The Mystic Tye
The Mystic Tye is a podcast for Freemasons
I intend to curate a environment where brethren and other aspirants can discuss ideas in a civil and productive way. We will not be afraid to tackle controversial or difficult topics, but all discussions will be done in a respectful and understanding manner. With the forbearance exemplified by our ancient brethren we will labour in the quarry together to prepare the stones of our thoughts and actions. All these prepared for the temple not made with hands.
Find updates at www.mystictye.com and https://www.patreon.com/mystictye
The Mystic Tye
Students of the Work with Bro. Salman Arif
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This week the microphones turn around. Bro. Salman Arif of Duke of Connaught Lodge, a brother Troy vouched for and watched take his obligation, sits down to ask the questions that guys who find Troy a little unapproachable have been saving up. No preamble, no plan, two Master Masons on the level.
Salman opens with his own inheritance: a grandfather in Lahore who belonged to the lodge the locals nicknamed Jadu Ghar, the magic house, met privately in homes after Freemasonry was disbanded in Pakistan, quoted poetry in Persian, Arabic, and Latin, read palms and numerology charts, and took the secrets to his grave. A father in AMORC in Nigeria. Five hundred books in a Canadian storage locker, including the Ian Fleming originals, which sends Troy off on John Dee, the 007 signature, and the long crossover between esotericism and espionage.
From there Troy answers, at length. Why ten books beat fifty summaries. What sits on the wall of his library and why The Chicken Qabalah is still his favourite book on the Kabbalah. Why the 24-inch gauge is the first tool of science, and why a journal is the measuring tool you build for your own inner life, so you can go back, see yourself growing, and eventually, as Lon Milo DuQuette would say, go crazy in a socially acceptable manner. The magical diary, the suit of swords, Hermes, quicksilver, and memory palaces.
Then Salman asks the big one: why do so many lodges seem more interested in politics and offices than in the lessons themselves? Troy's answer starts with "the magic works whether you want it to or not," and goes through the older-man-to-younger-man transmission that changes a candidate whether he studies or not, the concordant bodies, the invisible friend, the third way of Freemasonry that says reach out and get instruction directly, and Luke 17:21. Plus the Liber Librae, Taurus stability, a Christian conversion at 12, a high-control faith at 15, Thelema, the pushback that comes with it, and the religion on which all men can agree.
Also in this episode: the Picatrix and the Arabic roots of the Western grimoires, Peterson's grimoires, the forgotten sciences on the margins of materialism, Freemasonry taking exactly as much as you give it, and Troy's plan for a tarot and Kabbalah class on Zoom with live sessions in the Lower Mainland, once he is back from EFC.
Books mentioned in this episode
The Temple and the Lodge, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh
Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln
The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford, Lon Milo DuQuette (expanded edition coming in December)
Book 4, Magick Without Tears, and The Vision and the Voice, Aleister Crowley
The Picatrix, Ouroboros Press edition
Initiation in the Aeon of the Child and The Angel and the Abyss, J. Daniel Gunther
Coming up on The Mystic Tye: the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference, Saturday September 19th, Ballard, Seattle. Keynote by Lon Milo DuQuette. Tickets at esotericmasonry.com.
Links and resources
- Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference: masonicconferences.com
- RSVP for the upcoming conference: esotericmasonry@gmail.com
- Mystic Tye website and event calendar: mystictye.com
- Patreon (early episodes, extended cuts, artwork, extras): patreon.com/mystictye
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 Mystictie Podcast for Fremakes. I am your host at you can find us online at mystiktie.com. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at Troy at Mystiktie.com. You can support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash mystictide. I probably shouldn't be allowed to answer simple questions. Further, Salman Areith sat down to ask me about Freemasonry, symbolism, and the deeper side of the craft. Naturally, we ended up discussing secret Freemasonry in Pakistan, magical diaries, and invisible friends. A normal evening around. We get into the 24-inch gauge. Crowley and Kabbalah, why keeping in journal matters, and why reading an AI semi absolutely does not count as reading the damn book. Mostly though, we talk about doing the work, thinking for yourself, and discovering what happens when you actually take Masonic symbolism seriously. Apparently, I have opinions.
SPEAKER_00How are you doing this evening? I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me here.
