A History of The Second Anointing in Mormonism | Ep. 1908

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is May 20th, 2024, and we are welcoming you to Second Anointing Week on Mormon Stories Podcast. We are going to be dedicating three, four, maybe even five episodes to the super-secret Mormon ordinance called the Second Anointing.

Brian, what is the Second Anointing? So, the Second Anointing is the last and, like, least known of the Mormon Temple ordinances. People have very likely heard of baptisms for the dead, the washing and anointing, sometimes called the initiatory, and then the endowment. But there's also this other ordinance called the Second Anointing that some people get, not nearly as many as the other ones, and it has had some secrecy associated with it over the years. And so, as a result, a lot of people, even lifetime Mormons, may not have heard of it.

And for those of you who have been longtime Mormon Stories fans or super fans, you'll know that we introduced the Second Anointing to a lot of Mormons through our very early episode with Tom Phillips, I'm going to say back in 2014. And, you know, Tom Phillips was a high-level leader in the Mormon Church in the UK who ended up receiving his Second Anointing, but then losing his faith and then coming on Mormon Stories to talk about it.

So, um, let me just tell you how Second Anointing Week is going to go down. Um, so this, this is going to be episode one, which is a history of the Second Anointing. Episode two is going to be an interview with this gentleman sitting right, right in front of me. Hey, Darren Klein. How you doing? Hey, good. Thank you. Um, Darren has a really cool story because, and we'll be getting into this in a second, but basically, he stumbled on his grandfather's written invitation by Spencer W. Kimball that's right, to receive a Second Anointing. And as far as we know, Brian, uh, tell me if I'm wrong, do we have many published instances of written invitations to the Second Anointing? I have a couple more, but they're buried in things that people have probably never seen. And honestly, this was the first one I've actually held. Yeah, so not common.

So, in part two, Brian, um, Darren's going to be reading the letter and uh, talking about how the Second Anointing played into his own faith journey. So that's going to be uh, a second part. We're also going to re-release the Tom Phillips uh, interview, but this time on YouTube because, believe it or not, it's never been released on YouTube before. So we're taking the multiple audio segments, munging them into a single episode, adding some stills to it, and we're going to reintroduce Tom Phillips to our new, burgeoning uh, global audience. Um, we also, we also going to re, um, release uh, Hans Mattson's uh, Second Anointing account. Add that. Um, I have a, my friend Mark Burton uh, also has a Second Anointing relic that we hope we're going to share and maybe have him tell his story a little bit. And I forgot to mention this, Tom Phillips has agreed to come back on Mormon Stories and give everyone an update on his life since uh, doing that interview. By the way, of course, since I interviewed Tom Phillips, his son, I believe it's Allan, was called to be either an area or general authority for the church. So that's kind of interesting.

So it's going to be a full, vibrant, and exciting Second Anointing Week. And it's worth mentioning that this is certainly one of the most controversial, forbidden, undiscussed, and uncovered issues in all of Mormon history, I think. But most importantly, fascinating. And fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. So that's what you're in store for. Welcome to this edition of Mormon Stories. And um, we hope you enjoy it.

Okay, so getting out of the way, uh, Brian Buchanan has joined us at least a couple times, at least three, at least three, maybe four times on Mormon Stories. He, he appeared on, he is co-host with Lindsay Hansen Park on Year of Polygamy podcast, or Mort podcast, Sunstone History Podcast. Both podcasts deserve mentioning, of course. But he's co-host with Lindsay Hansen Park on Sunstone History Podcast. Uh, we've had him on twice on Mormon Stories to discuss uh, the history of Mormon polygamy with Lindsay. Those were very well-received episodes. The other one we had was it on like, controversial Mormon apostles or whatever. So it came on with Gary when he was talking about his book, Justice and Mercy. Uh, fascinating cases there. So some of which actually kind of tie into today's topic. Yeah.

And then, um, what, tell, tell them just your day job and what you do. So I work at Benchmark Books here in Salt Lake. And where I will do some show and tell later, there have been some things published on the Second Anointing, not a lot, but a few things. We'll talk about later. So I work there, and then uh, do the, the Sunstone History Podcast with Lindsay, and then also work with books, so proofing books, doing indexes, things like that. So.

And we command that you buy all your books at Benchmark Books. Is that fair? That's not only fair, but but right. So I'm raised my right arm to the square and say, everyone's been under covenant. Okay. All right. So this part one is going to be Brian sharing with us a history of the LDS Church's Second Anointing. But before we begin, we want to give the teaser of Darren Klein's story, uh, because that's kind of the impetus for all of this, is that right? Yep, that's where it started. So Darren, I actually know a lot of his family. I didn't know Darren at first. So his sister and uh, his wife and their, their siblings told me that Darren had discovered a Kimball-era Second Anointing letter, which was fascinating. And I explained, I'd been working on researching this for many years. And so obviously, that was fascinating. And uh, so finally got to meet Darren and see the documents. And that's, yeah, like you said, that's, that's why we're here because that's the centerpiece. And we want to give it some context and history to put it in its place. All right, so Darren, give us the, give us the teaser, maybe even show us a photo in, in the letter. And then we're going to talk more about it in part two. Okay. And tell us a little bit about you, just super briefly. Oh, okay. Well, as you mentioned, my name's Darren Klein. I'm married to Rebecca Klein, used to be Rebecca Tolman, which we'll talk more about. But it was interesting how I came across this, these documents. And we'll talk more about that later. But it is, uh, in 1975, my grandparents at the Manti Temple, what are their names? Orville and Genevieve Gardner. And so that's a photo you're holding up there, a photo that was taken at the Manti Temple the day of their ordinance. So who, who's in the photo besides them? President Kimball. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And the invitation, the letter that's here, it's the original. It's also from President Spencer W. Kimball. It's got a signature on it, his signature, and and their specific invitation for the anointing and asking them to respond in writing as to whether they wish to receive the ordinance. It's kind of fascinating, and we'll be reading that next episode. Anything else you want to say about about your story before we jump in? Oh, to the, maybe we'll just jump in. But it's a, for me, it was powerful when I found this information that I understood it because of your podcast. You know, if I hadn't have appreciated Tom Phillips' podcast and and everything in his story, it was just amazing to me. I could hardly turn it off. He's, he's, I want to thank him. He's such a neat guy. I had an understanding of it. So when I saw these letters, I knew immediately what it was. You can pull them out of the dumpster. I literally pulled them out of the trash. And when I saw them, I, I just was excited to just have it to understand it. Didn't even know it had ever taken place because he never spoke of it. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for joining us, Darren. And thanks for joining us, Brian. Let's jump in. Where, where should we begin? So if we think, do we begin with Adam and Eve? Or no? Does it not go back? We assume that they got theirs, but we, the records only go back so far. So we're not quite sure.

So we could think of the Second Anointing as a cat with five lives. So the first part being during Joseph Smith's lifetime. And then the second part is as they move into the Nauvoo Temple. Then there's a hiatus for a while. And then beginning in 1866 in Utah, they start doing it again. And that period lasts up until the mid, possibly late 1920s, when there's another hiatus. And then due to a man named George F. Richards, there is a brief resurgence in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Then it goes away again. And then it's not until Spencer W. Kimball becomes interested in this and really pushes it that it becomes a permanent thing. And that's the period that lasts up through Tom Phillips, up through Hans Mattson, till the present, as far as we can tell. Yeah.

So those are, those are sort of the, the rough periods that we'll be talking about. And just to give people a better sense of what we're talking about, and I know this will come out throughout the episode, can you describe just a couple of the promises made in the eventual uh, Second Anointing? And just a couple of the main actions of the Second Anointing as we understand it today, just to really, so we're not talking about something people don't even have an idea of how to conceive it. Does that make sense?

Sure. And I, you know, we'll be somewhat careful because this is obviously important to people who are believers. And we're, I would point out that our goal is not to be sensationalist, really. I think this is a very important part of Mormon history, and it it intersects with a lot of other moving pieces of the history. And so the goal here is really just to outline the history, where did it come from, how did it work. So, um, you have these other ordinances that I mentioned, and then, uh, this is part of the, in the endowment ceremony, is the idea that if you're faithful, at one day you may become a king and a priest and a queen and a priestess. Whereas you've just, that's a promise in the future now. And so this is the realization of that, the, the occurrence of that in mortality. So the Second Anointing, the Second Anointing. So it's where faithful Mormons are basically crowned as kings and queens, gods and goddesses, right, while they're still living. Is that, am I overstating it?

No, no, no. And, and there is an evolution to it. So where it eventually gets to is a, a first part, which is again, like, it just says a Second Anointing. So that does carry promises of being a, a king and a priest, a queen and a priestess, uh, essentially giving God the godhood, basically. And it's an, an Apostle right that administers it? Yes. Washing. So the, the first part of that, um, has always taken place either in a temple or at least a dedicated space where the, the man and the woman are given a, an anointing and the promises, a blessing. And then eventually, there is a second component to it. And when we talk about an anointing, for those who've never been Mormon, what I think of is like oil on the head with hands laid on the head and some sort of blessing. Is that what you mean?

Exactly. And there's some places where it's more explicit that it does seem to be much like the initiatory anointing, where specific body parts are are anointed with promises associated. That we don't have as much detail as far as the specifics of it for this, but it seems to be quite like that. And then the second component, um, sometimes would take place in the home earlier on, now takes place within the temple also, where the wife then washes the feet of the husband and is able to to give him a blessing, which obviously, in in other Mormon contexts, is unheard of. So that's a really interesting look at somewhat of of a priesthood level for women. Uh, and so, yeah, so like, as it early, early on takes place in the home, but later will take place in the temple. And I forget, does the Apostle wash feet of the of the recipients in the first part of it? Okay. So there's not just a hands-on-head anointing, there's the Apostle, Apostle washing the feet of both the man and the woman, I believe so. Okay. And hearkening back to that New Testament model of Jesus and the apostles. Okay. Yeah. It's intense, right? Who wouldn't want that from a Mormon Apostle if you're a believing Mormon, right? I mean, that's like, in Tom's, you know, he mentioned his interview that it was this life-changing, unbelievably powerful thing. And that's how most of the accounts describe it, is this unbelievable thing that they were so grateful for, and that really, in most cases, changed their lives. And then there's a promise about their exaltation, right? Yeah. And that, of course, is a, a matter of a lot of controversy because you can look at it that, what's the promise for? The promise is essentially that barring committing the unpardonable sin, murder, and then what that means, lots of debate on that. Is it murder? Is it denying the faith? Yeah, that's up for debate. But should, but barring that, barring that, you are essentially promised exaltation, no matter what. Meaning you go to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, and you and your spouse become gods to rule over your own planets. And obviously, in earlier decades, that's you and your spouses plural, which of course, not quite the case anymore. But imagine in life, having a special witness of Christ blessing you and your spouse that you're, you're in to heaven, highest level, almost no matter what you do, barring murder, you will become gods and goddesses. And, you know, that while you're living. It's, it's mind-blowing. What is interesting is you have a few cases, sometimes you hear people say, well, once you've had your Second Anointing, they can't really excommunicate you. They do. There are certainly cases of that. I think John Dehlin is probably the best-known case of that. So that's another part of the discussion is, well, can you? Yeah. Okay. So, okay.

So you said there's five main eras. Let's go from there. So let's, obviously, the, the, the main elements of it that we would recognize come from Nauvoo. But there are earlier hints toward it. So during the Kirtland years, Joseph Smith will get several revelations that will include elements that will become part of it. So in one revelation, there's the idea of becoming clean from the blood and sins of this generation. You have another revelation that talks about being endowed with power from on high. And so, um, then in 1833, when the School of the Prophets is organized, they have a feet washing ritual that takes place there. And there's a few, and that's only men at that period. And then three years later, once they finish the Kirtland Temple enough to start actually using it, you then have this new expanded washing ritual that's now paired with an anointing with oil and promises associated with that. So by the time of the Kirtland dedication, you have kind of parallel ordinances. You've got a feet washing ritual, but then you also have this combination of a washing and anointing. And again, only men through this period. Yeah. I don't think maybe a lot of Mormons realize that the ordinances that we now do do in the temple, Kirtland didn't, didn't have those ordinances, just no beginnings of them. And from what we can tell, it does seem it's very similar to the washing and anointing that does continue to the present. But because we don't have as much detail as we'd like, we can't really say that for sure. It does seem very similar. Okay.

And then obviously, at the end of Kirtland chaos, ensues, we have the, the Safety Society collapse, mass dissent. And so chaos is the, the word for the next five years. So they move to Nauvoo. And then once things calmed down, Joseph Smith returns his idea to ritual. And by this point, he started talking about other topics, hearkening to the New Testament again. So he'll talk about the calling and election made sure, he'll talk about the Second Comforter, he'll talk about the more sure word of promise. But they're more or less nebulous concepts at that point. They don't really have any tie to anything specific. Then in 1841, he gets another revelation that's now Section 124, that talks about a whole potpourri of things: washings, anointings, oracles, baptisms for the dead, and interestingly, sacrifices. And that's a fun fact that in least in theory, he's playing around with the idea of animal sacrifice in Nauvoo. Does this coincide with his, um, joining the Masonic Lodge? 1842, one year before. So this, this revelation, I think, is January 1841. And part of that, too, is it commands them to get moving and actually build a temple so that all of this stuff can take place. And there's promises of these ordinances that have been kept hid from the foundations of the world. So it's this very exciting, um, big things coming kind of revelation. Okay.

