The Endowment Ritual

Synopsis

The endowment ritual is essentially the education of secret knowledge on how to enter heaven. Here is the official, canonical explanation (new tab) from the LDS Church.

The ritual is a ceremony that only qualified members are allowed to partake in. He or she will go once for him- or herself, and then later will go for someone who is dead, acting as a proxy. Members are expected to keep this ceremony secret.

Members who are going for themselves begin alone with the initiatory ritual. Then they gather in an auditorium inside the temple and watch a video presentation on a Mormon version of the Garden of Eden story. As the story progresses, they will don ritual clothing and later learn covenants they are expected to consent to. The covenants are associated with a secret word, handshake, and hand signal–In other words, a name, token, and sign. Like the freemason ritual it is based off, the signs are a pantomimed version of suicide. Today members will disagree with the claim of suicide because the ritual has been meticulously changed over time, nonetheless, the signs require hand placement where the suicide motion should begin.

Finally, once the names, signs, and tokens are learned, the audience will be taken up to a curtain at the front of the room, where they will recite the names and demonstrate the tokens they learned. For the members, this is in order to prepare for entering heaven. After they have passed through successfully, they go to another room called the celestial room where the ritual concludes.

Presentation

In every temple but the Salt Lake Temple and Manti Temple since the early 20th century there has been a film version of the instruction. Otherwise it was a live re-enactment acted out by temple workers. The films have been remade over time and it has been a focus to have 2 versions playing on any given week.

As you can see when you watch the current version, there is a lecturer audio recording before, during, and after the film.

Names, Signs, Tokens and their Covenants

work in progress

There are 4 tokens, or handshakes, that have an "accompanying name and sign." These are expected to be memorized by the participant. See the film and start at minute 53:30

The First Token of the Aaronic Priesthood

The token is a handshake, made by placing the pointer on the other hand's pointer finger knuckle.

The Second Token of the Aaronic Priesthood

The token is a handshake, made by placing the pointer between the other hand's pointer finger and middle finger knuckles.

The First Token of the Melchizedek Priesthood

The Second Token of the Melchizedek Priesthood

Problems with the endowment

Many people have expressed concerns with the morality and history of the endowment which you can read about here