The Mystic Tye

Fight Club and Freemasonry: A Conversation with WB Dago Rodriguez

• Episode 48

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Troy sits down with WB Dago Rodriguez, PM, 32°, creative director of Fraternal Review and two-time past master of South Pasadena Masonic Lodge No. 290, for a wide-ranging first meeting that covers the magazine's origin story, the surprising philosophical overlap between Fight Club and the Masonic path, and what keeps a lodge alive across generations.

Dago has been with the Southern California Research Lodge since 2015, first as managing editor and, since the magazine's 2016 rebrand, as creative director of Fraternal Review. What started as black and white photocopies folded and mailed out became a full color monthly periodical, one of the only Masonic publications still hitting eleven issues a year. Dago describes it as a bridge into Masonic education rather than a heavy research journal, and the conversation traces its growth from that first test issue through today's rotating slate of guest editors.

The centerpiece of the conversation is Dago's talk Fight Club and Freemasonry, born out of a MasonicCon pop culture panel and now headed to the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2026 on September 19th at the Ballard Masonic Center in Seattle. Troy and Dago dig into the talk's real subject, masculinity, role models, and the difference between building and destroying, then connect it to broader threads on Observant Masonry, generational unity, and why a lodge that stops evolving stops existing.

Tickets for EFC 2026 are available at esotericmasonry.com.

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Lost Keys of Freemasonry by Manly P. Hall

Freemasonry For Dummies by Christopher Hodapp

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam

Join or Die, the 2023 documentary built around Putnam's research

Links and resources


Support the show

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

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

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



SPEAKER_01

Welcome to The Mystic Tie, a podcast for free maintenance. I am your host, Troy's group. You can find us online at Mystictie.com. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash mystictie. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at Troy at Mystikttie.com. Today on The Mystic Tie, I am joined by Worksville Brother Dago Rodriguez, two-time pastmaster of South Pasadena Masonic Lodge, Pastmaster of the Southern California Research Lodge, and Creative Director of the Fraternal Review. Dago is also joining us at EFC 2026 in Seattle, where he'll present Fight Club and Freemasonry, using the Cult Classic to explore masculinity, identity, mentorship, virtue and vice, and what happens when men go looking for meaning. Please welcome Brother Dago Rodriguez. Dago Rodriguez. Yes. Thanks for joining me today on The Mystic Tie. Thanks for inviting me. My listeners are super excited to hear from you. You and I have never spoken before. Although we run in similar circles, we have similar friends, we've never run into each other anywhere.

SPEAKER_00

I know. Now we time now we finally get to meet.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks so much for taking time out of your night. I just spent a bunch of time with Doug Russell the day before yesterday, and we were talking about you, and he vowed for you. So that's that's good enough for me.

SPEAKER_00

Doug's great. Doug Doug was a great mentor at the Southern California Research Lodge, and which is the lodge that publishes a paternal review magazine that I ended up that I joined in 2015, I believe it was.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about your arc, how you're here speaking for EFC in a few weeks, and what it is that that you do in the craft?

SPEAKER_00

I'm a two-time past master of South Pasadena Masonic Lodge, and I served three years as the master of the Southern California Research Lodge, which publishes a fraternal review magazine that I was a managing editor of and then now creative director for since the rebranding of the magazine in 2016. That's when the history, real quick, the research lodge was meeting in Orange County and they were looking for a home in Los Angeles. So they were looking for a lodge that was into Masonic education and would take them in and help them grow more. And we were at a point in my lodge where we wanted more Masonic education and growing and to grow out the Masonic education. So we thought it would be a great fit to have the research lodge also meet at our lodge and we would infiltrate it per se and help them expand the pub the publication to for total review, which back then it was just black and white Xerox pages that they would fold in half and mail out to everybody.

SPEAKER_01

Like a newsletter is that's like that. Doug Russell talks about that. They would just blast out a mailed newsletter every month.

SPEAKER_00

And so we took that and I said, I designed the trestle board for my lodge, and we do it in color. I know a printer that's really good here locally. Let's let me do a crack and create one of the magazines and see what you think. And we did a test and they all loved it, and we saw the price point and we we saw it was doable. So in 2016, we launched the rebranded fraternal review magazine to a lot of acceptance, a lot of people saying, wow, this is cool. It's great that after publishing the this since like the 1960s, it's getting this new fresh light. And so that's how we rolled out the magazine that everybody gets today. And it's been a lot of testing, trial by fire stuff, but I think we are the we're not like the philolithies that it's a heavily heady researched articles in it. It really, I think it's I like to call it the bridge into Masonic education. For a new Mason that wants to understand Masonic education and expand on their Masonic education. We have varied articles and magazines with different themes every month that that really show how wide Masonry can reach, the philosophy of Masonry. And that's a testament to the openness of all the members of the Lodge and the necessity and need for Masons and other men and women in esoteric groups who want to understand this Masonry more. And that's been our winning sort of thing with us right now. And we enjoy it. We like putting these themes together. And if you want to learn more, there's if we shorten articles, you got the accreditation to go find it or the book and expand your mind and research it more, obviously. But what we don't really just beat you over the head with a 20-page research article that you're gonna sit and read in this issue. There's gonna be no more than two or four pages and move on to the next point.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, more like a popular magazine rather than rather than a research journal.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Yes. That's exactly what we're doing. Again, the bridge to Masonic education or esoteric education would be what uh how I would define the fraternal review magazine.

SPEAKER_01

Excellent. Make sure you bring some copies with you when you come.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, we definitely will. Doug Russell usually brings up a copy of the We'll have some annuals and some recent copies that we'll bring with us. And then from there, yeah, we just kept moving with it. Doug served, then I served, and Jeryl served. And we we've had guest editors that have themes that they bring forth and we publish in with guiding them in that process. And then Angel Millar, that's our editor-in-chief now, that will do have the final say and like how it's gonna go into the publication. So it's definitely a group effort and a liberal love to get 11 issues out every year. I think we're the only Masonic publication that publishes every month like this. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_01

There there used to be lots, but they've all collapsed over the years or gone strictly online, or with the membership change, it's remarkable you guys are still producing a physical item, and I'm often I don't collect it. Um, but I do read it down at the Masonic Library quite often. Good. Perhaps I should start looking at it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, because more because one day you might be one of those guest editors for one of those issues.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, t don't tempt me with a good time.

SPEAKER_00

And then what?

SPEAKER_01

I'm yeah, and then what? And then and then next month you're gonna do it all again. I was joking with with again, I don't want to keep referring to what I just did, but Doug Russell and I had a really good laugh about why anybody would take on the task of a Masonic periodical. Oh, and while you continue to talk about your Masonic periodical, let me go get another one that just came out that I want to talk about. I don't know if you saw the podcast with Alex Rafela.

SPEAKER_03

No.

SPEAKER_01

Sriya, here, hang on a second.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, Sriya in England just did this. And it's their version of a periodical, and it's a beautiful. This is highly influenced. It's beautiful, full color, and it's full bleed, right? Produced more like a comic book than a magazine. I would say Moore's bumper book heavily influential in something like this coming out. But it's great to that's Masonic, Masonic magazine? Well, it's the Rossicrucian, it's from Societus Rossicruciana in Anglia. So S-R-I-C-F to you guys in the States. And uh Alex Rafela is the editor, and they did this first edition called Hermeticism, and I've been a big fan. I got piles of them here, and we'll have them at the book table at the conference.

