The Mystic Tye

"Discovering Secrets Of The Unlawful Societies Act" with Dr. Paul Calderwood

• Troy Spreeuw • Episode 39

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Episode 39 · Discovering Secrets of the Unlawful Societies Act

Featuring V.W. Bro. Dr. Paul Calderwood

Every March, for the better part of two centuries, lodge secretaries across England and Wales sat down and did something we almost never think about today. They wrote out a full list of their members, names, addresses, occupations, and sent it to the clerk of the peace, sworn before a magistrate as a legal document. They had to. Under the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799, it was the price of staying lawful while other clubs and societies were being driven underground.

Most of those returns were filed, shelved, and forgotten. In this episode I sit down with V.W. Bro. Dr. Paul Calderwood to talk about what happened when somebody finally went looking for them.

Paul went into his research expecting maybe 450 surviving documents in Wales. He found more than 2,000. Every one of them photographed, transcribed, and dropped into a searchable database that now records the names, addresses, and trades of lodge members year by year, going back to the very first returns. It is one of the richest and least explored sources in all of Masonic history, and it tells us who our brethren actually were, not the legends, the real men.

We get into what the returns reveal: how Freemasonry gave men stability and continuity as the rest of their lives changed around them, how the networking ran deeper than anyone assumed, and the small surprising details, like the fact that across all those Welsh lodges, only 44 venues outside of Masonic premises ever showed up. It is social history, family history, and Craft history all at once, and Paul makes a strong case that what he found in Wales is waiting to be found everywhere else too.


What we cover

  • The Unlawful Societies Act of 1799 and why Freemasonry survived it when other societies did not
  • The annual return: a sworn, signed legal snapshot of an entire lodge, filed every March
  • Why the law ran all the way to its 1967 repeal, and why some secretaries kept filing for five years after
  • Building a searchable database of more than 2,000 documents, names, addresses, occupations, year by year
  • What the records reveal about Masonry as a source of stability, continuity, and networking across a lifetime
  • Freemasonry as a rich and largely untapped source for social and family historians
  • Why this Welsh study is really a template for similar work in English regions and beyond


Guest

V.W. Bro. Dr. Paul Richard Calderwood, PGSwdB, is a specialist in this period of Masonic history. He was awarded a PhD by Goldsmiths, University of London for his thesis on the history of Freemasonry in the twentieth century. He has been active in the Craft since his initiation in 1974, is a member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, and was appointed Prestonian Lecturer in 2013.

His book, Discovering Secrets of the Unlawful Societies Act, is published by Lewis Masonic. Our thanks to Martin Faulks and the team at Lewis Masonic for the introduction.


Where to see Paul Calderwood speak

2026

June 16 | North Devon Installed Masters Lodge | Tiverton, Devon
June 19 | Albert Edward Court Lodge of Research | Porthcawl, South Wales
July 29 | Lord Swansea Mark Lodge | Bridgend, South Wales
September 21 | Dean Leigh Installed Masters Lodge | Hereford, Herefordshire
November 4 | Llangeinor Lodge | Bridgend, South Wales
November 30 | Senatores Chapter of Installed First Principals | Blackpool, West Lancashire
November (date to confirm) | Lodge of Advancement | Neath, South Wales

2027

January 20 | Ymlaen Lodge | Cardiff, South Wales
January 28 | Hendre Lodge | Cardiff, South Wales
January 29 | East Surrey Installed Masters | Croydon, Surrey
February 19 | Bucks Masters | Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
February 25 | Charles Lyne Installed Masters Lodge | Risca, Monmouthshire
March 18 | Leeds Installed Masters Lodge | Leeds, West Yorkshire
March 25 | Cambria Meridian Lodge | Rhyl, North Wales
June 24 | North Notts Installed Masters Lodge | Worksop, Nottinghamshire
July 7 | Durham Lodge of Installed Masters | Durham

Most of these are Installed Masters lodges, so attendance is generally restricted to qualified brethren.


Referenced in this episode

  • Discovering Secrets of the Unlawful Societies Act by Paul Calderwood (Lewis Masonic)
  • The Square and the Tower, on history and networks
  • The National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, where the complete database has been deposited and is going online
  • The Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London, where copies have also been placed


Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2026

Save the date. The Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference takes place Saturday, September 19th. Our keynote speaker is Lon Milo DuQuette, author of The Tarot Architect, with Bro. Ike Baker and Bro. Doug Russell also in attendance. Reserve your tickets in advance by RSVP to esotericmasonry@gmail.com.

We are also building a directory of Masonic events and publications. If you know of something coming up, email me. In the meantime, have a look at the Masonic Conferences website.


Links and resources


Support the show

If this episode resonated with you, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. We are also building a directory of Freemasonic events and publications. If you know of something coming up, send Troy an email at troy@mystictye.com.

Graphics and web hosting by Art Szabo Creative. Theme music by Organist.

Happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again.



SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Mystic Tie. A podcast for Freemasons. You can find us online at Mystiktie.com. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash mystiktie. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at Troy at Mystiktie.com. Brother Paul Richard Calderwood is a specialist in this period of history, having been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Goldsmith's University of London for his thesis on the history of Freemasonry in the 20th century. He's been very active in the craft since his initiation in 1974, including Quadricoronadi Lodge 2076, and was appointed Prestonian Lecturer in 2013. Please welcome Brother Paul Calderwood. Paul Calderwood, thanks for joining me today on the Mystic Tie Podcast. You were brought to my attention from our friends at Lewis Masonic, Martin Fox and his team over there, Nick. They suggested that we should talk. And I I see that you've had a book released recently. Could you tell me about the book and your your interest in that material?

