Born In Blood: The Lost Ties of Templars

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
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Join on the level podcast as weplumb the depths of our ancient
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and utilize the teachings offreemasonry to unlock the
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(00:33):
Let's go, let's get it A lot ofmaterial on that one.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh, please, please, everybody sit down, please.
Thank you so much.
I know people Welcome back Matt.
What is up?
Chris, my brother, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'm feeling good.
We are here today.
We are here At long last toaddress a book I long have
sought to talk about publicly.
It is called Born in Blood.
Such a good book, born in Blood, by John R Robinson.
Wow, I don't know how you cameacross the book.
I don't know if I recommendedit to you or if you got that on

(01:17):
your own, but I'm pretty sureit's been.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
A lot of the brothers have recommended that.
They've recommended the LostKeys of Solomon, some of the
other ones that they'verecommended, but yeah, there's
so many masonic books out therethis is a book that I recommend
to every mason that comes tosarasota 147.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
There is a lengthy process, as you all know, to
join the fraternity.
You've got to wait 30 days,gotta be held over, right,
another boat has to happen.
So you're talking six weeksminimum, probably from the time
you petition, when you get youreditor, and it's great easily
most likely more than six weeks.
This is a book you can read insix weeks.
It actually might take you allof six weeks to read it.
It's not a small book and it isfull of history and a little

(02:03):
bit of hypothesizing, a littlebit, but mostly history.
So it does raise some reallyinteresting questions.
This book is one I recommend,and I always recommend
freemasonry for dummies.
Two very good things for peoplethat are waiting for that.
Don't go online and startresearching stuff if you're
going to join freemasonry,because you're just going to

(02:23):
spoil it for yourself.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Unless you're finding it strictly here at On the
Level Podcast, where we try ourbest to dispel the fallacies and
the garbage being said aboutMasonry.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yes, we do, and we just released one a couple of
podcasts ago about 10 thingsthat people say that aren't real
.
You'll find that kind ofcontent here, but we will also
delve deeply into things aboutthe fraternity.
Right now this isn'tnecessarily about the fraternity
, but it kind of is in a way,because Freemasonry is somewhat
involved in the story of thisbook and the ties between the

(02:57):
Knight Templar and Freemasonry Ikind of brought up in this book
, which, it needs to be said atthe onset, brothers, and it
doesn't matter who you are inthe fraternity.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
What needs to be said is that we're going to be
discussing some things out ofthis book.
That is going to seem like weare violating our obligation,
but it needs to be noted thatjohn robinson was never a mason.
He was never a mason.
He became a masonic historian,yeah, just because he was so
fascinated with this story andthe ties and everything.
So some of the things thatwe're going to cover today is
going to be about some of thethings that were in the lodge,

(03:27):
some of the history of the lodge, some of the history with the
Knights Templars.
It's going to seem like we'reviolating our obligation, but
we're not.
These are all things that areprinted in this book, so we're
not going to reveal the secretsof the goats and the green beans
, so please don't be scaredabout that.
That's not what we're doinghere today.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
No, and, as you said, he wasn't a Freemason and I
don't believe he ever became aFreemason, but he was a
historian.
So he set out to write a bookabout the Peasants' Revolt, and
in his research he uncovered somuch interesting material that
it became something more thanthat.
His book is heavily researched.

(04:04):
It became something more thanthat.
His book is heavily researchedand, in my opinion and also
scholars the book presents somewell-argued cases for previously
unexplored connections betweenFreemasonry proper and the
Knights Templar of old.
It's gained a strong followingamong both historians and
Freemasons, sparking an ongoingdebate about the real origins of

(04:26):
the Masonic Order.
So you know, this is somethingthat people can get really
touchy about.
We, worshipful David Finkelstein, used to go around my district
doing a debate.
We had a Masonic education thatwe framed in the form of a
debate, where he took theposition that there was
absolutely no connection betweenKnights Templar and Freemasonry

(04:49):
and I took yeah, he took thatposition of no, this is all made
up, fantasy, you can't find anyproof of this.
Okay, I took the position ofthere's so much overwhelming
proof of this, you're crazy fornot believing.
And so we did a debate, wewould do a debate, and I would
always start by saying wouldanyone that is a Knight Templar

(05:09):
in New York please raise yourhand, and you'd see my hands go
up and I'd throw my papers awayand go.
They're sober, because I hateto tell you, my brothers, that
we have a degree and you areconfirmed the title of Knight
Templar and you have a dues cardthat says Knight Templar on it
and people call you sir.
So there is a strong connectionbetween the Knight Templar and

(05:32):
Freemasonry.
Now what you're going to hearis that that was all made up.
That degree was made up yearsafter Freemasonry became public
and it wasn't part of ouroriginal work.
I would still argue why do wehave positions like the marshal
in our life, which is a militantterm?
Why would we have a militaryposition if we were an esoteric
kind of like uh thinking man'sgroup?

(05:54):
Why would we include a militaryposition as a position of power
?
It's an officer in our, inevery lives that one doesn't
make sense to me.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Still, I actually met in gosh hollywood, florida,
which is just north of miami.
I went down there for a medicaltraining class and I met a guy
who, whenever I walked into hisstore it was a, it was a gun
store, um, and we were holdingthe class inside the gun store
there is, there are KnightsTemplar stuff everywhere.

(06:25):
When I mean everywhere, I'mtalking like there was like a
medical diagram over here of howto apply a tourniquet and then
right next to it was like aplaque for Templars.
So I ended up talking to theguy and I was like, hey, you
know, brother, you know, andcause I think I was an entered
apprentice at that time, youknow, so I addressed him as
brother and, you know, wanted tochat with him a little bit more
.
And then he's like I was likeall right, so where were you
raised at?
And he's like raised.
I was like, yeah, where wereyou raised at?

(06:46):
He's like no, I'm part of theother Knights Templar.
He's like we're the realKnights Templar.
Now, the funny thing about itwas is, as I was talking to him
a little bit, apparently, yeah,there's two different orders of
Knights Templar branch of theMasonic appendant body, the York
Rite, yeah, and so it was superinteresting because he still

(07:07):
referred to me as brother.
So the two organizations dolook at each other
affectionately and, of course,we'll have each other's backs.
We communicate.
There's another one online Ideal with called Idaho Templar,
who is a fantastic individual,but I think he's a York Rite
Mason.
So either way, they're twoorganizations that are different
, but they still look at eachother affectionately.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
So it makes sense to me there would be more than one
group that survives through ourtime.
There wouldn't be just onegroup.
You know, look at any majorinstitution and bits of the
truth survive in each of them,right?
Like we talked about this whenwe covered Christianity, I think
there were 400 somethingdenominations today which

(07:53):
started with just one.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
It wouldn't be unreasonable to believe that
there would be more than oneKnight Templar, which even still
I just pulled it up just forkicks and giggles the Knights
Templar of is the, is theorganization.
It is a 501c3 upholding theideals of chivalry and christian
religious commitment andprotection, crusade historical
research and finding today'senemy of society, namely disease

(08:18):
and social distress, throughcharitable efforts and
fundraising.
So that's the actualnon-masonic branch of the
Knights Templars.
But again, we all look at eachother as brothers.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, okay, so let's get into this.
We are going to talk a lotabout the Knight Templars
because it's a lot of this book.
So the Knight Templars ifyou're going to talk about what
we know for sure, about theKnight Templar, we know that
they were a powerful medievalmilitary and religious order
founded in the early 12thcentury during the Crusades.
That's not disputed.

(08:50):
Initially, they were taskedwith protecting Christian
pilgrims traveling from the HolyLand.
The order quickly grew in power, amassing vast wealth and
political influence.
Their sophisticated financialnetwork made them the medieval
equivalent of bankers and I'veheard it often said that
Templars invented the bankingsystem and they did involve

(09:15):
themselves in lending money tomonarchs and managing large
estates.
Now, that also probably led totheir downfall.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yes, for some odd reason reason and call me crazy
here whenever you gain morewealth, mass and power than both
the crown and the catholicchurch during the medieval times
, it kind of puts you on a radarthat you don't want to be on
yeah, that's probably not a goodplace to be for two off.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Probably not the best thing, not for two off.
Maybe in peace time it's okay.
Definitely they did it wrong.
So let's talk about the firstpart of that.
How did the poor fellows rightthat their symbol literally was
two knights riding on one horsebecause they couldn't afford

(10:01):
enough money to have a horse forevery man?
And you'll see, I have KnightTemplar's shield and sword back
here and that symbolism is allover it.
It's a horse with two knightson it, and that's how you knew
who the Knight Templars were.
They were originally called theFour Knights of Solomon's Temple
, or something along those lines, I believe, because they did

(10:22):
guard Solomon's Temple and theydid guard pilgrims making their
way to Solomon's Temple to seethe ruins.
Now, from what I understand,one of the ways they could help
protect pilgrims on their way isthey set up consistories where
they would have an establishmentin this city and have an

(10:43):
establishment in another city.
That was protected because itwas a military order, although
it was sanctioned by theCatholic Church at the time.
They were elite fighters.
Right, these were knights.
These were not just somewilly-nilly guys who were
church-going people that pickedup swords.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
They were trained and lived as warriors, and not only
that, but if you look at a lotof what, the characteristics
that they put into theirsoldiers, it wasn't too
dissimilar from the Spartansabout a thousand years prior to.
So the Spartans fell about.
Oh sorry, the Battle ofThermopylae or the Battle of 300
happened just a couple of yearsbefore Christ.
So we're talking about thedifference between BC and AD.

