The Mystic Tye

"The Rosicrucian" Vol 1 with RWBro. Alex Rofaila

• Troy Spreeuw • Episode 44

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:46:15

"The Rosicrucian" with RW Bro. Alex Rofaila

For over one hundred and fifty years, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia has pursued its founding mission quietly, rigorously, and away from public view: to investigate the philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus, the secrets of the Kabbalah, and the meaning and symbolism of the wisdom, art, and literature of the ancient world. Now, for the first time, that work steps into the open.

The Rosicrucian is the first global publication to emerge from the world's oldest independent society of Masonic Rosicrucians. Produced in partnership with Lewis Masonic, its purpose is to bring the mysteries of the Western Tradition into the light, in a voice that is scholarly in its foundations and accessible to every sincere seeker.

The first edition is devoted to Hermeticism. From the Emerald Tablet to the Corpus Hermeticum, this is the tradition attributed to Hermes Trismegistus that stands at the very root of the Western esoteric project. Not merely one strand of the Mystery Tradition, but the thread from which most of the others are woven.

We are joined today by RW Bro. Alex Rofaila, Editor of The Rosicrucian and a member of SRIA since 2007. Welcome, Alex.

About our guest

RW Frater Alex Rofaila became a member of Metropolitan College SRIA in July 2007, a day he calls his first real initiation. He was installed as Celebrant of Metropolitan College No. 1 in April 2016 and of the College of Holy Sepulchre in 2018, and is a founder of the College of Sophia Hermetica, the first college formed in London in over one hundred years. In 2020 he was installed as the first Chief Adept of the newly formed SRIA Province of Greater London. When lockdown struck, his provincial team revived the Rosicrucian Pamphlets and extended the reach of the century-old Metropolitan Study Group to a global audience over Zoom. That momentum led to the return of The Rosicrucian, the little-known Victorian periodical the Society published between 1868 and 1879, revamped for a modern readership and launched in June with its first issue on Hermeticism, available through Lewis Masonic.

Alex is a keen Freemason and a member of several orders beyond the craft, including Royal Arch, Mark, RAM, Royal and Select, Rose Croix, Royal Order of Scotland, and Knights Templar.

Referenced in this episode

34:15 Over 300 Years of Masonic Ritual by Martin Gandoff: Lewis Masonic

Cholmeley Lodge No. 1731: cholmeleylodge.org

The Atlantis Bookshop: theatlantisbookshop.com

SRIA London and the Metropolitan Study Group: srialondon.org

You can find us online at mystictye.com. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/mystictye. Email feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions to troy@mystictye.com.

Thanks for listening today. You can support the show by liking, sharing, and subscribing on your favourite podcast syndicator. 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 Conferences website at masonicconferences.com.

The Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference will be held on Saturday, September 19th, 2026. Our keynote speaker will be Bro. Lon Milo DuQuette, author of The Tarot Architect. Bros. Ike Baker, Doug Russell, Dago Rodriguez, and Josef Wages are all slated to present. Get your tickets at esotericmasonry.com.

For other events, check out our calendar at mystictye.com, and don't forget to sign up for our newsletter while you are there.

Graphics and web hosting are by Art Szabo Creative. A special thanks to Organist for our theme music.

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

Links and resources


Support the show

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

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

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



 Welcome to The Mystic Tye A podcast for Freemasons. I am your host, Troy Spreeuw. You can find us online at MysticTye.com. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at Troy@MysticTye.com. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/mystictye. For over one hundred and fifty years, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia has pursued its founding mission quietly, rigorously, and away from public view.

 

Now, for the first time, that work steps into the open. The Rosicrucian is the first global publication to emerge from the world's oldest independent society of Masonic Rosicrucians. This first edition is devoted to Hermeticism. From the Emerald Tablet to the Corpus Hermeticum, this is the tradition attributed to Hermes Trismajestus that stands at the very root of the Western Esoteric Project.

 

Not merely one strand of the mystery tradition, but the thread from which most of the others are woven. We are joined today by Right Worshipful Brother Alex Rofaila, editor of The Rosicrucian and member of SRIA since two thousand and seven. Welcome, Alex.. 

 

📍 Thank you for joining me on The Mystic Tye. This is your first podcast. I promise I will go easy on you. will

 

gentle. Be gentle.

 

Will avoid any controversial topics, which is going to be difficult.

 

Yeah

 

You're here in your role as editor of this publication, The

 

Yes, the

 

you wanna show it on your screen, too,

 

Yes. Mine, it'll be backwards probably on my screen, but yes, here you go

 

I have pretty sophisticated editing tools, but, guys will get the point. 

 

Yeah, exactly. Exactly

 

a- as my mentor might say you don't have to read it, but please buy it.

 

Yes, exactly. Brit

 

here, and we sold, they sold rather briskly at Grand Lodge a few weeks ago, and it

 

Oh, fantastic

 

Number one recommendation at my book table, and that and the "5 Minute Ritualist" that we were selling, Kim March's ritual system. Man, we s- we sold almost all that we had. It was it was pretty amazing. Now, I've read this

 

Excellent.

 

Excellent

 

hard for say 'cause I've got like 50 new Masonic books here from Martin Faulks at Lewis Masonic. He sent me a whole pile of stuff. I was like, "I gotta read this, I gotta read this, I gotta read this."

 

And I... Where do you have time, right? So I'm trying to read a book a week. But this I read and reread a couple of the, a couple of the articles, and I'm just, I'm over the moon that you guys are speaking publicly, and I really liked the approach you guys took. th- this, is this a new effort for SRIA? Did... Or have you guys done this before, or is this

 

new for you? 

 

it's really interesting. There's a re- there's a, So basically, in the 19th century, there was a small periodical called The Rosicrucian and I think it was put out by Woodman. I could be wrong. I'd need to go and check my actual facts. But there was a periodical and so that died a long time ago.

 

And basically what happened was during COVID the Province of London, there has never, there had never been a Province of London before 2020 because the way the society is formed for tho- for those who've never heard of the SRIA, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is the oldest Masonic Rosicrucian society in the world.

 

And it's h- has a very interesting history. Lots of very colorful characters. The colorful characters who were the f- the, who formed the basic Victorian ro- occult revolution who then went on to form the Golden Dawn, they were all the people who formed the SRIA. I have this little thing that I like to talk to young Freemasons about that if you trace the magical orders back via the Golden Dawn, that basically the SRIA is the original Hogwarts because that's where the modern revolution all began.

 

So the SRIA is very, even in Masonic circles, isn't known that well. And you can have, you can be sitting at a Masonic festive board and be having a very deep and interesting conversation with an esoteric-leaning Freemason and say, "Have you heard of the SRIA?" And they just stare at you blankly.

 

So when COVID hit the Province of London had been formed literally three weeks before CO- we had our first lockdown. And so we decided that what can we do? We've got... I was asked to be the first Chief Adept of London, which was something I had never even expected or had thought about.

 

And the, what w- was very noticeable about the difference between the SRIA and most Masonic lodges is in lockdown, what could most Masonic lodges do stuck at home? They did Masonic quiz nights stuff like that. Whereas because the SRIA is a study-based society covering all the aspects of Rosicrucianism, which c- pretty much covers every single subject you can think of in the Western mystery tradition, we were still ho- hosting.

 

We've have, we have a study group, the Metropolitan Study Group, which has been running for over 100 years. People like Arthur Edward Waite were members of the study group. Rudyard Kipling was also a member of our study group. Our study group meets in the basement of the Atlantis Bookshop, for those of you who know the Atlantis Bookshop in London, and lovely Geraldine and Barley who run it.

 

So we were still having, it was the first time we'd been experimenting with Zoom. Zoom was a very new technology just before, a year or so before lockdown, and we'd been experimenting with that. So we'd already embraced it by the time lockdown happened. We embraced it. So we had the study group.

 

We were have ... we were regularly having over 150 people tune in from all over the world during lockdown. And then we thought what else can we do?" So we thought, "Why don't we resurrect the Rosicrucian pamphlets?" And there's a little team of very enthusiastic practitioners in London who are members of the society.

 

So we started to, every three months, we started to do another little pamphlet, and it was just us, few, a few of us together. We'd meet once a week. Actually it was probably the my- the thing I most looked forward to in lockdown was our weekly get-together. And we ended up producing pamphlets.

 

And they were just very, a- they were quite amateur, but they were brimming with enthusiasm. And suddenly the pamphlets started to they'd a- I'd see them appear in, strange corners of Facebook and stuff like that. And th- obviously we'd lit a touch paper. So once once we got back into the normality of life I was approached by the then Secretary General who said, "Look we want the team who put the pamphlet together, we want you to do something similar but for the whole society."

 

And really it's about ... There's, there was a, the strategy was for two, two reasons. One was to find a way to connect with those esoteric Freemasons who are already out there, who don't, who have absolutely no idea that we exist, but it's ... we are their natural home. This, the SRIA only takes members from Freemasons from, recognized by UGLE and associated Grand Lodges.

 

We, that's ... And also There are those members of the public who I would say are dipping their toes into the esoteric waters and we wanted to design something that was accessible visually interesting and enticing, wasn't too scholarly. I think the problem that people find when they first delve into this world is they go crazy and start buying, f- fishing out old books from booksellers and online and they've got tons and tons of books that they need to read and, and they're look- going through, these very dense, very they're, a lot of original esoteric titles and books as we all know are not easy reads.

 

You have to go back and you have to study those things again and again. Yeah. So what we wanted to do was just find something that was accessible. Go, "Here we go. This is, for the, for somebody who's just beginning to, beginning that journey and is just that, that f- that thing where you first get that taste and you're just like, 'Oh, wow,' the veil rends asunder and there's this whole new world ahead of you.

 

Here's something that you can just, you can... is easily digestible and accessible." So that was pretty much the idea behind it.

 

Pamphleteering.

 

Sorry?

 

like p- pamphlets hearing. You were

 

producing these tract, you were producing tracts.

 

Yes.

 

Everything old is new again. Did you guys produce new material or did you repeat 

 

no, it's all new material.

 

That- 

 

no, It was we basically thought let's take the concept of a pamphlet and l- and we, and very much in London, I think because London being the kind of, megatropolis that it is

 

The fact that, we're very lucky. For example, we have three colleges in London, but Metropolitan College which founded the society.