SPEAKER_02

Sure. Thank you very much for inviting me, firstly. Oh, yeah. The book's called Um Discovering Secrets of the Unlawful Societies Act. And uh part of that is on the screen at the moment, as you probably can see, my slides. Um, and I'll explain why Welsh Freemasonry appears there as well in a second. Um, what I want to talk about is a very rewarding source of Masonic information that's been largely unexplored and covers a period of more than 170 years. Um it provides authoritative and detailed accounts of the kind of men who belonged to Freemasonry and the lodges that they supported in both England and Wales. And it comes in the form of official documents, which were required by national government and sent to the court of quarter sessions every year, uh, starting in 1799 and continuing until the act was repealed in 1967. Although, in fact, some lodge secretaries continued to submit annual returns for five years after the law had ceased to uh uh after it had been revoked. Uh, as many of your uh listeners will know, um, under the terms of the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799, Masonic Lodge Secretaries were ordered to send to the Clerk of the Peace uh in their locality a full list of Lodge members with additional details every year in the month of March. And this evening, because of time constraints, uh I don't propose to talk much about how and why the law came into existence. But perhaps you'll you'll tell me later on that you'd like to know more about that. But instead, I I I intend to focus on the consequences of that law being enacted. Um the background to the act is covered in lots of other places, including uh a longer version of this paper, and indeed in the book that uh is the end result of all this. So let me just show you what a an uh how uh there we go, what an annual return looked like back in uh 1809. The one on the left is an annual return that was made by a lodge that was under the jurisdiction of the Premier Grand Lodge in 1809, and you can see there's a preamble uh and then there's a list of members with their uh uh addresses and their occupations. And it's also signed by the master and the secretary, and it's sworn in front of a magistrate as an accurate legal document. The one on the right uh is from another lodge, but one under the jurisdiction of the ancient Grand Lodge. Um so many of the annual returns made by Lodge Secretaries fortunately have uh survived, but very few of them have been explored in any systematic manner. Uh, indeed, most of them appear not to have been examined at all since the day they were originally presented in court, in this case back in 1809. Um, an examination of these neglected and in most cases uncatalogued and therefore unexplored documents is an important task, and it's one that's made all the more urgent because of the fragile and deteriorating nature of so many of them, and it's therefore a bit of a race against time to capture the contents of these documents before more of them are lost. The task of capturing that information, let me show you it. There's two more examples of returns. The one on the left is of a lodge that was formed after the union of the ancients and the moderns, and that's the United Grand Lodge of England uh lodge return. The one on the right is also a UGLE document, but you can see uh how badly it's survived uh over the years, and there are many worse examples than that, which highlight the sort of uh deteriorating nature of so many of these documents. Right, right. Um the task of capturing this information and analyse it is not only important and urgent, but it's also immense, actually. Uh, and I personally couldn't possibly tackle it myself. But what I've done is to make a start on the process by examining what I called a manageable sample, uh, namely all of the surviving documents that could be traced within that part of the United Kingdom known as Wales. Um and although this is a Welsh study, therefore, it still will have, I think, strong interest to those who are interested in the history, uh certainly of Wales, but also uh English social history and perhaps much further afield, because many of its discoveries and conclusions apply to other countries. Um, it's my hope that this paper that I've produced uh will stimulate the production of similar studies of English regions, uh, and that all those various studies, when they're completed, might one day uh be dovetailed together uh to provide a complete national picture. But I've taken what I consider to be a manageable sample at the beginning. I smile a little bit as I say that, because when I began the research, I thought there were 450 documents survived in Wales. There it turned out to be over 2,000. Wow. So it it was a task that grew as uh as I got into it, and we made lots of discoveries about new documents, obviously. Um these documents provide students of social history in general with a rich new source of information, and it will undoubtedly be, I think, of considerable interest to those people who are engaged in researching and writing their Masonic lodge or their family history, finding out if their grandfather or their great-grandfather was a Mason, where he lived and what he uh his occupation was at a certain moment in time. Um and over the past ten years, the primary documents I were traced within the various uh Welsh County Archive offices. They were photographed, uh, and the information that they contained was placed onto a searchable Excel database for later analysis. And the database records the contents of more than 2,000 documents, as I said, detailing names, addresses, occupations of all the members of each Masonic Lodge year by year. Now, year by year is quite important, uh, as well as where and when they held their meetings. I say it's important year by year because what typically happens, uh happened and does happen in British Freemasonry is that on the day someone joins Freemasonry, obviously their name, address, and occupation are uh registered and recorded in Grand Lodge Records. But after that day, they're not maintained, uh not updated. So we don't know if they changed their address the next year or if they changed their job or anything about what happened to them outside the lodge in the following years, and this gives you a year-by-year opportunity to track changes in people's circumstances.

SPEAKER_00

Sure.

SPEAKER_02

Um it altogether the database has 200,000 lines of information, so it's a big database, and it because there's a lot of duplication in there, because people, as I say, there's uh return every year for the same person in many cases, it actually comes down to 34,000 individuals. So again, still a quite substantial um cross-section of Masons. Wow. So that's that's the the the database, how it came to be created, and the book uh that was written about what's in the database. Um it the book and the database reflect and inform social and economic developments which have taken place within Wales over the past two centuries. It also records a number of case studies of individual members and lodges. And in my uh book I tried to answer three main questions. Who were the Freemasons of Wales? What kind of people were they? Where did they meet, and how strong were their lodges at various times over the past 200 years? And those are sort of basic questions that have been asked many times, but not really answered with much authority in the past because uh we didn't have these, we didn't know we had these records, we didn't go and look at them. The complete database has been deposited with the National Library of Wales, where it will be available not only in the reading rooms, but also online. So hopefully later this year, people on the other side of the world can uh go to that website of the National Library and look up their family history or their details about lodges they're interested in without all the trouble of going to Aberistwith, which is where the National Library is based. Right, right. Um, and copies have also been placed in the Library and Museum uh in London of Freemasonry, uh, and a number of other Masonic libraries, so that people can go and sit in those reading rooms and look at the transcriptions and the information. The how the Lodge how the returns were produced by Lodge Secretaries and how they were dealt with by the judicial system uh is a large and interesting subject which is addressed uh in the book, but I I'm not gonna go into that at the moment because that will take us away from the main theme that I want to bring out. The the annual returns highlight the role played by various groups of professionals in the life of Freemasonry and of Britain, and they reflect many of the traditions of the country, uh, as well as changes that took place in Welsh life between 1799 and 1967. The picture that emerges from that account of life of more than 34,000 men is the story of a region and its development, and it portrays the important part, for example, which farming and forestry played in society and the economy, as well as the part played by people employed in maritime activities, the influence of the aristocracy and the gentry, the rise and gradual decline of mining, especially coal mining, as well as iron and steelmaking industries from their birth, the arrival of the railways into Wales, the emergence of engineering, shipping and associated trades as major employers, the growing numbers employed in government and municipal activities, the development of public utilities and health care, and as well as the part played by the legal profession, the police, the armed forces and public services, and of course the church. The documents refer to the war service of many Freemasons and to their role in civic and business life. And an analysis of each of these employment groups describes the way in which men from various backgrounds were attracted to Freemasonry and the influence which they played in the life of Wales. Repeatedly, the returns show the availability of free time and financial means were essential for participation in Freemasonry. But lodge membership was not drawn exclusively from moneyed or wealthy individuals. And together the annual returns document the important part that Freemasonry played in the lives of tens of thousands of men, and they show how many of those men joined the fraternity, remained members for decades, and extended their involvement by joining additional lodges to enjoy the companionship and the networking opportunities that Freemasonry provided. One of the most interesting of the themes which emerges from this analysis of the returns is the part that Masonry played in providing stability and continuity for men, many men, as they experienced change of location and in search of income, and how many who travelled into and through Wales, uh, for them Freemasonry provided a haven and a social outlet during their time in the country. In addition to information about individuals, the returns also tell us a great deal about the state of the lodges. Since 1717, almost 400 Masonic lodges have been formed in Wales and Monmouthshire. I shall be changing slides. Sir John Williams, the president of the National Library, and president of the National of the University of Aberstwith. Joseph Parry, the composer and professor who wrote Mavenwi, which maybe some of your uh listeners will be familiar with, famous Welsh uh hymn, and the chairman of the quarter sessions, and that's an interesting job. We'll come back to talking about that. Um, so as I said, those are my three key questions. That's where I've deposited the database, and I've told you about uh how it reflects the database reflects the story of a nation with all those different uh employment categories. And each of those employment categories has a chapter in the book. So if your particular interest is looking at um people who worked in engineering or in uh healthcare, you can go to that section and read what is contained for 170 years in the annual returns about people who are doctors, dentists, nurses, or whatever, if it's healthcare, or um people who worked in the railway industry uh at various levels uh and analyzes what's the level of seniority they had within their industry. Um you can one of the things that uh comes out of the study is that um in the very early days, uh back in the eight uh early eighteen hundreds, um lodges were quite small, of course. And uh typically uh a lodge in uh 18 uh uh I lost my my place in my notes. Uh sorry for a moment. Um right. Okay. Let me just go and look a bit. I've lost my place, so I'll I'll just go back to where I want to be. That's right. For many of the lodges that were making these returns, the 18th century, the 1700s, was an especially hard time. And of the 24 that were formed in Wales during the 1700s, only seven were still in existence in 1799 when the act was passed. And six of those seven survivors ceased to meet within 12 years of the law being enacted. Um, it's interesting to consider whether the act itself accelerated their closure, and that possibility or suspicion is strengthened when you consider that the total number of Welsh lodges lost during the following 157 years was only 15. So it looks very much as though the act actually had quite a negative effect uh upon lodges. Um and although it wasn't intended that the act should affect Masonic Lodges adversely, it nonetheless appears to have had that effect. Their demise may also have been influenced by publication of several hostile publications about Freemasonry in the late 1790s, which I think many of your listeners will be very familiar with. Uh Barrowell's Memoir pour se vir à l'histoire, and Robinson's uh Proofs of Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe. Both of those books had an enormous influence in the 1790s and beyond.