(11:24):
So when I say a couple of years, I'm talking as like 100 to 200
years before Christ.
So what you have is in Spartaand with the Knights Templars is
they weren't allowed to read.
Their entire focus in life wasto be a warrior.
That was their entire focus.
So it's like reading, writingup.
You don't need that.
You need them to learn how tothrow a spear, you need to learn

(11:49):
how to wield a sword, you needto learn battle tactics.
That was their entire reasonfor existing.
So I think a lot of people kindof get a little confused with
that, where they're like oh no,these were well-read people.
No, they couldn't read at all.
You know the original KnightsTemplar.
I should say they could notread at all, but then, as they
began to progress between 11 and, say, 1300, it got to the point
where they could read, wherethey had copies of the
scriptures, where they haddocuments and stuff like that.

(12:10):
Jacques de Molay, before we getinto it, jacques de Molay took
them back to their originalroots before the downfall.
So that's just kind of think of, that's the mentality of the
person that we're dealing withwhenever we talk about these
warrior monks.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Another good connection with the Freemasonry
of today and the old KnightTemplars is, you just said the
last Grandmaster of the Orders'name was Jacques de Molay, and
we have an order for our Masonicyouth we revere in Freemasonry
called the Molay International.
So another link between modernFreemasonry in the night

(12:44):
templars of old.
Yeah, now, what we were sayingis their main purpose.
What they were sanctioned fromthe church for was obviously to
fight in crusade, but also toguard these, uh, pilgrims, and
they were traveling from thewest to the east.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
What why would one leave the west and travel east,
chris?

Speaker 1 (13:01):
well they were uh, I'm not going to answer that.
Uh, I'm not gonna answer thatin the way that you want me to,
because I am, uh, still a cardcarrying freebies the next
templar could take.
They got to the point wherethey were so well
institutionalized that theycould take your money, your
property, and bring it intotheir organization, check it in,

(13:25):
make an accounting of it, andthen they could give you a
secret password or a secrethandshake only you knew, just
you.
And then you could travel tothe holy land and you wouldn't
have to be at risk for all ofthese things being stolen from
you that are so important.
And then, when you got there,you could go to the consistory
for the templars and pick upyour stuff, and all you had to

(13:48):
do was give them your secretpassword or your secret
handshake, whatever the case was, and they would know that it
was you and that you, you wouldbe given your stuff and it would
be unmolested.
And so this is where the idea ofbanking came from.
Right, I could put my stuff inin a place and they they charged
a tax to do this and theybasically took all the risk for

(14:10):
me, and they almost I'm surethey gave some kind of a
guarantee that they would gettheir stuff when they got to the
place they were going, so youcould literally just go to an
atm.
Essentially it was like thefirst banking system, and so
they made a lot of money doingthis, not just on the routes of
pilgrims visiting the Temple ofSolomon, but also all throughout
the modern world at that timeEngland and France, you know

(14:33):
everywhere and they becameextremely wealthy because church
patrons, as they became morefamous, started to grant them a
lot of lands that were incomeproducing.
So they had lands given to themthat produced income and they
were very good at producingtheir own sources of income,
like this kind of banking.
And they grew big enough thatthey had their own everything.

(14:57):
They had their own military,they had their own navy they had
built up a pretty they had amassive naval fleet, it was
insane because they wanted they.
Obviously one of the challengesof transporting your stuff
overseas was pirates and otherthings like that, so you needed
protection, just like it wasover land, and they could

(15:18):
protect you and your assets inthat way, because they had an
awesome need always got to coveryour assets.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
That's a rule of life you know.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
so you think about it like these people.
Um, it came from a couple ofguys to this huge institutional
organization, where they hadtheir own architects, they had
their own artists, they hadtheir own biblical scholars.
They have their own militaryorganization, they have their
own biblical scholars, they havetheir own military organization

(15:48):
, they have their own bankingarm and financial and Navy
fleets.
This is a huge organizationthat was well known to the world
at the time and well respectedand trusted by everybody at the
time.
You know, and their purpose.
As we, as Freemasons, whatwe're most interested in is it
really we share the commonancestry of Solomon's Temple.
The story, the allegory ofFreemasonry is the building of

(16:10):
King Solomon's Temple atJerusalem, and all of the three
degrees relate to that story andthe characters around the
building of Solomon's Temple andthe Knights Templar's very
creation and purpose forexisting was also revolving
around Solomon's Temple.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, so essentially what we have, because I do want
to get into the symbolism,specifically the mosaic floor,
the symbol in the back that hasthe dot, the circle and the two
lines on the outside.
There's a lot of symbolism thatI really would like to get into
, but it needs to be said thatwhat we're going to talk about
today is actually highlycontested, and so there's some

(16:48):
people that are Masonichistorians that they think John
Robinson was off his rocker,that there's no connection to
the Knights Templar whatsoever.
There are certain people whothink there is a connection
between Freemasons and KnightsTemplar and, to be fair, I'm in
that camp.
So if you disagree, we want tohear from you.
So definitely leave a commentdown below.
If you have, from a historicalperspective, if you have another

(17:08):
opinion on John Robinson's work, on the connection between the
Knights Templar and the Masons,we want to hear it.
So definitely leave a commentbelow.
Let us hear about it.
The thing that I found the mostinteresting is that with these
Knights Templars I mean you'vegot this is just like a constant
back and forth betweenChristianity and Islam During
this time frame between, youknow, 11 to around 1300, it was

(17:30):
just back and forth, back andforth.
So think Kingdom of Heaven, youknow, with Orlando Bloom and
Liam Neeson Fantastic movie,great movie, no, fantastic.
So think something along thoselines.
This is the era in the timeframe that we're dealing with.
But what we're also dealingwith in this time frame is heavy
political corruption, and notonly is it political corruption

(17:50):
from the crowns plural but youalso have political corruption
within the church, and so youhave popes that are compromised,
you know, and they'recompromised to the crown, or
they're compromised to theKnights Templar, and we're
talking about France, right?

Speaker 1 (18:01):
now.
Yeah, that's where they wereheadquartered was in france, but
they weren't all exclusivelyfrance.
The knights templars had holdsin england and malta and other
places around the modern worldat the time.
So there's a whole like thepart where people get a little
bit scared to talk about this,because this book doesn't

(18:23):
specifically cover this, but danbrown wrote some about this
that, oh, they discovered someholy relics that were lost in
solomon's temple when theyexcavated it, and this is how
they got so much power andinfluence, because they had uh,
for instance, they may haveuncovered the ark of the
covenant, or they may haveuncovered the Ark of the
Covenant, or they may haveuncovered documentation that

(18:46):
Jesus was married to Magdaleneand they had a child together.
These are all the things thatno one can prove and that's why
they don't want to talk aboutthis.
Blake loves Knights Templar andSolomon's Temple.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
I think my favorite conspiracy theory on what the
Knights Templars found wheneverthey went on their last
expedition and then theyrevolted against the crown was
that they found that the theyfound the Emerald Tablet of
Atlantis.
This is a conspiracy theorythat they found the Emerald
Tablet of Atlantis and theyfound out humanity's origins,
that we were actually plantedhere by the Anunnaki.

(19:21):
We're not going to get into theAnunnaki, but it is a fantastic
story.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
I'd love to do an episode on that, because I'm all
about that.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
obviously I've done quite a bit of research on it.
I'm trying to figure out how wecan tie Freemasonry to the
Anunnaki.
But that is going to send theBaptist ministers ablaze is what
it's going to do.
We can't officially do it.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
They're worshiping space aliens, it's like okay, I
mean, this was uh, it's reallyinteresting, you know, when you
look at it historically.
But we don't know.
We don't know what the templarsmay have or may not have
uncovered when they wereinvolved around the temple of
solomon.
It's it does seem reasonablethat they would have recovered

(20:01):
things because they spent somuch time there and had so much
unlimited access, like no onehad before, right, and here's,
and here's the most frustratingpart.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
the most frustrating part is any time back in the old
world and by old world I'mtalking, you know, medieval
times and prior any time thatyou have a nation or a group of
people that dominate aneighboring nation or any type
of type of anything like that,they would burn the libraries,
they would burn all historicalrecords, anything they had.

(20:29):
So there is so much aboutcivilization before the 15 and
1600s that we just don't know,and so that kind of leads back
to that phrase that I use a lotof.
The times is that history iswritten by the victor.
Whoever won, they get to nowrewrite history, and every
villain is the hero of their ownstory.
There's no person that sets outgoing, oh well, I'm going to be
the bad guy.
Unless you're the Joker inBatman, then at that point you

(20:50):
want to be the bad guy.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
So that's kind of what we're dealing with here.
So take all of this with agrain of salt.
John Robinson's writings, ourcommentary, every single bit of
this.
You've got to take this with agrain of salt because there is
so much of history that is lost.
I would argue the majority ofit is now lost to time and fires
, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
And even our great fraternity is we've been only
public for 300 years, a littleover 300 years now.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, and look at what happened during the
occupation of Nazi Germany inthe 90s A lot of those lodges
that Hitler ransacked.
They ended up burning a lot oftheir stuff because they did not
want the Nazi regime to get ahold of their records and their
stuff.
So keep in mind, Hitler was notfriendly to Nazis.
A lot of people are like oh no,like he joined, you know
Freemasonry.
No, Hitler was never aFreemason.

