21st Century Masons and Magic w/ Ike Baker @arcanvm | Paranoid American Podcast 101

➡ Paranoid American, a unique comic publisher, has been exploring the world’s mysteries since 2012. They delve into topics like mind control, secret societies, and forbidden technology. They also challenge accepted perceptions of reality through their podcast. The podcast features various guests, including Ike Baker, an author and scholar who discusses topics like freemasonry, esotericism, and his own works.
➡ The text discusses various esoteric practices and philosophies, including astrology, alchemy, divination, and ceremonial magic, which are followed by groups like the Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and the Golden Dawn. It highlights Martinism, a contemplative approach to spirituality, which originated from a group of lay exorcists called the ELU Cohen. The text also explores the differences between active and passive paths in esotericism, using the example of alchemy, which can be both a physical and spiritual process. Lastly, it discusses the relationship between Freemasonry and Catholicism, suggesting that while the two are not mutually exclusive, institutionalized religion often struggles to accommodate private, interior spiritual practices.
➡ The speaker discusses their personal spiritual journey, emphasizing the importance of individual spiritual growth over reliance on institutions. They identify as a Catholic but disagree with many aspects of the institution. They argue against atheism, viewing it as incompatible with human nature and spiritual development. They believe that true spiritual growth is a personal journey between the individual and God, and that institutions can only provide teachings and rituals, not the actual spiritual experience.
➡ The speaker discusses their views on atheism, masonry, and artificial intelligence. They believe atheism can lead to self-centeredness and over-reliance on intellect, while masonry aims to improve individuals and potentially make them divine. They express skepticism about the potential of AI, arguing that it’s still man-made and likely to cause as much harm as good. They also support co-masonry, but believe it should remain separate from regular masonry to maintain its unique identity.
➡ The text discusses the Masonic tradition and its evolution, emphasizing the importance of maintaining its core principles while avoiding rigidness. It also explores the Masonic secrets, which are not so secret as they are readily available in various publications. The text delves into the history of Masonry, its intersection with politics, and the rise of anti-Masonic sentiments, particularly through the controversial William Morgan affair. Lastly, it discusses the decline in Masonic membership, attributing it to a general decline in community trust and the rise of skepticism towards organizations.
➡ The speaker discusses the importance of community and shared values in organizations like Masonry. They note that the rise in membership in such groups was due to a sense of community and shared experiences, especially during and after the World Wars. However, they also acknowledge that this focus on community sometimes overshadowed the spiritual development aspect of these organizations. The speaker also mentions the role of media in shaping our perceptions of history and morality, and how this can lead to a pessimistic outlook.
➡ The speaker discusses their experiences with psychedelics and how they helped break them out of a cynical mindset, but also warns of the potential negative effects of continued use. They also mention the possibility of achieving similar states of mind through discipline and control, without the use of substances. The speaker debates the role of psychedelics in historical and spiritual traditions, suggesting they could be supplementary but not essential. They also touch on various conspiracy theories, expressing varying degrees of belief in each.
➡ The text discusses various conspiracy theories and historical events, including the moon landing, the existence of William Morgan, the concept of Tartaria, and the idea of global resets. It also delves into the Bavarian Illuminati’s influence on Freemasonry and its potential role as a precursor to modern intelligence agencies. The text suggests that while the Bavarian Illuminati may have infiltrated Freemasonry in Bavaria, it did not have a global impact on the organization.
➡ The text discusses the Bavarian Illuminati’s influence on a small area of masonry and their eventual downfall. It also explores the attraction of Masons to the Bavarian Illuminati, particularly those interested in Templar traditions. The text further delves into the possible connections between the Templars, Freemasons, and the Rosicrucians, suggesting that while there’s no concrete historical evidence, there are plausible links. Lastly, it criticizes the misuse of research in historical studies and emphasizes the importance of understanding Freemasonry beyond its misconceptions.
➡ The speaker discusses the importance of strong male groups, their charitable activities, and the societal backlash they face. He also talks about an upcoming immersive trip to Egypt, where participants will learn about ancient rituals and spiritual elevation. He mentions his books on magic and spiritual practices, and ends by thanking the interviewer for the conversation.

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So strap yourselves in, broaden your horizons, and steel yourselves for a voyage into the enigmatic heart of the Paranoid American podcast, where each story, every image, every revelation brings us one step closer to the elusive truth. I’m talking to Ike Baker, who’s the author of Formless Fire. He’s also written something on Cornelius Agrippa and he’s also got something that’s going to. It’s like an on location field immersion through Egypt that’s going to be in October of this year where he’s got 16 people and they’re going to get like one on one. Anyways, I’ll let Ike describe what he’s got going on and also welcome to the show, Ike, man, thank you so much for taking some time out and talking to me about freemasonry and esotericism and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Hey, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. Yeah, I’m glad that you, you mentioned the book and all that stuff. I really appreciate it. Yeah. The book is a Formless Fire rediscovering the Magical Traditions of the west came out this year or I’m sorry, last year, 2024 in September was released on Tria Prima Press, that’s a small Masonic publisher. And you’ve also got a couple like articles that I, I saw like the, the Agrippa one was like another ebook or like another book that you had put out. And then you also had an article called, it’s basically on Zosimos of Panopoulos, which is like one of the OG alchemists that was in the Esoteric Mason magazine.

So it seems that you have definitely like some leanings toward occultism, esoterica and masonry all combined with. Is there any other, is there any other extra label that you think would fit well for the type of work that you’re interested in? I would say it’s, you know, esotericism, Western esotericism, particularly the practice of it, not just the history and the theory. I, you know, I consider myself an independent scholar. You know, I organized, co organized and took part in, you know, an awesome, incredible, really because it was on site in Egypt in last October, this symposium and it’s called the Hermopolis Symposium.

And it was at Dr. Mervad Abdel Nasser’s new Hermopolis village in Minya, Egypt. And we basically sequestered some of the best and brightest scholars in religion, philosophy and esotericism, along with some of the most well known and well practiced practitioners. So we had Professor Walter Hanegraaff, Professor Charles St. From the, you know, Professor Hanegraaff is, you know, the, he’s a professor of the history of hermetic philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam. Professor Charles Stang is the head of the Harvard center for the Study of World Religions. Professor of Religious studies, Shannon Grimes, Dr.

Greg Shaw, who’s an incredible light in the fields of, you know, the study of Neoplatonic theurgy. I mean it was, it was star studded. And we had Jamie Paul Lamb, the renowned Masonic Author and astrologer, P.D. newman, Soledad Davies, Carl Hayden Smith. We had a host of really, really excellent people. Also last year lectured at Oxford University for the Euro Test Conference put on by the Aleph Trust. So I do consider myself in that scholarly world, but I have to, you know, I encourage the practice of this stuff, you know, and I. The thing is that I wanted to do with my channel, right Arcanum, I have a YouTube channel.

And that’s how I really got started out in the, the visible world, you know, the Internet and things like that is by producing these documentary style presentations on the history, theory and practice of Western esotericism. But I also, you know, I do the podcast thing. I have, I’ve probably got like 50 or 60 podcast episodes with authorities in the field, from practition to authors and things like that. But that’s, that’s my bag is, is to teach people how to practice this stuff and make them. You know, I like to say belief is not a four letter word with me.

I don’t want anybody to feel silly or. I try not to make any sarcastic kind of. I leave the wry sarcasm out of my, my content, at least in terms of, you know, poo pooing people for believing this stuff. I think that’s really, really important. I want people to feel comfortable. I mean, I, I’m an initiate of Freemasonry, I’m an initiate of Martinism. And for, you know, my longest trajectory and initiation, believe it or not, is with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I’m a senior adept in that system and I’m a temple chief. So.

Right. Not, not everyone in my audience is happy with this. But yeah, I was also raised in 2007 as a master mason. And then I think like a year and a half later I got to the 32nd in Scottish. Right. And that was sort of as far as I’ve dabbled into like official esotericism in like the Western way. But when we say Western esotericism, there’s, it’s a huge umbrella. Right. So this, this kind of includes, well, like Freemasons and Rosicrucians and Martinists and the Hermetic Order, the Golden Dawn. And even in some of your other episodes you’re talking about like the origins of alchemy in the West.

You’ve got like the Valentinians and the Basilians and all these other sort of people, like Neoplatonists are all kind of these different camps. Which of them is the best? I don’t know, man. That’s, that’s really hard to say, I think. Right. Because it’s a value judgment and, and it’s, I’m not opposed to making value judgments, but I would say, you know, that’s kind of like asking, you know, which kind of food is the best. It’s like, well, it’s going to vary really. I think that the, each of these is suited to different types of people. And I think that that’s really important that we, that we recognize that at the outset.

I almost see. Oh, sorry, go ahead, complete your thought. No, no, Sorry, Please, please. I guess in a very, very simplistic and maybe ignorant way, but I see some of these different organizations, they self influence each other, right? They don’t live in vacuums. So they all affect each other and they all kind of deal with like these feedback loops. But there also seems to be almost like a linear progress where some are built more on top of the previous ones. Like so, for example, Martinism, what would be the pitch for like a modern day 21st century Freemason, which is all already maybe an antiquated sort of worldview.