And so then, yes, now. So you've got, you've got New Testament language and, but you also have some secrecy. It's, it's, it's, there's a hint that it will be for kind of the inner circle of Mormons. So that's, I, what you're telling me is something very interesting. I thought of it as Joseph Smith goes to the Masonic Lodge and then says, hey, let's create a temple ceremony. It sounds like what you're saying is he had the idea of creating special sacred rituals before, and he was probably thinking about what's the content or the substance of those going to be. Then he joins the Masonic Lodge and says, I know, I found some rituals that I can incorporate into this, these ceremonies I've been promising people. Does that sound right? Or the timeline is really interesting. So they introduce baptisms for the dead before anyone. There are Mormons that are Masons, but they haven't, they don't have the lodge in Nauvoo, and Joseph Smith is not involved yet. So yeah, so there's the seeds of it. But then in 1842, they set up the lodge in Nauvoo. Joseph Smith, Sydney Rigdon, everybody that's on in the inner circles becomes a Mason. And then immediately after that is the introduction of the endowment. So May 1842, he takes a group and they go to the upper room of his store there in Nauvoo, which is where everything happens. That room, it's, it's unfortunate, the building that's there in Nauvoo is a reconstruction, which is sad, but they, they tried to make it look like the original. But in that upper room, the Relief Society is organized, that's where the Masonic Lodge was, and that's where he takes this group up there, and they, they set up plants and they set up curtains and they do this endowment drama, this ritual drama, incorporating Adam and Eve and theological concepts. And what I find so interesting is if you look at who's there, they're all Masons. And you have loyalists, they're Masons, all of them. So that's the thing is, is you can't just say that he rips it directly from masonry. It's a more complicated patchwork of things going on because you've got these earlier concepts, and then clear Masonic elements that he welds together in this new thing called the endowment.

Now, uh, I think you've covered this, or it's been covered in your polygamy, but and I don't, I, I haven't really studied this in depth, but I keep hearing that the endowment, in part, was created to help keep the practice of polygamy secret. Is there, can you tell, strong element of it? Um, there's actually, let me, this is a good time to show this book. Is, um, Gary, who was with me with, I came on with the Justice of Mercy episode, um, along with D. Michael Quinn, did this book called Joseph Smith's Quorum of the Anointed, that looks at the very beginnings of all of this. And they do some really good number crunching to show how many people that were involved during Joseph Smith's lifetime were polygamists, and it was a majority of them, but it wasn't all. So to say that it's sole thing is perpetuating polygamy isn't accurate. And to keep it secret, and to keep a secret, but it is definitely tied up with it. Okay. Intricately. Okay. Definitely. All right.

So, yeah, so this initial group that that participates in the endowment, you've got your loyalists like Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards. But then you also have guys like William Law, William Marx, George Miller, who of course will go their own way. So when you say dissidents, they are eventual dissidents. Eventual dissidents. So it's really fun because it's like this, this, this microcosm of what will happen. Okay. You've got the, the strongest of both sides that are there in that same room in May 1842. Got it. And so once they, they do that, then they start bringing other people into it. And it's really interesting because it becomes a group, and they will call it the Anointed Quorum, they'll call it the Holy Order, they'll call it the Priesthood. And they'll meet every so often, and then they'll, they'll do the, these ordinances, these washings, these anointings, this ritual drama, and bring people into the group. But then they'll have meetings and they'll just kind of talk. And they'll talk about theological concepts, but kind of like the Council of Fifty, a little bit later, they'll also talk about literally anything. And one meeting, they talk about, what if we send people up to Wisconsin to get lumber to send down? So the most mundane of things will also take place. So they, they bring people in. But it's again, only men at the beginning. And then we have our first hiatus because Nauvoo goes absolutely crazy. So this is the end of 1842. Johnny Whistle, John C. Bennett has blown the whistle on polygamy, and Joseph Smith goes into hiding. And they, really, Nauvoo kind of shuts down a little bit because it's so chaotic. But then by the next summer, things have calmed down a little, but Joseph Smith is, is out of hiding. He's, they're not trying to extradite him to Missouri anymore because Boggs was, Boggs was assassinated, the assassination attempt by Porter Rockwell, all of this is happening at the same time. Okay. And Nauvoo just is chaotic. Then it finally calms down, things go back to to normal, more or less. And importantly, um, you get someone like Hyrum Smith, who had been opposing polygamy because he wasn't quite in on the inner circle yet, that is now on team polygamy. And so they start meeting again, and they now have a new ritual that is a marriage for eternity, called sealing. That's, so that begins in this context as well. And then by the fall. And is the sealing ritual begun before DNC 132 was actually written and approved? Yep. That's the, that's 18, late 1843, August, that it, that it's made known to people. So they're doing sealings before the New and Everlasting Covenant is revealed. Right. That's, he's been, he's been hinting at that for a while, but now it's an actual practice. And now will become canonized, written, well, not canonized yet, but written revelation. And sorry, it does happen at that time. I know there are people that think it doesn't too. Bad. It does.

Brian, does that sealing ordinance, does that go back to the Masonic? Is that traditionally something that they were doing? No, I mean, I think you can see elements of Masonic thinking in it, but the, the actual ceremony itself, I don't know that you can really tie to masonry, if that makes sense. I think it's, it's the thinking and maybe the, the mental framework for it, you could say that how it evolved. Yeah.

And what's so interesting at this period is now women are finally brought into the group. Part of that is that Emma has sort of kind of accepted polygamy. There's a really good essay by Cheryl Bruno that's, um, in Secret Covenants that just came out from Signature, that pushes back on that a little bit, that her acceptance of it was a little less accept than we've thought previously. But she's, she's sort of on board. And so she's brought into this group, and that's a big thing. And so they start doing sealings. And then there's this fascinating meeting in September 1843. They, this time they're meeting in the Mansion in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith's house. And the group is there, and in his diary, it says, "Baruch Al was anointed to the highest and holiest order of the priesthood." He's the president of this quorum. And then it just says, "Companion, ditto." And it's a little vague. Baruch Al. Baruch Al. That's Joseph Smith. That's one of his, his several code names. So you're given a new name as a part of this ceremony. That's an interesting thought. It's certainly, it's not clear if it's just Joseph Smith to whom that happens or others. But the idea of a new name certainly is part of this evolving temple theology and practice. You have a new name in Masonic Lodge. Does anyone know? There is the idea of a secret name. Okay. That's, that's kind of the goal is like, we got to figure out this, this grand secret name. Okay. So that the idea of names is definitely very prominent in Masonic thought and Joseph Smith's evolving thought. Okay.

So what are those names? So you were saying, what did that mean? So it, if you were just to read it as is, it's not exactly clear what's going on. But as we see that in the trajectory of what happens later, it's clear that's the first occurrence of the Second Anointing. And so starting with that, and, and what's interesting too, is like, about a week later, Joseph Smith is talking to William Clayton, his good friend, and Clayton records in his diary that Smith had told him that he had been anointed a king and a priest. And so we can see sort of retroactively what's going on is that's the first occurrence of. And then over the next months, again, they bring other people into this new ritual. And the, the same guys that had been there for the endowment now get this Second Anointing. And so that goes on. And uh, but the first occurrence of the term "Second Anointing" doesn't come until January 1844. And it comes from Wilford Woodruff's journal, which is a treasure trove for everything, but especially for this. And so he uses that phrase. Very, it's very basic, right? You have a first anointing and then you have a second. It's a very practical term. What's so interesting is the, the specific occurrence when he uses that is for Heber and Vilate Kimball, and their, his wife, right? Vilate is his first wife. And this is important also, is this ceremony, these both these ceremonies are for only first wives at this point. Polygamy is going on, but the, it's again, you don't want to blow it open too much by including plural wives. So Heber Kimball, in his journal, has this really interesting section that he entitles "Strange Events." And he will record for being there in that first endowment group, but then he describes what we talked about earlier, of the second component of this Second Anointing ritual that takes place at their house, where he says, "Vilate washed my head and my stomach and my feet in preparation for my burial, just like Mary did with Jesus." So explicitly linking this new ritual to the New Testament. And of course, the idea that Mary was Jesus's wife, and later they will develop one of his several wives. So we almost suggest that when Mary anointed, washed Jesus's feet, that was some sort of sacred ritual, right? And the way that it will will be, um, developed is that she then had would be able to lay claim on him in the resurrection, so sort of sealing the two of them together. She is being anointed to him so that they will be together in eternity. Kind of because Mormonism and Christians have believed for a long time that Jesus was married, likely to multiple wives. Right, right. And that's that, obviously, is an interesting and controversial idea. I should say, popes as well. But the idea, of course, that she's one of several wives is even more controversial. And of course, Mormon leaders of that time, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, will 100% believe that.

Really quickly, so it was the Council of Fifty where Joseph was anointed king of the world, is that right? Right. Is that considered the first Second Anointing? So that's, that's the council. You've got the 43. Joseph Smith's king anointed. So that's, that's a separate thing before the Council of Fifty even exists. Okay. That's, so who's doing that again? So that's the, the Anointed Quorum group that meets. So that's September 1843. They, they anoint him a king as well. Yeah. So Joseph Smith isn't only anointed king, he's anointed king twice. Sometimes the first one doesn't take. It is really interesting because, and that's a very Joseph Smith thing, is to have eight different things that sort of overlap all going on at the same time. Nauvoo, Ira. Joseph Smith is wild. The next week, we might have something totally new that no one's ever heard of before, like the Council of Fifty in the spring of 1844.

Really quickly, Maven and Julie are talking behind the scenes, and they, they're wondering if in this Second Anointing process, then or now, do women's feet ever get washed, or is it only men's feet that get washed? What do we know? I believe it seems like Tom and or Hans, I think Tom said that his wife's feet were washed with his in that first episode. Okay. In the first meeting. And then when they go to the private room, so the Apostle, I think it was Ballard, who would have done, right? Uh, Tom and his wife. That's what I remember. Borne, in theory, would have washed both. I'm pretty sure he says that. Yeah, I believe that's the case. But then when they go off to the room, the wife washes the husband's feet and then gives him a blessing, which is so interesting because he doesn't give her a blessing. It's like one occasion out of all of them where a woman sort of drives the bus. Yeah. Really interesting idea. Okay. But, but men get their feet washed twice, women get their feet washed once, possibly. Now, is that what happens in Nauvoo? We don't know. There's not enough detail there because that's what happens later on. There's a good chance that that's just a continuation. Well, women weren't even in the room at that early point, right? Uh, they, once the, the Second Anointing is always a, a marriage-based, couples-based thing from the beginning. So they're always part of it. Up in the, up in the room, they brought their wives from the beginning. Got it. That's always a, a, a couple thing, which will become really important later on because what do we do with single people then? Single women, specifically, obviously. Okay.

So Heber and Vilate, did you tell us everything else you wanted to? Yeah, okay. So during Joseph Smith's lifetime, we have about 40 people that experienced this ritual. And then, of course, is that 20 couples, then basically? Yeah, okay. Yeah. Um, they're, I'm trying to, I think I'm trying to remember Lucy Mack Smith is always an interesting case because Joseph Sr. obviously has died. So they sort of, Mom, right, grandmother her into some things. Okay. And we'll see cases like that later in Utah too, where there's the, these notable women who aren't married. And so how do we deal with them? They'll, they'll think of some things. So yeah, so about 40 people during his lifetime. And then obviously, of course, he dies. Yeah. And like so many other things, that changes the trajectory. So there are a few, sorry, it's 40 people before the Nauvoo Temple. Sorry. Most of those are before Joseph Smith's death. There's like three or four in the period between his death and when they can start using the Nauvoo Temple. So only just a few.

So then in December 1845, the Nauvoo Temple is now ready enough to use, and they move in and they set up things so they could, you know, they have a little more space now than from the store. And they start playing around with, okay, now what do we do? And one of the first things they do is to redo all of the Second Anointings and endowments and everything that had been done before. And there's this really interesting sort of theology. It sounds like baptism, Brigham Young's rebaptism, but there's re-Second Anointings, re-endowment, re-baptism. Wonder why? And the idea is, the temple is, Joseph wasn't good enough. He, yeah. Isn't that interesting? Like, Joseph Smith personally did this, but we're going to redo it. Whoa. That's a power grab, a little. Well, you, that's, you can see it like that. I mean, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just, no, no, I mean, I think that's a legitimate way to look at it. Brigham is certainly centralizing his authority, there's no question about it. Yeah. But also, and Joseph had even hinted to that, it's like, the baptism is in the river, the baptism is for the dead in the Mississippi River. They're like, that's good enough for now, but eventually we're going to have a temple and it'll be dedicated, and that's, that's the ultimate goal. And so that's the thing is, is we, this theology places the temple as the, the holiest place. And so things need to be done there where possible for them to be the most legitimate, most authentic. Okay.

So they redo all those. But then what's so interesting is then they branch out to everybody. So in about a month period, from January to February 1846, like 600 people will go through all of the, the ordinances, including the Second Anointing. So washings and anointings, endowment, endowment and Second Anointing, and Second Anointing. So was it the default? Was it a default ordinance at that point? Kind of. It wasn't selective or elite at that point. If you have people who are even kind of interesting during Nauvoo, and especially if they're in beautiful downtown Nauvoo, there's a real good chance, like Darren's wife, her ancestor Judson Tolman, he goes through with his first wife, Sarah Holbrook. That's where they have it. And that's so random. It's just like they happen to live there in that time, in that place, and they get it. Well, in the theology that's there at that place, this is the highest, holiest that assures exaltation. So obviously, anyone that's worthy should get it. And that's an important point to remember because of course, that will evolve once we're not giving it to everybody. It's like Second Anointing roulette, basically. It depends on what time you live and where you live and who you know. I'm curious, was there a level of secrecy then as there is now? Kind of interesting. One thing Lindsay and I love to say is that Mormons really suck at secrets. You can tell Mormons to not talk about things as much as you want, they'll talk about them. So during that Nauvoo period, with that many people doing it, you find lots of journal accounts. Lots. And that's really interesting. Yeah. So they'll say, we did, yeah, they'll tell you, we did the first part, we did the second part, this is who was there, this is who officiated. And luckily, we now have, we start to have really good records for that time period.

