The Mystic Tye

“Four Freemasonic Leaders, One Epic Panel” Grand Masonic Day 2026 w Wages, de Hoyos, McCune and Regan

• Troy Spreeuw • Episode 40

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The final recording from Grand Masonic Day 2026 brings together four distinguished brothers for a panel discussion moderated by Bro. Wes Regan. Joining the conversation are Bro. Josef Wages, Bro. Arturo de Hoyos and Bro. Zane McCune

The panel opens with the state of Masonic research. Bro. de Hoyos recounts his twenty-year quest to reverse-engineer Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma, tracing its unattributed sources across libraries throughout the United States. Bro. Wages describes their joint archival photography expeditions across Europe, capturing tens of thousands of images from collections that even local archivists had never fully explored. Both scholars reflect on their mentor-mentee relationship and the chronic underutilization of Masonic libraries and archives worldwide.

The conversation shifts to ritual. Bro. de Hoyos compares Freemasonry to an onion, each layer a product of time, culture, and the brethren who practiced it. The panel examines how degree systems evolved, why the York Rite and Scottish Rite survived while hundreds of other systems were consigned to archives, and whether there is room for new ritual innovation in the craft today.

Technology and artificial intelligence in the lodge draw spirited responses from every panelist. Virtual degree conferrals, AI-generated ritual set to music, and the merits of memorization versus reading from a cipher all come under scrutiny. The panel lands firmly on the value of in-person, sensory, participatory experience, while leaving room for technology as a tool for education and outreach.

Audience members contribute questions on lodge culture, seeker processes, the use of Zoom and conferencing tools for brethren who can no longer attend in person, and whether memorization is essential or merely one path among many.

Please forgive the occasional audio issues and edits as this was recorded at a live event.

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

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



SPEAKER_10

Welcome to The Mystic Tide. A podcast for free making. I am your host. You can find us online at Mystikttie.com. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash mystictie. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at Troy at Mystictie.com. This is the final recording captured at Grammy Sonic Day 2026. Featuring Brother Joseph Wages, Arturo De Hoyos, Dane McCune, and West Regan, as well as questions from the audience. Please forgive the occasional audio issues and edits, as this was recorded at a live event.

SPEAKER_03

So I'd like to start the panel discussion by going back to earlier this morning when both of you, Joseph and Arturo, jointly presented on research. And I'm going to preface this by just saying that I myself, I'm I'm a PhD candidate at UBC. I've taught at the college level, and uh we're seeing some concerning things around how people get information today about various topics, how students today are engaging with technology, including just the internet in general, just thinking that research can be done through Google, or uh even more concerningly, just turning to AI to do research. I worry that we need to be doing more to cultivate our ability to undertake Masonic research and to use our own archives and museums and libraries. We have a beautiful one here in this building. I fear that it is chronically underutilized. You have an interesting story that I don't think we've heard because, from my understanding, you have a bit of a mentor-mentee relationship. I'd love to hear about how you two met and forged that relationship as researchers and what you think we ought to be doing to cultivate and support good researching practices in the craft with this younger generation of Masons that are joining.

SPEAKER_02

Why did I draw the short straw? Well, so how did we meet? Um, I think we were I was working on the Illuminati books and I was sending stuff to art to kind of check over and look through uh what we were doing on that one. And then, you know, one good thing leads to another. Um, his uh Jamaica manuscript book came out the same year as my Secret School of Wisdom book. And even though it was my first book, I liked his book better, to be honest. But that's okay. Um, but uh one some of the things I think that we could do, um, one, we've got all kinds of primary sources at our access, and hardly anyone uses them. Uh in a lot, it a lot of the archival work because we like to digitize like archives, especially the rarities, and we like to travel to places to do it. Like we'll give a talk someplace and we'll go there. You'd be surprised how many people, like even in these countries, they never they never visit the archive. Then nobody really knows. And even the archivist, they're sitting on collections, they've never explored themselves. And so it's like a chronically underutilized resource. With respect to like uh writing papers and research, I was talking to my brother about this. It seems that with all the computers and stuff that they're teaching in school right now, that they're not really getting any kind of training as far as like handwriting goes. So they're transitioning from print immediately to keyboard. And so you we stand the risk of losing the ability to read cursive at all, or even to write with it. And the other thought is that when you're writing and stuff like that, there's a mechanical process that goes from hand to brain for moving your thoughts and putting them on pages, and you're you're organizing all these things. Without doing that, it makes it really hard. So I think some of the things that we could do, unfortunately, even though it's the job of primary schools, would be teach the fundamentals of writing and research. That would be the first thing to do. Then uh from there, like just start looking at these different archives, play with the finding aids. Um, you know, that kind of thing is my first thought.

