. So my question is the people who are the people who are saying that Joseph wasn’t a mason and these are 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 they do? They answer that question?
[2:24:00] Cheryl Bruno: No, the motive is just the people that are saying it. You know, we want to say that the motive we talked about earlier, we want to say that we have a motive. But what would their motive have been? They would motive, right?
[2:24:14] Michelle: We know why they wanted to, we, we can say very clearly why they wanted to paint Joseph as a polygamist. We know the motive for that. There would be no for him. I
[2:24:23] Cheryl Bruno: mean, if I want to really rack my brain, I could say maybe they wanted to give the ledge legitimacy through Joseph Smith’s name being there. But then why wouldn’t they make him a more an officer of the lodge or you know what I’m saying? And the lodge
[2:24:36] Michelle: didn’t continue. The lodge wasn’t like a big legitimate thing in Utah. The lodge didn’t continue to be, they, they wouldn’t have a reason to want to build up the lodge. So that doesn’t even work, I don’t think. Ok.
[2:24:47] Cheryl Bruno: OK. All right. OK. 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, since from 1839 in England to his death in 1868 ie 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. Uh let me start down a little further. The royal arch master, Heber Kimball both initiated and built the Masonic Organization Lodge and temple in Navoo only to hijack its temple, worship, doctrines, rituals and ceremony and infuse 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 novo masonry on the royal arch master, Hebrew Kimball, 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 machinated all these things, could not have done this on his own. And he’s saying that it’s all due to Hebrew Kimball, he, he makes many accusations about Hebrew Kimball 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, you
[2:26:29] Michelle: 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? Um from what you showed us? I’m wondering what evidence he could he would
[2:26:41] Cheryl Bruno: use. No, he doesn’t have evidence, he doesn’t have evidence. So let’s go to the next slide which is also him saying um talking about the Navoo 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 Karn says the Navoo temple is um OK, the NVA 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 me. So basically what he’s saying is he’s conflating. He thinks there was one temple in Nauvoo and it was the Masonic temple. And that’s the one
[2:27:30] Michelle: temple is only Masonic is what
[2:27:33] Cheryl Bruno: 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 Gorby Hinckley. 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, that there was one temple in Nauvoo and it was the ma the, it was the Masonic temple and LDS church didn’t have it a church temple in Nauvoo. So
[2:28:01] Michelle: what do you Joseph Smith talked about the NAU temple often. What does he think that he’s talking about?
[2:28:07] Cheryl Bruno: He thinks he’s talking about the Masonic lodge or the Masonic temple. Often some people call a Masonic lodge, a Masonic temple. There’s another, I’m just
[2:28:17] Michelle: trying to understand how he can say Joseph wasn’t a mason and the only temple was the Masonic temple. When Joseph’s constantly,
[2:28:24] Cheryl Bruno: 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 B. Hinckley began building the LDS temple over the foundation of William Weeks’s Nauvoo Masonic Temple that he designed and oversaw the building aspect. As the architect. From this point forward, the LDS church not only changed the historicity of this Nauvoo 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 gonna adjust several things here. OK. So we have a, I think, I think his confusion and other peoples 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. Ok. And um so the confusion comes in because the architect of the Navoo LDS Temple was William weeks. And also he also was the architect of the Masonic lodge hall temple, whatever you wanna call it. But we know that the Navoo LDS temple is located on 50 North Wells Street where it is today. The cornerstone was laid on April 6th, 1841. Its dedication was April 30 1846. After Joseph Smith was dead. The Ma Masonic Lodge or Masonic temple is located at 315 main street. The cornerstone was laid on a different day. June 24th, 1842. The dedication was April 5th, 1844 before Joseph Smith died. Ok. Ok.
