1. The Basics
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) was a French sociologist and philosopher best known for his analysis of media, consumer culture, and symbols. In his book “Simulacra and Simulation”, he explains how signs, representations, or symbols can gradually detach from reality until they replace or become more important than the reality itself. Baudrillard outlines four stages in this progression, and I will be using Louis Wain’s illustrations of cats and to signify each stage.
1. Faithful Recreation: At this stage, the sign accurately reflects an existing reality. The representation is understood as a copy of something real and depends on that original for its meaning.
2. Distortion: Here the sign still refers to something real, but it alters it through exaggeration, simplification, idealization, or selective framing. The original remains, but it is filtered to serve a purpose.
3. Masking Absence: At this stage, the sign claims to represent something real, but the spirit of what it points to is gone. The sign functions to conceal that absence, giving the appearance of continuity where little remains.
4. Pure Simulacrum (Hyperreality): The sign no longer refers to any original reality at all. It exists independently, generating its own meaning and expectations.
2. How This Relates to Ritual
Rituals often are systematized recreations of something that was important to people in the past. We light fireworks off on the 4th of July to replicate the celebratory gunfire from when America declared its independence, we eat a feast for Thanksgiving to recreate the (false) myth of the pilgrims and Native Americans working together, and we dress up on Halloween to replicate how monsters and ghosts were thought to roam the earth on that day. In this way, the rituals we celebrate today are fairly far removed from their reality. In other words, they’re one of the later stages of Baudrillard’s Four Stages of Simulacra.
2.1. Baptism
I have been thinking lately about how this could be at play in religion, and what first came to mind for me was how the Religious Society of Friends (“Quakers”) understand baptism. While the Quakers are followers of Jesus which emerged out of Protestant Christianity, their practices often get them labeled as “post-Christian”, much the same way that Mormonism is often viewed. Chief among their interesting beliefs is their relationship with the concept of baptism. The Quakers do not practice water baptism, and in fact the fifth edition of “Quaker Faith & Practice” by the British Quakers says:
“The Quaker conviction is that the operation of the Spirit outruns all our expectations. We acknowledge that the grace of God is experienced by many through the outward rite of baptism, but no ritual, however carefully prepared for, can be guaranteed to lead to growth in the Spirit. A true spiritual experience must be accompanied by the visible transformation of the outward life. Our understanding of baptism is that it is not a single act of initiation but a continuing growth in the Holy Spirit and a commitment which must continually be renewed. It is this process which draws us into a fellowship with those who acknowledge the same power at work in their lives, those whom Christ is calling to be his body on earth.”
In other words, the Quakers believe that water baptism is a simulacrum of the baptism by fire.
Water baptism has been so engrained in many of us as Mormons that the thought of not having it seems impossible. However, I believe that the Mormon tradition opens the door to such a view regarding baptism. For example, on July 9th, 1843 Joseph Smith Jr. said:
“Baptism by water is but half a baptism,
and is good for nothing without the other half,
that is the baptism of the Holy Ghost.“
Joseph urged the baptism by fire so much that he said without it “you might as well baptize a bag of sand”.
Mormon scripture also provides an interesting glimpse into a relationship with baptism, namely LDS D&C 137, “The Vision of Salvation”. In this, it says:
“All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry shall be heirs of the Celestial Kingdom of God. Also, all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it who would have received it with all their hearts shall be heirs of that Kingdom, for I the Lord will judge all men according to their works according to the desires of their hearts“
This suggests that to enter the Celestial realm all that’s needed to have that baptism by fire, which could make water baptism simulacra within Mormonism as well. INWARD EXPERIENCE, NOT OUTWATRD RITUAL
2.2. Sacrament
The Sacrament is a peculiar case of becoming a simulacra as well. I would again like to explore how using Baudrillard’s 4 steps:
1. Faithful Recreation: The Sacrament is based off of the Last Supper, which was just a meal of wine and bread that that friends were sharing.
2. Distortion: The Sacrament is a meal within a religious rite that is facilitated by clergy. The bread and wine is often literally considered to transform into the body of Jesus.
3. Masking Absence: The Sacrament is no longer a meal and in the case of LDS Mormonism wine is no longer present. It becomes a silent and somber event.
4. Pure Simulacrum (Hyperreality): You are no longer gathering together to enjoy a meal together; you are watching people on a screen silently eat a single piece of bread and a sip of water.
2.3. Endowment
I am not the only Mormon to suggest such a thing about our rituals. Dr. Anthony Sweat, who was just called to the LDS Young Men General Advisory Council, gave a series of lessons on the “Church History Matters Podcast”. Lesson 14 and lesson 20 are of particular interest how this process of simulacrumization has taken place within the Endowment as well.
In lesson 14, Sweat proposes that “The first endowment in this dispensation did not happen in the Kirtland Temple, nor in the Nauvoo Temple. The first endowment in this dispensation took place in the Isaac Morley log schoolhouse at the June 1831 conference of the church”. This scene is actually so pivotal, that Sweat himself created one of the best depictions of it.
The June 1831 Conference”
By Anthony Sweat
Those who are familiar with the Smith-Entheogen Theory, particularly my Sunstone presentation on this from 2024, will know that this is one of the top candidates for an entheogenic experience. I have previously written an amalgamated account of the experiences that transpired at this Endowment. In other words, I believe that the Endowment within Mormonism was originally a psychedelic experience.
In lesson 20, professor Sweat teaches us that “There’s a difference between endowment and the presentation of endowment. Endowment is a power. The presentation of the endowment is a pedagogy or a method or an instruction. One is a ceremony – the endowment – The other one is a priesthood power that comes into our life.” He then goes on to reiterate this distinction between the Endowment and the presentation of the Endowment several more times.
He doesn’t shy away from the Masonic connection in regards to the presentation, but instead quotes the LDS church’s Gospel Topics essay on the matter and says “The Endowment did not simply imitate the rituals of Freemasonry. Rather, Joseph’s encounter with Masonry evidently served as a catalyst for revelation.” In this way, the Endowment ceremony is essentially just a vehicle to help people have that Endowment experience.
Sweat does not see a problem with this Masonic Endowment ceremony, because he ultimately believes:
“you and I can participate in the Endowment ceremony and not be endowed in the same endowed with power in the same way that we can participate in a baptism and a conferral of the Holy Ghost and not yet receive the Holy Ghost.
Endowment is something – a power that we have – to live up to and attain unto through righteous covenant living with God. Presentation of the endowment is teaching us these concepts of how to accomplish that in our life to receive a fullness of his blessings.
In this way, Sweat is making the same argument for the Endowment that the Quakers make for baptism – namely that its the experience that important, not the ceremony.
3. A New View
While performed an Endowment in the LDS church in 2014, my first true Endowment experience wasn’t for a couple more years. I like the idea of trying to systematize that experience, but I also recognize that in the process the ceremony will be a simulacrum of the true experience. Beyond the Endowment experience, I recognize that even the simulacrum holds its own meanings, which I previously explored in my post “What is the Sociological Function of the Endowment?”
If folks have been baptized by fire, why would I not recognize that? Why shouldn’t sharing a meal be considered the Sacrament? Even my own experience with the Endowment lines up with this distinction between the Ordinance and the presentation of the Ordinance.
Now, if the Presentation is important to someone, I will of course be more than happy to attend or even perform it for them. I have performed the Endowment for 3 different friends, and it was a moving experience each time. However, if someone says they’ve had a baptismal experience, I don’t see the point of forcing someone to perform a simulacrum of the experience they already had.