 

Metropolitan College is bigger than most provinces. And Metropolitan, we have people who fly in all over the world to come to Met Col meetings. There's something very, There's a... when you sit in the chair as celebrant of Met Col, you are sitting in a current and you can feel that current.

 

And we have members who fly in. We have one guy who's actually giving a he's delivering the paper at the study group this weekend. He flies in from New York every meeting. We have people who fly in from all over Europe. And Met Col is, And Lon- London has a lot of very in- When as you can imagine, dipping into this world in London, the vein you're, you're mining from is rich and, and full and interesting and colorful and and we're very lucky that I would say some of the most interesting minds in England who are involved in all of this kind of stuff there are there, there are quite a few of them who are members of Metropolitan College of the SRA. So we're very lucky. It wasn't, it's like when we came up with the idea, it wasn't in any way a chore.

 

It was like, "Yay, excellent. We can actually start doing something together," as opposed to I think what happens, a lot of people, we're all, whatever tradition we practice in, we come, we, we do our stuff on our own and then... And the good thing about the SRA is everybody comes together and it's an open forum to be able to discuss all of these different things, and I think that's one of my f- orite things I, that I love about the SRA.

 

It's not, it's not like the Golden Dawn where you have this, the huge amount of work where you have to work through it and then you take an exam to get to the next pl- next grade and then the next grade. And I think some people join the SRA thinking it's going to be like that, but it's not.

 

Yes, we have grades. Yes, we have very interesting subject matters that follow a similar kind of route of how one should expand one's knowledge and wisdom, but it's up to you to go and do it. So a lot of people who join are, some people, even though everybody is a Trinitarian Christian or identifies as a Trinitarian Christian or accesses...

 

I always say that the thing that, someone who's a, who in their professional career is a yogi master or someone who, you know, h- is an Islamic scholar or somebody who, could be a ceremonial magician or something, but we come together And we break bread, and I think the SRIA is a wonderful place where people come and break bread together.

 

And some of the most fascinating, illuminating, most colorful conversations of my whole life, I think, has been had around an SRIA table after a meeting. By the time dessert comes, we've all- we're doing kabbalistic stand-up routines. It's it's a wonderful place. That was the thing that did make me laugh, and that's actually a true story.

 

We- somebody did do up and somebody just got up and told a kabbalistic joke, and it made me laugh because at least 90% of the table were laughing because they understood where the joke came from.

 

Isn't that the, th- that's the idea behind the Kabbalah is that we have a common language as aspirants to be able to

 

Exactly.

 

All of these archetypes on, right? That I was super impressed with the publication. I like the layout. I like the fact it's like artwork. It's very colorful.

 

The content is very serious, but the articles inside are short. they are, they're genius because often with periodicals like this, guys will not cite their source material, and

 

Hmm

 

every one of these has footnotes and a recommended reading list. And that's brilliant because without that, you guys are taking a sort of a scholarly approach

 

to 

 

It's, I suppose it's 

 

esoteric, very subjective material, right?

 

Yes. But I think it's it's it's digestible. The approach is scholarly, but the, but the access point is digestible. And the reason why we wanted to make something... if you look at that, if you imagine that in a bookshop compared to most esoteric publishing, you're gonna be standing at the counter going, "Oh my God, that looks really interesting.

 

What the hell is that?"

 

Yeah, and

 

then flip through it. The whole thing's full color, full

 

Exactly. Full color for everything.

 

color, full process, full bleed.

 

Yeah. Yeah

 

It feels like an old school graphic novel or magazine. 

 

That's exact-

 

collectible. Comic book,

 

that's exactly, yes. That's exactly what we wanted to do because I think that, some of this subject matter first time round, you can, get three or four paragraphs in and it's just like I don't understand what this person is talking about. This is very deep, dense information.

 

But I s- but if you can make it accessible, and that's what we said, for the articles with just 3,000 words or less. These have got to... Imagine you are, you're reading an article over a cup of coffee. It's got to, it's got to have that magazine feel,

 

Hmm

 

as in the, you, you can go away, you can read an article, and there's enough there that you can digest and at least have a sprinkling of an understanding of the subject matter.

 

Yeah.

 

If you want to go away, if something piques your interest and you want to go away and, study Iamblichus or you want to go and read the Corpus Hermeticum or whatever, that's great. If we've given you that first little taster, then off you go. And I think that's that is, that's something that you don't find very often.

 

And I think we've managed to create a, something that can stand out and is standalone. But it, again, it's like a doorway. That's how I look at the SRIA. It's a doorway. It's a doorway to this whole esoteric wonderland that's out there.

 

Y- and, yeah, and you could see it's a great... I don't wanna gush too much. It's a great contribution to Masonic print culture in a format and a design sensibility that certainly would speak to people that are also buying other pop-occult material. Know that Moore's Bumper Book gets referenced a lot in this area. But you stand out because it's cool and similar, yet so dissimilar with the content, You guys are referencing very old historical material

 

Yes

 

from, an old surviving esoteric society. And yet presenting it in such a cool way. Anyway my hat's off to you guys. And then of course the imprimatur at the end, I just really love that.

 

That was genius. Anyway yeah. To the listener, please avail yourself to get a copy. Again, you don't have to read it, but get it, put it in your library so that 100 years from now, people rediscover this and can sell it for $300 or $500 in pristine condition.

 

exa- exactly. 

 

do 

 

that's

 

do yourself a favour and buy three or four copies and lay them up so that you

 

Yeah.

 

can make some money later when this 

 

that's what we did with the with the ones that we the soft launch we did with- So we did a soft launch in The Society just to see how it went, and that was just me- the guy who did the designs it was basically him and me. I'm, I'm not an editor. We, we-

 

you wanna give him, do you wanna give him a shout-out? You can say his name

 

Yes, 

 

If he doesn't want

 

it 

 

Nitesh

 

I can edit it out

 

Nitesh Bhundia he designed this incredible design.

 

And I worked in media from, for nearly 37 years. I've been in ad- was in advertising for 20 years. I was in TV and film and stuff like that. So I've spent a long time looking at content and how one creates content, designs content, whether it's a billboard, whether it's, it's, this is, it's, this is still content.

 

It, I was used to moving content. This is just content that's not moving, but

 

yeah.

 

it's

 

Yep.

 

just a big...

 

Masonic print culture, as I

 

Exactly.

 

saying.

 

Exactly.

 

They would

 

study in a college

 

I so the ones we did, we got a little run of about, I don't know, 100 copies done by no, no way, it was nowhere near Lewis Masonic at this stage.

 

And we we did a soft launch at the High Council for the Society in May.

 

There's a High Council every year. There's the, our sister societies from all over the world come and join us, the SRIS in Scotia, the SRIL, which is Lusitania, which is Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and the SRICF, which is America. It's a wonderful weekend. It's become one of the highlights of my year, actually.

 

And we spend the whole weekend doing workshops and giving, giving presentations. And and so we got, we had the Supreme Mages sign 20 copies, because also, w- you know, we, the the ISBN number, w- you know, we put a fake one on the back because we had to s- it was just, it had to look like that's what it was gonna look like.

 

So there will be some super collectibles in a, in 100 years or so that the Supreme Mages signed, that it doesn't have the original ISBN number. And that was part of the fun that we thought we'd do last year, is let's send out 100 collectibles into the world that no one will realize until we're all, as we say in the UK, pushing up daisies, which means when we're dead and buried

 

Yes. Excellent idiom. Thank you. s- so d- now this is not a one-off, right? This is gonna be a

 

No

 

Can you, could you tilt your hand a bit and talk about,

 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

 

how often, much what's the plan? Where's the arc? How are you- how's it going?

 

Okay. 

 

What's next?

 

I have a little file on my desktop with the prospective articles for addition two. But what I- we've just had our high council again in May, which went brilliantly and it's, there's a lot of high after the high council, so I've i've got some more people doing suggestions and then they will come in at the end of summer.

 

We will then begin the s- the serious editing process again in September, and then hopefully to launch b- sometime the beginning of next year. I think we could probably manage one every eight or nine months. We originally wanted to try and do two a year, but I think for those of, those who have been in the Masonic periodical publication sphere know that it's quite a diff- it's a quite difficult process to try and, people who are amateurs, to try and get them to, to...

 

we've had a lot of stuff 'cause, yes, we we bring our m- we take our membership from Freemasonry but we are not Freemasons. So there's lots of... I get all these l- what, lots of lovely Masonic articles turning up on my desk, but just "Sorry, guys. This is," with the Societas Rosicruciana, the clue is in the title.

 

So it, it's a lot, A- and it's quite a Herculean task getting something like this off the ground. We're very lucky. Martin Faulks from Lewis Masonic is a very good friend. He he is also a member of the SRIA, and he, for us, i- there couldn't be a better distribution partner than Lewis Masonic.

 

It just do- it doesn't exist. And so it took a while for us to be able to negotiate contracts and bal- and get into their... And also the funny thing is the first edition, we went, once it went, started to go through the Masonic the Lewis Masonic quality control, went through about four or five rounds, and of course there's all these tiny little mistakes that my non-professional eye didn't pick up.

 

So we've, we, we've got the template now and we think maybe eight or nine months, every one, I think. I think if we tried to do it every six months, it would become too stressful and we'd start to think this is, this feels more like a job than something we're doing out of love. So I think about once every eight or nine months

 

And they're selling well. I hope I'm not tipping. 

 

Amazingly,

 

l- like,

 

Think it's surprised everybody.

 

It surprised everybody.

 

everybody?

 

Yeah, 

 

And that, isn't that wonderful? The non-Masonic world the occult periodicals, collectibles it saw a resurgence, and then since the pandemic it's just drifted b- back into the obscurity and shadows.

 

But for d- it was on the ascendant for 20 years in the early part of the new millennium, and it just grew and grew. it's great to see you guys get response. Are you hoping... here's a technical question. Are you hoping to keep editions in print for a while? That'll make them less

 

collectible, but it'll

 

make them more 

 

yeah. 

 

do you wanna... 'Cause, 'cause I'm sure Martin has some say as to whether he's 

 

he does. Yeah.

 

The thing is, it's been in the number one position at Lewis Masonic for the past two months. I don't think any- anything has knocked, the Emulation Ritual, the ritual book, has ever knocked the Emulation Ritual book, considering Lewis Masonic and, for all the other i- special interest books that they do, the Emulation Ritual has just always been there at number one.