But what would be the pitch to like look into Martinism in particular? Again, it’s going to be, it’s going to be completely dependent upon their. I like, I wouldn’t pitch it to certain people, right. I wouldn’t pitch it to all Masons. And I think that you understand this being a brother of the fraternity, not a lot of Masons are interested in the esoteric. You know, it’s like I like to say that masonry is to esotericism what a 100 watt light bulb is to the sun. So you know, it’s a, it’s, it’s very, very dim light when it comes to esotericism.

And it doesn’t have to be, I think it could be something else but esoteric. People who are interested in esotericism, they broadly fall into two camps, contemplative and operative. So that is people who think that esotericism is mysticism and there’s an argument for that, you know, a contemplative sort of thing. And then people who think that esotericism is ritual and magic and what we call theurgy, the higher traditions of magic, that is much more, I think esotericism when in terms of the Western esoteric traditions of the West. So the Western esoteric traditions that yeah, they, the groups are included in that but really what defines them is their practices.

So the traditions themselves are astrology, alchemy, divination, ceremonial magic. That’s, I mean most of the Western esoteric now, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, the Golden dawn, they’re all included in that bracket because they, they base themselves on the earlier philosophies that those things came out of, like Neoplatonism, Hermetism, Hermeticism. So it’s really, it really depends on the type of mason and the type of esoteric mason. So Martinism, something that I would recommend or pitch to somebody who is interested in a much more contemplative sort of expression of or approach to the divine approach to Spirituality it is. It came out of a theurgic tradition, right, the ELU Cohen, which was wild.

It was one of the coolest, most interesting anomalies in Western history in terms of occultism. This group, group of like lay exorcists who banded together to sort of try and exorcise the, the earth of all its evil and stuff like that. It was really. And they had no affiliation with the church other than being, you know, Catholics that attended church and, and attended mass and things like that. So Martinism came out of that because a man named Louis Claude de Saint Martin was a student of the founder of the ELU Cohen’s, who was Martina de Pasquale.

So he basically was like, why do we have to do all this crazy ritual stuff and, and conjure up and evoke demons just to tell him to get out of here? You know, I was like, hey, hey, come here, Leave. You know, like that kind of thing. He was just more interested in what he called the way of the heart. And so Martinism, it has its ritual forms that were later developed by two men, Girard on coast, better known as Papu or Papists, and Augustine Chabouseau in France in the 1880s, 1800s, late 1800s, they kind of made an esoteric order out of it based on, you know, everything.

All of this stuff is based on free Masonic ritual. And it’s. And almost all of it studies in some way, shape or form Masonic symbolism. It’s just that they interpret it differently, more esoterically. And so, you know, rather than doing this, this theurgic kind of ritual and having the Solomonic circles and pantacles and triangles of art, you just have a very contemplative, prayerful, humble sort of practice of quietude and introspection and prayer. So that is for somebody that’s more interested in that kind of esotericism, I would approach that like that. I would pitch it like that.

You know, whereas if somebody were interested in magic and spiritual development, Allah, initiation, rich, like sort of like a spiritual alchemy, hands down, that’s the golden dawn. There’s no better system than that for that. I like that you brought up the contemplative versus operative. And I almost, I wonder, in your opinion, is that, is there a good analogy there for the difference? And say, like certain types of alchemy, where there’s belief that it’s purely a spiritual, you know, purification that you’re just working on, like your inner self versus a, like a rubber hits the ground version of alchemy, where they’re actually transmuting base metals into gold.

And sometimes there’s an asterisk that’s like you have to have worked on your inner in order to be able to affect the outer. But is, is there. Is that like a decent analogy between speculative or, you know, contemplating versus operating within masonry? There is an analogy there, but I will say something like the golden dawn, which is inherently more active, a magical path, an esoteric path, as compared to Martinism or even Freemasonry, that is predicated the outer order. Right. The actual golden dawn is predicated on a spiritual alchemy. So even though it’s the active path, it’s using the almost speculative kind of alchemy.

But I’ll put it this way. Zosimus, right. We mentioned him before, like you said, kind of OG Alchemist. Yeah. An Egyptian scribe priest in charge of metallurgy, meaning the dying of metals for religious statuary. In Roman Egypt, this was about the third. Third and fourth century, or third and four, third or fourth century at CE Common era. And basically he tells us that in their workings with nature, and I’m paraphrasing here, but in their workings with nature, they discovered this sort of pattern or formula, this, this principle or series of principles that allowed nature to transmute itself by the assistance of a qualified operator.

Right. So he basically says, he says this in his letters to his female student, Theocebia, who was most likely an early Christian. And he basically tells her the fact that. That nature has this principle means that we also are predicated on these principles, meaning that the. These. This transmutation can apply to the body, this transmutation can apply to the soul. This transmutation can apply to the spirit of a person. So we have, you know, a lot of people will debate, especially lab alchemists. They’re like, and I love lab alchemists. I study with them. I do lab alchemy, you know, but they’re just very like, no, it’s.

It’s science and it’s, you know, we got it and it’s, it’s. And then you have people in. In the golden dawn and magic for centuries now, up until only very recently, saying, no, no, no, no. It’s a spiritual. It’s a spiritual analogy that we’re never really doing. Well, you know, we see that Zosimus, at this early stage is telling us it’s both. So, so there, there is definitely. What I would say is there’s an overarching bracket that, that there’s a little. It’s kind of like the Yin and the yang, right? You have the two sort of opposing elements, but there’s.

There, there’s inter. There’s admixture, there’s intermixture. There’s a little bit of the other one in each, and that’s really, really important. And I would say that about alchemy, I’d say that about magic, you know, esoteric, the practice of esotericism in general. Yeah, that active, that passive. But also like you’re saying, you know, the, the lab alchemist, in order to be able to do any real work, has to have done some sort of contemplative practice to change themselves and, and taken a little bit of a passive introspection and work on themselves. Now, similarly, in, in what we can conceive of as initiatic or high magic theurgy coming from the, the.

The Neoplatonic, the Greek theories, you know, divine action or God working, you’ve got people who separate those into two camps, right? You’ve got theurgy, which is the use of ritual and materials like stones and incenses and herbs and things like. And words all put together in this beautiful symphony of symbol in a ritual in order to elevate the soul. And then there’s another camp, right, that the theurgy was really its popularizer and the main guy that we, that we look at on the historical record as its promulgator, its greatest hype man really is a philosopher named Iamblichus of Chalkis.

And he was also active in the. The. The third and the fourth centuries. And you have in the other camp, the quote unquote father of Neoplatonism, Plotinus, who was also, you know, a Neoplatonic, a Platonic philosopher, but he. His approach was more contemplative. And they call that theoria, divine contemplation. Well, it’s silly to think that if you’re doing theurgy, you’re not doing a little bit of theoria. If you’re doing magic, you’re not doing a little bit of contemplative sort of stuff in the modern day. I mean, one of the strongest practices, the best practices for a Golden dawn magician is still meditation.

The. I think, correct me if I’m wrong, in one of the previous interviews that I heard you, you mentioned being raised Roman Catholic. Is that correct? Yeah, absolutely. So how much I’m curious because ironically, Roman Catholicism as a cult, as it kind of is, it kind of preps you for occultism in a lot of ways, but it seems to, you know, basically preclude you from becoming a Freemason? At least a one way road, right? Like Freemasons will accept Catholics, but Catholics on paper are not supposed to become Freemasons. Do you think that that’s outdated? Or you think that there’s like a relevant reason for that to still be the case like on the books right now in 2025? I mean, you know, the thing that a lot of people have wrong is that you don’t get excommunicated if you’re found out for being a Freemason in the Catholic Church.

They don’t do that. But you know, you’re, you’re considered sort of outside of the bounds and they’d rather you not. But I’ll say this man, I mean, it’s like, far be it from me to be the judge or the arbiter about what the institution of Catholic Christianity should or shouldn’t do. I think they have bigger fish to fry, they have other problems that they should be worrying about. But essentially it all boils down to certain things, right? It’s their institutionalized religion cannot really guide us to a private, interior, prayerful state because it’s so hyper fixated on all these social rules and do’s and don’ts.

And the thing is that you have to, as a practitioner, as somebody that maybe is a practitioner or of a religion or somebody who’s a practitioner of a particular philosophy, you have to come to those decisions yourself. You have to do that because you want to, not because someone tells you to, or not because you feel bad or you feel guilty or you feel like you’re going to be in trouble with Big Daddy. Because I mean, even Christ says it. Your, your Father in heaven sees the contents of your heart. He looketh at the heart, you know, and, and so that is, that’s basically my thing.