(21:35):
Hitler bad, let's be clearabout this.
Hitler bad, Hitler bad, no,likey, yeah, no likey Hitler.
So so that.
But that's what you have isagain.
Anytime there's any sort ofissues, it's just burned, and so
you lose, unfortunately, youlearn all those, you lose all
those historical records.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
People think they know the truth.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
You only know what you've been told and what people
you respect told you, you onlyknow whatever the winner of that
fight wants you to know whatsurvived through time is what
you know.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yep, that's all you know.
So we like to think about whatcould be okay and we have some
existing facts and things thatexist today that we can point to
, that say that's an interestingconnection.
So, okay, templars, get huge,get big and, as we said, they're
part of institutions like theCatholic Church.
They also wind up lending moneyto kings and at the time, of

(22:28):
course, if you've ever seenBraveheart, you're aware that
England was at war with Francebecause William Wallace fought
for freedom from England, fromScotland, and England was also
at war with France at the time.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
So there was a lot going on which, by the way, and
I'm sorry to interrupt, butbefore I read this book, I legit
thought William Wallace was atotally fictional character.
And then come to find out no,it was legit.
Like yeah, I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, totally a hero, for the Scots try to get their
independence from England andyou know the Freemasons were
bankrolling freights in theirwar with England.
And Philip the Fair, who wasthe king of England, who
basically owned the church atthe time, because if you wanted
to control the people you had tocontrol the church, right, yeah

(23:14):
, for sure that was done.
So he told his lackey, thecardinal or the pope I can't
remember his name, but I'm sureyou have it somewhere cardinal
who made the papal bull,basically declaring that the
Freemasons were enemies of thechurch that they had committed

(23:37):
crimes that they needed to beheld account for.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
So I knew that came out in around 1307 with Pope
Clement V.
There it is Pope Clement V,yeah, so you have King Philip IV
and Pope Clement V.
And again, that was in 1307when we finally saw that there
was essentially the end.
Now, keep in mind, before thisyes, in 1307 is whenever it was
the, you know, friday the 13ththey sent out the order for it

(24:01):
was actually Friday, october13th 1307, which was Friday the
13th, right, and so what theysay, and that's where the bad
omen for Friday the 13th comesfrom.
So, but what you have is theysend out this order, and
whenever they send out thisorder, it is capture all the

(24:21):
Knights Templars that you canfind, capture or kill all the
Knights Templars you can find.
And then they went on formonths just torturing these guys
, and that's where you get a lotof the foul speak about
Freemasonry is because a lot ofthese Knights Templar, they
confess to crimes that theydidn't actually commit.
So they confess to homosexualactivity, they confess to
spitting on the cross, toworshipping Baphomet, which is
weird, because Baphomet reallydidn't make an appearance until

(24:43):
much later.
So, again, there were theseweird things that they ended up
getting these guys to confess to, just based off of methods of
torture, which were verycreative, by the way.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
This was standard operating procedure at the time.
If you needed something, youneeded somebody to go away.
You accused them of heresy andthe catholics sent the
inquisitors, and after enoughtorture, you said whatever they
wanted you to say, and then theykilled because it was basically
that the the thought process isyou're going to die?

Speaker 2 (25:11):
oh, it is your decision on if you die slow or
die fast right and we got acomment here in the live stream,
sean.
Thank you, brother, sean.
After world war, IForget-Me-Not flower was used as
a Masonic emblem in 1948 at thefirst annual convention of
United Grand Lodges of Germany.
The badge is now worn in thecoat lapel by Freemasons around
the world to remember all whosuffered in the name of

(25:33):
Freemasonry, especially thoseduring the Nazi era.
So yeah, and we've actuallyseen a resurgent of that
Forget-Me-Not flower recently.
Not going to say why We've seena resurgent of that
forget-me-not flower recently.
I'm not going to say why We'veseen a resurgence of that same
flower and, to be fair, that'sthe blue flower, right?

Speaker 1 (25:47):
The white and blue flower Okay.
Okay.
So Philip the Fair has beenborrowing so much money from the
Templars in his war withEngland that he decides you know
what, I can get the Navy, I canget all the consistories, I can
get the all the architecture.
These guys have builteverything.
All I got to do is arrest them.
So they make a plan on friday,the 13th in october of 1307,

(26:10):
they're going to round up allthe templars, they're going to
raid them and they're going tohaul them in and they're going
to excuse them as heresy.
Now, you know people, okay,crap always gets out.
You have a plan.
It leaks, it's always gonnaleak, and it leaked.
And not all of the templars wereactually captured because word
got out, but in france more thanin england, because in england

(26:34):
it took them several months toactually raid.
Since they were at war withengland, it took them a lot
longer to get in there andactually raid the Templars in
England.
And in England a lot of theTemplars are very close with the
king and the king's son at thetime was literally learning to
fight from Templars.
So they had a favorablerelationship with the Templars.
They didn't view them as badlyas they did in France.

(26:56):
So a lot of English.
I think there were only like ahandful of English Templars that
were ever brought to Justin.
Most of them fled to anothercountry.
We know that a lot of them wentto Scotland and Malta and other
islands and there is a greatalleged link between the Navy
fleet that was never captured.

(27:16):
The Templars Navy fleet wasnever captured.
Where did it go?
Do you remember or do you havean idea of where it?

Speaker 2 (27:25):
might have gone.
I am in the camp Now there's alot of different thoughts on
this.
I am in the camp that theTemplars ended up sailing across
the Big Blue, as it were.
They hopped across the pond andwe end up seeing their
descendants in the piratesbetween 15 and 1700 in the

(27:46):
Caribbean area.
Because, especially if youlooked at a lot of their rules,
you look at a lot of theirinitiation, their ritual, their
battle tactics, everything,their flag yeah, their flag is a
big one.
You know, what you see is yousee a lot of similarities
between all of those.
And actually I pulled somethingup on this, if you're okay with
me reading it real fast.
One of the more interestingtheories about pirates

(28:07):
concerning their associationwith the Knights, templar
Survivors of the TemplarMassacre sailed on 18 Templar
ships from France to Scotland inOctober, on Friday the 13th in
1307.
So, yes, something leaked outTo the safety of King Robert de
Bruce, who had beenexcommunicated by the Pope, the

(28:27):
ships.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, you know who William de Bruce is right, there
you go.
That was the guy who was withWilliam Wallace, who wound up
finishing his plan to getindependence Nice.
So that's the.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Robert de Bruce they're talking about.
Okay, nice.
So the ships, as well as theTemplars, were never found In
the Masonic Lodges that followed.
There is an allusion in theinitiation rite of the Master
Mason this initiation will makeyou brother to pirates and
corsairs.
So this is what we were talkingabout last time.
Is this a recollection of thevanished Templar ships that we

(28:59):
speculate turned to piracy toavenge themselves on the
Catholic Church and Europeanmonarchies who tortured their
brothers?
The connection becomes moreplausible if we remember that
one of the symbols associatedwith the master mason's degree
is the skull and crossbones on ablack background.
The Jolly Roger should befamiliar to every schoolchild.
The plot thickens just enoughto make listening to pirate

(29:23):
tales an enjoyable way to spenda lazy October afternoon.
Bartholomew's articles no womenallowed on board.
Any man caught stealing shallbe marooned.
All pistols and cutlasses willbe kept clean.
All important decisions to beput to a vote.
All cruise quarters will besettled on shore.
Sorry, cruise quarrels will besettled on shore.
Injuries to be compensated Anyman who loses a limb in battle

(29:46):
shall receive extra booty.
Hey, keep that booty.
He said.
Receive extra.
The captain and quartermasterto receive two shares of the
booty the master gunner and boatswain one and a half shares.
Other officers one and aquarter shares.
Other officers one and aquarter shares.
All others one share each.
Any man who deserts ship inbattle shall be put to death.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
So they had a code of honor, they had a code of honor
, and it makes sense, if youthink about it, that the
descendants of this militaryorganization that were
well-organized, well-trained andvery spiritual would have an
axe to grind with those people.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
I mean it makes sense to be honest with you.
And here's the unfortunatething.
So I've been through the YorkRite, so I know about the skull
and the crossbones.
Now I think you wrotelegislation on the room of
reflection.
I never went through a room ofreflection.
Does it have that in there?
I mean it's not Masonic ritualanymore, so we can talk about it
Both.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
the York Rite and the Scottish Rite have rooms of
reflection as part of variousdegrees.
It's just they removed it fromFreemasonry prop in America.
So we did.
I did an interview with a pastmaster of my lodge, worshipful
Garcia, who's from Puerto Rico,and it is still part of their

(31:05):
ritual.
Nice, they take them intoideally an underground room that
looks like a cave and theyreflect in front of a mirror
with a stone across the bones aswell as other symbols.
It's a whole procedure that'smeant to make you reflect on
your mortality and your place inthe human race before you
become an interdependent.

(31:25):
It's a really beautifulceremony.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
I could see doing that for before the master Mason
degree.
But from an interdependentdegree perspective, yeah, that
would kind of freak me out alittle bit, like for me it would
be cool, because I'm into thatsort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Well, you need to write down, for example is there
anyone on this planet that youhave issue with?
Yes, that if you were to die,you would feel like I wish I had
settled that.
You should probably settle thatbefore you join the fraternity.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Do you want it alphabetically or
chronologically?

Speaker 1 (31:55):
That's like one of the things that is handled in
the.
It makes you reflect on yourlife.
Where are you at?
Am I ready to receive this?
Am I really ready to become aFreemason?
And you need to do it beforeyou're an entered apprentice, I
think, Because once you're anentered apprentice, you're a
Freemason.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
You are a Freemason but there's so much still hidden
from you.
That's why I'm suggestingputting it before the Master
Mason degree is because wheneveryou're an entered apprentice
you don't know what you'regetting into.
I mean, you know you kind ofget a rough idea and if you've
done a little bit of research onit you know you probably have a
little bit better of an idea.
But there's just so much in thedegrees.
That is just.
You know it's not talked about.

(32:31):
Obviously it's not talked about.
You're not warned aboutanything.
No, I went to the york rightfestival in tampa and so it was
so funny because, as I'm doingit, like the old guys who were

(32:52):
there are trying to freak me outa little bit.
So like there was one guy helike bumped a table and knocked
a pencil off the table and and Iwas, you know, I went to go
reach down and grab it for himand he was like wait a second,
you're one of the initiatestoday, aren't you?
And I said yeah, and he goes,you mind grabbing that pencil
for me?
I want to see how well you bendover.
I'm like I will beat you withthat cane you're carrying.
So they try to get in your head.