SPEAKER_02Now, you and I have been talking a little bit lately, and we thought we would just circle around, turn the microphones on, and talk for a while. And see what comes up. I think it is fair comment that maybe I'm not as easily approachable by guys. I have a bit of a reputation. This is a way for guys who don't feel the nerve. The love. The nerve to just come up and ask me some very simple questions. We're not gonna record a preamble. I'm not sure even what we're gonna do with this. Um I'm just gonna let you ask me questions. Now, you did listen to my interview with my creative guy, Art Zabot. What'd you think of that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, that was a very interesting conversation, and I really did enjoy speaking. I just enjoy listening to whatever you have to say, and because it's usually something very interesting. Yeah. And I think you're being unfair to yourself. It's not that you have a reputation, you're just a busy guy, and I get it. And I'm a pester. See, it only took four years. Here we are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I did I I signed your paperwork to join the Duke of Canault Lodge, did I not?
SPEAKER_00You weren't one of the sponsors, but I believe you definitely vouched for me once we had a conversation or two. I'm not sure whether you write that down somewhere or not, but yeah, you were there, among other things. No, I was just gonna say it's safe to say that I had a very good start to my journey. And you were a big part of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you do you have questions for me that would that you would like to have answered?
SPEAKER_00Why don't you go ahead and we end up in that situation anyway, right? So yeah, there's always something I want to know, and then most people don't usually talk about such things, but I feel like you definitely are not just very knowledgeable, but also very keen on discussing some of the deeper aspects of the symbology and the metaphors that come in Freemasonry in general. And for me, that's always been the most important part, the richness, the the detail is what I'm really interested in.
SPEAKER_02I don't normally add a caveat to any of my podcasts, but I'm gonna add one now. These anything I express today are my own opinions, they are always mine own opinions, and I don't speak from any particular office, uh position or authority, uh as my friend Trevor McEwen will often say, an obscure Freemason of no authority, and that's favor. We're just two brothers talking, right? That's right. And and you're a Master Mason, and I'm a Master Mason. So we're as we would say on the level. Yeah. And that nobody's inferior or superior. We're just talking about ideas. Now I I have I've done the reading. I've spent close to 30 years starting off in the conspiracism. If you count all the conspiracism reading, like that's more like 40 years, because I was 10, 11, 12 when I read things like The Temple in the Lodge and Holy Blood, Holy Game. But I don't know how well informed you are after reading like that. That's more like misinf. You're set on a path to go looking for things uh that the the answers are never black and white, it's never up or down, yes or no. And your opinions on such things tend to change it.
SPEAKER_00No, I agree. And I think I have a similar experience. Probably I wasn't so well read at 12, I'll say that, but at about 15, 16, I was an expert Googler, you could say. And back in those days when my grandfather was still alive, and you, as I told you in our conversations, he was part of Freemasonry back in Pakistan as well, until they got disbanded for obvious reasons, right? There were a couple of things that really surprised him because I just randomly started searching stuff online, and I was I like to think that even at that age, I had the mental capacity to discern between what a conspiracy theory is versus what it would actually be about. And I came across some very secret words and things like that, and I explained these to him, and he was shocked. He's like, How do you know this? Like, no, you're not supposed to know this. I'm like, I'm sorry, granddad, everything's on Google. Like, it doesn't really matter much whether you know this or not because you don't understand the meaning behind it. And I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to discuss this with you, and not even with your grandmother. So you're gonna be the last person I ever tell anything to. And yeah, he took that to his grave for sure. I really wish he was alive now, and I could discuss so many things that I've learned over the years with him. It is how it is.
SPEAKER_02Were they meeting in the lodge like secretly underground?
SPEAKER_00I did ask him that, and he said yes, there were people, there were still members of the lodge that used to meet privately in homes now, and it was rare. It was like maybe twice or thrice in a year. Um, and I believe he didn't give it too much importance as to say that maybe he was no longer so participative because in Pakistan it's just it can become a whole thing. And if somebody even catches a whiff, yeah, it's risky business.
SPEAKER_02Risky, you'd be a sorcerer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So exactly. And so funny you say that because the nickname they gave to the lodge over there was Jadugar, which means magic house, right? And then somebody and my uncle, so my dad's youngest brother, he actually knew the guy who threw the first Molotov cocktail at that building. Um, yeah. So well, jokes on him because it's a brick building. It didn't really burn down, but there was a lot of there was a lot of wood in there, and ironically, they turned that into a civil servant's office for the municipal, uh the provincial government, which it still acts as right now. But you can still see the pillars, you can still see the exact design and the dimensions and all of it. Right. And there's a lot of older monuments in my city, Lahore, which was a very vibrant and still is one of the most popular and populous cities of that region. And it was just very interesting for me because when I started looking up these things, I really understood that I'm into more of the status never appealed to me. Like even now, it's like I don't like showing off that I'm a Freak Mason. It doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, what's the point of that? I could get so many other accolades that would probably resonate further with people than this. In fact, this kind of makes me look a bit creepy to some people because they just don't know what it's about, right? But it was more about the spirituality, the esoteria, and and I'm sorry I'm just rambling, but I just want to give you a little background here before we get into any questions.
