Jaime Paul Lamb’s EFC Experience

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Jaime Paul Lamb is an astrologer and tarotist interested in the intersection of the Western Esoteric Tradition and Freemasonry. He is the author of three books and a regular article contributor to many journals and periodicals. He is a Past Master of Ascension Lodge #89 Free and Accepted Masons in Phoenix, Arizona, a co-founder of Tria Prima Podcast, well as an ardent supporter of Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference. This year at EFC he will be presenting a class on practical astrology. I have known Jaime a number of years now and I always appreciate his approach and style, and I hope you will too. Please welcome Jaime Paul Lamb.

https://ascensionlodge89.com/

https://www.jaimepaullamb.com/

https://triaprima.co/

https://freemason.org/symposium/

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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 https://masonicconferences.com/

Coming up September 27-29th in Seattle Washington is Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference.

Our keynote will be none other than Ike Baker of Arcanvm podcast. Dr. Nathan Schick, Br. Doug Blake, Br. Jaime Paul Lamb, Br. Doug Russel, Br. P.D. Newman and others will be speaking. Check out www.esotericmasonry.com for details. 

Grand Masonic Day 2025 will be February 2nd. Listen to future episodes for updates. 

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

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

Transcript

Welcome to.  The mystic Thai.  

I am your host, Troy sprue.  

You can find us online@mysticty.com.  Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions@troyatmysticty.com.  

Jamie Paul Lamb is an astrologer and terrorist interested in the intersection of the Western esoteric tradition. And Freemasonry.  He is the author of three books and a regular article contributor to many journals and periodicals.  He is a past master of Ascension lodge, number 89, free and accepted masons in Phoenix, Arizona. Co founder of TRIA prima podcast.  As well as an ardent supporter of esotericism and Freemasonry conference.  

This year at EFC, he will be presenting a class on practical astrology.  I have known Jamie a number of years now, and I always appreciate his approach and style.  

I hope you will too.  Please welcome. Jamie Paul Lamb.  

 Jamie Paul Lamb,  such a pleasure to see your smiling face this evening.  Brother Troy, it is such a pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation. It's always a pleasure to get to sit down and speak with you.  Yeah. And it's we've talked a bunch this year, but it's been a while since I've seen you in person.

You were a speaker. No, you were, you provided some musical entertainment last year at the Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference. I can't remember. You didn't present. Maybe you did present a little bit on the Sunday. I think I did. I think I did a Friday musical performance. And then Saturday, I think I had a talk.

Yeah. And I. I, I distinctly remember the musical performance because I tried to capture it by recording it, and all of our voice recordings worked, but it didn't catch, for whatever reason, the processing didn't catch any of the music. All we got was just the voices. Yeah, that's too bad because we did a nice planetary contemplation.

We went through the seven visible planets in ascending order. Caldean order. So from the moon to Mercury all the way up through Saturn, and we We did the modes, the modal correspondences to each of those planets. So there are old, I think it was Frankenus Gafurius who had nice modal correspondences and we played those, we burned the appropriate suffumigations, which was myrrh, frankincense, different times corresponding with the planets.

And I forget, did we do the Recitation of the Orphic hymn for each planet. I think we may have done that. Yeah, I've got it recorded here somewhere, but I know I got to get you on the record. We should we should just fire up a separate session sometime. I'll tell you about that presentation, which I've given a few times that presentation.

And I'm thinking that, This is the first time telling anybody this publicly, but I am going to do really nice recordings of each of those modes for like maybe five or seven minutes each because you know how, how we, as Practitioners and, people who engage in ceremonial magic and things like that.

And we sometimes use sounds to, to augment the ritual experience. And we do that in masonry as well, but this is a deliberate thing because it's associated astrologically  deliberate because it's associated with the planet. So are the only recourse we've had Really over the last, I don't know, let's say 50 years is Gustav Holst's planets.

And he doesn't even do all the 7 visible planets. It's been hard to find ritual accompaniment for the. The practitioner either solo or in a group. So what you have to do even now is find either whole story. You find some YouTube video of somebody playing the corresponding mode that you need for that planet and integrate that into your ceremony.

But my plan. Is to do a legit recording, maybe seven to 10 minutes each mode corresponding to the seven visible planets. And I can make those available on band camp or sound cloud. And really I'd like to make a hard copy that people could purchase with a couple of essays about  the why and wherefore of the whole project, but that's something in the future.

Plus one other thing. I did hit up Ben Williams, a Mason in Colorado, magnificent astrologer, and just, he's got a great British accent, he's from England, I think he's from the south of England somewhere, maybe Brighton or some place, and he's reciting the Orphic hymns that correspond to each of the seven visible planets as well.

So we're working that into this project where we're going to have the music, the corresponding hymn to each of the planets, some essays, a hard copy available, a digital download available. And, it's perfect for ritual, so now you don't have to go to Holst's, because Holst's planets, they did not tonally or modally  or harmonically correspond to the planets.

The only thing that relates them to the planets is the general tenor and landscape of the composition and its title. Yeah, they tend to fit the archetype. And they do work. I've used them. I also find the NASA recordings of the the audiophile electrical output of each planet have been useful, but that's, it's just in my mind for those of you freshly tuning in just this moment to the mystic tie podcast you too.

Could could get involved with this sort of esoteric super esoteric material at the Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference. We're talking with Jamie Paulam. Jamie you spoke at the conference last year. You performed on the Friday night as our entertainment. What was your impression and experience of EFC?

I really love it. It was my second, maybe third time there, and I've really just come to just love everybody, everybody from the temple there, and Brett and Ken and everybody, so it really is just Something I feel deeply attached to and it's we've gotten a great turnout and the material is just magnificent.

And plus, we've had for the Mason, since it is, esoteric Freemasonry, particularly we've had in the past, degrees done, like I think a master Mason degree or some other bit of ritual couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something that I think is really cool, whether that happens or not this year, I think, like we were talking about people do also like to have free time to socialize because when everybody's doing these really great presentations, it inspires, Conversation and it gets everybody's creative energies flowing and, it's really just sparked off a lot of great conversation, which I think is one of the key components of the EFC.