 

And we've knocked it off the... for two months in a row, which has just been unbelievable. The guys at Lewis are just like, "This is selling like hotcakes." We managed to... the one thing we really wanted to do, one of our strategy was, okay, can we get this into the shop at Freemasons' Hall in Great Queen Street?

 

Can we get this into the beating heart of g- global, this is the epicenter of the United Grand Lodge of England. If we can do that, then we have... That's just, that would be hits, hitting one of our dreams. It's in there. It's already sold out. They've already get- they've already got a new order for Freemasons' Hall.

 

So the, and the one thing that I think this is really sh- is really showing, the capacity for esoteric interests in normal Freemasonry. That, I think we're at this, as you, you're doing, this is a podcast for esoteric Freemasons. I think that, there's a slight disconnect between especially, at, a few years ago, which, you can imagine how it angered a lot of people.

 

UGLE put out a note saying that there was noth- there was no hidden esoteric mysteries in anything Free- Masonic. It's have you guys actually studied Freemasonry? Have you actually, do you have

 

esotericism.

 

any idea

 

it every, (Antoine) Faivre- Hanegraaff, every published Western esoteric expert starts at Freemasonry as 

 

that's the...

 

one example.

 

Exactly. This is the number one

 

of them,

 

spot.

 

exception.

 

Yeah. Exact- exactly

 

they we defined it. So unless you've read (Antoine) Faivre or Hanegraaff, at least start there you can't make a blanket statement like that with any kind of...

 

No.

 

I don't care if you're the Grand Master or the Grand Secretary of any

 

No, you can't it's just ... It's that lit. It's that lit. It's that lit. No?

 

respected in

 

No? Yeah

 

because people would just be like, "Yeah. And in other news, water is wet." Right? You

 

Exa- exactly.

 

Y- and then y- we've seen this sort of anti-esoteric sentiment arise with certain Grand Masters and certain, we've seen it in Florida, we saw it in Australia, we've s- we've seen it a- at UGLE from time to time, although less so than in other And there's certain corners of esotericism, Western esotericism I should say. I'm close with Gordan Djurdjevic, who, and we've had this discussion many times. It's Western esotericism, but many of us believe that it should just be esotericism, and eventually the

 

Yes

 

term will just, because it occurs in, in Eastern philosophies as well, and is there any real difference between Eastern and Western?

 

And historically, yes, but anyway lots of argument there. But we see this arise from time to time in Freemasonry and it 

 

I

 

a, it's about a public perception that has to do with religious fundamentalism being whipped up. it,

 

Yes. Yeah

 

no more religious people in the modern world than people interested in esotericism. The further you go down any esoteric rabbit hole the more you find the most radically religious believers, right?

 

Completely. Completely

 

I- I don't understand where the disconnect is other than a certain kind of religious practitioner, you could never be the right kind of religious practitioner, and they just wanna persecute.

 

That's how they use religion.

 

Yeah. 

 

holy book to beat

 

I me- 

 

people, right?

 

And 

 

the funny...

 

we shouldn't be buying into it. We should be

 

No

 

exactly.

 

small L

 

liberal organization that we are, 

 

yeah.

 

of conscience as a

 

Yeah

 

of the idea. Anyway 

 

and

 

the funny thing is-

 

with me of that, over

 

No.

 

here.

 

The funny thing is this has probably happened to me, I would say about between 20 and 30 times, that, I have been part of the Rose ... the SRIA equivalent of the initiation ceremony, countless, I can't even remember how many times.

 

But people coming up to me, after the ceremony or after the meal and literally hugging me tight and saying, "This is what I thought Freemasonry was." And I think, and I, there's a whole new, there's, all the younger guys coming in are so enthusiastic. And I ha- I call it I call it the Harry Potter effect.

 

And the reason why I call it the Harry Potter effect is the guys who are all in their kind of 30s now, they were the first generation to read Harry Potter as children. So as kids, they believed in magic completely, 100%. Then as you get older, if you put in a, a random Google search of what is magic, at some point down that rabbit hole, you are gonna end up at the doorstep of Freemasonry.

 

They then join Freemasonry thinking, "Oh my God, this is it. Finally, I'm, here I am. Where, where's the secrets? What's going on?" And they'd be sitting in a craft lodge next to old Bill, and they'd nudge old Bill and go Bill, what does this mean? What does this mean?" And Bill shrugs his shoulders and goes, "I w- I don't know.

 

I don't know. But Bob's got pr- provincial honors. How dare Bob get provincial honors?" It's and they become disillusioned, and they join lots of other Masonic orders 

 

looking

 

for this mystery and looking this, they, they can't t- they can smell it, and they can almost taste it.

 

And then some of them get dis- disillusioned and leave Freemasonry altogether, or some of them end up at the door of the SRIA, and they are literally, they're like a, someone who's been in a de- crawling in a desert w- looking for that m- that mysterious drop of w- And they arrive, and they're just like, they, it's like this has finally answered their prayers.

 

And I think that half the reason, as I said, one of the reasons for bringing out the Rosicrucian, is to try and leave some more colorful crumbs for these Freemasons to come and find us. Because it's, you don't want to over-advertise yourself because then all you get is the medal collectors,

 

Yep.

 

Yeah 

 

And, for us, it's like I, I in- you know, we have three colleges in London, and I interview the prospective candidates for one of them. And we, and I, it's just like we say, "Come to study group. You can join online." And if anyone's listening online, we have a study group once a month, which is absolutely wonderful, and you're more than welcome to join us from wherever you are in the world.

 

It's a completely open study group. Don't even have to be a Freemason to be part of our study group. And, And then, we are, you are expected, this is not a Masonic order, so you are expected at some point, you're expected to take part in a study group. You're expected to, h- do a presentation and it doesn't ha- you know, it can be on anything.

 

You can, i- instead of a presentation you can hold a meditation se- session. You can talk, just you have to be, we are creating an egregore here that's full of enthusiastic people that want to be part of this world. So there's a really fine line between trying to bat away the medal collectors and b- and advertising just enough that those who have eyes to see can see us.

 

Indeed. 

 

been, that's quite a fine line to to tread

 

D- David Harrison, no less than David Harrison and Julian Rees told me similar stories. 

 

Yeah. Yeah

 

Julian and David both tell stories about, they joined a lodge when they were really young. And one of the old guys in the lodge like, "Give it 10 years, and then you'll know what it's about."

 

Yeah.

 

And mo- modern aspirants who are used to being able to go to the internet and watch some YouTube videos on something are not gonna study wait for the spontaneous 10-year aha moment. Sorry, it just isn't gonna, they're gonna drift away to something more immediate. Not that 10 years wouldn't work that ... G- great, but that's no longer a strategy that's going to work anyway.

 

No, exactly. And the thing is, I, and the ones who do say that are the ones who don't access stuff on the internet, and don't ... I th- I s- I find it, like I, I think that we're in a, we're in a point now where the, the M- masonic stroke world, groups, th- these kind of e- groups of e- organizations and societies where th- those who are currently running the society, I call them, they're still 19th century quill and parchment.

 

And those who are coming up through the ranks, who have probably know more about the core ideas of the society are all, 21st century digitally native individuals. And I think that o- that there's, there are these little internal battles, not just, across lots of different organizations, where the old guard is gonna have to let go and let the new guard come through.

 

Because the new the new world is very different from the one, the one where these societies were set up. It's ... Th- these societies are still being run by those kinds of people. But there's ... I see these young guys coming up now who are just, they are bundles of vibrating electric kind of, energetic, enthusiastic knowledgeable.

 

And not just knowledgeable, but I think they have more wisdom about them than a lot of the older guys, because I thi- and I think we mentioned this earlier when we were chatting, that- A lot of prob- I think that I've always found a- about some of these guys that, the older ones can confuse knowledge with wisdom.

 

And just because more facts or you've read more 17th century Rosicrucian texts in Latin, that it somehow gives you a pedigree, a purer pedigree or a purer right to be the, the knowledgeable master. But knowledge and wisdom are two very different things, and I think that the modern world because it's a more, it's a little bit more of a meme-tastic environment that some of these guys aren't sitting in, worn leather chairs in front of an old, in front of a fire with a leather-bound tomb or 10 on their bookshelf, spending the evening with the grandfather clock ticking in the background, digesting these old texts.

 

They're out living life in a very different way and I think that's a good thing. I think it's time because, there's so much of this knowledge has been hidden behind closed doors, not for any other reason, that there was just no access to it.

 

Great.

 

A- and in the modern wo- the modern world, anything you want, especially now with I think we all have love-hate relationships with AI.

 

I think AI is a wonderful research tool. But you can find things, you can scour stuff now on the internet, which would have taken you two years of sitting in the British Library trying to access the same information

 

Yeah. And l- look, you just touched on something that the tension, I always talk about it here, tension between the anachronism of the craft and then the craft being a reflection of modern society and the n- the new membership versus old membership, and we've always had that tension. The... In his book Over 300 Years of Masonic Ritual, I... is it Gandoff? Anyway I'll put it in the show notes. It's over here on my shelf for sale. Anyway he talks about, the membership crisis that was caused by the fire of London with the all the building lodges.

 

And he doesn't say it out loud, but you read between the lines with what his conclusions are and it's we've... Ma- even taking speculative members in the original idea of the craft was a membership drive to keep all these charters going, right?

 

Yeah.

 

a- and

 

Yeah

 

Has that always been the case?

 

And why are we bringing people in who don't understand what we're doing over here? And it's like at some point, not understanding became part of the m- masonic tradition, right? Just the

 

Oh com-

 

you're in charge, if you're in charge, now you can just assert, we just talked about this, now you can just assert whatever you want about the craft 

 

yeah.

 

have to toe the line.

 

And it's just

 

It's also fascinating how much of the craft is resistant to change in such a manner that it doesn't matter what you're saying about it. You too will be forgotten,

 

Yeah

 

Only after your death will you get any kind of about your ideas about the craft. It takes forever to steer this ship. Harrison's republishing Wilmshurst and his rituals and the Lodge of Living Stones is gonna be 100

 

years this year or 

 

yeah, 

 

right? And idea is, again, getting some attention. I know Ike Baker's talking about it, and I'm rereading Meaning of Masonry again, and I have my issues with Wilmshurst.

