The Mystic Tye

Freemasonry in Academic Studies of Western Esotericism with Bro. Doug Russel | EFC 2022

• Troy Spreeuw

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In this throwback episode recorded to support Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2022, Bro. Doug Russell sits down to explore how Freemasonry fits into the growing academic field of Western Esotericism. A past editor of the Fraternal Review and an officer of the Academy of Reflection, Bro. Russel brings a unique perspective that bridges scholarly research and lived Masonic practice.

The conversation digs into why academics are only now beginning to take Freemasonry seriously as a subject of study, how the craft intersects with broader currents in Western Esoteric thought, and what it means for brethren when scholars start examining the traditions from the outside looking in.

Bro. Doug Russell returns to the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2026 this September, where he will be leading the Friday night meditation session and presenting his upcoming book. Tickets are available at esotericmasonry.com.

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



SPEAKER_01

Welcome to Mystic Tie. Podcast for Freemasons. I am your host at Troy. You can find us online at Mystictie.com. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash Mystictie. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at Troy at Mystictie.com. Recorded to support Esocuricism and Freemasonry Conference 2022, this throwback episode features Brother Doug Russell, past editor of the fraternal review, and officer of the Academy of Reflection. Brother Russell will again be leading our Friday night meditation session and presenting his upcoming book at EFC 2026. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks, Brother Doug Russell, for being with me here this morning. Glad to be here. Now we've we've met a couple of times. I know you've uh done some meditation sessions and been attendee at our Esotericism and Freemasonry conference every year since we've done it since the last uh five years. And this year you're stepping forward with a paper. Can you give us some broad strokes about what you'll be presenting on October 1st for us in Seattle?

SPEAKER_00

Sure, yes. This paper is uh titled Freemasonry in Academic Studies of Western Esotericism. I had been reading scholars of Western esotericism in recent years, several of them, and uh noticed that they place Freemasonry right within esoteric traditions, Western esoteric traditions, whereas Masons seem to have conflicted mixed feelings about the esoteric, to put it mildly. So I looked into all that and I looked into some of the um anti-esoteric and uh Masonic things that I've that I'm aware of. And I looked at um what uh brother uh Jay Kinney wrote. He called the uh Masonic relationship Mason's relationship to the esoteric as a love-hate relationship, which uh in a way it's I think more that some brothers are really anti-esoteric, some are very pro-esoteric, and and there's been a long history, going way back into the 1700s at least, of differences between Masons about how okay it is to how much there of Masonry is esoteric or is not. But these scholars and universities around the world of esotericism, pretty much every one of them places Freemasonry right in the heart of or right in the mix of esoteric traditions. But so that's what I focused on and looked at some of these scholars, and I found out when I dug dug into some of their books that uh several of them have written extensively about Freemasonry. And uh so that that fascinated me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's it's been a it's been a a rising topic of academic interest, and from what I understand, you know, they it uh many of the religious studies and comparative religion professors in uh universities these days would refer to it as a as a third way, and they might not think it's fully defined yet, but where theology on the one hand is dealing with religion and science and the the aim of science and from a philosophical perspective on the other hand, and that esotericism falls solidly in a in kind of a third-way approach. And it's been there's been discussions on this podcast before with the four major and two minor definitions of esotericism, and I posted the links to the to the Wikipedia article. You know, we're familiar with that academia takes Freemasonry seriously as an esoteric tradition. What I think you're talking about with your paper is more about why doesn't Masonry take Masonry, Freemasonry take Freemasonry seriously as an esoteric tradition. Can you talk some about that?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. I uh when I um Well, there's a s there's one of the scholars of Western esotericism has noted that in culture in general, there's been an anti-esoteric uh view. Um let's look at scholars. They dismissed esotericism as not even a valid area of study until the 1990s. Uh you had Frances Yates before that, the great British historian in the 30s through the 1960s or so, uh, studying these sorts of things, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, and such. Uh that she was a pioneer. She was kind of a loner or w among a very few scholars. Mostly universities would not study that. The theory among historians was that we were a culture becoming more and more secular and that esotericism was becoming more and more irrelevant. So why bother to study it? Yeah. So I don't know if I'm off on a sidetrack from what you ask me now.

SPEAKER_02

No, no, no. That's that's good. That's good. It's I often talk about it as these forgotten sciences or you know, this this hidden knowledge they talk about. Had several discussions recently with other presenters where only now would say astrology be considered a a separate discipline and a completely forgotten discipline to you know a man of science who might practice astronomy. Now an astronomer would likely ignore or even consider it laughable that his observations of the physics of astrology might have an effect on himself. Whereas you know, an astrologer would assume that. And that's one of the major differences between astrology and astronomy. It's the same with uh alchemy and chemistry. Yes. Assume that the operations you're performing are gonna have an effect on you. And so it it it'll be interesting in hindsight when this academic study uh gets rolling in earnest, you know, in the next few hundred years, while they look back on this time where we the pendulum swung so far the other way, away from meaning and applying meaning from these discoveries and this knowledge. But now I'm off on a tangent.

