Penalty (Mormonism)

In Mormonism, a penalty was an oath made by participants of the original Nauvoo Endowment instituted by Joseph Smith in 1843 and further developed by Brigham Young after Smith's death. Mormon critics refer to the penalty as a "blood oath", because it required the participant to swear never to reveal certain key symbols of the endowment ceremony, including the penalty itself, while symbolically enacting ways in which a person may be executed. The penalties were similar to oaths made as part of a particular rite of Freemasonry practiced in western New York at the time the endowment was developed.