SPEAKER_00

And it still, and still are happening.

SPEAKER_02

And still they're not they've not gone away.

SPEAKER_00

The last episode, just FYI, was um, or the episode before last, I interviewed Joseph Wages talking about the Secret School of Wisdom and wherein he publishes the original Weissaupt and Caniga uh Illuminati papers. And that was the first time that anybody really had published any of the actual rituals of what the Illuminati were up to. So from Farewell and Robison's 200 years some odd, we're still talking about it, and it's still politically influential, especially when you consider uh how much uh conspiracism um and and and how effect how effective that's been in the with the paranoid style in American politics. Um you know that's that's interesting that there's a cross-section there. Anyway, I don't want to I don't want to slow your role. I want you to go back to your notes and keep an eye on your slides, and we'll we'll go back and talk about this later. But it's uh it's a fascinating intersect.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Now, one of the things that the returns also tell us um is the size of lodges, of course. Um that's that's an interesting slide, and there's a lot of information on that. But you can see the relative sizes of different employment groups uh that come out of these annual returns. It's really uh really interesting. I'll say a bit more about that later on. Um I was talking about the fact that there were only seven out of 24 survived the century, the first century, um, and how things changed. There we go, that's the one I want. Now, lodge sizes. The size of a lodge in 1808, as you can see, was only 18 members, which so it must have been a very colour. Cozy gathering, um, because obviously not all 18 would turn up. Um, and um it started to grow and it grew very fast, actually, uh 30 years later.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I don't imagine that that when did they start having their own buildings to meet in? Like wouldn't just wouldn't the size of the pub meeting rooms or the church basements. Right. Wouldn't that affect how many guys could join? Because if you can't get a seat, who wants to go stand for an hour at a lodge meeting?

SPEAKER_02

You're absolutely right, and I'll come on and talk about buildings in a moment, but you're right. In the 1840s, the oldest purpose-built Masonic Hall in Wales was was opened in 1848. So by then they're looking at 55 members. Yeah, and obviously, as you say, the pub wasn't big enough. So, well, let me come back to buildings because I really do that's a really important subject, and I want to treat that separately. But let's just follow the the way in which lodge numbers, the average size of a lodge, changed over time, and you see quite a um uh dramatic uh growth in that period.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But some lodges even grew to have, well, uh two over 200, and in one case, over 300 members, which in Britain is considered absolutely remarkable. I know in the United States they they still have lodges with 900 members, but but for Britain, two or three hundred was extraordinary.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I I I I think the number of big lodges is kind of overblown. There are big lodges, each jurisdiction has their own uh uh group of flagship lodges everybody wants to affiliate, right? Yeah, but that that doesn't mean they're initiating 20 guys at a time. It it's still all the all the work of Freemasonry is still uh at the village lodge size, I think, in North America. And now it's almost universally, I would say, less than 100 guys, probably less than 50.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. That that's the pattern in Britain as well. You know, that the yeah uh in fact I'd say even below for fifty fifty nowadays.

SPEAKER_00

But uh and I think Freemasonry works better. I think Freemasonry works better when you're all when you're all buds, then you then you're all friends, right?

SPEAKER_02

Well one of the things this uh statistics tells you is that we're going back to our roots. Yeah, we're going back to school lodges where people knew each other and uh everything molded new again. They were more of a harmony, perhaps.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that's there's there's a reason that human society s tends to organize into these smaller units, right? These small communities. There's a reason it's it's we as people are are better at that. It's hard to know a few hundred people. Really know them, right? Really know them.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. The poor old lodge secretary had to fill out a return with all those names, addresses, and occupations.

SPEAKER_00

By hand.

SPEAKER_02

By hand, uh every year. What a nice job.

SPEAKER_00

I wonder when we started paying our secretaries to do that, because we do now, but but for the longest time, I would imagine this was a this was a voluntary job, like a labor.

SPEAKER_02

It still is. Well, we don't pay our secretaries at all. These guys did it for love, and uh to do that every year.