SPEAKER_00

But okay, good. I was gonna say bring them to the conference.

SPEAKER_01

These specialized these specialized periodicals are s are coming out again, and there were a lot of occult periodicals that came out over the last 25 years. They've been coming out twice a year or editions once a year or every other year, or however they've been doing it. But they are it is something that seems to have seen a resurgence, like physical periodicals like that. But then again, talking to Doug, it's like, why why would anybody take on this quest to make themselves do this every month for years and years he did it?

SPEAKER_00

It's just my hat's off to you because that's all and Doug was the one running out there, he would take yearly trips to the Ohio Masonic Library or the House of the Temple in DC with the list of themes that we wanted to publish that month, and he would go in there and research books, articles, pre- other periodicals that we can grab information from and create those issues. And he, if there was anybody that def those early issues that that he was in in charge of pretty much, yeah, those were truly Doug digging into research and pulling them together.

SPEAKER_02

That's good.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And that's that's what's changed a lot now with the guest editors and the influence they have with other esoteric or Masonic writers that can contribute original pieces to the work. That's where I think we started to grow more and gain more credibility and more respect from the the Masonic echelon, if you will. Are you are you currently serving as an officer or are you between uh yeah, right now I'm serving as a marshal and I but I'm still the creative director of the issue, and we all have an executive team that gets together every year and finalizes the themes for the following year, which is what we're just about to do in the next couple of months. Oh, great. So we get we get theme ideas from different guest editor guest editors to be that submit, and then we sit there with about 40 to 50 different themes, and we could only publish 11, so we see how we can make it nice and varied, if you will. So you have a pop culture issue, a historical issue, a symbolic issue, a biographical issue, an esoteric issue. So it's kind of a variety every month that you get and not just the same standard thing, if you will.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. That's I should make more effort to look at it. I'm not gonna lie and say, oh, I see it every month. I don't. I should look at it more often. It's all it's in pages, Twitter. You could do it. Yeah, I should.

SPEAKER_00

You could do it in a when you're having coffee in the morning.

SPEAKER_01

I've been complaining about my stack of reading material. Lewis Masonic sent me probably 60 or 70 different books a couple of years, like a year and a half ago. And in there's just so much to be read. I'm usually reading up to six books at any given time. And I don't read a lot of fiction. I do get to some, but I think the the last thing I finish is this George R. R. Martin, the Rise of the Dragon, that's right back here. And I read the stand, I reread the stand and the rest of the dark tower recently to finish it. And I I I could tell anybody who's who reads if you read a lot of fiction, it's worth reading. If you don't have a lot of patience for fiction, just read the last few chapters of the The Dark Tower, especially if you're into esotericism, and tell me Stephen King hasn't got some sort of occult practice going on.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, for sure, right? Yeah. You you could really have you ever been asked because I've I've seen some of his interviews, and nobody I don't think anybody's ever asked him if he's gone into esoteric circles and things like that. Yeah. It'd be interesting to know.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know. I've never done the research. I that that would be interesting. I'm sure somebody knows. There's some we'll ask AI after. There's people throwing things at their car radio right now. They're like, you dopes, this has been covered.

SPEAKER_00

He's been asked already.

SPEAKER_02

You dummies, go listen to this over here.

SPEAKER_00

These neophytes. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You're no Stephen King fan. I'm again, I have too much to read.

SPEAKER_00

I understand completely.

SPEAKER_01

But there's the there's a level of Masonic input I'm always consuming. I read that to that Ross Accrucian. It's 60 60 some some odd pages. It's not very big, but it's six articles, it's really good and it's worth a look. If you're into esotericism and you don't have a copy, make sure to at least glance at one that we have at the book table.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you're gonna be selling them though, right?

SPEAKER_01

I believe we will have copies. If they haven't sold out already, we will have copies there. Well, I would bring these copies, but of course I'm not bringing anything into the states when I come. Not uh not a single thing, because that you you just get to get tariffed or turned away at the border. So will Alex be there? Alex is not coming this year. We had firmed up our speakers' list before I even talked to Alex. But I would bet, I would bet dollars to donuts that if he were to submit a paper, he would be accepted at at our conference for next year if he's willing to travel to Seattle to come and speak. If we do it again next year, and if it is in fact in Seattle, we'll probably see him. He's I think he resides most of his time in Spain. Really good guy. It was an excellent interview. Anyway, we're not here to talk about you. We're here to talk about you. And thanks again for the background and the fraternal review. We'll definitely have copies and people should check it out. Um do you want to talk a little bit about the the talk you put forward for esotericism and Freemasonry Conference 2026 that you'll be presenting on September 19th at the Ballard Masonic Center. Tickets are $50 available on our website, esotericmasonry.com. How's that, Bernad?

SPEAKER_00

That's great. Thank you for the thank you for the invite. You reached out and I accepted. Fike Club and Freemasonry is the talk that I will be presenting. And that talk was inspired at another event called Masonicon in South Pasadena, where we were going to put we were putting together a panel, and we wanted to put together a pop culture panel. And the likes of Robert Johnson and Michael Jarzabek and I were discussing it. And I said, Fight Club is celebrating its 20th anniversary release of the film that that year it was. So why don't is we we've talked about this film before? Why don't we talk about it in how it connects or has some similarities to Freemasonry? And they were like, Yeah, let's do it. It's so off the wall that I think it'll be interesting. So we sat there and for 45 minutes had a roundtable discussion moderated by Adrian Foley, past master of Santa Monica Palisades Lodge. And it was just, it was, there was just so much more to talk about that we could have had that discussion go longer, but obviously because of time we didn't. But that left that seed planted in my head. I was like, there could be an issue, a magazine that we could put together for the fraternal review, Pop Culturesque comparing this. And I already have two writers right here in this panel that would definitely love to contribute something to it. So we did. So now it was convincing the Doug Russell's to okay, because we'd never we had done a Star Wars in Freemasonry a year before, two years before, and that was a big success. So we didn't we hadn't done another pop culture one since then. And this one is not Star Wars, obviously, and it's got a whole nother level of themes, understanding, and adulthood, if you will, that we weren't sure if it was politically correct, appropriate, like how is this going to really be can be perceived by our readers? But after some digging and explaining, I really just convinced them that this was really a study on masculinity and the need for role models. And what is masonry doing to answer the call when men of any age walk into our lodges looking for something to emulate, especially nowadays when a lot of men are on their phones, they're being influenced by caricatures and social media that they have no guidance. They're raised by single parents, usually a mother, no father. So, and I've seen this happen in my lodge. They walk into our lodges by some because of something they read online, they're curious, and they come knocking on our doors, basically asking, tell me who I am. And that search for identity is important and dangerous to be given that responsibility from a stranger, right? But if we take good men and make them better, how are we as seasoned masons answering that call? Right. And so Figh Club is a is a foundation of what happens when you don't have role models to guide you. When Figh Club, you're debauchery and you're destroying those corporations, but in Freemasonry, you are building buildings of service and assistance, right? And in Fight Club, you're doing the complete opposite. You're destroying them. And this is because there's not these role models that are helping to guide you in how to better serve the world around you and how to better contribute. Because once you when you help one, you help all, right? And and these are this is the the spine of the conversation that we have with this fight club and Freemasonry talk that I'll be bringing to the your conference. And that's that and that was what convinced the senior editors of the magazine at that time to say, oh, okay, this sounds interesting. Show us the articles first. So we started, then I just made the calls and I said, Look, give me an angle, an article slanted on this thing. Give me you write me an article slanted in this thing. And so slowly it came together, and even I was like impressed. I was like, wow, it really is turning into something bigger than what I had expected. And we went on and agreed to publish it in April of 2020, and that's when what happened? The pandemic and everything shut down the month before. Right. So, in a way, it was lucky for us because everybody was home with something, more time to read. So it became one of the it became the most popular issue that year, the most downloaded issue of the year. So it was cool. So we saw that need. So uh of it obviously triggered something, and a year later is when I finally put the first fragments of this talk together. And as the years have gone by and I've been delivering it and reading more and understanding more, it's been refined and refined to what you're gonna get at your conference. So I think people are gonna get something out of this that they were not expecting. I think that's always what happens. They're like, oh, Feiglib and Freemason, how is this gonna connect? And they're very skeptical, right? And then once it's over, they're like, wow, it's you really made points that I was not expecting with this. And you're I really would like the audience to just kind of leave thinking about their responsibility to their lodges and what they're contributing to their lodges. Are you being builders or are you being destroyers of this lodge? You and that's the power of what I discovered through this book and film and how I saw those connections with Masonry.