Why isn't there a book on the Second Anointing? Or is there? Hold that thought. That's actually a teaser for something I've been working on. Nauvoo period is fairly well understood because we do have good accessible records for that time period. In fact, Smith-Pettit Foundation published a essentially a catalog of all the ordinances during Nauvoo, which is where you can find Judson Tolman, his, um, his dates and everything. So that's, if people are curious, I have an ancestor in Nauvoo, you know, what did they participate in? Go there. Is there a book? Wait, they published that? Okay. Yeah. So it's, it's a book, or different? It's, it's, it's Smith-Pettit. So it's a limited printing. It's now out of print, unfortunately. Um, I know a place where we can get a print copy. Benchmark, right? And it is, has it, has been scanned and put on archive too, so you can go see. So we can go look up everyone who's received it that we know of through the, the end of, of Nauvoo. Wow. Until they leave. So that's really interesting because, you know, you might think, my ancestors, you know, they weren't high muck-mucks, but again, with the theology that was there in place, everyone who is faithful, worthy, let's give it to him.

Julia wants the title for the show notes to help. Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions, and Anointings: A Register. That's close. Signature Books? Smith-Pettit. Smith-Pettit. Yeah. And not Signature Books. Yeah. So Smith-Pettit is sort of a sister company under the same umbrella. So they, Smith-Pettit things were are often very, um, data-heavy. So you'll have, um, uh, there's like a, a significant textual changes in the Book of Mormon that my friend John Dingman put together. And, uh, early patriarchal blessings, Michael Marquardt did. So a lot of, of document-rich sort of raw sources.

Darren, does it ever occur to you that Brian knows a lot of stuff? He's amazing. His historical reflection on dates just blows my mind. Sorry, just to back to our regular. You should know that the second we started talking about doing this episode, it was gathering all of these sources that have been gathering to try to put him in a coherent, linear thing. This is hopefully it's coherent and linear. This is great. Okay.

So that month, people in, 600 people in a month. A month. And that's in addition to 20 a day. No joke. They are there night and day. They have shifts. So it's like, you sleep in the temple and then you get up and you go do more of it. And you know, it's being talked about. So it makes you wonder about the people who felt like they were left out. You know, why not me? Why wasn't I chosen? Is this a special for only the elite? What do I have to do to be part of this group? Yeah, and that's a theme that will kind of wax and wane throughout this whole history for sure. Absolutely. So it's, it's, it's just literally night and day until the day comes that that first group leaves. And again, it's that theology of place because obviously it's not like they're all going to die, but they, this is the last time they're going to have access to a temple. And as a result of that, once they leave Nauvoo, it's night night for the Second Anointing. So for 20 years, no Second Anointings, period, are performed. Which is so odd to go from a zillion people to none, literally overnight. And we get a couple hints. So halfway through that period, in 1857, Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith are compiling Joseph Smith's history, moving along chronologically until they get to this period in Nauvoo where they now have to write about it. And so they go next door to Brigham Young and they start kind of shooting the breeze about the Second Anointing. And they're drawing on these now 10-year-old memories of what they experienced in Nauvoo. And especially, what did Joseph Smith personally teach them about this? And they have very interesting memories. So the, the specific thing they remember is, if this is in a private room that's been dedicated, you can do one a day. But if you're in a temple, you can do as many a day as you want, but you have to have separate, distinct meetings. So you have one, you administer, and then you close, and then you open a new meeting as though that first meeting never happened, and open with prayer again. And it's so interesting because they are just so about these routines and how they do it. And numbers are important. And, you know, where it's done has different restrictions. Really interesting. And that's that they go back to compiling the history and literally, I, I cannot find a single reference to it in anything until December 1866. And it's clear that it's been on Brigham Young's mind because he brings it up in a meeting of the Apostles.

Okay, wait. So you've got the 1857 Wilford Woodruff and George Albert Smith talk? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that as as part of the compiling history, thinking back to Nauvoo, we got to write about it in Joseph Smith's history, which becomes History of the Church, the, we know that, you know, the blue set that everyone had. Okay. Okay. And, and then it just kind of disappears. Okay. Because we're not doing them anymore, and no one is talking about them. But it's, yeah, it's, it's in Brigham Young's head. And so, um, in George Q. Cannon's journal, in December 1866, there's a sort of off-hand remark about it. So it's clear he's, the wheels are spinning in his head. And then like three days later, in another meeting, he's like, okay, let's, let's get serious about this. Let's talk about more of these, these procedures for administering it. And it's clear, like, this isn't just talk anymore. We're going to start doing it. And sure enough, New Year's Eve 1866, they bring in Daniel H. Wells and his four wives. So now it's, it's 100% tied to polygamy. And they give it to him. So he's an interesting guy because he had been friends of the Mormons but not a Mormon in Nauvoo until the very tail end. So by the time they were done with the temple. So he's the first one. And then, and this is the interesting pattern, is whenever there's a hiatus and they come back to it, the rule, the procedures always start with any church leaders who haven't gotten it, and then we branch out from there. So just like they've done in the Nauvoo Temple. So that's what they do. So they bring in Joseph F. Smith, Brigham Young Jr., all these guys who had been too young or whatever, who hadn't gotten it in Nauvoo, and they come in with their wives and get it. But then they branch out.

And where were these anointings taking place? So remember the restrictions because we don't have a temple yet. We can only do one a day in these private rooms. Okay. Well, that's, we got a lot of people. That's not great. So Brigham Young thinks he's like, okay, what about this? Let's do three locations. So we can do one a day in these three locations. So you have the Historian's Office, where Wilford Woodruff will often be. You have the Endowment House, because we don't have a temple yet, and won't for another 10 years. So the Endowment House is sort of the in-between compromise. It's dedicated, we're only doing temple stuff in there, but it's still not quite a temple. And then the other one is Brigham Young's house. And so once again, the Lion House. Let's see, I'm trying to think, is that built yet? Yeah, depends on when. Okay. Wherever he was living. Okay. That's his residence. Okay. I think it is the Lion House. Trying to remember when they do that. Yeah. And what's so fun about Woodruff's journal is he will usually tell you which couple got it, not only where he was, his location, but usually at the other two. So we have pretty good records for this. And they, so they started administering it to people. But again, like, even with three locations, we got a ton of people. All right, let's think about this. Okay, what if we double dip? What if we do two sessions at each of these three locations? But again, of course, very specific. You have to close this one meeting, and then you open another meeting as though that first one had never happened, and open with prayer. And it's just so interesting to see how they were very particular about certain things. And they don't really hint as to why that was so critical to them. They were very particular.

Did you mention Vienna Jaques already? We, uh, I'm trying to remember when exactly she comes on this, this quorum concept. Yes. So this is so interesting because it sort of looks like how they did it in Nauvoo, where it's, you're brought into a group, not just that you got the, the ordinances. So, you know, they'll open with prayer, but then at some point, they also start doing a prayer circle, so incorporating some of the elements of the endowment and praying for blessings, curse our enemies, that kind of thing. But they don't have the sermon discussion component, it seems like, maybe because it's not one group now, it's several groups. But it, it sort of looks like the quorum idea. And so over the course of that year, we're given it to tons of people. And once we branch out from the church leaders, then we start thinking about other people. And most of them, I would say, are people you've never heard of. One of them is my wife's ancestor. So I kind of have to have to pretend like, no, they're all important. But then you get this woman named Vienna Jaques, and she's really interesting. So she comes from the Boston area, and she's one of this network of really successful women. They have furniture businesses, they have these other.

Things that are doing real well, and Joseph Smith becomes friends with them. Vienna visits Kirtland, and they start sending a lot of money to Kirtland. They're bankrolling some stuff, and they're very interesting because they slowly become part of the inner circle. So, one of the women that she knows there, um, marries another guy, but then becomes a plural wife of Joseph Smith, one of the polyandrous ones.

And Vienna, there are some hints that she may have been a plural wife of Joseph Smith. She's not in Nauvoo living for a lot of the time; she's still back East. But there are hints, and as I recall, she is sealed posthumously to Joseph Smith as a plural wife. Which in some cases points to the fact that she was a plural wife during his life, sometimes not. But she's really interesting. She's very smart, she's very well-educated, and she's done well. But she does get married, it goes south, so she's now single, but she's important. So they do allow her to have her second anointing as a single woman, which is very rare, very progressive, very rare.

So, yeah, so 1867 is the year of second anointings. So at the end of the year, Wilford Woodruff will do some back-of-the-envelope math and think, you know, I think I gave it to more than 250 people. And so again, like, if for some reason your guys are sort of interesting, but they didn't get it in Nauvoo for one reason or another, it's very likely that they picked him up in 1867. But then what's so interesting is it drops off. So the next year, he gives it to less than 20 people that whole year.

And okay, wait, there's before that bullet, you've got two sessions per location. Older people. Oh, yes, 87 with a 64-year-old son. So we start to see hints that it's for older people. It's not a requirement yet, but we're headed in that direction. And this one guy, Wilford Woodruff, notes that he's 87 years old, and he proudly notes that his oldest son was 64 years old, his youngest son was 11 months. Now, there's a polygamy story for you. That's polygamy math. Other people might look at that and think, I don't love that math. But in, in Utah, polygamy era, that's, if not common, certainly not unheard of. My older brother's 53 years older than me. Kind of interesting. So yes, we start to see the trajectory towards this is an ordinance for the older people, and that will get developed over time.

Okay, and, uh, so it seems like they did have a list because they refer at one point to the fact that, well, if somebody that's supposed to, that we've summoned, doesn't come, well, then we'll just go back to our list and call the next person. So it seems like they may have exhausted that initial list in 1867. They've kind of hit the main people that were on their radar, so it calms down after that.

And so over the next few years, we start to see interesting trends. So you said 250 and '67, 250 in 1867, less than 20 that next year. Not because they didn't like it anymore, they just ran out of chosen. It seems like their main candidates, they'd run through. And so, which again, is weird because at the beginning, everyone was getting in, right? Yeah, yeah. So, and we don't know the numbers, but we assume the other two locations are probably similar. So we're, you know, again, several hundred people during that year, for sure. That would suggest to me someone cooled to the idea somewhere, but you're saying there's no evidence that? Hard to tell, because they definitely keep doing it, and the numbers will actually start to go up over the next few decades.

Okay, so a couple interesting trends that happen. As anti-polygamy legislation heats up, people need to get out of the line of fire. So they start moving even further south. You know, they've gone to St. George, well, let's keep pushing into Arizona. So you'll see both people that are targeted from headquarters or that will write in requesting it, saying, we're going to be out of reach of a temple for who knows how long, can we get our second anointings? And what's so interesting is to look at that trend of requesting it, because it happens all the time. I want it, can my son have it? He's, he's, I realize he's 25, but he's great, he's an up-and-comer. Do we can assume why people felt motivated to want it? Do we have sort of like a top five list of why people wanted it? Was it like, I want to become a God, or I want, I don't want to worry about my sins, I want to know that my salvation's safe, or I want to brag about it? Like any idea? All of the above. I think it was a prestigious thing too, absolutely. Status, social status, I think absolutely. And it's the kind of thing, well, you know, my dad got it, or my grandpa got it, my uncle got it. But how's it us if nobody knows you got it? Well, see, that's the thing is, again, Mormons suck at secrets. Talk. Yeah. So I think it was reasonably well known who had gotten it.

And that will actually, many, many years later, that will come up in a meeting. And I didn't know if there was some tell, like you wore your tie in a certain way, or you wore a ring, or you know, something that would kind of. The wider your tie was, something. It's interesting you would say that, because even in this invitation for my grandpa, it says in the letter, it literally says, you know, if you talk to other people, you can't speak to anybody about it unless you know they've had this ordinance. Well, how do you know? You don't get to talk about it. That's hard. Bad or something. That's interesting. Yeah. So we see a lot of. So as the numbers increase, then we get more journal accounts of it. And, you know, a lot of times they're very basic. They'll talk about, you know, this person administered it, this person held the horn that had the anointing oil in it, and these two guys were the witnesses. A lot of times that's all you'll get. Um, and but then you get really sort of normal life stories that are associated with it. One of my favorites is Brigham Young writes to a guy in southern Utah because of course, there's nowhere to administer it down there, you got to come to Salt Lake. And so he says, all right, you're older, here's what you do. Put your rocking chair in your wagon, then you can just ride in comfort all the way up. Oh, that was a pretty good idea. So you've got these people in outlying settlements that are less on the radar, but, you know, some of them will still get selected. So again, just like in Nauvoo, if you're living right there, if you're living in Salt Lake, now you're more likely to be identified and be invited to have this. Was that James Martineau? Or no, is that a different story?

