Ep. 49: Psi Friday with Mason: “The Unknown Patriot of July 4th"

This week on Psi Friday with Mason, we're celebrating America's 250th birthday with a fascinating look behind the scenes of one of history's most pivotal moments.

What was really happening behind closed doors as the Founding Fathers debated the Declaration of Independence? What enormous personal risks were they taking if this bold experiment in self-government failed? And who was the influential figure who walked into the room, inspired the delegates to act, and helped push the Declaration across the finish line?

Mason explores those questions along with three additional July 4th stories. He also shares his wishes for America's future as we celebrate two and a half centuries of independence.

Join us for an entertaining and insightful Independence Day special—and from all of us, Happy 250th Birthday, America!

#PsiFriday #MasonWinfield #FourthOfJuly #DeclarationOfIndependence #FoundingFathers #AmericanHistory #250Years #IndependenceDay #HistoryPodcast #WesternNewYork

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi everybody, this is Mason Winfield with another episode of Cy Friday with Mason. This one concerns July 4th, 2026. 250th year anniversary of the nation's ceremonial founding. And uh a couple of paranormal factoids come into play about July 4th. Let's start with the moment in 1776 when the founding fathers are in a room in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Now this hall they're in is locked. It's guarded. Nobody gets in without somebody knowing who they are. And it's a hot, sweltering day, everybody's dying to get out of there, and yet hearts are quailing. People, when they get close to the document with ink and quill, they're a little bit afraid to put their names down. Because signing that document was sticking your neck into a noose. If this grand experiment called independence didn't work. Britannia was no more known for sympathy towards what it considered rebels than was Rome. But at the critical moment, up jumps a big guy with a real big voice, and he cuts loose with this heroic speech. Sign even if whim, whim, whim, whim, whim. And then he goes, Liberty, or something, and sits down. Everybody jumps up and goes, yeah! And they run over and they all sign. And at the end, people start going, who was that guy? Anybody know him? Nobody did. Where'd he just go to? I want to go shake his hand. Guy vanished. What was he? Was he a ghost? One of the rare-talking ones? Was he a wizard? Was he an angel? Was he a prophet of destiny? Was he the emissary of a secret occult society that really wanted the United States to make its break from Europe? Nobody knows. But ever since then, the story of the unknown patriot, and sometimes they call him the unknown orator, has been recycled in the mythology, the legends, the unusual facts surrounding the origins of this nation. The mention of this story about the unknown orator, I believe it's from a book by a guy named Manley P. Hall, 1901 to 1990. He was probably the greatest historian who ever put his energy into the study of the Freemasons. And you know, there's an awful lot of connections to the secret societies in the founding of the United States. If you look back, you realize that Europe was stuck in the grasp of the church and the aristocracies. At least, you know, when Columbus was making his voyages. And the secret occult societies of Europe, the philosophical societies, their number one goals were, well, number one and number two, the perfection of the human being and the betterment of the entire world. And when they took a look at this new land over here, and they could see the potential of it, they thought the new world is a chance to start over. And so a lot of the occult societies were said to have been very interested in the founding of the U.S. I could talk a lot about them. They are very interesting, but I think we should probably end with three more bizarre stories about July 4th. One of them concerns exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. We're talking July 4th, 1826. Two of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both former presidents, the second and the third, they're some of the only guys left of the original founding fathers. And even though during their primes they were political rivals who had really different versions of the way American government should go, yet in their last few years they valued each other, they respected each other, they treasured each other, and they believed that both of them were necessary for the survival of this experiment we called the United States. And on his deathbed, which happened to be July 4, 1826, John Adams is laying there up in Boston. He takes his last breath. He says, I die. But Jefferson lives. Little did he know that just hours before, on Independence Day, Thomas Jefferson had passed away in his Virginia home. And five years later, the fifth U.S. president, John Monroe, also picked July 4th, 1831 to pass away. You know, many world cultures, from the Romans to the Aztec, they've all got legends about their founding. They all sort of like to feel like they've been preferred by the gods. And whether you believe in the gods or not, it doesn't seem to hurt a country to have a national legend to pull it together. We could really use something pulling us together today. Maybe I should ring off with that thought. I wish you all a happy Independence Day, July 4th, 2026, 250 years after the signing of that document. And if I had to express a wish, I would wish that we could all start to be able to talk to each other once again. See you next week on Cy Friday with Mason.