SPEAKER_02I asked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wouldn't I wouldn't ask if I didn't care.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I appreciate that. So my granddad, he used to quote entire chapters and verses from poetry and speeches in English, Persian, uh, Arabic, Latin as well. And it wasn't a superficial knowledge he possessed. He was really, really, really well read. And then lo and behold, it eventually came to I'm like, I was interested in astrology and numerology and that sort of thing. And, you know, that exactly has a lot of connection with Freemasonry directly, but he was a master of that. He would do entire numerology charts connected with my birth chart and things like that. And it was just so accurate and surprising to me. I never got into the tarot conversation with him, but he was definitely a very good palmist. He had a few books and very good sound knowledge about that. I don't know to what level that is held as important nowadays, but definitely very important back in South Asia, right? And yeah, he just told me that my readings got a bit too serious, so I completely stopped doing it. It ended up changing certain people's lives, and I just felt like I don't need that burden. Yeah, so that sort of a thing. Very mysterious and I don't know, like a little foggy in my mind, the whole memory, but very vivid.
SPEAKER_02And that's your dad's father? Yeah. And didn't rub off on your dad at all? My dad was Amorc, right?
SPEAKER_00Basically Rossi crew. Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_02He was a member of Amork, okay.
SPEAKER_00They had a few chapters there in those days. So he used to go there. And from the beginning, the only thing I've heard about religion in my house is that look, there's good in all of these, so don't dwell on any one single one. If you want to understand anything, you have to understand everything. And so we had all of the books in the home. And I, you know something? The about 500 books on different topics. I brought those with me to Canada. They're in my stories locker here. So these are books from the 60s that his he collected, and before that, too. It even has the complete James Bond novel collection, the originals. I think they're third editions by Ian Fleming. So they must be worth something.
SPEAKER_02But the Fleming had some passing interest in esotericism in there. Well, there's a few books around here with because of in his involvement, supposed involvement with MI6, that using of the 007, that was faint quite famically the signature of John B. John D. Yeah. The Queen's Eyes, it was his spectacles over a salute.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've read that.
SPEAKER_02He's like the patron saint of L MI6. And so people involved esotericism often has crossover espionage and intelligence work. Although I'm no expert. I've read a number of books on the subject and I find it quite fascinating. The whole idea of being somebody who you aren't and choosing characteristics to focus on and project projecting an image, a different image of yourself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The sort of magical effect. Yeah, the magical work of laying a quest on somebody or being able to use a glamour to to this people can't see you, or the practices. Crowley used to get into about trying to be invisible, these sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've read that too, actually. That's right. Oh, so it's interesting you talk about projecting something. The CIA has a whole series of uh anybody can read these files on the CI website now, but about astral projection and clairvoyance and things like that.
SPEAKER_02So EMK alt experiments and that was another one too. And a number, yeah. They have done quite a bit of work on on the forgotten sciences, I would say.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah. Well, if they feel like they they can invest millions into something like this, it must be important, right? There must be something to it. Or not.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah. Certainly something to it. What are you accessing?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And what is the nature of consciousness? Like you know what is the nature of realizing something? The difference between I was just looking at this today, the difference between ontology and etymology, right? What is what is your viewpoint on a per on the the particular ways of seeing things, and how do you believe you are learning something or perceiving something? How is perception to be understood? And these are very old philosophical questions. Students of the work, and I use that term a lot, I would say capital S students. Students of the work to end up becoming familiar with these terms because you're gonna cross you're gonna cross these terms as you're experimenting with your own inner life, your own inner experience, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Of course, I think Magnum opus, is that the right Latin term for great work?
SPEAKER_02Great work, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So yeah, I've run come across that quite a few times. Well, to make this a bit more concrete, Troy, because I don't want you dozing off on me, but I just don't see your usual soda can on you, right?