SPEAKER_12

But probably um I think that if you have a real intellectual curiosity, you're going to invest in yourself. Uh, whenever I joined Free Main Street back in the 1980s, um, there was not the amount of material available, pneumasonic research that there is today. And I was disappointed. I had a curiosity about the organization. I wanted to know, you know, the who, what, when, where, and why and how uh about it. And so I read the things that I could find, but I noticed that there was not a lot of really modern research. There were, you know, few resources available, you know, Quadrocordonilage existed, of course, but by and large, there wasn't a lot of like new material. And um for myself, uh I you know, I don't want to bore you with the story, but I mean it started when uh one day I had was reading um Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma and recognized uh words that I had just read recently in another publication that was uh from the 1830s. And so I pulled that other book out and found out the Pike had copied it. And so that began began a process of discovery that led to me spending 20 years um reverse engineering that text, which uh I published I don't know, 15 years ago or something like that. And um this was in pre-internet days, and so you know, it's there are simple ways of doing research. It simply requires that you read everything and uh remember everything. So no big no, so what I did is for myself, I acquired bibliographies. I uh there had been three different bibliographies produced uh by the Scottish right um on the library that existed up through the time of Albert Pike, and I methodically traveled the United States on my own dime, uh trying to, with with several copies of the book, trying to find out what sources Pike may have used. And um, had I known how long it was going to take, I probably would not have done it. But I did. Um but again, it's it's I think that's really a matter of intellectual curiosity. I was um, you know, I'm was interested in it, and and so I pursued it. Fortunately, about this time also we started a research society, and um every year we published a volume of research papers, and you know, some of the younger guys, like Joe, um uh discovered this, joined it, and was inspired by that type of research to like follow suit. And one of the great things about Masonry is because we all meet on the level, you're able to meet people whom you admire, and the next thing you know, you're friends and brothers. And so I'm really happy that it w worked out the way that it did. I I think that you're cheating yourself if you if you're using AI to write. Um, you know, I I guess it's okay to like maybe point you in some directions, but there is really something to be said that the harder you work at something, the more you're going to remember it. And so you m my research is I I you know I might look up where I can find some sources, but I s I don't really do internet research per se. I use real books. I mean, that I think that's that's important to actually, for me at least, to be able to hold them in my hand and go through and go through the process of the people who who may have done the original research before me.

SPEAKER_03

Fantastic. So, and this is a question for all of you. And by the way, feel all of you as panelists, please feel free to ask a question of each other, or me or the audience for that matter. But uh, so uh last year we had uh another uh presenter from from outside the province, we had Martin Falkes come and speak and he talked about the his art of memory and spot spoke with the art of memory book. And, you know, it in some ways what you're talking about with like immersing yourself in the books, going into the library, learning how to read cursive, the the S's that look like Fs, and all the rest of it, uh, you know, harkens back to practices and ways of being that in many ways are anachronistic in today's society. And so a lot of people look to technology, a lot of people look to the internet, look to artificial intelligence, and think I have to learn how to use these things if I'm gonna be relevant in today's workforce and be able to excel in my career. Why? Why is it important and in what ways is it relevant uh for people to develop these other skills that seem so at odds with the emergence of new technologies and the way we think about them?

SPEAKER_12

Well, if I can, um, you know, these things can be used to facilitate research, no question of that. But I think about what would happen if we had a fundamental breakdown of technology. Where's your skill set? You know, it it's like being able to be, you know, I was a Boy Scout for 10 years. Um I know some things about being able to survive, you know, w without um modern uh uh appliances. You know, I I know how to forge, I know how to what what plants I can eat, you know, I know how to strip, you know, edible, you know, behind the bark, you know, the cambium, things like this. This is a skill set that's important, I think. You know, it's it it's there's there's a degree of maturity that goes in being self-sufficient. And I think that intellectual research is something similar like that. It's not that you can't use it, but if you learn these other things, you won't be dependent on them. If you're skilled and still choose to use it, great, but you shouldn't be a slave to the technology. It should be a tool to be used.

SPEAKER_07

I would probably just uh also add that it's about was that on? Okay, just about being able to synthesize information from all these different sources and kind of you know bring them together uh in a way in your mind. I mean, I know there's AI, I know we have Google, but uh the human mind was capable of imagination and wonders that I don't know can ever be really replicated by AI. And I'm sure I'll be proved wrong in that in another 10 years, but but I think there's something to our own human mind and imagination to be able to synthesize all this information. I know for me, and and for probably like many of you in here, I've got a personal library at home that just is, you know, an endless number of books and my wife doesn't understand why I keep buying, but I can read something over here and read something over here, and I could swear I'm like, I've read something just like that in this other book over here, and there's the rabbit hole right there, and then you just write down the rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_03

So I have a I want to switch gears and talk about a little bit more about ritual. And one thing that strikes me uh is you know, the talk from this morning, both of your talks uh in the morning, sort of take us through a moment in the emergence of these different rites and and orders and and degrees in which there's a lot of activity. A lot of people have ideas, a lot of people just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, a lot of people, a lot of people are sharing degrees, copying each other, as we mentioned earlier. Uh, and there seems to be this sort of great excitement. And I and you know, to to a degree, you know, we think about like the the fraternal age or the golden age of fraternalism and these different moments when you know people joined lodges and people joined other things. But one thing that's been on my mind, you know, this morning since since the talk is that is there it seems that there's a correlation to me around like the the rise in enthusiasm in Freemasonry, uh interest and and and growth in the in in lodges and growth in the diversity of rituals and people getting excited about starting a new right, starting a new order, whatever it is. And yet, as we talked about earlier, we've seen uh all these rights and orders and degrees become compiled and regulated and controlled and standardized uh such that we don't really see new degrees. We don't see new rights and orders. I'm curious, I'm I'm just curious about why we don't see new, or do we? Do you know something I don't? Why don't we see new rights and orders and degrees and could that be a good thing or would that be a negative thing? Would that cause more trouble within the craft, or could that be a good way of revitalizing, you know, interest in in ritual?