So this is part of the requests. You get the most interesting request because it's, yeah, can I have it? Can my son have it? Can my brother have it? Can my dead parents have it? Were they good people? Yes. Okay. So requests, barring any major red flags, are almost always granted. Even if they don't want to, they're like, that's a good point. You're not going to be in reach of a temple. Sure. You're young, or, you know, we're not exact, we don't know you all that well, we can't vouch for you, but sure. So this guy, James Martineau, who is a really interesting second-tier guy. And, uh, there was an earlier edition of his diaries, and Signature Just Has published a new edition, tons of footnotes. The editor, N.L. Karmac, has been working on him for decades. Really interesting. So he's one, he's never a General Authority, but he knows all of them. He's very well connected. So he writes to Wilford Woodruff and he says, hey, you know what? Can this, um, dead woman who is native, I've already had her sealed to me, can she also have her proxy second anointings? And Woodruff thinks, he's like, the sealing was probably okay, but, you know, let's, let's not do the second anointing. And that speaks to an interesting limbo place that native people were in, because they weren't quite to a hardline ban that people of African descent had throughout this period, but they're also definitely not quite accepted. And that's a huge discussion of where do, where do native people fit in the theology? You know, the Book of Mormon obviously talks about them, they're the pure blood, blood of Israel, right, according to the Book of Mormon. Let's not give her the second anointing, though. And the other thing that I thought was so interesting is he yells at Martineau for wanting to do proxy ordinances for people who weren't family, because of course, Wilford Woodruff has got to be the best-known example of doing exactly that, founding fathers, Robert Mason, this guy he knew back in Connecticut, he's constantly doing it. But he doesn't really love it when other people do it. Wasn't John D. Lee Brigham Young's like adopted son? So that's another thing that's really interesting is these, a couple will come in and Wilford Woodruff will administer the second anointing to them, and then after that, they're then spiritually adopted to him. So this is the law of adoption that also plays into this. Yeah. So, yeah, so you'll have these, and it's, uh, that one is such an interesting one because that it never really gets figured out. It's always kind of murky and odd until Woodruff eventually, in the 1890s, just does away with it because it never really fit well. And this is where men were sealed to other men. Yes, correct. And that's interesting because, you know, that's something that like Mike Quinn would look at in his study and say that that plays into a higher acceptance of of homosexual relationships of some sort. And it does occupy an interesting thing because, yeah, you do have men being sealed to men, and that that starts in Nauvoo, will continue all throughout Utah. But yeah, it's this kind of piece of the puzzle that never really fits in well. Did you just mention second anointings for the dead? Did I get that right? Yeah. So why do we have second anointings for the dead now? If we had it at, we had it at one point, do we maybe? What's so interesting is you get to a point in the early 20th century where, uh, Heber J. Grant will write back to someone saying, I don't think we've done any proxy second anointings where both parties were dead for a long time. Which is fascinating, because in the 19th century, they'll keep these ledgers. You know, at the end of this year, the St. George Temple has performed this many second anointings for men, this many second anointings for women. But, and that's the living line, but then they'll have a line for the dead, and this many for men, and this many for women, and they're huge. Wow. So again, like, unless there's some red flag, like we knew that these people were terrible, we'll probably grant the request. And that's obviously, that's going to be almost purely request-driven, because Wilford Woodruff doesn't know your dead grandparents, he never knew them. He's relying on you to vouch and say, yeah, they were good people. And over time, they grow more leery of that until they're like, we, you know, whoever is recommending them needs to know them personally, and it can't be some random dude, it needs to be a church leader. And so over time, you see it, the recommending process slowly get more focused. So what you're telling me is I still have a chance. I'll, I'll vouch for you later. You keep your nose clean, and I'll, that's right. I'll, I'll vouch for you. Absolutely. Darren, second anointings for the dead, I'd never thought of that. And you think about it, it makes sense if we do everything else by proxy because of the, this interesting theology that their existence continues, and this is important, but yet it has to be done by people who have a body. Then by extension, obviously the second anointing too. But you have evidence of second anointings for the dead? There is evidence, tons of them, thousands of them. T thousands? Yeah, that's blowing my mind now. There is one hitch to it, because one of the letters that comes in to Woodruff is a woman who says, you know, we, my husband and I went to the temple and we did the first part, but then we came home and before we could do the second part, their baby got sick or something. They get, they postpone it, and then the husband died. And so she's concerned, we didn't quite finish that. And Woodruff thinks about it and he says, you know what, we, we, we can't do this by proxy. You're probably okay. And you wonder, if you can do everything else by proxy, why does that not, that should apply to all proxy work for the dead, period. If he could just be hand-waved in one instance, then why don't we spend, why don't all our old people spend their retirements feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing clean water, instead of living out their retirements working in temples? Like the theology of place where you have, you know, the temple is the best physical location. You also have this theory of corporeality, right? These things have to be done with a body. Which is so interesting, except when a church leader thinks and says, it's probably okay, and we'll get that.

So another really interesting request, again, a proxy one. This, uh, this man, Samuel Woolley, who is an early missionary to India, and there's this great photo of him with a P with an earring, like a pirate. And he's a longtime bishop in Salt Lake. He writes in and he says, uh, what about my son? My son was great, he's passed away, can he have it? And Woodruff writes back and he, he says, you know, I thought about this one, and we're really moving towards it should be for the old, you know, older people that have proved themselves over the course of many years, they've borne the heat of the day. It's for them. So he says, you know what, your son, he's going to be okay, he will lose nothing by not having it. What the, see, that's so interesting to see how they respond to certain cases. And it's not really that important. It's the second anointing roulette. Reminds me of, is it crucial or is it not? Because they're never, it's not always consistent messaging on that, which is, which is really interesting. Dang, that's weird.

So 1887 is the first time that I found where there is specific language written down. It's in a letter from John Taylor that says, yeah, this, this is primarily for the aged. And that will become more hard and fast over the coming years. And, and so we see, you know, over time, all these interesting policies and procedures will come up, and they might last for a while, and then they get rethought, and then we decide, no, we don't, we don't really, we don't really like that anymore, we'll change it. Um, and so we see, as we go toward the end of the 19th century, we see more formal recommends occurring. And so earlier, it had been largely either a letter. Oh, wait, we have quit asking for it. Is the next? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. And, and so these tons of requests coming in, they'll start responding, you know, what, this is not something that you can request. This needs to come from bishops. This needs to come from stake presidents. And this comes from temple presidents. But then just a year after that council, they restrict it even more, and they say, nope, this is stake presidents are the ones who will recommend. So they got sick of fielding requests, and they, they got a lot of them. And this was in a time period where you could write to the church president and expect a response. And sometimes it would be in his handwriting, a lot of times it would be secretaries, but at least signed by him, like you were getting a personal response from the church president. Receipts. Yeah. Which is really, it doesn't seem like it was quite as secretive as it is today, obviously, for people to be talking about it and wanting it and desiring it, feeling like they needed this ordinance maybe to be on par with their friends. Or, and you get nods towards secrecy. You'll see sometimes they'll say, you probably shouldn't talk about it, but it's nowhere near where it becomes. Yeah. Um, and so the idea of these recommends is again, who, who can recommend? So it goes to stake presidents. And, uh, they, they make a ruling in the 1890s where other recommends for endowments, whatever those can be signed by. So it comes from your local leadership first, send it to headquarters, and then somebody in headquarters will also sign it. And the other ones, the first president, the counselors can do it, but the church president has to be the one that does second anointing recommends. And we start to see them become more formalized until at least by the turn of the century, probably a little earlier, they have formal printed certificates. So the process works, you know, your stake president sends in one of these forms filled out that says, Lewis Anderson and his four wives, here's their names, are recommended. But there's sometimes they'll, they'll, the thought is, well, we don't want to be too obvious, so just put like a two over their name because no one will ever figure out what that is. That's so subtle. Yeah. And no one will figure out Mormon code. Um, and then, uh, the church president will then initial it with the date. Seconds. So we have some from Joseph F. Smith. I, I don't know that there's any earlier than that. They send it back to the bishop, and then the bishop goes and says, okay, great, you have been, you, you're ready to go. Prepare yourself and go when you can. And then that's where we get really interesting stories because if you live in Richfield in the 19th century, that's a long way away from a temple, and you got to go there by wagon, and you need somebody to take care of your farm while you're gone. And so it's a big process, and it's very difficult for people. Um, and so sometimes to economize, there's this one great account of the, uh, the young couple is getting sealed in the temple, their parents are going to get their second anointing, and they meet up with like a plural wife along the way. Oh, my good. So you'll get these, these family trips, and, you know, it takes some effort to get to the temple, so we might as well just do everything at once. And so we get, we get really fun stories thanks to journals. And, you know, sometimes the whole bishopric of a ward would come together with their wives and get their second anointing. It's like date night. Yeah. And again, this speaks to this idea that it is a ton of people that get it, and it's, it's talked about, and you'll hear stories later as it starts to fall away, people are like, yeah, we, you know, it was talked about, we knew who in town had gotten it, and by extension, who hadn't, which is interesting. Um, remind me where we're headed. Okay, so we did formal, we did formal rec. Right? Yep. For one temple process for two signs. Yeah. So this is something that I think modern Mormons may not realize is at that point, usually a temple recommend would be for a specific temple. You know, because they would send it to the temple and say, this, this guy is authorized. We, all the stake president and I as the church president both sign off on him. But there's this one case where Joseph F. Smith is explicit to say, this is good at any one of the three current temples, Logan, Manti, St. George. So right before Salt Lake is done, it's finished. Yeah. And so, and we get statistics over the years that show that this is really common, and there will be hundreds, if not a thousand, in a year at any given temple. So it's, it's a lot of people that get it. And as a result, like I said, we see more and more journal accounts of it. And we really like the ones where they're more descriptive and they'll talk about, this was the crowning day of our lives, these were wonderful blessings. Uh, uh, one woman says, I really hope that we can live up to what we've been given, essentially. And then other people, it is so pedestrian. They get it, they go back to the town, and the next day they're farming again, and it's just, you know, it's just one of the things that you check off, essentially. So it definitely means more to people than others. You have the bullet confusion and other ordinances. Did you already cover that? So no. So in theory, you go to the temple, after this whole process, you receive the first part through wife, and then they explain to you how to do the second part. Once you return home, in your house, you dedicate it, and then you do the, the feet washing part. Well, sometimes they appear to forget this, because one guy writes in and says, I've heard about another ordinance that takes place in the upper room, can I get this? Where is this? And Woodruff responds and says, yeah, no, somebody dropped the ball and didn't explain all this. This is your, the part of home where you're the wife washes your feet. So, like always, roulette again, depending on how it was explained to you, you might have got a good clear understanding of what was going on, or you might be hypothesizing some higher ordinance yet. So are you saying he wasn't being fully honest? No, I just think whoever did it that day, they're doing it so often, it kind of loses that specialness. They forgot that part of their instruction to, you know, tell this guy when he goes back home, this is the second part of it. Okay. What year is this again? So this was in early 1890s that that happened. So, you know, by the end of the 19th century, we have, we've got tons and tons of people who have received over the course of now almost 60 years. So it's got a long history, you know, multi-generations of people in families who might have received it. And of course, like anything that's notable, that's, you know, kind of the best thing that becomes a mark of distinction. This is one way that you can think to yourself, if not to others, I'm the best kind of Mormon. I've proved, like their council, that I have borne the heat of the day over many years and have proven worthy of this incredible ordinance. What is no man can hold a fullness? So at the start of the 20th century, we get to see, we see more talk of procedures and the theology around it in public meetings. So just like now, around General Conference, they'll convene priesthood leader meetings. And we, during the end of the Lorenzo Snow to the beginning of the Joseph F. Smith era, so 1901, 1902, they're very specific about making sure that we're only recommending people who are worthy. But then Joseph F. Smith is very explicit. He says, no man can hold the fullness of the priesthood until he has received the second anointing. So that's, that's a case where very clear messaging. You should get this, like you should be aiming for this. And everyone that's worthy, in theory, can have this. That means that people who die and go to heaven who don't have the second anointing, don't have the fullness of the priesthood until they get it, right? So that makes it a required ordinance for exaltation, certainly. That's how I'm interpreting it. It's certainly, I don't know that they ever explicitly say you cannot be exalted without it, but statements like this are functionally the same. If you don't have the fullness of the priesthood, you don't have the fullness of whatever. And this, of course, is really interesting because that is a concept that fundamentalists, as they start to to branch away, will pick up on this term, the fullness of the priesthood, and will become really interesting to them. Um, and so yes, we see this very specific council. But from that point forward, there's not a lot of evolution, innovation, new things. Through the 1920s, they do get a little more strict on some things, you know, making sure people people are worthy. And it's at this point, it is only stake presidents that can recommend. They'll occasionally get a bishop who, like one bishop, sends in a list of like 20 people from his ward that he thinks should get it, and they gently write back and say, you didn't, you didn't get the memo. It's only stake presidents now. You can tell your stake president about these guys, but he's the one that has to recommend them to us. So it's kind of centralizing that authority. It's only for old folks, right? And that's the other component. Is they get really specific that it is only for the elderly because you don't want, like, a 30-year-old getting caught up in adultery after he's, you know, had a second anointing. We don't want to age shame. Old people can certainly be adulterers too. Much less likely. Yeah. Yeah. And they never, the main point behind it seems to be like they need to kind of prove themselves that they're in. And obviously, that, and again, that's the, the personally vouching for them. Like they're specific to stake presidents. They're like, are you sure, like this guy's good? You know him? You could, you have no qualms about him because, uh, less so with living, sometimes with the proxy ones, they'll write in and say, what about this guy? He committed adultery, but by the end of his life, he was good. And they'll kind of take it on a case-by-case basis. But some get approved, some do get approved. And the kind of thing, it's sort of that theology of just do it all and they'll work it out later kind of thing. Wow. And that's, you know, you know, uh, that's, I always like the, well, that'll get figured out in the Millennium. That's the perfect catch. I don't know how to deal with this, kick it to the, the can of the Millennium, man. The idea of admitted adulterers getting the second anointing should give lots of people hope that, you know, they could still, don't lose hope. Woman still a candidate. It just seems so arbitrary as to who's invited and who's not. It just is so unsettling. Well, and then you get accounts that, you know, a guy says, well, thanks to the assistance of Apostle Francis Lyman, I was allowed to get him. Who was an adulterer? Not him. Oh, that's his dad. Francis is the hardliner. He's son. What was the son? So you have Ammon, the grandpa, who preaches the atonement is not really necessary. The communicated. Then Francis comes in and has to prove himself because Dad got went off the rails. Can you believe this? But then his son, the line are fascinating. One who committed. And if people are interested in Richard's story, go to the interview that we did with Gary, because that's one of the chapters, and that's a fascinating story. So the second Linan did what with with he, he helped this guy, he kind of shepherded him and and ran interference to make sure this his friend got it. Okay. So again, uh, depending on who you knew would make it more likely that you got it, because they could, you know, they could put in a good word for you. Because we're not taking requests anymore, they can, they can get you through the process. Yeah. It's super. I mean, that's one of the big criticisms of the second anointing, that it's kind of an elite, wealthy, who, you know, kind of an indulgence. I've been reading about Martin Luther. Martin Luther, a little bit, and that was one of Martin Luther's big things, is indulgences, the Catholic Church selling salvation. And it's almost like, oh, you've given a ton of money to the church, you've given your life to the church, you're in retirement, okay, we'll give you your second anointing, especially if you're worried about your kids and grandkids. Are you going to be talking about that about the promises to the up to fourth or fifth generation tied to the second anointing? Because that's a big deal. The concept of the elite. Keep that one in mind for when it becomes less common, when that circle really tightens in. Because at this point, certainly elite, but everyone's elite. That's what's so interesting about it. At that point, if you are an elderly person who has been faithful your whole life, the chances that you're going to get are very, very good. Got it. And, yeah, you know, it's, it's not like later where it's, I can look down a list of everyone that got it, and I'm like, I know who most of these people are. To this point, anybody. And that's what's so fun is they're buried in these family histories. And you go on FamilySearch and find one of the most interesting ones is this, uh, this woman had posted a, a typed copy of a letter from the stake presidency to her ancestor inviting him to get a second anointing, but I think it said second blessings. And she posted it and the caption was, I don't know what second blessings is, but this is kind of cool, I thought. And so I, I got a hold of her and I said, do you by chance have the original of this letter? And I kind of explained what it was. And I wasn't careful enough because she found some other letter and posted that. And I, she did find a photocopy of it of the original, which is really fun. And again, that had become so uncommon by the present that someone could come across a thing and because they hadn't listened to Tom Phillips interview, they had no mental framework for what they were looking at. And because it was so common, you know, you'll find them in all sorts of family histories and journals, but you got to, you got to go dig to find them. And that's what's fun. That's where you pull out the really interesting stories.

