The ritual involves forming a circle of participants around a person who offers a prayer, usually at an altar in a temple.
Mormon prayer circles were once organized by local congregations on a monthly schedule, but in the late 1970s were restricted only to temples.
Prayer circles were common in the Protestant revivals of the Second Great Awakening that Smith or other early LDS leaders likely witnessed or engaged in.
[1] Ritual circles were also practiced in Freemasonry,[2] to which Smith had been initiated in 1842 by Abraham Jonas.
[4] The reason for this change is not known, but could have resulted in part from the growth of the LDS Church, and the fact that prayer circles were usually organized by a member of the First Presidency or the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.