SPEAKER_00

Like it it the paper was extremely dear until the 20th century, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, indeed. Let me uh oh, there's a sample of the kind of people that uh occupations that are uh recorded in these returns. It's a really uh wonderful, granular detail. Um, right, let me come back to that in a moment. Let me just say something about the social composition of lodges, uh, the information that we get out of the returns about that. Um, the clear pattern that appears in sharp focus, especially in the early documents, shows that the organization embraced men from a wide range of social backgrounds, but it was dominated by men of wealth and leaders of the local community. Um, the squire, the vicar, the uh the leading members, the mayor of the town. Um, but they were supplemented by a few middle-ranking men with clerical ability, back to what you were saying just now, who provided essential administrative skills required to be a good secretary, good treasurer, or a director of ceremonies. Plus, several men of lower uh social status who undertook other tasks, such as Tyler, Steward, and organist. The membership age profile is another area of much speculation that has been uh uh and what is clear from these returns is that it was an organization composed principally of men past middle age, uh, principally, not inclusively, but principally, uh, throughout that 170 years. Uh, a certain amount of wealth has always been a necessity for membership because of the costs involved. Uh, and it the that inevitably skewed the age profile towards older men. Um, Freemasonry throughout its history seems to have been a hobby that had an especially strong attraction for men as they approached or entered retirement. The word retired as occupation, for example, occurs in the annual returns in well over 11,000 of the uh lines of information. Now you ask me about meeting places. Uh uh an overview um of the kind of venues that we use for meetings of Masonic lodges is certainly one of the other aspects that emerges from the annual returns. These documents reveal that the most common meeting place for lodges in Wales, especially in uh in the early years, was on after the early years rather, was on Masonic premises. Uh the total number of alternative venues which they listed was just 44. Half of them were hotels, uh uh which includes pubs and taverns and inns and things that go by those sort of terms. A quarter was civic halls, civic buildings, the town hall, uh civic chambers, uh, and the last and the last quarter was principally of churches uh and uh uh miscellaneous venues. They included sort of um I mentioned the town hall, uh, but also uh the Calvaria Chapel in Bargoid and the Baptist Chapel School in Wrexham. Um an assortment of Did you have a slide for that?

SPEAKER_00

I thought I saw a slide slide slide by.

SPEAKER_02

You you're so right. Thank you for keeping my mind on the slides as well. There you go.

SPEAKER_00

Well you're doing all the heavy lifting. I'm just watching.

SPEAKER_02

So there you are, that's what I've just said, more or less. Um it shows that in the early years all those other places uh were dominant, and then gradually, because of accommodation reasons, because of privacy reasons, for various factors, there was a transition to having Masonic premises. And of course, in the early days, Masons didn't have enough money probably uh to put up a building straight away. It was something they had to save for over a number of years and gradually got had the resources to uh to put up their own building and be more uh um private, really.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So that's that one I'll come back to in a second.

SPEAKER_00

Um do you do you think do you do you think that I'm gonna derail you again? Was it did did did we feel the need for secrecy after do you think after um Barewell and Robeson? Do you do you do you think we were worried about that we became worried about Cowan's not not people not people eavesdropping because of course all of our secrets secrets were published ten minutes after we decided what they were, but more about like people who maybe meant us harm or religious fanatics that were that that thought we were up to something no good in there? Like it's is that why because the Tyler used to be like a hired guard, right, when we met in a pub, be a off-duty cop or somebody else that could be trusted to keep everybody. Maybe just the the burly guy who kept the peace at the pub. Maybe he's the guy that sits in a chair outside the door and says, uh, you know, you you gotta know somebody to get in this room. Did did did the need for secrecy drive us to build our own buildings? In that maybe you've got no evidence, maybe that's just your opinion.

SPEAKER_02

I wonder how that's no, there it's a really valid point. Um the the m attitude of uh the of United Grand Lodge of England, in fact, the the English and Welsh, the English Grand Lodges, their attitude towards privacy and secrecy has gone in waves, it's gone up and down at different periods. At certain periods they were very uh trying to attract as much publicity as they could. Uh certainly, um at the time that this piece of legislation came into force, uh they uh definitely went into retreat. They didn't want to be attracting too much notice. Um, and I I'll have to explain why the law came into existence now. Uh I I wrote another book, um several other books, but one in particular called Freemasonry in the Press. Uh and it deals with the Masonic changing attitudes of the Grand Lodges towards publicity. And uh so there were uh a lot of detail in there. Uh uh and you find it goes in waves. Uh there's periods where they're very keen to attract publicity. So in the 17 um from 1717 up until the middle of the seven or early 1730s, they were actually having public processions, as you know, through the streets of London and other places, courting publicity, attracting new members, they thought. And then we had these um uh exposures, uh, people betraying Masonic secrets and trying to uh uh make claim uh fraudulent claims on Masonic charity. Uh and Grand Lodge realized that it needed to um change a lot of things, including its attitude towards publicity, um, and decided to uh go back into its uh into the shades. But then later in the century, we have this piece of legislation that was enacted in the 1790s, um, at a time when Britain was um being threatened both by insurrection within Britain and by invasion by the French during the Napoleonic Wars. And there was a great deal of um disturbance, and the the people that were uh opposed to the um government system that Britain had in the 1790s for themselves into secret societies. Um they uh uh administered an oath of secrecy upon new members because they didn't want to be uh penetrated, infiltrated by uh uh government agents and uh identified and arrested and all the rest of it. Um and so uh hence the government brought in lots of repressive legislation in the 1790s during this period of uh uh conspiracy and uh threat of invasion. Um one of the pieces of legislation was the Unlawful Societies Act, which uh made it illegal to belong to any society that imposed an oath of secrecy upon its members. So for Freemasonry, that of course was a disaster, would have been a disaster. Um the Freemasons managed to get an interview with the Prime Minister and they negotiated an exemption from the legislation. So in 1799, when the act came into force, um, all those other targeted uh organizations, the United Irishmen, the United Scotsmen, the United Britons, the London Corresponding Society, all became outlawed and uh were persecuted. Not the Freemasons. They were the only organization that gained an exemption. And the condition of them getting an exemption was that they would make a return every year to the courts, listing their members where they lived and what they did for a living. Uh, and that's where we are now the beneficiaries of that uh onerous task that the Lodge Secretaries had imposed upon them as their um permission to exist, basically. Right. So that was a a period when Freemasonry and Robison's book and Barrowell's book were published, uh, and there was every instinct in the uh Masonic Grand Lodges to withdraw from the public gaze to not attract publicity. But later, in the middle of the following, in the 1800s, there was a change. And when the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII, became the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1874, um, and of all the other Masonic orders in Britain, uh then publicity became something highly desirable again because they could say, Look, here is the uh future, is the heir to the throne, he's the grandmaster, we're a safe, trustworthy organization, and uh the anyone who wants to be highly regarded in society uh should think about joining Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_00

And so here we are, the here we are as establishment. Back in the back in the limelight. How could we be anti-establishment when the king is in charge?

SPEAKER_02

That is exactly it. That's the that and that actually was the clinching argument uh uh back in 1799 as to why Freemasons should be exempted from the law because uh all the king's six of the king's sons were leading Freemasons, uh, various members of parliament, government ministers, uh aristocrats, all the people that would lose their uh power and authority if there was a revolution were members uh of of uh the upper ranks of Freemasonry. So they couldn't possibly be a revolutionary organization, could they? Right. Well, that's uh that's the argument anyway.