Okay, so you got two key events in the 1920s. The 1920s are where things change. So, uh, at the beginning of the decade, they now pull that authority in even tighter from the stake presidents to only the apostles, but more specifically the president of the church. And we know this because we've got some letters from Talmage to two stake presidents saying, will you please send your recommend books into headquarters? Like, and, you know, don't tell anyone what it is, don't send it with anyone, but we need to have them back ASAP. And the one guy's response is fascinating because he says, he, I don't have the book, I don't know who, maybe the, my predecessor had it. And then he says, honestly, I don't even know really what the second anointing is or what the procedure is. So that tells me that this guy is now a stake president who probably hasn't gotten it himself, who no longer has a recommend book, doesn't know the procedures. So that means nobody in that guy's stake will be getting it. So that's really interesting. But then more importantly, by the end of the decade, they essentially stop. And we're left to wonder what's going on. And our best hint comes later, 20 years later. Um, Apostle George F. Richards thinking, what is this? The 1828 ID story? I, okay, okay. So it's funny because the story has all the hallmarks of apocrypha. So he says, you guys remember that back in 1928, this dude in Idaho gets up in a meeting. Now, this is who, again, we don't know who's saying the story. Oh, George F. Richards, sorry. An apostle. An apostle. In what year? Uh, this is 1949, okay, thinking back 20 years earlier to try to explain why they stopped. Got it. And he doesn't say who the guy was, he doesn't say where, he just says about 1928 in Idaho, this guy gets up in a meeting, sacred meeting, priesthood meeting, we don't know, and says, everyone should have their second blessings. And that apparently gets back to Salt Lake, and they're mad because, hey, we told you guys not to talk about it, even though we've been talking about it for a hundred years. How did it take 70 years for something like that to happen? And was that even the case? The fact that this is 20 years later, and he doesn't know the guy, he doesn't know where, he doesn't know exactly when it happens. Now, it is problematic because Richards ties this Idaho story to the authority being pulled from the stake presidents back to the apostles. And that's a problem because, like we just talked about, that happens years before this. So he's got the timeframe wrong. And this story very well may be true. I would love to verify it. I've asked a couple people about it, and they say, yeah, all I've got is this Richards story. So, but it does basically stop. And so, um, later Richards will talk about, so up to a certain point, 33,000 second anointings had been administered. But in the last 12 years, this is 1942, he says this. So like 1930 to 1942, eight had been performed. And he says, this is not okay. Well, it's interesting because in 1934, this is like the first time that Richards gets on his soapbox. He is very passionate about this. He is, he's one of those guys that at the time was incredibly important to what's going on in Mormon history. He had been, he gets put in as an apostle in 1906 in the fallout of Matthias Cowley and John W. Taylor. So he's a replacement for them. He comes, they were, they were booted for not wanting to give up polygamy. Is that right? A super complicated story that, uh, Judon Tolman, the ancestor of these guys, is right at the center of. Fascinating story. So he comes in, David O. McKay is also one of them. So they're in an interesting place because they're replacing polygamists, but they, they kind of have secret interests. Like Rich still wants polygamy to continue, just, you know, we can't do living polygamy, so let's have dead women sealed to us. That's his solution. He's a fascinating guy. He's the kind of guy, like today, if you pulled, even like, you have to be a pretty Mormon history nerd to have ever heard of this guy, who at the time was incredibly important. He becomes basically the de facto head of all temples and he's Mr. Correlation and Standardization because over time, each temple created their own identity. So Salt Lake, even though you'd think about it now as the central temple, they didn't think about it really that way because it wasn't the first. St. George is the first, and they knew about that, and they would let you know about that explicitly. No, no, no, no. That's cool that you think in Salt Lake that we should do things this way, but as you may recall, we're the first, and we kind of set the patterns. Their stake president is a canon. He's David H. Cannon. I'm trying to remember if he is the son. Can't remember how he relates to George. Might be a brother. I think he's a brother. Um, he very much had that Cannon force of personality. And so when George F. Richards now is trying to standardize things, he'll occasionally yell at these temple presidents and say, hey man, we're all doing a standardized thing. And so part of that is, how does the second anointing fit into all this? And so he, at some point, creates a book that's probably like the procedures and how to do it. So put George F. Richards' standardized book on the shelf for a minute, because we'll come back to that in the McKay years. So in 1934, he says, this is, this is deplorable. We are not doing this anymore. And he sends this kind of pointed letter to Church President Heber J. Grant. He says, we're not doing second anointings anymore. He says, we're basically not doing them anymore. And he's mad about it. And we should be okay, he says, because again, so this is the thing that I forgot to mention earlier, is once you go for several generations saying how important something is and then stop, and then you don't do it anymore, people are like, but hold on. And this, this is the polygamy story. Polygamy, it's like law of adoption, United Order, consecration, all these things. Like, if you talk about them for several generations about how they are so important, and they're in revelations, and then you don't do them anymore, people who are more of a literalist mind view say, well, hold on there, we said for years these were so, why aren't we doing it anymore? And he says, to the point that there are General Authorities who have never gotten it, including Grant's counselor, J. Reuben Clark. Which I have to think was a very pointed, like, hey, dude, your counselor, he doesn't have it. Like, go, you're the guy, move. So then three years later, the recorder for the Salt Lake Temple records in his journal, we are preparing for a second anointing today because this is now a special thing. And you're like, oh, it'll be J. Reuben Clark. It is not. It is a guy who's in the First Council of Seventy, who, not coincidentally, is married to Grant's daughter. And that is like the only one. And that's definitely not coincidence because Grant is like, where the concept of Neo-baby starts. He will stonewall the office of Presiding Patriarch for like 10 years because he wants his son-in-law to be it. And the other guys will come back and be like, supposed to be a to Senate. And he's like, H, I just, I can't get the spirit on what you're saying. Really think it ought to be my son-in-law. So Grant is very much, uh, relative. Really quick. Grant, Richards, or Heber J. Grant? Heber J. Grant. Okay, okay. And so, you know, you'll, and again, they'll still have summaries. Eventually, they'll develop kind of a printed form that's like, this year, you know, for the temple, for this month, the Salt Lake Temple, we did 7,000 endowments, we did 2,000 baptisms for the dead. And then there's this column at the end for second anointings, again, male, female, living, dead, 0000. And of course, for this year, two. Now, there is, so there, like I mentioned, there in the 12-year period that he says, you know, after doing 33,000, we did eight over 12 years. So we know two of them, that's this couple we just talked about. The other one is this woman named Maud May Babcock. So graders of the U might remember there's the Babcock Theater at the U. She's a fascinating woman. So she, she is at Harvard, and she meets Sue Young Gates, who is this writer, poet, suffragist, and daughter of Brigham Young. So she meets her at Harvard and says, boy, you're really talented, I like you, you should move to Utah. She does. She converts, goes up to the U, she founds two departments, but she's never married. So another case like this. Well, we've got this single woman who's really an elite, what do we do? Because by this point, it's totally clear, like, you, a woman has to be anointed to someone. And that's the language that we'll use. So like, you'll have, uh, a man with plural wives, and he'll come in with his first wife, you know, at some point, and then later on, he'll come back with his other wives. And the language is, Lucy was anointed to her husband. So it's very clear. So what do we do with Maud? Remember that her friend is the daughter of Brigham Young. Easy, let's seal her to Brigham Young, and then we will anoint her to Brigham Young. So in an era where Grant is not even administering this to his counselor in the First Presidency, but he does this. He gives it to Maud Babcock to anoint her to Brigham Young. Really odd, interesting story. Wow. So through the 1930s, like, it's just not happening. And what's so interesting is it doesn't seem to bother anybody except George F. Richards, who absolutely will not give up. How do they just stop doing it for 12 years for the most part, and it doesn't raise a ruckus? Then you, you are George F. Richards' buddy, because that. And he, like I said, he wouldn't give up. So 1942, he tries again. It's clear that Grant, he loves Grant and he's very loyal, but he can't give it up. So 1942, he tries again. He's like, okay, we guess what? We still haven't been doing it, and J. Reuben Clark still hasn't gotten it, which is, you know, I get that we're not doing it much, but the fact that his counselor, he wouldn't give it to. And by this point, there are now several apostles that they haven't gotten it yet. Well, this time Grant, and they're not complaining that we know of. These guys aren't. Now, they might have been quietly. They could see that George F. Richards was taking this one. So they're like, I'd really like this. George, will you go talk to him? You're kind of the guy at this point. He's moving up in seniority in the council. And he was an interesting guy. It seems like his colleagues respected him, and he was a very, he's a kind of guy, like, you don't want to be at a party with, he seems super boring, but he's, he's very much a straight-liner. He is loyal as the day is long. But he, he, he says, this is too important. So he tries again, and this time Grant gives in. And he says, okay, he says, uh, Heber J. Grant. Yep. Heber J. Grant, still Church president. He's very old by this point, his health is failing. That might have been part, he's just, he's tired of dealing with Richards. So he says, make out the recommends, I'll sign him, and then you, along with Joseph F. Smith, you take care of performing the ordinances. And George F. Richards is over the moon about it. Um, they're, they're currently publishing his diaries online, kind of like they did the Joseph Smith journals. The Church Historians Press. Okay. So this is one of their online-only projects. And it's great. I have to think once they get to this part, we're not going to see it though. Redaction. I think they'll redact this. On his case, we had, there's a really interesting dissertation that was done that focused largely on his his involvement with temples, but then Mike Quinn also got to see the journals and took page after page of excerpts. So in this case, we'll be good, even if this part will almost certainly be redacted, but we'll have Quinn's transcription because he, he writes about, I went to Grant and I bugged him, and then he finally said yes. And then he writes, uh, he frames this as a Christmas present. This is all taking place December 1942. You know, World War I, World War II is raging. This is his, his baby. And so he'll do an end-of-year summary in his journal. He says, this is the greatest year ever because I got these guys, their second anointing, and I, this is just amazing. It's clearly extremely important to him. Um, and it also mentions the temple presidents and stake presidents. Yes. So again, that same pattern. If we're going to restart it, we look around and see who of the leaders doesn't have. Why didn't it say Apostles first? Like, well, the apostles are first. So J. J. Reuben Clark. J. Reuben Clark. We assume, we don't, he doesn't say when that happened, but we assume once Grant gives him the green light, I'm guessing like 10 minutes later, he's like, okay, come on Tuesday, let's do it. I've got the okay. So, but then they do temple presidents. So the, the Salt Lake Temple president, Idaho Falls Temple president, one other guy. I mean, it makes sense if stuff's going on in your temple, you need to know about it. And if you need to know about it, then you're going to want, then you're going to want it. That seemed to be the implication. Is George F. Richards like, awesome, we're going to resume doing it. These guys have got to get them, be part of the program. So they do those. I totally missed this. Did George F. Richards have it while he was complaining about not being given? He had gotten it. So he is the weird son of Franklin D. Richards. There's this Franklin D. Richards, uh, marries, um, their family history is so interesting. His father, Apostle Franklin D. Richards, marries some of Willard Richards' wives. That's what it was. Willard Richards, Apostle, First President, counselor, good friend of Brigham Young, dies early. So, Franklin D. Richards, who is his nephew, marries his uncle's wives as kind of this Old Testament, like marriage, like

You raise up seed to them, kind of thing. So it's so interesting because they'll refer to Uncle Willard's wives, but they're they're married to Franklin now. So their their family is really interesting. Um, speaking of redacting, so, um, there is a Richard's descendant who was a doctor and then a, uh, area authority 70, or lower level 70, who got super interested in family history to the point where he went and transcribed Willard Richards' journals, Franklin D. Richards' journals, and George F. Richards' journals, all in all, thousands and thousands and thousands of pages. Took him forever. He's a doctor, he's got kids, he's busy. Um, and then Deseret Book published some of them. Not surprisingly, this kind of stuff not part of the deal. But, um, yeah, so George F. Richards had it, um, pretty early on. This was still before we were explicitly saying "old people." And his dad was an apostle, so he, he gets kind of, he gets to have it fairly young. Got it. Um, so, yeah, so the implication is we're going to resume it. We've been giving it to Temple presidents. Kind of goes away by now. You realize, well, George F. Richards is not going to take that for an answer. 1949, he tries yet again. New church president this time. George Albert Smith is now the president of the church. He writes another long, impassioned, this time theological argument, marshalling scriptures. Like, at one point, he says, "We are under condemnation for not doing this." It's like, "G. Jeff Bannon in the Book of Mormon." Yeah, it has it has very much that feel. Like, "What are we doing, guys?"