SPEAKER_00

So some of these scholars have have spoken of the uh esoteric uh traditions as rejected knowledge, yeah. Particularly coming from the Renaissance into the Enlightenment. And as you came into the Enlightenment and science became the dominant way of looking at the world, and esotericism is kind of shuttled off to the side. But the thing that these scholars have pointed out is that view of history is pretty limited and it's not entirely accurate because all through that history, in through the Enlightenment, there were always many, many people who were esotericists, who were studying esoteric, who took it seriously. There were many people, for say the great scientist Isaac Newton is a great example of someone who was absolutely in the world, to the view of the world of his day, was this scientist who did all kinds of pioneering things and that gotten modern science underway at the same time. He had a whole other life and actually wrote more words in the thousands or millions about esoteric things, his studies of Solomon's temple, his studies of alchemy, his studies of prophecy. So all there was a man, and there are many men and women all through history who have held both of those, both the esoteric and the exoteric, as valuable and valid things to study. Another thing that came up in my studies was the idea of the printing press, that with the coming in of the printing press, you got more and more uh and the secularization in society, you got more and more uh just emphasis in knowledge that was put out there in print about exoteric and scientific sorts of views. But and uh even in the Enlightenment, the printing press actually was printing more things. It was kind of a rebirth, a renewal of interest in esoteric topics in what was actually going into print. So there's this sort of this bias or this idea about secularization that is just skews everything away from the actual evidence of how much esoteric traditions have gone on. In Freemasonry, you've got Brother Angel Millar, the Masonic author who wrote a whole book that is about how throughout the history of Masonry there have been men in the craft who have been very deeply into esoteric studies and esoteric interests. Uh so it's not as if uh Yeah, so that that's again off whatever that tangent was.

SPEAKER_02

I get where you're going with this. So how did you yourself become interested in such topics? Were you interested in philosophy or esotericism before you became a Freemason?

SPEAKER_00

Or Oh, very much so, yeah. I was in the um I was uh in the the generation I graduated high school in 1960, so I was in the generation of hippies, and I was out there uh experimenting with uh with uh alter with uh altered states of consciousness, LSD, and uh serio and uh taking it very seriously and reading about what it altered states of consciousness and so on. And so by the time I was in my late twenties, I I it became quite clear to me that that, for me at least, the path to toward spirit my spiritual life that I could go deeper and deeper in internally into spiritual life uh required me not not doing it through substance, but through disciplines. So I connected with a mentor when I was in my about age 26, 27, who uh was uh very involved in modern theosophy, and particularly the works of Alice Bailey, which uh was a tradition that had come from Blavatsky earlier around the 1875 or so, the Theosophical Society and that theosophical tradition. So I got immersed in that tradition, and that and I had so I had a spiritual practice, a meditation practice I've had now for 50 years or so, that uh is based around those modern theosophy teachings. So uh what happened in 2011, I'd been retired for several years, I uh was reading in some of these Ballas Bailey books, these theosophical books, and I kept coming across references to Freemasonry. I said, ah, really. So this is the this is kind of my religion, if you will, that that I believe in this system and I've been immersed in this system for all these years. What if I got into Freemasonry and I could kind of see what I've been doing all these years from the outside or from another perspective and expand my own view of where I am, who I am, through Masonry? So that uh that that sparked that that sparked how got in going over to memory.

SPEAKER_02

And so uh how many years had you been a theosophist before you became a Mason?

SPEAKER_00

So you're looking going back to 1968 to 2012, talking fifty forty-five years or something. Wow. So your interest in masonry is relatively recent? Yes, it is. I I got into the fraternity in 2012. Uh I was initiated in 2012, and uh I um coincidentally, getting back to my paper for a second, 2012 was the year that two grand masters, one in Florida and one in Australia, in that year put out these totally anti-esoteric edicts. I remember you can't have esotericism and masonry, that's not whatever. We can't have we can't have druids and pagans in the craft.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, no way. They they must be expelled. Yes. It's not compatible. And I I was a new Mason at the time, so I was I was initiated uh past a raised 2000, 2007, 2008, 2009, roughly. Um and um yeah, I remember being new, but still a pretty active Mason. And I remember that happening, and I was like, I should travel to Florida and see if they'll not not permit me to attend a lodge. You know, here I am. I was already master of of the Duke of Canaan Lodge by then, uh and and it's a it's a respected lodge in this jurisdiction. And though I find out later that the Grand Lodge of British Columbia in Yukon is a rather progressive jurisdiction comparatively in for North America, I didn't think that a letter of introduction would and you know, exposing the fact that I was into Thelema, for example, just stating that I'm a I'm a pagan or I'm I'm not a Trinitarian Christian would get me thrown out. I never did it though, and it was it was interesting, some of the discussions I had at the time, and I thought the edicts, of course, beyond the pale and ridiculous. And the acts of individual grandmasters, which if you look at hundreds of years of Masonic history, this does happen. Where individual grandmasters have an axe to grind and they come into office and they issue these edicts and they are quietly ignored.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and not many, and sometimes not so not so quietly. I uh the Australians uh the the report about the Australian provincial grandmaster, whoever he was who did who put out that edict, the the nearby research laws just laughed it off. And that same year they decided to do a have papers presented in their meetings on specifically esoteric topics. So they forget this guy. But I mean the list of the things in these edicts is just extraordinary. I did, I was unaware of that in 2012. But when I came into Masonry, what I was aware of is that of what what is called knife and fork masons. I mean, I I didn't know any Masons, so I just took the uh picked the lodge nearest my home. That lodge was a degree mill, so they didn't bother to say, hey, Doug, you ought to look at several lodges and look at their different cultures, see which one really suits you. They just said, come on in. And this uh lodge was anti-intellectual. Uh they did not go for the idea of Masonic education. So I thought, my God, I thought I was getting into this uh this uh initiatic society that that was into symbolism and spirituality, and these guys just uh like to have have good meals together and fellowship. What what what's wrong with me? What's wrong with this group?