I don’t feel any guilt for. You know, I still consider myself a Catholic. You know, I, I was baptized, you know, communed and confirmed a Catholic. And I have not disavowed that. I disagree very much so with the institution of Catholicism on many issues. But ultimately it’s an institution like all institutions like Freemasonry. As an institution, anything people make and everything’s made by people will be indelibly imbued with our highest potentials and our lowest potentials. So this, this whole kind of utopian thing to me is, is staying this idea of the way things could be or should be better.

Not to say we shouldn’t try, but this whole kind of trap of blaming institutions instead of fixing ourselves Working on ourselves. It’s just more of the same. This, this kind of, it’s predicated on this illusion, this dualism, you know, that really just is self defeatist. I’m not big enough to, you know, I’m like these, these institutions are in control of my life. There’s a deterministic component to everything. Your hormones are in control of a lot of you. Your, you know, your genetic upbringing, your genetic makeup, your upbringing, your, your, your astrological sort of schema of character and things like all that stuff.

The, the true magician transcends fate and he does that by, you know, that’s a solo journey that’s between you and God. It’s the most intimate relationship you’ll ever have. So I’m not really interested in outsourcing my, my spiritual journey to, to an institution, at least one that’s not as big as the Catholic Church. I mean, and I don’t outsource anything I do to something like even the Golden Dawn. Golden dawn is a set of teachings. The Golden Bone is a set of rituals. Really. That’s what it is. And there is, and it’s, it’s said by the founders in some of the foundational documents of the inner order, they’re called the flying roles, that the highest authority we have is the rituals themselves.

And the rest is for the working out in our own spheres, in the privacy of our own mind and thoughts and hearts, you know, working this stuff out. You mentioned God a couple times in that. And it makes me wonder what are truly incompatible belief systems when it comes to not just masonry, but maybe just like occultism in general. All, all the different Dominicans we talk to, one of them that comes up is atheism, that atheism is incompatible, that you have to at least admit that there’s some sort of higher. It’s almost like, like AA or something.

Like you have to admit that there’s something higher than you in order for anything else to work. Do you agree with, first of all, do you agree with that? Do you agree that atheism is incompatible with occultism and magic and masonry and everything that you can put on the umbrella? And then likewise, is there anything else outside of atheism that’s also like, incompatible? I think atheism is anti human. I think it’s anti humanist. And I think a lot of the postmodern agenda and the stuff that we’re seeing today foisted upon us as a society is inherently anti human.

So I think atheism is incompatible with being a human. And I think that the fact that there’s so many atheists out there is one of the reasons why as a society we’re suffering, we are laboring under a mass psychosis. So yes, I think it’s incompatible with masonry, I think it’s incompatible with certainly any kind of spiritual development. Because what are you relegating this to? Psychology? You know, it’s, it’s not going to work. When you people inherently self deify, you have no higher authority, you have no paradigm, you have no archetype, you have no paragon. You know, there’s nothing to work towards, there’s nothing to contrast the petty self against.

And you know, there’s a lot in secular humanism that says for the good of the people. Where do you think that morality came from? Where do you think the idea of social justice came from if not from religion? From Buddhism, but primarily in the West, Christianity, you know. And so it’s absolutely incompatible because the thing is it is based on a set of a priori assumptions that essentially says if what I, if what I want, right. Spiritual reality, if that’s to my right, it’s based on a set of ideas, theories and philosophies that say you can’t turn right.

What do you mean you can’t turn right? Yeah, you can’t turn right. So. But that’s where I want to go. Well, you can’t go there. So you don’t turn right. It’s, it’s self defeatist. You’re never going to really. I mean I can’t say never. I’ll tell you why. Because God can do whatever God wants. You know, you could be gifted with a breakthrough experience or a breakdown experience and that would, that is grace from, from your creator that may change your mind and. Right. We call that metanoia in the Greek tradition. And that’s the beginning of initiation really.

So everything that we do in a free Masonic lodge or a Golden dawn temple is, or even a Martinous chapter, it’s a catalyst. The real initiation happens. It’s an interior thing and it’s between you and God. I’m wondering this, these are just purely hypotheticals and maybe even some dumb questions mixed in with all these just for good measure. But if you were an atheist and you got, you know, you’ve, you got raised, you went through all three degrees and just going through the ritual and the memorization, just everything involved with it. Would an atheist have something to gain at the end of this? Like, and, and let me ask it in a slightly different way here too, that if there’s objective truth in any of the.

The tenants of masonry about like making good men better and all of this. Would some of that not just happen to you regardless if you personally were an atheist during that entire sequence or not? Like wouldn’t at a certain point if any of it had a objective value and truth on you and like your little microcosm, that it would just be self evident regardless of deism or atheist or any other denomination? Well, Freemasonry’s tenets of making good men better is predicated on the idea that they believe in God, right? I mean that’s basically like saying I want to make tomato soup, not use tomatoes.

You know, it’s part of the recipe. It’s part of the recipe. But I will say this, what we’re speaking of now is essentially a way of creating a window for a shadow of doubt which I understand it’s semantics. This is pure Platonism that you. That we’re doing back and forth here and it’s using hypotheticals. But the truth of the matter is, is that I can’t speak to whether or not I was an atheist if I went through masonry that it would make me any better. Because I’ll tell you what, what I can speak to myself, I can’t speak generically, but I leaned towards atheism, nihilism and solipsism for a very long time.

And the things that I participated in always had a slant of selfishness and what can I gain always? And I used the mask, the guise of egalitarianism because as an atheist, a nihilist, solipsist. Solipsist. I can’t even prove you exist in any way, shape or form. Here’s the brain in the vat and I’m here for your amusement. In. In my head. In my head. What is the highest good? The highest good is me. That’s what we mean by self deification. And you know what that is? That’s Satanism practically. I don’t care about the tenets of levay and Satanism or theistics in for all intents and purposes to deify the self and constantly be self seeking.

Constantly. What can I derive from this? Constantly. How can you. How can what, what can I extract from this that is Satanism by, you know, by practical definition. And so I, when I was, when I leaned towards that way and my heart of hearts, I feel like I never stopped believing because to me that is, that is the ultimate truth. And, and I think every person in their heart of hearts knows it. I think they they make up these pseudo sophisticated perspectives because society makes them feel like fools for thinking of, you know, you don’t get taught that, you know, you’re taught that there’s only one type of truth and it’s scientific and it’s imperial and it’s empirical and it’s positivistic and.

But when you begin to, like I say, turn your head right, you know, you see that oh, there are other kinds of truth in this world and I don’t need to define them in the same way that I could define the weight in grams of a cookie. You know, it’s. They have their own domains of authority because they have their own modes and methods of human perception, their own little niche corner as a power of the soul. And so I will tell you 110 one of the reasons I rail against atheism is because it, there are no rules.

You make your own rules. And so I can’t speak to what any given atheist, what set of rules they’re going to adhere to. But when I leaned towards that way, it was all about me. And I used a very nice facade, a very well sounding facade because at that time, at that point too, when you get there and you’re the quote unquote, left brain is so hyper developed and the right brain that the intuitive, the, let’s say psychic or so the prayerful, the religious part of the self is so shriveled and atrophied. I mean you, you glorify intellect.

And I will tell you one thing right now, like the intellect is in and of its itself hubris. It’s hubristic. It thinks that it can do and solve everything and, and that you can do it without any, you know, without any higher power. And so that is, it’s a, when we do that, it’s like, it’s like cutting our right, right arm and right leg off. You know, you’re half a person at that point. This may be tangential to the like atheism in the role of like if we stick on masonry, just so we have a very specific acute example here.

And I don’t want to make any assumptions as to whether atheism is even related to this concept. And this might sound incredibly hypothetical, but I feel like in our lifetimes this could be played out. But could the same way that masonry can make good men better and that sort of tenant. Do you think that that could be applicable to say like AI or some sort of like solid state intelligence? Is there a role of masonry or ceremonial magic or any of these, these Sort of, you know, ceremonial processes do you think could have any effect, any objective outcome on like solid state intelligence of any kind? I mean, I don’t know.

I. The, the whole question here and, and when you’re dealing in, in, in these kinds of conversation is even with Masonry, what does it mean to make somebody better? Who, what, what, what system, what ruler are we using? You know, what metric are we really using to gauge making good men better? I like, you know, on a mundane level, casual level, I like the, the saying, yeah, Masonry makes good men better, but it’s not always truth. You know, the definition basically from your last response, and I want to put words in your mouth, but it almost sounds like a level of altruism.

Like once you introduce altruism into a system which kind of becomes counter to that satanic self, you know, deist perspective where you’re not just a brain in a vat. Now, even if you are to bring in the vat like you want, other brains and the other vats, maybe that are in your, your sphere to also benefit in some way that might not be directly related to your self preservation. Yeah, I think, I think that, that the, since the exo. Terrification of Masonry during the first and second world wars and. Right. Think that altruism is its highest goal.

But I don’t think that’s the only goal. I think it’s the, the first breakthrough you need to have in order to benefit from it. And Masonry itself tells you that. But ultimately, I think Quint. I agree with Robert Hewitt Brown, WL Wims Wilmshurst, Manley, Palmer Hall, Albert Pike. I, I agree with the great writers of Masonry that it’s here to, to make us divine. It’s here to divinize us, as all the great writers of Masonry have said. And you get this, this kind of thing, especially down here in the South. Well, that ain’t the way my granddaddy did it.