SPEAKER_12

Um a couple ideas come to mind is that I think that we tend to look at the past as offering some type of legitimacy. So if this is an older system, then it's venerable. You know what I mean? We'll look at it and say, well, it's existed this long, there has to be some value to it. Whereas with some of the newer things that come along, you know, this was made up by you know Joe Schmoe two weeks ago. So what? You know, kind of a thing. Um but the craft ritual in particular, and uh Mike, I have to say that, you know, it's true, yes, I do work for the Scottish Right, but I'm first and foremost uh a Blue Lodge Mason. That that that's where my heart really is on that. Um I'm I'm fascinated by craft ritual above all the other systems of masonry that there are. And there's tremendous variety in that. And it's organic. Kraft Masonry is not dead. There are so many variations in it that evolved naturally uh as a result of both cultural changes and just the isolation in which the ritual developed. It's a lot like culture, is that culture develops in isolation and by common usage among the people by repeated action. And that's the way the ritual evolves, also. So, as I mentioned uh earlier today, there may be uh uh a ritual where the you know the uh three lights around the lodge gained more importance because you had a particularly skilled person who made those candlesticks. You know, and this happens. People introduce small changes, and the small change that they introduce for whatever reason may later wind up carrying a lot of significance where it was not originally intended. Um, everybody, I'm sure you're all familiar with the story. There's a number of variations of it on grandma's ham. You y'all know this story? No. Yes. Very briefly, you know, this this wife is preparing a ham for her husband, and she cuts the ends off it before she puts it on the pan to cook. And the husband says, Well, that's a very curious thing. Why do you do that? And she says, Well, my mother always did it. So she calls her mom and says, Honey, you know, Mom, why did you cut the ends off a ham before you cooked it? She said, Well, it's very simple, honey. Um, the ham wouldn't fit in the pan that I owned. And so these kind of things become tradition. And we, you know, we see it something done and we place a greater value on it, perhaps, uh, than was originally intended. Freemasonry is kind of like an onion. I've compared it to that. You know, the onion is made up of layers. And so you, yes, it's the whole thing is an onion, but one aspect that we may love about the ritual is just one onion skin layer thick, and it's not the whole onion. And so, as I said, because it's natural and it's organic and it's evolving, we have to get used to the idea that the kind of masonry that we know and love isn't the only form and it's not the only thing that's legitimate out there, because there are aspects to ritual that are older, perhaps, uh, in in other jurisdictions than those that we know and love.

SPEAKER_03

I'm curious after all the discussions today, and Zayn, I'll I'll turn to you first with this. I'm curious about just where your thoughts are at in general, uh, having heard the different talks from today and the different discussions, the different questions, and just like what what is surfacing in terms of thinking about today's proceedings and what it means to you? Uh I'm also particularly curious about where you see the intersection between your talk and the morning talk. Is there a point where talks on lodge management and building capacity and all these things intersects with deeper historical research into the truth of where degree work comes from and and and how ritual has evolved to be what it is today?

unknown

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_07

Well, I'll start out by just saying it's been a real pleasure to be here. Um, this is an amazing event. Uh, I could tell a lot of thought and care and intention have been put into this. And I hope that, and I expect that, yeah, as you're all members of other lodges, you take these kinds of experiences back and then bring more people back next year. Um so I probably the thing that uh Art said that hit me the most was that comment about uh Freemasonry is part body and part soul. And I really love that analogy. And I realized that I'm probably more soul and less body, and maybe I need to be more a little more body and less soul. Um where the intersection is is uh to me, I think it's complementary. Uh I think I made the analogy earlier that um that lodges to me, like I think a really well-run lodge is really important to be able to deliver a quality experience. But the that the lodge meeting needs some content to it. And I think we probably all sat through some content-free lodge meetings, and those are just the most painful. Yeah. I don't know if he was laughing at that or something else, but those content-free meetings are really are are really painful. So while the lodge leadership retreat is really, I think, first and foremost, about building a really quality, uh, well-run lodge, uh firing on all eight cylinders, it's the content that gets delivered through that lodge meeting that I think is the is the meat and potatoes to a to a really good lodge meeting. So like I think your talk about content pairs really well with just a really well-run lodge, and that's the magic recipe right there. That's kind of how I would look at it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, kind of to play on that a little bit more from your talk, you had like the five different pieces of like what a lodge's culture is, right? One of the interesting things about it is that um, like maybe it's good like what we did in the morning to start with like head, right? Like to start with the with the education part of it, and then but to finish with the heart, like the actual soul of Freemasonry, right? Because it's one thing, because we've got lots of good historical facts, but that's not really what runs lodges. That's what keeps people interested, right? And so that I think like how you guys did the format today, like having uh Brother Zayn uh follow up with the actual like uh like heart of masonry, that's probably the right approach, I think. And hats off to you guys. This is a very well-done event, very well put together. Very honored to be here.

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, to go back to what you had asked earlier, you know, it occurs to me as something else when you asked about um older degree systems or versus new ritual surviving. Um I wrote an article that was that that's included in Brill's book on the Handbook of Freemasonry that came out 10 years ago, in which I I have a chapter on Masonic Rights, orders, and systems. And I specified those that are most popular in the Masonic world today. And they're generally those that succeeded, for the most part, that developed, you know, in the 17 to you know, maybe mid-1800s. And you really, how many channels do you need? Right? You can only watch so much television. And, you know, a lot of television is not good TV. Let's just face it. There are I've seen a lot of bad ritual, and I'm not being mean, but you know, um there were many degrees. Uh Joe and I, one of things that we like to do is he mentioned how we've traveled at places like Sweden and whatnot and gone through their archives. Uh, I think in uh about a week we took what, 10,000 photographs, something like that. Maybe. Maybe more, maybe 20,000. All I know is that all day, every day we were just fo taking photographs and drinking coffee. Um Yeah, we were standing by the machine drinking coffee, taking more. That's that was it. But so there's a there were literally hundreds of Masonic degrees uh that developed in the 17 and 1800s, most of which are just relics sitting in archived places. A lot of them are variants of the degrees that we know today, and we mentioned the royal arch, for example. But so many of them really don't have anything that is worth preserving in the form of acting them. You know, if how many variants of the Royal Arch degree do you need? You know, is two enough? Is five enough? You know, so yeah. Um as much as I enjoy seeing these variations, there's only I think there's only so much. And I think that really the Masonic world has most of the good. Material from what we've studied that the better things survived. The other ones kind of just like, you know, were let's just say, you know, consigned to the archives.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, for good reasons.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So I mean, yeah, Henry Wilson Coyle in uh his encyclopedia writes there's over a thousand different uh rights and decrees and systems or whatever.