SPEAKER_02

And it turns out there's nothing wrong with the group. No. You had preconceived perceptions of what Freemasonry should be like. So, okay, so getting back to it then. So you you get put through a degree mill, uh but you're still a member. So clearly you must have cast a wider net. Once you were in the craft, you started looking around for other members with ideas similar to yours.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I was doing that in early 2012. I I was looking on the internet and saying, isn't there any place in Masonry to do meditation since I had a meditation practice of 40 years or whatever? And I actually found and I found two things. I found that in Guthrie, Oklahoma, Scottish Rite, there was a group called the Academy of Reflection that actually supported Masons doing meditation upon their symbols and allegories. And so I found out that was out there. I also heard of something called, uh read of something called the Masonic Restoration Foundation, which promoted what you could think of as spiritual practices, traditional observance practices within Masonry, spiritual masonry, I would you might say. So I I when I found out, I got so excited about that Restoration Foundation that I um found out that they were having a conference in Oakland, California, and I've living in Southern California that was happening that August of 2012. I had my fellowship, my fellowcraft degree in uh the spring, and so they were gonna do the Master of Mason in September. I said, hey, could you guys move it up to August so I could go to this conference? And they did. So I was able to get to meet a whole other type of Mason, my first year in Masonry, by going to the conference of the Mastonic Restoration Foundation in Oakland.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we we hosted them here in recent uh recent years. And my my lodge, the Duke Knott Lodge, conferred a Master Mace degree for the MRF at uh their retreat here, which I think was the first time they had done it outside of the continental United States. And it was uh it was an amazing time. And meeting meeting those guys, it was uh uh like you say, was a revelation to meet Masons of that bend.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, from all over the country and uh all over the continent, actually, you could say. Uh I I I presented at that Canadian at that conference in Vancouver on on Art of Memory.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, that was the first time you and I met. Yes. And that that was before the advent of the Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference. And I it might have even it might have even been at that event where I was sitting and talking to Ken Lane, and I'm like, you know, somebody should start a conference strictly for esotericism and freemasonry. He's like, Oh, yes, yes, yes, somebody should. And it's one of those things that uh in Masonry you gotta be careful about coming up with good ideas because yes, the best the best ideas get put right back in your own lap to uh to execute. Uh at that time I had been attending the esoteric book conference at Seattle, and I I attended every year to a point before it kind of uh spun into a different type of event. Uh, and then of course the pandemic sort of wound it down. But that William Keisel, Catamara Rosarium, and Michael Colson originally, they'd they had uh founded a conference very similar to what I had envisioned for this conference. And that's you know, I don't think I'm revealing anything here that's a secret, but the idea for esotericism at Freemasonry conference was uh stolen, uh lifted whole cloth from from my friends in Seattle that were running a very successful, eventually successful conference about occult and esoteric publishing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, one thing I found out about esotericism and masonry in my first year in 2012 was by having gone to that uh Masonic Restoration Foundation conference in Oakland, that was sponsored by an esoterically oriented lodge, academia lodge up there, and I became a member of there, and of course it's a it's a nine-hour, eight-hour drive from my home. So I I just went up there, you know, cut two or three times a year for a couple years and saw what my kind of my ideal of masonry looked like. Uh there was a solemnity to the ceremonies, so much so that they would uh gather outside the lodge room and process in silence. And uh folks who are aware of these Masonic ceremonies will know that there are times during the ceremony when there's a you take a break, and they say you're free from restraint or whatever. And in those breaks, in that lodge, everybody in the room, there are about 35 guys, 40 guys attending each one of these degree ceremonies I ever saw, sat in complete silence that whole time. They were in a meditative state, in a sacred space for the entire degree ceremony. Whereas in other lodges, you see, I would see people, I've said I saw people in one lodge actually in the early days during an opening ceremony just for a business meeting with the opening ceremony, which is a s solemn Masonic ceremony that uh sets up the sacred space of the lodge on their cell phones, texting or whatever, doing it. Oh, it's just the opening ceremony. And so to see the reverence and the solemnity of this lodge, that it just touched me so deeply. And I so I knew there was something, I knew that what I was looking for in Masonry was out there, was there. And I got, that was 2012, by the same year I was looking for Masonic Education, which didn't exist in the lodge I started in. And I found that the Grand Lodge of California had set up research lodges, and that there was a Southern California Research Lodge. So I uh quickly joined that also in my first year, and they had lots of holes in the line. The guys were kind of aging out, and they uh the research lodges were set up in California in 1952. There were four of them, and this was one of them, Southern California Research Lodge. And they were set up for the purpose of providing education to other lodges in California, which is a pretty cool idea since I was looking for education. Where am I going to learn about all these, what masonry is all about and all that. So I got really involved in that. The second year I was there, uh they popped me up to junior warden up the line because they were just were guys aging out and there was nobody who wanted to do it anymore. And then came around October of 2014 and there were elections for officers. So I would have been going to senior warden, but the senior warden was called the military duty, so I became master of the lodge. Talking about being volunteered for something. Yeah. I became master of the research lodge in October of 14, my s in my second year in masonry. And so I served all of 2015 in that role. And the night that I was in it was uh installed as master, I had done carpooling with the guy who was the editor of a monthly little newsletter magazine that the research lodge put out. So as we were driving back from my being installed as master, he said, I I really need to stop being editor of the magazine. So the same year that I was the master of that lodge, I was also being the editor of their fraternal review newsletter. I fortunately had one brother in that lodge who became a very close Masonic friend who was also interested in esoteric and symbolic and mythological, all the parts of Masonry that we think of as esoteric. And he and I started building this lodge in a different direction. By 2016, we had connected up with Dago Rodriguez here in uh Los Angeles and South Pasadena, and the three of us uh put stu changed the newsletter into a monthly magazine called the Vraternal Review, and we started moving that more in the direction of educational type of articles that were more scholarly and more esoteric studies, um, esoteric cytomasonry. So I was really uh thrown in the deep end of the pool very early in my Masonic life.