Yeah when Ken Lane and I and a few other guys started organizing it the idea was to bring together Freemasons that are not just interested in Enlightenment philosophy or the moral and ethical teachings of the craft, but more about these esoteric people.

And yeah. Practices and spinoffs that have occurred around and beside Freemasonry, things like like Tarot is a good example or any of the magical orders that aren't necessarily directly Freemasonry, but certainly are heavily influenced by it any of the Rosicrucian orders or the Golden Dawn orders that have spun on and all Practitioners can find some content at the EFC that they would enjoy and that was the whole idea was that we would have a variety of speakers from different backgrounds and a different Different interests to come and speak on these different topics and this year, we've got a wide variety.

I know you're giving a short talk on practical astrology on the Sunday. And, P. D. Newman's coming back this year to do a presentation. Some other practical workings on theurgy and neoplatonism and some statue working, I believe we're going to be doing with him.

And then we've got newly minted author Ike Baker from the Arcanum podcast giving the keynote. We've got Dr. Nathan Schick coming to present local brother Doug, brother, Doug Blake talking about tarot. And I think he's presenting his new tarot deck at the event. Yeah, and, we've just got a really good lineup this year full of a wide variety of stuff and I,  people will attend and enjoy.

Yeah, and two of them are Tria Prima authors Nate Schick had his book The grand communication and Ike Baker's a formless fire both came out over the last couple of years. Ike Baker's book was just a couple months ago. Nate Schick's was last year. So that's pretty great to see those guys making the rounds.

Ike Baker really came out and just started doing it. He's everywhere. He's so active. I think that's great. Yeah. And he's, he's one of the headliners at New and organizers at New Hermopolis, which is happening right after EFC in Egypt. Yeah. So me and Newman and Ike Baker are going out there.

It's in some little town in Egypt, of course, on the Nile somewhere. I don't even remember the name of the town. Town, but it's, how they have those eco lodges, like my wife and I stayed at one in Peru. They have them in Southeast Asia. They've got them all over the place. Eco lodges.

They're like environmentally friendly, philosophical spaces, all altruistic kind of Preserves and things like this, just really great organizations. So I think it's one of those. The new Hermopolis is I get the impression that it's an eco lodge, but its focus, as opposed to, let's say, dealing with parrots or whatever preservation efforts are going on.

The efforts of the new hermopolis are decidedly philosophical. And specifically hermetic. Yeah. And I understand this is one of the principles that we were pursuing at Esotericism and Freemasonry EFC. We were trying to find a space for practitioners and academics to be able to present together and discuss.

And that's exactly the goal at new hermopolis. You see the list of who's who On the academic side and on the practitioner side, and I'm really excited for it. Yeah, it was really interesting because they really took the more adventurous academics, people who are willing to talk about it in, less rigid, like less less defensive language or less detached, let's say.

So they're really willing to get into the nitty gritty of the material. And then on the practitioner side, they've specifically chosen practitioners who have a certain degree of rigor behind their. Their work, people who are academically informed, though they may not have the  acronyms after their name. 

Yeah. One of the, one of the many the sort of cornerstones of scientific aluminism is to, make sure you're writing it down. Keep a good journal. It, in a, with an eye towards this academic rigor and this reproducibility that so many so many spiritual practitioners has been after in the last little while.

So yeah, you brought up Tria Prima now those those two brothers are Tria Prima. Yeah. Hey.  You've been published by Tria Prima, have you not? Isn't that where I get a copy of the Archetypal Temple? Yes, the Archetypal Temple is It was published by Tria Prima. Yeah. It's like an anthology of essays.

Yeah. Yeah. So I had put out myth magic and masonry in 2018 on the laudable pursuit. And then in 2019 approaching the middle chamber came out, which was like a 500 page book. So what was left over was all this stuff from That became the archetypal temple. There is a theme. They are thematically linked, but it is a collection.

It's more like a 1 man anthology. It's just a collection of essays. But but, yeah, I think it's some of my, it's great for the bathroom. I tell people that all the time because you can sit there and for 510 minutes, you could take down 1 of the essays and it's really convenient. It's not a big, Commitment.

You're not sitting there like with approaching the middle chamber where it's like you're committing to a 500 page book and it's not easy because it's the seven liberal arts and, etc. I've gotten a lot of blowback about that, but how heavy the middle chamber was. Approaching.  Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a heavy book, but it, you're trying to give a guy a briefing on the several liberal arts and sciences.

What I really liked about the archetypal temple and I did enjoy the approaching the middle chamber, but it's a totally different. Feel it's a different aesthetic completely.  The great thing about archetypal temple is that it is very much about freemasonry and this idea of the building the archetypal temple that the house not made with hands this sort of the philosophical leanings of the contemplative freemason And it also makes an excellent study guide for if you have a masonic reading group Because the chapters are fairly short  You could even give each paper sequentially in your lodge room over a couple of years or they'd be excellent for a district education officer to be delivering because they're short and they're concise and they each chapter or each individual essay covers a particular philosophical idea.

Yeah, I said that in the introduction, actually, that it was my hope that this would be something that would inspire conversation like in Masonic reading groups or, for Masonic education. And I really think it has some of my biggest ideas in it particularly when we're talking, what is Freemasonry? Even going down to something as basic as that, it's the, the art and science of speculative temple building. That's really the only thing that we have that the Kiwanis, the Elks, and the Rotary, they don't have  temple building. They're fraternal, they're altruistic, they engage in a lot of, they have dinners and things.

But But they don't have speculative temple building. That's the one thing we have the one essential component, I think. So if we look at Freemasonry as the art and science of speculative temple building metaphysical temple building, then we look at the Freemason as being a metaphysical temple builder, so to Ridiculous That was one of the things that was really my sort of touchstone throughout all of those essays is separating the essential from the accidental and then building from those sort of first principles. 