Well, what about a hundred years before your granddaddy, all these amazing writers talking about how Masonry is a continuation of the mystery traditions. That is no less than the divinization of the communion of the individual soul with its God. And in that work the reception of light and the radiance of light outward. And you don’t know what that entails until that happens to you. Right. You don’t know that it’s going to manifest as, you know, Ike’s at the bake sale or Ikes doing charity. You don’t know. I think that. But that’s an ideal that we strive for.

So I Don’t necessarily think altruism. It’s, it’s not like this kind of, you know, poison and cure one to one. There’s other layers to specifically these esoteric traditions. Now if you want to talk about AI and that kind of stuff, I mean I am inherently cynical of that stuff. I think like anything else, it’s still man made. So probably to whatever extent good that we, that we do with it will probably like everything else we’ve done in this world will do an equal amount of bad. Because that’s the way that, that’s the way that materiality works.

And like, like we’re using materiality to some somehow overcome its polarity. That’s not, it doesn’t make sense. That’s asking it for, that’s asking for it to be day all the time, right? Jake and, or Yachin and Boaz, the two pillars. You knock one down, everything falls over. Reality doesn’t work that way. You know why Thomas, Thomas Moore named the, the book Utopia? Because in Latin, in Latin or, or Greek, it’s. That word means nowhere. Topos is place. Utopia means no place. You know, it’s not going to happen. So it’s, we can’t, that’s, that’s just what’s going to just keep happening in this wash dry cycle of materiality.

Now the goal I think is to not think that we have all the answers, but to seek upward and be led by the higher in terms of, you know, how we are to govern the world. I mean govern our worlds, our microcosms. And I think that truly as human beings, as Personas, not necessarily the sum totality of our souls, but as that, that little outward facing projection that shoots itself in the foot over and over again. The Persona is too small a cog and too large a machine to understand what an infinite mind thinks is good.

This is maybe controversial question only in very small circles, but like what is your thoughts on co masonry or regular masonry? Is it not worth pursuing? Are these things that will ultimately be net negatives for you or are these valid options for people? No, I think I, I have friends in co masonry. I think co masonry is a great thing. I, I don’t think that it should be completely absorbed into regular masonry because then I think that, you know, in order for masonry to be something there has to be what we call landmarks, right? There has to be some sort of, some sort of boundary, right? Not a popular, not a popular sentiment nowadays, but something needs to retain some kind of shape.

And, and most things, even if you look at like Music, right? Like, some of my favorite bands are not defined by what they. Their style is defined by their limitations. Right? Like, I love Adam Jones. He’s one of my favorite guitar players from Tool, because he doesn’t sound like, you know, Joe Satriani, you know, because he can’t, like, do that whole that crazy shred thing. He. Your. Your boundaries define what you are. Your limitations define what you are. Otherwise you have no limitations, you have no boundaries, you have no landmarks in Masonry. Then it’s, it’s nothing.

What. What’s the difference between that and the other social clubs? So I, But I do think co Masonry is a wonderful thing, and I know many wonderful co Masons, and I would never exclude them from even a conversation about Masonry and things of that matter. The only thing that I would keep secret are the things that I have of my own free will and accord in the presence of the Almighty God, of Almighty God and my brethren sworn, that I wouldn’t reveal. And for no other reason than that, I took an obligation and I take those very seriously.

But, but other than that, I mean, yeah, Co Masonry is fantastic. I’m actually really glad that it has its own space. That’s interesting. It’s. That’s not a common answer from every single person that you might ask because in. There’s also a level of gatekeeping within, like, official free and accepted Masons that Co Masonry and sort of a regular Masonry are almost fraudulent. Not my word. But that there’s almost like a shadow cast upon it. Not that it’s just a tangential, not just an alternative. It’s not Diet Coke to the Coke. Right. It’s basically like a completely different brand that you’re supposed to avoid.

I mean, it. I, I haven’t done any co Masonic rituals, and so I don’t really know what’s going on. So it might be like, different, right? We, like, Masonry might be Coke, Co Masonry might be Sprite. I don’t know. I haven’t tasted that one. But I don’t, I don’t like. I don’t shun it or like, make people. I wouldn’t make people feel like they’re not a part of, you know, the overarching Masonic tradition. These things do have to evolve, I think, if Masonry. You know, the thing is, it’s, it’s a. It’s. It’s a very fine line to remain what you are and not be so rigid that you become brittle.

So I think that one of these ways is like, okay, regular Masonry should keep its landmarks right? There’s not many of them, like three. And then. But should our attitude towards CO Masonry be like this elitist kind of exceptionalist exclusionary policy? Absolutely not. That that attitude in and of itself is a breach of the Masonic, you know, ethos and tenants and things like that. So yeah, and the thing is like Masonry has very little secrets. And they’re the modes of recognition or the words, they’re the signs, they’re the tokens. You know, everything else is published. So it’s like, well, what would I be violating and talking about with them? You know, nothing.

They could go buy Duncan’s ritual or they could, you know, pick up Wilmshurst’s meaning of Masonry or they could pick up, you know, any, anything written by Manly Palmer hall and basically put together what we’re doing in the Craft Lodge. Right. And that actually comes up pretty often where the Masons are the secret society. And the usual tagline is it’s actually a society with secrets on a secret society because they’re all public. And that a strong argument is that if you really want to know like the quote unquote secrets, the things that you know, Masons aren’t allowed to tell you, you can find them.

They’re like readily found. They’ve been published over and over in the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s. Like right now you can probably go on Tik Tok or, or Twitter and find someone that’s done like a secret cam and like recorded all three of the rituals. Like all of that is kind of out in the open. But this originated if I have to just like throw a dart and make sure it actually hits somewhere on the board. You kind of have like the, the Jacksonian Democrats where you’ve got Jackson becomes president and this is probably like Masonry and politics kind of at its peak.

And from this you have a whole bunch of disillusioned non Jacksonian Democrats that kind of splinter away. And this kind of dovetails into this, this anti Masonic party because of the tail end of Jacksonian democracy is this tale of William Morgan. Right. And I gotta ask, do you think William Morgan is even a real person? Because I’ve heard this theory that, that he was either a plant by anti Masons or even like a double twist where it was a plant by Masonry to then like do some sort of a sacrificial proxy ritual to be like. And that’s why you don’t tell on our secrets.

But do you think he was a real person, period? I don’t, I don’t really know. I mean I labored under that assumption, you know, in my basic understanding of the Morgan affair, but I don’t think, I wouldn’t completely rule it out that it was a plant. I mean, it’s right around American politics has been so. There’s been so much theater, like almost from the very beginning. So it’s like, it’s, it’s hard for me, you know, like America was so good at that for so long, you know, kind of creating this Hegelian dialectic and, and, and also using, you know, this kind of, I don’t know what you, if you want to call it false flag sort of situation, you know, So I wouldn’t necessarily put it, put it past anybody, you know, especially an anti Mason party.

But, but I don’t know enough about the history and I haven’t dug deep enough into the details and the various theories of affair to really have a conclusive opinion. Yeah. And I, you know, I was gonna say, regardless of the, the truth behind the Morgan affair, if anyone listening is like, what the hell is a Morgan Affair? Basically a guy. I’ll simplify it. A guy was like, I’m gonna write a book on the Masons and spill all your secrets. And then allegedly a bunch of Masons were like, no, you’re not. And then they basically take him out according to some of the oaths that he made and made it in this big like, symbolic practice.

But this William Morgan affair, regardless of how it happened or how valid it happened, kind of gave rise to an anti Masonic movement that then eventually threw a bunch of meandering lines that are not directly linear. But you get anti Masonic party, Whig Party, Republican Party, and you kind of actually have an entire political wing embodied by the origins of this, like anti Masonic. And, and now it’s one of the main political parties now. And to shoehorn in sort of like a question on this. I just wonder that. That William Morgan affairs seems like it was a milestone in the trajectory of Masonic membership as a whole.

And you can almost see when the anti Masonic party become, you know, comes to power. If you were to look at like a chart of all the Masonic memberships over time, like it just starts to sink. And then it almost had a free fall around like, I don’t know, 50s or 60s to where, if you were to look at a list of Masonic membership growth from the 80s until now, it’s just kind of like tapering off completely. I wonder, to be cliche, but it’s like, do you think there’s a correlation between the decline of modern society and the decline of Masonic membership and maybe by proxy, just in general, a cult membership and esotericism and thinking in this way.

Well, one last thing that I want to touch on about William Morgan is that he seems to have. He seems to have been in the history that is recorded of him. I included this. I did a little. I did as much as I could in my episodes on the Arcanum Channel about what is Freemasonry. And I discussed some of the controversies, you know, P2 Lodge, the Bavarian Illuminati, the whole Lucifer. Luciferian thing. But. But the Morgan affair was a big one. And his. He doesn’t really speak well for himself. He seems like he was a little bit of a chisty guy, a little bit of a scammer and somebody who.