(33:15):
But, brothers, if you're, ifyou're looking at going down the
york right scottite, or even ifyou're like an EA or a fellow
craft, I want to be very, veryclear about this.
There is nothing weird thathappens in those rituals.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
You're going to get the old guys that like to get a
laugh out of you, but that'sabout it and, to be honest with
you, the fact that they do anykind of hazing or horseplay is
really against what thefraternity teaches us and how to
treat candidates, becausecandidates should understand
that what they're about to gothrough is a very solemn kind of

(33:47):
a uh is we are supposed totreat this with the utmost
respect and to impress upon theperson that what you're going to
experience should belife-changing.
And you know what often happensbecause we do so many degrees
like the reality is we are justtrying to have fun with our
friends or putting on degrees,and you do make jokes, you make

(34:08):
light of things.
It really isn't how it'ssupposed to be, and so I would
encourage you, if you are aritualist involved in doing
degrees in freemasonry, rememberthat this is the only time this
person's ever going to get thisdegree, and it starts the
moment they walk in the building.
How you act, how you talk tothem, how you look, how you
carry yourself All that stuffwill have an impact on their day

(34:30):
.
Take a minute and try to be alittle more serious about it for
the brothers that you bring,which even still I mean that's a
fantastic point is I have not.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
you know, for example , I think it was last weekend we
did an inner apprentice degreewhere we initiated five brothers
over at Lakeland Lodge 91.
It was, it was fantastic.
So yeah, of course I made alittle smart aleck joke as I
walked by him right before thedegree started.
I said, ah, the victims, youknow, just kind of goofing
around.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
You know.
But at the same time I cameback by before they ever came
into the room and I said guys, Iwant to be very clear about
this, because this is what wastold to me.
I want to be very clear aboutthis there's nothing in here
that's going to hurt you,nothing is going to be asked of
you that will compromiseanything that you hold sacred or
value.
And all of us have been throughthis and all of us are still

(35:18):
walking normally.
So there's nothing weird that'sgoing to happen in here.
And here's the best way I candescribe it to the profane.
But what the profane needs toknow is essentially what the
degrees are, and it doesn'tmatter if it's in the three

(35:39):
degrees of Freemasonry, so it'sokay.
What is this moral lesson?
So, for example, when I went inthe York Rite, there was a
chamber of reflection in theYork Rite.
I loved it, I absolutely lovedit.
You're there, you read apassage of scripture and you now
have to reflect on your lifeand it really kind of helps you
retool and rethink, kind of,what you're doing, how you're
looking at these things, howyou're doing how you're looking

(36:06):
at these things, how you'relooking at these lessons.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
That's what needs to happen during these degrees, not
the gentle hazing that some ofthe people do.
It's true, and I think it'sgood that you do that, because
you know people hear a lot ofweird things about this
fraternity.
I remember being I had a lot ofanxiety beforehand because I
didn't know what to expect.
The not knowing does cause alot of anxiety, so it is a
relief for someone to say don'tworry, no one's going to hurt
you or embarrass you like that.
That helps a lot, I think, andI was told the same thing.

(36:30):
I was told hey, listen, you'regoing to be put in a situation
where some of your senses aregoing to be removed from you and
the intent isn't to scare you,it's to make you aware with your
other senses.
So if you can only hear, thenlisten.
If you can only feel, then tryto focus on the touch, Like
focus on the senses that youhave.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
That's why it's meant this way, but don't touch too
much, because then that's goingto lead to a harassment case and
you don't want to catch those.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
We just got joined on the live stream.
We have someone from VeniceLodge named Sean, and we have
someone from Marathon Lodgenamed Roger Hall.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Roger Hall, I was at your lodge yesterday.
I literally took a pictureright out front of your lodge,
so I'll text it over to you.
Really, yeah, so I did awhirlwind trip to the Keys.
I was there for less than 24hours.
Come on, roger, thoroughly,because God knows when he's done
to us.
Check the cameras, and I likethe kayaks you have behind the
place.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Kayaks oh well, they're by the ocean.
Yeah, so we're here talkingabout Freemasonry and Knights
Templars.
You know the process of beingaccused by a king and the pope
isn't a fun one.
Back in the day.
You are going to be tortured.
You want to see the worst inhumanity?
Go look at how they torturedpeople.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
No, and honestly we need to discuss it was not good
and they were so good at it.
And by so good at it I meanthey had perfected the art of
torture.
So you got to keep in mind,even if you consider back and
you consider the story of thecrucifixion, so the story of the
crucifixion, so the story ofthe crucifixion is they were
only going to hit you with thecat of nine tails a certain
number of times because theyknew that next one would kill

(38:05):
you.
That's how good they got atthis torture.
So fast forward to the CatholicChurch, to essentially what I
would consider a militant andapostate Catholic Church.
What they were doing at thatpoint is, for example, the
bishops and the friars and allthese different people point is,
for example, the bishops andthe friars and all these
different people they wereforbidden from spilling blood.
So what they would do is theywould take a device and they put

(38:26):
it on your thumb and there'sscrews on both sides of this
device and they would put it onyour shins, they'd put it on
your legs.
So what they would do is theywould ask you a question confess
, right.
And then they would tighten itdown a little bit more.
Confess, tighten it down alittle bit more.
It got to the point where theywould shatter your um, they
would shatter your shin bone,they would shatter your thumbs,
your fingers, everything,because they were not allowed to

(38:47):
spill blood.
So if I just break bones, thenI'm not spilling blood.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Talk about some legalistic perspective, my
goodness this is where the ratcomes in all the stuff they
could do to torture you, and allyou had to do to make the pain
stop was say, okay, I said thatbad thing about God.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Okay, I kissed and I spit on the cross, or whatever
the case might be.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah, I worshipped a severed head.
Whatever you want me to say tomake this pain stop.
And then you're, you know, goahead, you can kill him and that
was your thank you.
So that could go on for years.
This wasn't like a weekendthing.
You could get tortured foryears and live in a dungeon.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
No, and the torture method that I honestly spoke I
shouldn't say spoke the most tome, because that seems like I
was inspired the torture methodthat I thought was the most
egregious is what they would dois they would take different
people and they would set themin the jail cell.
So if you think back, like thescene of Aladdin, where, like a
guy sitting on the ground andhis arms are up in the chains,

(39:50):
like this so essentially that'swhat they would do so you'd be
sitting there for weeks, months,and, like your arms are
elevated above your head, youcan't stand up because they have
you chained down but your handsare elevated above your head,
losing circulation to your hands.
The ones that they felt likewere the most rebellious or you
could not break their spirit.
They would put them inside adrain in the middle of the

(40:10):
prison cell.
This is in the book.
They would put them in a draininside a prison cell and so
anytime the rain would come in,anytime any of the other guys in
there had to use the bathroom,weren't allowed to actually go
use the latrine, as it were, orthe bucket in the corner.
No, they had to soil themselves.
So all of that would wash downinto the drain, and the drain

(40:30):
was just big enough to put aperson in there dusty yeah.
So what they would do is theywould have a person down in
there who would be the mostdifficult to break.
Either they were rebellious orthey were just considering it.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Pure joy that they were doing this.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, so what they would do is they'd sit him in
there, and so this person wouldbe chest deep just in human
filth.
It's gross, right.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
It's gross.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
That's gross, but honestly that's what they would
do and they would leave you inthere.
So think about it.
You're getting so many diseasesat that point from open wounds
being exposed to filth.
So just even from a medicalperspective, it's absolutely
terrible what these guys wentthrough.
So, yeah, no wonder some ofthem confessed to lies, because
they just wanted it to endquickly.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
You just want to die yeah just, please, just, kill me
.
I just want this to end.
That's, that's all you want.
And like they got good at this,they knew how to evoke that
response.
So, yeah, you would confess.
So now in our history we'retaught knights, templars, were
evil, that they worshiped thebaphomet, that they spit on the
cross, that they they wereworking against the church.

(41:31):
Like you believe these thingsbecause that's what they
admitted to when they weretortured for years, and this was
not unstandard.
This is how most people werehandled.
If they wanted to take you out,they accused you of heresy and
you went through this process.
It was pretty normal.
So where did the Templars gothat didn't get caught?
The naval fleet sure could havegone to the Caribbean, maybe a

(41:53):
couple generations past, andthat's where the Pirates of the
Caribbean came from.
Maybe they went to Oak Islandnear Nova Scotia and one place
that we 100% know that a lot ofthem from England went to was
Scotland, and you just talkedabout Robert the Bruce taking
them.
There are degrees in theScottish Rite that talk about

(42:13):
the formation of a new body thatincluded Knight, templars and
Freemasonry, called the Knightof St Andrews.
The Knight of St Andrews wasled by Robert the Bruce in
Scotland, so this is a romantictradition that Freemasonry's
have and still tell in theirdegrees today and in history.
If you saw the movie Braveheart, one of the biggest questions

(42:35):
they had was how did this ragtaggroup of Scottish people with
no armor, no official training,beat the largest army the world
had at the time?
And one possible answer is theywere already.
What is it when the church saysyou're bad?
And they just knew.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
You're excommunicated .

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Excommunicated, excommunicado.
They were alreadyexcommunicated from the church
because they were fightingagainst England.
So for them to house the nineTemplars would have made a lot
of sense.
They were alreadyexcommunicated from the church.
If they brought these Templarswould have made a lot of sense.
They were alreadyexcommunicated from the church.
If they brought these Templarsin and they made some agreement
with them that you can stay hereand live amongst us if you're
willing to help us fight thiswar, it starts to make sense how

(43:16):
this ragtag group of nobodiesbeats the largest army in the
world at the time because theyhad highly trained soldiers with
them.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
And, by the way, that's not the only time that
the largest military presence onthe face of the planet was ever
beaten by an unsuspecting groupof people due to Masonic
interference.
So if you look at the 1776, youlook at the Revolutionary War,
there was a lot of Masonicinterference.
Even if you look at World WarII, there was a lot of Masonic
interference.
Of the Civil War, there wasMasonicasonic interference.