Yeah, it's excellent work. And it's it's the each little chapter, it stands on its own. And it's I read I read it first time I read it was cover to cover on an airplane.  Was was, it was a great read that way. Very thinky, I very much enjoyed it. Sure. And again anybody listening if you want copies of any of these books just go ahead and register for EFC 2024 in Seattle, Washington, September 27th through 29th, 2024.

I will have all these books in stock. You could grab yourself a  copy, and maybe get one of the authors, many of the authors to sign the books for you. Yeah, you've got to go and it's in beautiful sort of downtown Ballard, this quaint city within a city in just outside of in Seattle properly, isn't it?

But North Seattle. Yep. Yeah. North Seattle. Just a great space. Lots of cool little shops and coffee shops. And it's It's nice to just knock around Ballard with your friends. There's a great falafel place. We were going to right across the street from the temple and really just have so much fun there.

And the people are so nice. Seattle's a foodie town. So if you like to eat out, there's great spots. We had a greasy hamburgers up the street independent burger place. That was, so if you're not so much for the vegetarian option of the falafel and you want it to eat a big lump of. Greasy meat.

There's that too. Greasy meat. There's lots of other places in Seattle too. It's just such a great place to visit if you've never visited. Certainly come join us. Oh yeah. Now, you've been traveling around a lot this year. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about, because I keep seeing on your social media that you're here and you're there.

Could you give us a rundown of some of the other conferences you've attended in the pluses or minuses? And I'll tell you why. In the next,  we're looking to expand the reach of EFC and I want to start attending some of the other, not that there's really competitive conferences, but there's regional Masonic conferences being held.

popping up everywhere.  And some of them with, esotericism in mind and some of them where the esotericism is being presented maybe in one or two talks or whatever. But but where have you been and where should I be going? One thing I should bring up first, because they were first in this in this era of Masonic cons that is really, a new thing.

I think it was 2017 when Ezekiel Bates Lodge in, I want to say, Attleboro, Mass Massachusetts had the first sort of modern Masonic conference. And that's what kind of that's what inspired so many people since then to have these Masonic cons like, yes, every jurisdiction has their grand communication, but they don't They've, before that they didn't fly in out of town speakers.

They didn't invite masons from outside of the jurisdiction. They did not make it a Masonic on even Masonic week in D. C. did not fill that same void. So when Ezekiel Bates sparked off this whole, masonic on culture. And it is a cultural thing. It's really going along with this new Renaissance in Freemasonry, which is a whole, a whole nother kind of topic we can get into.

This is a very special time to be a Freemason. It's a very special time in the craft. In fact, I've been telling people this and other people, Chuck Dunning and others have echoed this Danny Newman, that we are in a time right now. That will be written about in 200, 500 years. It, this is such a special time.

We're in the middle of it. So it's hard to see, but this we're in such a pivotal moment in the craft that, people like you're Chuck Dunning you're P. D. Newman's and, everybody who's making the rounds at the Masonic cons now, and these are people who will be written about just like we wrote it.

About your Mackey's and your hikes and your other Masonic luminaries, your Frank C. Higgins or your Robert Hewitt Brown. We've got those sort of epic. Kind of Masonic personalities going right now, and anyway, so yeah, I started with Ezekiel Bates because they kicked off this new culture that really rang true with everybody and really sparked off this whole thing.

Because this is the right time for that. We're in a Masonic Renaissance. And so after that, you start to see things like Esotericon in Virginia, the Mid Atlantic Esotericon. There's, there was a, I think they called it an Esotericon,  Or a Masonicana on the west coast too at at South Pasadena Lodge 290 there in Los Angeles.

Dago Rodriguez and all of those people. The people who do the fraternal review. Southern California Research Lodge. And Angel Millar.  He's he was over there, and he's headed up, he's like the editor in chief of the paternal review now. So lots of great, exciting developments and they're all coalescing around these. 

Regular Masonic cons they're happening at a good frequency. There are probably 5 or 6 of them. You can go to any given year now, and this is something that's brand new. So I really liked the esoteric con in Virginia, Manassas, Virginia. That's Joe Martinez, John Rewark Jason Richards.

The whole crew out there RJ Johnson, and then on the West Coast, of course, South Pasadena. I am going to Massachusetts. I think it's in November for the  Masonic con in Massachusetts. The same as the I think it's the same as the Ezekiel Bates guys. So that's going to be cool. And one thing off to the side.

Mark savages.  Institute for Hermetic Studies, Mark Stavish, very prominent Freemason, has several books on the subject in addition to other subjects such as alchemy and Raqqa, the sort of what would you call it? Awau kind of Pennsylvania Dutch magical tradition.

But he has every year, he has his Institute for Hermetic Studies conference. And I went to that this year. I spoke at that on talisman construction and consecration,  and that was very well received. It was There was one guy, I can't remember his name, but he did a great presentation on alchemy.

And weird, a weird story. I was talking to him after both of our presentations were done. Older guy, Paul something. I'll try to remember his name, but Paul and I were talking afterward and the temperaments came up. We were talking about the 4 temper temperaments and our own temperaments. He has a sort of melancholic  kind of phlegmatic.

Temperament and I said, I'm phlegmatic astrologically. If you look at my charter, my main signatures  temperamentally are phlegmatic. But my what you call significant significator of manners is Jupiter. So that's sanguine. But I told him I told Paul, I was like, I'm phlegmatic. He said, No, you're not. You're sanguine.

Because of the way I gave my presentation and I was like, actually, you're right. My significator is sanguine. So I don't know. We had those are the sort of conversations you're likely to have. And the weird thing that happened after talking to Paul was, was the end of Saturday night. We were all just starting to go to our rooms and I gave Paul a hug. 

And it was so weird because we just put our arms around each other and then all of a sudden, neither of us move or moved or broke the hug for literally a full 45 seconds. I want to say, which is.  I don't know, strange. He's this French guy, this French alchemist. And it's hard to explain, but there was no laughing or anything.