Who, you know, defaulted on a lot of loans. Maybe intentionally troubled. Troubled guy. So I, you know, I don’t know how I would have handled that in that time period in a little lodge somewhere. And I don’t know. I think it was upstate New York. But in terms of the decline of membership, I would say the decline of membership is. Is related in an ancillary way or kind of an indirect way to the decline of civilization. And that is the decline of community and trust and responsibility within those communities. I find a lot of people are very, very skeptical of organizations.

I find people are very, very skeptical of people who aren’t skeptical of. Of their. Whatever organization they belong to. A lot of people ask me, you know, like, is it a cult? And I just tell them, everything’s a cult. Everything’s a cult. Look at the. Look at the political parties in this country. Look at fandom. You know, look at. Everything’s a cult at this point. You know, it’s like it’s all this. This egregoric kind of, you know, has you by the. By the nose hairs sort of leading you around thing. And, And I think that something like masonry is actually.

It can appear that way, right? I mean, we like to say that the secret word of a master mason is no, right? Because none of us know how to say it and none of us know how to say no to any. Any of these groups and any of these functions and harmonies. But. But I would say that, you know, people. There’s a tremendous amount of distrust in. In our fellow just human being, I think. And. And there. There’s, you know, people don’t want to organize into things that are stratus. Stratified and they don’t want to organize into things where they have to take on too much responsibility.

And you Know, the, anything, any of that human instinct to want to come together in community has now been redirected into activism. So. And the activism is predicated on breaking things down, not building things. So, you know, I would say that Freemasonry, we’re builders. And that is why the, the institution of Freemasonry has lasted this long. But as young men kind of are raised in this, with this postmodernist, sort of highly skeptical, reductionist, factory stall installed settings, these perceptual software that we keep running like a pair of contact lenses we’re not aware we’re wearing that give everything this very gray tint.

As more young men are tainted by this, I think that afflicted by it is a better word. They’re afflicted by. And the same thing with atheism too. I don’t, I don’t hate atheists. I don’t want to exclude them, but I look at atheism the same way I do as postmodernism. It’s a disease of the mind. It’s like, it’s, to me, it’s like I, I don’t, you know, I, for the same reason I wouldn’t invite an atheist into Masonry. I wouldn’t invite somebody with a terminal illness to come play soccer with me. You know, it’s, it’s that kind of.

I don’t hate them. Yeah, I don’t. I wish them the best, all the best and Godspeed. But, but it’s, it’s kind of the same thing with this postmodernism and this rejection of, of wholesome community. And there’s a skepticism. We look back on history and we, because, because, you know, our media that we consume is constantly telling us, you know, look at Game of Thrones, look at Boardwalk Empire, look at all these, these tremendous shows and movies that we’ve consumed wholesale over the course of decades at this point. It’s not that some of it wasn’t, wasn’t true, you know, but it’s like they paint every period with the brush of our own times.

And, you know, they, they sort of. I very iconoclastically shatter the idea that anyone anywhere at any time had any sense, sense of morality and dignity and virtue. And so that creates a very pessimistic outlook. And so I think these, that’s how they’re related. You know, it’s, I think that the, because the reason why Masonic membership exploded is because of what we call joinerism. Because it wasn’t just Masonic membership, it was elks. It was, you know, whatever Kiwanis it was, you know, all these different Knights of Columbus, all these things gathered together, particularly around the period of the first and the second, the interim period between the first and the second World War and then immediately post World War II in America at least, just it was all about community.

And was there a. An underbelly component to that? Sure, sure, absolutely. But you know, like I said earlier, equal amount of dark, equal amount of light. But I think that what they had going for them was that they were more, you know, they were more in touch with, with community, immediate community. So it’s like I don’t care that my neighbor doesn’t believe the same things. I don’t care that my neighbor. Unless it’s communism, but I don’t care that my neighbor doesn’t watch the same TV shows, smoke the same cigars, whatever, has a different car. He’s still my neighbor, you know.

And so there was. People could lean on each other in, in a more regional thing. Whereas the Internet and globalism at Lars has made us go out and find people that like, like are almost mirror images of ourselves. We shot, we, we shop for friends the way we do for. On Amazon. You know, it’s like because the market’s open. I, I really like that you brought up joinerism because it reminds me of. This is an exoteric sort of description of the, the order out of chaos of the Scottish right, particularly Southern jurisdiction, that one of the, one of the things that that like recruit like made a mandate for this to even happen for the Southern jurisdiction even come together was that there was a premise of almost door to door mason salesman where a guy would knock on your door and be like, look, we’re going up to seven degrees.

If you show up at Friday and you bring three bucks, you know, you’re in. You’ll get these agrees. And then like the next day a guy would knock and be like, oh, they, they only go up to 7, we’ll go up to 9 and we’ll lower the price down to like 250. And it almost became a traveling vacuum salesman economy of masonry. And they realized like, hey, we’re gonna end up shooting ourselves in the foot here. Which I believe gave rise to one of the rules of like, you’re not supposed to solicit to ask one, be one.

And a lot of that is predicated on the fact that it was just became like a door to door salesman technique for people to make money and sell degrees for people that because of that joinerist sort of like mode of society that they were in. At that point when you would open your door to some random person knocking on it, like, hey, what have you got? Let’s. Let’s have a conversation with. Which doesn’t really exist anymore. So I thought that’s. It’s a unique dynamic to not be discounted. It’s not like the. The country was more Masonic at that point.

It was just that it was getting pushed more and there was more of a reason to join groups that might have even been independent of Masonry. You mentioned the Elks would be a good example of that. Yeah, and that’s the whole thing. You. The only way that you can go around pushing degrees on somebody is if there’s an audience that wants them. Right. You. In order to have supply, that. That doesn’t completely fall flat means there must be a demand. So I think that that’s, you know, again, the spirit of community. And it’s still like that when, you know, when you get involved in Masonry, they won’t.

They won’t ask you to get involved as a Mason. But once you get the third degree, hey, we’re doing a festival weekend. Come get all the York right degrees in two days, you know, and you sitting there with a group of 36 people, and each one of you gets a chance to go through and be the exemplar. And. And so, yeah, the. And that was. That’s the thing, you know, I can speak at least for the history of Mount Hermon Lodge in Asheville. You know, there wasn’t necessarily. I’m the Masonic historian there. There wasn’t so much the selling of degrees in our, you know, jurisdiction or our Masonic Lodge.

The Masons actually struggled for a really long period of time to even raise the funds to build the Scottish Rite Cathedral, which is like the main, you know, now the Asheville Masonic Temple. And really, it was. You know, there were several different bonds. Some of it was business. Some of it was. Was, you know, veteranship and things like that. But. But we did actually in that. In. In that period, post World War II, have. I mean, have a tremendous amount of people. But there were also things that were going on where it’s like they had Demolay, you know, for young boys.

They had Rainbow Girls. They had all this stuff because it was, you know, Masonic families were getting together and doing all this stuff. Now what. The way that we suffered was that that took the onus away from spiritual development and oriented it towards more community, mundane sort of oriented stuff. It became. Oh, yeah. Demolet became kind of like, you know, the Masonic boy Scouts Rainbow Girls became like the Masonic Girl Scouts. And it was all preparing everybody, right? The Demolet would, would take his, his entered apprentice at 18 years old or, and the Rainbow girl might get involved with Amaranth or Eastern Star or something like that.

And it was a lot of it pathways to get them in early because I mean I’d be honest, I, I, I’d love it if everybody that petitioned my Golden Dawn Temple was either a Mason or a co Mason. Because it’s, if you follow what, what it tells you, you know, to do, you know, and render prayer unto the highest right. No, no man should enter into any greater important under undertaking without first invoking the blessings of deity and, and conducting yourself uprightly in your several stations before man and God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you do those things like you’re just going to be a more well adjusted, more balanced and more capable human being.

And I spend a lot of the time in now particularly trying to get people just to that state where we can even begin this process of initiation. So I could see the virtue in bringing through Masonic, bringing your family and bringing people through the community through Masonry. But again I will say I had an extremely fortunate experience in Masonry. My lodge is, I live two hours from my lodge. I still go because I, those, the brothers there are I would say just exceptional human beings. Forget about Masonry. And there’s such a spirit of community and, and, and open mindedness.

You know, like yeah, I’m standing in a lodge of maybe like, you know, between 12 and 30 people deliver sort of, you know, presentation on an ancient Egyptian ritual. And you know, not everybody in there gives a, about any of that stuff but they don’t make you feel bad for it. You know, it’s not this kind of like overly dogmatic situation. And I know from other people that you know, in some lodges each lodge has its own culture and it’s not always like that. So I do realize that I, my Masonic experience allows me to look at Masonry through a little bit somewhat of a rose colored filter.