SPEAKER_12

I think we read 990 of them, didn't we?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so maybe we added more. So would you would you say that? Because it's interesting because we hear, you know, at certain points, you know, uh in uh like the early 20th century, for example, or late late 1890s, early 20th century, we have these other sort of offshoot uh, you know, um initiatory societies like Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or others that say, you know what, we actually think this is sort of like the, you know, this is what Freemasonry really is meant to be, or or or this is their particular sort of you know, um, purist form of whatever it might be. Would you sorry if that's a sorry to any Golden Dawn people here who that's mischaracterizing uh anything, but my understanding is that these other types of societies arise and sort of challenge Freemasonry in some ways, or at least offer a new avenue for people to want a more deeper, you know, exploration of the of the more esoteric um aspects of of Masonic and Masonic adjacent things.

SPEAKER_12

I I think that Masonry, um it was just well, Manley P. Hall, you know, used to say that Masonry was like the outer door, so that all sorts you know, people would come in looking for different things. If you were esoterically inclined, then you would look deeper. Of course, you you mentioned the you know, the Golden Dawn, of course, the three founders were all Freemasons, you know, and Westcott, of course, was Supreme Magus of SRIA. And um uh we it's really easy to see the relationship between the GD rituals and SRIA. But um I I think that masonry is has such an appeal for so many people for so many different reasons that there's pretty much room for everybody in it, not just to be esoterically inclined. Um, but one of the great things about masonry is that there is an appeal for everyone. You know, if you're a young man and you come into masonry, then there's the opportunity to associate with older men of experience who could help shepherd you, right? Yeah. If you're a person of wealth, then it gives you an opportunity to exercise charity among other people. Um, if you're a person interested in the pursuit of truth, well, there's certainly truths that can be pursued in masonry. If you're interested in philosophy, you know, it's there also. Um, you know, if if you're a person in need, it can help you if you're a worthy person also. So there's a tremendous vitality and and opportunity uh to participate in things in Freemasonry, but for everybody, it offers the charms of meeting with fellow men like you to improve your own character and to find somebody uh that can help you maybe in difficult times in your life. I think that that's one of the stronger points of Masonry. It's that center of union without whom, or you know, without which we might have remained at a perpetual distance, as it says in the Constitution.

SPEAKER_03

That's of today.

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03

Would you say then, um would you say then that the degree systems that we that we have today, the ones that remain standing, let York Wright, Scottish right, and there's more going on than just that, but let's just say those are the two big systems. Would you say that everything else mostly has been derivative and those have stood the test of time because they are the they're just the best compilation of those degrees?

SPEAKER_12

I I don't know that I would say that they're the best, but I th I there there are historical reasons why they survived. Um, and for other things, like, for example, the AMD was reactivated, and that was uh mostly taken from a series of degrees that existed that for the most part in England in earlier times. You know, there were there were various exposés, like you know, Richard Carlisle had published on that type of material. There are other sources available, but I think that the York and the Scottish Rite served their purposes, and there were political reasons why they survived also when you consider the Masonic landscape that was evolving in the early 1800s in the United States. Uh, a lot of people don't realize this. I mean, if you're a bit of a historian, you may, that they were actually almost antagonistic to each other because the principles involved had different ideologies in Masonry. Uh, those that tended towards the Yorkright side, of which, as I mentioned, um Thomas Smith Webb was one of the founders, they tended towards what we know as Cerno Masonry. Um, you know, Cerno had his own ideas as to what Masonry ought to be, and he was very clear about that. He was Catholic, and uh so the Cerno Scottish Rite, for example, uh did not allow uh anyone who was a Jew into the Scottish Rite, and that wound up becoming a tradition also adopted by the Northern Masonic jurisdiction, which chartered, of course, the Supreme Council for England and Wales. And that policy remained for a hundred years in the United States and the Northern Masonic jurisdiction, and was just recently removed, of course, in England and Wales. But so I'm saying this there are these different dimensions uh that were going on in Masonry. So imagine that you had an interest in one in the Scottish Rite degrees, but in the jurisdiction in which you live, they can't be practiced. Maybe you'll look for something else that's similar or is a substitute for you.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Which comes back earlier to the the comment about are these redundant or is there a a value in them being a different thing? Yeah, they're making a different yeah. Excellent. Any questions from the audience at this point? I know I said earlier if you didn't get it in this morning that you'd have a chance now. So over here.

SPEAKER_08

Uh my question is about the future of Freemasonry. We talked a lot about uh uh the past, like uh history. So in the future, uh would you panelists think that uh uh devices or AI will take uh uh some roles in in uh in lodges, like uh take uh officer roles, like any devices. It it might be like uh uh kind of narrator or uh anything else or a hologram instead of uh uh like jewels in the in the lodge. So technology.

SPEAKER_12

Um I guess I can express a a very brief opinion then pass the mic down and we can all say something. Um there's there's no question that technology has been integrated gradually uh into the lodge. Remember, we started off with carpets, you know, tracing boards, and those evolved into the charts hanging on the walls, which turned into slide presentations. So I mean, as we we see this all the time in Masonry, there are lodges that use music. And that there, you know, some used to have choirs, you know, now we have recorded music. So there's no question that technology will have its place. Um, I I don't know what it will be. Um I I like to tell people I am a historian, so I have the benefit of just saying, you know, it's my job to look in the past. I'm not a prophet, so I can't look into the future. Um but what do you think, Joe?

