This can best be described as a consciousness lowering, mood altering experience. The movie shows hypnotic type scenes of volcanoes and lava flows, ocean, animal and flower scenes, as the dialog drones through a very monotonous and repetitious description of the first five creative periods. Elohim, the head God, sends his agents, Jehovah and Michael (the arch-angel) down to do all the creative work, but one day at a time. He requires that they return each day and give him a report of their activities, and receive further instructions, because he is a man with a body, and cannot tell what they are doing, nor see or hear beyond normal distances. Many patrons are asleep, and most are drowsy at the completion of this act. THE GARDEN OF EDEN DRAMA     Elohim actually comes down to earth with Jehovah to create bodies for Michael, who becomes Adam, and Eve. Adam and Eve are placed in the garden by Elohim, are tempted by Lucifer, and Eve succumbs and eats the forbidden fruit. Eve convinces Adam to partake also, then recognizes who Lucifer really is. Lucifer instructs Adam and Eve to make fig-leaf aprons to cover their nakedness when they hear Elohim and Jehovah coming. All the patrons don bright green fig-leaf aprons with Adam and Eve, which they continue to wear over all of Elohim’s Priesthood attire throughout the remainder of the rituals. Elohim is outraged, and curses Lucifer, who according to LDS doctrine will never have a body, to crawl on his belly and eat dust forever. Lucifer defys him to his face, and ignores his curse throughout the following scenes. He is cast out, then Adam and Eve are cast out with him, to join him, but only after they make a secret covenant with Elohim, and receive a secret token (handgrip), with its name, sign and penalty (blood/death oath). THE LONE AND DREARY WORLD MELODRAMA     Upon arrival in the lone and dreary world, which is the world in which we now live, Adam “builds an altar and offers up prayer.” Lucifer answers, instead of Elohim, affirming that he is “the God of this world,” and the drama develops its conflicts, around this altar scene. Lucifer’s claim to be “the God of this world” is never challenged or denied by Adam, Eve, or Elohim’s agents. THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER IS SATAN’S HIRELING LACKEY     Lucifer employs a Christian Minister as his hireling lackey to confuse, deceive, and destroy all mankind along with Adam and Eve. He preaches to them a comical perversion of the 3rd century Nicean Creed, which Adam rejects, employing sarcasm and ridicule to develop audience contempt, but without hissing or booing, as was done in prior decades. The Apostles Peter, James and John are sent by Elohim to rescue Adam and Eve, and the hireling Minister deserts Lucifer and joins them after Peter discloses Lucifer’s true identity. He embraces Mormonism with Adam and Eve and is saved, along with the patrons in the audience, while Lucifer is cast out. Jehovah, whom Mormons have told outside of the Temple is really Jesus, has been relegated to the role of messenger boy between Elohim and his new agent team of Peter, James and John. THE TERRESTRIAL WORLD PRESENTATION     Adam, Eve, and the patrons advance to the Terrestrial World, where they are put under covenant by Peter, James and John to obey several more laws, and taught their accompanying Priesthood tokens, names, signs and penalties, along with being clothed in the Robes of the Holy Priesthood, and being taught “The True Order of Prayer.” THE ONE AND ONLY “TRUE ORDER OF PRAYER”     The only “live entertainment” in the Endowment is the True Order of Prayer After all of the secrets have been received (except the one learned only at the veil), all the temple clothing has been put on, then taken off and put on again differently, and the ritual activities are completed, the patrons enjoy sitting and watching something different. (The patrons have stood up and sat down approaching 20 times since the Endowment started).

    The Officiator calls the Witness Couple and seven or eight other couples to come forward and form a circle around the altar. Those in the circle then proceed to follow the Officiator in performing all of the names, signs, and penalties of the tokens of the Priesthoods which they have previously received. Then they form the “True Order of Prayer”. The sisters all veil their faces (in the audience also). Then each couple in the circle joins right hands in the Patriarchal Grip and everyone raises their left arms to the square and rests their left elbow on the person next to them. The Officiator carefully checks everyone’s position ... then kneels at the altar and offers a prayer, which all those in the circle repeat, one phrase at a time. (this is the first time the patrons hear the Officiator’s voice. He has been pantomiming the tape recording during all of the prior twenty minutes of the ceremony since the movie ended).

    The prayer is usually long and quite involved, covering many subjects from the prophet’s health to the patron’s safe return home. It opens, as all Mormon prayers do, addressed to “Heavenly Father”, and closes “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” The patrons in the circle repeat the “Amen” and are instructed to return to their seats.

THE “TRUE ORDER OF PRAYER” RESEMBLES ANCIENT RITUALS     Prayer circles around Altars, doing very much the same sort of ritualistic activities, are described in the Egyptian Coptic Gnostic writings recently first published in English. These were a continuation of the ancient Egyptian pagan rituals performed for centuries before the birth of Jesus. This most certainly was another Gospel, a very strange occult one, from that which the Apostles preached in the New Testament (see Galatians 1:8,9). Dr. Hugh Nibley and other Mormon scholars speak of these pagan ceremonies as if they validated the Endowment, when they actually demonstrate the pagan nature and foundation of the Temple rituals. Next: The Temple Ceremonies