SPEAKER_02

The craft in modern times has a way of doing that. It'll take as much as you'll give, and in lots of ways, it'll it'll push you further than you're prepared to go in some cases, and see if you rise to the occasion.

SPEAKER_00

Uh yeah, well, this was just a wonderful thing for me. It was like uh an assignment of a sort that uh because it was really turned out to be my Masonic education. I I uh I had to do research every month to uh put out a magazine every month. When it turned into a magazine in January 2016, we did it on themes. So the first issue was on the Masonic apron. Or there would be one on Solomon's Temple, w whatever. The Ashlars. So I would have to do research and find out about this topic, which was a very basic topic of masonry. And so I had I did that as editor-in-chief, and I ended up doing it for seven years. I just uh retired from that little thing um this this past year. Twenty twenty-one was my seventh year of being the editor-in-chief.

SPEAKER_02

So I took a break. I'm now did did you find a successor to take it and run with it? Because that's the always the concern now in in masonry. I don't think it's revealing uh too much to say that for a long time membership was kind of in free fall, but that's stabilized a bit. Now I think in most jurisdictions and most charters, were you able to find somebody to take that project and run with it?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Well, we did the research sludge mirrored just what you were saying, is that it was in a great state of decline. They had had, for example, um very active, they had guys going out doing public talks and all that, and by the time I got there, the only thing that was going on was guys were getting together once a month to stuff envelopes and send out a newsletter. And it was just a social occasion for them. And the newsletter was uh had jokes in it, it had things, uh little articles from other from Grand Lodges and so on plunked together. But uh yeah, uh uh historically what I've seen in various organizations is once the founder or the chief retires or whatever, the organization could just be gone.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So there there's also a possibility. But good fortune and I think uh divine providence had it, that over the seven years I was editor-in-chief, a a greater and greater group of guys were attracted into uh working with the research lodge. And with the internet and all that, some of them were at a distance, like in other states of the United States or somewhere else, to that were contributing articles and so on. Yeah, so we beg so the lodge went from having say from the decline, because at its peak, maybe around 1960 or something, they had 5,000 subscribers to this uh newsletter. And when I came in, you know, 2012 14, they had maybe um 1,000. Yeah. And it just was decline and I kept declining. Yes. So, but but uh so it was in such decline when I got there. But then as the magazine came out and built, and I made connections with a couple other guys, mainly Dago Rodriguez and Geriel Smith, who were two brothers who are still working diligently in the lodge, and they have the ability to attract other guys. So gradually we built a little core in the Los Angeles area who did the hands-on stuff and uh another kind of network around the country of guys who were contributing. I got to a point after maybe three, four years where I um uh just didn't want to do it every month anymore. It's just relentless, you know, to put other magazine. So we got at the idea of having guest editors. So I thought, oh, good, this will relieve me, give me more free time to do my own writing, which I couldn't do basically very much of because of uh that commitment every single month to put on a magazine. But uh we began to get guest editors too, and it turned out that the guest editors needed some hand holding because they didn't know what how the fraternal review worked was. So I ended up mentoring them, which meant that I was spending even more time. More time than it had been before. But it was a wonderful thing in the long haul because what it did is then we began, then we had about six, seven years go by, six, five, six, seven, or eight guys from around the country who all have had experience editing the magazine and who were very interested in it. And we had a local group that was building. So we had a nice core. This lodge was now really alive with interested and motivated guys. And when it came to me saying to my cohorts, you know, the two uh Dago and uh Geriel, that uh I'd like to get back to my own writing and step aside from editor-in-chief, Dago spoke with Angel Millar, who was is a published, has published several books on Masonry, and a very accomplished Masonic author agreed to step in.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so I don't know what the long ho term vision is, but he's committed for a second year to do that. This is his first year, 2022. So we indeed have a very uh I would say someone who has has more uh chops than I do, so to speak, you know, with his background as a as an author and his the scope of his writing, also very esoterically oriented. Of course. So we're very fortunate to have Angel Millars have stepped in and uh to have a group of guys, man, maybe one of the others would be ready to step in. Should Angel want to step aside in a year or two or three, whatever.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's uh it's a feature of Freemasonry that Freemasonry contributed to governance and the uh the idea of management in the Western world is that leadership should be rotational. And what one of the great things about that is that power does not become entrenched. One of the downsides is that long-term visions and carrying out long-term visions in these organizations, and many of our lodges get new leadership, at least a visible leadership in the form of a master lodge every year. Yes. And this this makes it very difficult. It's beyond the purview of this conversation, but I think there's a talk to be had there in the future for sure, about how can we bridge the gap between, you know, the benefits of rotational leadership, but also the benefits of long-term planning. And that uh there's lots of lodges and other Masonic bodies really struggle with that. But I digress.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, indeed. Well, yeah, I guess so. I yeah, I uh Lodge I'm in now has two years as a two-year minimum for leaders. Uh the research lodge, when uh Geriel Smith became master after my year, he ended up being in there for four years. And uh the current master has served for three because partly because of the pandemic. So we have set up a two-year kind of idea of a two-year uh stint as as master. Yeah, that that's a that that's quite a dilemma that if you can build you need to build a culture ideally of like-minded folks who want to have a long-term vision and and want to carry that vision out. It's not not easily to pull that off. Not easy.