 

Anyway, there's all of this anachronism versus newness, right? And I want you to comment on that. But before we move on to that,

 

Yes

 

talk about the value of secrecy, I wanna ask you about that cartouche you're wearing on your ring finger. But before we get there, so you can think about how you're gonna answer those questions while you answer this question. I have a comment. I think Martin could do you dirty by reissuing the the emulation ritual, make six corrections and be like, "There's another new edition." Do you guys dirty and be like, "Yep, this is not, this is no longer number one," because of course there are those brothers that would rush out and get

 

another obedient edition, 

 

I will, I-

 

o- only to find six corrections and be like, "What the hell, Martin?"

 

Anyway 

 

I also think that... no, I also think that perhaps launching in June and this being July is the, the end of the Masonic season. So the rush f- the rush for copies of the Emulation ritual are probably ta- tapering off towards the end of the year. I'm sure that we- if we launched in September, it would be a very different fight.

 

Emulation would be giving us a good run for our money.

 

Yes and I'd like to think that being on this podcast to promote it now after your first big rush of sales, this'll be the summer reading equivalent of Eat Pray Love, so that

 

we'll get 

 

I would hope so. I would hope so. The esote- the Masonic, exactly, the Masonic esoteric equivalent of Eat, Pray, Love. I love that.

 

my, my 12 listeners will immediately go by anyway. Yeah, th- what sort of articles are you looking for your next edition? Let's do that before we get into personal stuff, 'cause

 

Okay

 

I want you to have a chance to use this platform to be like, "Hey, if you wanna get published in an occult periodical of this quality right here that is really amazing th- this is what you need to do.

 

You need to add footnotes, first of all." But what are you guys looking for your next one out there?

 

The let me just quickly read out the kind of mission statement of the society. C- because it's quite an interesting one. 

 

Sure

 

the a- the aim of the founders was to afford mutual aid and encouragement in working out the great problems of life, and in searching out the secrets of nature, to facilitate the study of the system of philosophy founded upon the Kabbalah and the doctrines of Hermes Trismegistus, which was inculcated by the original Fratres Rosicrucis of Germany AD 1450.

 

And to investigate the meaning and symbolism of all now that remains of the wisdom, art, and literature of the ancient world, which I think is a pretty damn good mission statement for

 

Nice

 

It's it's really nice, isn't it? 

 

Beautiful.

 

yeah

 

They would've spent some time thinking about that, I would imagine

 

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So the first one we thought what's the most opaque c- concept in there apart from, so much has been written about Kabbalah that we thought, okay let's, dedicate the first issue to Hermeticism or Hermetism, depending on your phraseology. Which we did, but we didn't want to suddenly

 

We thought for the second c- we didn't want to suddenly get stuck into themes. It's oh, do we pick another theme from the Western tradition or the Rosicrucian tradition? It's and then what happens when we run out of themes? So this time we've just gone out into the society and just said, "Okay, what's out there now?

 

What's interesting, you guys? What is really making you ex- excited? What are you enthusiastic about?" And tried to do a sort of cross-section of what people are excited about in the society at the moment. Not sure where, what's gonna come out. I will know- hopefully by the end of the summer there will be enough in my inbox that we'll be able to have a look at and see if there's enough of that cross-section of how it can, what kind of addition it can make.

 

Because I think that we are, I'm trying to find that that, that sort of sweet spot where we're getting people enthused to, to, about the about the publication. That they want, they, it's on enough people's radars that they think, "Oh, great. I've just done this fascinating, weekend of, I don't know, some form of, Kabbalistic meditation or I, whatever the hell it happens to be," and just get enthused and go, I wanna write an ar- an article specifically for the Rosicrucian about that."

 

That's what I'm try- we are trying to do to hopefully in the next year or so that people, that becomes it becomes, it ... every time I send out a missive to the the provincial directors of studies, they're sending it out to all the m- the college members. And we're, we've got colleges pretty much, it's incredible how the society is beginning to to spread and the interest in it.

 

And, we've got we've had colleges open in Germany one last year in Slovenia, which was amazing. It was in an deconsecrated Teutonic Knights church in the middle of Ljubljana. And one of our chief adepts is an ordained priest, so he recon- it was basically deconstituted by the communist regime 60 years ago, but it's beautiful.

 

It's got these incredible murals on the walls. This just absolutely stunning building. And it was, so it was re- he then reconsecrated it as a sacred space before the the consecration for the college took place, which is just beautiful. And it's just, when you, and you see these, like Slovenia.

 

Slovenia's only been recognized as a country since 1992

 

Yeah

 

They're so enthusiastic about this stuff. There's Bulgaria is coming up. Romania is happening. There's an, there's one in Austria c- coming up too. It's just, there's more opening in France. France has just become its own province.

 

It's just, it's, there is appetite for this stuff. And so we're basically t- I'm, trying to get our members enthused enough that when it comes round they think, "I've, great, I've got something. I've got something specifically for the Rosicrucian." Not opposed to, at the moment was, I think what I've definitely been, what's definitely been arriving in my inbox is, "Oh, I wrote this Masonic paper 10 years ago on the tessellated pavement.

 

There you go." It's no. Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys. This is not

 

there's other

 

a place to..."

 

there's

 

Yeah.

 

for all that

 

Exactly. It's not, this is not a place for regurgitated 10-year-old Masonic papers. We are supposed to be trying to look at what... I always say about Rosicrucianism now, and this is what we tried to do with our original pamphlets that we produced in 2020, how, how do these teachings, how does this system apply to the 21st century?

 

Yes, it's great when we're in a beautiful college environment at a beautiful old temple in, underneath, hidden in, underneath the buildings in London and it's wo- But how does this help when you are stuck in traffic or when you're negotiating with your electricity company or you're interacting with people on social media or you're trying to just get by in the modern world?

 

How can these teachings help? And I think that, the reason why is, there's so much, th- there's the difference between the Western I think the difference between the Western mystery camp and the more Eastern philosophical camp is I genuinely think that Historically, because of, as we all know, people like Giordano Bruno being burned at the stake, bless his cotton socks.

 

There was so much of this was driven underground because of religious zealots, because of, let's not name specific institutions, but, there wa- there was ... i've ... i'm ha- I'm half Egyptian. I have spent a lot of time in the ancient temples of Egypt. And and you stand behi- you stand in these, in front of these in- incredible monuments that are far older.

 

I don't beli- I think we have the current timelines of Egypt slightly off, to be honest with you, but, there's lots of archeological arguments to and for all of this. But you s- you stand there and you can feel it and you think, "Yeah, this is where that stuff began." That whole, the Magi of the East, whatever you wanna call it.

 

It, you can see the current going from Egypt, through Rome and Greece out into, s- parts of Europe, and then the, with the Renaissance and through the ... i've spent a lot of time ... I'm currently in Spain at the moment. I'm in Andalusia. I l- that period, Al-Andalus, when Spain, most of Spain was an Islamic country for 1,000 years, which mo- a lot of people don't know that.

 

Not o- but it was the only time in history where there has been harmony between the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians. This is one of, this is Kabbalah's greatest moment was in Toledo in Islamic Spain. And, all this stuff came up it, into the, through the peninsula of Spain and then out into Europe, with the Renaissance happening from the other side, from Italy.

 

But you s- you know, you sta- you sta- There wa- there was so much that it was like taking ... You know those fire blankets that you just put over a fire and it just snuffs everything out? I think that's what happened with the currents in the West. It was snuffed out and it had to go underground.

 

People using the religious instinct

 

Yes.

 

ends,

 

Yeah, exactly. And

 

is I believe the purpose of Freemasonry is to combat tribal instinct to use the spiritual instinct for political ends.

 

Correct.

 

we exist.

 

Yeah

 

When we see collapse of membership, we see the rise of not f- not friendly to spiritual practice practitioners.

 

Anyway, that, I,

 

Yes. Yeah.

 

wanna talk about politics here.

 

But 

 

no, we don't. We don't.

 

You're pointing out an interesting part of Spanish history because the Kabbalah and the tarot and Rosicrucianism, and I believe one could trace all of our trad- tradition to the, to the unifying... not unifying, but to the more open and liberal times that existed.

 

Yes, completely. Christian Rosenkreuz was supposed to have studied in Fez and came through Spain. It's like that, and then up into Germany. It's that's how knowledge went. It's kind ... the ... Because you've got to remember, so much of those orig- like the original alchemical tracts, they were all translated from Arabic, into La- that, that.

 

Whilst, whilst Europe was still scrabbling around in the dirt of the Middle Ages, in the Arabic world, alchemy, poetry, philosophy, astrology, medicine, beauty, art, these things were flourishing. If anybo- any listener here wants to have their mind blown is go to the Alhambra in Granada once in your life and go to Egypt once in your life.

 

If you are in any way attuned to this kind of stuff you have to go to those places and your heart will sing because those energetic currents still exist there. I had a mind-blowing experience. I was ... Gosh, this is a bit of a story. So my father was a Coptic Egyptian. Coptic is the original form of Christianity before the Catholic Church came along.

 

Very different relationship between God, yourself and God. He was a Coptic, old Coptic magician. He was also a member of the SRIA. He was a member of the, of Metropolitan College. But he died before I could ... I found all of this stuff out. He was a member of every single Masonic order and he was in pretty much at least two units per order and I found out after he died, I'd worked out that he was so addicted to Freemasonry that he became mem- a member of daylight lodges.

 

So he would go to work, tell my mother he was going to work, go to daylight lodges, come back, and then go home after his day's work when he'd been, he'd done at least two Masonic meetings during the day.

 

the day. Yeah. Yeah. He was he was ... and every single Masonic order I've gone into I've had a random old man come and shake my hand and just say, "Oh, my God.

 

You're Neville's son."

 

Oh I knew your dad.

 

Yeah, I knew your dad. Exactly. But he

 

Yeah tell your story, 'cause then I have a

 

Yeah.

 

a good question here for you

 

I kept some of his ashes to... when my father was a refugee from the Suez War in 1958. He never went back to Egypt until about 1993, '94, and I went back with him for the first time, and we became so addicted to going to Egypt that we went every single year.

 

And we used to stay when we used to stay in Cairo, the there's a... you used to be able to go and have a beer in front of the Sphinx and the pyramids as the sun set before they do these sound and light shows all over Egypt. Before all the tourists appear, we would s- we would sit and we would philosophize about life, the universe, everything as...