It was just, you'd think something like that would be goofy in context or somehow weird, but it was like the most natural thing. And then all of a sudden we just broke at the same time. And I think wordlessly just walked away.  Wow. I don't know what, I don't know why I'm bringing that up, but I, it was very significant at the time.

That's why. Yeah. That's cool. So I'm going to hug you. Next time I see you, I'm going to give you a long, silent hug. You can have a hug right now, virtually.  Okay. The best I could do from here. Astral, astral, until we're in the same space together. Yeah. Any other speaking engagements that you had this year or that you've got coming up?

I've got, we've already talked about the new hermopolis in Egypt and yes, I've had tons of things this year, but they're oh, there was 1. Ike Baker organized the southeastern Masonic Symposium, which  happened in Green what was the name of that? Asheville, North Carolina, which was a beautiful city, actually.

I was so impressed with Asheville, North Carolina, and Ike Baker set this whole thing up pretty much single handedly, and, yes, he had help, but they gave him free reign is what I mean. The North Carolina grand lodge was like, okay, we're going to, give you all the tools that you need and you just create something cool.

And he did that. He did such a fantastic job and the temple there in Asheville is just.  Outstanding. It's there's where we had the presentations was like, it must have been like an old Scottish right space. It was a theater in the round  and most of a circle, yeah. And double level.

There was about a circular balcony. It was such a great. Space where you really felt connected. Yes, you could fit, I don't know,  250 people in there if you wanted to, but it still was intimate, it was like almost Shakespearean or something.  Now you've been to a number of events this year.

Have you noticed a growing interest in the sort of philosophical or contemplated practice of Freemasonry or, these other Practices that we allude to, but don't discuss openly.  Yeah, for sure. It's we're finding that there's a condensation, right? I think all of us are experiencing that there's a condensation that's happening, a concentration as well.

Because of the attrition the hemorrhaging of members, let me say this I tend to every once in a while say things that'll get me in trouble but there are I can always edit it. So just yeah, whatever you want. We can edit it out later sure, but this I think is important and it's Not everybody who's a Freemason today needs to be a Freemason.

Not everybody who's been let into our fraternity should have been let into our fraternity. I know that sounds a little harsh and everything.  A lot of people,  dare I say, Don't even know what Freemasonry is. They probably they might be able to regurgitate the old Preston ism that it's a beautiful system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbol.

They might be able to regurgitate that probably without really no knowing what that even means. But they but.  Does this sound harsh? Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, I get where you're driving at. And here's my take on it. So for many years, I was like an occult evangelist too much to my own detriment. 

So now I have a more broad viewpoint. Anybody who's interested in  Enlightenment philosophy, even though that might not have been the foundation of the craft, that's certainly the direction we went and just because there were many many guys interested in, in, in esotericism and alternative science, forgotten science just because many of those people were also Freemasons doesn't make Freemasonry  a school of occultism now.

Sure. Now, so I think the when a student of esotericism says to his fellow Freemasons, Oh, I thought this was going to be, magic training and they're all, no, it has nothing to do with that. I would take people to task for that. The craft is bigger than that. It's a big, really big tent. 

People interested in these, in contemplative practices, or alternative religious viewpoints, or even just the idea that in a civil society, one keeps their spiritual and personal practices to themselves, because that's what polite people do. And you should really discuss those things with other people of like mind, but in order to have a civil.

organized society that we can't be arguing about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Sure but, It backs that up, it establishes the enlightenment philosophy in, in a ritual setting, and then allows you to practice that as a religion.

Without interfering with any other religion you might be interested in. I don't know. That's just for sure.  Yeah, I get it I mean a couple of things about that is we definitely have a job description and we definitely have Designs on the trestle board that are unique to our craft And my comments refer to the people who don't know the job description Are not interested in the job description and are not interested in the labors that are You Prescribed there are prescribed labors let's say, just memory, the memory work a lot of jurisdictions.

I don't know who's thinking up this stuff, but they're thinking we're going to make it easier. And we're going to, and they're doing away with long form proficiency, or they're making it so you can just do sign scripts and words. Whereas, we know that the memorization is at the heart of our work, the memory, the art of memory is central to Freemasonry.

That's part of the mnemonic temple building, making a temple. We do that by memory. When we learn our lectures and our catechisms, and we say, I was conducted to the northeast corner, then I was directed, reconducted  to the junior warden in the south, there's always this direct connection.

Directionality, there's always this orientation in the real sense of the word orient the east. There's always, we're always spatially located someplace. There's a locus. It's the method of loci. The locus is the temple and we're building this mnemonic temple and that's part of the. The greater temple building project, which consists of intellectual temple building, moral and ethical temple building, and, culminating in being fitted as living stones for that house not made with hands eternal in the heavens, the noetic. 

Temple the super celestial intelligible temple, if you think about it platonically, so there's that sort of thing. And what I mean by there are people and there are brothers in the craft who are not interested in our labors and don't know what the job description is. That is a fact.

I've encountered many of them. I don't want to hold that against them, but I will say I've gotten the impression over the years that, You might be in the wrong room. This is not you. You might have done better, at the Rotary or the Kiwanis for what you're looking for.

You don't need to dilute our current by not participating in our labors. And we have very specific labors. So that was one thing. If you'll entertain me for Oh, no please. This is good. Good discussion. So for the  second part I'm not going to pick on you, but you were saying Enlightenment philosophy.

I'm like, you probably know this about me, I'm a little anti Enlightenment. The reason why is because the Enlightenment project was simultaneously the disenchantment of the Western mind. It was, it precipitated that disenchantment where, and so I think of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism,  and of course things like the Golden Dawn, but let's just say Freemasonry to keep it conspicuous. 

I look at Freemasonry as being a survival of the pre Enlightenment enchanted worldview. And it was somehow able to get past the the essentially thought police and the positivistic sort of  disenchantment.  Machine, and we were able to navigate that as a secret society. Yeah. And I, just thinking about what you're saying and how I've, cause I've gone I've come full circle on all of this.