The difference, of course, he already had permission by that point. Grant's dead, so he has to start over. He has to start over. And again, he's like, "These are the guys that don't have it." And, um, George Albert is more, it doesn't take as much convincing. And of course, this time, well, who else should we give it to? My sons. My sons definitely need it. Uh, no big surprise there. But then there's at least one stake presidency here in Salt Lake that gets it. That again leads us to the same conclusion. His goal, his vision, is to go back to where it was. So, so that because he wants to return the power to recommend it to stake presidents. So, of course, well, then the stake presidents have to have it. So if you guys get it, then George F. Richards dies. 1950. It's so weird. No one else cares about it. And these guys have all gotten it. So do they just think, "Huh, I've got it, I'm good"? So you have to rethink that theology. And that's where we'll start seeing more responses to to to inquiries that say, you know what, it's the kind of thing that some people get, but it's not really necessary. So this is really the period as the number of people become less common, the rhetoric becomes more common of kind of explaining in a way that it's, it's really not that big of a deal. And it kind of starts to become this relic of old times, right? This, these are kind of, they did this in the 19th century, kind of like they did polygamy. But, you know what, we don't really do that much anymore. But people still remember it. You have enough people that have received it or had heard about it that periodically they'll ask questions. You know what this is reminding me of is the Jehovah's Witnesses 144,000 problem, where all the members were were wanting to be designated as one of the 144,000. But then like too many people requesting it, they do the math, right? And at some point, they're going to grant it to too many members, and then they start going over, like, weird things start happening. But like, ultimately, leaders have to realize, we got to start like, downplaying this thing because it's just going to be a headache, especially as we grow and grow. So it sounds like the church wanted to kind of, you know, let it go away. They did let it go away. But the question is, why? Yeah. And there's really not good answers to that. Part of that is, as you get into the 20th century, the availability of the kind of records you need to answer these questions becomes harder to get. Yeah. So, you know, we are more and more reliant on people like Mike Quinn, who had access to things like this in the 1970s that researchers currently don't. But it seems like might have access soon. It seems like they kind of undermines the importance of the anointing in general. If it's not that important, why are we doing it? Why did we do it then? If it's not that big of a deal, then why can't people have it? And yeah, yeah, there are no good answers to this. And so it seems more and more they just church leaders would prefer to just not talk about it. And that's what they do. So, like I said, George F. Richards dies in 1950. That's kind of into that brief resurgence of it. Now, there's a really interesting, very brief reoccurrence during the McKay era. So in 1965 to 1966. Okay. Really, really quick. You've got the Salt Lake, more than 20,000 others, three to 4,000. Yes, yes, yes.

So in the 1949 letter, Richards not only marshals theological arguments, but he brings the receipts. And so that's where he says, "Listen, so in the Salt Lake Temple, they did from 1893 up to the president, they did 21,000 of them." He went and counted them. Now, what's, you got that letter? He's got that. Yeah. We have again, Mike Quinn's typescript of the letter. Salt Lake, 20,000 plus. Logan, Manti, um, St. George, three to 4,000. So still a lot, but obviously Salt Lake is where it's happening. And, and, but what's so interesting is, I didn't really think about it till later, is that's all the numbers he gives. Um, he does give a Nauvoo one somewhere, but it's low. But there's nothing about that early Utah period before the temples are built, which is so interesting because, because I wonder, did he just not look there? Or did he think those didn't really count? This is that theology of place coming back. It's only when it's in a temple that it really counts. And so that's, yeah, he brings receipts to try to persuade him. It's like, "We were doing thousands of these, and now we're doing like one a year, maybe." And for a time, while he's there as the squeaky wheel, yeah, it kind of happens. It kind of makes sense that we've never heard of this guy because it's like B.H. Roberts, like the church isn't going to emphasize in future generations a guy that was kind of a troublemaker. And in this case, he was kind of a troublemaker just behind the scenes. He doesn't have the edge that Roberts does, of course. Of course. But again, yeah, when it's a topic that, especially after his life, a topic that we just don't really want to talk about, that's one of the things that he was most passionate about. It does make sense. Yeah. Pass. And part of it too is he wasn't a writer. He never wrote a book. There was never, there still is not a biography. His kids did a thing, but it's not great. So, yeah, he's a guy that just, I wish we, someone needs to write a good biography of him because he is so interesting. He's not a polygamist because it seems to be a situation where his wife is like, "No, I'm going to take care of you. I will be the best wife. You would definitely, you wouldn't want another one. Trust me." You know, with that edge of voice, "Trust me, buddy, you don't need another wife." Yeah. 8 billion kids, they're all very successful. They marry other kind of prominent Mormons. Like, it's, it's one of those kind of dynastic style families. So he, he's very interesting. But then he dies, and so there's nobody there to push the issue anymore. But so then during McKay, they kind of start thinking about it. And it seems to start going back to this correlated book that Richards had created about the second anointing. They start hearing rumors that, "Whoa, hold on. Each temple has one of these." Because that was Richard's pattern. Is he would, he would do research and find out what's out there on whatever it is he was interested in. You know, what, what materials does the St. George Temple have on how the endowment should look like? You give me this, or you give me copies. And he collects everything. And he says, "Okay, here's the standardized thing that we're all going to do." And sometimes this involves going to the First Presidency and saying, "I think that we need to make these changes." And they say, "Great." And he makes the change. And then each temple gets this, like, leather-bound official standardized copy. So in the McKay, they realize, "Oh, hold on. All of the temples have one of these." And they hear a report that one of them, I think Manti, had it on his desk and it wasn't in the vault. And that is just unacceptable. And it's also in an era where you have all McKay's health is failing, and you have Hinkley Brown and Eldon Tanner, who McKay had loved and wanted them on his team until they were a little too charismatic and powerful for his tastes. And so they start kind of doing their own thing. And he gets reports that like Hinkley Brown had authorized the temple president to do whatever. And this concerns McKay. And so they assign someone to go, "Let, get all the books back here." So that means if a temple no longer has the book, the how-to manual, obviously they're not going to do any more second anointings. So this is really centralizing. Not only are we not going to do it here, we're not going to do it there, we're not doing it, period. However, they do ask somebody to to look and be like, "Who, who of the General Authorities doesn't have it yet? And let's take care of them." And this is really interesting because this is toward the end of 1966. And I had seen, he's getting old. He's getting old. Yeah. And again, like, remember, he comes in as an apostle in 1906. He had had his, you know, decades before this. But he, he doesn't have that feeling like Richards that it's that important. It's like, "I guess the General Authorities probably should have it." But that's as far as it goes. And that timing was really interesting because I had seen references that McConkie had gotten his second anointing in 1966. And now that in connection with this journal entry makes it seem like that's very plausible. So they take care of probably just the Twelve, and that's it.

How do we know that McConkie got it in '66? We don't. Okay. Um, I've seen little hints, but they're the kind of thing like, you know, my mom's uncle's dog thinks that he got it then. But now we have this entry from the McKay journals, thanks to Greg Prince. He donated his papers to, uh, Virginia, and they digitized. So the way that he wrote the McKay book is his buddy was the nephew of Claire Midgley, who was McKay's secretary and had left him one copy of the journals so that they would not go into the black hole. And so he becomes friends with Greg. And at one point, I think Greg said he goes over to his garage, and there's like this pallet in his garage. And he takes the tarp off, and there's the copy of McKay's scrapbook journal in his garage. And Greg's eyes, you know, bug. And he's like, "That's McKay's Journal." Yeah. And eventually they write a book. So the way that he did it is he goes through and types all of McKay's massive, you know, multi-dozen volume journal into topical files. And that's, Greg is so interesting because that's how he does things. He says, "I want every single piece of data, and then eventually it will just sort itself into the most important topics." So this is what Virginia has digitized now, or his topic files. So you go into the temple file, and we get these journal entries from the 1960s that, thanks to Claire Midgley, we actually get to to access. So they do that. And importantly, he assigns Joseph Fielding Smith, who had been, um, Richards' assistant. So in the Grant era, when it it pops up again, they assign Richards and Joseph Fielding Smith as the two guys to to take care of it. Same thing. Well, Joseph Fielding, you know, what's going on here? So you and Kimball go take care of this. And so they do the apostles. And that's it. It's like a really, like a one-time thing. And then it dies again. Kimball's got the taste now. So a little bit about him. So he becomes an apostle in 1943 under Grant. 70. Oh, 43. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And then two years later, in 1945, he and Camilla get the second anointing. And then over the next couple years, he performs two, maybe a couple more. But that's it. Because again, this is this period where it just, it really doesn't happen. So then in 1970, how do we know he's doing it? His journal. Okay. His journal. Oh, that's, and that's new. That's new. The availability of Kimball's Journal is a relatively recent thing. Okay. Got it. And he mentioned in his journal, it's not redacted. There are redactions. Oh, bummer. This was a long process. Kimball's son Ed donated the journals with the express understanding that they would be available to researchers. And they dragged their feet for a long, long time. They, meaning who? The Church History Library. Okay. Okay. Um, and they finally released them, but they are redacted, and there are a bunch of gaps. But Kimball writes that he performed the second anointing on people, and that wasn't redacted. Sometimes they forgot to redact things. Oops. Thanks, guys. And that's where we learned that they received, he received it in his life as well. Yep. Wow. Okay. I was going to ask that too. So that's, that's how we know a few things. So it could be apostles were trickling around, both receiving it and giving it out, and it didn't make the records. It's possible. Yeah. It's, it's definitely possible. Okay. So because that's an example of it. That's an example. Yeah. Now, now the, the idea that he's rogue or doing it just on his own authority, I highly doubt. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, so it does happen to that limited degree at that point.

Well, now, now, of course, he's not only gotten it, but he has performed a couple. And he slowly becomes George F. Richards 2.0. In 1970, he has this meeting with now Church President Joseph Fielding Smith and his counselor Harold B. Lee. And they, they talk about it and they say, "Uh, I really think that we need to be doing this again." But they don't. And so now we fast forward to 1973. December 1973, Harold B. Lee unexpectedly passes away. He was this relatively young, dynamic hardliner who was going to be president of the church for like 25 years. Do you have any idea why Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee wouldn't be into second anointings? There seems to be an unwritten rule that by this point, there's only one person per generation that can care about this. It had been George F. Richards, and now it's Kimball, and no one else can care about this. I, it's so interesting because just like Kimball, Joseph Fielding had been part of performing these limited number of them, but it just wasn't that big of a deal to him. As the mentor of McConkie, who clearly cared about it too, it just seems odd that he wouldn't have been very proactive about it. I don't know. That's interesting because when my grandpa received this invitation in '75, the nomenclature is very clear. It makes it, it's not ambiguous. It makes it very clear that they should be aware of what this anointing is, and do you desire it? Right? So it's still talked about. It's still enough that they're being asked or invited. They have to be able to respond to it. They have to have some knowledge of it.

Can I just make the point that the Mormon Church holds out as its probably number one selling feature in 2024 that it holds the keys and the authority to priesthood sacred ordinances? And I would say in Mormonism, the leaders would claim the most sacred things we do are baptism, you know, confirmation of the Holy Ghost, and the temple ordinances. So to know that ordinances are of primal importance to modern-day Mormon Church leaders and our key differentiating feature of all the other false churches out there, to see them take the most sacred of all the ordinances and then treat it so casually and so willy-nilly and invariably carelessly, carelessly through is mind-boggling to me. Sorry, I had to do that. You, this is George Richards' argument. This is why I stick. Because he, he has heard the sermons, he's read the things. Why are? And so and so later, as it's absolutely not being performed anymore, you'll get these really interesting little snippets where a missionary will meet with an apostle, you know, have a meeting in the temple before they all get sent out. And does anyone have any questions? "Yeah, I do. What's, what's this second anointing and what's the deal?" And the apostle shakes his head and says, "I really wish no one was going to ask me that." You know, that kind of thing. And then they'll give him sometimes good answers, sometimes kind of no answers. Um, and even like, there's this fantastic account. A lot of the material that we have around this is thanks to a guy named David Burger, who, who, who did a book that we'll talk about at the end. But he tells the story. He was Mr. Curious. He was 100% down the rabbit hole. So anytime he would go to a temple when his brother was getting sealed, he would make sure to find the temple president and say, "Hey, I got a bunch of questions. We're in the temple now, so can I ask you all my questions?" And the temple president would, "Okay, what's this second anointing?" And in one case, he grabs him and he pulls him into the coat rack and he's like, "All, we can't talk about this here." Here's the deal. He actually gives him a pretty good answer based on what he knew. But that's the thing is, you get to the point where people don't even know enough about it to ask questions. So it really is in danger of completely dying out if it weren't for Kimball. And there are a lot of topics where this is the case. Um, Mormons rarely appreciate the importance of a specific person in a specific place to impacting history. And you get this all the time, like, you know, if Reed Smoot is not a Senator, then we don't have the Smoot hearings, and polygamy might continue. You know, that kind of thing. Like the importance of one single person, where they are, when they are, is incredibly important. And this is Kimball here. If Kimball isn't Mr. Let's revive this thing, it very legitimately might not have been revived.