 

In front of the Sphinx. So I kept some of his ashes to, to take back there. And I ended up doing a job in Egypt for about a month, and on the last day, I had... I ran to the pyramids. The... It w- I was... It was closing at the time. I was the last person of the day. I was literally banging the, on the door.

 

I had five minutes and, for the last ticket. I got the last ticket, went into the the c- the Pyramid of Cheops. The guards were leaving. They're like... There's no doors to the pyramids. It's not like they lock up for the day. I went into the King's Chamber. I've been into the King's Chamber maybe, I don't know, e- eight or nine times before that, but it was always full of tourists.

 

And as I was, as I went into the pyramid, the guards were coming out. And I ended up being on my own there for about four or five hours. It was an incredible experience. And there's also for those of, for the Freemasons watching, you have the queen's chamber and the king's chamber About 150 meters underneath the pyramid in a, in direct proportion to the apex of the pyramid, there is a, it's called the unfinished chamber.

 

It's very hard to get to. Now, I think y- 30 years ago you used to be able to bribe the guards, a little baksheesh, and you could go down it, and it was a little tunnel. Not for the claustrophobic with, 5, 8, 10,000 year old dust falling in your eyes. But you came out into... The only way I can describe it is imagine a rough ashlar turned outside in.

 

So it was like walking into the walls were like the, like a rough ashlar. And it, and the whole of the pyramid is literally laser cut. It's one of the most incredible buildings. If anyone hasn't been in it, you have to go and visit the pyramid. But it's those the traditions where you think about, if you think about the royal arch, you think about going into the cryp- you know, you think about royal and select.

 

This, the stuff when you're going underneath into 

 

the, descent, 

 

the descent into the darkness.

 

Subterranean Chamber  

 

the Orphic.

 

chamber

 

Yeah, but this subterranean chamber, and it's remarkable. You've got the whole the mighty edifice of the pyramid is above you, and you're in the subterranean chamber.

 

It's remarkable. That's where I actually wanted to leave my dad's ashes, but I couldn't get access to it. So I went up to the king's chamber and and basically the k- the king's chamber is full of hundreds of chattering tourists, thousands probably in a day, who've got absolutely no respect for the place.

 

Absolutely no idea what... So I I thought I would do a little cleansing ritual. I did a an LBRP, a lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram to cleanse the space. And then I just thought, if you consider about the apex and what I thought I'll do a little middle pillar exercise to try and, connect myself to that.

 

And it was absolutely remarkable. The f- as I started to utter the words the chamber started to reverberate and multiply the vibration And I, it was I've never felt on a cellular level, it kept reverberating back and I literally felt like my DNA was vibrating at a different level when I left.

 

That night I had v- really vivid dreams of of Magi chanting inside, ancient Magi chanting inside the King's Chamber. So I went home and I I did some r- some research and there have been a lot of sound engineers that have done research into the acoustics of the... And it's a perfect two to one ratio of...

 

And it's it's, it basically v- it amplifies vibration. And I wrote a paper on it. I can send you the paper if you like. It's it was it was just one of the most mind-blowing things. And I think that when you look at the pyramid through hermetic eyes, not scientific eyes, the only the only evidence to say that it was Cheops' temple, Khufu, Cheops, is there's a cartouche like that, a cartouche that is basically Ancient graffiti.

 

It's like Cheops has gone in and scrawled his cartouche on the side of the wall, which is literally the ancient equivalent of saying, "Cheops was here 5000 BC." So that's what they ascribe to as the i- to identify the period. But it, what if y- once you're in there, it is ... The only way I could describe it was f- it felt like some kind of magical amplifier because if you think about vibration, you think about the use of vocal vibration, you think about, at the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.

 

You think about the Egyptian creation story. The great goddess Geb, the world came out of her mouth. It was spoken into existence. That concept of vibrate ... you think about ceremonial magic, you think about how we intone these god names and these god forms in rituals, you think about what we, even think about Masonic ritual. We we invoke the Great Architect. We don't ask the Great Architect to join us. We invoke. We have created this and we're speaking and we're ... And it was absolutely remarkable. It was like this building is a precise instrument for some form of manifestation communication.

 

I don't know, but it's definitely built as some kind of instrument. And that, that was probably the most ... So anyway, going back to my original point of you find this stuff, all the stuff that we do as Freemasons and other things you can feel its origins in the temple structures of ancient Egypt, which goes back to how, about how it was suffocated in the West and I think that most people who, who don't know about that there is a t- most people don't know there's a tradition in the West. You talk to the average person walking down the road to them the concept of spirituality comes from the East they can't, they just, they have absolutely no connotation in any way, shape, or form that there is a spiritual tradition that comes from the West that is part of our makeup as part of our DNA as people who are genetically part of this part, from this part of the world.

 

Which I find that, as you say, Masonry, if you look at the difference between Continental Masonry and English Masonry I think that they're, ... The SRIA fulfills a role in the English Masonic journey that automatically gets fulfilled in Continental Freemasonry.

 

I think that at some point in the history as we were talking about w- you know, Grand Masters somewhere along, along the journey, the heart and beating soul of English Freemasonry was ripped out and discarded and and there's u- us esoteric seekers trying to knit it back together again and activate it again, I think.

 

I think 'cause, it is a current and I think there's, we're all trying to, get the power running through it again

 

I, the, there's We're going in six different directions here now, and I want, I wanna drill down on this particular thing because I talk about this tension a lot. I don't think it was Freemasonry that stole its own beating heart. I just think Western society, it disenchanted everything through the scientific method to improve health and lifestyle and quality of life for billions and billions of people for good or ill, right?

 

Yeah

 

I think thats a net positive. But

 

in so doing, the pendulum swung into the scientific method.

 

Yes

 

I don't talk a lot about this, but I ... This, I believe, was the, Crowley's message that's largely misunderstood. The the method of science, the aim of religion. This is, again the point of certainly Esoteric Freemasonry, is to get this established as you could still have an enchanted worldview.

 

Go deal with your fellow man and the world outside with a rationalist, positivist attitude, but you can have an inner life that outside people will never understand, and the New Apostolic Reformation in Christianity will try and stamp out and fail. But there's, th- there's a direct relationship with spiritual forces. That is the point of the religious impulse.

 

Yes. Yes.

 

to

 

And

 

Not to allow anybody in between or to allow anybody to use that spiritual impulse for political ends, which is the source of much evil in the world. Anyway,

 

Yes, I agree. I agree. Yeah.

 

This, there exists this tension in the modern craft, and there has existed this tension for time immemorial. Martin Faulks was here to talk about it with long livers. He's like

 

Yeah

 

Thomas Vaughan and his inheritors, published this book where you could live longer if you just treat your spiritual practice as a physical, meditative practice, and be careful what you eat, be careful what you drink, be careful how you think because what you learn, you become, And then there's other peop- forces in the craft that at the time are like, to live longer is to get drunk with your friends." And Martin and I talk about this, and he's gonna release a book later this year to that effect.

 

Oh, no, yes, the one that was done that was basically written under the effect of alcohol. Yes, that, yes, that's what ... He told me about that one.

 

But this ex- this, that microcosm of those two arguments is exemplified, writ large d- at the as above, so below, microcosm versus macrocosm, right? The macrocosm of the craft is experiencing this tension constantly, and you

 

Yes

 

lodges where you've got young members and old members, and the old guys are like, "It wasn't this way in my day," and the younger members are like, "If you want us to stick around, you gotta give us something here." 

 

Yeah

 

Can you talk a bit about any, that, that tension you experience being

 

Oh, completely

 

There, there is a value of secrecy in this work, right? But when you're somebody like you, you're highly visible in the craft, right? Now you're the

 

Yeah.

 

of this periodical, which is gonna

 

Yeah

 

No end of attention.

 

You're on this podcast. You're talking to me.

 

Yeah. Yeah

 

gonna upset, that's gonna upset people that you're even talking to me. Good, 'cause that's the best part of talking to me.

 

So can you

 

talk about

 

the, 

 

tension a bit?

 

The thing is it's if you think about, okay, let's go back to, if we're supposed to be Rosicrucians What do the Rosicrucian Manifesto say? What does the c- the Confessio say? It's basically rebelling against papist society. It's as re- it's like a

 

They were revolutionaries. This was a revolutionary strain of thought. This was injecting revolution into society under a screen of secrecy where you can't actually find this brotherhood, because what it was actually doing was trying to get people to wake up and go, "Hold on a minute, this isn't, this isn't spirituality."

 

These great, th- these churches are dripping in gold, and men dressed as women, and, it's if you think about the power of what the c- the ... it's no w- no, ... We are supposed to be revolutionaries. If you think about the early Masonic journey through, England and France, the ear- think about the, the people who s- signed the Declaration of Independence.

 

How many were Freemasons? It's like we were sup- we are supposed to be on the revolutionary current in society. We are supposed to be questioning things. We are supposed to be which, that's it the Ro- as a Rosicrucian you are supposed to heal the sick and for gratis. So what does that mean?

 

It's, it's ... I always think about, and I talk to people about Mas- a- allegorical stories, and you th- you say what's an allegorical story that we all know?" Let's go back to the Bible. Jesus making the blind see, raising the dead, feeding the 5,000, turning water into wine.

 

What is that? It's about raising consciousness. That's what we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be questioning people. If we can make one person go, "Oh, I didn't think of that," then we've done our jobs. That's ... we are supposed to be, that c- concept of polishing your soul and polishing your ashlar, and, that's daily work.

 

And it, and if questioning the status quo, if if trying to move the concept of e- the evolution of m- Man's spiritual place in this great divine structure of the universe means that we're gonna ruffle a few feathers s- hey, let's ruffle a few feathers. Most of the feathers that I've ruffled over the years, I'm I'm not standing on a soapbox.

 

I'm not, I'm not poking my finger in your face. I'm just having a conversation with you and if you're, if the conversation means that you're n- y- you don't feel safe enough, to step outside of the confines of the construct that you have created for yourself, that's fine. Carry on.

 

Live in your construct. Enjoy. Call Dominoes, watch the TV, drink Coca-Cola. That's great. You wanna do that. Believe what you read in the newspapers. Believe what on the television. That's absolutely fine. You do that, but I'm not. I'm gonna ... i'd rather be off talking. It's like my there's a very good friend of mine calls

 

This the study group that we you know The SRIA MetCol study group, the Metropolitan study group because it's open to anyone, anyone can come, so a friends of mine come. My partner comes and she calls us she says, "I love it." She said y- her nickname for us is the Rebel Wizard Alliance.