SPEAKER_02

Well, uh personally, I would I I I I tend to agree with you. I think that technology is gonna have a place, it's gonna have a role with respect to like virtual lodges and avatars and that kind of thing. For me, that's a really hard pill to swallow. I'd rather just go to a building and be with people than you have the whole recording issue and things like that. So if you look at some of some of the safeguards already in place here, I think we've we probably are already protected from some of those unfortunate uh what hopefully aren't going to be eventualities. But in any case, like to your point also, though, like the progression from tracing boards, charts to uh you know, magic lanterns and this sort of thing like that, there'll be another evolution of it. I mean, we already see a whole lot of PowerPoint presentations in lodges, but as far as AI goes, it's it's hard to say because on the one hand, we're going to have lots of benefits, new jobs, all these different things are gonna be created from it. But on the flip side of it, just like the guy that was making, you know, like buggies for the horse and buggy, he he's gonna have trouble, right? And so you really can't predict the future here, I don't think, but I would hope that um like a lot of the virtual like lodge stuff that I've been reading about, I hope that never comes to fruition. But that's just me.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

I'm kind of conflicted on this answer because I think that I think that men are seeking Freemasonry because there's an opportunity to have real, tangible engagement with people. And for young men, that's significantly lacking in society. And they're gonna find that uh with Freemasonry. And I so it's it's it's the opposite of technology. They they get too much of that. But that being said, uh I just had exposed to me from one of my best friends uh from the lodge at the city just down the freeway from me. So take a step back. You think of everybody in here has a favorite song, right? And you know all the lyrics to your favorite song. You probably have 10 of those that you it's something about words and music together, and you sing it over and over, and so you know every word to your favorite song. He just showed me this app that can put ritual to any type of music genre that you can feed into AI. And so he's he sent me our I don't I don't want to say his name in case we're not supposed to do this, but he sent me uh like the entire uh um uh entered apprentice lecture set to music, the Broadway version. It sounds a little bit kind of like Hamilton and I'm listening to this going like you could really see yourself like singing along with this, and while you're doing that, you're learning this entire lecture. Now I haven't started doing that, but I don't know if that uh that was that was what came to mind when you asked the question about uh technology and and uh and Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_03

You know, um since the pandemic, um I mean the pandemic was a big shock to uh to lodges, of course. Uh and uh so I I have a paper that's in peer review with um with uh ours Quator Coronatorum right now, which is the uh the research journal from Quator Coronati Lodge in in England. And I uh interviewed past grandmasters from several grand jurisdictions and I asked them about their experiences during the pandemic. One of the things that came out most clearly in that research was the adoption of technology, and in particular the adoption of the digital meeting platforms as a way of conducting business, uh as a way of supporting Masonic education. And of course, we've seen, you know, um uh Rubicon and Lesington Lodge, you know, that those sort of things, um virtual um Masonic education has been quite popular and open to others who are not just in the region. Of course, we are live streaming this event here tonight. Uh Gerald Riley was one of our speakers last year along with Martin Fox, and I believe you know, his opinions and and and is it Gerald who was the internet large? Oh boy, hoping I'm getting this right. But we've seen some, maybe you guys know, we've seen some respected Masonic scholars actually say that maybe we should be open to exploring more virtual type experiences uh around ritual and and and and initiation. Uh and so I think that this, you know, it hasn't really come become a hotly contested debate in the craft, but it seems that the vast majority of people I speak with come down pretty hard on the no side of getting your degrees conferred virtually through a VR headset or something, and that the tactile, you know, uh the the um the the affective qualities of being in the room, the smells, the the the using your senses, right? The sensory, tactile experience is really important to you know what we're doing here. Uh and so I do think that we're gonna you know continue to see technology be used to help with business meetings, to help with education, to you know, do a number of different things. But I I don't think I don't think there's an appetite for us to bring ritual online per se. I don't know if if you agree.

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, um I'm not gonna name the jurisdiction, but there is a jurisdiction, not my jurisdiction, um, that does confer um some of their degrees using video presentations. Um so I'm not gonna speak against it. I'm just gonna say that it's not something that I would, you know. Uh let me ask you this. Would you, you know, would you rather experience a virtual vacation and meal, or would you rather go to Hawaii in person and and eat a meal, right? There's this very, very good um documentary that I saw on the overuse of technology that came out about 42 years ago, something like that. I don't know if y'all ever saw it. It was called Terminator. Great documentary. What happens when we rely on technology too much? So yeah, but um, so you know, kidding aside, yeah, I j like I said, is I would rather go to Hawaii than watch another video about Hawaii, you know, and so I think that you know, you there's something about the act of participation that the more senses that you engage, you know, being in there and forming a bond with real breathing human beings has uh something special about it. A virtual yeah, exactly. Well, I I we we could push that further, but I won't. So that's all I'll say. So you're saying you don't like Skynet? Um, you know, I could turn on my phone, and if you all look for other uh um hot spots, there is one called Skynet. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Well to kind of like piggyback on that, like during the pandemic, like um I was kind of cynical because a lot of like the lodge meeting stuff, like it all ended like that. And so I wrote a white paper for a uh a not not a not a uh kind of like a cryptocurrency, but like kind of like to tokenize and gamify it. And one of the ideas I had was, well, hey, we could do it, we could learn ritual and we could practice it, this, that, and the other. And then one of the guys in the lodge I was talking to, he's like, Yeah, and then we can have our meetings here, and then we can have this, and we can have all these other things. And I was like, Okay, now you just went too far. I'm giving up on the whole idea. So I I thought it would be a good idea to have something where you could like practice virtually because you we couldn't meet in buildings at that point, but it turns out to have been a completely stupid idea.

SPEAKER_07

So they've got a couple more questions back there, so probably nothing to add on that.