So they have this meeting in 1970, and yeah, this is probably important. And, uh, but nothing happens. So Joseph Fielding Smith dies. Harold B. Lee dies. And now 1973, um, December 30th, Spencer W. Kimball unexpectedly. Nobody thought the guy who had throat cancer like 87 times and heart attacks is going to become the president of the church because Harold B. Lee, Mr. Energy, Mr. Military Haircut, he dies of a heart attack at a relatively young age. I mean, he's in his 70s, but for General Authorities, that's young. Mhm. And within a month, Kimball takes his counselors and he takes his trusted secretary, and they go into the Vault of the Salt Lake Temple. And they find the books. They find George F. Richards' leather-bound correlated book on how to do the second anointing. And he's like, "Okay, we really, like, he says, 'I have a compulsion about this.'" He uses that word, which is really interesting. And he says, "I hope we can revive this. We're working on it." And he says, "We've got people copying stuff down." And it's clear. And what's so interesting is because he no longer has to convince the guy, because he's become the guy. That's the thing. If George F. Richards had been president of the church, which he was really close, if he'd outlived, um, George Albert Smith, um, he would have become president of the church. So Kimball is the decision maker now. So he can do it. And he does. And so by the summer of, um, so this is February 1974, that they go into the vault, they find the books, and he says, "Okay, we're going to make something happen." So by the summer, and possibly even earlier, this is one of the places where there's this maddening gap in Kimball's journal. And this was known to his son. There's memos in there that where the archivist will say, "Hey, Ed, do you know where these journals for this period of your dad's are?" He's like, "Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where they are either." Really irritating. But there's a gap. So, but then, um, summer 1974, he records, "These six came to the Salt Lake Temple, and we gave them their second anointing." And there are names that you will definitely recognize. You've got Thomas Monson, you've got Marvin Ashton, Tom Perry. Again, there's our pattern again. After hiatus, we start with the General Authorities, and then we branch out from there. So the second anointing becomes really important to him. So every, you know, couple weeks, he'll write, "I had these three dudes and their wives come to my office and I interviewed them, and then, you know, a week or two later, they have a special meeting, and one of his counselors or one of the apostles assisted me, and we gave them their second anointings." And, um, they're fascinating accounts once they start branching out. And this is where Darren's story comes into play because the General Authorities make sense, right? But then it's after that, it's who do they choose to give it to after that that I think is so interesting. And one of the most fascinating cases comes in 1974 when they dedicate the Washington D.C. Temple.

So it mentions like Monson and others in the journal. Mhm. He's naming names of who he's giving the second anointing to. Earlier on, later on, he might say something like, "We went to the Manti Temple and we gave 18 couples." Does that mean Monson made it to Apostle without receiving the second anointing for like 10 years? What? So that's, see, that's so crazy because we don't always have the sources we want. We have to infer. So if Monson is getting it at that point, that tells you they are definitely not giving it to anyone else. If they're not giving it to an Apostle, they're not giving it to anybody. And that's really interesting. That shows that it really had, and and Kimball talks about this, and it's so interesting when they have the, when they go to the day where they go to the vault, he kind of reflects on the history that he'd been involved with. And he, who at that point is the the only living General Authority who really had experience administering it, screws up the history. He talks about how George F. Richards went to President McKay and petitioned for it. No, Richards dies before McKay as Church President. Even Kimball doesn't really know that history. That shows you how, how scarce that knowledge. The memory role applies to Apostles as as he does the membership. He had to go search it out and research it. And interesting. All right. So they go to dedicate the Washington D.C. Temple, and he, they, the last session happens, and then he says, "We brought in a group of seven couples at 7:30, and we gave them their second anointing." And there's a couple of interesting names. You have, um, Bill Marriott is one. And he just says, "Richard Scott, I assume the Apostle." Bill Marriott gets it because Gazilier? Yep. And he was, he had been a stake president in the D.C. area. So he gives me this list of names. You know, I recognize a couple, but I don't the other guys. And then I searched one of the names and I found the identifying thing for all these people in all places in Gerald Ford's presidential papers because he had been invited to the dedication, and he had this little booklet that they gave the dignitaries. And here's the, the local high marks. This guy is the current president of the Silver Spring Stake. This guy is the former stake president. Like, "Hey, thank you. You just helped my footnotes there." So that's the first group at 7:30. Then they dismiss. And of course, because we're still doing this thing at 8:30, we bring in another group of exactly seven couples. No doubt the same thing. We close with prayer, out of the room, new group, open with prayer, as though this other meeting had never taken place. This is this remnant of 19th-century practice, which is I always find interesting. He gives it to another seven couples. You don't recognize most of the names, but then he says, "We gave it to K. Gunn McKay." And that's a name that should ring a bell because if it doesn't, he was in Washington for a very specific, interesting capacity. Called he was a congressman. So the fact that they gave the second from Utah, one of our three at that time. Okay. Oh, okay. Only him, maybe another time. Um, that's, um, one of my, he, so he is the other McKay line from David O. McKay. And he talks about how there were the God-blessed McKays and there were the God-damned McKays, and all the McKays knew which one they were. And he was the latter. But he's a congressman. So I, I have to think that people will find a sitting congressman receiving the second anointing to be mildly interesting. What year was that? That was '74. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. So, and then he talks about in his journal that they had wanted to go to the Manti Temple to give a group of people their second anointing, but they had to delay it because the temple president had a heart attack. And so they postponed it. And that, that's right, is exactly where Darren's story comes in because his grandfather was one of that group.

If somebody wants to see all of Kimball's list because there's probably people that many of us watching or viewing would identify on the list that you might not. This is true. How does somebody find out who was on Kimball's second anointing list? Be patient. Okay. So I am working. This is the, this is part of the project I'm working on. I have a list from sort of when it dies in the '20s till the present. Okay. And there are hundreds of names on that list right now. But it's not, there's not a website or a book that people can go to. Kimball's, what about Kimball's journal? Kimball's journals are digitized. They're on the Church History Library website, which is an amazing resource for a bunch of things, including this. So. But is that where people could find the names? Or it's heavily redacted? Not anymore. There were some, some places where they forgot to redact initially. And then later, oh, but there are still a couple that I double-checked and they're still sitting there, which was interesting. Somebody lost their job. Yeah. Some editor lost their job. Senior missionaries, I think, were doing it. And it was really interesting because you could see different methods. Like, this guy knew that we needed to black out this whole paragraph. And this guy's like, "Yeah, probably just that line." So interesting. So that's, so that's where Darren Sty will come in for the next part because that's that's the time when his grandfather, a give him all the, your all the responsibilities he had. Well, he was stake president at the time when this took place. But prior to that, he was, he was an excellent bishop for over 10 years, served a stake president, then they served for five years in Germany as mission president, and of course, his wife was with them in family. And then returned again as stake president. So these are the kind of guys. Once they branch out, who they identify are these guys largely in the Mormon Corridor, but like we saw also in D.C. So, um, the way that it works, and this is the case with your grandpa, is the Church President would go, or an Apostle would go to a stake conference. Um, and part of them being there was keeping an eye on the up-and-comers in that the ranks, guys that were now candidates because again, remember, we're no longer, stake presidents do not get to recommend this. It's only Apostles or above. And so that becomes their job, one of their things, you know, home teaching numbers, this, that, who might be a good candidate for the second anointing. And then would administer that to them. So make sure you come back for part two because Darren will tell that story, finding the records, and their story, which is really, really interesting.

So there's a few more stories during the Kimball years that are fascinating. And what is so interesting is that after a lag of a few years, people start publishing family histories, privately done, that will then include details about this because, why? Mormons suck at secrets. So I brought a few show-and-tells. This one, this is, you know, the kind of thing that you'll see. You know, this is my grandpa. I love that. It's the story of Harold Mitchell and Gertrude Mitchell. That's that's a good Utah Grandma name for you. So I was going to show this to Darren. Do that page there. Look, all familiar. Yeah, that's amazing. I can't believe you found that. So you can imagine my surprise when I look at this page here to find a photocopy of a letter from Kimball to this couple saying, "We are going to be at the Manti Temple, and would you like to have your second anointing?" Do you want to read the letter or not? Well, that that steals the thunder, kind of. Okay. So you found that after you, you found out that I started looking around. I started realizing that families don't necessarily get the memo though. We don't talk about this. And so they will put it in things they publish. So some cases, again, you know, a very basic thing, the life of Eva Peterson gives the chronology of the things they do. Then in August 1974, received second endowment in Oakland Temple. President Spencer W. Kimball officiated. Marion G. Romney sealed the anointing. And Arthur Holbrook, secretary to President Kimball, recorded the ordinance. Five other couples also were there to receive this ordinance. So they'll describe it very similar to Tom Phillips' experience. Yep. It's like a group of couples. There's always more than one. Sometimes like the one, it was 18 couples, so it's huge. Um, now, this one, of all the ones I found, this one was super interesting. It's in a family history. You know, basic thing, you'll get 20 pages of birth and death dates, but then you get little biographical sketches of specific people. And so in this one, there's this section called "Remarkable Event." And what happens is, um, this couple got it in 1977 from Spencer W. Kimball and we're apparently told that you can tell one person about this in your family. And they told it was a daughter. And so then after they passed away, she's like, "Hey guys, I got a fascinating story." And they describe it. And they only know about it because their parents had had this. This was totally new to them. And so again, unfortunately, it's a crappier copy, but again, you get a photocopy of the letter from Kimball. But the best part is that they also include a photocopy. Let's see, is that this one? Oh, that's in a different one. Um, there's another one like this where the envelope had a note on it that said, um, "You can open this after we're dead, and then you'll know what we were talking about." So some families got the memo better than others. But it wasn't just random families that no one's ever heard of writing about this. There are three occasions where at least high-level people, if not General Authorities, wrote about this in their own memoirs. So the best known of this, your listeners may have heard this one, is in 1979, Russell Nelson, who was then the president of the Sunday School, he's not yet a General Authority, writes a memoir called "From Heart to Heart," where he talks about being a doctor, family events, but then in an oblique reference, he says, "Daniel and I were invited to the temple for a special ordinance or blessing, whatever." He says, "You can put the puzzle together if you know what you're looking for." You're like, "I know exactly." And it helps that we have Kimball's journal entry that says, "XYZ and Russell Nelson, I gave him the second anointing." So that one was apparently intended largely for friends and family, but was sold at Deseret Book for at least sometime because we've seen copies that have stickers from Deseret Book. Nothing happens. That's, you know, they're hard to find, they're collectible. But, you know, nothing. But then there's two really interesting cases. There's another guy named Joseph B. Wirthlin, who was the superintendent of Church Schools. His father had been down in the Mexican colonies and had been like the stake president and important down there. And the son puts together this, you know, "Life and Times of Joseph Wirthlin Sr." And he includes this letter from the Church President saying, "If you need, if you want to get your full blessings, then, you know, Anthony Ivins, who's down there in the colonies, can okay it, and then we'll get it." J.R. says, "Oh, that was like his ceiling." It's not. And you know that very well because Joseph Jr. also publishes his own memoirs. And in there, he has a paragraph where he says, "Uh, before we went on our mission to Hungary, my wife and I were called in by President Kimball and given a special blessing." Well, this one's fun because somebody clearly yelled at him because they made him put a sticker over it with a revised paragraph that, of course, did not talk about the special blessing. Well, there's nothing more like a red flag to nerds than a sticker over something because you're like, "What does it say under the sticker?" So people steam off the sticker and there's the paragraph, or you just read it through the back. It's not super difficult. So that was fun because he clearly got yelled at. But the best one is Leonard Arrington writes in his journal that a man named Henry Taylor comes to his office and gives him and Davis Bitner a copy of Taylor's autobiography that he had just published. And it's very nicely done. It's 8.5 by 11. And he says, "Davis and I went through it very carefully, and we're quite interested to see that there was this page, this full page that described him getting his second anointing." And then later in the book, there was again a chronology of ordinations, and at the very bottom, "Got my second anointing on this date." And again, thanks to Kimball's journal, we can go and we know exactly what date happens. Wow. But then Arrington says, "Three or four days later, Taylor came back to her office and said, 'I'm, um, can I have my book back? I got to do something with it.'" And then he brings it back and he says, "We noticed that the only changes were that page with the second anointing had been very carefully taken out with a revised page stuck in. It was so good." Like, I've got a revised copy, and you, unless you look at it from the top, you can barely tell what's going on. But it's super interesting because the page before, he includes Talman's description of the Holy of Holies from "House of the Lord," and then a picture of the temple. So even if you don't know what's going on, it's really odd to include that. So that's fun. Clearly, he was getting yelled at too. Do you think that ordinance took place in the Holy of Holies? Mhm. Definitely. Interesting.

So this would later become really interesting to Arrington because, um, I think it's that same year, all of a sudden, Leonard starts getting real curious about the second anointing. And so he'll write, "Journal, I had the staff search up every single thing about the second anointing that they could find." And then he says, "Then I talk to staff members, and one of my staff members is a bishop, and I said, 'Do you have any members in your ward that have the second anointing?'" And that becomes very clear why he's so curious. When, like, a week later, he talks about how, after General Conference is over, he and his wife went to the Salt Lake Temple for a special temple session on a Sunday. And then apparently, in his wife Grace's journals, she talks about them doing the second part of it at home. And that's really interesting because that shows you, as late as 1979, that second part was still being done at home. But then you fast forward a couple years, and Leonard says, "I have learned that Billy Casper, the golfer, who had gotten his second anointing the same day as us, apparently was excommunicated before his death." And he says, "All the sports writers knew about it." So that's an interesting one. That's kind of like Gunn McKay. The, the selection of non-church officials to get it is really interesting. Was he excommunicated after getting the second anointing? So because that's, people have wondered why Hans Matson or Tom Phillips, as far as we know, were never actually excommunicated. People wonder why Nemo has been excommunicated. Um, I'll explain why I mentioned Nemo. But what you're saying is, is they can't excommunicate you after you're promised that unless you murder someone, you'll become a god and a goddess someday. They can still excommunicate you. Can and do. What does that mean? So that's part of that long, long debate on what the unpardonable sin means because some people interpret that to mean if you turn against the church, you're essentially shedding innocent blood, is the way that that's dealt with. So Billy Casper is an interesting. And again, it's so gross that it's like wealthy, famous people. Like, I'm sure the Osmonds get it. You know, Steve Young, like Marriotts, Romneys, like, I'm guessing Hatch. Like, it would, it would just seem like this becomes in Kimball's time a way to reward wealthy or famous people with a special thing.