And just because, a guy's not interested in sports. Further contemplation. He thinks he's got it figured out and he keeps his head down and he attends Lodge. I don't have a problem with masons like that. The issue I have is when those of us who are interested in exploring the wherefores and the whys of who put this together and why and what we're supposed to be doing with it.

You can't be like that's not my Freemasonry. Okay, that's not your Freemasonry, but don't bother us over here who think that there's a, maybe a further purpose to it. And I'm always saying that it's a matter of balancing that, that disenchantment. My regular guest Wes Regan, is constantly talking about the disenchantment and re enchantment and I think  Freemasonry is a simultaneous disenchantment of the old way of doing,  I don't want to say religion, doing spirituality, where It's where anybody sets themselves up as a priest and says, My invisible friend says you should do X. 

Freemasonry kind of puts rules in place where, it's up to the individual to interpret their holy book the way they want to interpret it. So you can't set up a new priesthood that's just gonna make assertions without evidence. So in that sense we're leaning towards the scientific Illuminism.

The scientific part of a luminism, but there must be a God  because there, and we talk, his pronoun is the grand architect of the universe. We have, we share an entity, we share an egregorical  deity. Let's say, I would say. from an outside observer deity as worshiped by free basins in the way that we worship it.

It's far more related to the monotheism of Liberal Judaism than it is to Christianity or Islam, yet it's not it. It isn't incompatible with those religions either. It's just a matter of  don't be making assertions to other people about what their religious practice should be or else to and that's the real magic in Freemasonry is it allows you to retain  that.

mysticism, that approach to mystery, that approach to divinity, the approach to the sublimity of existence. But it encourages us to keep a rational, positivistic attitude when dealing with our fellow man and with, common government and society. Sure. Because otherwise, what are we left with?

You have to have you. An agreement on what the baseline is. And yeah, we have the social components of the enlightenment. I think those, yeah. And that's the true genius of the of the craft is that we give people a framework and then we're like, okay, you go and take this framework.

You apply it to whatever particular practice you're. And you'll find others that are like that, and that's wow, this is not what I expected us to do. It's also the Trojan horse of occultism, of Renaissance occultism. Sure. But you got to be careful with that because there's, there, there are lots of people around the world that would take  just your statement of that and be like see all those Freemasons are sorcerers and we should go tie them to sticks and set them on fire.

Which I,  we're not a threat. The people who want to label other people and tie them to six and set them on fire are the threat. Certainly. What else I find interesting is that Freemasonry has a complete start to finish system  for whether you call it, he knows this gnosis, theosis, enlightenment whatever you call that main Objective that esoteric traditions guide us to or that path or current that we travel Freemasonry, I think, has the entire system.

We have the moral and ethical development, which is a precursor to any serious work that we build on that. We have a solid foundation morally and ethically are working tools. Teach us that, our, Relations with each other as masons teach us that for the most part and but building on top of that.

We plainly say that sort and we said it just earlier that culminating project is to be fitted into the house not made with hands to be made one. With God, let's say, which is Enosis. If you look at it Neoplatonically, it's Gnosis. If you look at it, Gnostically, it's Theosis. If you look at it through, let's say, the Orthodox Christian tradition.

So we have that entire pattern. In our work where we're look at the middle chamber lecture, or the, we climbed the seven liberal arts, which, of course, culminate in. Look at the medieval scholastic seven liberal arts. They were in that order for a reason. Of course, you do the language arts, but rhetoric also has memory in it. 

Prudence, et cetera. But then you get into the trivium and there's this unfolding of space and time. And then the capstone, what we leave out, but we pick it up again in the master Mason degree is that the capstone of a medieval scholastic liberal arts education was. Philosophy and theology.

So it's like we've done all this work, in the end, an apprentice degree, at least in the States, Preston Web work. We do this, keeping our secrets and violet, some moral and ethical stuff, et cetera. Of course, we have our fellow craft work, which is intellectual. Mostly, and then our Master Mason work, which is that capstone of philosophy and theology.

And I think because we have that whole system I don't know, I'm not sure. I guess I never thought about how  our individual religious affiliations play into that. It's up to the individual to choose, but I would counter that very argument with the and say the counterpoint is true.

Now I have to agree with you that there's a spiritual event,  but I think a brother. Who is only moderately interested in his volume of sacred law or Masonic ritual could still find benefit.  Oh, sure. Yeah. Maybe even achieve the purpose of the original intended purpose of the craft without ever sitting still and closing his eyes and meditating.

Sure. Or, or. Learning any system even the seven liberal arts and sciences or any of the forgotten sciences or any of this stuff to any extent that one could still achieve great things because the system is, it, it works well and it works well, not for everybody, but the people who do like it seem to really take it on and you and I have, Discuss this before in the past, because only about a third of people who try it stick and I would rather have, and I used to be an initiate all comers kind of guy, and I'm a little more careful about that now, because it takes a few hundred hours of labor.

Individually by the Lodge for a candidate to be raised to the sublime degree of a master mason, it takes a lot. Yeah. You don't really realize how much that takes, but it takes a lot. Yeah. And not just the memory and not just the ritual team, but everybody. There's a lot of moving parts there.

And if only one third of guys are going to stick, there's got to be a reason. So even all the heavy interview process and needing to be in to get your paperwork signed and needing to go through all the investigation and all of that. I think that I think the ultimate test is for the individual themselves.

Did they join the right lodge? They I'm always telling people if they didn't think that Freemasonry is for them, they should, go try another couple of lodges before they ultimately quit. Because oftentimes it's about the guys you're with, but also cast a wider net, go looking at some of the great Masonic books from the past and look at what's going on, attend some of these conferences and maybe meet other brethren to decide before you decide.