SPEAKER_06

There was a question about it I had a question, I guess, more centered on Brother Colburn's child, and perhaps he could answer and you guys could chime in. Um just wondering what maybe you thought was the best question or questions uh for a seeker to kind of illuminate maybe who they are as a person or their intentions for the craft.

SPEAKER_03

So so what is the best question that you can ask a seeker? Is this I'm just re rephrasing the best question you can ask a seeker to help illuminate who they are, their interests, why they want to okay. You got that?

SPEAKER_14

I think my brother, you answered the question. Uh who are you? You've got to get to know them. I don't think there's a specific question. Um, you know, a a seeker is nervous. A seeker is approaching a you know, an ancient organization, and until you get to know them, you can't make a judgment. And that's why for me, a seeker process if it's completed in under six or eight months from first contact to initiation, you've probably rushed it. Um, you know, multiple meetings with different brethren in the lodge, etc. etc. You've got to really know them and they've got to really know you. And I know that I speak for for my lodge. Everybody that's come into my lodge in the last five years, we know them very, very well before they're initiated. And we didn't get to know them by asking them a question. We got to know them by getting to know them.

SPEAKER_05

If that answers your question like that. Thank you, uh Junior Grand Warden. One more question.

SPEAKER_13

My name's Frank Fowley. Um I would say the best question you could ask uh a seeker is Is there any reason you shouldn't be a Freemason? Um and I wanted to go back to the technology question. Um and I think there's there's an a qu this was a question that came up in my lodge in Switzerland um about 2017, 2018. Uh we had a fellow who'd been a Mason for very many, many, many years and um had worked in a coal mine and became ill with lung cancer and couldn't get the lodge anymore. And so we had this discussion about what could we do for John. And and one of the things that came up, it was it was the idea of participation, like the folks that are in Kamloops or in Burnaby or wherever about the province that are participating today passively by watching. And and so is if you look at an in an aging population in the craft, if we look at the number of people that are members of lodges and can't come to lodge anymore because they can't drive, their eyesight isn't good, eight o'clock's their dead time. Um, the idea about engaging that audience through the use of technology, through all of the security and filters that you would use for bringing someone into a Zoom meeting or a Teens meeting now may be something that would be on the plate that would be palatable and welcome. So I don't I don't think conferring degrees is something you'd want to do, but you may want to allow people to watch degrees because they've been doing it for 50 years and they can't come to lodge anymore. Thought?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's an interesting question. So if you're old or infirm and you can't make it to lodge, should we be allowed in the tiled recesses of the lodge to webcast the degree conferral to a brother who's at home?

SPEAKER_07

To the best of my knowledge, I don't think that Zoom or Teams, I don't know how secure those are. And at the end of the day, I'm not sure that I could 100% tile them. Um so this I love the sentiment. Um, the practical application of it is uh I can also start to think of now needing a full-time tech support in Lodge. And it sounds like you guys only have a tech team of three people in the jurisdiction. So I don't know where you're gonna find those other tech people, but like in this in our lodge, you know, we'd have to be addressing, oh, I can't hear, I can't see, and there's not enough lighting, and all of a sudden we've turned it into a you know a technology production. I mean, that being said, we have brought in uh speakers into our lodge. We've got a huge drop-down screen that can cast just like this. And we have brought in people to virtually to give a talk, and when we do that, we've um opened that up uh in a link to the brothers. So that's about as far as we've gotten with that. But ritual, I don't know that we would entertain that. But I think everybody in here might have a different opinion, so that's just fine.

SPEAKER_02

And then I think just to piggyback on that some uh some more. Um I don't know that we really can ever like run a ritual just for this reason. Like we do have technically uh strong enough encryption if we wanted to do it that way, but again, it's self-defeating, it defeats the purpose, it cheats the candidate of the initiatic experience, it cheats the brethren out of the experience of initiating the brother or getting to know them, coming together. So things like this, I think we should consider drawing the line at ritual. But that said, I remember also during the pandemic, there were all sorts of like education series that were going on. I participated in a few, I know Art did as well. Um those were fantastic and fine, and that that does get the involvement and incitement and activity. So something to consider, but I think the latter may be a more sensible approach.

SPEAKER_12

Yeah, I I agree with both of you. I I don't think that ritual is the be all and have all of masonry, it's just the introduction. So, you know, having a a Zoom presentation is great. We did a lot of that during the pandemic. You know, I I think I gave 40 something lectures during the pandemic. Yeah. If I I'll have to look it up. I have a request. I think I gave 48 actually. Um yeah, think about that. Um But yeah, I you know, I I personally I wouldn't want ritual to be, I mean, there's no way I don't and I don't understand why ritual would need to be something that's broadcast. There's, you know, we could do other types of meetings. I think that's great. Have his involvement, but I I think the ritual is something that ought to remain closed.

SPEAKER_00

Hello everyone. Um, I'm Cleole Boston and I am a member of the Grand Orient of California. It is uh irregular. We have been doing um, I would say before the pandemic, uh, just to keep participation um afloat with our members. Um actually originally the original Grand Lodge was uh George Washington Union. We split off and we're doing more modern things. Um, but we do not do conferral of degrees. We and we don't do initiations. Um we do Zoom um meetings for our members that are traveling, the ones that are sick and can't shut in, can't come in to lodge. Um even if there are member, you know, seekers who don't have lodges in their location, we still encourage them to join, but they have to come into lodge setting to get initiated and conferred degrees. Um we use the Owl conferencing um system. I think it's OW3. Uh OWI is um a bit pricier and they just want you to buy multiple cameras. It's gonna jippy. But it is very possible, it's very secure with Zoom. We have um we actually rent space from the regular Grand Lodge of California, so we do take advantage of their audio, you know, video uh stuff, like their drop-down screen. So when I'm at home in Virginia and I can't, uh, because I'm not gonna travel to California every five minutes. It's just not possible. But when I'm looking at my meeting and looking at the ritual, um I get a sense of the, I guess because I've been in it for a long time too. That's the other takeaway. Um, for somebody new, um, it's convenient, but uh you really can't replace um virtual meetings with in-person, but it's good and convenient to have to keep the participation afloat and to keep your membership going. But it's very possible and it's secure. We haven't had any uh people like jump into our zoom doing crazy stuff like during the pandemic. So just wanted to add my two cents.

