March 2, 2026 • 34 mins
Set against the backdrop of King Solomon's monumental and often brutal Temple construction, "Vile and Impious Wretches: A Novel of King Solomon‘s Temple and the Ancient Middle East," authored by RW Michael A. Czech, is a fictional story that explores the lives of three Craftsmen who murdered Grand Master Hiram Abiff. We explore his unique blend of Masonic education, history, symbolism, and lore into a story very familiar to Freemasons.
Show notes and links:
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/craftsmen-online-podcast--4822031/support.
Show notes and links:
- Join us on Patreon. Start your FREE seven day trial to the Craftsmen Online Podcast and get instant access to our bonus content! Whether it's a one time donation or you become a Patreon Subscriber, we appreciate your support.
- Visit the Craftsmen Online website to learn more about our next Reading Room event, New York Masonic History, and our Masonic Education blog!
- Follow the Craftsmen Online Podcast on Spotify.
- Subscribe to the Craftsmen Online Podcast on Apple Podcasts.
- Follow Craftsmen Online on YouTube, hit subscribe and get notified the next time we go LIVE with a podcast recording!
- Yes, we're on Instagram.
- Get our latest announcements and important updates in your inbox with the Craftsmen Online Newsletter.
- Email the host, RW Michael Arce! Yes, we will read your email and may even reach out to be a guest on a future episode.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/craftsmen-online-podcast--4822031/support.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Commons.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Opinions and views shared during this program are of those
individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official position of
a Grand Lodge, Concordant Body, Appendant Body, a Masonic authority,
or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
We are so proud to say that each and every
week I'm your host, right worship of Brother Michael Arsa.
Thanks again our Patreon subscribers coming through force. We love
you for that. You can get this podcast ad free
and access to all of our subscriber extra episodes, which incidentally,
(00:50):
this Thursday, because of our Patreon subscribers, you will get
some bonus time with this week's guests. And dude, I'm
telling you this book is different and you're gonna want
to know more about it. How do you become a
Patreon subscriber? Simple and Patreon It's at Craftsman Online, or
you can open up the episode description on whatever you
are listening to us on and in the notes right
(01:10):
there bang the link to start your free seven day trial.
And thank you in advance for even considering it. As
a kind of tease there in the Patreon moment. This
is a very interesting book and a very cool guest.
It's not very often that I get to say, join
me and welcoming a past Grand historian from the Grand
Lodge of New Jersey. As we are joined by right
(01:33):
Worshipful Brother Michael Sheck, who is the author of Vile
and Impious Wretches, a novel of King Solomon's Temple and
the ancient Middle East. Welcome to the Craftsman Online Podcast,
Brother Michael.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, thank you. Nice to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Oh dude, I can't wait to jump into this because
we've talked about the heramic legend, We've pulled it apart,
we put it back together. We've talked about the esoteric,
the historical, this that that the other. Here's the thing
that I'm always concerned about, and this is what I
loved about your bookok, is that for so many brothers,
they go in and they see that part of the
third Degree and they think, one, this is what really happened,
(02:09):
and two, this is what freemasonry is all about, and
they don't get the idea that it's really an allegory
within an allegory, and characters in deep, deep, deep, deep deep.
What you did with your book was took you know,
the idea of the defense of the Ruffian play, which
I was telling you that I'm like a huge fan
of that, but you also gave like another perspective. So
(02:33):
as a grand historian, I guess the first question you
got to ask an author is like, what gave you
the idea not only to write this book, but to
take the angle from the other side.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
So you know, the book is called Violent Impius Wretch
is a novel of King Solomon's temple and the ancient
Middle East and the impetus to start it was a
program I created five years ago, which was a presentation
to given lodges. It was it was a time after
I had been in the Master Mason degree in New
(03:04):
Jersey and played a part, and I thought about, what's
the motivation to play this part a little more realistically
or differently, because one of the issues that we talk
about in all of masonry is ritual recitation. Right, do
(03:25):
we get it all right word for word at the
expense of making it maybe exciting, living it a little
more within reason, or do we want to give people
something they can remember, not the candidate. Candidate is going
to love what we do. The guy who's sitting in
the lodge and he's seen forty of these, that's when
(03:47):
the phones come out, the whispers on the sideline. And
I've always been the type of person that when I'm
speaking in a degree, I want everyone to be looking
at so fast forward. After that, I decided I was
going to create a presentation because I thought to myself,
what are these people really about behind the scenes some
(04:08):
popular series on TV. One of the most popular I
came out at the time was the Netflix series Making
of a Murderer. And my wife is a huge forty
eight hours Hard Evidence fan, which is like the true
crime documentary. So I put together a slideshow with about
one hundred and twenty slides, and as I go through
the images, I'm narrating the story. Now that's an eighteen
(04:35):
minute presentation. After I created that, and I've been giving
it all over for five years, my worshful master at
the time asked me to do it in our mother
lodge Atlas Pythagoras Lodge, Number ten, Westfield, New Jersey, and
we finished and he said, you know, that's my favorite presentation.