SPEAKER_01

It's not unprecedented. We had Zane McCune a number of years ago did a Pinocchio talk, uh the Disney animated Pinocchio, and talked about uh its relationship to Freemasonry. So I'm like I'm excited to see what conclusions you draw to read both the book and seen the movie and many times, and it's that's it's it's popular to talk about things like shadow work, but this is confronting the darker aspects of self.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the duality of man.

SPEAKER_01

Or the things you hide from yourself, right? People are always asking me if I know Tyler Jordan, right? Exactly. And that's uh that does he do you know yourself, Tem and Noske.

SPEAKER_00

Know thyself, exactly. And also that's kind of like there's one angle where you're the divestment of material possessions, which is something that we learn early in Masonry, and which the movie kind of really amplifies when his apartment blows up and he tells him, and now that you lost everything, you're free. He's like, What? But I needed my blanket, I needed my china. But those are just things that define you in the wrong area. And masonry basically say the same thing, like right? If you're in if you you're not to be judged by your worldly possessions and things like that, it's your character. Who are you as a human being and who are you as a man?

SPEAKER_01

A study in virtue and vice.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, a study in virtue and vice.

SPEAKER_01

And that philosophical artwork, like Fight Club. It's so easy to breeze past it or pass over it because it's awfully visceral and violent. Oh, right. But it does have a very important message, I think, and an incredible philosoph philosophical background and basis to it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and that's the thing. When I first saw this film, I saw it in the theaters when it first came out, and I didn't like it. I thought, uh, like this whole twist at the end, it was done already by the Sixth Sense. I don't get this, but wait, this doesn't really connect. But and but you know what it did? It was I was haunted by it. After the theater, like I just kept thinking about it, the imagery, what they were saying, what was going on in my life. And a week later I went back to see it again, and I was like, I think this is the film of my generation.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think, especially because back when it first came out, if you remember, it was just getting bashed and it was too violent. It was like, you shouldn't see this, masochistic. And it really did, it wasn't really popular. It didn't really make that much money. It was more of a cult film later. Later.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Gained that popularity. But it was because of that. It was just this haunting idea that this was actually a mirror to the generation of that time. And even subsequently, it still holds. It still echoes to this day after I've watched it recently again. And I'm just like just impressed by the level of understanding by the author Chuck Polinek when he wrote it as his anti-establishment book, because his first book, Invisible Monsters, was not published by the, it was neglected by the publishers. It's not good enough. Get out of here. And this was his anti-establishment rant towards that, right? And that's the one that put him in the on the map, really. And so it's interesting how it has grown and it still grows with layers as we get older and as time passes by. So we'll see when we're gone, if that story, that film, that book continues to live on in the pop culture stratosphere.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, you you look back on the time, and this is a time of fantastic film, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Matrix came out that year.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you're okay. Yeah, that year. So that there again, you've got this highly philosophical, incredibly deep story, but done in such a manner that it the the cyberpunk treatment of it. Fight club is a whole other thing entirely. Yeah. But it's it's still artwork that begs to be taken seriously.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because it really puts a mirror on the dark side of human nature.

SPEAKER_01

And there's there's a lot more going on in in these these artworks. And I see film especially, but the moving picture, uh but big budget film as that that is the mirror to our society. That's the highest art. When done right, yes. Yeah. And it's certainly the most popular art and the most art the art that's the most invested in this society, right? Although things have changed somewhat for that, for Hollywood, it still is this high art form. And it's great to see commentators like you taking it seriously with regards to our work, because it is also a reflection of the society that it exists within.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. What culture is it in now, right? It's like what, and that's kind of the discussions I have with the officers in our lodge, is it's you really need to listen to the new people that the new men that join the lodge and see and feel the pulse of what's going on, because if a lodge does not evolve, it dies. Yeah. And that's been proven to me over and over. So I confidently can say that. If you're too closed-minded, if you're very, if you're gonna be very picky and who you allow, you're just you're just shooting yourself in the foot. And that is historically, that's what happened, right? In the 50s, the golden era after the World War II, it was an influx. It was just so many Masons, you were just opening a lodge in every city. Yeah from the culture that changed after that, the hippies. Why am I gonna have this bell bottom long-haired pot-smoking hippie join our lodge? We have enough members, we don't need them. And there's the non-Masonic thing that and the missed opportunity that happened for the next two generations. And now you're those those same people are sitting in their lodges in the nineteen eighties, nineteen eighties thinking, shit, like, where are the people?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, where did everybody go? Why does nobody want to come over here?

SPEAKER_00

Well, why don't they want to hang out with us?

SPEAKER_01

It's because of the ossification that the wages and I just talked about this. The corporatization and the ossification of the ritual made it, I said, it made it somewhat dull. And he weighs in is like, yeah, it made it suck.

SPEAKER_00

It made it suck.

SPEAKER_01

It made it suck.

SPEAKER_00

And to make to make not just the ritual, but just the whole experience of it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, to make a lodge of monoculture is going to make it suck. Uh, you should be able to love your brethren and get along with them, but you also need some tension and some difference in order for us to truly celebrate what it means to sit in lodge together, right? If you're just gonna if you're gonna meet with carbon copies of yourself all the time, like you gotta have the different generations in there, and that's the point.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and people with different opinions, different beliefs, different faith. And I think that's what makes the idea of masonry much more special than important, is that we can all dwell in the same space and be on the level, as we say, right? And still work for the greater good of all of us. Sure. Right. And that's the magic of it. That if you're if you're smart enough or clear enough or you paid more paid attention, is what makes it such a special organization, if it's done right. If it's done right.

SPEAKER_01

People within the sound, the range of the sound of my voice, please come to Seattle September 19th and meet Daggo Rodriguez in person, listen to his presentation, and then tell him he's totally wrong. You'll have that right to stand up and ask what's at the end of the presentation. This is what makes it both things at me, but just tell him pool be long. This is what this is what makes masonry dynamic. If you're angry and throwing shit at your radio right now, please go buy your ticket. You're the people we need. Go buy your tickets and just come on down for some good old fraternal tension.

SPEAKER_00

We it's always it's it was always good when half of the crowd hates it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. I'm I say that all the time. Masonic, the Masonic leadership test is if you're not pissing somebody off, you're not doing it right. You're too milk toast, you're too middle of the road if everybody agrees. Look, please come and see us at EFC 2026. You won't regret it. And these it's all of this material will be captured, but who knows if we're gonna release it? Probably not. It could be years. You might have to wait years. Come and see it in person. There's nothing like it. Brother, I want to shift gears and ask you some of the fundamental questions we ask everybody who comes on the podcast for the first time. How did you join Freemasonry?