(43:44):
So it seems like there's beenthis consistency that freemasons
as a whole and, by extension,knights templar, are basically
fighting for the freedom ofpeople.
That's essentially what they're, what they're trying to to go
for.
They wanted that.
They wanted the knowledge to beout there.
They wanted everybody to have awritten copy of the bible.
So that way, the centralauthority wasn't just the church
, no, it was the individual aswell this is a you.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
You see a lot of those things alive in.
Like the way our own governmentwas formed.
We clearly were a group ofpeople that worshipped God.
We didn't institutionalize thefaith, but we made it starts out
with one nation under God, comeon Like.
They obviously believe in God,and the Templars would have
continued their faith in God aswell, but they would have lost

(44:28):
their faith in the institutionsthat persecuted them.
So this is where Freemasonrycomes into the picture.
Another common thing that wetalked about in our debate is
why these crazy obligations andpenalties and a fraternity of
gentlemen?
Why would you do that?
Why the secrecy?
Why are you blindfolded as partof your initiation?
Why would that?

(44:48):
Even?

Speaker 2 (44:49):
be necessary.
I love those questions.
I especially love them from thechurch.
Those who were in the church.
They were like, oh my goodness,and I'm like look the
obligations that we take now andthe way that we do our ritual.
They're more tradition-basedthan they are anything, and we
covered that on the last podcastwhere we talked about the top
10 issues these things are.
You cannot find historicalrecord of any person being
penalized in the way the Masonicobligations lay out, and

(45:12):
there's a lot of them.
There is a whole bunch of them.
So, as your all this, comment.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
they always find it interesting.
Our oath is to form thegovernment, Yet our forefathers
were rebels everywhere.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Roger, I am right there with you.
So that is one thing that Ithought was hilarious when I
filled out.
My EA petition is like do youplan on overthrowing the
government?
And I'm like I mean, now thatyou mention it, it's a pretty,
sounds like a pretty good idea,but keep in mind like our
Masonic forefathers werededicated to overthrowing
governments.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
It's like you're asking me to go against the
roots, my guy I mean okay, sothey were like you said
throughout time, and we're goingto get into the peasants revolt
, which is another instance ofpotential manipulation with the
people and the politicians andthe governments.
They're always for the people,not for the government.
They're not bought and paid forrepresentatives of the
government.
They're always about freedom ofthought, freedom of expression,

(46:04):
freedom to live your life theway you want to live your life.
So you know our governmenttrying to get freedom from a
tyrannical king.
I can see that being a goodthing and I think the government
that they tried to set up inits place is, to this point in
the recorded history of thehuman species, the best shot
we've ever taken at government.

(46:24):
Government of the people by thepeople, for the people, people
based on faith in god, is prettygood damn setup, if you ask me.
Yeah, I'm not mad at it and, ofcourse, from its inception,
corruption started and where weare today is far from where we
started.
So you know, I think thefreemasons, if they were around,
that the templars were aroundtoday, they'd be looking at our
government and saying is this atyrannical government?

(46:46):
And that's a whole notherpodcast that we can get into,
but the Templars couldn't haveescaped to Scotland.
They could have formed lodges,they would have had families.
At this point they would havestarted to become normal people,
and if you knew who they wereand you could rat them out to
the French king or the church,that would take not just their

(47:07):
life but their children's lifeand their wife's life, and
everything would be wiped away.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
It was your entire bloodline gets wiped off the
planet.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
It would be very important that if you bring a
new person into yourorganization, they don't know
who the hell you are until afterthey've taken an obligation to
keep your true identity safe andsecret.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Well, and keep in mind, after the 1307, you know
ordeal that the Knights Templarand the Freemasons went through,
what you had is theirrecruiting efforts changed, and
I think their recruiting effortsback then should be a little
bit more.
We should be doing somethingsimilar today is what I'm
getting at.
So what they would do is theywould take you out, like for
drinks.
You know they'd take you to thepub or they'd take you to go

(47:50):
grab a bite to eat or hang outwith families, come to family
events, absolutely would want toknow the character.
Yeah, so so you want to,because at this point, you got
to keep in mind, you got to keepthis secret, not because, oh,
it's just cool that we keepsecrets, like, no, that's not it
.
No, you have to keep thissecret because my family is
going to die.
So they would like a year, twoyears, to hang out with you,
spend time with you, get to knowyou, and then, if they believed
you would be good for thatorder, they would then bring in

(48:13):
another person unknowingly.
Hey, by the way, let's go outand grab some drinks at the pub
this weekend.
I'm going to invite my buddy,my buddy, joe, right, joe's
going to come out here and he'sgoing to have some drinks with
us, but Joe also happened to bea templar slash freemason.
And so then you're beinginvestigated without ever
knowing that you're beinginvestigated and you're being
asked questions amongst friends,in a private setting.

(48:33):
Hey, what are your thoughts onthis, your thoughts on that?
And then, finally, after manytimes of hanging out with these
people, getting to know them,your kids are probably calling
them uncle bob or something likethat.
What, at that point, whatyou're asked is hey, do you want
to join our order?
And then it's exposed that, ohyeah, by the way, these guys are
Freemasons, they're Knights,templars, and they think that
I'm a good fit for their order.

(48:53):
So again, it's kind of changedbecause there are certain lodges
today I was part of a lodgethat anybody who walked through
the front door is automaticallygiven.
It's like no, they had to be alot more secretive, because it
literally was my family's goingto be killed if you reveal this
information, if you can buy intothat idea.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Then things start to make a lot more sense.
Why?
Blindfold makes a lot of sense,and you know, you don't know
who's in the room until afteryou've obligated yourself to
keep secret who these peoplemight be.
Also, the penalties start tomake a lot more sense.
Let's make the penaltysomething scary, so you
understand.
Hey, I better think twicebefore I say yes to this.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
So the penalty for the Master Mason degree I'm
going to go ahead and spill itright now is that we tickle your
feet with feathers until youcan't handle it or you wet
yourself.
That's what we do in the MasterMason degree man.
He's chunky, he's chunky, butin the master mason degree man
it's junky, it's junky.
But essentially, again, whatthese guys would do is again,
they would get to know you.
And what better way to get toknow everybody than with a
premium three ruffian cigar?

(49:53):
That's right.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe three ruffian cigars.
The three, the three ruffiansis a masonic brand of cigars
founded by our esteemed uh showhost here, chris burns, uh sean
and there's a John Schaefer.
Okay, I'm going to get betterat these live reads.
Yes, so it started out ofSarasota Lodge 147 with the

(50:15):
purpose being to help MasonicLodges and dependent bodies.
Grab your three ruffian cigar Ihad one while I was in the Keys
.
The barber pole's fantastic andalso for the three ruffian
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(50:36):
about five people that got thatjoke right there.
So go over to three ruffianscomand you can pick up your
premium cigars today and nowback to the show.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Great word for our sponsor.
Yeah, yeah, I feel a littleguilty letting you read that on
the air, but I am a true Russian.
As you can see, I'm an outlawhere.
Yes, according to you, sir.
So Robinson, who's the authorhere, proposes a surprising
connection between the secretiveremnants of the Templars and
the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 inEngland, the revolt, which is a

(51:03):
large-scale uprising againstoppressive taxation.
If with the revolt, which is alarge-scale uprising against
oppressive taxation, foundfamiliar and its feudal rule was
supposedly too organized to bea spontaneous event, robinson
argues that it was orchestratedby a hidden group, possibly
former Templars, who soughtrevenge against the institutions
that had betrayed them.
He examines coded messages andhidden influences in historical

(51:23):
records that suggest therebellion was actually driven by
more than just economicgrievances.
This idea, though controversial, raises questions about how
secret societies may have playedroles in major historical
events.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
So what I always thought was interesting is,
close to the downfall of theKnights Templars what you have
in the late 1200s, early 1300s,you have Jacques de Molay
becomes the head of the KnightsTemplar and he's trying to
restore it to its origin.
So you have an institution Tellme if this sounds familiar you
have an institution that hasdrifted so far from its original

(51:58):
intention that now it looksnothing like what it was 200
years ago.
So you have John or sorry, notJohn Robinson you have Jacques
de Molay, who wants his soldiersto get back to being people
that can't read.
The only ones that could read,or read the scriptures or any
communication, write anycommunication were the scribes,
which, by the way, those areones with the black cross.

(52:19):
So if you ever see anyhistorical documents or pictures
that are done accurately, theKnights of Malta were the ones
with the.
I think it was.
The Knights of malta were theblack cross and so they were the
ones who were the scribes, sothey could read the scriptures,
they could read communication,but no, he wanted the soldiers.
You no longer have a writtencopy of the scriptures.
You no longer have books.
The only thing you have is likea sheet to lay on, because

(52:42):
that's what you should be.
You should be this poor warrior, essentially, and that's what
your whole life should be.
Should be this poor warrioressentially, and that's what
your whole life should be about.
What Jacques de Molay wanted ishe wanted to do another crusade.
And so whenever he goes andmeets with the Pope and he ends
up telling the Pope and the Kingto their face and he's like no,
as the Knights Templars, theonly one we answer to is to the
Pope, because we are part ofthat organization, and King

(53:05):
Philip of France had a hugeproblem with that.
He's like, no, you work for me.
And they're like, no, sorry, no, we don't.
So that's kind of what'ssetting the stage for this.
And then you have King PhilipIV and then Pope Clement end up
having this closed door meeting.
It's just the two of them, noone has said in that meeting.
But when they come out of thatmeeting, magically, pope Clement

(53:25):
says oh no, they're allheretics.
We need to put them all to death, his guys his guys, the people
that he has been the patron of,are now the bad guys and he has
to prosecute them and that andthat doesn't negate, by the way,
that there was anotherorganization that was for about
100 years there there wasanother conflict within the
Catholic church the hospitalers.
And so you have thesehospitalers that the Pope yeah,

(53:48):
the Pope essentially wanted toset them up like the new Knights
Templars.
He knew that they were gainingway too much wealth.
They were saying the KnightsTemplars were saying no, we've
acquired this wealth, we've ranthis organization smartly, so
we're doing very well from amilitary perspective, from a
financial perspective land ships, you name it, we've got it.
And the Catholic Church issaying that's ours.
Templars are saying, no, it'snot, it's ours.