SPEAKER_02So that's what do you mean? This this doesn't caffeine-free soda can, it's right here. There, oh, caffeine-free is always anything afternoon. Sometimes I will allow myself to have a caffeinated soda in the afternoon and really wound it up. You asked the guy who interviewed me on Monday what kind of energy level I was as I had coffee and caffeinated diet soda that day, and I was wound it up.
SPEAKER_00Not that you need it.
SPEAKER_02No, we even joked about taking meth because I think I would have needed.
SPEAKER_00I remember that on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_02I would have needed the meths to feel any more dumped up than that.
SPEAKER_00You know what I like was something that I really enjoyed you said on the that podcast was I wish, and it was related to the meth. It was in the same breath, actually. It was I wish I didn't have to sleep for nine hours so I could just re sit up and read more. Read books. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02More people would donate money to my Patreon or buy more fork so I could stay home and read more books. I'm already surrounded by more books. Some of these books are I've got the Lewis Masonic stock on the lower shelf, sort of behind me, the stuff that's sideways, side fit. That's stuff for sale. The really good stuff is to the left and the right of me as you stand in my library, and maybe one day you'll get invited in here to see some of the really good stuff. But I already have, I think, in here well, maybe not. I think I'll probably I've consumed most of what's against this wall.
SPEAKER_01I believe you.
SPEAKER_02Probably 1200 volumes, I would say. And there's considerably more than that, but I get rid of stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Stuff that I really like or think I might like this is the dumbest thing ever, but stuff I think I might read again, like in I keep copying. And I got a selection of Bibles here. I've read I've read through the King James, I had a gold new King James version that I read as a teenager thrice, three times.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And but I have a red letter one that I like to use, and I have other translations and some concordances and some multi-language concordances. They're here. But the like I could say I already own more books than I'll read because I have several thousand stored, but that's not necessarily true. And what I find myself doing now, and I was just talking about this on the on one of the podcasts the other day, I can't even remember. I'm very self-referential. I just talked about this. Is I will get the get my agent to summarize what's in the book. And all that it just pisses me off, especially if I don't have time to read that book. Because I read the summary, I'm like, fuck, I'd like to read that book. Yeah, I know what you mean. And uh I know I know that there are places in the world right now where people are like, the summary is good enough. The summary is not good enough.
SPEAKER_00No, it's not it.
SPEAKER_02Don't never is don't reading 50 or 100 summaries, you're still gonna you're not gonna be any kind of PhD student. You're still gonna be just stupid. You dump exactly go go read 10 books is better than reading the summaries of 50 books, you don't.
SPEAKER_00That's so true.
SPEAKER_02But it's just one of these things with all these Lewisonic books I've been selling and the authors I've been interviewing. I'm trying to get ahead of it even before the books come out. And so I have to read a summary to conduct an interview to sound like I have any idea of what's going on. But then all it does is just add to my pile. I've got right now right now I've got four volumes I'm reading, because I finished a couple, but I had six until recently. When I read through Crowley's book four and Magic Without Tears, some of the stuff I've had to go back and read and reread. It takes a lot. Same with Vision and the Voice, which is quite beautiful, but a lot of it's really impenetrable if you're trying to glean extra stuff from it. Even reading it with the footnotes, you're just like, What? Right. But more than the reading is practicing some of the stuff. Yeah. And having studied the Western mystical tradition, esoteric tradition, Peterson's grimoires have been hugely influential. I've had a number of teachers that have taught me specific things that have been really quite powerful. And then working with the spiritual forces that I'm aligned with that getting getting your practice to the point where you can have that is a potent thing. And I would just it sounds airy-fairy, but people should keep their own counsel, they should keep a journal, they should keep reading, and they should keep trying because there is there's there's forces reaching back to to reach out to you. And most people are completely unaware that those spiritual forces are out there trying to communicate.
SPEAKER_00Oblivious is the right word for that. They just don't even notice it.
SPEAKER_02It's just easier to have somebody else tell you what to do about that than it is to practice anything else. And it's dangerous. Like it historically been quite dangerous to even give to this idea. So again, depending on where you are and who you live with, what what part of the world you're living in and what time, there's a I'm fairly independent here that I could say these things out loud, but I would caution people to be careful about speaking too openly about such things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, no, I I totally agree with that. And I'll say one more thing, especially Yeah, you grew up in Pakistan.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you have no idea. I don't need to explain the physical threat of having different ideas from other people. Although, according to certain Masonic authors that I respect, apparently I'm the right person to ask if you want to know what possible grimoires this type of magic or system might have come out of. What grimoires did they have access to, Troy? Do you guys any of this stuff? And it's like I'm like, why are you asking me? It's like the you have the cross-section of the knowledge that might be able to keep up with that. So that's that's the kind of stuff I'm interested in.
