REVIEWS 151

Though the memoirs contain informa- Here again we have the story of a man tion about differences between Church who exemplified the best combination of leaders and about their personal frailties, intellect and faith. Hugh B. Brown was a they shed little light on the workings of wonderful maverick, illustrating the value the hierarchy during his tenure, except for of diversity in the Church and the possi- the handling of sealing cancellations (pp. bility of being at once independent of 116-17) and the naming of new General thought and unquestionably loyal. The kind Authorities (p. 127). of people who read DIALOGUE will read this Obviously I have picked at details, and life of Hugh B. Brown with great satisfac- my criticisms are directed in good part at tion. If these memoirs are not the well- the publisher's advertising methods, but rounded meal I hoped for, they do leave I am glad the book has been published. me with a good taste in my mouth.

Mormonism, Magic, and Masonry: The Damning Similarities

Mormonism's Temple of Doom by Wil- Here the author is on firm historical liam J. Schnoebelen and James R. Spencer ground. That ground grows swampy, how- (Idaho Falls, Id.: Triple J. Publishers, ever, as he attempts to identify the sym- 1987), 79 pp., $3.50. bols of Mormonism and Masonry as satanic. Reviewed by Scott Abbott, associate The author sometimes convinces as he professor of German at Brigham Young connects the three ritual systems (similar University. symbols, grips, tokens, phrases, etc.); but more often he sets off on flights of fancy THE LURID TITLE NOTWITHSTANDING, this (as when he relates tokens of the Melchize- little book is not a sequel to Indiana Jones, dek Priesthood "to a Great Point on the but rather an expose of damning parallels circulation/sex meridian. Used in magic between Mormonism, magic, and Masonry. to alter sexual alchemy to enable magicians The authors (most of the story is Schnoebe- to marry demon spirits" or argues that the len's, with Spencer contributing an intro- veil a woman wears in the temple relates duction) are moved, they write, by com- her to the "Veiled Isis . . . the Consort of passion for Mormons who participate in Lucifer . . . the keeper of the mysteries satanic rituals without knowing their true of sex and devil worship" (pp. 45 and 33). meaning. The book walks its reader through These examples of authorial credulity, just the temple ceremony and its symbols from two of many which could be cited, illus- the perspective of a man who has spent his trate two of the author's beliefs which are adult life moving through the ritual hier- interesting beyond the merits of a book archies of witchdom, Freemasonry, and that becomes a tirade ("vampiric revul- Mormonism, and who ends his chronology sion," "the ceremonies within are festering (illustrated by reproductions of degrees, cankers of Satanism," etc.). The "demon recommends, and certifications) with the spirit" example reveals that for the author exclamation "SAVED!!!" signs/symbols/tokens have real magical The parallels Schnoebelen points out power; the veil discussion shows that for between Mormonism and Masonry have him symbols mean the same in all times and been documented dozens of times. Joseph contexts. Smith and his associates were indeed Ma- Schnoebelen assumes that if you have sons, and our temples and temple rite in- seen one veil you have seen them all. And deed owe much to Masonic iconography. the one veil he recognizes is the veil of Isis 152 DIALOGUE : A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

he saw as a wizard of a "Druidic Rite" or sacred to him. Alchemically, Lucifer is as a warlock of a "Church of Satan." In- related to copper" (p. 22). My freshman terpreting veils from another tradition (Old literature students would hoot me out of the Testament or Islamic, for instance) he classroom if I began such free association. would surely come to a different conclu- But beyond his insistance that a single sion. But with a single, exclusive interpre- symbol have a single meaning in all his- tive lens, myopia is unavoidable. Schnoe- torical circumstances, it is Schnoebelen's belen might do well to note the Old Testa- other assumption that really interests me. ment peoples who adopted symbols of their Although he has ostensibly left magic, pagan neighbors and successfully filled them Masonry, and Mormonism behind to enjoy with content true to their own God Jeho- his present saved condition, he still believes vah. This is not to say that there are not in a basic tenet of magic: that signs have offensive symbols. When enough of us share actual physical and metaphysical power. a background against which a symbol con- When he writes, for instance, that he "can- veys something offensive — like the char- not find any other place where the inverted acterization of the devil as a man with a pentagram is used outside Satanism. It black skin — the symbol itself is changed. is just too evil a sign — it draws demons!" If the inverted pentagrams Schnoebelen (p. 49), he reveals what might be called finds so offensive on the Salt Lake and idolatry, an inability or unwillingness to see Logan temples were to indeed become "uni- beyond or through a symbol to what it sig- versally regarded as an evil symbol," we nifies. This belief in the magical power would simply have them chiseled off the of signs is interesting not because the author walls (unless, as Schnoebelen would be- of a compassionately scurrilous pamphlet lieve, we are meant by conspiratorial lead- believes that our temple ceremonies "can ers to be "drawn into an ever tightening cause spiritual — and sometimes physical — web of occult rites and deception" (p. 34). harm to the participant" (p. 9); but be- Schnoebelen may not be wrong to cause the issue of magic versus metaphor identify our symbols as offensive in the con- is one that we as Mormon temple-goers text he has built in his own mind by prac- might profitably discuss. ticing witchcraft; but to judge our symbols Freemasons of the late eighteenth cen- as universally evil is absurd. Contemporary tury debated this issue in terms that shed use of the word "gay" is a good example light on our own ritual practice. The con- of how a new meaning preempts an old text of their debate was a broader European one; and all of us past adolescence are discussion about the nature of language. sophisticated enough not to read usages of In his book The Order of Things (New another time or context as proof of the York: Vintage, 1973), Michel Foucault user's sexual inclination. points out that prior to the eighteenth cen- Symbols, by their very nature, resist tury, people had generally assumed that the exclusive, never-changing interpretation. words with which they communicated were Only a committee of lawyers could pre- natural, that is, directly related to the sume to draft a ritual with a single, static things or ideas they signified. (This belief meaning; and the brighter among them stemmed in part from the account in Gene- could find ambiguities in whatever text the sis in which Adam names the animals in others found conclusive. Schnoebelen has the garden, using an Adamic language in no such insight. For him a veil is a veil; which the name is perfectly adequate to and the green of an apron cannot relate to the thing named, in which the name par- fig leaves or to the Boston Celtics, but must takes of the nature of the thing.) Accord- be "Lucifer's color! . . . Green is his color ing to this belief, then, for example, the first because it relates qabalistically (sic) word "gold" should contain the essence of to Venus. Venus, the 'Morning Star,' is the metal; and so alchemists sought in the