SPEAKER_00

I I joined well, I was always curious about it and was always intrigued by the esoteric philosophies, but didn't have back then, it's not what it is now, where it was like we have all these published things accessible to you, the internet also, the movies, the books, like it's the podcast. None of that was around when I was a little pup, intrigued with the esoteric world and masonry. It was just that dark, doomed-looking building off to the side over there with a square encompass.

SPEAKER_01

And the guys in nice suits coming and going all the time.

SPEAKER_00

I never even saw people coming and going, it was just there. It was always clean, but I was like, who is in there? One of my film school friends from film school, he actually became a Mason and then told me he was one. And he said to me, I think you would really connect with this and enjoy it. I'm already, I've already become what they call a master Mason. And come have a dinner at my lodge and see what you think. And so I was like, Really? You became a Mason? Like, how did that? I would have never thought he would have joined, but he was intrigued too, and he was now a master mason and proud of it. He had his own suit. I was like, wow, the pin. And so he took me to a meeting and I was intrigued. And I said, How long do I have to wait? So there was a the process, and I eventually got in, but that lodge that I belonged to wasn't really into the education. It really was just doing what it needed to do to survive.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And not until I try, not until I became a senior officer, like a senior deacon, and had to start memorizing the ritual. And in film, you start, you have to look between the lines and analyze and understand what does this really mean? What am I really saying? And that's when I was going on to trip to the PRS, the Philosophical Research Society here at Los Angeles, and opening up all the books that they had. The many P. Halls now were getting discovered. And I was like, wow, this is an onion that I'm going to be peeling for the rest of my life. But there are things in these lectures that I'm memorizing that it's proving what I thought it meant correct. So there is some magic here, and this is something special. So why are we not talking about this more? And that's when I started to question the elder brothers at the lodge. Like, hey, why aren't we discussing this? Why aren't we having classes? Why aren't we having talks? And not until I was getting closer to become the master, and there were much more like-minded Masons now joining the lodge, becoming officers behind me, that we started to cultivate that educational movement within the lodge. And then all of a sudden, this thing called observant Masonry started happening. And we were like, what? That's what we are starting to do in our lodge. There's a name for this books about this? Wait, who? Hammer? Who else owed it? What? So it became this now. There's a zeitgeist in the air that we are all searching for a more profound experience because we know it's in there, but it's been sheltered. And we're we need to water it and let that seed grow or kick it open and make it happen. And that's how the lodge slowly progressed into an educational lodge at my lodge. And that's where the floodgates started to open. And it was now lectures, talks, classes for the each degree, rooms of reflection, Masonicons, it's and the fraternal review or the research lodge joining or meeting at our lodge and sharing on those educational labors that we felt compelled that we wanted to explore and share with other individuals. And that's really what I think that comes out of the pages of the fraternal review. It's labors of love that people find intriguing and interesting that they say, hey, I think you might like this. Why don't you give it a read at least and see what you think? But that's kind of like my trajectory and how I started and I got into Masonry and have stayed with Masonry in my 16-year 16-year span of being a Mason now.

SPEAKER_01

I want to take you back to your first few comments. Do you remember any particularly influential media or book that you read as a young person that kind of set you on this path? In my case, I talk about this. I was, I had my mom's second husband, my stepfather Paul, was a conspiracy theorist, and he left uh The Temple in the Lodge and Holy Blood, Holy Grail lying about. And I read them both. And I didn't, I clearly, maybe I was like, oh, this sounds like a conspiracy, this more of this conspiracism. Maybe I bought into it, maybe I didn't, but it was that Wes Regan and I talk about this all the time. It was the conspiracy theorists that set us on a path to intersect with the craft. Me too, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and I spent a lot of time with rock music. And I was a reactionary Christian as a teenager, right? And I was that kid at the youth group that was like, oh, I could help you guys identify all the satanic imagery, and in the end, I play for the other team now. I do research. Yeah. So was there something do you remember something in particular, a movie? Some guys say, like National Treasure, even though it's kind of B movie material, it still is like a recruitment drive for the craft, really. When you watch it.

SPEAKER_00

And I had seen National Treasure, and it didn't hit me till after I became a Mason. Oh, that's right. There was a Masonry in there. No, honestly, it was I was Manley P. Hall's The Key The Keys to Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That was one of the first books that was brought to my attention that I read. And I just fell in love with the way he described and described Masonry, the philosophy of it, the symbolism of it, how it relates to human nature and your life. And I was just like, wow, is it really like this when you join Masonry? So then I said, I don't want to get too deep into it because I want to go through the experience. Later, somebody said, you should somebody said, Freemasonry for dummies, hodet. And I was like, well, I'm no dummy. I don't need to read, but they go, no, read it. And I read it and I was like, wow, this is definitely this kind of tells you everything without telling you everything. And now I recommend that to any new visitors that ask me, what should I read without telling me everything? I'm like, read Freemasonry for dummies and let your wife read it, your mom, your dad, your kids, because it'll give everybody the breath of what it's of what the experience is going to be like and killing away all that fear.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it demystifies, right? It's not full of mystical or esoteric language, and it's not trying to be anything it isn't.

SPEAKER_00

To me, the more the concern at first was just like the ritual. I was like, what kind of ritual are they gonna put me through? What kind of hazing are they gonna put me through? But if my buddy from film school was able to manage it, then I should be able to manage it. So it wasn't gonna be so. Once I got my first cigar, I was like, okay, this is how it's gonna go. And that so that but so that I think yeah, Family P. Hall was I that my first introduction to the craft on the on a literary sense and in a film sense, I don't nothing comes to mind that I was like, oh, it's masonry, that's intriguing. I remember watching the skulls, the movie The Skulls of the Frat, right? And like the initiations and like the underworld with all that stuff. And I was like, oh, is this how everything's gonna play out when you join this? But no, when you're arguing about pancakes and green beans, it's just like it just kills it there. Yeah. Why you join? Why I joined, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, why okay, so we know why you joined, and you lots of guys join and they don't like their lodge for whatever reason. This isn't what I thought it would be, the green beans or the chain chasers or whatever it is you've got against the crap that the lodge that you're raising. Of course, nobody knows any better. They join a lodge, they join the lodge they have access to, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. And that's what happened to me, right? Because I joined that one lodge and ended up affiliating with the lodge I'm currently at now, because the lodge that I joined was just really not growing in that educational sense that started to turn me on. That I was like, oh. And something else that happened with that lodge was that it got its charter pulled because again, like we talked before, uh, the there was uh rotten apple amongst them that was embezzling money from the lodge. He got caught. But before the trial happened, they pulled it.

