A veil of secrecy surrounds Mormon temple worship. While officially intended to preserve the sacredness of the experience, the silence leaves many Latter-day Saints mystified.
Modern parishioners lack context to interpret the arcane and syncretistic elements of the symbolism.
Buerger addresses the abandonment of the adoption sealing, which once linked unrelated families, and the near-disappearance of the second anointing, which is the crowning ordinance of the temple. He notes other recent changes as well. Biblical models, Masonic prototypes, folk beliefs, and frontier resourcefulness all went into the creation of this highest form of LDS worship. Diary entries and other primary sources document its evolution. He and his wife live in Berkeley Lake, Georgia.