Second anointing
[1][2]: 11 Founder Joseph Smith taught that the function of the ordinance was to ensure salvation, guarantee exaltation, and confer godhood.
[5] In the ordinance, a participant is anointed as a "priest and king" or a "priestess and queen", and is sealed to the highest degree of salvation available in Mormon theology.
[12][13][14] Joseph Smith introduced the Nauvoo endowment in 1842, but stated that his work in establishing the "fullness of the priesthood" was not yet complete.
Young understood that the "fullness of the priesthood" involved an anointing as "king and priest", with the actual kingdom to be given after resurrection.
[2]: 22–23 Historian Gary James Bergera stated that the ordinance functioned as a de facto marriage sealing, though recipient Alpheus Cutler (founder of the Cutlerite branch of Mormonism) and two of his five wives (Abigail Andrews and Sally Cox) who also received the ordinance were not sealed at the time.
Young re-administered the ordinance to many of those who had received it under Smith, and he delegated his authority to others, who performed nearly 600 second anointings (some to polygamous unions) before the temple was closed on February 7, 1846.
[25] The modern Latter-Day Saint practice is kept absolutely secret and is only given to a very small number of adherents, usually after a lifetime of loyal service to the church.
[7] One British former stake president and former area executive secretary, Tom Phillips, said his spouse and he had received the ordinance before his public disaffiliation.
[11] Historically, the church's newspaper openly discussed the rite's occurrence in print,[37][38][39] and at least one obituary from a largely LDS Utah city mentioned the ordinance in 1909.
[41] In 1978 Mark Hofmann forged a handwritten document purporting to be a historical description of the secret ordinance and sold it to Utah State University.
[51][52][2]: 11 According to prominent 20th-century LDS Church apostle Bruce R. McConkie, those who have their calling and election made sure "receive the more sure word of prophecy, which means that the Lord seals their exaltation upon them while they are yet in this life.
"[53]: 109–110 The second anointing may have been intended to fulfill scriptural references to the "fulness of the priesthood", such as that in Doctrine and Covenants, Doctrine and Covenants 124:28, a revelation by Joseph Smith commanding the building of a temple in Nauvoo, Illinois, in part, because "there is not a place found on earth that he may come to and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fulness of the priesthood" (emphasis added).
[57] Hans Mattsson, a former member of the area authority seventy spoke publicly about his experience receiving the second anointing in the Frankfurt Temple.