SPEAKER_02

Especially, you know, men of working age are gonna move on average, like a major move from location to location. Every five years, I think is the t statistic now. Yeah, the uh the run-up of the chairs or officer lineup to being in the East in some lodges is seven years, in some lodges is twelve years, you know, and so the meritocratic nature of our craft can't do what it traditionally has done. So again, Masonry has to face change and uh and do something it doesn't like to do, which is steer the this gigantic ship to the to make changes, and it isn't something that could be done top down because Freemasonry is ultimately very distributed. Indeed it is, yes. And it makes us resilient, but it also makes us very resistant to change. And uh I'd be interested to know if you're still in communication with your degree mill with the original lodge that initiated you. Are you still a member? Do you pay dues? Do you attend meetings?

SPEAKER_00

Uh no, actually I uh I am not. And I did demit from that lodge. So uh the there's just a different kind of uh ethos in that group of folks. So there's just the there's not that much compatibility. There's one man who coincidentally was initiated exactly when I was. We we the that that uh lodge would sometimes do two folks in the same night, two degrees. And I I was with him through my degrees, through the first two degrees. The master mason degree was done each of us separately, and we attended each other's. So he's he remains a good friend. And I have uh the master of that lodge, coincidentally, uh, lives uh two block two, three blocks from me, and we've touch, we cross paths every now and then. So but uh I I mostly I'm very devoted to the research lodge, and it's been a very in labor, a very intense labor to do that work in that lodge. So that remains my priority.

SPEAKER_02

Now uh you had a very established personal practice before you got involved in the craft. Yes. How has your spiritual practice evolved since your initiation, passing, and raising? Or has it?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's evolved tremendously. I I don't know if it's the practice actually is based upon a um the theosophical uh tradition. Part of that tradition of the f one of those writers, Alice Bailey, founded a school of meditation, a meditation school. So I became a member of that school. So that is something I still am involved in. And it's a kind of it's a very long years and years of study and writing papers, writing a report every month on meditation, and so on and so forth. So I'm very much engaged in that, and I volunteer for that organization as a mentor.

SPEAKER_02

Uh it that sounds like Eastern yoga, like a yoga tradition to me.

SPEAKER_00

Uh one of the main inspirations of that, of those writings, is uh Raja Yoga, which is Yeah. So that's a mental form of uh of yoga.

SPEAKER_02

In the West, when people hear the word yoga, they think of people in spandex taking poses. Yeah. But that's one one tiny end of authentic yoga. There's Raja Yoga sort of encompasses a much broader topic, and that's what I was talking about. You know, if you're if you find yourself sitting still and trying to not think for hours at a time, in the West we call that meditation, but in the East, they would recognize that as yoga.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, this this type of meditation, you you build a kind of a structure within yourself. And it the to talk Let me say that I hardly ever talk in Masonic context about this. It's not something that comes up very often. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

Aren't we instructed to not talk about this, but in in life.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I yeah, in a way, in a way, I uh you I can think of it as my religion, my personal religion, because it's my belief system that I invested in for the 40 years or whatever.