SPEAKER_01

We're not infallible, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And he was and it was closed for almost two years. So we were allowed to travel to other lodges, and that's how I stumbled. And that's something I didn't, that's something I hadn't even heard from them. You can travel to other lodges and see what it's like at other lodges. So I was like, oh, travel. So me and my buddy went to P South Pasadena, and immediately when I walked in, it wasn't what it is now, but there was this feeling when you walked into that lodge that just spoke to me immediately. The ghosts were there and they were hungry, and they saw us walk in and they were like, stay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I just kept kind, and it was also closer to where I lived, so I just kept showing up and they just started to get a liking to me. Then I slowly started helping them out, became a junior officer, and then I was sucked in and I didn't want to leave it anymore. And I but at that lodge, I saw this blank canvas of a potential that if they allowed me to to fail, we can definitely create something that hasn't been seen in the lodges around us, right? And they did. And it it did become that. And that's I think a testament to to their trust and our guts or ball the or ego. I don't know if it was the ego, just kind of let's try this and see if this works. Because this is what we're looking for. This is how how why aren't we not talking about this in the in in the lodges? All right, try. We had a lecture that only four people showed up to, and now we have lectures where we get 50 to 70 people coming to. So that's great. It's evolved. Again, the evolution, right? Allowing a lodge to evolve and and and change is what the secret sauce to keeping lodges afloat and thriving, I think, and what I've learned.

SPEAKER_01

I talk about it all the time on the podcast. Look, if you were initiated and you drifted away because your lodge wasn't what you thought it was going to teach you, it hopefully you took a demit and didn't just drift away and stop paying your dues. Because there are other lodges. And if you're in a city, there's probably 20 other other lodges. You just need to find the right group of guys looking back at you. Right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And that's what I tell the guys when they visit lodge. When you visit our lodge as a visitor, we encourage you to go visit other lodges before you make a decision to join our lodge. Because when you put in your application, we want to make sure that undoubtedly, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the best fit for you. Because lodges, I tell them, are like high schools. You got one that's got a great football team, one that's got a great debate team, one that's got a good science program. If you're a football player, why are you gonna join the lodge with a science program? You're not gonna, you're not gonna blend, you're not gonna ha get the biggest bang out of it, right? So it's the same with lodges. Some lodges do more social things, others like education, others the ritual, some mix the mix the bag with a little of everything. So you just have to go see which ones you would which one you connect to on that level. And they do, and a lot of them do. They go and then you know what? Two months later, they're back, and they're like, you know what? I think this is the lodge for me. And I go, okay. So keep showing up.

SPEAKER_01

Keep showing up. That usually the next question I ask is, why did you stay? But you've told the story. You you've you found a home and you and the people around you changed it into what you wanted it to be. And there's lots of opportunity for that in the craft. Again, lots of lodges aren't as change resistant as people joke about. Uh quite a few lodges are just looking for people with some passion to come on board and take it and run with it.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, people that are willing to roll up their sleeves and do the labor in the quarry, right? Yeah. Do the work, not be lazy, not I just want to sit here and I want you to feed me. No, get up and help me cook, and together we'll cook a really good meal that you'll be able to take with you and cook over and improve upon after you and I are done cooking it. And that I think is the thing that the lodges also need to learn that you have to encourage them to contribute. They got to contribute.

SPEAKER_01

It's a generational thing to guys, especially with the shrinking of the nuclear family, the way it works. Uh, like my mom had five siblings, my dad had seven brothers. They all got married, they all had kids. I had this enormous family. Wow. But most people now, like in my generation, that was it for that. All the kids from those kids had one or two, some had three. That's it. And now with this generation, of course, coming up behind us, most of them are not having any kids, right? So our families have really shrunk. You don't get a chance to hang out with old guys that'll just be guys.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Like you do in a lodge context, right? And this is where this is where the festive board really plays a role. But in the launch, too, like older guys have a lot to teach us.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, absolutely. I think when I first started coming there, I naturally just gravitated towards the older guys who were more willing to share what they knew in their experiences. I'm like, I'm talking to a 50-year Mason here. Yeah, he's gonna know more than that guy that's been here five years, than the master that's been here seven years. He is gonna be able to enlighten me on what worked in the decades that he was a Mason. Right. So that always I always got a kick out of that. And I also noticed that our older brothers, when they come to the lodge, they also live longer. Yeah. They live longer. They have something to look forward to. And because we they're excited to see us just as much as we're excited to see them. Yeah. So there's a level of appreciation that we have for each other and those generational years of wisdom that they can share with us. That's really cool. I think that's something that you're not going to get anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01

There is an effect. They call it a church effect. I should get the study where they publish the results that people who are regularly attending a church live like four or five years longer on average. And I don't know if they say in the study, but I would posit that you get the exact same benefits from being involved in Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. I think that was that documentary on Netflix, I forget what it's called, about social groups and how it was proven that.

SPEAKER_01

Join or die? Are you talking about the bowling alone guy? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I talk about it all the time and I can never remember his name. But but Bowling Alone was his book. And then they did a recent book. Worth watching. If your lodge needs education, get an episode account and say that. Get together and watch Join or Die and then talk about it.

SPEAKER_00

It's very insightful and you should Fantastic. You should definitely watch it at your lodge. I think the senior officer should have an officer meeting. Watch that and discuss it. Yeah. That's a great educational tool for them.

SPEAKER_01

We hosted a movie night, Lodge of Education Research, Vancouver Lodge of Education Research here at Agnes Street. We put it up on the big screen. We didn't charge for it because we weren't sure what the rights on Netflix would be. So we went to the movie theater and bought popcorn, like big bags of popcorn. And we served everybody popcorn and had everybody in to watch a movie for free. And we opened it for The public. We didn't get many members of the public. We didn't advertise it very far, but we should probably do it again. We had really good local turnout though, like 50-60 brethren. Oh wow. Came to watch it together. Yeah. And that what a blast it was. And we had really good discussion. In fact, we probably could have talked longer than the movie was. Because about 75. For sure.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

And you could just go and go, and there's so much in there.