SPEAKER_00I agree with these people. I believe if I were to have a question about the invalidity of any of these texts, I would first come to you before Google, right? And the reason being that Google can be filled up with the perspectives of a lot of people that I don't really agree with. Whereas with you, I understand where you come from and the thoroughness that you put into all of these things. And not a lot of people have the mental capacity to do it. I'm not saying they're not intelligent enough, but maybe it's a combination of intelligence and passion together, and that's what creates that fire that I feel like you do have, and that's where it all comes from. Which is why you brought on a topic just a little while ago in this conversation, which I feel like maybe we should touch a bit more, and that is keep a journal. Okay. Now, as a it's like the very first step based on what you told me as well. It's like that's where you start. First, make sure you organize and record your thoughts, right? What would you say with a little bit more detail? How, what kind of a journal should an individual in this side of the fence create? What should one begin with? Is it just Deer Diary or is there more to it?
SPEAKER_02There's a good book by Crowley, uh, How to Keep a Magical Journal. And I would suggest that any student of the work get a copy. You can get them, but you can get them for a few bucks used on Amazon. Or you get them at I think Banyum Books will have something like that stock. Or go and download the PDF and read it for free from Hermetic. But the practice of magical diary uh cruelly goes into it quite extensively. So I don't feel the need to cover that again. However, the idea behind it, it in Freemasonry, we talk about the working tools in English emulation work. And the first tool placed in the hands of the workman is the 24-inch gauge. Right? And it's divided into 24. Sections. Hours. Yeah. Right. And so it alludes to the division of one's day, to depend on which tradition, three or four true prayer, labor, reflection, and sleep are the or the the proper ways to divide your day. There's an allusion, however, to an esotericist and to a scientist, an empiricist. And I consider myself, especially when dealing with the outside world, I'm quite positivistic or scientific, no rationalist. My inner life is different than that. But when dealing with your fellow man and dealing with the outside world, and I differ from other occultists in this in this area, so please take a grain of salt. Once again, these are my opinions and my opinions alone. This is the 24-inch gauge, is an allusion to the first tool of science. And it's covered in the idea of the sword, the suit of swords and the tarot covers it. The sword is representative of the number eight and intellect. Right? I see. The god the idea of and the suit and the idea of air. So all of these sort of meanings present one thing. The intellect is very quick, it moves around a lot, like quicksilver. The intellect also is limited. And this is what rationalism and positivism is extremely limited, because by using measuring tools and assuming a locality so that you can isolate something, one thing from everything else and measuring, the first thing you have to do is invent a measuring tool.
SPEAKER_00I see where you're going with this. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Because I've told you this. So the first tool you place in the hands of the workman is a 24-inch gauge so that he can calculate the time and effort it's going to cost to complete paper.
SPEAKER_01Right? Right.
SPEAKER_02If you are not writing things down in a journal, the intellect is going to just because it's slippery and lazy often lose things that you've learned. You need to write things down that you found important. And you need to quantify them as measurable as you can. And even though the inner life, the the spiritual life, so to speak, or the your own personal development, it's hard to apply those tools to your inner life and in free story. We say apply them to our morals, but I think it's applying further work. You need your thoughts coalesced through writing in a book so that you go back and learn from yourself and see yourself growing and changing. This is a motivational tool to because you'll go back and be like, boy, I was dumb. How dumb I'll feel I was 10 years from now if I keep writing this stuff down. That's very true. And it also, these cumulative journals, the language you talk to yourself with becomes that measuring tool. Now it is not an end in itself, it's a means to an end. And the end is to eventually overcome the reliance on science strictly, right? Right. To go, as Lon would say, go crazy in a socially acceptable manner. Hey, we were just talking about the working tools and how how much you can take just from that one working tool, the 20H. There's so much.