SPEAKER_00

Um at the same time, and it's at the same time in France and and and in North America, you know, there's there's the the the flip side is also true, right? It it it's Freemasonry is a stabilizing force, not necessarily pro-establishment. Let's just no no stabilizing stabilizing uh uh more more pro-stability than pro-establishment, anyway. Uh one could argue. So certainly, certainly with all the let's get back to your slides.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, okay, all right. Um, but just to finish the talk about publicity and um after the uh after 1900, Freemasonry again started to retreat uh a little bit, and then a man called Alfred Robbins became the president of the um Board of General Purposes in UGLE uh with the endorsement of the programme master, Lord Ampt Hill, and uh they rolled out a period of 20 odd years of maximum publicity for Freemasonry. They were sending press releases to the media telling them about every lodge's uh achievements and uh actively seeking publicity. In the 1930s, uh, when there was so much repression of Freemasonry, particularly in fascist countries in Europe, uh, uh and also um in communist countries, uh it Grand Lodge decided that it was a good time to lower the profile again uh and not seek publicity. And that continued right the way through to the 1980s and 90s, uh, when we bore the consequences of that retreat from the public sphere and all sorts of um fantastic um accusations were laid at our doorstep. Um, and it was decided the time had come again to start communicating with people in a much more uh active and open way and seek publicity to get understanding. So it's in ask your question, publicity has been something that sometimes was pop was in favor and sometimes wasn't, and it went up and down like a wave.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, of course. And we're seeing we're seeing that back and forth all over the place, jurisdictionally and uh with different changes in leadership and changes in needs, and with the membership crisis and every other crisis and the re-rise of fascism, all these things.

SPEAKER_02

Let me try and summarize where what we've covered then. So these annual returns show us lots of things. They tell us about the growth of uh of lodges in terms of numbers, numbers of lodges, in terms of average sizes of lodges. Uh uh it illustrates the need for larger premises as time went by. Uh, it talks about the age, reveals the age profile of the membership. It sh highlights the fact that the leaders of society were very prominent members and dominant members of Freemasonry for a very long time. Uh, it highlights people had in very long service in Freemasonry, very long periods of membership. And and it is interesting that even though they moved away from their lodges in many cases, huge distances across the world, they retained their lodge membership and they retained it for very long periods, um, because it was clearly something important to them. And it was important to them for several reasons, really. One of which was um it uh gave them particularly uh it notices amongst the seafarers and the colonists, uh, that it was a way of um getting established quickly in a new community, in a new society. Wherever they went, Freemasonry was a link, uh, and it's illustrated in the returns. As is the fact that so many people joined more than one lodge. Their names pop up in lots of the returns, and you can see how people maintained multiple memberships uh and for long periods. Um, and it reflects also the economic and social life of the country in which they lived. So you see certain occupations start to disappear from the annual returns and be replaced by more modern equivalents. So the saddle makers and the uh uh people that um produced uh harnesses and so on transition to become makers of uh suitcases and sports equipment. Um you see people who used to be uh hostlers and horse farriers and the like transitioning towards being bicycle and motorcar uh uh uh distributors. And in many other ways, you the you see the economic and social changes in society reflected in these annual returns, the growth of the public sector, health, and local government. Of great use, I think, to people who are going to write a lodge history, yeah, family history, or or anything of that kind. There you are, I've got to the beginning again. Um, I think I've probably laboured the point in lots of ways, but I think you can see that these documents, which have not been explored, um can provide substantial new information and corroborate things we we understood and thought we knew, but here's the statistical living proof of it.

SPEAKER_00

Now, um, yeah, this is great.

SPEAKER_02

Do you want to stop sharing and we can yeah, okay, let's stop sharing for a minute.

SPEAKER_00

Uh unless you have other unless you have other images or something you want to do.

SPEAKER_02

Uh there we go. Screen sharing story.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, um that's a fascinating overview uh of what's in the book. And um, you know, I read the book description. I don't have the book yet. I've ordered copies, they'll be here. Uh I have a table at our grand communication in a couple of weeks. And I I have piles of stuff here from Lewis Masonic. And so I'm always trying to get ahead of when stuff comes out, but it they they aren't always as as uh ahead of things as I want to be. So uh because I want to read it before I want to read the book before I interview the the writer. So I'll have you back once I'm finished reading it. Oh I don't get it we could do a much more thorough process um and and I can give you some critical feedback for what it's worth from uh from a distant colonial to a to to a to a British Freemason and see what you think.

SPEAKER_02

Now they stopped they stopped they stopped doing these manual annual returns to the court when 67 is that when the yeah 1967 that the law was revoked it was considered to be too invasive no it it you see it ceased to be it it it certainly was cumbersome uh for the lodge secretaries um it was considered to be uh an anachronism uh uh uh very early in the 19th century people said well why are you producing all these annual returns we don't what do we do with them you know we we don't care about this why are we important things to do yeah but parliament was too busy with other uh important more pressing things to reveal it revoke it so it stayed on the statute book in spite of a number of attempts over the 170 years to get rid of it but it it they ran out of time at each uh attempt until 1967 when there was a government in Britain that said there's a whole lot of these old laws that really uh uh uh you know there was a historical reason for them to exist but they're no longer relevant to today's age they're of no use to us let's get rid of them and so it was revoked along with a lot of other laws in the 1960s now i i imagine there's a reason you're publishing this work now it it isn't about the historical interests it's because everything old is new again like we're talking about and Freemasonry as a secret organization is being discussed politically again do you do you want to do you want to talk a little bit about that about what's going on right now do you do you have strong opinions?

SPEAKER_00

Bear in mind we could we could edit this if you brush up against something you find embarrassing or you're worried about what you say just speak freely.

SPEAKER_02

Well the timing of it is not significant uh it is it just so happens that you're it it it's just that I've been working on this for 10 years it took me a long time to get through uh and really at various stages in the course of that study I thought to myself I'm not going to be alive to see this finished um because it was such an immense task you know the 200 000 lines to be transcribed uh and it was thanks in a sense to the COVID epidemic when we were locked down in Britain for long periods that I suddenly found I had a lot of spare time on my hands and I was able to do a lot of catching up and make real progress with this study. But it's been going on for 10 years and I finally managed to get to the point where I've copied out the contents of all the uh um annual returns I've managed to get them placed with uh some libraries uh including an online facility and uh I got the time to write an analysis which is the book uh about what they contain uh and having got there I wasn't gonna hang around for uh any longer to do with my life not not the world around me do you do you have anything to say about uh about what's what's going on currently that that there's there's a there's a further discussion in the public milieu that hey uh these guys need to be known like their their their information needs to be public as a matter of public record especially people in law enforcement or the judiciary or any of that is there do you have strong opinions about that um not not the what I would call strong opinions but I do have opinions and uh I I think that you know I my honest opinion is that this will never go away um that we will always find ourselves bumping into these conspiracy theory people um because they refuse to listen or or read the facts yeah they don't care about facts don't don't cloud facts it's not as exciting it's not as interesting it's not as much fun um it's in the way of a good degree they they'll just carry on their own sweet way yeah well it it it it you may not know this but we had a conspiracy theorist and somebody mentally ill burn to the ground uh the lodge I was raised in and then two other building one building was gutted another building was just damaged um and we're still dealing with the repercussions of that there was a Grand Lodge emergent meeting last night uh to resolve an issue of a lodge charter because of some issues around the particular building that was burnt down and uh the brethren involved and that's the first time well the fourth time since we were formed in 1860 something uh Grand Lodge of British Columbia Yukon.