(54:09):
So there was this big conflictbetween this new division that
was started, the Hospitallersand whenever the Knights
Templars were put to death in1307 and they were disbanded,
all the goods that belonged tothe Knights Templars, if the
church could get its hands on it, it then handed it over not
only to the church but to thehospitalers as well.

(54:29):
So they ended up inheriting awhole bunch of that wealth.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
And you mentioned a couple times now, jacques de
Molay.
The reason that his name isknown the way that it's known is
yes, he was the last GrandMaster of the Order.
He did confess, like mostTemplars did.
However, at the end he recantedhis confession and he said I
cannot lie for my brothers whohave died.

(54:52):
Everything that you're accusingus of is a lie.
We would never turn our back toGod, we would never spit on the
cross, we would never do thesethings you've accused us of.
You know you could take my life, but you will not let me die
without my integrity.
And he was burned alive at thestake.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
You will never take our freedom.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Yeah, great line from Braveheart.
And you know, if you go now, Iwent to France with my wife and
you can go on the river sceneand there's a little park and
there's a plaque on the wallthat this is the site where
Chakri Malawi burned and theyhave a public park in his name,
a little public park whereJacques de Molay would burn.
And they have a public park inhis name, a little public park.
You can sit and look at theflowers and just imagine this
grandmaster being burned alivewith everybody watching right.

(55:32):
Everybody came to see it, so itwas a big spectacle.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
So, and to be clear, excuse me, de Molay was burned
at the stake in 1314.
So the order went out in 1307.
And so for seven years, thisguy was tortured.
For seven years, this guy wastortured for seven years
straight before he was finallykilled.
The thing that I thought wasreally cool and apparently this
is widely contested is the curseof Jacques de Molay.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Are you familiar with this?
Yes, so, if I remembercorrectly, he was a pope or a
king, both, and I will see youboth within a year's time, and
they both died in less than ayear.
Yep, essentially right.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yep time, and they both died in less than a year.
Yep, essentially right, yep.
So he, uh, he called on thename of christ to prove his
innocence.
The templars, you know, as theywere being having judgment
brought against them.
But yeah, the curse was, isthat, uh, pope clement and king
philip would both die within ayear if they convicted the
knights templar of false crimes?
Uh, and sure enough, they bothdied within a year.
So sucks to sucks to suck nerds.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
That is, uh, that's you know, I guess it's really
hard to prove that, that theydied because of the curse.
But it's a nice thought, but itis interesting.
It is interesting.
I believe in that stuff.
We all have a list of who wewant to curse, right.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
I mean, come on, no, actually I'm pretty chill with
everybody, Not necessarily curse, because then that kind of
takes the justice out of myhands and puts it in the
Almighty's.
But you know what?
The Lord put certain people onthis planet for certain reasons.
Yeah, it's a good way to lookat it.
So let's get back to some ofthe symbology Now.
The symbology that I think issuper interesting.
Now, again, everything thatwe're talking about here is what
is printed in this book.

(57:02):
So we are not giving awayanything due to our obligation.
I want to be very, very clearabout that, especially in these
times.
So, having said that, one ofthe things that is talked about
repeatedly is the squareencompasses.
Now, it needs to be noted thatduring this timeframe now we're
talking 12, 1300 was illegal fora person to have a written copy
of the scriptures.
Yet the Knights Templar likes totake their obligation on the

(57:25):
Holy Bible.
So it's not bringing a bloodoath down upon your head.
It's saying no, I am makingthis promise to the fellow men
that are standing here around meand I want God as my witness
that I am sitting here doingthis.
So I think we need to talkabout the difference between an
oath and an obligation.
At some point we need to havethat conversation of OK, it's
not exactly what the people aresaying today that it was, but

(57:47):
here we have these guys, theKnights Templar.
They like to take theirobligations on the Holy
Scriptures.
Awesome, I'm all for that.
So people can't have a writtencopy of the Scriptures, right,
According to the Catholic Church?
No, nobody can have that.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
This was prior to what was his name?
Oh, clement.
No, the guy who wanted to.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
It's not King James who was the guy.
I'll find it.
Yeah, we'll find it eventually.
So what you end up having isokay, you can no longer have a
copy of the scriptures.
So what did they use as asymbol of the scriptures?
Well, they ended up using thesquare and compasses.
Whenever the crown and thechurch got wise to that, oh man,
they're using the square andcompasses.
Oh man, they're using thesquare and compasses.

(58:26):
Then it was all right, we'researching everything you guys
have for an iteration of thesquare and compasses or the Holy
Scriptures or any sort ofritual symbology that they would
have, for example, the mosaicfloor, the mosaic floor in
Freemasonry.
We talk about the fact that youwalk across the mosaic floor.
You're walking through life,you're going to have periods of
light and darkness in there, butyou have to weather both in
order to make it through.

(58:46):
What the Templars would do isthey would have the same mosaic
floor, but it would only be thetwo tiles, so it would be the
black and the white, and so youwere coming from the black or
the darkness of being profane orbeing outside of the Knights,
templar order or warrior forChrist, whatever title you want
to give it and you're cominginto the light of christ and

(59:06):
service of christ, and so thatwas kind of their whole thing.
So some people say that's wherewe get our mosaic floor from
cool, I'm not opposed to thatideology.
But then there's another symbolalso they wore white and black
outfits.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Right, yeah, that's yeah colors that they've worn to
battle.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
But then.
But then there's another symbol, and this symbol, I think, is I
think it's a super cool idea,concept.
I'm not opposed to the ideology, but the symbol that we have in
the back of all of our lodgesis the dot, the circle and the
two lines.
So we have that.
We describe that as the person,the lodge, and then the St John
, so plural.
So that's how we talk about itin Freemasonry today.

(59:45):
But back then, what theysuggested in this book and again
, I'm not opposed to theideology is that that was a way
to hide the square and compasses, which was representative of
the scriptures, because youcouldn't have either one, you'd
be put to death on the spot forit.
So what a person would do isthey'd send a low-level guy out
to the woods and they'd say hey,we're going to hold a ritual at
this place out in the woods.
He would take two sticks ofequivalent lengths, put it in

(01:00:08):
the middle and he would draw acircle there's your, there's
your compasses, okay.
And then he would take the twolines and set the or the two
sticks and he would set them tothe side.
That's your square.
That symbol, according to thisbook, is representative of the
square and compasses and it isrepresentative of the holy
scriptures, and I've loved thatdescription ever since I've
heard it yeah, I like that too.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
There's so much in symbolism that's a genius way to
communicate ideas, because itcan have layers.
It can have a meaning that isabsolutely true, and have a
deeper meaning that is notexactly the same but is also
totally true, and so you canprovide hidden teachings through
symbolism, and I really thinkfreemasonry does that in such a

(01:00:49):
fantastic way.
I really feel like the entiresum of all human knowledge is
embedded in symbolism, in thefraternity, and we are taught
nothing but the most surfacelayer as we go through the
degrees and get the lectures.
And I think your life is meantto spend unraveling the deeper
meanings of all this stuff, andthat's what I've been trying to
do ever since I've been aFreemason, and I think a lot of.

(01:01:11):
I tend to surround myself withpeople like that because we have
a lot of fun asking questionsabout it and exploring
historically what these thingsmean, like that circle within
the point within a circle, thetwo lines, the circumponse is
one of the oldest symbols thatmen have used in all cultures, a
circle with a dot in it and youmentioned the Emerald Tablet.

(01:01:32):
You know hidden teachings,things that are the staff of
Trismegistus, this.
You know who's in the he, thisHermes.
In some cultures this is Enoch,in the Christian theology
Hermes Trismegistus, in othersit's the same knowledge, just
kind of clothed in differentfront-facing veneers, but it

(01:01:53):
means the same thing toeverybody.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Well, even still, that staff of Hermes that you
talked about, that's I mean gosh.
That's been repeated throughout, that's even in the scriptures.
That's what.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I'm saying I believe the Enoch, the book of Enoch, is
really Hermes, Trismegistusteachings, and you know that
staff of Trismegistus and theserpents is used today in
symbology.
You look on an ambulance andyou've got this Hermes staff,
which is a staff of knowledge,right In healing and it's really
two serpents entwining a staff.

(01:02:22):
So serpents weren't alwaysmeant to be these evil things.
They were bringers of knowledge.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Well, I mean, unless you ask a female at the early
iteration of the world, thenit's like no, I'm never talking
to that snake again.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Amy Eve.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Yeah.
She messed it up for all of us,which even still the lore in the
Christian way of looking atthings, is that that staff I
think there were, and I've beensitting here trying to find the
actual passage of it and I'mprobably going to butcher the
story, brothers.
I apologize to our Christianbrothers out there, but
essentially what had happened isthat as Israel was traveling
throughout the wilderness, abunch of snakes ended up showing

(01:02:59):
up and biting a whole bunch ofpeople.
So what God had them do wastake the staff, put two of the
snakes on there and anybody wholooked upon that staff was then
cured of the poison.
But that whenever you talkabout the staff of Tri-Mest,
tri-megistus yeah, that guy.
So whenever you talk about that.
That's why we see those symbolson the side of ambulances, you

(01:03:19):
know.
We see them at hospitals, youknow, because it's meant to be a
symbol for healing is what it'smeant to be.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
And it is a symbol for healing even today, which is
insane, because if anyone said,hey, we're going to put a stick
with two snakes around it,you'd be like, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
I don't want that.
I'm never going to that churchagain.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
That sounds bad, but there are churches that handle
snakes, so obviously they'reseen in a positive light.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Are they, though?
So, yeah, so what you have?
I mean, you have this fantasticstory, and, brothers, I would
highly encourage you to pick upthe book, read the book, but
what you have is this fantasticbook that really starts to tie
together the Knights, templars,the pirates in the Caribbean and
ties it all into Freemasonry.
So, again, I'm in this camp.
This is again a highlycontested topic of is he being
serious or is this guycompletely off his rocker?