SPEAKER_02

Uh and then on the other hand, well, so your your question was really about masonry and how they how it relates to this and I mean I I'm I'm keen to know because I'm always keen to know, and fans of the podcast will know that here we discuss religion and even occasionally lean into politics because I think philosophical men that are prop properly men, philosophical beings who are properly instructed can have intelligent conversations about this without judgment. And that's that's what we we like doing. I I I'm interested to know how your theosophy, which you know how did it evolve? How did your religious, how did your personal spiritual practice evolve due to due to your exposure to Freemasonry?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I I this is great. I love to be able to talk about this in in part because I was very concerned about coming onto this podcast and telling you the everything about my presentation, and who needs to show up for my presentation? Because they've already heard the whole thing. So I I I like this question. So I the uh as I said, the first year uh uh there's two parts to it. One is there's a whole philosophy and uh cosmology and so on in in theosophy. And by the way, in in reading these uh esoteric academics, which I was doing to write this paper, they um speak of uh a whole lot of esoteric traditions that as a whole form modern Western esotericism, of which the very familiar ones to most of us are things like Hermeticism, magic, alchemy, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism. But these guys talk quite a bit about theosophy, which is fascinating. I only came across that very recently that that is something now I can begin to study more and realize how there there actually is theosophy, uh theosophical degrees within uh high degrees within masonry. So that's something that just a very recent thing for me. But going back to the beginnings of this, as I said when we started out here, I was looking from my first month in Masonry for where does where is Masonic Meditation? So I had founded in the Academy of Reflection in Guthrie, Oklahoma. So I got involved in the that's the Scottish Rite in Oklahoma. And so I got involved in that right away. And two, three years later I was elected an officer in that body where I still serve as the third of the three officers. So that's so as far as there's philosophy and there's practice. So when it comes to practice, um, that Academy of Reflection has courses you can go through which you learn about meditation and how to meditate as a Mason. Their basic statement has was that I that I saw at the beginning was that there was no place where Masons were encouraged to do that or had like-minded folks who were interested in that, who could gather together, support each other, learn more about that, how that works within Freemasonry. Um that's that that was really a great find for me, because what I found is that the all the years of the types of meditation I've practiced and learned, could I could take some of that tradition, my own tradition, my own past, and bring it into a Masonic context. So, for example, in uh in Raja Yoga, there's a lot of visualization, meditation upon symbols. Taplas. So, hey, there's not even a leap to say, how about meditating on a tracing board uh uh which has Jacob's ladder in it? And there's just so much symbolism and masonry that one can take a symbol and reflect upon it and go deeper and deeper into its meaning uh through meditative practices. And I mentioned about building and like you build an internal structure when it comes to um uh Raja Yoga in which you connect with your higher self, your spiritual self, and with higher levels of consciousness beyond yourself and higher levels of life beyond the visible life that we see and so on. Within Masonry, you can do that with say with Solomon's Temple is a a structure that you build. So a Mason, and I have been doing this more consciously than I ever would have before being a Mason, build within myself a structure which is like Solomon's temple, being aware that there's the porch, there's my external self, there's the middle chamber, so there's that celestial, that part of myself that has a much a connection to all of nature and all of the heavens, and and then there's something even more abstract beyond that, the Holy of Holies, where I can connect to the divine within me. And so that image of Solomon's temple and building that into my sense of who I am is a practice that it's it's a building practice.

SPEAKER_02

So I uh I'm not sure if you're familiar with the work of Jamie Paul Lamb.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, he's very much so. I'm familiar with Jamie Paul Lamb, actually. We were just uh yeah, we were just together at a conference recently. Well, he's done work, he's uh he and I, he's written articles for the uh magazine I was editing.

SPEAKER_02

His latest book, The Archetypal Temple. It's a series of essays, but in a number of essays, he addresses exactly what you're talking about, but from a from a different he comes from a different spiritual background than you. And yet here we are rediscovering this idea of archetypal temple building, essentially, of using guided visualization or meditative practice to um to build a mental idea. And and y you cover the same idea when you talk about the art of memory because in Bruno's book, Giardardo Bruno, he talks very specifically about that very same practice. And here we are you know, five five hundred, six hundred years later in the West, talking about an idea that the Theosophists would have considered completely Eastern. And yet here we are in Masonry, it's all these hundreds of years later, talking about this idea of archetypal temple building, and it just goes. To show that so much of this stuff is naturally syncretic.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, indeed it is. And it goes, I mean, syncretic, meaning that the various esoteric traditions are compatible with each other. They have influenced one another. And actually, by uh the um Enlightenment, they were considered the category of rejected knowledge. In other words, all the esoteric traditions were there was not just a hodgepodge of this and that and the other thing. It was specific historical streams that had come down and intermingled in a river that became that is esotericism, that third thing from religion and science. Yeah, the third way.