SPEAKER_05

I see a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01

So Percy Jones Pacific 16. A question for you gentlemen. Um is there a value in actually memorizing rituals? Some people say it's better to read it well than it is to memorize it badly. So give us some insights into whatever value there may be in memorization.

SPEAKER_03

Uh can I start? I yeah, I and I believe I want exactly uh Martin Fox's presentation last year, I think, did a a really great job of of of sort of explaining and and his book about memory palaces, does a great job of explaining how important memorization was to the pre- uh both the pre-internet but the pre-book uh man who uh who had to remember, you know, as Arturo was saying earlier, has to remember which bark is poisonous and which bark is is not, or which mushroom is poisonous and which mushroom is not, or who has to remember a certain, you know, words in a certain dialect or a different language when he crosses the river and suddenly he's in a different. So, you know, uh over time cultivating uh our ability to memorize was was not only necessary for survival, but it also cultivated us socially and culturally to be able to be in the to be in the world, to be able to travel the world, to be to be a person, a man of the world. Uh, and I think that, you know, the ability to read, of course, is important, but all these things we've been talking about, uh, whether it's learning cursive, learning how to do research with old books, learning how to memorize things, these are sort of foundational, um, foundational types of cognitive uh, you know, uh states or exercises that are fundamentally healthy for our brain and fundamentally healthy socially when we do them together. Uh, and so the memorization piece for me is important because when we memorize things and when we put the work into going over it over and over and internalizing it, we understand it, I think, at a much deeper level than just reading something. We sit with that. We might be doing the dishes and it might pop into our head. And, you know, it's with us in different ways. It's operating within us subconsciously, even it it it is living inside of us in a way that's much deeper and much more profound, and and doing it, doing the work of shaping who we are becoming in a way that just surficially reading something and moving on cannot.

SPEAKER_07

I I completely agree. And I I have yet to meet somebody who's really a fantastic ritualist that hasn't also had to figure out what all of this means to him personally while he's learning all this ritual. So if you're if you're not grappling and wrestling with the ritual, I don't know how you would otherwise do that. And I don't know if you've had a shared experience here, but even in like business meetings or at home, you've you've gone through so much ritual that sometimes just even sections of ritual sort of like form the way you talk to people now, too. And it's all sudden Mason speak. And sometimes I hear it too from other people, and I'm like, I I bet you that's it. And I met uh one of my kids' junior high teachers. I'm like, yep, he was a Mason just by the way he was talking in his parent teacher night, and I came up to him afterwards and I'm like, Well, you'd be off or from and he's like So uh anyway.

SPEAKER_03

It's also it's not enough to just simply memorize, but the act of memorizing invites that deeper contemplation and having it sit with you in a in a way that I think is important. It doesn't just by memorizing something doesn't mean you're going to go through that deeper sort of internalizing, but it's certainly going to be opening the door to that in a way that just reading something is far less likely to do. You can read something and it can pop into your head later, but if you you know, if you're really engaging with something, if you're really and I think also with our ritual, words that you don't understand, why I'm memorizing this, I don't know what this word means. That's an invitation for you to to do more research, to learn what that word means. That that takes you down the rabbit hole, right? Um, so yeah, I mean memorization is that for me an important step to that deeper type of of internal work.

SPEAKER_05

You want to have a memorization.

SPEAKER_12

You know, I think a when a person goes to a gym, they don't go just so that they can lift bigger weights. They do that because by lifting bigger weights, it's going to give them an advantage in the real world. And so I think that the memorization of ritual is something similar. It's a skill set. I mean, there's neuroplastics plasticity with the brain, and by building those new connections, it's going to help us with other things in the real world. There's a I I memorized, you know, that Joe and I come from Texas, and that um I although there was a cypher book today, one when I went through a long time ago, um, everything was learned mouth to ear. So I memorized all that, and I think I could still probably all these years later can confer the degrees with probably 95-98% accuracy because it's set. And um my ability and that, you know, the people with good memories, and I, you know, I I'm thankful that I have one. I think that we are people that focus our attention on the memorization of information. And it's not simply the fact that you've gobbled up that, it's that the act itself, like lifting weights, will benefit you in the real world. So learning how to memorize information, that it's a skill set. It's something that you'll benefit from in other aspects of your life.

SPEAKER_04

May I make a comment, please? So many discussions about memorizing to me. That hasn't come to platitude, the same thing over and over again. To me.

SPEAKER_02

And to kind of piggyback on that too, brother, like in Texas, we're not really allowed to use any kind of like cipher ritual book and lodge. I I believe we have one of the most like uh severe things as far as like education, where you have to memorize effectively everything, everything. And for because of this, you're able to repeat this stuff, you're able to give the lectures, you're able to do all these things, probably aren't better than me, but I could probably still manage pretty well myself. But at the same point in time, it it builds the foundation for these things, but memorizing it is not necessarily everyone's strong suit. And the point why I think also they use scripts in Europe and different places like this is for picture perfect, to your point, execution of the ritual so it sounds fluid and this sort of thing, right? But not everyone's going to be a ritualist, just like not everyone's going to be an author, not everyone's going to be a computer programmer, a scientist, an athlete, none of these things, right? And so it's you get in where you fit in, you find out what your strengths are, you utilize them and leverage to the maximum benefit and potential of the craft. And if like you don't want me running a ball with anything or anything that involves the strategy involved, forget it. But if it's about research, I'm happy to help.