SPEAKER_00

So many layers on leadership and and that idea of again being of service. What do you have to offer? Being a role model. And again, leading by example. And I think in Masonry, that's this is where we've lost our ways, our way in that and misunderstand that. Again, because we came into lodges that it was all about quantity and not quality, and all that sort of over the decades disappeared. And so you have to relearn that as a member of your lodge and as you grow to be a senior officer, when you wake up and realize, shit, like I'm here to be an example to these guys, or else they're going to be clowns that are going to be running my lodge if they don't live up to a certain standard that we want to have here, right? Yep. And I think that's where the leadership and that snap into walking a straight line happens to you when you're a Mason, which is a good tool, which is a good educational tool for you, a tool for you as well. And that's but if you're not aware of it, then it's just a whole mess that you're creating and nobody wants to stay and support it. Again, what are we, what are what example are we giving those new Masons that are entering our lodges at our home lodges? Right? What are we creating there? Why are you giving them a degree if you're not going to really put a lot of love and effort into this degree? And that's why the observant movement started and they wanted us to be more aware, right? And more take our time, do it correctly, and not just hurry up and brush us through it. Make it a true ceremony, not this stamp go, stamp go, stamp go, stamp go.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it uh not that there's a problem with degree mills per se. They have their place, but but turning over candidates without ever trying to feed them spiritually or philosophically, I think is a mistake, right? Well, yeah, if you're not going to be able to do that, how many how many men are out there and they are Freemasons? They're always going to be Freemasons, and they just drifted away after a few years and never set foot back in the lodge. Those guys have missed like they like a near miss. They've missed probably the most transformative experience of their lives because they already had the degrees. There's more degrees, go get some more, or be exemplified in a lodge that's really comfortable delivering meaningful ritual. And that's happening more and more.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. But also on top of that, not just deliver the ritual, but then have moments afterwards where they are educating you on what you just went through. Because you could get the ritual. When I got my first degree, I was so impressed by all the memory work that they were doing that everything they were saying was so dense that it just was going over my head. Of course. But you have to come back, sit and watch it again and again. Oh, that, that, oh, that's what they said. But then it's okay, so what does that mean? How does that affect me? Why does it matter? How do I apply that not only in the lodge, but also in the world outside of the lodge to improve myself and the world around me? See, those are the discussions that then we have we started to have with our apprentices after they received their first degrees, our fellow crafts after they received their degrees, just so they were aware on how to apply these tools and principles outside of the lodge to really see that they can work. They're not just little cute philosophical ideas we're throwing at you, so then you could just say you're a Mason. It's like actual building tools for your character.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And the degrees work, I say this a lot. The degrees work on several levels too, right? And as an internet apprentice, that's like having the degrees conferred on you, all three, or however many you get. Yeah. But if you don't stick around to see other people get the degrees, which is like being a fellow crap. Yes. And you don't stick around long enough to actually confer parts of the degree, which is like being a master mason, or to play the role of the worst full master and actually raise a master mason yourself, you're not getting the full value of the degree. And so it you hear things like Alex and I were joking about it at a couple of other interviews I've had recently. Give it 10 years and you'll get it figured. But it does take a number of years. You've got to give it a chance to take root and for the words to be alive, for the living word of our ritual to take root.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you gotta let it sink. You gotta let it gestate. It's gotta the seeds gotta sprout after you water it, fertilize it, give it and give it some sunshine. Right. It doesn't grow overnight, and that's part of the layers of the ritual that you have to, like you said, be part of and then help deliver. Because, like I said, when not until I became a senior deacon and had to memorize the lectures that I start to really see masonry on a whole nother level. Right. That I was like, wow, there's so much here that everybody is missing. Why? Why are we letting them walk away and not understand this on the level that I'm understanding it now? Right. And that's how you start to make that change in the people around you and your lodge, if they allow you. If but if you become master, as you do it in degree, slowly introducing little elements here and there without going from zero to 120 miles an hour in one year, the culture will change. The culture will evolve. And that's what happened to me in our lodge, where the when I was already a senior warden, for example, the the guy behind me was already experiencing the chamber of reflection, the incense, the candles. So when he became master, he does not recognize our lodge in any other manner but those elements that were already in place. But when I came into this lodge, those elements didn't even exist. See, that cultural shift was gradual. So now it's like a common thing. Well, we're not gonna have these elements. No, we gotta have them. Right. It's not it does that doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. It's not a problem to breathe.

SPEAKER_02

And now you could say we've always done it this way we've always done it.

SPEAKER_00

Now I can say it's always been this way. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01

It's all yeah. They don't know you're absolutely bullshitting them. It was not always this way. We made it this way. It's better this way. This is what was always intended.

SPEAKER_02

Listen, uh it's always been since I've been here.

SPEAKER_01

Seriously, for a minute, and this may be controversial, and I brush up against controversial stuff all there is a lot of public discourse about the problem with men, manosphere influencers. So much of it is it's just manipulation of a consumer, in my opinion. So much of it is just it's a bullshit philosophy, ridiculous. I have no patience for any of it. But I believe there is a difficulty caused by maybe not the breakdown of the family, but the just the world changing so quickly around us that people don't have masculine role models in their lives. And this is exactly one of the things that Freemasonry would have been for had it still had a central component to our society. Again, bowling alone, one third of adults in the 1920s and 30s, one third of adults, not men, one third of adults would have belonged to a fraternal organization, a union, or sports team of some kind. Right? So everybody was members, and now way less than that. I think Freemasonry needs to play a role in in a proper discourse around the problem with men. I don't even want to use that term because it's been co-opted by the wrong political forces, in my mind. Um can Freemasonry play a role? And in what what way should it play a role?

SPEAKER_00

I've I just it just goes back to this talk, right? When we were just discussing earlier, where we have to be examples to those coming in, and that masculine ideal it must can be re can be redefined by Freemasonry, right? Without being the social media masculine ideal, that looks maxing thing that I've been hearing and seeing a lot about, right? It's what does it mean to be a man in this society? Right. What are those values that create a well-rounded man in this society? And I think Masonry has every single opportunity to answer that call and rise to it if we are properly raising men in our lodges and giving them and bestowing them that education and that knowledge. But when you're not, when you're more worried about how you're gonna feed the guys at night, pizza or hamburgers or green beans or how are we gonna pay for the lights? It's I think that there's a level of responsibility that has to come from the top in that understanding of there's a big responsibility that you have. And how are you gonna answer that responsibility? Are you capable to answer that responsibility? Because if you're a screw up at this lodge and then you're gonna be inspiring the guys that are gonna come in, no, they're gonna see through that after their first degree, they're not gonna want to come back anymore, and they're gonna be bad-mouthing the masons of that lodge and masonry in general. Uh, yes, I agree that they're the that's that that is like our responsibility, I see, in the long run, but how do we attain those tools as senior members of our lodges to be able to bestow them on the younger ones is the question, right? What are those tools? Besides the the typical implements that we have already in masonry, do we draw those out and really break them down and see them as the applicable tools on how a man should govern his life? I think so, sure, but that requires a lot of contemplation and discussion, which is what we don't do a lot of, right? A lot of we're not stopping to talk and communicate with each other a lot nowadays. Everything's quick, brief, quick text, and we're not taking that time to really sit and understand each other and the needs that we have as men. And Masonry is one of the rare organizations where men can still meet to have these discussions. And the beautiful and one of the last organizations like this, that it has its ritual as well that helps project that. But we're not spending that time, investing that time into cultivating that. And I think that's where we're missing out on the opportunity to truly make good men better and contribute to the masculine ideal of what a great man should really be. The people that you really look up to, right? When you like if you think about that ideal father figure or that that ideal uncle, right? Who are you? And masonry is that, I think, initiation and threshold into what uh uh that manhood that we don't get out in the real world nowadays. Right. I was reading some book that said women have their periods and that's their initiation into their womanhood. They're coming of age. What a new age, but you and you don't but you don't have that threshold that you get to cross. That quincenar that we have, sure land culture, that celebration of your manhood, like when the Native Americans would take him, or in African tribes, they would take the young men and they out to the field and have an ish initiation with him that was the threshold that crossed him into that manhood. Masonry has that, but we're not we're not exploiting it like we should. Right. That's the missed opportunity that we have there. But it's there, and we could definitely and we could definitely do it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the first time I heard anybody talk about this, it was actually it was Angel Millar, probably on A Cult of Personality with Greg Kaminsky, but it was when he did his first book. And I remember some of the things he said infuriated me, but then gave me lots to think about later. And it just made me realize I should probably talk to this guy. And then I haven't. I just haven't reached out to Angel Ballar. If you're listening, love to have you on to talk about your latest book. I'm super interested in reading.

SPEAKER_00

I'll put in a good word for you. I think I'm gonna see him Saturday through a Zoom.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure he and I will disagree, but again, one of the great things about masonry is you realize, and it's this idea of the religion on which all men can agree, right? We focus on the things where we disagree, but you should really focus on the areas where that we have in common and what we agree on. I know there's a lot to be negotiated through in a lodge life, right? And in lodge politics and interlodge politics and grand lodge politics, all of that. But it's just one of these things where when somebody really gets to me, I think back to those times where I was saying things just to get to people. Who knows how many times I've done that today. And you know what? Who cares? Who cares? Again, and I will reserve the right to change my mind about people and ideas, right? Um, and I just I think what you were just saying about this, I think that's a huge role for Freemasonry to play, especially in the lives of the younger men that are coming forward. And in fact, it's a challenge to those established in the craft to steward these guys in such a way that their experience will be improved because many students of the last 50 years have drifted away. But about two-thirds of people don't stick. Now, that's traditionally that's about the ratio. Only one-third stick. And I think retention is something that needs to be focused on because it we just we can't burn up 200 hours to make an entered apprentice, a fellowcraft, and a master mason, uh, and then just have them drift away.