SPEAKER_02

Near the beginning here, yeah. And in the end, there are many of us who believe that's the prima materia, that ne neither science nor religion can exist without the baseline for from all of that. And the further and further you look into religion and science, more and more of it comes out of these esoteric practices. And uh now if you look at quantum physics and the way people talk about the physical universe, now they're headed back in that direction and using the language that esotericism might use to describe reality.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, there's another thing in there the thing about uh perennialism, you know, the idea that that there is a perennial philosophy or per perennial underlying philosophy of and worldview that goes back to oral cultures, goes all the way back to before writing was invented. And it came down through a chain of initiates, I don't know, v uh that uh who passed it on uh by through oral traditions and eventually some of it a lot of it got written down. But that idea of a perennial philosophy is uh is in there, and it it's an interesting connection back to Freemasonry in that the idea of a chain of initiates that pass down a tradition is exactly what the uh mythical history of Freemasonry is. You look at Anderson's constitutions based on the old charges, and they they have a history of, oh, you know, we came from Adam to Pythagoras to uh King Solomon, Moses, King Solomon, and so on, pass down this tradition, that's a perennial philosophy. Yes. So that ties masonry back into that perennial philosophy. And uh there's something that a modern view, which I really like, uh the uh is the idea of a perennial psychology that uh that uh as a modern thing. The um the whole idea of this that I talked about earlier, secularization of society, so that the esoteric and that becomes irrelevant, that never really happened. Esoteric was always there and is still there. But what some of these scholars would say is that esotericism just took different forms over time. And in modern culture, in today's world, it uh uh one form is psychology. What is psychology if not the st inner life, studying the inner life, the esoteric life of human beings? Yes. And modern psychology, and this was my profession, I was a psychotherapist in private practice for a lot of years, and that modern psychology, transpersonal psychology, is about the is a Western scientific psychology, which includes the idea that that of the experience, human experience, spiritual experiences, peak experiences, and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02

Didn't Freud and Jung borrow quite a bit from Kavala?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I don't know much about that. And I do know that uh Jung wrote whole books on alchemy. Yeah. So there were there were connections there. But going back to theosophy for a minute, that's a kind of tradition that uh you mentioned Eastern, the Eastern connection with that. Yeah. There's an example in the uh among these academics, esoteric esotericism academics, about that that would say that historically, the historical current, which we call theosophy, started with Jacob Bohm Bohm back in the 16th century, 1500s. He started writing about it in a Christian context. Then that evolved over time to get into different communities and different iterations over the generations of what theosophy is. And when you by the time you get to the late 1800s, you get Madame Blavatsky, who put a whole new spin on it by bringing in all the Eastern stuff. So it wasn't so much Eastern tied into yoga and so on back in Europe in the 1500s as it as it was in the late 1800s when that's what was going on in the world. You were getting these gurus from India coming over to the United States and teaching people meditation and all that stuff. On the other hand, you know, people have also this distorted idea about the 1500s not realizing that it wasn't just this Christian, monolithic Christian world out there. There was a great mix of Judaism with Islam, with Christianity, with all sorts of esoteric traditions, all the way back there and Eastern influences. Of course. So it's it's uh there's some sort of stort distorted idea about esotericism that's I'm getting a little bit straightened out on from reading all these scholars. It's been really a great journey.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I'm glad you're excited about it. And it's apparent you are excited about it. We're both excited about it because we're all over the map. And uh but that's good. I like these organic conversations. You've attended the uh the first three SOTRs of a Freemasonry conference, you came uh and did meditation sessions beforehand. We did three years of that before the pandemic hit, and then we spent two years doing it virtually. Um Can you talk a bit about what a session like that looks like for people who might be attending the conference and thinking about going early to the Friday night session, whether they're a Mason or not? Can you talk a bit about uh what that might look like?