Let's put that together with another interesting story. A year or two later, Leonard's at an event at Mary Bradford's house. Dialogue editor, wonderful person, and part of a generation of kind of a new, fun, uh, not fundamentalist feminists, people like Lavina, people like Judy Dushku, who are all meeting together. And, um, Leonard learns that one of the couples that had been there had gotten their second anointings. And they're a fascinating case because the husband had been part of LDS Social Services, but his wife, Marianne, is fascinating because she's also hanging out with Mary Bradford and Lavina and writing poetry in Dialogue, which I have to think was not welcome. Including, Leonard says she wrote this poem in Dialogue under a pseudonym that I understand hints at the second anointing. So you go and read it, and it's, you know, it talks about oil and kind of like the inner sanctum of the stones. If you didn't know what she was talking about, you would have no. What are stones? What, like, within the, like, the inner recesses of the temple? Is the imagery she's evoking? Oh, like the stone, like the granite? Yeah. But if you didn't know she was talking about, you would have no idea. So she publishes under a pseudonym, but then a few years later, that generation publishes this amazing book called "Sisters in Spirit," where she republishes the poem under her name. So what's her name again? Uh, Maryann McMurray. And she probably received it, you're saying? Yep. And, and fascinating woman. She was, you know, a feminist, loved the outdoors. It sounds like a just a really interesting person, but 100% not the mold of who they intended to give it to, I'm guessing. So that ends the Kimball era. And after that, there is a giant black hole where the second anointing is concerned until we get the stories from people like Hans Matson, who we think got it probably about 2000 in the Hinckley era, and Tom Phillips, who got it in 2002, also within the Hinckley era. So the question is, did it continue during that time? Probably. Um, but the question then is, who gets it? How is it presented to them? And, uh, again, how does this work within this idea of, if it's not that big of a deal, then how come only these kind of people are getting it? And do you have to get it? If not, then why do some people get it? There's all these questions that are left unanswered because we don't quite know how exactly it worked. And that leads us to the present, where we assume it probably still takes place. I think it's happening a lot. Why wouldn't it be? Like, seems like it. Yeah. Yeah. But it is so fascinating because it is very much like, you know, the story of the coelacanth, where they pull this 80-million-year-old fish out of the sea into the modern world. There's this 1840s era ritual that survives, but it no longer has most of that context that it did in the 19th century because we're not doing polygamy anymore. And, you know, we're not doing these other things. And it's been redefined and reexamined over the course of all this time. But still, at its core, is this 1840s ritual. So it's a fascinating history and evolution of it that will give a lot of color to when Darren tells the story of his grandparents. Okay. It's fascinating.

Really quickly, I, I had a friend tell me that it was his understanding that when you get the second anointing, in the, whatever language they use, they're promised that this will not just save them or exalt them, but it will exalt their posterity, un like the third or fourth generation or something like that. Which to me, good. Which to me, if if I'm a wealthy, high-status Mormon that's given my life to the church, that's given hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to the church, and then my children and grandchildren start falling away, well, that's sad heaven to me. Like the whole point, the whole value proposition of Mormonism was no empty chairs, that we're all going to be with our family together forever in the eternities. So I'm going to be like, "Now, wait a minute. What about all my kids and grandkids that have left the church?" If I were the church creating a super sacred ordinance for the super wealthy, rich, famous, committed people, I would want to give them some reassurance that they wouldn't go to sad heaven, that their their money and time that they gave to the church would not just save them, but all their all the family they care about. Do you have any information about that? I've also heard that. I haven't run into it in any of the, the 19th or 20th-century accounts. And I'm trying to remember now if Tom, I feel like Tom might mention that idea. And what's, what's interesting is I kind of wonder, there's a, a sort of a parallel idea that comes originally from Orson F. Whitney. He says Joseph Smith taught, and there was never more comforting doctrine, that the the seal that is placed upon a worthy couple will save their posterity, no matter what. He says, you know, they might stray, but the tentacles of divine providence will reach out and will kind of gather them back in. And obviously, for a parent, that's comforting language. Um, it gets repeated by like James E. Faust in conference. But it's a very problematic statement because it doesn't seem like Joseph Smith ever actually said that. And Orson F. Whitney was both given to very poetic, imaginative language, and also like to kind of make things cooler than they were. He writes a biography of his grandfather, Heber C. Kimball, that has a lot of stories that don't seem to exist outside of Whitney's head. M. So I kind of wonder if it's not somewhat that concept getting smooshed into that. Or it just may be, you know, like I said, a lot of the accounts that we do have of this from people who experienced it aren't very detailed, and they rarely will talk about the kind of language that's in the ceremony. So it, it is very possible that that has always been in there, or that comes into it. Or it very well might be that after the official ceremony, it, from what Tom said, you know, they were allowed to ask questions from the Apostle. And it's very possible that in some many occasions, that language was conveyed to them outside of the official ritual. So it was interesting. Tom said too, he said, he wanted to ask, "Is this one I'm going to meet the Savior?" You know, he's, he actually thought that that was going to be part of the ordinance. That's why I love the accounts of missionaries asking questions because it's the same kind of thing. The, the leader like, "So does anybody have..."

Any questions with kind of the unset understanding that don't ask tough questions, right? And so I'm sure people had a bunch of questions, but they didn't necessarily want to ask them. Well, even today, if you go to lds.org and you ask about the second anointing, the first article that appears in the first paragraph, it literally says, "Don't ask questions about this. Don't bring it up in lessons. Don't have discussions about it. It's on the lowdown." I mean, it's just today that's that's what you find. That's why I think that Arrington account of it is so fascinating because here's a guy who didn't grow up in Utah but in the Mormon Corridor, that was the church historian, that has to start from scratch. He has no idea what this is.

Um, another interesting story they have, uh, another kind of study group meeting where Gordon Madson and Ron Walker and other guys like that will present on what they know about it. And it's fun because they'll say things like, "We, we've kind of heard rumblings that Kimball has reinstituted this on a limited basis." And Arrington's sitting there thinking, "Yeah, yeah, he has. I'm not going to tell you about it, but you don't know the half of it." What he's thinking. But that's so interesting that somebody like that, by the end of the 1970s, the cultural consciousness has evaporated to the point that a guy like Leonard Arrington has no idea what this is. That tells you, your average member, unless they have a grandpa who got it and talked about it, you're just not going to hear about it.

And that's another one of your interviews that that was so interesting on this topic was Layla Tuler, because she talked about how Hartman Rector, her father, had gotten it, but would sort of use it as a trump card sometimes in arguments and say, "You do remember I've had my second anointing?" And and she made a point saying, like, "I'm pretty sure he wasn't supposed to do that." But he, you know what? Because he grew up as a a convert, he didn't always know all the norms. And and even if he did, he obv he sometimes didn't like to follow them. Yeah.

Well, I'm dying to know. I'm dying to know if that multi-proser Prosperity, the multi-posterity promise is there, 'cause the math in my head says that it is, you know? But you don't know. Yet again, when you have something that is explicitly not supposed to be talked about, people don't talk about it. And so a couple things happen. Knowledge, accurate knowledge of things falls away, and rumors and stories kind of take their place. And when you don't have good records, it's difficult to separate the two. It does stand to reason though, 'cause that's part of the temple ceremony, that same verbiage. Yep.

It's a fascinating history, and uh, there is a surprisingly large amount of information out there about it that uh, sheds light on parts of the story. Okay, so before we summarize, I'm just going to make sure everyone knows we're going to be sharing the full Tom Phillips interview on YouTube, so that you who have not not listened to it or watched it yet, 'cause it's old school Mormon Stories, it's audio only days of Mormon Stories, pre, you know, pre my excommunication. Actually, I think I recorded it in 2013, but actually released it in 2014. Once I knew I was going to be excommunicated, I'm like, "What the fetch? I'll release it anyway." We'll be releasing that. We'll be releasing Hans Matson's. I'm probably going to get my friend Mark Burton to talk about his grandpa's, um, the the momento that that allegedly Kimball gave my friend Mark Burton's grandpa to secretly signify that he had received it. So I I have a picture of that. Yeah, that's kind of fun. And then hopefully, we'll have Tom Phillips back to just kind of, because a lot of people are worried about him or like wondering if he's okay, wanting to hear how he's doing, especially now that his son has been designated an area or general authority, I forget. Anyway, all that's coming up.

But before we end, um, please subscribe to this episode. Please like the episode. Please share it. Uh, that will really help with the algorithm. Uh, please do that. Okay, so do we have any, do we want to draw any conclusions from this history? I don't even know if you do that as a historian, Brian. And you, you probably try and withhold. J. Usually, that's not my strong suit. Part of it too is because this is a topic that really needs more work. And I, I, I nearly forgot. I did want to do one thing too. Um, something that Lindsay and I always do on Sunstone Y podcast is we'll do the Books of Mormon's Report, which is always introduced by song lyrics. And I forgot that, so we're not doing that. But so I talked about this one. So there's a three-part series. The first one is Joseph Smith, Kirtland, the Anointed. So that's that period in the store. Other places until they can move into the Navu temple. So that's Navu endowment companies. As you can see, this is like three times the size because this is when they're giving it to hundreds of people as opposed to a couple dozen. And then those are signature books, right? These are all published by Signature Books. Yeah. And the, the third, and in a lot of ways, the most interesting, is the book that takes, um, from the end of Nauvoo to 2000. And in all cases, these are just raw data. So it might be a journal, it might be minutes, it might be a circular letter, especially in that third volume. Unbelievably interesting, and not just second anointing, all things temple. And a lot of that was based on the research of, I mentioned earlier, named David Burger. So he wrote two seminal articles in Dialogue, one on the development of the endowment and one on the history of the second anointing. And he eventually grew disaffected and kind of moved on from her studies. But, um, his research was put together in this book called The Mysteries of Godliness, that is a narrative history. Spell his last name. B U R G R. Oh, okay. Like Burger. Yeah. So, yeah, just throw an extra E in the middle of your burger. So, okay. Um, and this is fun because it's narrative, so it'll kind of put some of the pieces together. But what it'll do is they'll say, you know, this conclusion or this point is based on this letter, and then you can go to these three books and often find that whole letter and give you more context. So, um, like I said, there's not a ton out there on there on the second anointing, but there is some things and very, very interesting. Come to us a benchmark. I'll tell you more stories. So we'll make sure Julia includes a link to all these books in the show notes. Perfect. Yep, she's really good about that. Y.

Okay, so in terms of making any analysis or judgment, that's not your deal. It is interesting because you have, I mean, you have so many different ways you can look at it. But to me, the the raw numbers of it are so fascinating of a practice that goes from thousands to nothing overnight, and then kind of gets turned on, kind of, and then definitely gets turned on permanently, but in a very different way. And so it, I think the ultimate idea of it is you've you prove yourself over the course of years to be worthy and faithful, but that circle grows so, so much more narrow over the course of the the history of this ordinance. And that's interesting because it, it reflects on, um, what is an elite? Should there be an elite? What does an elite consist of? That gets redefined. And obviously, now that idea of a Mormon elite, I think is is very distasteful to a lot of people. Well, you know, we know now that bishops and state presidents and even George P. Lee, right? The the church can call child abusers, adulterers to to become leaders in the church. Like we know now. Or they can call a a child molester to like produce the temple ceremony films. Right? Like we know the gift of discernment is either deeply flawed or just never existed to begin with. So like, one big question is like, how do we have any reliability that that that God is directing who gets chosen and that it's not, you know, huge mistakes aren't being made if it's not just made up completely like that. That's, but, but yeah, a lot of people tell me that Tom Phillips episode was devastating to their faith, just because for some, the eliteness of it all is just gross and distasteful. No question. What do you think? No question. I felt the same way. The Tom Phillips story was so powerful for me. And had I not experienced it, I wouldn't have even known what these documents were because of the church's effort to keep it so secret. But you, you'll be telling that in your next story. Definitely. We're going to share that story next. Okay. Okay. Anything else you want to say before we close? Well, Brian, what a, what a wonderful gift. It sounds like there's archives being released soon and or new books coming out, and maybe even a new book to be written about the second anointing. Ultimately, that's the goal. Okay. And part of it is a call to action to be snoopy, you know, don't let things go in the dumpster. Be curious. If if you have a grandpa, a great grandpa who was a stake president in the Mormon Corridor, a mission president, there's a very good chance that they received it. And some of those people still living, they might want to talk to you. They might not want to. Um, but it's interesting because learn more about not just Mormon history, but how your family is part of that history. So I would say, be curious. Ask questions. Do we have documents? Who knows how many interesting things that can help flesh out the story are sitting in a dusty box in the basement because no one's ever bothered to look through them? That's one of my favorite things about Mike Quinn. The reason that he found so much stuff was he was innately curious. He was constantly wondering, asking questions, poking around. Lots of reasons to be curious. Yeah. Beautiful. All right, well, Brian Beanan, what a wonderful contribution to the Mormon story. Thanks for having me as part of the story. Now, I want to be careful like what we're doing is teeing up Darren's story here so that this has some context because like we said, this is where the story starts is finding treasures in the dumpster. Yeah. Very cool. Okay, you ready for that, Darren? You bet. All right, so thank you for joining us for part one, or a part, I don't know how this will ultimately be sequenced. So thanks for joining us for this part of Second Anointing Week on Mormon Stories. Um, remember that we're also going to be covering the original. We're going to be releasing the original Tom Phillips interview in full on YouTube. Um, Hans Matson's, uh, second anointing account. We hope to have Tom Phillips back, um, to talk about, uh, his his life since that episode. And, uh, right now, come right back, uh, at some point in the sequence, because we're gonna have Darren Klein tell us the story of discovering his grandfather's second anointing invitation written, uh, by Spencer W. Kimball. And it's the first that, you know, we ever learned about such documents existing. And he's going to read it, and maybe we'll share it as a document. You bet. Um, as well on our blog or on the podcast, or maybe on the screen so you can see it. So come right back. Thanks for joining us. Uh, please like and subscribe, uh, this episode. And always, please support Benchmark Books. Buy your books from them. Go hang out with Brian. He's a really fun visit. And also, thanks for your donations to Mormon Stories Podcast. We couldn't do all this without your support. And if you're not a donor and you value this type of content, please go to mormonstories.org, click on the Donate button, become a monthly donor, and we'll be able to keep providing this type of content and other cool things in the weeks, years, months ahead. Thanks, everybody. Take care, and we'll see you really soon.