SPEAKER_00

And what do you think that retention should also be? What should that be?

SPEAKER_01

What do I think is going to contribute to it?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01

I think the diversification of lodge cultures will contribute. A number one. And the acceptance of generational differences. There are so many forces at work to divide the generations. Oh, those these these Gen Z kids are lazy. They don't want to work. They don't want to work for minimum wage. They know they'll never buy a home or be able to get married and have kids with what's being offered them. That's the problem, right? Affordability, yeah. There's so many components to each of these generational issues, but the forces that be want to keep us divided. Whereas Freemasonry is about what do we have in common? What keeps us together, right?

SPEAKER_00

Because that's and that's the thing, unity, right? Unity is what it's the great fortifier of the edifice and the superstructure. And the minute we start dividing ourselves up, that's when it all falls apart. And that's, I think, one of the secret sauces, secret ingredients of the sauce there is how do you fight to keep the peace and harmony in your lodge and the unity amongst them, the diversity in your lodge, and keep it exciting enough that they want to keep coming back over and over to help contribute to the growth of the lodge and this philosophy as well. I think that that is the culture that every lodge should strive to create and challenge themselves to create amongst their brothers within them. And I think if you do, you'll rein in a lot of light that people will want to come and look and see, oh, these guys are doing some cool shit here. What do we do? How do I get a piece of that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. The the outside world doesn't talk much about the brotherhood of man. There was a great teacher like 2,000 years ago, and I heard a philosopher recently, a Christian apologist, just say it plainly. He was like, the greatest contribution that Jesus made was to teach us that we are all equals. We are a brotherhood of man. The tribalism is an illusion. And ever since then, the the world has teared torn itself apart, tried to argue about what he was actually teaching us when one can kind of boil it down to a couple of things. Try to be nice to each other for a change. Uh and the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17, 21.

SPEAKER_02

These sorts of without a vision, the people perish.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. These sorts of things, and I don't mean to get political or religious, but it happens always here, it seems. Um I I I just think it's a bit of insight to try and focus on the unity. What brings us together? And then Freemasonry constantly banging the drum about the unity. You listen to the quotes from the address to the brethren about how to be a good man, do the right thing, and disappear into the multitude, these sorts of things. Young man, young men might have heard it, but they need to have it reinforced.

SPEAKER_00

And I think you're absolutely right, Troy, because I think what's happening in the world around us, after all this division, a lot of people are now waking up and realizing, wait, that's why we're losing. We have to start working together to fight the greater evil that's been forcing us to divide ourselves. And that's what I'm seeing in the Zeitgeist more now. It's a lot of people like, wait a minute, I don't really there, this my political affiliation was actually doing more to divide us than bring us together. And that that's not what I'm really about. Right. And now that I'm seeing it clearly, I gotta now start putting it together. That's what the word is, right? This is what I'm hearing. And I'm just like, yeah, that's what I've known all along. And I've been preaching to you guys, but you don't want to listen. You want to be stubborn, you want to go against the grain, and then we suffer. We all suffer because of it. And now you're realize you're realizing that it's all of us working together for the service of all, not just one or two different individuals.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right? Not this, not these billionaires that don't care about you individually.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right? And that's, I think we're starting to see that shit take shape. And hopefully it does, because that's exactly what we need right now. That's the revolution we need is a revolution of unity.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

A unity. And again, and masonry has those tools and concepts in place for it, right?

SPEAKER_01

It sounds like to me you are a man who is fully invested in Freemasonry.

SPEAKER_00

I am. Yeah. I I put it up against all these other philosophies, and I still haven't found one that has knocked it out. Right?

SPEAKER_02

What what keeps you fully invested?

SPEAKER_00

That's a good question. When I see somebody, a new brother, that his third language is English, and he could sit there in front of everybody and spit out the proficiency by memory in the long form. You'll recite your obligation after initially thinking that he would never be able to pull it off. When I see another man's when I see another man realize their full potential with the tools and implements of masonry that they've been introduced to, that to me is the thing that says, wow, that's powerful. That excites me. That creatively, spiritually excites me to say, this is important, and somebody needs to be here to steward it further and protect it as best as we can. And that's why I I like you said I'm fully invested in it. I just show up. That's what I I'll just show up.

SPEAKER_01

None of us gonna come up with anything better than that. That's about the most profound thing you've we either of us have said today.

SPEAKER_02

Is that the most profound thing I've said to us?

SPEAKER_00

That was really good. But that's the truth because that's what I'm gonna stop now while we're at. Because I was sitting there because sometimes I I sit there and I help them decipher what they have to memorize and I see them struggle and I see them kind of uh but then when it clicks, when I see that click, I go, ah, see? It's not a test of you memorizing this, it's a test on you believing in yourself. And when they get that, then it's like wow, their potential goes beyond masonry, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Your potential goes beyond masonry now. Now you have the confidence to go tackle anything outside of this lodge, and that's beautiful. And I think what better human experience and opportunity can you bestow on anybody than that that stamp of confidence that you have the potential to become whatever the hell you want to become if you put your mind into it and focus. And I think that's the Greatest gift masonry can give an individual.

SPEAKER_01

Go ahead and practice those excellencies of character outside of the lodge that are inculcated in it.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Excellencies of character. Not just merely goodnesses of character or virtues, but excellencies.

SPEAKER_00

And not the tools of masonry and not go around preaching about masonry, but the excellencies of character.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love that term.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, that's what has had has kept me excited, and it's that timeless emotional feeling and connection that I feel that I know that this is I'll go off into other things, but deep down inside it it flows through me.

SPEAKER_01

90 minutes later, you're not slowing down. We could shoot the shit all night, I think. Couldn't we?

SPEAKER_00

What other questions do you have?

SPEAKER_01

Like I said, I don't that we're gonna quit while we're ahead because I don't think any of us is gonna be more profound than that. I mean it, brother. I'm not being glib or controversial I'm not trying to confront. I thought that was really sound.

SPEAKER_00

It just comes down to the to what are we doing this for?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. We talk about this is a lot, right? It's a lot of time and need efforts. We could be we could be at home playing about self-improvement. Home playing video games or doing anything else, right? We all choose to do this. All of us choose to do this.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry. We do, we do, and we think it's about self-improvement, and it is in the beginning, but once you cross that threshold, it turns into something else if you connect it to it on that level. Because many people don't and they disappear. I had some people tell me, some brothers tell me, hey, you're already a past master, you received your Hiram Award, you got your Mason of the Year. What are you still doing here? And I'm like, and then kind of it was almost like an insult, but not.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I was like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

I'm like, I'm here because I want to see the next guy realize their potential.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Should I leave? Because you're not doing it. So what somebody has to you should not leave.

SPEAKER_01

Keep going. Ask yourself why are they asking you why you're hanging around? What are you in the way of? What are you in the way of that they want to do just by showing up?

SPEAKER_00

Why don't you want me here? Am I in your way? And that's am I bothering you? Is there too much education now that is too much light for you to handle? Is that what's happening here?

SPEAKER_01

Am I bothering you? Am I bothering you?