SPEAKER_00

Sure, I can do that. Uh let me uh say a couple of background things before I lose track of them. Yes, please. Because I spoke about the Academy of Reflection in Guthrie, Oklahoma, Scottish Rite and Meditation and how that got going. That actually got going coincidentally. It was in 2012 when I the year I became a Mason was when they got chartered. So by 2013 they were up and running. And in in more recent years, there's another group called the Masonic Legacy Society, which uh has a website and which has trained a whole lot of folks in Blue Lodge Masonry to be meditation leaders and to lead meditations in their local Blue Lodges. So that's a wonderful group. And anyone can go online and get their main document about Masonic meditation. So now within Masonry, you have those these two groups, one within the Scottish Rite and one within Blue Lodge Masonry, that uh support and train people actually to do meditation, to lead meditation. So what happened for me was uh having gotten an Academy of Reflection, and years before the Masonic Legacy Society got going to do things in Blue Lodges, I started the monthly meditation group in my Blue Lodge. And so we met monthly for about four years before the pandemic, and it didn't end up staying kind of a small group. But what happens, what what I have learned about meditation, and I'll get back to your question in a moment about what I'll do on Friday night before this conference officially gets kicked off, is uh I've learned that um since we all come into Freemasonry with a spiritual, or uh uh those of us who come in with a spiritual orientation of some sort, esoteric interests of some sort, uh, we have already a spiritual path of some kind when we come into masonry. We bring that with us. And the beauty of masonry is that every man has to chart his own course through masonry. So that's the way it is. You there is no dogma. I mean, they say there's no dogma, I mean you can argue that point, but there's no there's certainly no um official interpretation of this particular symbol that everyone has to say that's the meaning of it, and period. It's not like that. You have to go in and find your own meaning of things, you've and find the deeper meanings of things, and that goes back to that ties you back to your own tradition. So the meditation leaders, of which I know many at this point, each do Masonic meditation in their own style, which is very cool. There's no uh formula for that anymore. There's some formula of how you've got to be a Mason in your first month and your third month in your sixth year, and there's no formula. You do it according to who you are and what you bring to it. So, what I bring to it is uh, and what I like to do in these meditations, and what I want to do on Friday night, is uh a series of steps which starts with basic simple mindfulness meditation, just a simple getting quiet, relaxed, tuning into your body, settling down. And then I move into a second part in which you instead of being identified, I should call it identification with your spiritual self, to step back from who you think you are and get in touch with that deeper part of you, that's more your spiritual self. So that's a specific exercise or meditation technique to move to a broader sense of your own identity. And then from there to meditate on light. I think that's very big in Masonry. And uh my mentor uh had me from very early on visualizing a point of light a couple feet above my head, shining all down all around me, all through me. And that's just a wonderful thing in a Masonic group to use that symbolism of the light above the head, which is like a uh it's a symbol, it's a symbol of um of uh higher consciousness, a higher perspective on things. It's a symbol of a source of knowledge and insight that comes from beyond you. Uh it's uh it's like the miniature sun, so it's a symbol like the sun comes every up every day. It doesn't decide who to shine its light on. It's so it's a symbol of unconditional love. You know, it just uh shines on everyone equally. So and then so sitting in a group, we would form that uh circle of lights that then would be in a field of light. And then within that, we would take on some Masonic, specifically monasonic symbols uh and meditate upon those in the light. And each one of those segments would be broken up with discussion in between, sharing how that went and so on. So it just gets very it just goes from kind of a surface thing of how it feels to sit here in this chair and really be present to your own experience in this moment, to something cosmic. And uh it's just uh that's how I like to do it.

SPEAKER_02

Just listening to you talk about that, it occurs to me that there might be Masons out there who find the discussion of this in a Masonic context not Masonic. What would you say to a brother or a seeker who is like, Well, that's not my Masonry? What would you say if you would say anything because I find the argument about such things sort of silly? But sometimes we're confronted with Masons that are like that sounds like it isn't Masonry. What would you say to somebody like that? Remembering that that they're a brother too, and we can have we can have differences with brothers, and I've gotten into heated arguments with brothers before. Uh I'm sort of known for it, but I should be better. Better reminding myself that I should be better. What would how would you, Doug Russell, respond to a brother that's like this just isn't Freemasonry to me?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I would I would say I would go back to what I said to you about um uh that we all chart our own path through the craft. I think that's uh basic Masonic tenet, if you will, principle. No one gives you, no one lays it out in any kind of detail of how you gotta participate in Masonry. It's a volunteer organization. And you go to a lodge and you can they can have all these social events which you can choose to go to or not. Uh they have a progressive line, you can become an officer or not. I know I've seen a lot of guys that I've seen the Masonic meetings that get the most attendance, and some lodges where I've been a member are the ones where they serve food. So there's the knife and fork guys. So you can there's a lot of different ways to be a Mason, that's what I would say. And if meditation is not for you, brother, that's okay. Uh what we as Masons need to do, meeting on the level, is honor each other as human beings with our differences, our differences and values, and grow into a love and acceptance of one another, even if we disagree with each other's lifestyle, so to say, or whatever it is, you know. So if you, brother, if you want to, you know, if you're ambitious to go up and uh go up the line and have fancy titles and all that kind of stuff, more power to you. It's not me, but more power to you because we need that kind of leadership in the craft. You want to uh get involved in this charitable thing with your lodge and do this community service thing? We need that in the craft, and the craft is known for that. It's wonderful. I personally, it's not my focus. I think it's great. I like to do some of that, but my focus is more internal. And that's just me. So let's honor and appreciate each other's differences. And if you don't want to do it my way, that's fine. I'm would like to meet brothers who are like-minded, who want to do that sort of thing, and we can gather together and do masonry, that aspect of masonry that most appeals to us, and and you can go out and do the kind that most appeals to you. And boy, does that do a lot of good for the world, some of what you guys are doing who are much more externally oriented, and you're out there doing things in the world a lot as masons. That's great. Go for it. That's beautifully put.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks, uh, Brother Doug Russell, for being with me today. 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 free Masonic 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 Brother Von Milo Duquet, author of The Tarot Architect. Brothers Ike Baker, Doug Russell, Diego Rodriguez, and Joseph Wachas are all slated to present. Get your tickets at Esoteric Masonry.com. 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 Arts Aboat Creative. A special thanks to organest for our theme music. Happy to meet Story to Part. And Happy to Meet Again.