[2:30:13] Michelle: So there’s evidence. Well, right. But, but this seems so bizarre to me. It doesn’t even warrant debunking because it’s so strange. II I mean, the thing is
[2:30:25] Cheryl Bruno: that the reason why I must to debunk it because it is so, so um it’s so off the wall that when people who want to say Joseph Smith never practiced bully me and connect this with that. No one
[2:30:41] Michelle: listens to that, no one
[2:30:43] Cheryl Bruno: 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 be this
[2:30:52] Michelle: dumb. OK, this is good and, and you know what? I don’t know. 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 a hate to Ron Karen, but it is good with every, and maybe he would retract some of this now if you know, if he had better sources. So, so, no, you don’t have to like, oh, I don’t know. II, I don’t know the situation. I just, I want to like make a plea to people. Please read all sources critically. Not like this is exactly the problem that both sides do. If it’s there. 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
[2:31:29] Cheryl Bruno: I cannot tell you how many people say, but Ron Karen says to me, I have studied this for years and years and years. People are gonna say, but Ron Karen says there was only ever one temple. 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 doesn’t know. Um But he says many people in your um circles say that Kirtland Temple was never called the Kirtland temple. 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 the Kirtland Temple. Here’s a document, a deed by my guy, William marks a deed um by William Marks to meet staff and and company on in 1830 calling the stone temple called also the house. OK. 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 places and papers in the Kirtland High Council minutes where um thinking 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 and the Kirtland House of the Lord, which here they’re calling the temple. OK? And this is 1837 um later on in the document uh on, on November 6th, 1837 it says the high council met uh brother William Marks and then repaired to the temple. OK. So we’ve got the court house of the Lord being called a temple. Go to the next slide.
[2:33:24] Michelle: This is so helpful for me because I did my first episode on the temples and I referred to the temples and I had many people correct me that it was never called the temple. So I was trying to be more careful. So this is really helpful to me. Yes.
[2:33:38] Cheryl Bruno: So um these documents in this on this slide come from courtesy of John Hayek who as you know, has um many, many documents, early Mormon documents. And so these are um um notices in 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. Ok.
[2:34:10] Michelle: Ok. So not just once or twice. Ok.
[2:34:13] Cheryl Bruno: No, so let’s just move on and please do not refer to, do not say, oh, that Kirtland building was never called the temple because yes, it was um the only reason you, I
[2:34:23] Michelle: understand
[2:34:24] Cheryl Bruno: you don’t have access to all the documents, right?
[2:34:26] Michelle: OK. 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 Navoo temple. We can,
[2:34:39] Cheryl Bruno: we can separate it from the Navoo temple because they did not do the same kind of endowment. So yes, that is the point. That’s the major.
[2:34:48] Michelle: But even there the Navoo temple according to William Weeks um design that Joseph Smith approved and was involved in. It wasn’t designed to do the kind of a down that 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.
[2:35:10] Cheryl Bruno: OK. Well, I would have to get into it with you and that would take many, many hours. The only point we have to worry about now is that it was called a temple back in Kirtland days. So I had to do that. So now we have the Nauvoo temple cornerstone being laid on April 6th, 1841. Here’s the thing in the times and seasons that talks about um you know, the, the how that, that’s the date of the cornerstone. We also have um Thomas B sharp was present what 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 B. Hinckley cornerstone was laid April 6th 1841. No, no um
[2:36:14] Michelle: controversy
[2:36:15] Cheryl Bruno: there. Yeah. Controversies. Ok. 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 navoo neighbor um coins a little account. Anyway. So just more, more evidence that this is the cornerstone of the temple keep going.
[2:36:50] Michelle: So this is all still based on Ron Karen’s claim. Yeah, I’m still
[2:36:55] Cheryl Bruno: and, and this is where I show that the Nau Masonic Hall. Um Here’s their building committee. And remember he said Hebrew King was the one that was in charge of building this Masonic Scoville, Scoville, Samuel Ralph and Aaron Johnson with William weeks as the principal architect. Do you see um he received Kimball’s name in there. No, he was not involved. OK. Go on. Um This is the Masonic lodge cornerstone which was a different building. OK. So here we have Jesus Smith’s journal, handwriting of Willard Richards, Saturday, June 24th. This is the journal you’re talking about right where it’s, it’s the
[2:37:37] Michelle: most likely
[2:37:40] Cheryl Bruno: on the celebration of Saint John’s Day in Nauvoo. 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. OK? 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 grand master 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. OK? So go on.
[2:38:28] Michelle: So different locations,
[2:38:30] Cheryl Bruno: there’s Nauvoo showing um this is fun because um it talks about the um the little ceremony and they said that um that um they formed a procession and do Masonic form in front of the hall and then walked to main street where the cornerstone for a Masonic temple was laid by the worshipful master. So that’s that second Orange Arrow. Um Hiram 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 document two different temples and the two different places walked
[2:39:12] Michelle: in a circle around it. Yes, that’s all it was
[2:39:15] Cheryl Bruno: from one temple to the other temple and those in there I show you exactly where those were located. Um So they are two separate buildings. Thank you very much. OK, go to the next page. Um We also have the architectural plans for um the Masonic colon, the Masonic temple, which are different and the photographs. Yeah. 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?