(01:04:06):
That is up to interpretation.
It's up to whatever you want tocall it.
It is up to you as anindividual.
But again, that's what we'resupposed to be doing in
Freemasonry.
I mean, there's a whole reasonas to why, whenever we talk
about Freemasonry is no, Ishowed you the door.
It's your job to knock on thatdoor.
It's your job to seek out thisknowledge.
So don't let your Masoniceducation end with the Master

(01:04:27):
Mason degree and just whateverMasonic education they cover at
the second meeting of the month.
Don't let it stop there.
Keep, keep building on it, keepgrowing it, because, at the end
of the day, it's going to helpyou.
It's going to reshape how youthink of the world, how you
think of history, how you thinkof even even just the history of
our current country, you know,and where it all came from,
who's all as a part of it.

(01:04:47):
What are these symbols mean?
Why do we have the all-seeingeye on the back of the pyramid,
on the back of a dollar bill?
Why do we have these Latinphrases, some of the Latin
phrases that we have?
So it's going to cause you toask a lot more questions, which
is what you want.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
You're going to be angry.
You're going to see how farwe've come from the intention of
the original plan.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Well, and we talked about that in our last episode,
which hasn't aired yet, but wecovered the fourth turning, and
so what you have is you're goingto have the people that are
asking these types of questions,very similar to Jacques de
Molay Whenever he looked at thecurrent state of the Knights
Templars, and he's like this isnothing like what we started as,
and so you're also going tohave some of that where a new
generation is going to come in.
They're not going to like oragree with the way things are

(01:05:26):
set up, so they're going to pullit back to its roots, and I
really do think we're on thecusp of that.
I think I'll see that in mylifetime, which I'm really
looking forward to, of beingable to pull back some of these
teachings.
So here's where I split fromtraditional church teachings.
Traditional church teachings iswhenever a preacher or a pastor
gets up and they talk about thechurch.

(01:05:47):
They're talking about eithertheir specific building or their
specific denomination.
I am of the opinion thatdenominations are the greatest
work that Satan could have everdone, because you can very
easily divide up the opponentyou know your opponent over
something stupid, but of course,that concept is not just, it's
not just for church.
You see it in government, yousee it in masonry, you see it

(01:06:07):
absolutely everywhere.
So what I'm of the opinion ofis that your institution should
be as close to its core beliefsas it possibly should, and if it
comes time for persecution, youshould proudly stick your neck
out and say, yeah, I'm nowstanding on these principles,
that's right.
Yeah, I'm also standing indefense of the fellow people
inside this institution.
So that's what soldiers dowhenever they swear to defend

(01:06:29):
the Constitution against allenemies, foreign and domestic.
They don't care.
They're going to stick theirneck out because I love this
country and I'm going to give mylife for this country.
If that organization means thatmuch to you, that should be an
easy ask.
It is In my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
it absolutely is.
And, Dr Malay, you said hisname like 10 times today.
How many hundreds of yearsafter his death, do you know his
name?
After his death, you know hisname.
You have organizations namedafter the man.
It's not because he was one ofthe hundreds that said, yeah, we
did it, or yeah, he did it, orgave a name and got off easy.
He's remembered because hestood up for what was right and
he lived the ideals of theorganization he was representing

(01:07:03):
.
That's why he's remembered inthe ages.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Well, and it's the same way.
It's the same thing with GeorgeWashington.
It's the same thing withAbraham Lincoln.
It's the same way with, youknow, Churchill and Truman.
It's the exact same thing themen who stand up for what is
right and they stand firmagainst everything.
And there's no.
I am not budging from this spot.
History remembers that personfavorably.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
OK, those who cower typically are not remembered at
all.
So, hey, if you're a member ofthis fraternity, hopefully
you're not in it for the title.
You just want to get likeadoration, you want to get a
position like that's not areason to be a part of this
fraternity.
You should be in thisfraternity because you want to
improve yourself as a man, as acitizen, as a husband, as a
father.
You want to have a positiveimpact on other people's lives

(01:07:53):
and learn how to do it withdevotion to God.
That's what being a member ofthis fraternity is supposed to
be about, and some of us stillfight for those ideals.
Learn to be better men.
Yeah, and it was the same forJacques de Molay.
He was being persecuted in acorrupt, totally corrupt
government and religiousorganization that he served and
he saw he ordered you know,people to fight for it.

(01:08:15):
He had to stand up to them andsay this is wrong, you're wrong,
and even still as members of aorganization.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
You can't deny at all that during this time frame, in
the 13, 14, 15, there werepeople who were going to stand
on the right thing, no matterwhat the size of that
institution was.
So, for example, if you fastforward, I think closer to the
1516, you have Martin Luther whostapled the 95 thesis on the
front of the churches.
So, and regardless of what youthink about Martin Luther, like

(01:08:44):
I disagree with like one or twopoints of his doctrine, but
that's about it.
But either way, Martin Luther,at the end of the day, he stood
on what he believed to be right.
But either way, martin Luther,at the end of the day, he stood
on what he believed to be right.
And so, again, I think you'reonly going to see more of that
as time progresses.
You're going to see peoplestanding on what they believe to
be right.
I'm not budging from this spot.
It's not just thislaissez-faire, okay, I really
don't care so much anymore.
Like, as long as you know,everybody can just do whatever

(01:09:04):
they want to do.
It's not getting to that point,only progressing in a more
aggressive manner of, and evenstill, like gen z and young
millennials are number one inthat line.
If they are like no, I'vetalked to you this, about this
before where they're really kindof joined this deus volt
movement, which is latin for godwills it.
So they're kind of standing onthis movement of no, I'm going

(01:09:24):
to stand up for what is right.
I believe we, as freemasons,should also be doing this stand
up up for what is right, because, I hate to say it, but any
institution that you have, anyinstitution, is prone to
politics.
They are the church is prone topolitics.
The lodge, the church, they'reall prone to politics.
And so you're going to getthese people that they just want

(01:09:45):
to go in there and play thepolitical game.
I have zero time for thepolitical game.
It's what's right is right,what's wrong is wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
You know, you have to be educated in what's right and
wrong, at some point tounderstand what's right and
wrong.
And that goes back to what youand I were talking about before
we started recording.
Teach your children criticalthinking, yes.
Teach them the question whatyou say.
Teach them the question whateverybody says.
Test it against their morals.
And if you can test whatsomeone tells you against your

(01:10:11):
morals and it seems right, it'sprobably right If what they're
telling you doesn't follow yourmoral system that you were
raised with.
And I'm saying like, let's allteach our children that you know
the same thing that Freemasonryteaches we're all equal under
God, we have the same almightyparents and we're all locked on
this planet together, travelingthrough space forever.

(01:10:31):
And why should my dirt bedifferent than your dirt?
Why can't we aid, support andprotect each other.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
The problem is is you have an entitlement class where
they believe that some peopleare more equal than others,
which in itself is an issue, andso I got into a debate with
somebody.
It's in the Constitution thatall men are created equal, but
what about the women, chris?
Did you just leave out thewomen?
You sexist?

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
you.
I think what the intentionbehind that was is that all
humans are created equal.
I think they just use men asshorthand for humans, right?
At least that's how I take it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Yeah, whenever they talk about mankind, they're
talking about everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
So yeah, women are more important than that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
So are children.
I was just busting your chops.
So, having said that, yeah, soquestion everything.
I mean question it twice, youknow, just for good measure.
You know, I never see a newsstory online and then I
automatically think it is the100% truth until I go and
research it.
You know, or even facts peopletell me you know they're like,
oh it's, you know, thispercentage number is of this
statistic and I'm like I'm goingto go research it because

(01:11:28):
anything that you are told, Iguarantee you you can find two
or three more sources sayingsomething else.
Oh, we have someone new,jasmine that is worshipful,
jasmine gerbic from lakeland,lodge 91.
My brother is in the house.
Is this the man, the myth, thelesson?

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
we've, he is the man.
Wow, good to have you on the.
Uh, what do we call this?
The live stream, the live chatas?