SPEAKER_00

There's too much mayo on my sandwich.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. We have been going an hour and 40 almost. Uh we should wind up and I gotta go get some rack time. I would I would open it up if you have a question for me.

SPEAKER_00

I think that question that I had for you was what I asked you earlier. What do you see needs to be the change in masonry that that needs to make it better? Right. And you answer the diversity, yeah, openness, and the unity.

SPEAKER_01

So an adoption of philosophy, of a of the love of wisdom and the teaching of the love of wisdom so that people can open their minds and go pursuing that knowledge for themselves.

SPEAKER_00

True. So why are you still in it?

SPEAKER_01

Because I love it. And I was involved in other things before and it didn't it it didn't it this appealed to my ego because they put me in charge of stuff right away. And what I've realized since is that it's a that's a trap. You get involved in masonry and it will take exactly more than you're willing to give it, and it will always be like that. I'm an enthusiast. I get very enthusiastic about things. And I became enthusiastic about the craft when I realized that much of what holds together our modern world were the ideas that we inculcate in the lodge. And there are worse places to spend your time than with your brethren about the lodge. And my my mentor, Lawn Duquette, often will say whatever keeps you out of the bar.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And there's some of that.

SPEAKER_00

Look, I've heard a couple of Masonic wives say the same thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the Masonic widows, right? Where they're widows before their husband's dead, because that look, the guy that brought me into the craft was a member of eight lodges. He would he his wife had predeceased him by 10 years. He could be out six nights a week between lodge and chapter, and he was a hell of a good guy.

SPEAKER_00

If I'm like maybe my I'm super retired, I'm just like just enjoying the last three years of my life. Yeah, what? Sure. Hey. That's and that's what he did. Okay, then that's fine.

SPEAKER_01

He was good for him. And you wouldn't believe the turnout at his funeral.

SPEAKER_00

I could imagine.

SPEAKER_01

That's another thing you notice being a younger. I'm 51 now, but I'm still a younger member of the craft because I'm below the median age, getting closer. But you notice when you join that you go to a lot of funerals.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And one thing you do notice too is that in the modern world, death and our own mortality is shoved aside. You only really talk about it in church. And if you don't go to church, and most people don't, it's all shoved aside and sanitized and goes away. And part of the lesson of being self-observant and knowing yourself is that this is limited. If you got stuff you're here to do, you should get about doing that and stop wasting your time with distractions. Right. And one of the ways to realize that very quickly is to spend a bunch of time at Masonic funerals listening to what these guys did in their lives, the families they had, the lodges they attended, the achievements they had. And it every guy's story is different. Lots of guys, you go to their Masonic funeral, and there's a whole world about them you didn't know, even though you knew these guys real, real well. Some of them have built companies or had 50-year careers in a union.

SPEAKER_00

That's and that's the bottom that's the bottom line, right? You hear about their contributions to the world and not the car that they drove, how much money they had, the Rolex watches they wore. It was really how much they impacted others by their service in creating these things. And I think we are builders as Masons, and we need to be looking at what are we building to leave the world a better place when we pass on.

SPEAKER_01

Indeed.

SPEAKER_00

That's the bottom line.

SPEAKER_01

Dago, this was amazing.

SPEAKER_00

And same here. Thank you. Great conversation.

SPEAKER_01

What are you working on next?

SPEAKER_00

Was great.

SPEAKER_01

What are you working on next?

SPEAKER_00

Right now, we're working on the next issue of the fraternal review magazine, the top ten books that every Mason should have.

SPEAKER_01

It's a book poll that we've seen your top ten lists sometimes. They're good things.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Well, talk about them. I wish if you want, we'll have the guest editor of that issue come on your podcast and discuss those ten books, or one of our guys, because we want to visit that list every 10 years. Yeah. So we can have a breath on what the culture of Masonry was reading and talking about during the decades as Masonic time.

SPEAKER_01

What is the observing the craft of this day?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. What is the observing craft of this day and what knocked it out and what changed in the last 30 years? Right. I think that's kind of, and that's how we market the magazine when we think about themes. What are people really downloading a lot of from our list in the past two years that we should continue discussing?

SPEAKER_01

What are you working on personally?

SPEAKER_00

Personally, I am actually tinkering with a book version of Flight Club and Freemasonry. Nice. So that, and then just writing, also doing some screen right screenwriting. There's a couple of festivals that I'm applying to this fall. So I want to make sure I have the time to submit to that. And we also run the Illumination Lecture Series at our lodge. So getting ready to discuss year 2027 with that. So I've got a lot of little nice things in the pot that keep me busy.

SPEAKER_01

Invite me virtually. I'll come do memory pals.

SPEAKER_00

So when you're ready, you say, hey, the time is right. If you want me there, you gotta get me now.

SPEAKER_01

Let's see what happens during the midterm elections and then I'll that's fine.

SPEAKER_00

We'll wait till after the midterm. Shit. We'll wait till 2028 if you want.

SPEAKER_01

That's a long time. I'm gonna I'm gonna I miss Vegas already. We'll see San Diego last Christmas.

SPEAKER_00

You gotta you gotta come down. Or if you plan a trip down, let me know.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, I gotta drive down and see lawn.

SPEAKER_02

In Sacramento?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Maybe maybe more of it once. But that's what I think.

SPEAKER_00

If you drive down a cut see him, plan it around annual communication at the California Grand Lodge, which is in October.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. And are they having it in Sacramento or somewhere in North California?

SPEAKER_00

Is it not that far?

SPEAKER_01

No, it's only 22 hours drive from here.

SPEAKER_00

Not from not when you're in Sacramento to San Francisco.

SPEAKER_01

No, but from Vancouver. No, sure.

SPEAKER_00

It's a weekend and we got vendor tables and the research lodge always sets up a table. Nice. Have you ever been there? No. You gotta check out the little the lodge room that they built. I think it'll be a good weekend or just a full day. You could hang out there and really see how it all works. And but it's in October, and it'd be cool to meet up there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. But thanks for the invite. Maybe you'll see me. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Just let me know if you're there.

SPEAKER_01

All right, brother. Thanks so much for taking a few minutes with me today.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, brother. Thank you for inviting me to be part of your podcast and out to the big event, the conference in next month. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. We'll see you at Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference 2026 on Saturday, September 19th. Tickets at Esoteric Masonry.com.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. We'll see you there. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Have a good night, brother.

SPEAKER_00

You too.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for listening today. You can support the show by liking, sharing, and subscribing on your favorite podcast indicator. Even more helpful, leave us a review. Coming up on The Mystic Talk, EFC Keynote Brother Law and Milo Duquette, EFC 2026 Co-organizers brother Ken Lane and Brother Brett Wolf, and the creators of a new 78-card Masonic Wisdom Deck. Stay tuned. We are looking to create a directory of Freemasonic events and publications. If you are aware of something coming up, please let me know by email. In the meantime, check out the Masonic Conference's website at Masonic Conferences.com. Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference will be held on Saturday, September 19th. Our keynote speaker will be Brother Lon Milo Duquet, author of The Tarot Architect. Brothers Ike Baker, Doug Russell, Dago Rodriguez, and Joseph Wages are all slated to present. Get your tickets at Esoteric Masonry.com. For other events, check out our calendar at mystictie.com and don't forget to sign up for our newsletter while you are there. Graphics and web hosting are by Artsable Creative. A special thanks to organist for our theme music. Happy to meet. Story depart. And happy to meet again.