What has one to do with the other?

Where are you going with this?

Maybe reading too much Dan Brown?
(I like Dan Brown's books, but they are fiction.)

Sorry for the challenge. But I do not see a connection between Mormonism and Free Masonry.

Please explain. Thanks.

than first appears. Some time ago (can't remember where) read an article discussing many of the Mormon ceremonial steps required of a new believer to join the Mormon Church as rise to 'full membership'. As a Mason I do see similarities with some Masonic rituals if the reporting in the article is correct. By the same token it is very probable that the similarities I encountered are present in many other fraternal organizations.

Well, I would think that the Masons took their rituals from sacred ones, rather than the other way around. To claim that Mormons take their rituals from Freemasonry just because the latter predates Mormonism seems to be post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. I would rather hypothesize that they both took their rituals from an earlier common source. That seems, to me, to be the more parsimonious conjecture.

Just thinking out loud, so to speak... Er, write.

Joseph Smith was very impressed by the Masonic Order, so it doesn't strike me as being outside the realm of probability that he incorporated Masonic-type rituals in his church.

Universalism in its early days in America was far more friendly to "visions" and personal revelations than today. Joseph Smith's family were Universalists, and when he had his great epiphany, therefore, his family was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, and some of them even deciding to follow him on his newly-found path. His vision was so radical, however, that little of his Universalist upbringing remained.

People tend to respect the rituals they participate in and to be skeptical or hostile of rituals they don't participate in.

But most rituals follow similar patterns, so it's not surprising that one can find similarities between any two religious or quasi-religious rituals.