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
responsible.
Thank you, yeah, thanks, baldguy.
No, jasmine, honestly is so far.
I mean, we've got phenomenalbrothers in this chat right now.
So we've got Worshipful RogerHall on here, we've got Brother
Sean.
Sean, I didn't catch your lastname.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
I think it's Sean Singleson.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
I think he's the secretary, possibly.
That is so, yeah, and and thenof course, we have, uh, jasmine.
Jasmine is, uh, our currentmarshal, um, and I tell you what
?
Just a no bs guy.
He's just going to tell youexactly how it is, and that's
what I love about him.
It's like you want to talkabout politics.
There's no politics to be foundwith this guy.
It's like it's either black orwhite.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
That's what it is I mean, that's what we're doing
here we're trying to educate,hopefully spur a desire for
other nieces to learn more forthemselves and really become a
real free niece.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
Yeah, and, and not only that, but and since
jasmine's in the in the livechat, I definitely want to say
something that he has said andthis isn't controversial at all.
We, jasmine and I, have hadmultiple conversations about
protecting the west gate at allcosts, and so whenever you're
considering these knights,templars, and the different
types of persecution that theycould come under during this
timeframe, you gotta keep inmind the Templars were of a

(01:12:58):
different mindset on a lot ofdifferent things.
So one of the things I thoughtwas super, super interesting
about the Templars is they ran acity in the Middle East, and
whenever they ran this city inthe Middle East I cannot
remember the name of the cityand I'm sorry, but whenever they
ran this city, there was apoint where there was a
Christian church on one side anda mosque on the other side, and
so what ended up happening isthese guys freely traded with

(01:13:19):
each other.
There was no contention to behad among any of them.
Something about Acre I think itwas Acre, yeah, acre, yeah,
acre, ac things everybodymagically got along.
Imagine that.
That's such a weird thing.
And then, whenever the churchgets involved and the pope and
the king get involved, now allof a sudden oh no, we have to

(01:13:41):
retake the Holy Land, we have tokill all these people.
So you really kind of see adifferent spirit of the Templars
than what the spirit of thecrown and the church was at the
time.
It was always such aninteresting story.
I think there was at one pointthey could not use the mosque
for some odd reason I can'tremember if it was due to a fire
or something some odd reasonthey couldn't use the mosque.
So the Christians actuallyopened up their church for the

(01:14:02):
Muslim worshipers to worship inthere, and then the vice versa
happened, like two years later,where the Muslims in the city
were like no, please come useour mosque for your place of
worship.
So if we could all get along alittle bit more like that it
would be lovely.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
I love that.
I mean you're not going to yourGod's not going to cast you
into the pit of fire because heshowed some empathy towards
somebody else.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Right, but faith in you?
Okay, no-transcript.
The brothers should beprotecting the West gate.
That's why we have, oh, no, youhave to come to six meals over
at our lodge.
No, you have to come to sixmeals because, at the end of the

(01:14:44):
day, if you're not going to bea good brother for this
fraternity, then you're notgoing to be a good brother, and
I'm sorry, you know, but thisorganization is not for you.
So what?

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
can you really find out about a person by having six
meals with them in a lodge?

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
It depends on who's talking to them.
I can get a shocking amount ofinformation out of a person
within six conversations andit's a lot of fun.
So, and Jasmine just commentedthat one of the things that he
wants to see is a level ofdedication, which, again, I'm
not opposed to at all.
So we have to make sureAttention evocation there's some
things, yeah, and so one of thethings that we talked about, we
went and did an investigationon some NPD brothers and Jasmine

(01:15:18):
had a line that night that Iabsolutely loved and he said
look, we do not need moremembers in the lodge, we have
plenty of members.
We need more masons.
And I absolutely love that,because what you see is all
these people want to put on thesquare and compass, they want to
sit there and show off, theywant to put the sticker on the
back of their car, they want toget the cool license plate and
put that on the back of theircar.
They're seeking titles, they'reseeking chairs, they're seeking

(01:15:40):
a higher status, which, again,that's an issue that we're
having currently.
So people that are seekinghigher status that they're not
ready for.
No, it's not about that.
It's about the brotherhood,it's about the fraternity, it's
about a dedication to the craftand becoming a good man, and not
only that, but helping yourbrothers become good men as well
is, at the end of the day, whatit should be.
So here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
If you look at, you run a business, I run a business
and we know this is truebecause we deal with it day in
and day out.
20% of the people do 80% of thework in every organization.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
At church.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
Government, you name it, it's there, I'm always one
of the 20%, because that's who Iam, you're probably the same
way.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
Well, there's a reason why, on a Sunday, I'm up
here doing this podcast with you.
It's because I'm dedicated.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
You know, I love the craft, I love everything about
it, so like the thing is thatyou can't, because Don Cowart
has made the same argument to meabout my marketing program.
Is we need to?
We need to guard the west gate?
Okay, I understand what you'resaying.
However, those other 80 percentare paying for your lodge.
They're paying for the bills ofthe lodge.

(01:16:41):
Even though they're notstepping foot in the lodge, they
are contributing.
So I don't like.
Personally, as a guy who'sbrought in tons and tons of
mason to the fraternity, I'veseen only 20 of them are going
to wind up coming to the lodgeanyways.
So if you try to make it sothat you only bring in the 20%,
I don't think you can support alodge that way, to be honest

(01:17:02):
with you.
I just think in the long runit'll survive because you need
those other 80 to pay the billsand stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
There's an argument to be made for that.
Yeah, that of course.
Obviously you're going to haveto have, you have overhead,
you're going to have a P&Lstatement and, at the end of the
day, you have to be bringingenough money in in order to
offset the cost of operating alodge.
And we're not a full 501c3.
So it's, we're a 501c8.
So it's not like we're gettingall these anonymous
contributions because you can'twrite them off.

(01:17:29):
But if we could change.
So here's an interesting thought, chris, I'd love your opinion
on this If we could changeFreemasonry from a coding of a
501c8 to a 501c3, or if we couldstart an LLC that is a 501c3
that's strictly for helping toraise lodge funds.
So let's say we have a speakingengagement, speaking engagement
, we bring in a big celebrityperson.

(01:17:52):
We have 1,000 people there thatnight.
We would get more people thereif it were tax deductible, if it
was a 501c3.
So how can we go about doingthat in order to raise funds,
especially on a local lodgelevel?
So let's say, district 21 wantsto put this on and all the
funds that are going to bebrought in from that are going
to get funneled out directly tothe lodges, you know, in the
percentage of amount they help.

(01:18:13):
So if this lodge sent twopeople and this lodge sent 10
people, okay, you've gotpercentage going to that one and
percentage going to that one.
What are your thoughts on that?
What are the legalities on thatand can we do that according to
Grand Lodge rules?

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Yes, so I had the privilege when I was the worst
home master of my lodge.
That same year I was thepresident of the master mason
association and one of the Imean the biggest job you have,
as in the master masonassociation, is to raise money
for the grandmaster's officialvisit.
Like that's what you got to dobecause those things are
expensive.
It's expensive, could beanywhere from five to seven

(01:18:45):
thousand dollars.
What we used to do is say whatyou just said okay, we have nine
lodges in the district.
We have this many masons intotal between the nine lodges.
All we're going to do is assessthe lodges and it's based on
your membership so thateverybody pays.
That makes sense masonassociated they try to make it
seem like they could raise itdifferently and we get donations
.
You know they did raffles, butwinds up happening is 20 of the

(01:19:08):
people are paying for all of itnow.
Instead of everyone sharing in,it's just the guys that buy
raffle tickets that are actuallypaying for it now.
So, what I did was I held anevent that wasn't Masonic.
I didn't invite Masons, Ididn't ask for money from Masons
.
I held it out to the generalpublic.
So you, as a lot, can actuallygo get a license in the state of

(01:19:30):
Florida to ask for money fromthe general public legally, and
then all you have to do is put adisclaimer on your event that
you have the right to do this,and here's the actual number
from the state that you have theright to do this.
If you're not sure how to wordit, send it to the grand
secretary and he'll literallywrite it for you and you just
paste it on your events and nowyou can go out to the general

(01:19:58):
public and raise money for yourlodges, for your district or
whatever you want to do.
And we proved we raised enoughmoney to have a gmo be visit and
not a penny came from mason,and so I think that's really the
way that it should be.
We, because one it forced us tointerface with the public.
If I'm going to ask them formoney, they need to know who we
are right.
So, like we gave a speech andwe talked to I try to have it
about D-Mole and the kids andstuff and we gave a speech
because I think that's the bestway to grow.

(01:20:19):
The fraternity is start at thebottom and kids really these
days need to be in a structuredenvironment around good,
positive role models.
They really need it.
So we need to grow our D-Malayand our Rainbow Girls and our
children's organizations, whichare really lost and they're
getting shut down and closeddown because guess what?
There's not a lot of glory init for people and that's why

(01:20:41):
they're going away.
Let's be honest, if you want totalk about guarding the
Westgate, you couldn't be moreconcerned with starting with
children and getting them fromwhen they're young to become
good people.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
The reason why I asked that is we're actually
going to have two speakingevents at lakeland lodge this
year one and we're going to growthis year every year, by the
way.
So that's why I I talked to youat one point about doing, you
know, some masonic education forus on podcasting, the
reimbursement program, like allall the stuff that you into, but
we're going to end up havingPast Master Dave Yontz from

(01:21:14):
Texas.
We're going to end up havinghim at our lodge talking about
guarding the West Gates.
Now, he's from Texas, he's aTexas Freemason and he's going
to be talking about protectingthe West Gate.
So we're starting to do morepublic-facing events.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
You know, is there anything you would like to say
to all the people listening tothe podcast today about the
fraternity or the KnightsTemplar, or Bookhorn and Blood
Brothers.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
What I will say is this Again, if you're even
curious about Freemasonry,you're still one of the profane.
You're an EA, fellow craft,even a Master Mason.
I don't care if you've been aMaster Mason for 20 minutes or
20 years.
Pick up this book, read thisbook.
The history of it is absolutelyphenomenal, because you're
going to see that whenever wetalk about a time honored
tradition, this fraternity thathas existed since time
immemorial, you're going to seemore broad picture over the

(01:22:04):
course of history just howeffective Masonry has been, and
so I hope to do more bookbreakdowns like this.
I'm going to do some moreresearch on the Freemasons'
interactions with theRevolutionary War and with the
Civil War, World War II I wouldlove to really dive into.
Okay, here are some resourcesthat we found to talk about.
Here is how Freemasonry hashelped shape the history of this

(01:22:25):
planet for the better.
Because, again, you're notgoing to hear that in any church
pulpit these days.
They're just going to say thatFreemasonry is evil.
We're not evil at the end ofthe day.
At the end of the day, we are agroup of men who are trying to
become better and also hold ourbrothers to the exact same
standards of becoming better men.
So definitely seek out the book, read the book, enjoy the book.
It is a lot of fun.
It's a fun read and also grabyou some to enjoy it with with

(01:22:48):
your premium beverage.
So yeah, pour you, pour you ascotch, pour you a whiskey and
then have a cigar.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
Oh, okay, okay well, brothers from on the level
podcast.
For now we are out, out you.

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