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I recently listened to an interesting podcast episode of Buddhist Geeks called “Creating Living Ritual” included a critique of modern Buddhism’s “dead” ritualism. The discussion included some thoughts about what modern ritual should include to be successful and ironically, many of those suggestions Joseph Smith included in the first endowment ceremony which have recently been removed or altered. It got me wondering: did Joseph Smith create better ritualistic practices than we have today? He goes on to lament that “Buddhist rituals, definitely including most Tantric Buddhist rituals, are nothing like that. They are dead, zombie rituals.” (emphasis mine) He also...

Joseph F. Smith... ...spoke of having...received...his final, vision of the dead...he said he “saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great,” ...waiting in a state of paradise for their ultimate redemption and resurrection...Choosing not to go Himself to the wicked and unfaithful dead who waited in the more nether realms of the spirit world, Christ organized a great missionary force..., dispatching them to minister...to “all the spirits of men,” those who had been less faithful and obedient in their mortal lives, including, as Peter writes, “those who were sometime disobedient” in the days of Noah...In addition, he saw...

Snip ...Joseph Smith warned of the consequences when we fail to use the temples available to us: “Those Saints who neglect [temple work] in behalf of their deceased relatives, do it at the peril of their own salvation.” Snip A key function of temples is to perform ordinance work for our deceased ancestors. When we think of temple ordinances and the necessity to do them perfectly, without error... “… For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation...they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect” (D&C 128:5, 15;...). Consider the...vision of President...