I had a friend ask me this question. He said “When doing the initiatory rite, I understand the purpose of the washing, but what’s the purpose of the anointing?” I have some ideas, but what do you think is the purpose of the anointing during the initiatory rite?
LDS, Mormon, Mormon Belief, Temple
What’s the purpose of Anointing?
Wheat & Tares 
The washing with blood/water represents us being sacrificed for our own sins, the meting out of justice.
The anointing with oil represents the healing of those same sacrificial wounds and being restored to life and health, the gift of mercy.
I always thought it was clear that this is the royal anointing, which is tied to the blessings of the endowment. Also, the Levite priests had both parts, so why not?
Someone once told me that olive oil was a symbolic the Holy Ghost, so I thought it was a symbolic way to ask the Spirit to bear witness.
Stupid autocorrect
Interesting interpretation Jeff. Water generally symbolizes cleansing. I did a post on the mikvah, a precursor to baptism. With mikvah, people (and objects) were ritually cleansed. WIth Baptism, we have our sins washed away. With initiatory, we are clean from the blood and sins of this generation.
With anointing, the wording in the initiatory indicates that it is preparatory to becoming a king and a priest, much as the prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be king of Israel. It is my understanding that the 2nd anointing is the completion of this preparatory anointing. That is, those who get to participate in the 2nd anointing actually get anointed kings (a la Saul).
I don’t disagree with Jeff’s general information, but it seems to me the initiatory is a bit more specific concerning the initiatory rite.
Someone wrote long ago about someone using oil and anointing in some ceremony to recognize/honor/imbue a person with privileges and power. That someone’s purpose is not completely clear. Regardless, it became a practice, now ancient and imbued with significance, symbolically. The purpose of our modern-day temple ceremony is significantly aided (psychologically) by it feeling very ancient–and thereby more holy.
IMHO
MH,
Yes, we are cleansed by water and blood which both represent death. We are only purified of our sins and transgressions through violence and death. Thus, we are buried in water in baptism, we are ritualistically wounded in our washings and we ritualistically sacrifice our own lives in the endowment (although this isn’t very obvious any more). Once one sees that blood and water both represent pretty much the same thing, then the temple ceremonies in Leviticus make a lot of sense to any LDS reader.
All of these are supposed to be the death (murder might be a more direct word for it) of the past life in order to be healed and raised to a higher life/existence. A major part of this involves a purification and total absolution for prior transgressions, etc. My guess is that the anointings that heal our sacrificial wounds are meant to be very literal prefigurations of the resurrection ritual.
In the case of healings, the case is slightly different, in that we do not need blood or water, since we are already ailing and dying (probably due to transgression under some interpretations or just general, mortal corruption of the flesh).
Of course, the laying on of hands is only related to and not identical with anointing with oil and should not be totally conflated. The laying on of hands (ordination, confirmation, blessings) is, obviously a symbol for coronation. Coronation, however, is itself a symbol for the power of grace descending upon the person being crowned from the person above them. It is a top-down infusing of the person with spirit, power and vicarious authority. This endowment with grace and power is very closely related to the function of anointing oil. The main difference (it seems to me) is that oil represents the application of divine power, whereas the laying on of hands is more closely associated with the transfer or endowment with power from one person to another..
The coronation by which grace descends upon the king who is being set apart is the exact opposite of the authority that bubbles up from below in the form of democratic election/participation/representation. The person is crowned to vicariously represent the person who crowned him/her, not the people over which they now hold dominion and stewardship. In this way, healings are similarly the top-down application of grace to the biological world. This is the exact opposite of evolutionary processes bubbling up from below. The main point is that oil is, in both cases, a symbol for grace descending from above to lift a person from a lowly, earthy positions (represented by blood, water, sickness, death, etc.) to a new, higher level.
It is also worth pointing out that healings do not need to happen from hands being placed on the head, but are sometimes administered by placing hands on the wounded part of the body (see Jesus’ healings and anointings in general).
Anyways, those are my rambling thoughts on the subject. I don’t really care to offer “proof” for any of this. So people can take it or leave it as they see fit.
magnifies intention
Beautiful, Jeff.