SPEAKER_00

So there's still echoes of this like one person, one one crazy, one lone crazy uh but when it happened we were concerned because of course this was during COVID and there was all sorts of new and scary rhetoric that was based on old scary rhetoric and there was new methods to promulgate it with social media. Again there's no gatekeeper on social media right so the people who want to promulgate this stuff and mean us harm it it's just open season. In fact it when you when you look at what's going on globally there's there's a profit motive uh due to the change in technology right to promulgate these ideas. And so one can combat it only so much uh but it's it's up to each and every one of us when we encounter it to be like um just call it out you know you you're crazy. But part of the problem with that is it further isolates people that are already isolating themselves and that just feeds further into it. So I'm kind of mystified as to what we do now. And and one probably my most frequent guest uh brother Wes Regan uh who was involved in public health during the during the pandemic and has studied conspiracies uh at a university level he's getting a uh uh he's uh publishing a doctoral thesis I I believe in this area of study with uh with uh conspiracism and conspirituality and and how it's affecting public health yeah um but because we've had repercussions here we well all Freemasons everywhere but the Freemasons some Freemasons in this jurisdiction in particular are watching what's going on in Britain because around the world at some point the the Freemasons had so many members that we were noticeable. And now we're around error right in the in the public sphere but we still have an outsized place in the political discourse especially now.

SPEAKER_02

And it and it's talking about it and seeing how different jurisdictions and different uh governments are dealing with it uh it's a it's a particular interest and uh it's it's gonna be one of those uh may you live in interesting times sorts of things where we need to learn the lessons of history about how to survive um and and what we're what we're gonna do you know um well I think my my motives for um write doing this study and writing this book are really for our own benefit principally so that we can understand and know more as Masons about the kind of a membership we had and what happened to our lodgers um the secondary um uh part of this is to inform the wider public because I think it's important to inform people it misunderstanding usually uh flourishes when there is a lack of information uh when imaginations are get fired up and run away um so it's important to provide reliable solid information and good communication and uh is it is it yeah no I I agree and um yeah uh sorry I interrupted you there. I um yeah I I am a believer in in in this greater openness that um has been ushered in in the last 30 years. Uh I think it's it's for our own good. It hasn't swept away the conspiracists they are still there and they will always be there in my view um in with varying strengths uh but I think the more we can inform the general public the the more likelihood is that more people will make a balanced uh assessment of it and see the conspiracists for what they are really sure uh is there is is there further interest in taking this further in building a bigger project or raising funding to get more items scanned or to engage with say a software engineer to to transcribe this stuff using newer tools I hope to do that I hope so and that's one of the aims that I have in publicizing this book and trying to encourage other people uh to take an interest in this hidden treasure which I've only sh um exposed a small part of it um so I'm hoping that other groups of Masons provinces whoever especially as you say now that technology is uh enabling so much uh especially artificial intelligence which uh you know when I started this 10 years ago you know it was uh well it was in a different technological age really you know that it was much much more of a uh a labor intensive human uh production but uh I hope that they will and that's my my wish really I I I read I was turned on to an academic book some time ago by brother Wes and then Joseph Way just brought it up as part of his references and I read it and I can't remember what it's called something about the tower.

SPEAKER_00

Anyway I'll I'll put it in the show notes. And this academic argues that network effects between people who knew each other were much more influential um historically than people really realize and we had no way to study that and until recently when tools were developed to compare these lists of people who were members of this or that. And apparently uh in it it's commonplace on the continent there's a number of university systems where they feed these big databases together and they come up with these connections that were largely unknown before and I I I I would be interested to see what would come of your of all of this be because you've already pointed it out just looking at it with a human eye on paper and then in a in a in a in a on a spreadsheet what would a machine make make of that making connections with people much faster um I I I think that would be fascinating. Again Joseph Wages in his uh recent book about Etienne Moran uh talks about how the network was more influential than anything he did it was the network he was involved in that made such a huge difference to the craft and and even the establishment of the Royal Arch or um uh Scottish right and it's uh this book Etienne Moran I don't know if you've seen it anyway he he goes on at some length and uh I I think uh you'll see in the next few years quite a bit more uncovered with this because it's it's a new area of study and people are talking about it more I'm not sure if you're familiar with any of this.

SPEAKER_02

No I'm not I'm not really but it sounds really interesting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah that um the historical study of of of networks of people is like a huge and growing area of study right now right now anyway um thanks thanks for thanks for doing that for us at I did have some other questions for you and I gotta switch gears I'm gonna ask those questions uh you are for you are free Mason yeah did how did how did you get involved in the craft because right it it's not like people just inherit being in the craft right we gotta you gotta join and as you've pointed out people get passionate about it and they stick around why why did you join and why did you stick I um okay that's an interesting question.

SPEAKER_02

Feel free to get as personal as you want. Okay I was raised as a Roman Catholic and the Roman Catholic uh religion's attitude towards Freemasonry historically has been pretty negative really indeed ask ask farewell he would tell you and um so when I was 21 my father uh invited me to become a Freemason because he was a Freemason you say and I refused uh because I'd been fed an awful lot of information from the church about the strange things that Masons do. And six years later I realized that actually I made a mistake and I went to my father and I said actually I would like to become a Mason because you know I I've looked at what's been said against it and I looked at what's been said in its favour uh and on balance I think uh it's something I'd like to be involved in. Uh and so luckily he was just about to become the master of his lodge and so I was his candidate uh in his year and uh it's a kind of an inheritance but it was an inheritance with uh a bit of uh thought on my part be uh before I took the plunge yeah and and which lodge which lodge did you join?

SPEAKER_00

Are they still around?

SPEAKER_02

I joined a London lodge called Spencer Park. It was one of those many lodges that were formed after the Second World War when there was a huge uh upsurge in consecrating new lodges people coming out of the armed forces looking for comradeship that they'd enjoyed in the military to continue in civilian life and uh it um it uh it was my mother lodge interesting by the way one of the things I didn't mention and Spencer Park was a good example of it there were a lot of shopkeepers in uh Spencer Park Lodge um and the statistics uh uh from these annual returns highlight the fact I don't know why but shopkeepers and merchants were the biggest social group in Freemasonry over 170 years right across the whole of Wales probably all across England probably across the world but for some reason shopkeepers were really attracted to Freemasonry that's one of the uh uh intriguing things that comes out of this I grew up in retail my family wasn't involved in the craft but I joined it and um I I it's it's kind of like a middle class I guess it's a middle class thing to have a little extra time and a little extra money and to want to develop yourself.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah and and that's a new experience in human history right the idea that there's so many middle class and and it I get the perception in in the UK that the society is a bit more class stratified than it is here in North America.