And that night I went home and I said, I'm
(04:56):
going to make this into a novel. I'm going to
see what I can do here. And that was the
beginning of what made me.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Start doing what I found interesting about this book. And
I don't know if anyone else has ever given this
feedback before, but when I started reading it, I actually
was confused in the beginning because there were so many
characters that I did not know that you were introducing it.
And I realized as I was going through the book,
you were introducing all of the craftsmen that are a
(05:23):
part of the Herraamic legend, and you were giving them names,
and I was like, who is And then I started
recognizing a couple of the names, and I'm like, ooh,
I know who these guys are. This is going to
be the important but these are the Ruffians here. How
much of this is based on like Masonic research, and
how much of this is based on kind of a
fictional piece that you're pulling together.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I made up a book about something we all made up,
which was a degree. It's there was research done in
terms of all the geographies correct, the names of the
period for where they're from is correct. Now, if you
talk to some Brethren in ten to see their ritual
actually has the craftsmen named. I did not use that.
(06:06):
I used creativity and what I thought to make their
names and create their backstories. And you certainly know who
the three Ruffians are, and I actually explain where the
root of their name comes from and why they're named such,
which is the root is correct. The reason why they're
(06:27):
named that is fictional. You'll see if you read it,
you'll see how I put that together. But we brought
the characters all in from different angles. And one of
the books that really inspired me the most was the
Game of Thrones books. Every chapter is named after a person,
which is what I did, And if it wasn't a
proper name, it was a situation of what a person
(06:48):
was going to be in for that chapter. So the
focus the chapter focus is usually on one person or
a small group based on the situation that they're in.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
This is the first book that I've been sent from
a guest that it was just so damn good. I
had to share it with another brother, Thank you. That
brother was our grand Tyler of the Grand Lodge in
New York, Don Gorum, and Don and I had done
an episode on the Defense of the Rugbians play. We're
huge fans of that, we love the story of it.
We're thinking of like making this like a two man
traveling act show and going around lodges in New York
(07:21):
and pulling this off. And I was like, don You've
got to read this. And here's why. Because you paint
a very violent, gritty, dark This is not the King
Solomon's temple that we hear about. Of this wonderful everybody
is getting along and working together, and there's no sound
(07:41):
of tools ever being used in cooperation and harmony and strength.
You took a completely different angle. How did you get
to that point?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I always tell people, if you like the movie pulp
fiction and you enjoy like the Sopranos, nothing in this
book should make you feel like, oh I can't handle this. Right,
it is, it is, it goes. But the themes and
things that happen are sort of shown from every historical
(08:11):
movie that has done so well, right, violence of Gladiator,
in any ancient Roman time, there are references to homosexuality, pedophilia,
major league violence, right, and this is this isn't new.
This book was written about the time. So I wanted
to take this away from the happiness, Like you said,
(08:36):
the happiness and cooperation. This is fifty thousand plus guys
who live on a work site. None of them are scholars.
They are all contractors. How would they interact? Right? Some
of them are good, some of them are not good guys.
You know, we do make these assumptions from our ritual
(08:56):
and from the Bible and other sources. Oh, King Solomon
was a wi man and so fair. He's a king.
He has a kingdom to run. You do not become
a king by being a nice guy, no matter what
our degrees say. There's another side to the story, and
that's where I came from. Right. The Ruffians are seen
(09:19):
as premeditated bad guys, and they the reality is that
that's not always how crime and life works. Right. People
are brought into something maybe they didn't agree with, but
they get caught up. It gets too big and I
can't get out right. The story takes you to why
(09:42):
the three of them meet, why they commit the act,
What are the circumstances that push them to that. None
of this is explained in any detail in the degree
because it would take too long. So this is able
to break out everything behind the scenes of the degree.
You know and give you the idea to start thinking why,
(10:06):
why did it happen? And the thing I tell people
if they read the book, I say, get in touch
with me and tell me how you would have wrote
it differently. All I want you to do is start
to think, think, and maybe it'll be your motivation the
next time you do the degree.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
I'll let the listener note number one. It is visual
aid night. If you're a YouTube live streamer. That is
a copy of what the book looks like, that is
on your screen next to Michael. If you're looking to
get a copy of it, we've got the links and
how you can get it in the notes for this episode.