[2:40:07] Michelle: Please don’t 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 ok, like, like I said, when I was, I mean, that, um, affair didn’t, it’s true. That affair doesn’t necessarily mean adultery in the 18 forties. 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 make that argument again. So it’s ok to not know something and then, and then just not say it anymore. That’s just
[2:40:38] Cheryl Bruno: fine. Ok. So hopefully they listen to this, they’ll know that’s not ok.
[2:40:44] Michelle: And you know what it is so great. Also, if you see someone making this claim or if there are past threats, I’m saying this about if there are past threads where you’ve seen these claims made, please just go ahead and link this video that would be really
[2:40:54] Cheryl Bruno: helpful. Ok, good. Yeah, it’s
[2:40:58] Michelle: good work to save us from ourselves
[2:41:02] Cheryl Bruno: and 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, ok. 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 in any of that stuff. So, ok, so here we have um now we have, we are moved on to 1843. Um At the end of 1842 Hiram Smith is now elected worshipful master, which you can see in the minutes. It is very important because he makes these.
[2:41:40] Michelle: Oh my goodness.
[2:41:43] Cheryl Bruno: So um now we have a new master of the LA and it is Hyrum Smith. So let’s go on.
[2:41:48] Michelle: Ok. Who was that scribe? I haven’t seen this kind of that is also
[2:41:53] Cheryl Bruno: William Clayton, but he’s made a beautiful, he’s
[2:41:55] Michelle: really fancy that day. Ok.
[2:41:59] Cheryl Bruno: So um now Hiram 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 Hiram’s 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 Masonic lodge, which I believe he did. But even if you want to say that at the very least, we have so much evidence that Hiram was behind much
[2:42:44] Michelle: of Hiram. Yeah. In the heavily involved it was his project
[2:42:48] Cheryl Bruno: practically. And this was when this was when the Masonic lodge went from that 243 people to 1500 masons in Nauvoo And some people say that if Joseph and Hiram 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 Brigham Young was making um 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 Navoo even after the temple ceremony was going on.
[2:43:51] Michelle: 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
[2:43:56] Cheryl Bruno: it, that wasn’t how they saw it. Ok. So you’ve 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 send
[2:44:40] Michelle: me that link. So I’ll be sure to include
[2:44:42] Cheryl Bruno: it on my academia site again. Um So it’s called keeping a Secret, the NVA Relief 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 you are good masons. And it was signed by Joseph Smith president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. We also have Hiram Smith Heber C, Kimball Willard Richards, Vinson, Knight and Brigham Young’s um names connected with that document. So OK. OK. And then I’ve come to the end, here is a picture of the upper room in Jesse Smith’s store. And I hope that later on that we can have a conversation about um temple work. So I do believe that Joseph Smith was the instigator of the Endowment of the Novel 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 that 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 have. So,
[2:46:03] Michelle: you agree with the May 4th and May 5th, 1842 date for the, or the original endowment? Ok. Yeah, I
[2:46:15] Cheryl Bruno: think that it was in 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 et cetera? So, so that’s interesting
[2:46:51] Michelle: conversation. I’m super curious. Yes, I would love to have that conversation because I, I really question the May 4th and fifth dates. I don’t agree with that and, but, but I’m so wide open to learning more. So I’d love to have that conversation, but I am open to Joseph being a mason like I’m not saying that. Um I don’t, I don’t think the temple came from Joseph 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, yeah, I guess we both have different parts. It will be an interesting conversation because there’s so there is
[2:47:29] Cheryl Bruno: 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
[2:47:47] Michelle: OK. That’s great. So I’m going to go ahead and take this off. This was incredible. This was so fascinating for me. Yes, really fun. But um but I still like, I mean, we’ve taken all of, we, we didn’t get to talk about William Marks or about Joseph about the temple endowment. And so will you please please come back often? I would love to love to talk about. OK, 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. Yes,
[2:48:45] Cheryl Bruno: 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 s live to polygamy.
[2:49:12] Michelle: OK. 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 and Hyrum Freemasonry, that makes me more curious about Freemasonry, right? And then, 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.