This is a slight change of topic. I will absolutely be able to circle it back around on topic. But when we’re talking about Masonry, Golden Dawn, Rosicrucian esotericism in general. Do you, do you think that psychedelics have any sort of an important role in this space or is it its own thing? Thing? That’s a difficult question because I, I abhor their usage in, I think that, but I at the same time I used them, you know, I used psychedelics, I used Psychotropics, you know, dmt, lsd, all, all that stuff. And it’s. There was some sort of an initiatory event that happened, but it, I wouldn’t say it was spiritual, I would say that it was intellectual meaning during your solipsistic phase or during your like.

Yeah, yeah, it was, it broke me out of the solipsistic phase and it didn’t necessarily bring me to faith, but it brought me to question my ideas about, you know, solipsism and, and cynicism and enabled me to break the casing that I was the mold that I was encased in this kind of intellectual sort of and, and anxious trap. But the thing is, continued usage affected, affected me in, in adverse, adverse ways and I think that they are not an end in themselves, but potentially a means now in something like. I, you know, yeah, you look at the Eleusinian Mysteries, sure I can entertain the idea that they were.

There was ergot, you know, some sort of hallucinogenic compound derived from the ergot on the fields they were drinking in the kikon, but whatever was in Kaikyon, whatever the hell that went into that. But at the, but at the same time, like it’s not, you know, not necessarily. That was an initiation that was open to the public. You know, I, I don’t think that like, you know, the highest level of, of hierophant of initiating priests was just taking psychedelics, you know, because in the golden dawn especially you’re taught how to. You, you are taught and you experience the absolute reality that you can cultivate these states at will.

It’s just a little, it’s more difficult. You need requires more discipline, you know, and, and you can control it at that point, you know, it’s not, you know, buy the ticket, take the ride. I’m on this for four hours. It’s, you know, and, and, and just completely open to potentially any sort of, you know, psychic parasite etc that that’s around or even just physical danger sometimes. But, but when you learn how to achieve these states, I would say that they’re much closer to DMT states. When you learn to achieve these states at will, you can do it in a controlled fashion and you can actually yield specific things from them.

You can go in with a certain goal that’s actually a broader part of the golden dawn system. Things like scrying, things like path working, things like evocation. You’re going in and you’re trying to obtain information, knowledge, you know, some kind of anything really of this nature, some kind of information or knowledge that cannot be obtained by other, other methods. And also to commune with higher order spirits. You know, some might call them angelic, what have you. To commune with higher order spirits is in some way divinizing. It is part of the ongoing regimen of purification of the soul.

One of, I, I want to say that this was repeated in a book called Psychedelic Freemasonry, which was by another brother Mason. But they, one of the claims was that the acacia was a representation of dmt because DMT could potentially be arrived from some versions of acacia. Do you think there’s any merit to that at all? Or is this just sort of John allegro style, like sacred mushroom in the cross? Look, I think I know what you’re talking about. Right, the psychedelic secret of Freemasonry. So, so that was my good friend Danny, new PD Newman wrote that book.

So, and this is a point where he and I kind of agree and agree to disagree and, and shake hands amicably because he’s a wonderful man and an incredible scholar and he knows far much more about this stuff than I do because it’s not my area of interest or specialization. And I’ll say it again, kind of like in a similar way to, to what I said about the Eleusinian mysteries. Danny has compelling evidence for this stuff because of the, the, his understanding of plant compounds. He’s a wild forager. He is somewhat of a, of an amateur like ethnobotanist, you know, a real kind of modern shaman who knows his stuff.

And so he’s been able to convince me that there is, you know, even there are shamanic ways of indigenous ways of rendering these compounds from things like cinnabar and etc. Etc. And so I do see, because he provides ample evidence throughout the historical tradition, the textual tradition, that leaves room for that possibility. I would not say that I am utterly convinced, and I would not say either that, that it is essential to the mystery traditions. I would say it’s adjunct, it can be supplementary. As I mentioned before, the right kind of person can take this four or five times in their life and then use that to catalyze growth and change and then move on to other types of practices where this can be cultivated at will and controlled and used for specific ends.

But you know, I, I, I don’t think I can say much more about it other than that. But I, I do admit to the fact that when I was rigid and began to experiment with hallucinogens, they certainly broke me down. I’ve got a whole bunch of other Questions. We’ll start venturing into like alchemy and stuff. But I’ve got a little segment that I think will make it easier to kind of just go through and give you a little bit of a litmus test. So I’m going to play like a five second little intro and then I’m going to explain the rules to you.

Are you ready? Okay. Yeah. Good. All right. Hey conspiracy buffs. I double dare you to take some pcp. The paranormal Conspiracy probe. On your marks. Get set and go. Okay, the rules to this are, are pretty simple. I’m just going to kind of like give you a concept concept and I just want to get like a 1 to 10 rating from you on how much you agree or disagree with that premise. A five meaning that like you’re going to reserve to not have an opinion or that you could be swayed either way or that you don’t even care about it.

So for example, if I were to ask you the, the validity of a physical objective homunculus, an alchemical homunculus where you create, you, you know, spontaneously generate out of animal matter, another living human esque sort of being. On a scale from 1 to 10, how valid do you think that that is possible to create? 7. How about the concept of Bigfoot having ever existed in, in the world in an objective way? I mean I can, I can think of it of it as like a 6 or a 7, but like in my heart of hearts, I don’t care.

So should I give it a five? Yeah, yeah, if you don’t care, then yeah, five. Five is fine. Like, like a five. How about the concept of flat Earth? Like two? Okay, so you’re saying there’s a chance. I. Look, there’s always going to be a chance because I, even though I have strong opinions that I’ve arrived at through like hard fought methods, I know enough to know that I don’t know everything. So. Okay, so I’m usually wrong. I mentally adjust your scale from 2 to 9 to be the new one to 10. Whatever. Like we’ll do like, like a grading average here.

How about the concept of hollow Earth? And I guess to be specific in that there are civilizations almost Tarzan style, like civilizations of advanced, you know, entities or creatures or humans under the surface of the earth. Well, here’s my thing. I do believe that we’re here not alone, but I don’t think that those, that the entities that are here with us have any definite physical body does that. And I, they, they could very well live inside the earth. But I don’t I don’t necessarily think it’s like aliens with like a full civilization. I mean, I lived in New York City for a really long time and there were like so, you know, people down in the subways, you know, albino crocodiles or whatever.

Yeah. So I don’t know, maybe like, again, maybe like, like a four. I think that’s fair. How about a literal Atlantis at some point? And I don’t mean secret destiny, Francis Bacon, Manly, Palmer Hall, America’s Atlantis. I mean, you know, like, like Plato is writing about Atlantis. Right, right. And I, I’m, I’m glad, you know, that he was the one. He’s the main historical, you know, reference that we have for Atlantis. I, I’m gonna go with, with a 7 or 8 on this one. I do think there was, I don’t think it was America. There’s also the chance Plato constantly talks about.

This is my bread and butter. Platonism is my thing. I spend most days reading Plato, but, and teaching Plato. But the thing is he does in his dialogues constantly say, I’m gonna talk about something allegorically now, so it could be an allegory, but I have a feeling it’s one situations where something to that effect did actually exist. So maybe an eight. This, this one has a couple qualifiers. So just. So I just want to be specific because I’ll have a follow up that’ll have even better qualifiers. So the first one is one to ten that a human being has set foot on the moon in the last 100 years.

Oh man, you’re out in me. You are outing me. Plead the fifth. Five. Okay, that, that. How valid was the footage that was broadcast to the mass public about the Apollo land, specifically Apollo 11 and I guess any of the subsequent ones. But how, how real was that particular footage? Feel free to take the fifth on this one too if you need to do five. Okay. I, I already asked you about say William Morgan and whether or not that was a real person. If you had to put a number rating on him being a real person, what would you put that at? I would err on the side of him being a real person.

Maybe like a six or a seven. Okay. Maybe similar to Tartar to Atlantis. I want to ask, are you familiar with Tartaria, the concept of Tartaria area? Yeah, give me, give me a 1 to 10 on Tartaria, like 2. Okay. Now, now, I guess this might be a subset of Tartaria, but I think it’s, it’s valid to point it out in its own. Right. This concept of global resets. Or more in particular these ideas that say the world fairs and these world expositions in the early 19th and like later 20th century, that these were sort of of stage to take down existing buildings that were already here.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this particular line of thinking so that for example, the World’s Fair in Chicago in, in the early 20th century, that all of those buildings were not indeed plaster of Paris, that those were real buildings and that it was later said that it was plaster Paris to give them a reason to knock it all down because they were hiding sort of the breadcrumbs of these, these Tartarian sort of previous cultures that dwarfed our own. Which I’ve. I’ve come to understand is almost like an Atlantis that was like destroyed by the new explorers with all that other stuff in there.

I’m gonna give that probably like a 4 or 3. But I will say I do believe in, in global resets, but I not, I don’t. Not in that context. But I do believe that some level of, of erasure and then fabrication of our history at various periods. Normally I find, I assume or I would say that it’s to my thinking that that would be predicated more on astrological timing. But I don’t know, I’m just not. I’m not big on this idea of like, you know, end scene right before Indiana Jones where they put like the artifact in the massive warehouse holding on to this stuff.