SPEAKER_02

But um but I would imagine you you with sh with shopkeepers or you know small manufacturers or guys that own some sort of shop that makes something or resells something uh that that would be the biggest group of people during the industrial revolution that's right I mean there are lots of factors at work here one is networking of course and um and shopkeepers and merchants you know they like to find customers and you know widen their circle of acquaintances um so did you they're also did you find sorry they're also a good source of candidates because they're in contact with a lot of members of the public. Sure sure and then everybody knows them right they want to get known and and being uh it tends to be people that are outgoing I would say people who open a shop want to interact with the general public that's why they're doing that gig right if you if you have the largest to be able to make that and that's a very middle class thing to to take that chance to open a shop right and then succeed yeah yeah yeah and they're good communicators and they've got skill sets and they got a little money uh I I just think they're an ideal that so when you joined your lodge was that was that who was in there was mostly like there were a lot of shopkeepers in there yeah local middle class people just regular old folks we we used to meet on a Monday now um Monday was a day when most shops were closed at that time in history um so it was a good day for shopkeepers to have a lodge meeting on Mondays.

SPEAKER_00

And did you meet in the afternoon or did you meet in the evening or how did that go?

SPEAKER_02

Afternoon mid afternoon usually about three o'clock daylight lunch that's really rare here in North America oh and it went on for a long time you know it went you didn't get home until 11 o'clock at night. Yes so it was a long session yes you'd you'd meet at three you'd probably take a day for for people who weren't shopkeepers and had had to shut the premises that day you have to take a half a day or a whole day off work um to go to a lodge meeting so you'd uh get there before three o'clock obviously um and you'd do a degree ceremony they'd call off then they do another degree ceremony then uh they'd have a break for drinks and then they'd go for a meal and some of the speeches after the meal went on for quite a long time wow and and the like a formalized festive board with speeches and everything or would that would that be very formalized very formal festive board with um speech toasts and responses some of which were longer than others is all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00

Yes yes I've experienced my my my lodge had an English founder and in the early part of the 20th century and it's not uncommon around here for lodges to have a formal festive board but our festive board is can be exceedingly formal and um we like it that way and and we think that part of that's a huge part of the lodge experience. Now we meet once sometimes twice a month most often twice a month and do visits how how often did your mother lodge meet? Oh was it in English fashion like six times a year or was it every month or not even that frequent it was four times a year.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah um yeah there were lodges that met six times a year some met 12 times a year. Yes yes but but but mostly lodges were for a year and where did you were you meeting at great great queen street or somewhere else in great queen street that would have made an impression what a beautiful building it was you know it was all part of the Masonic experience you go to this magnificent building you go next door for dinner in the Connort rooms which is a splendid was a splendid uh dining venue uh and it would be quite expensive but you get you know uh uh something to remember um it'd be a good day out that's my lodge's namesake the Duke of Connot oh is it right yes yeah the uh uh Luther Wattsdoney who founded us was a big fan and of course he was the governor general of Canada yes indeed the Duke himself when we were founded so it's lots of lots of connections and before the building burnt down we had some personal artifacts of the the Duke himself uh right but of course they were lost in the fire uh he was the favorite son of Queen Victoria and uh he was the long he held the record as the longest running grandmaster of United Grand Lords he was grandmaster for 39 years um and a and a statesman of some renown in the postcolonial period he was not only in Canada so important and yet largely forgotten but yes indeed that's how English is that to just serve and just drift into history there's a a a wonderful book about his life written uh by um I'll get the name in a second it's up there somewhere um and uh there we are noble frankland it's called Witness of a century and it's the life of the Duke of Conworth and it's really interesting goes into great detail at the many facets of his life and you know the one thing that they miss out is his Freemasonry. There's hardly a breadth of mention of Freemasonry in the whole of it and yet he held the record for the longest serving grandmaster uh up until his retirement that I hate To add that the current Grandmaster, um the Duke of Kent, of course, has exceeded that record, but up until you know then 39 years was a terrific achievement of well, and at a time when he like the Duke the Duke of Kent is largely hands-off.

SPEAKER_00

No disrespect, of course. Uh that the Grandmaster of Freemasons, UGLE, uh, but uh the Duke of Connaught was involved and kept hours at his office at Great Great Queen Street and would in would interact. Like he was uh he was an important part of the of the machinations of the craft during his life, uh, in a way that uh the current Grandmaster isn't nearly as involved, right? And that's for obvious reasons, it's just the nature of the change in society.

SPEAKER_02

I think so. Yeah, he was very active and he attended Grand Lodge and presided over lots of Masonic meetings and had a lot to say about defending masonry.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um so you you joined your lodge, you took your degree ceremonies. What it how how did that affect you? Um have you much spent much time considering that?

SPEAKER_02

Well, uh being an undergraduate was a wonderful experience. One of the best experiences of my life, really. Uh, had a very long-lasting, still has uh impression. Uh and I thoroughly enjoyed that episode in my life. When I got to the end of my um got my bachelor of degree, uh, I wanted to stay on at university and do um postgraduate research, but um unfortunately uh I had to go to work and it it uh yeah, so I that had to give up that dream. Um so I went and worked for um 50 years, uh, and then when I reached retirement, um I went back to university and I did a doctorate. Uh so I was the oldest student uh registering it uh when I registered, and uh I did a degree in the history of Freemasonry because it united all my interests, really. And uh I studied um the relationship between Freemasonry and the media uh because I'd worked in the media all my working life, and uh I was intrigued as to why Freemasonry had such a poor public image in the media when I knew it to be one of the what most wonderful organizations ever created, you know, and uh I couldn't understand this mismatch, and so I went and studied it as a prof as a student, full-time student again.

SPEAKER_00

And did you come up with any recommendations for the rest of us?

SPEAKER_02

Well, uh it the main one is this one I alluded to earlier about being as open as you uh can and try and make sure people have a much better and informed understanding about masonry because it was in the dark withdrawal periods that we suffered most, yes, and uh you know it was responsible for a lot of the darkness as well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, I at the it ignorance uh needs to be shown the light, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. The brilliant understanding is communication, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And and that's you and I are doing that right now across the ocean. It's fascinating how these tools have changed what we do and what we can do. Um I will I didn't warn you I'd ask this question. So you so you stuck you stuck around in Freemasonry. What what what do you think kept you sticking? Do you still go to that same lodge or have you retired somewhere to the countryside?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, sadly, that lodge was how English would that be? That's that lodge was erased, sadly. Lack of members. Uh the membership did diminished uh in time and eventually it had to surrender its warrant. So don't go to that one. I go to other lodges now. I've joined. Um, the thing that's kept me interested and in Freemasonry is the fact that there's always something new to learn. Um, there are so many, as you know, so many levels of interest in Freemasonry. I like the history of Freemasonry, I like the morality, the social aspects, um, the charitable work. There's always something new to learn in Freemasonry. I've been a member now for 52 years, uh, and I'm still finding new things about Masonry, uh, and I've studied it quite extensively. And and there are still things coming to light, and uh it's just an inexhaustible uh source of enjoyment and information.