And, yeah I'm really invested now when I first joined the craft, I wasn't expecting to love it. And I was degree collecting looking at Where the source of all of this material came from, 2006, 2008, I didn't expect to fall in love with it, but I did. And now that I'm in, I'm like, I wish more people would give it a shot. 

Because I think there's a lot of people who don't, who wouldn't expect to love it.  But come in and find something completely unexpected, and it's one of those it's almost prosaic to say it, I can't tell you what it is, but I can show you. It just so happens that showing you takes a lot of work.

Yeah. But having a guy join, I think If he likes, if he says, okay, I, I just want to be social with other men. I like character development. I like having dinners. I like giving to charities and writing checks and stuff. And plus I like just the idea that we're the camaraderie, et cetera. That's great stuff.

And it's important. These are important components of what we do, but I wouldn't join let's say football team and say, yeah I like football, but I'm not going to do the running back and forth up and down the field thing. You know what I mean? It's I  don't come into Freemasonry and make it what you want.

To see, words mean things and Freemasonry means something. It is a thing and it has a project, and to be a Freemason is to take on that particular function that particular job. I think, 1 other thing you were saying earlier that I really is I think you were saying, Rejected knowledge or rejected sciences,  rejected knowledge, forgotten sciences.

That's people who are like what are you into? And I'm always joking that I practice five dead sciences before breakfast, I love that. People will be like how can you, how could you be hard on conspiracy theorists when you won't even agree to, be scientific in your approach or hold fast to scientific principles.

And I just counter it's just I do. I just think that the process of investigating myself is much more interesting. Exactly. That's measurable.  As well, for sure, it brings into focus this sort of what we even mean by esoteric. So we have the esotericism and Freemasonry conference and it's what I think it was on a graph, maybe, or Goodrich Clark, or 1 of them said said that, esotericism is the dustbin of the sciences. Western esotericism is the dustbin of the sciences. So it's like when you're saying these forgot these forgotten sciences or lost knowledge, etc.  We're definitely speaking about that, right? And I think I think it's interesting to know that astrology, alchemy and magic, let's say these were not considered esoteric before the enlightenment.

Before the enlightenment, you wouldn't say astrology is esoteric. You wouldn't say alchemy is esoteric. They became esoteric after, The, after the enlightenment took hold of the Western mind, these were not esoteric arts. They were arts and sciences that were practice.

So it's just interesting to set. To contextualize things for the zeitgeist of the people who were living at that time, at the time when the craft was, when speculative masonry was beginning you could say, what, 17th  century, you get Ashmole at 1646, I want to say, but there were people earlier than that.

In Scotland,  but, and the pendulum swings back and forth. We get the occult revival of the late 19th, early 20th century. We get the counterculture movement in the 60s and 70s. And now, and we get what's happening now. Absolutely and you can't call it when you're in the middle of it. Having been involved in very. Strange and unusual things. It's about since I moved out of my small town and turn my back on my old life about 2000, 2001, ever since I moved to the city and found a copy of the book of lies down here at the visions bookstore in new west, with a book that was forever to ruin my old paradigm and I'm like, What is he going on about here?

There's clearly something much more going on that, that the unusual people, the, like Wes Regan and I were talking about this at a recent episode, all the weirdies in society are keen on this stuff and why? And now Wes and I were talking about this, how  we've got the Freemasonry's got the weirdies again.

It's just the weirdies that know how to dress tend to end up in the crap. Transcribed Exactly. I had we're very much enjoying this renaissance. It's just with all of this comes a pushback and it's, to me, it's not worth arguing with those who would  rather just stick in their old paradigm if they want to, they don't want to be challenged.

I'm not here to challenge them. That's up to them. I got my own. I think a lot of large is. I think a lot of lodges and maybe some of them being inspired by the MRF, which is the Masonic Restoration Foundation. MRF Lodge or one that's recognized as an observant. Yeah. So I guess one little thing about that.

I know that my lodge here, we chartered it in 2018. It's called Ascension Lodge number 89 in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah. We though we are recognized by the M. R. F. And Andrew Hammer has, we've been in contact with him and others. We don't hyphenate our Freemasonry. We never say we are just this is just us.

We never say we're a T. O. Lodge. We never say we're, European concept. We're observant or traditional or any of that stuff. We just say we are a blue lodge that, has our own culture. That we happen to we like to wear tuxedos. We like to burn incense. We like candle light, like actual burning tapers.

We like to have music. We like solemnity. We like a sense of reverence. And we're interested in this as our culture. It's not uptight. It's not elitist. We're not hyphenating it. We are a blue lodge. So it's the same thing. Like in Arizona, you have cowboy lodges where the master wears a black cowboy hat and Where's a bolo tie jewel.

You know what a bolo tie is? Yeah. Yeah. And they wear like cowboy boots and stuff like that. I don't go to their lodge and be like, you're doing it all wrong. And you're uptight and you're elitist. I would never do that. It's a cultural thing. If they will, if they want to have their cultural thing, I like that.

I like that in terms of the autonomy at the lodge level, I think lodges should they should. I guess there should be some Grand Lodge standardization jurisdictional standardization. So everybody's doing, good recognizable work that covers all the basis of what keeps it Freemasonry.

I believe in that. But.  I don't believe in any more overreach from the Grand Lodge level  beyond that, unless it's some sort of support. I like the idea that the Lodge, you could say that a Masonic Lodge, let's say you got 20, 30, 50 people in your Lodge. It's a freely associating affinity group.

It's almost, dare I say, anarchistic because it's. A self governing body that that is there's like our lodge, for example, is from the very beginning, we made it a meritocracy. We don't have a progressive line. You don't go from, junior steward to senior steward, to junior deacon, to senior deacon, to junior warden, to senior warden, to the east, like everybody does in a progressive line.

That's the path. We don't do that. You could feasibly be junior steward one year and worshipful master the next year. If you do all the work and you inspire confidence and, excitement.  Amongst the brethren, if they see that you are a leader, you've done all your proficiency, you've learned everything you need to learn in terms of signing off with the grand lodge to sit in the east, you've inspired our confidence.