SPEAKER_00There is so much there. It is. There is. But my concern has been over the past few years that I feel like and I've visited a few lodges now, so I can't say it's ours or theirs or anybody else's, but I've noticed that more often than not, the the politics of it all and just the responsibilities that are bestowed parentheses on you are essentially greater than anything else. And when it comes to actual learning, when you ask people, they just don't seem very interested. And it's the word I used with our current worshipful master was disillusioned is the word that I use for something like that. It's like I'm serious about this. But and I want to learn the deeper things too. I want to make sure I understand, but it's not just my reading. I want to see how you reflected on that thought. Compare notes, figure out things like that. Because wasn't it true that the very earliest lodges, even though it was mostly a festive board for the stone cutters and so forth, they would sit down and discuss ideas, which eventually developed into different and evolved into what we have now. But the whole purpose was to sit down together and talk about things. It wasn't just the ritual itself, right? And in fact, there probably wasn't any ritual back in those days. It developed over time. And I feel like we're definitely missing that a lot. Well, what do you think? Because you don't need any motivation to go out and start reading stuff, because that's who you are as a person. But if we're definitely trying to make good men better, some people don't have a knack for that naturally, right? But you want to inculcate those skills or that interest. And some people you just don't know what you don't know. And they come at Freemasonry from fraternity and good people and good place to be at. But if we definitely want everybody to be going into a particular direction, wouldn't direction be something that should be given as well? That's something I feel like it's missing. Sure. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I have strong opinions on this. First of all, the magic works whether you want it to or not. Yeah, sure. So one of the one of the things critics will say is, oh, Freemasonry, you guys are over there. Whatever nefarious thing we're doing. And we're teaching the the tenets and precepts of living a good philosophical like life in the Greek philosophical sense. But from another standpoint, because of the way we teach it, we're tapping into it again, in my opinion, we're tapping into an older tradition that isn't a historical connection necessarily. That that happens when the lessons are given in such a manner, an older man to a younger man. And and a in a particular manner with a particular repetition, and these lessons will stick. And I believe some of the changes that are meant to be wrought in the student are done whether they choose to be involved or not. They're not just by choosing to join, you're changed for the better. I see what you're doing with that. But that's only a tiny little fraction of what's available to a student that wants to study the material. But just like not every Catholic is going to be a priest or a monk or a nun. Not every Freemason is going to be a Harker Ross Crucian or a Martinist or a ceremonial magician. Lots of us are attracted to this school and then branch off into these some rather obscure and very strange concordant bodies or secret organizations within. And there's nothing nefarious going on. I've seen some sort of cult leader behavior with some people, but you see that everywhere. I've had difficulties with that in other organizations.
SPEAKER_00So you're I'd say go to the local church or most if you find something similar.
SPEAKER_02Human nature is such, especially with spirituality and the mysteries, where one is not required to produce any evidence. Right? You're just trying to convince people of a certain viewpoint. And I one of our Lodge brothers really hates it when I minimize it this way. But I'll say, my invisible friend says X, so you must do whatever. Right. And he's like, there's a whole faith tradition behind this. Yes, but it comes down to just basically the strongest guy in the room saying, Well, my invisible friend says X, so you must obey. And I just part of my spiritual tradition is to reject that idea and contact the spiritual forces directly.
SPEAKER_00That's and so I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I believe that the contrarian position of Freemasonry, this third way that we espouse, is directly this. It's don't listen to other people, don't listen to past tradition, you reach out and get instruction directly. Now that's gonna sound airy fairy and weird. It is, I'll admit that. But I'm not also telling other people what my invisible friend is telling me. That's my exactly. That's between me and my invisible friend, right? Exactly. Or friends. There's more than one.
SPEAKER_00But if there's more than one, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_02It's it's and I'm tipping my hand here, but I just want people to know because it's too late for me, right? There's already enough people dislike my philosophical viewpoint, and that's fine. They're allowed to be wrong. That's okay. I just want to be left alone to do my work. And if I have to talk about such things with other students, I'm not gonna argue like the famous argument, the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. These sorts of things, and same it it's common in certain philosophical circles to argue about things that don't much matter. And I I'm not interested in arguing about those things. I'll stick to my own journal, my own reading, the limits and proportions of my own being, right? And try and figure that out now. All that said, I will listen to lots of other people. And I'm super curious about what other people's experiences are. And sometimes it it's hard to s it's hard to hide the eye roll when some people but it's their experience in their manifest universe, right? It's their experience of the union of the god and the goddess to form the point of it. And now see, this is where I don't want to go down the rabbit hole into very specific types of ontology that will separate my particular philosophy from the vast majority of people who might ever turn this podcast on.
SPEAKER_00I get it. I totally get it.