But maybe. Right, because then there’s Area 51 and there’s supposedly a ton of in there. I mean again, a lot of hearsay, but I would say that is so hyper specific and strange for me to hear because this is the first time I’m hearing about it that right now I’m gonna give it a 3 or a 4. Okay. And we’ll, we’ll move away from the, the 1 to 10 stuff. It’s a fun segment because I’ve got a couple other. There’s you. You opened the door to Bavarian Illuminati. And this is sort of like a guilty pleasure of mine.

And so, so here is. Yeah, we’ll just shoehorn this one towards the end here. But my understanding, very rudimentary version of this Rockefeller education system based. But that the Bavarian Illuminati essentially would not have reached the level to, to which we’re even talking about it now, 200 years plus later later if it hadn’t have been their infiltration of Freemasonry, specifically through Adolf Adolph Vaughn Kennedy, the guy that Went by Philo, I believe was like his code name. And Adam Vice Hop was Spartacus, but that they basically, Adam Visop starts this organization as a reactionary pendulum swing away from the Jesuit order, which he was kind of forced to grow up during this age of enlightenment, being told like, no, all this new science stuff that you find interesting, you’re not allowed to think about or talk about that, that the Jesuits lose sort of their control, which you kind of mentioned previously.

Adam Visop comes in and then one, one part of my mind understands that the original premise of Varian Illuminati was so anti Jesuit that there was almost an atheistic aspect to it. That the Bavarian Illuminati, Adam Biceop at the head of this was essentially like a staunch atheist, which might be too broad of a brush to use to stroke this, but that the infiltration of Freemasonry seems counterintuitive to that. Although if it was just being used as a vehicle to bolster the support of the Bavarian Illuminati, then it makes sense. And then I guess to wrap a little bow on this, that as the Bavarian Illuminati decline after they become aware of the authorities and the papers come out and they figure out where everyone lives, that this basically becomes reabsorbed back into Masonry again.

Because like, from whence it came almost essentially. Is there any merit to any of that sort of like chronological lineage that I just laid out? Well, the thing is, so obviously the Bavarian Illuminati were never officially Masonic. They were, they were never considered a part of Masonry, which you understand. But I just want to say that for the audience, they patterned again, their modes of recognition, their ritual, etc, on Freemasonic ritual. The Bavarian Illuminati infiltrated everything. They infiltrated the government, the educational institutions, Freemasonry, because it was essentially, you know, almost like it’s. It was a communal thing, a business thing.

And I, I kind of can see what some people say about it being a precursor to modern intelligence gathering agencies to some degree, but I don’t. It was not, you know, infiltrated. They were recruiting from Masonry and they were joining their ranks in, in an attempted. But like world. Freemasonry at that time was not infiltrated in Bavaria. Right? The, the regional thing, absolutely. There’s, there’s a probability that to, to a greater or lesser degree they comprise about 50% of the membership. I don’t, I’m not exactly sure on that number. But the fact that they did such a good and thorough job that they were eventually, you know, and you think about it, and they were secularist.

That was their, their type of illumination. Whereas you look at, you know, Dom Joseph Pernetti and his, you know, illuminates de Avignon. That’s a different kind of Illuminati, you know, one that is philosophical, religio philosophical. And whereas the, the Bavarian Illuminat, totally secular. And I would not surprise me if Adam Weishop was an atheist. As a matter of fact, I, there’s. There’s a. I forget who it was, but a journalist went and visited him when he was an old man, wherever he was staying. And it’s a really fascinating kind of document to read that this guy’s conversation with him, he seemed extremely.

At that old age, very bitter, very Machiavellian. So again, there’s that kind of shadow side of atheism where it’s like this socio. They wouldn’t have called it that back then, but our term for it is socioeconomic Darwinism, where it’s like survival of the fittest out here. I don’t give a shit about highfalutin morality. And, you know, it’s all about my team wants to win. And you might think that you’re doing the right thing, but it’s not always the case. I would say that the wonderful comedy of this all is when Jacob Lang is struck by lightning on a horse and that enables the authorities to find the papers of this secret society and what they were planning woven into his clothes, apparently.

Act of God right there. You know, I love stuff like that. So for me. So that, that, that, that’s. That’s a pretty interesting thing. I would say though, that they, they were not successful at infiltrating worldwide Freemasonry. So I don’t think Freemasonry ever bore the taint of the Illuminati. But I will say this. There was a time when organizations like that were. They prevailed in the intellectual culture of the time. So I, I do find that at a certain point, at this point, right, the 1700s, even in America, Freemasonry did function as a kind of quasi intelligence gathering agency, you know, and allowed.

That’s why it became so dangerous to standing empires, is because these people could organize and take you down. I, I like too that this is something that maybe doesn’t get specified enough when Illuminati comes up because the loot. Because usually when the, the term Illuminati comes up in conversation like, like this, it’s almost assumed that it’s like a global force, but we’re literally talking about a microcosm, a small area of Bavaria specifically. So that when the. The phrase of Illuminati infiltrated Freemasonry, it’s really meaning that within Bavaria, they realize that if we can get the worshipful master of a lodge and get him into the fold of this Bavarian Illuminati, then we can kind of guess that all of the other members of that lodge, even if they don’t also join, they’re kind of working at hest of someone that is of our same thinking.

They’re like one of our compatriots. So that’s very. A very specific but important delineation. We’re not saying that Bavarian Illuminati infiltrated worldwide masonry. It was in a very small area and that this is where it does get murky, that after L gets, you know, hit by the lightning bolt, which according to legend, he’s directly next to Adam Visop. They’re both on horses, and he’s the only one that gets hit. And Adam Visop’s just like, whoa. And he goes and hides behind a bush somewhere. And like the. The authorities come and find L and all the different papers in.

In his clothes. And then this is essentially the origin of that downfall. And this is. This is where legend maybe gets born too. And that the, that the fruit the Bayern Illuminati realized, you know, gigs up. They’re. They’re coming after us. Let’s go ahead and stop doing this Bavarian Illuminati stuff and just go back to lodge. Like, like normal sort of kids would do, like normal, respectable mesa. Well, there was another dynamic with the, the Masons being attracted to the Bavarian Illuminati. Correct me or, or fill in if, if I’ve got any of this murky, but my, my understanding is that there was a Lodge in Bavaria that was the Lodge of Strict Observance, and that they were going through sort of a contradictive period in which some of the Masons were claiming lineage to.

To the Templars, these Templarist Masons. And there was another group that was like, hey, this is a little bit murky. I don’t want to look like an idiot. I don’t want to go outside and have people making fun of me because they’re like, you’re not a real Templar. And I have to explain to them, I don’t really believe that, but my brother believes that. So they kind of were like, look, guys, cut it out. Until we can actually prove direct lineage to the Templars, stop bringing your chain mail and your swords and like, your SHIELD fields to Lodge because we don’t want a scene as LARPers like you guys are and that this sort of disenfranchisement, these guys that invested all their time and money into these swords and chain mail and stuff, they were like well I don’t want to go to Lodge anymore if I’m not allowed to bring my Templar outfit.

And the basically the Bavarian Illuminati were like hey if you guys love that Templar stuff, we’ve got the group for you. Like you can still come and larp with us and we won’t make fun of you and we like embrace. Face it, I’m sort of like, you know, like over grandizing this a little bit. Like I’m kind of tongue in cheek. But that’s, that’s sort of the broad strokes of how I understand that they were even able to attract the Masons to begin with. Leading to a specific question here. What do you think about the lineage of the Templars to the Freemasons? Is this wishful thinking on people that just like Masons that want to be Templar or do you think that there’s any valid connections there? Something I spent a lot of time on especially being a quote unquote Templar, you know, in the York.

Right. And everything. One of the things, you know, I err on the side of, of those kind of what I would believe to be more, more sensible of the two Masons. Two types of Masons in, in logistics, restricted observance and I would say look, there are major markers, right. But there’s no way to connect them historically. The best that we can do is say what we think happened. So on. I, I’m not going to go around and pretend stamping my foot that this is actual, you know, the, we’re the custodians of, of modern day Templary. We’re the, we’re the inheritors.

There’s enough there to kind of connect not and again not in any historical sense that is verifiable but there’s enough to raise a shadow of a doubt or maybe like just plausibility. Right. Plausible rather. I find it plausible rather than probable. That’s the best way I can put it. But to connect not only the Templars and the Freemasons but the Templars and the Rosicrucians. So there’s a lot of that. Also there’s the most compelling evidence for Masonry being derivative of Templary for me is this. There is a Sufi order called the Bektashi. Okay. And these guys were practicing around the time of The Crusades.