 

Because that's what we're doing. We're que- we're constantly questioning, and I would rather be having a conversation with someone about the fundamental questions of human existence than going to the pub and talking about mortgage rates, what new car somebody bought, and how their marriage is collapsing.

 

It's c- it's like at when do you turn around and say, "I don't..." That, the white noise of society is meaningless and pointless, and it's created to keep us distracted. I would rather sit on my home, at home reading the pile of books that I have, which is getting bigger and bigger every week, than spend meaningless time inside society because it's

 

And if the feathers that we all ruffle are for people who are championing what society tells them great as far as I'm concerned. I think that's our job and I think that's what al- has always been our job and we were once revolutionaries with swords in our hands on the backs of our steeds trying to forge a new way of thinking for mankind.

 

Let's keep on doing it. As I said, Merlin the great English wizard i- is probably still alive, but he's probably driving a 1986 Aston Martin Volante convertible in British racing green, but he's still around. All those archetypes are still there, and we have to keep fighting

 

Maybe he was Sir Thomas Vaughan

 

Yeah, maybe.

 

and Elias Ashmole.

 

So think about it

 

and would he have been John Dee or would he have been Edward Kelley? I think he'd be more the Kelley character

 

Yeah.

 

character.

 

I, there is-

 

That's the Merl- that's the Merlin I wanna meet, is

 

the high on DMT 

 

 

 

It's funny it's funny how far we've ranged, and we originally started talking about Masonic print culture. I'm interviewing Ric Berman tomorrow, no less.

 

Oh really

 

to David Harrison, yeah, recently, and there's all

 

Yeah

 

like this cross, b- because Martin (Faulks)  Nick have introduced me around to these guys, and so

 

Yeah. Yeah

 

This is the t- type of Mason that I'm keen to talk to. I've talked to Paul Calderwood and Kim March and some other guys that aren't

 

overtly occult leaning, but they've published books. And the idea is to get all these ideas from people. And I just love the way you talk about your ideas. 

 

The-

 

and and, a- when I come to QC next year, for my own reasons, I think in May, for my birthday, I think,

 

Yeah

 

We'll have an opportunity to meet, and hopefully I won't have to go to Spain, but I would go to Spain, 'cause, 

 

if you're around in May,

 

around here, compared

 

I think

 

around here,

 

Probably easier to get to, yeah.

 

Hey man, the next city in, it, Kelowna is halfway between here and Calgary, but I'm famous for pointing it out. Calgary's a nine-hour drive where

 

Wow.

 

standing.

 

Wow

 

want... I think Kelowna's getting close to maybe a quarter million people,

 

right?

 

But Calgary's next big city. Seattle's only a few hours south, but the next

 

Yeah.

 

in Canada is Calgary, and

 

Wow

 

distance from here to there.

 

Yeah.

 

If 

 

it's funny 'cause we,

 

America, you don't really appreciate how

 

you don't

 

everything is. And then we get to Europe, and everything's just it feels like it's just down the road. But

 

then trying to

 

for you guys,

 

is...

 

yeah. For you guys. 

 

Like we 

 

we've got... The SRIA has probably got about eight colleges in Canada. But we don't appreciate how far the members have to go to have their college meetings, because I just jump on a tube in London. I f- I spend my time, I go back to England, I have these little blocks of three or four weeks where I've got lots of meetings.

 

I spend my life going to meetings, and then I l- I leave again for three or four weeks. But but, we don't appreciate the vastness of, the effort. I was talking to one of the guys from Canada at the, at High Council, and he's "Yeah, it's... I've... It's like an eight-hour drive for me to go to a meeting."

 

He's "And that's normal."

 

Yep.

 

Yeah.

 

lots of guys do that here. again, you find your people and then you have to c- commute, 

 

yeah

 

I wanna ask you bef- d- I know you've been very generous with your time. We're closing in on the 90 minutes I scheduled. 

 

Listen, I'm y- w- I'm fine if you wanna go over it a bit

 

Don't say that 'cause you don't know what I'm like. hey man the first time Martin Faulks and I talked on here, it was about Long livers, I think, before he came to Grand Masonic Day here last year. I was like, "Hey Martin, you wanna tell me about Long livers?" And I think I edited that into three 45-minute

 

Yeah.

 

and I still have 75 minutes I didn't use

 

Like Martin, I love Martin. He is just such a wonderful character. And did he-

 

this gentle craft we are involved in to have somebody like that and be able

 

Yeah.

 

meet somebody like that

 

Yeah. That's what I think about now, I think about the world in which we all inhabit. That not that we do any of this for glory, we do it for love. And when you think about... if I look back at the founders of the society and I think about, there are some parts of the society which have become, m- more populated with old masons, some parts of the society where there's really great enthusiasm.

 

But what did the found- when the founders were sitting there thinking, "This is what we want to do," did they realize that they would become these l- legends of the occulted world? I think the word occult has got so many negative connotations to it. I think occulted, it's occulted for a reason.

 

It's, it's not, nothing... I've always said this. I said, "Nothing is actually hidden. It's only hidden for those people who cannot see them." And I used to drive my ex-wife absolutely bananas because every time we went to a city, we'd go on a city break. Every time we'd go, we'd walk into an old church or we'd see, go and see an art exhibition or go and see, and okay, look, that means that, and that means that, and that means that, and that's a little clue for that, and that's a...

 

And it's, once you can read that visual language, it's everywhere. It's absolutely everywhere. It's not occult. It's not hidden.

 

Nope.

 

occulted from within.

 

hidden in plain view, right?

 

Yeah, it completely is. Completely. The first time I ever went to Siena Cathedral was by accident. I had absolutely no idea. Have you ever been to, have you ever b- been to Siena Cathed- Oh my God.

 

You know that there's an image of Hermes Trismegistus, which is accepted as the image of her? That, you open the door, the main two doors of the cathedral, that's the image which is on the floor. So all of those popes and cardinals and all the hi- the hierarchy of the ca- And the whole church is black and white.

 

It's striped like a tessellated pavement, a masonic pavement, but it's the whole building.

 

Yeah, it's remarkable. And I hadn't even ... I hadn't heard of it, and I started to walk round and just "Oh my God, this is literally a a living, breathing homage to hermetic truth built..." I love the fact... I would have loved to have known those Gothic Freemasons who built all this stuff for the church, and the church had absolutely no idea that it was built into all these, things like, the, the theory about Gothic cathedrals being built as the, as in the s- the shape of the great womb, the womb of the great mother.

 

Do you know that theory?

 

Yep. Yeah

 

Yeah. All of that stuff, and you just think, like when you see it in Siena, it's like there on the floor in front of you as you walk in, and it's there, Hermes Trismegistus in in enormous letters with this image of him, and that they didn't realize what it was, and they, you know-

 

Temple Church in London has beautiful Rosicrucian Symbolism

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

in it. And unless you know what you're looking for, any dummy can walk in there and be like, "Yeah, no this certainly is something more unusual than a regular old Catholic church." But there's still, this stuff is still, again, hidden in plain sight. Since you brought

 

Yeah

 

do you want, do you wanna talk about the value of secrecy and why we need it? it's too late for me. kinda too late for you, but it the value of secrecy for the rank and file aspirant. W- why do we still perpetuate this?

 

I c-

 

this?

 

okay. I think That, I think there comes a t- a time when, people become excited about stuff. So you are a first time enthusiastic, excited Freemason, and you want to tell the world about ev- everything that you're doing 'cause you're excited. Understanding, turning ritual and words into your own personal wisdom takes years, as we all know.

 

And I, this might sound quite elitist, but I say this in the nicest possible way. And I think since the dawn of time there has been the majority and the minority. But the minority that I'm talking about are not the lords and the la- and the ones who own castles and stuff like that. The minority I'm talking about are the poets, the philosophers, the playwrights, the composers, the m- the wise men, the wise women, the, the ones who have always sat on the outside of society.

 

The ones who have always passed the  the wisdom to the next generation using different language. Because ultimately the concept of... w- we love to go back and talk about our, historic heroes in these traditions, but all they're doing is repackaging that wisdom into a way that is understandable for th- that, their particular s- point in history, which we are doing today.

 

There's an example, and secrecy, again, going back to f- those who have eyes to see it, is the majority, the, those people who watch, say watch Fox News, watch any news channel. Anybody who is, who lives their, by the rote of society, by what they're told to do, by what they read in the press, by what they see on the television, by what they...

 

The, if you they, it's impossible for people like that I, to digest this knowledge. And I, in the same way that, the Eleusinian mysteries, the, pe- it was on pain of death if you revealed this because... But

 

Indeed

 

e- everybody fails to realize is all of these schools are just schools of self-development and s- self-realization.

 

There is no... I always say to people who want to join freemasonry, there i- you're not gonna join and go, "There you go. There's the book of secrets." Say, "We are the book of secrets. The chapters are in your own heart, but that takes work." And y- it that thing of the teacher will, when the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear.

 

The knowledge is there. So the reason why se- the concept of secrecy is because originally if y- you know, you'd be excommunicated, or you'd be burnt at the stake, or you'd been killed, or you'd been tracked down by the Nazis and sent to the concentration camps. That's one version of secrecy Which is pretty, with that kind of pedigree, anybody who...

 

what about, Newton's discovered alchemical texts after his death that actually he was probably a great- a greater alchemist than he was a physicist. So it's like what... Unfortunate- fortunately or unfortunately, we still live in, in, in society. We still have to interact in, in society.

 

I personally I, I've been ve- very lucky that, I had a wonderful time in society. I had a c- a career in media that lasted nearly 40 years. I've now left that career. I'm now concentrating on different things, but I feel like I've done my time in society now. I feel like, "Great, thank you.

 

I had a wonderful time. I've got, got... I have a beaten, old leather suitcase full of wonderful memories, but now I'm out of here. I'm gonna go and talk to the birds or hug a tree or sit by the beach or whatever." There's, I think that But for s- for somebody who's still existing within society, if you try and explain these things to people, they will think you're nuts, which is why, the amount of times...