SPEAKER_02I believe that the systems and I just said this out loud to another brother the systems put in place by past spiritual teachers, all of the systems are legitimate. The teachings are a good idea, the practices, excellent. These teachers were an exemplar. They weren't meant to be worshipped, they were meant to be imitated. Yeah. And the idea is that that Luke, that quote I'm always making, and now this is Jesus, I'm tipping my hand a bit. Luke 17, 21. That the for some will say low here and low there, but I will tell you the kingdom of God is inside you.
SPEAKER_00Inside you, yeah. I know that very well.
SPEAKER_02Go go read all the theological headstands that the last couple of thousand years have come up with to explain what they mean by that, and then go sit and contemplate what you think the spiritual behind that particular teacher were trying to impart. And then go form your own opinion.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02There's lots of there's lots of other ways that could be taken and considered.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But there's a simplification. So my profound or controversial thought was, and I think you're alluding to exactly the same, is that every single messenger, prophet, messiah, whatever, did it for themselves and reached that level of enlightenment. And then everybody else was just so impressed by what kind of person they had become that they wrote stories and books about them. And somehow over the generations with Chinese whisper and no this and that, it's become like a game of telephone. Yeah, exactly. And that's just ultimately what it comes to. So when you said I'd rather talk to the spiritual, the spirit world myself, I resonate with that very much. But of course, one of the things that I've noticed though is people skip the first step, which is first balancing yourself psychologically, because apparently this can be a very strong force that you're interacting with, and you have to rise up to the occasion rather than pull it down to your own self, right? Yeah. Would you agree to that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, learn first, oh thou who aspirest under our ancient order, that equilibrium is the basis of the work. Thou thyself is not a sure foundation whereon wilt thou stand to direct the forces of nature. Yes. But I don't think look, I'm particularly well balanced, I would say. I converted myself to a Christian faith when I was 12, and we switched to a more high-control faith when I was like 15, 16, and then I left it less than 10 years later to pursue other avenues. And I have no problems. I still study Christian mysticism quite a bit, and some of my best friends are Christian mystics of one form or another. But the issue I have with so much organized religion is it is, it seems like it's more meant to interfere than edify. And that's what brings me to Freemasonry. That maybe originally it was meant to be Christian mysticism, but at some point the the mysticism seems to have gone beyond the old ways of doing one type of Christian mysticism, and now the systems approach will work with any approach, and you don't need a particular theological viewpoint to apply the tools to your morals and get a lot out of the brotherhood. Now, I'm gonna go back to something you were talking about before. It is a lot, it's a lot to be involved in your lodge, but you will get more out of what you put in. You will always get more. And Freemasonry is I warn people, the Freemasonry will take exactly as much as you will give it. So you that that caution to family and your your work first is a is a good one, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um I've been I've been producing podcast episodes now every week for eight months. It is very difficult to keep that from and the posting about it and the planning for it and the communicating about it to keep that from interfering with my day job, right? And seeing a time where it'll support itself, maybe, but it it's a long way off. And one has to have some discipline. And it's the same with the craft because like the guy who brought me in, John Gibson, he was a member of eight lodges plus concordant bodies. He could be out six nights a week. The only reason he wouldn't go out on Sunday nights is because traditionally, lodges and concordant bodies are dark on Sundays here, right? It's just a guy like that was out all the time. All the time, yeah. But his wife had predeceased him by about 10 years, right?
SPEAKER_01So he had the time as well.
SPEAKER_02For him, yeah, he was retired and he had a good pension and he was a great guy and everybody liked him and he was good at ritual. Like he he was just a really good, like almost like a full-time Freemason. But not everybody gets to do that. But if that's what you're here to do, God bless you. But there are others that are interested in developing uh a spiritual approach to the work, and they don't necessarily have to bite off and swallow the entirety of any particular group or cult or religious dogma in order to attain. I'm absolutely convinced of it. And I know it sounds awfully theosophical of me, but I unitarian or w whatever transgressive club of the day, Rossicrucian, whatever, uh, but I believe it to be true, the religion on which all men can agree.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we should be focusing on what unites us, not what divides us.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and and even in the subcultures that exist around the craft, I get pushback because I'm into Thelima, I get plenty of pushback from certain quarters that are Martinists, Rossicrucians, and they just don't want people like me in the craft. I'm sorry. But if my existence offends you, that that's not my problem. That's uh that's that's I'm not giving offense. You're taking offense.
SPEAKER_00I don't even understand what the big stance against Thalema is for people, because some of the mainstream religions themselves conflict so greatly with Christianity that one would think that, oh, you know what, these guys are worse, but no, it's like they're picking on you. And what do you think it is?