SPEAKER_00

That's so exciting to hear. Yeah, and you're still active in your lodge? Oh, yes, yes. I'm um do you have parts and pieces that you're that are your favorite?

SPEAKER_02

Like we all have uh I'm the master at the moment of three different lodges in three different orders. So I've got a lot of ri ritual to uh try and memorize and w uh deliver. Um and I'm still enjoying uh learning new things and delivering them and uh playing a really active part. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, congratulations, and I hope uh it's one of those things. Um I heard a uh a woman who's talking about deconstructing religion on another podcast, and she was talking about how to find the benefits of religion without participating in a religion, it's extremely difficult. And it's one of the things that men who join Freemasonry get without even thinking about it. Yes. For many of us more more nights a month than you would want. Your partner might look at you askance again, like it's that'll be four times this week. Where are you? And I'm gonna be district deputy grandmaster of district 17 here. Uh, and that's it's I I will supervise only six lodges, you know, but it's um it's a it's a big job. There's a lot to do. And it again, I've my partner's prepared, right? We've been preparing for this until I get installed in a few weeks. Um I'm gonna ask you this question, I'm gonna give it a bit of a gap here so I can edit this because it would be uh it it's untoward and I didn't warn you. I I always want to ask brethren off the record about their spiritual pursuits because one of the accusations, Barwell, Robison, and the modern anti-Masonic movement is that oh, you guys are trying to replace the church. How has the craft affected your sp your spiritual life? You were you were a practicing Catholic, I imagine, when you joined? How has that changed for you? And how does your spiritual life look now?

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Um, I wasn't a practicing Catholic when I joined, I had been a practicing Catholic for uh for 25 years before I joined, but uh by the time I joined, I was no longer, I was a lapsed Catholic. Um, but I've remained a very uh strict uh serious Christian ever since. And uh I play uh uh a very active part in my local church. In fact, um I'm what's called the chairman of the Ministry Area Council. So we're I'm we're responsible for 21 churches uh across a big area of Wales. Um and uh and and I think it's time well spent, you know, it's it's an important activity, and uh my religion is uh as strong as it was when I first learnt my catechism as a child. Nice and so in a different way. It's it's yeah, of course. And uh it is underpinned by Freemasonry as well.

SPEAKER_00

Good for good for you. And uh and you're finding it fulfilling because you're still involved.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I am. I'm um Eucharistic assistant and um uh a sidesman and a reader at church, and I try and go every week, uh, and it's just an essential part of my life, really.

SPEAKER_00

So so those that would point at Freemasonry as an enemy of the church and and good society, uh what would you have to say to to people like that? Not that they're gonna listen, but what what would you have to say isn't Freemasonry part part of part of spiritual development? Like it doesn't it help a man develop spiritually? I think it does.

SPEAKER_02

They're completely wrong in their perception, really. And um Freemasonry reinforces my religious beliefs and uh it gives me moments to think about morality and about relationship with the uh uh eternal and um it uh it is a focus for me.

SPEAKER_00

Good for you.

SPEAKER_02

It's not an alternative. It's not an alternative.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I'm I'm happy to for for some men for some men that were never raised in a church but feel drawn to it and have an issue with the with with with churches or or or spiritual authority. I mean Freemasonry does provide an an excellent starting point, I think. But um I I'm I'm just happy that people are interested in a spiritual pursuit at all, because it's in a secularizing world, right? It it seems people are less and less interested. I'm not interested what a man's faith is. I'm interested that it that a man has a relationship with deity at all.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. I think um the the way to look at it is that Freemasonry and religion are partners in trying to make men in the modern world give some thought and some time to thinking about their relationship with uh God and about moral behavior and and those kinds of and standards, really.

SPEAKER_00

That's an excellent comment. That's amazing, your take on that. And I'm with your permission, I'm gonna put that out there on the podcast, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_02

No, please do.

SPEAKER_00

Because uh some people are cagey about that stuff, and and uh I get why, you know, especially when you're talking about Freemasonry in in in a Freemasonic uh environment. But nothing you've said, I think, would would tread on our landmark at all.

SPEAKER_02

No, no.

SPEAKER_00

Everything that you say is completely within the bounds of the square and compasses. Yeah, you know, maybe more the compasses than the square.

SPEAKER_02

Unfortunately, an awful lot of people lead their lives without any thoughts about God or morality or uh decent behavior. Um Freemasonry is one of those things that makes them uh give some thought to that.

SPEAKER_00

Slow down and take a look at that. It's it holds up uh I I'll I'll say this uh and and this is I'm just borrowing this from somebody else, but it holds a mirror up to the candidate.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_00

It's a very good point. If people wanted to see you speak about this book, are you doing are you doing any further speaking or speaking engagements for the book launch at all?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I've got a busy year ahead of me. I've got um uh so far 18 invitations to go and talk to um in store masters lodges all over Britain and uh that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna I'm gonna get you an invite to speak by Zoom to a lodge. Um, but but we would have to find a time that works because of course when we're having lodge meetings here, it's like four in the morning there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02

We'll think about that.

SPEAKER_00

I will be at QC uh next spring, I think, for the May meeting. So I will make arrangements. I I've got so many people to meet, but if you're around or you're out speaking, I will make uh every effort to come and see what you're doing and where you're talking, or at least meet you in person. Is there a place where the general public could meet you to get you to sign a book? Are you going to be doing any book signings anywhere?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, all of those 18 places.

SPEAKER_00

And uh members of the members of the public, they wouldn't be lodge meetings necessarily.

SPEAKER_02

No, I've been doing them in Letchworth, which is a shop in Freemasons Hall in London. Uh any member of the public can walk in there and buy a book. And uh when I was in there, I was signing books for people.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. Okay, uh yeah, get me those dates and uh I will uh somehow get them posted in the either in the show notes or on the website and make sure people know where to go get a book. Uh, because I think this is uh our print culture is important, and what you're talking about is so based on a print culture in several ways. I fascinating, fascinating. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, thanks for listening today.

SPEAKER_00

You could support the show by liking, sharing, and subscribing on your favorite podcast indicators. Even more helpful, leave us a review. We are looking to create a directory of Freemasonic events and publications. If you are aware of something coming up, please let me know by email. In the meantime, check out the Masonic Conference's website at Masonic Conferences.com. Exotyricism and Freemasonry Conference will be held on Saturday, September 19th. Our female speaker will be on Lotoket, author of the Terror Architect, Brother Pythaker, and Brother Doug Russell will also be in attendance. Get your tickets in advance by RSPP to exotyricmasonry at female.com. Also, check out our newly relaunched website at Esoteric Masonry.com. For other events, check out our calendar at MysticPie.com and don't forget to sign up for our newsletter while you are there. Graphics and web hosting are by Arctic Creative. A special thanks to organists for our theme music. Happy to meet story to part. And happy to meet again.