You've excited us. You've shown that you've had, you have a vision for our lodge. I think that's important. I think that's also a new thing that goes along with this new masonry, which might be old masonry. And it again, it's up to each watch to have their own culture and one of the things I've noticed.

And one of the things I, you know I talked about this recently a talk I gave. If you're interested in esotericism and occultism, you just want to find some like minded brethren.  Don't be. But, forcing it on other guys that are clearly not interested. Sure. And you don't do it in the Lodge.

Masonry has its own work. And this is the thing is that it's, in so many jurisdictions, young, keen guys are joining and they want to talk about this stuff and they haven't gone about it in the right way. And a nail that stands out gets hammered down. Exactly. Yeah.

Lots of resistance and part of what. the mace, the mystic tie is about is to demystify those of us that are interested in this stuff, but to mainstream it a little bit to to keep the conversation between different types of masons, guys that are interested in different things that happened in the craft and to keep That conversation and dialogue rolling in a fun and entertaining way.

This conversation today has been an excellent example of that. Yeah. Because you're certainly knowledgeable, and though we might differ on certain ideas, we certainly see eye to eye more than we differ. Oh, I'm sure. Absolutely. Yeah. And this is how, we learn from each other. This is a pretty important component of masonry in general is how us discussing this, these sort of things.

And I think there is a place though. They always say don't discuss religion and politics in Lodge. Of course, I don't think it should be discussed. In lodge, but we as brothers you go out on a Friday or Saturday night or after your lodge meeting or, at your dinner or whatever. We are precisely the people who should be talking about.

philosophy, theology, politics and didn't, look at like Benjamin Franklin and some of the old founding fathers who were masons. Of course they talked about social, economic,  philosophical problems of their time, and this is, we are the people who could do that because We do relate as brethren.

We're not going to, draw some hard  line in the sand. And if you do this, I'm going to be offended, or I'm going to be mad at you. And we're precisely the people who are able to talk to each other. And  I'll give you an example. So in my lodge Ascension 89 here New Lodge, 2018. 

We have an ethos and a culture where we can be very honest and frank with each other. Like whispering wise counsel. But very more forward than I see than I've seen in any lodge I've ever been in. And maybe it's because a lot of us who were charter members of this lodge, roughly within a tighter age group, I'd say we were 25 to 55 was our. 

Our range, I was, in fact, one of the older ones, and I'm only 53 right now. And this was a number I was in my 40s when we  chartered this lodge. So maybe that's part of it. But we do find that there's a little bit we've joked about it being gladiator school. There's a little bit where we are able to be.

A little more I don't want to say hard on each other, but a little more frank about our critique and our desire to make each other better men. Admonish with friendship, as we would say in the Canadian  Yeah. Yeah. And don't get hurt. I love you as I have nothing but brotherly love and affection for you.

If I say something that I think is meaningful, a meaningful critique, a constructive critique, that's what it is. And we've developed that culture to where we know that it's not coming from a place of jealousy or envy or fear, it's that, that's fascinating. It's it's interesting now  with the rise of so many new religious movements and even in the business world that, I'm interested in, in, in cults and abuse of power dynamics.

And yet.  The more I travel in Masonic lodges, the less,  I always expected to see some of that,  but I see none of that. I see it in occult orders all the time, but you never, one of the things that masonry does with rotational leadership is once you've attained to the master Mason degree.

And then once you've been a lodge officer and a past master that's it. There's a bit of strata in the lodge between the past masters and the master masons, but really, there's no. Unhealthy power dynamics in the craft, at least at the lodge level that I've seen. Can you, what is it about the craft other than the rotational leadership that does that?

Because it seems like all human institutions, including businesses and governments, tend towards these unhealthy power dynamics. What, what's going on in the craft that we don't do that?  Are we I think, while it is hierarchical, of course, masonry is hierarchical. That's how we get things done.

We have, this is what allows us to function the way that we do. And that we that, as you said, this rotational leadership. Keeps us from digging our heels in or getting to to enmeshed in a certain role, but of course, you find things like past master.

It's almost a verb to pass master. Somebody  could be like to badger them. We didn't do it this way before. Of course, you're always going to hear that way. We've always done it. The way we've always done it, right? But but I do think some of it goes back to this being again a freely associating affinity group.

We're we could walk away at any time. Nobody's, it's not like I'll tell you for myself. I didn't sign up for Freemasonry to get into some  bureaucratic hobby. Where I'm  just interested in running some sort of operation that doesn't make any money or, chris Hodat, when he was here for Grand Masonic Day, said he gave a list of things that Brethren don't join for. And one of the tops of the lists was they don't join to be a Lodge Officer. And yet being a Lodge officer is an important experience in the craft, but it shouldn't be, when you're making a new brother, you shouldn't be, I wonder which Lodge officer slot he's going to fill next year.

Cause we, and it's pretty common, especially in charters that are struggling. So for sure. I'll tell you that I never Had the desire to go to the East per se, and in fact, I think I had been a Mason about 10 years or so, nine or 10 years before I went to the East and I was lodge organist before that.

So it was one of those moves where I think I went to senior warden for a year or half a year. There was a little bit of a shakeup and then I went straight to the East from there. But I gotta tell you that it was. The most it was like finishing school for masonry for me. It was the most I was so thankful that I got the I did 2 years right in a row.

We do 2 year terms and I did 2 years in the East. The 2nd year, of course, was really both years were pretty strong. But when you do 2 years. Any past master will tell you that first year you're just getting your feet wet. And then by the time you're rotated out, you're like, you just figured out what you're doing.

You know what I mean? You just learn the job and then you got to leave. Yeah. That's the Peter principle. You rise to your level of incompetence and then and then you're out, right? Exactly. Yeah. So terms make a lot of sense, especially in senior it's senior positions in the long term. So it did what I learned from that.

One of the many things that I've learned from, a couple of years in the East was it is the supreme service position. It is unenviable. There is so much about your past master, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With us, like so many other things. Government is nothing but service. Yeah.