SPEAKER_02People don't openly pick on me. They don't know because I got a terrible temper. Look, and I tend not to say really controversial things in public, right? This is about as far as I go. But even at that, I might argue for a particular ontological viewpoint that I hold, but I'm willing to admit I'm wrong or even change that as I learn more and grow and study different stuff. My yeah, my opinion on things changes, and I'm allowed to change. I don't I again I'm not beholden to to anything it I'm just really not beholden to anything outside of myself that I don't fully understand through my own experience. And I I it makes me a threat. So if that's what I am, then that's again, I am that I am.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I am that I am, right? So I totally understand what you're saying, and yeah, I'm definitely going to look into reading some of the books that you've recommended to me. You know what I'm really looking forward to? The fall edition, Lon's new book on the old book and revised edition. What was it called again? On the tarot?
SPEAKER_02So there is a there no, there's a new version of Chicken Kabbalah coming.
SPEAKER_00Chicken cabala, there you go.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if that's been formally announced. I don't know if I'm allowed to announce that yet.
SPEAKER_00You said it like 20 times on your podcast.
SPEAKER_02So I guess it's I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never been to Belize. Yeah, I I believe and like you don't want to slow people down from ordering it now, but because it's I think it's my favorite book on the Kabbalah, and I find it very approachable. And I think it's very teachable from that. And if that offends people, I'm sorry. I'm not here to offend you. You can go believe whatever you want to believe, and I'll stick over here with what I know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Should we end on that note? Is it Yeah, I think that's enough for one night. I've been standing the better part of 15 hours, so it's time for to lay my body down and then get up and do it all again tomorrow. Uh like that that that Jackson Brown song, what is that? The the pretender?
SPEAKER_00I wouldn't know.
SPEAKER_02And then when morning light comes creeping in, I'll get up and do it again. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Okay. No, you can edit this out if you like. But when are you going to start those workshops that you were talking about?
SPEAKER_02So I I'm gonna do gonna run when I get back from EFC, or maybe before I go, gonna run a survey to pick a night, like what night of the week and what night of the month, if it's fourth Sunday or if it's third Monday, uh it'll have to be compatible with whatever, or maybe we rotate it. It's every third Sunday, and then every fourth Sunday in alternating months. I gotta need to figure that out. And the idea would be to hold a class on Zoom and then and teach the tarot and Kabbalah class, maybe do a cycle of that or two. And every third class or fourth class hold a live event where we broadcast it on Zoom, but hold it in a physical space here somewhere in the lower.
SPEAKER_00Very nice. Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah, I would love to be part of that. So whenever you actually plan it out, and also with Zoom, you could probably host it somewhere on some platform where members of that can eventually see the recorded versions as well, in case they can't join you on that particular day, right?
SPEAKER_02So that's I'll be recording everything after everything. I don't always release it. It depends on how good I am that day. If I'm no good, then you'll never guaranteed you're not gonna see it. Or if I if I sound too much like somebody else, no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I if I if I wander into air, get real mad and wander into areas I shouldn't wander into, say things I shouldn't say, start speaking in tongues or speaking in Aramaic or something, then the those will probably get edited.
SPEAKER_00Sure. That's the benefit of these recorded things, right? You always have the benefit of hindsight. So that's excellent. Let me know, Troy, whatever you need. Again, for your time. Really appreciate it. Sure. Um, let's talk about this when you have time tomorrow, day after. And uh if you want to edit something, this and that, if you need my help with it, I'll be happy to do it. Right?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Thanks for having the time to come ask me some questions.
SPEAKER_00Of course. There's so many more, but your answers are so long that I can't ask them, right?
SPEAKER_02Don't it don't even start with it.
SPEAKER_00Have a good night, get some ready.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Alvin. Thank you. Bye-bye. 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. 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 Masonic Conferences.com. Happening this week, Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference will be held on Saturday, September 19th. Our keynote speaker will be none other than Lon Milo Duquette, author of The Tarot Architect. Brothers Ike Baker, Doug Russell, Dago Rodriguez, and Joseph Wages are all slated to present. Get your tickets at the door or at Esotericmainstery.com. For other events, check out our calendar at Mystictie.com and don't forget to sign up for our newsletter while you are there. Graphics and web hosting are by Arts both created. A special thanks to organist for our theme music. Happy to meet. Story depart. And happy to meet again.