 

What I love about an SRIA table with 20 people sitting around it, 30 people sitting around it, just watching that enthusiastic discussion. What I love when we have our high council weekend, on the Friday night you walk into the bar and there must be 60 people all going like this with their arms and, the level of conversation is so high because peop-

 

Yeah

 

They've got a, they've got an environment by which they can have a conversation and somebody isn't looking like they're a complete lunatic So I think there's, there is secrecy for that matter is you can go off being very enthusiastic and start telling people things.

 

"Oh my God, this is great." But people ... how many times do you have conversations with people and you can just see their eyes glaze over? So I think for people who are younger coming in, secrecy serves a reason. It serves a way for them to still exist within society , and learn to cultivate their own practices.

 

Because it's all an individual journey. Yes, we are all aspects of the divine, and yes, we all have, life in itself is this ... we're all atoms swirling in this great atomic soup and we're all interconnected, and all of life is interconnected. But if you want to, have a job try and get a promotion, get married, have kids, live a normal life, live a "normal life" in inverted commas within society's rules and regulations, and you want to study this stuff, it's best to keep it hush-hush.

 

Because otherwise you get accused of being an absolute lunatic when you're not. You're trying to tell people re- the truth of life, and they don't want to hear it because they want to know that, their, the diet that they're being fed by society is reality and it's the truth. Because fear, because they're great

 

All you have to do is ... I don't watch, I haven't watched news for years. It's just spoon-feeding fear into people's mouths. So anything outside of that ... Look what's happening now. Look at the division in the world, the othering. If anybody is an other, they need to be shamed and they need to be beaten, and they need to be

 

So this, th- this lev- secrecy is a way to keep you functioning as a normal member of society, and you can go underneath your bushel and do some nice stuff with people who think like you. But when you get on the tube to go to work on a Monday morning and you're having a coffee or you're having your water cooler moment with Bob from accounts, he's not gonna understand what the hell you were doing over the weekend, is he?

 

So I think that there's ... Secrecy forms a functional part. And I also want to say something which has just popped into my head. Those people who always go on about Freemasonry is male, there's no women, it's all male. It's male this, it's male that Lots of people don't realize that the guardians, the forerunners of the feminist movement were the suffragettes, the fe- women suffragettes in England.

 

Half of them were Freemasons, f- women Freemasons. I have a, f- a friend of mine she was initiated into, There's two orders of f- women's Freemasonry in England, the OWF and the HFAF. She was initiated into the HFAF and I do a little talk on what is Freemasonry that I've given to a f- a few lodges.

 

And I gave the what is Freemasonry talk. I was sat next to Christine Chapman, the then Grand Master of the HFAF, and I said to her, I said, "Come on, Christine," I said, "I'm a young-ish Freemason. I'm a modern Freemason. We all understand about, ma- the balance between the male energies and the female energies in all the work that we do.

 

What do you think about men and women meeting together?" And she slammed her knife and fork down, and she pointed at me and she went, "We cook your food. We wash your clothes. We bear your children. Do you really think we want you lot in here with us?" Carried on eating. Which I thought was a wonderful way to say, "No, no way do we want men and women to be meeting together."

 

We want our own thing, thanks.

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

We'll keep to ourself. Yeah. I think that's fair. I've had a number of female Freemasons on the podcast, and we have a number that come to, from different traditions that come to the Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference. We'd we'll invite you in future years to come and speak and we'll definitely have your publication on the book table this year. I

 

That would be fantastic

 

you touched on, and then I wanna ask you about that cartouche, and then I wanna you about what's coming up next for you. So you mentioned that the work you do that doesn't matter what society you join, the real work you're gonna do is all gonna be on your own or with a mentor maybe,

 

Yeah

 

the real work is done internally

 

Yes

 

And I don't think popularizers of an esoteric worldview are terrible at expressing that to people. You could have a different way of approaching your philosophy and your your cosmology and your ontology all you want. But the mysticism of what we do needs to be applied on the self, with the self, by the self a lot of times.

 

Yeah, completely

 

you're not gonna, you're not gonna do it by osmosis like,

 

The G- Garfield tying some books to himself, right? This is... 

 

no

 

stuff needs to be practiced.

 

The a- the p- ashlar polishing only happens alone, and it's difficult, and you have to use elbow grease and a lot of polish, and the bit that you polished yesterday, when you come back to it today, will be just as dirty again.

 

So what do you tell, what do you tell aspirants that come to you and be like, 'cause I have a way of dealing with aspirants who are like, "Look I'm looking for somebody to teach me this stuff." What do you tell them to make them go away, first of all? And then what advice do you give them to be like, away, kid, you bother me," right?

 

But what do you tell them? Where- there's a, there's worse places to start, right? Here, these different concordant bodies if you're

 

Yeah

 

philosophical backgrounds, these concordant bodies are good pl- starting points. But you

 

The great talking point.

 

a

 

The great

 

You're gonna read 100 books, right? Get the w- And then you gotta practice. So what

 

Then you've gotta practice. That's the key. You can read books. The, the map is not the territory. You can read books till it comes out of your backside, but until you start to practice this stuff, it means nothing. And I think i- if... Let's just look at it from a very simple Masonic approach. Forget all the other stuff that goes on

 

I am a very keen ritualist. And the reason why I'm a keen ritualist is because that individual journey, every single piece of ritual in every single Masonic ritual, in every single piece of Masonic, in every single Masonic order, has a kernel of wisdom in it. The only way you are going to understand what that kernel of wisdom is when you know that ritual well enough that when you are performing it, you become, there is a current that comes through you, and you are somehow delivering the wisdom of that kernel, of that ritual to the candidate.

 

Not by reading it, not by half learning it so you don't actually know what you're saying. Your, your iambic pentameter, your delivery, your ... You have this stuff is there for a reason. And i- there are pieces of ritual that I must have performed hundreds of times. Every time that I perform a piece of ritual, I will make sure that I know it perfectly because as I'm doing it in the moment, because let's face it, the only thing that exists is the now.

 

And that's not some kind of new age, the power of now stuff. It is the only thing that exists in now. And every single, the one key that I can take from every single tradition I have ever touched upon is life, wisdom, knowledge, magic only happens in the now So when you're performing that piece of ritual, you have to know it well enough that you're not thinking about it, and that's when the magic comes through.

 

So you're a young aspiring Freemason. When you deliver your first ever working tools, you need to know what those working tools mean. You need to understand what those working tools mean on the self. You need to do the actions because there are certain actions that help people understand, the 24-inch gauge.

 

How do you lay the 24-inch gauge? How do you know-- how do you then place y- place-- using those props to also deliver the meaning So that's practice. Yes, you can have a, I have a journaling practice, I have a meditation practice, I use tarot. Tarot is the one thing I absolutely love, that I've really connected with over the years.

 

I've tried lots of different things, but, I've found my own little system. And but Masonically it's understanding what the ritual is. It's performing the ritual. It's be- it's, your... That daily advancement in Masonic knowledge is not daily advancement in Masonic knowledge, it's daily advancement in being in the present moment and knowing and engaging in that current of life.

 

It's ins- when you're walking down the road, it's noticing the birds singing, it's noticing the wind rustling in the trees. It's noti- it's being present in the moment. That is part of practice. That's possibly, out of every single tradition the most common f- theme is just be present.

 

Be aware.

 

Alex, that was excellent advice to a new aspirant. Before you tell me what's up next for you, you wanna talk a bit about, I know you were talking about your dad and being in Egypt.

 

Do you wanna talk about the cartouche you wear? 'Cause

 

That's,

 

there's been,

 

that

 

there's it, since the Golden Dawn and since the Egyptian Revival there's been lots of people wear cartouches. You wanna

 

Okay.

 

your cartouche?

 

That is my cartouche. It's Iskander. Which Iskander, Alexander, that is, that's my name, and that is my ankh. My father gave me that, both of these

 

Over 30 years ago. And considering he then passed to the Grand Lodge above in December 2002, I wear them because he is part of me and I am part of him.

 

And the journey that I am on, the journey that I am, we are doing it together. He would be so over the moon of where and what I'm doing with the SRIA because, I just ... Me, I just do ... I think the thing to do in life is just do good work. And if someone comes along and goes, "Oh, you've been doing some good work.

 

Would you like to try and do some good work over here?" That's, ... When I see these ridiculous people, Mas- ... I can't stand Masonic politics. It's one of the things that drives me absolutely bananas because it's these people who have absolutely no power in the outside world who crave power Masonically.

 

And it, it's like, guys, we are supposed ... This is the an- ... It's like when you get schisms in esoteric societies, it's guys, our egos should be of such a level that we should be wandering around in loincloths giving, making bread for each other. It's like we, this is the an- it's the antithesis of what we are and what we do.

 

That I, where, what, what's happening in the SRIA, I think my father would love. My father, his last ... When the, at the year that he died, he was he was diagnosed with lung cancer and brain cancer. 

 

No 

 

The treatment he was having on his mind, he started to lose his mind But he was convinced he had to write a paper to deliver it at the Metropolitan Study Group, the same study group that I'm now running.

 

That he that we used to meet in this beautiful building called Stanfield Hall in Hampstead. The society got rid of it a few years ago. I thought, I think was absolute tragedy. But when I was a teenager, I used to drink in the pubs in Hampstead where the s- where the hall was, and I used to stagger home a bit drunk, and there was a little plaque, this brass plaque that said SRIA, and I was convinced that behind those doors you would find the Ark of the Covenant and all those secrets.

 

Yeah

 

And so my dad he s- he just became obsessed with this paper in the, in his last year, and he got, ... And he had to go ... He went to printers, and he had about 60 copies printed out, and he would just carry them in see-through carrier bags. And we ... My mum and I lost him one day. It was just like his time

 

He'd lost track of time, and he sat on the steps of Stanford Hall holding the 60 copies of his paper that he thought he was going to deliver to the SRIA. And we had to fi- we eventually found him and picked him up. And he was o- his paper was on the Tempest. And oh, God, what's the main character in The Tempest?

 

The one who goes mad? Prospero. Yeah, Prospero

 

John Dee, who would have been known to to William Shakespeare

 

There's a whole other story of who Shakespeare was, which is another reason I have to have this off-camera this off-camera conversation with you to invite you to a very special place. His the thing that kept him moving for this la- his last year was the paper that he was writing on Prospero's madness as he went mad like Prospero.

 

Wow

 

very Shakespearean in that last year. And then you're gonna love this. So my father was known as an incredible ritualist. He was ... When I was a child, he was an actor, and he had a theater school and a drama ... He had a drama school and a theater company. And so he was known, his delivery of being an old wizard and being an actor, combining those two talents, his ritual delivery was legendary.