There's no power wielding. There's learning to organize  every other person in the building is a volunteer along with you. Yeah. It's how to direct that volunteer labor, and everybody's doing it because they're passionate about it. Yeah, you don't get to be the pharaoh who sits in the east while people fan you and feed you grapes and things like that.

And I think that might speak to this idea that you were bringing up about how is it that we're able to, because we don't have that plateau where you've arrived, right? You'll you never arrive. And the other thing is too, that people who seek leadership and, you tend to get appointed or you tend to get sought after in the craft.

You don't go looking  for the position. It comes looking for you really. Exactly. Yeah. That's what happened to me. I got called. I would have been fine sitting behind the organ for the rest of my life, but I got called to serve and there's, there's no saying no to that. Yeah. For me, it was a four year run.

I jumped a couple of chairs in a traditional approach. And I wasn't ready, but it made me ready real quick. Yeah.  Recently back in April, end of April, I talked to Russ Sharvonia, who was past Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of California. He wrote a book, The Civility Mosaic, and he couldn't be a nicer guy to chat with.

And what he pointed out is that in the Grand Lodge of California, you don't go looking for it, you gotta be, like, pursued, nominated. And most Grand Lodges in order to get elected to the Grand South, you need to be nominated, but it's not the kind of thing guys go looking for, I don't think, in that jurisdiction.

Guys get sought after. So it's Yeah, I think it's the same in Arizona. In fact, it's bad form to actively pursue that. And to say, I'm ready for that. Or I'm, ready for what's next. Yeah. It's almost an invitational, like when we talk about SRIA, SRICF, it's if you ask, you're almost certainly not going to get an invitation. 

 Jamie, I appreciate you taking so much time out of your evening to, to come on here and powwow with me. Yeah. About your experience in the craft much of what we talk about over here at the Mystic Tie is what got guys into the craft and why they stuck around. I think your passion for the craft is self evident in the way you talk about it.

Anything you wanna include here or any upcoming talks you wanna include here before we sign off? Sure. Let me say this. Cause anybody who's listened to listening to this, we'll probably get the idea that I'm Kent anchor S or I've got some sort of problem or, or that I've got a bad attitude or something like that. Don't worry. I'll edit it to make that really evident. Yeah, I hope so. So yeah, put a lot of reverb on it or something. Whenever I say something ridiculous. Look the  people will not mistake this as people who are not passionate about the craft.

That's what you want. Yeah I, and I do think that this has happened gradually over the years, over the last few years with me, particularly, I found I don't know, I don't know what's going on. I'm along for the ride, but I have noticed some changes and yeah it's I'm, it'll be interesting to see what Freemasonry continues to do to me.

Over the years and hopefully hopefully, I'm sure it's going in the right direction, but oh, anyway, you asked about what's going on. Yes, what do you got coming up? Have you have Tria Prima got any podcasts in the pipeline that we should be aware of? I know you released one with Ike Baker.

It was really good. I very much enjoyed it. Yeah, we did that one that. We did that one that just came out. I hope we do one with you here soon. We just got to talk to Jake and Pat about that. It is Tria Prima though. So I would prefer that those two get you on there and there'd be three people because we found that three people for that particular group works out the best.

Cause we've done things like, keepers of the word was on there. We did a joint episode with keepers of the word, which was like three guys. That's a very great. Yeah. Excellent episode. That was. Yeah. So there was like 5 or 6 of us on that 1 and it just gets to be a little much 3 people.

I think, you get a thesis and antithesis and a synthesis out of 3 people. You get a really nice dynamic. Going when there's three people, two people is great to philosophy. You're dropping a Galean dialectic over there. Yeah.  Yeah, I've got Massachusetts. I think it's the Ezekiel Bates, Masonic on same guys who organized that.

I've got the thing in Egypt. Coming up I've got, oh, I've got the California Masonic symposium, which is a virtual thing. I'll tell you what date that is. That is this month. It's the California, isn't it this month?  It's the, anyway, you might have to look it up. It's the California virtual symposium, August 28th.

And it's going to be me, Angel Millar and Joe Martinez talking about fringe masonry, which you and I. Have talked about many times. Yeah, no I'm keen to attend that. For for those who are listening, and many may not know this, but Esotericism and Freemasonry Conference will be doing a limited  Opportunity for some brethren who want to organize watching events in their lodges to zoom cast our event.

Not everything that's happening will be zoom cast, but as much as we could possibly zoom cast will be broadcasting into the limited Internet. People who have got the code and the password please reach out to me. Troy at  📍 mystic tie or esoteric masonry at gmail dot com to get your information about.

Remote broadcast.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I would happily attend your California symposium. That'll be good. And I'm really looking forward to EFC 2024, even though I'm just going to be there virtually. It's going to be a great in person conference, with, again, with Newman and Ike Baker, Nate Schick and others, and yourself, of course heading up the whole thing, a bunch of great guys Brett and everybody and it's I really wish I could make it in person this year, but it's going to have to be 2025.

Yeah, we'll have you back in person next year.  All right, brother. Thanks, brother Jamie Paul Lamp for coming on with us this evening.  Thanks, brother. I'll talk to you soon. And and it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.  

 Thanks for listening today.  You can support the show by liking, sharing and subscribing on your favorite podcast. Syndicator. Even more helpful. Leave us a review.  We are looking to create a directory of free may Sonic events and publications. If you are aware of something coming up. Please let me know by email. In the meantime, check out may Sonic conferences, website.  

Coming up September 27th through 29th in Seattle. 

Washington is esotericism. And Freemasonry conference. Our keynote will be none other than Ike baker of the arcane and podcast.  Dr. Nathan chick. Brother, Doug Blake. Brother. Jamie Paul Lamb, brother, Doug Russell and brother PD Newman. We'll be speaking. Check out esoteric, masonry.com for details.  

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Happy to meet. Sorry, depart and happy to meet again.