SPEAKER_03

So we're just coming up on time here, and we got only for a few more questions. I I do think it's important not to shame guys or guilt them if they're not the best ritualists, they're not the best, they don't have the best memories or whatever. But I think back to the question about lodge cultures, we should also recognize our own individual strengths and differences within the lodge and try and get the guys doing the things they feel good about doing that they can excel at. Um you know, I think everyone has to learn how to do everything, but um, you know, it's best to play to our strengths in in lodge and not continually throw someone into a situation where they're not going to be excellent. Question, Matt, there.

SPEAKER_09

Uh yeah, I would just like to briefly speak upon the uh chronic underutilization of the resources found in the library here and maybe other Masonic lodges. Um a way to combat that would be to form study groups that would go across uh districts and uh focus on one subject to the next.

SPEAKER_03

I think yes. That would I think that would be uh an excellent suggestion for Connor Massey, our new uh uh uh worshipful master of the Vancouver Lodge of Education and Research. I don't know if Trevor's here. I don't know where Trevor's been is Trevor here's uh Oh okay. Um but we we okay in the library. So uh you know we've we've we've talked about we and I mean I I'm not on the uh library board of trustees or anything, but as someone who's been active in Masonic education for 15 years now in the jurisdiction, we have talked about how how do we better engage with these new lodges of education and research. Is there an annex type program we could envision where like some things from the archives museum could be temporarily housed in other parts of the jurisdiction? We we have a big jurisdiction like Texas, like British Columbia and Yukon is like a massive, massive uh geography here. So, so um, you know, being able to share things is is a real challenge. And I'm not trying to speak on behalf of Trevor and commit us to anything, but I do think that this is something that we could do a better job of. And I and I I you know I think that Connor or myself or others, you know, it would be great to talk more about what we can do to to support Trevor, to support the library and archives, and to get our uh our our brethren engaged, you know, with this amazing stuff, though. I don't know if you've seen did you tour it yes or no? Yeah, like we've got a it's small, but it's a pretty good little collection, you know? Yeah. So with that, I uh it's very fitting that I'm I'm now going to present the three of you. Oh, yeah, we have one more question.

SPEAKER_15

To my big bud, John Sander. Thank you. Um this speaks again to the comment earlier this morning that Freemasonry didn't uh evolve in a cultural vacuum. And the whole notion of memorizing ritual sort of speaks to that, because the art of memory was a thing that was really adopted by English men as a way of learning and cultivating their own uh station in the world. Whereas in the non-English-speaking Masonic world, the ritual, as Joseph alluded to, is never done by memory. It's always been read from lecterns for the most part, uh, because the art of memory was never a big deal in in Europe and Central and South America. So it's just sort of two different uh sides to it, and again, speaks to uh the differences of masonry and and where it originated.

SPEAKER_03

That's a good point. Anything to add to that from the panel? Agree. We have an we have a Jaccord. So I just want to thank the the three of you very, very much for taking the time to be with us. You you've um traveled quite a bit to be with us. You not so much, you're just down the road, but still it's appreciated. And uh it it really uh I I wasn't expecting to MC the event this year. I kind of heard late that I was gonna be doing this, and I um like I said earlier, I've done a few of these. I don't know how many more I'm gonna be invited to do, but it's been a real pleasure to to be the MC and to have a chance to do. I don't think I've done this many panel discussions and QAs uh since I've been involved with this event. So this was a real treat for me. Uh thank you. I appreciate that. Uh I want to give you, on behalf of the Vancouver Lodge of Education and Research, um this uh Matthew Ridgely Clark, uh, the point within the circle, bounded by two parallel lines. Uh this is um is this from you, Troy, technically? You know, you want to I mean it's on behalf of the Lodge, but yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Uh this can't these came from Trevor. Uh Ridgley, every a lot of brethren of the jurisdiction know Ridgely is a well-known Freemason in the Victoria area, um, and a Scottish Wright Freemason. What many people don't know about Brother Clark is that he's a he's an amazingly accomplished cabalist and alchemist. And he put together this book of esotericism based on his own research. And I highly recommend it. It's not very well known, though these are published by Lewis Masonic. I didn't have any, well, I had only one at the table this year. But Trevor found some, and and here you go, guys. Uh uh travel light with those.

SPEAKER_03

And and with that, yeah, just a thank you. And one for one for a junior grand warden, too.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So, brethren, uh, just one more round of applause for the organizing committee, for Troy, for our panelist speakers, for James and the tech for the catering.

SPEAKER_11

My partner Nina from the from the book table, the registration table. Uh, she thanks your patience. Thank you, brethren.

SPEAKER_03

And with that, I'm gonna invite our most worshipful grandmaster, Ken Christofferson, up here to officially close the proceedings of the day.

SPEAKER_10

Thanks for listening today. You could support the show by liking, sharing, and subscribing on your favorite podcast indicator. 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. Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference will be held on Saturday, September 19th. Our keynote speaker will be Lon Milo Duquette, author of The Tarot Architect. Mike Baker and Doug Russell will also be in attendance. Get your tickets by RSVP to esotericmasonry at gmail.com. Also, check our newly refreshed website at Esoteric Masonry.com for updates. For other events, check out our calendar at Mystictie.com and don't forget to sign up for our newsletter while you are there. Graphics and web hosting are by Artsabo Creative. A special thanks to organists for our theme music. Happy to meet. Sorry to part. And happy to meet again.