 

I never really got to see it because, as I said, he died three weeks after my third degree in craft. But my last greatest memory I have of my father, he knew he was dying. He knew he was going mad. But my school, my, my lodge is my, is a school lodge. It's the oldest schools lodge in the world. It's Cholmeley Lodge 1731 Lodge, for Highgate School. And the Worshipful Master at the time, I went to school with, he was in my year at school, so he allowed my dad to do the traditional history for the third degree. My dad was only 55, he was the same age that I am now when he died,

 

Wow

 

and he looked about 80, like he had no hair. The cancer had ravaged

 

And the treatment was so awful, had ravaged him. And he had a stick, and he hobbled up to the front, and he did this remarkable thing. He was like this old little man, and he threw his stick down, and he suddenly just grew in stature, and he performed the traditional history, and it was his last moment as a father, as an actor, and as a Freemason.

 

And he delivered it. The ... You could hear a pin drop in the lodge room. And he finished, and then he became the little old man who hobbled back to his seat, and then he died three weeks later

 

Oh wow , what a story!.

 

And that is still, I still well up now thinking about it. Yeah, and I, that is the greatest memory I have of my father. If people say, "What is the greatest memory you have?" That, that was it. He delivered it to me. It was his last present to me as a father

 

That's a beautiful story. I never got to sit in Lodge with my dad. My, my family doesn't have roots in the craft that's beautiful. You showed me your ankh earlier. I D- I'll edit this out if you find it inappropriate, but I often deliver a piece of magic end of my presentations where I give people an image of that ankh.

 

I say to people, me the shoe that I might walk." That many people don't understand that to the Egyptians, that's a sandal strap, and the difference between living and not living is

 

It's having, it, yeah

 

These Egyptian gods were going.

 

They move. They are active, and

 

They're active. They're active, yeah. They're active. They're ac- yeah

 

between being alive and being an Osiris, right? Being

 

 

 

Not alive. And I will give r- I will deliver this little piece and d- that little quote, and then I'll say to people, "Any time you ever see that symbol from now on, you are gonna remember me saying these words, and you are now changed.

 

I have now changed the world in this one small way, that every time you see that symbol that you may not have understood before. You understood it means life or whatever, but you will never forget those words that I uttered just now. And now you're forever polluted with my particular philosophical background." That's it. That's as, that, that's the worst thing I could do for people. Anyway, so I'll edit that if you want me to. Have you got, What's next for you? Have you got have you got I don't imagine you're gonna be doing book signings, but have you got speaking engagements, or 

 

no, 

 

the next 

 

I've got a,

 

or

 

I've got an ... So we have the next study group which I tell you what you can put on the show notes. I will send you the link to ... If you go to SRIA London,

 

Okay.

 

there is a link to put your email in. Anybody, everyone can sign up. The third Saturday of every month we have the study group.

 

We've got one coming up this Saturday. As I said, we have people join in from literally all over the world. We can have anything from 20 people to 100 people depending on how popular it is. And yes, this is, this has been my first podcast, so I don't know.

 

You were excellent. I probab- I probably won't remove anything 'cause I thought it was all good even when we were down the rabbit hole occasionally. I, I won't... I will be editing lightly. Even though it's long, I'll probably leave it intact and as a single

 

I, okay

 

seemed really good. And I will include the study group. The other thing could non-members submit a paper, or do you only wanna publish

 

stuff by members? 

 

no, it's got to be members 'cause it is an official SRIA publication. If you were a regular attendee of the study group, we could possibly swing it, but you'd have to be, you'd have to be coming to study group for a couple of years kind of thing. 'Cause we have got...

 

I'll

 

There's quite a few

 

my paper as Sir Thomas Vaughn, and

 

Yeah.

 

choose to do what you want with it

 

Oh, yeah. But but yeah, so that's the next what's happening for me. God, there's so much going on with the SRIA. We are trying to do... There's f- a few things that I'm trying to do. One is I'm trying to do a light with some other guys, trying to do a light blues thing for younger Masons because I find that the, it's the younger Masons who are knocking at the door desperate for this kind of stuff.

 

They're desperate for it

 

they go away pissy that they couldn't find it.

 

Yeah,

 

'Cause nobody, 

 

yeah so we're trying to do, we're literally talking about it next week, trying to work out how we can do the equivalent of a Light Blues. We've got stuff happening with there's a new comms group. We're putting together some stuff of how we can just communicate better because I think that we're s- that we- we're suffering, like Freemasonry is suffering but I think they've gone down the wrong road of trying to turn it into a non-spiritual, completely secular organization that's n- charitable and does good works.

 

I think that they forget that a lot of people are coming into Freemasonry for the spiritual stuff,

 

Sure, but the, one, one thing you have to remind yourself is that there's a reason the old spiritual systems are being set aside. It's because too, hung too closely to the old systems and wouldn't move forward with a new rational with the new rational thought processes of modern man.

 

Can't move forward by looking backward. You'll fall over

 

no, but so here we go. M- l- modern society, what's happening at the moment in modern society, the greatest health crisis in history. M- mental health crisis in history. There's very interesting data to show that for the first time in many years, membership of the Catholic Church is going up again.

 

Yes

 

People are scrambling for meaning in life.

 

Agreed. No, I agree with you 

 

after 20 years of social media, people realize what a vacuous, m- narcissistic reflecting whole social media is, and they're craving connection. I've got a friend of mine who is probably the most un-Masonic person you could ever imagine wanting to join Freemasonry.

 

He's a plumber. He was doing some work at Freemasons' Hall, plumbing work at Freemasons' Hall. And he was so enamored by watching the connection that people have that he wants to join it for connection. We live in, especially in, I call it the Protestant North. The Ca- I call it the difference in the Catholic South and the Protestant North, especially if you look at it from a European

 

No, that's

 

You look at-

 

perspective for sure

 

Yeah, you look at it, the Protestant North are the ones where they embraced rabid capitalist ideals, Reaganism, Thatcherism. What happened? They ripped out communities, they ripped out families. We don't have families. We don't look after our old people. We all leave home.

 

No one actually... there's no, there's... in the same way that in Europe families are still together. The church, no matter how people are not part of the church, there is still a tradition that brings people together. At the, European Catholicism is about f- celebration and, they have so many different celebrations.

 

In Spain they have a different Saints day. But it's not about the religion, it's about the community. It's about the coming together. And, in the West where we turned everybody into dog eat dog, and I will, I'll beat you, and I'm gonna win, and all of that kind of thing, we're left with these people who are lo- sad, lonely, going crazy, desperate for connection, desperate to f- desperate to try and understand what it is to be a human being.

 

So where are they going back to? They're going back to religion, and Masonry is one of the places that is answering those questions for people. Before you get onto things like Rosicrucianism and Martinism and all those other aspects that are out there. But, I think that we may shrink, Masonic numbers may shrink, but the people coming in are coming in for the right reasons, I hope.

 

The ones I see anyway, the young

 

And I  📍 I just happen to think that there, there's a middle way, there's a middle ground, and we happen to be a f- a third way organization. You were touching on this earlier. And I think there's a way to revive civic responsibility and civic engagement and community without adding obedience to, religious dogma and authorities that don't have your best interests at heart.

 

And th- there's the pendulum has swung all the way one way, and we're seeing it swing back.

 

Yeah

 

The, I think and I keep talking about this, but the further capitulation to old religious ideas is just gonna enter us back into a new dark age.

 

Yeah

 

Y- we... If you

 

Yeah, 

 

a

 

r- 

 

then 

 

you 

 

I think

 

If you want a Christian revival that looks like what's going on with my southern neighbor here y- you and I are not on the same page,

 

No, but that's not, but that's not because that's what I call, that's like the Protestant l- the kind of like the rabid ... it's got nothing to do with community and family and

 

It's,

 

yeah, tribe. That's

 

or you're out. 

 

Yeah.

 

us, and then you can never be the right kind of tribalist, right? You

 

Yeah

 

you'll always be on the outcast if you're not middle-aged, Protestant, and a particular style of Protestant, and a particular type of voter, and a particular, do you hold a particular belief structure, right?

 

Yeah

 

Freemasonry stands between those worlds of politics and religion and says that there is a brotherhood of man that exists, we should be worshiping at that altar. And

 

Yes

 

gets me labeled as a Unitarian then that's tough luck, because I'm not in the States, and they can't shut me up

 

Brilliant. Love it. Love it

 

Yeah thanks so much. This was a great conversation. Okay, we are now... When did we start? 11:00. We're now two and a half hours.

 

Yeah

 

All right. Thank you so much, Alex. I hope you enjoy Spain. You

 

It was

 

there before you see me in London, but I will definitely be back interviewing Ric Berman tomorrow.

 

Anything you wanna ask Rick on the record while he's on my podcast tomorrow morning at 8:00

 

in the morning? 

 

No. I'm sure

 

I'm

 

you've got plenty to ask me

 

show him this. "What do you think of this, Rick? Have you read

 

this? What do you think

 

about these guys

 

yeah.

 

doing this crazy stuff?

 

Perfect.

 

Perfect.

 

Aren't they NUTS putting this out there?" Wow. Gotta have mad respect for anybody who gets involved in an esoteric publishing effort especially a periodical, because holy, man. Be careful

 

what you wish for 

 

let's see, how it goes. Let's see how it goes. We're all here for the adventure

 

I will be consuming making sure other students of the work are consuming. Thank you so much 

 

Rafaela, yep

 

and we will see you at the next study group

 

You certainly will. And Troy, this has been absolutely fantastic, so thank you very much for taking your time as well 

 

Thanks for listening today. You could support the show by liking, sharing, and subscribing on your favourite podcast syndicator. 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 Conferences website at masonicconferences.com Esotericism In Freemasonry Conference will be held on Saturday, September 19th, 2026. Our keynote speaker will be Brother Lon Milo DuQuette, author of The Tarot Architect. Brothers Ike Baker, Doug Russell, Dago Rodriguez, and Josef Wages are all slated to present. Get your tickets at esotericmasonry.com. For other events, check out our calendar at mystictye.com, and don't forget to sign up for our newsletter while you are there. Graphics and web hosting are by Art Szabo Creative. 

 

A special thanks to Organist for our theme music Happy to meet, sorry to part, and 

 

happy to meet again