Now there’s a book called the Secrets of the Sufi Freemasons. And it goes into sort of the similarities between the Baktasi, Baktashi says sect of Sufism and, and, and craft lodging. I mean it’s down to officers. The, the, the, the like do guards, the signs and all that stuff are almost identical. So if there was one actually plausible line that I think deserves actual more attention rather than this Dan Brown, Roslyn Chapel sort of thing, is that study how the Sufis interacted with the Templars, particularly the Baktashi sect. I mean, this might have been disproven by now for me, from what to my understanding, Freemasonry may have inherited a lot from the Bektashi sect of Sufism, which is not a religion the way that we.

It was an actual order in the overarching, you know, Sufistic sort of, you know, mystical religion. And that is probably the best way for me to sort of connect those dots. But again, there’s nothing that is this, like, okay, okay, like chains, like links, like, okay, this one goes here, this one connects this way. But there’s definitely something there that gives me the idea of plausibility. There’s one other connection too, between Templars and Masons that sometimes it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to bring up. But I’m just curious. Do you think that there’s a reason why the work of Leo Taxel, a hundred years after he admitted that it was all a big hoax, he was just trolling everyone involved, involved, that it still gets cited in 2025 even as being some sort of like, documentation of Masons being accused of doing the same thing Templars were accused of doing, like worshiping these statues of Baphomet and doing all sorts of like, pagan sacrifices.

Do I think there’s a reason it still gets cited? I’m curious why in particular, like, what did Leo Taxel do that his, his, his work that he admitted was a hoax to just to rile people up that it still gets cited as research? Look, the thing, the main thing is this. What I have learned as a Masonic historian and an independent scholar is that people are reckless. They think they know how to do research and they don’t know what they don’t know. And I see it in sometimes in, in, in, you know, PhD level dissertations, I don’t know how to.

I’ll give you the best example because the most recent in my head, I saw a dissertation that talked about William Butler Yeats and William Butler Yeats is a Famous Irish poet, right? From the Fin de Sik, Ireland and England, right. He was a member of the Golden Dawn. He was the first class of the Golden Dawn. I saw research, actual academic research that was under peer review that’s a PhD student talking about comparing the poetry of William Butler Yeats to modern golden dawn ritual and how this could have influenced him and not realizing that the ritual as we see it today in Israel, Regardy’s black book and that are in love with, didn’t look like that when he was going through the Golden Dawn.

And it’s these kinds of blind spots that people don’t even think. You’re so outside the tradition, you’re so far out, you’re such an outsider that you don’t even know what you don’t know. But you persist anyway. Because the thing is, it’s become very accessible. We see people doing it all the time. People nowadays, we like to think of ourselves as like, shrewd and, and, and smart, intelligent. We don’t know how to think. You know, we’re so easily convinced by people who speak very confidently, use big words and, and you know, are telling us something that, you know, is like, contrarian, especially in America.

Americans love contrarianism. You know, that whole like, gotcha moment where the. That doesn’t mean it’s true. It doesn’t mean that it’s true. It’s just exotic. And most of all, all those problems aside, which are endemic, all those problems aside, people want to put a target on freemasonry for multiple reasons, the first of which being you always fear what you don’t understand. And to me, I see us as a group of men, at least on the local level. Right? Again, I’m not exonerating it of anything wrong. Because the thing is, like I said, all institutions will be human, good and bad at different levels.

But on the local level, my experience has been nothing other than just men who get together in solidarity and fraternity eternity and coach each other through the hardships of life. There’s some things that a man can only learn from a woman, but there’s some things that a man can only learn from a man. And the same for women, you know, and as a generation of men, including myself, that are. We’re bereft of positive male role models, this is a healing event for me. And this is, this is an incredible thing. And we do, we do charity, we do blood drives, we do go to the veterans hall, drop off food and, and things like that.

And we do give money. So there’s that, that you know, that, that wholesomeness. And I think that for a lot of reasons that is not, I’ll put it this way, that is not what the movement of society wants. Strong male groups right now. And so yes, it’s, of course there’s gonna be a prolonged effort to put a target on our chest. And they have, right? I mean, they murdered that guy point blank, that brother, point blank. I think out of Tennessee last year. They bombed, bombed. They firebombed the York or the Scottish, right? In, in Athens, Greece.

We’ve had multiple bricks thrown through our windows in, in Asheville. So yeah, they foment this distrust and I think that it’s, it’s very alluring, it’s very attractive to say here, look, men, scapegoats, they’re the source, they’re the problem. Because otherwise it’s a phantom that’s diffuse. You can’t see, you can’t see what is tormenting you in, in modern society if you don’t have a group of people to blame it on. And that’s not just for Freemasons. Every group has another group they’re blaming their problems on, you know, so Ike Baker, we could keep going and going, but I like to try and run a tight ship here.

I’m going to get you out of here. I want to just invite you to, to talk a little bit more about this on location field immersion that you’re doing in Egypt. Or you got like 16 participants. It’s like a nine day thing. Tell more about that because that sounds fascinating. Yeah. So we’re still in registration. We’ve got a couple more seats left. Closes March 21. I’m going to be taking 16 participants on a field immersive excursion through Upper and Lower Egypt. This will be on site. It’s going to be nine days, eight nights. We are going to be, we have private access to almost all the temples, the ancient temples that we’re stopping at.

So the temple to Hathor at Dendara, the Osirian, the temple of Osiris at Abydos, the sanctuary of the goddess Sekhmet. And we even have a three night stay on Kings Island, a private island in the middle of the Nile. We’re going to be learning about the history, theory and most importantly the practice of what is called Greco Egyptian theurgy. So these are, these are techniques of using ceremonial ritual, for lack of a better term, magic for the purposes of spiritual elevation and catharsis, which is a kind of purification related to the elevation of the soul. And I’ve reconstructed These rituals from over 60 primary sources including the Greek magical papyri on the mysteries by Iamlichus on the hieratic art by Proclus de Anima by by Iamblichus, the Chaldean oracles.

I can keep going. I won’t. We did a digital open house where I explained the itinerary, gave a lot of a few of my sources and show how I reconstructing these and went through the price points and that’s on the Arcanum YouTube channel. Again it’s techniques of Greco Egyptian theurgy. We are going to be heavily practical in all this staying at wonderful results retreat centers to also have one on one and group discussion and exercises and it’s truly going to be a life changing event. I’ve curated the material so that it’s not just a group thing particularly each participant will be actively pursuing their own personal initiatory journey and there’s some onboarding materials and for people that are interested they can reach out to me me to ask questions and find out more on my website.

That’s ikebaker.com, i K-E B A K E R.com lastly, my book is a formless Rediscovering the Magical Traditions of the West. I go through the history, theory and the practice of of magic from from antiquity to the modern day that’s out now. But I do have a new book coming out in April on Llewellyn Worldwide that’s called Etheric Magic Magic A complete system of elemental, celestial and alchemical magic and that is a complete system of the integration of Eastern energy work techniques into Western ceremonial by way of the symbol systems of Western alchemy and the Kabbalah.

So that’s going to be a very, very practice oriented book and I’m hoping that you guys will check it out. You can pre order it now on Llewellyn, Barnes and Noble or Books a million. And as you’d expect, I’ll have all the links to all the things that we talked about in the comments. Ike Brother Baker, thank you again for spending time with me, letting me ask you about Bigfoot and aliens and and NASA and stuff. These are my favorite topics ever. So thank you so much. This was an awesome conversation. I’m, I’m loving everything that you’re doing.

I love the challenging stuff. I love the fun stuff. I love it all. I think that you are an extremely skilled interviewer and podcast shows and I’d love to come back on anytime. So thank you very much. It’s been A pleasure to meet, meet and speak with you. Likewise, I appreciate it. And until next time, go and check out the links and and support Ike and everything that he’s doing. So thank you guys. Ready for a cosmic conspiracy about Stanley Kubrick, moon landings and the CIA? Go visit nasacomic.com NASA comic.com CIA Ellie Kubrick put us on that’s why we’re singing this song NASA.com go visit NASA comic.com yeah go visit NASA comet.com nessocomic.com CIA’s biggest con Stanley Kubrick put us on that’s why we’re singing this song about NASA comic.com go visit NASA comic.com go visit NASA comic.com yeah go visit night NASA never a straight answer is a 40 page comic about Stanley Kubrick directing the Apollo space missions.

This is the perfect read for comic Kubrick or conspiracy fans of all ages. For more details visit NASA comic.com yeah I scribbled my life away driven the right to page Will it enlight your brain give you the flight my plane paper the highs ablaze somewhat of an amazing feel when it’s real to real you will engage it your favorite of course the lord of an arrangement I gave you the proper results to hit the pavement if they get emotional hey maybe your language a game hurt how they playing it well without Lakers evade them whatever the cost they are to shapeshift snakes get decapitated met is the apex execution of flame you out Nuclear bomb distributed at war rather gruesome for eyes to see Max them out that I light my trees blow it off in the face you’re despising me for what though calculated and rather cutthroat paranoid American must be all the blood smoke for real Lord give me your day your way vacate they wait around to hate whatever they say man it’s not in the least bit we get heavy rotate when a beat hits so than cuz you’re welcome for real you’re welcome.

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