Let's start with the part that I keep choking on
and just not getting correct. The title of the book
vile and impious, wretched. What does that mean and why
(10:45):
is it so powerful? The way that King Solomon's reaction
and how he kind of yells that to the Ruffians
when everything goes down.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So impious or it's pronounced impious and in other parts
of the country impious right piety meaning the reverence for
God right, so impious or impious, it's ungodly men who
are not of faith, right vile speaks for itself. So
Solomon is realizing that his chief architect has been murdered
(11:15):
in a premeditated fashion. And what I'm explaining to everyone
in the writing is this is a major problem for
both Solomon and Hiram of Tire. And I'm explaining in
this why because the two kings have innermost thoughts about
(11:35):
each other. We all assume from the Bible, which is
extremely straight when it tells you, oh, Hiram came from
Tire and as he helped Solomon's father David, he agreed
to help Solomon. That is just not how international relations work.
No one does anything because they're a nice guy. Right.
Kings have interests. That's a line I use in the
(11:58):
book more than once. I believe it twice. Kings have
interest and their own kingdom is what matters the most.
So at the point of realization, Solomon is literally looking
at a good eight years of work plus just stopping
(12:19):
because it's like handing. It's like Picasso handing me the
brush when he's halfway done. I can't possibly finish that
with any continuity. So the kings are looking at the
fact of my masterpiece is going to have to be
done by someone else. Hiram saying, oh my god, that's
(12:40):
our meal ticket because I supplied this guy and he
is going to make Solomon very happy, and I'm going
to exact a major toll from him in return. Right,
you know, money gold is going that way. Solomon makes
a promise to give land to Hiram. The sea is
(13:01):
open for tire to go south of Israel and trade
all the way to Africa. This relationship is hinging on
this temple going right, and the guy who's the lynchpin
is dead. The Plan B is not strong, and Plan
(13:23):
B is discussed in this and the discussions with many
of the characters that you know nothing about, like the
Senior Grand Board who has to bio in a background
and is involved in this. Right, we bring in a
look at some royal arch lore. It's taken guys from
(13:43):
all these different places and different degrees, like in the
Scottish right a little bit and the York right. And
you see these mentions. Some of it's subtle. Right, Like
you had said earlier, you know, I didn't even know
who was who. Things come around like fifty pages later,
So you hang in, try to enjoy just the story
(14:07):
being built and a lot of it is made evident
as you go. If you're always keeping the degree in
the back of your mind, you'll start It's almost like
opening easter eggs constantly. And there's a couple of Easter
eggs I put in there that are historical in nature.
I hope people think so. I hope they spot it
because some of it's subtle, but the ability to take
(14:30):
that degree and that pivotal point when the three Ruffians
confess their guilt and now build that out to the reader,
like why does this matter?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It matters, and all of that's told to you.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You talked about King Solomon and the characters and they're
not perfect, and that they're flawed, and that they're people,
and that's what I think. That context in the way
that you're writing your story really hit with me. I
opened up my phone and I was doing a Google
search while I was reading this book, and I'm like,
what were the problems with King Solomon? Like, and there
were issues that he definitely had. You're like, wow, we
(15:32):
don't ever really talk about that. We look at him
as this like pillar of being a great king. It's
also interesting you talked as well, like it does. I
was going to the same vein where brothers that are
in the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic jurisdiction. You know, I
think that fourth degree the builder that is like a
great Star Wars prequel, you know to the Saga story
(15:53):
that we all know the way that that degree ends,
like bam picks right up where we know the third
degree is going. If your experience with that the Tall
Seater's Elebanon I participated in that degree as well. They
got a great story about the him king of Tire
and kind of his role, and they try to put
some context to that. You're like, oh wow, So I
think for brothers that are on the fence about this
(16:17):
and are interested in this book, like I would say,
this is like a Marvel kind of franchise where you
do give origin story to the characters. And because you've
done a great job of putting color and other parts
of the picture or the frame that we're not used
to seeing, that I think really helps connect some of
the other things in the allegory that's in the Heramic legend.
(16:39):
It makes that first experience that we had so much
more vivid, if you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I was at a Scottish Rite Reunion and I'm watching
The Fourth Degree for many times now, and I actually
started taking notes because one of the craftsman's name is
joe Bert. That comes right from the Degree, and he
has an overseer name's sam right in the Degree. Samuel's
not nice. I wrote that right in. I said I've
(17:05):
got to use this, and I actually took some things
out and said, I'm going to rewrite that character with
again that easter egg. If somebody ever watches it and
thinks about it, and if they really absorb the material, go,
wait a second, I know that name, I know where
that name came from. And boy, that his overseer is
not a good dude, right, So you know it was.
(17:29):
It's the whole writing is to take the creative stuff
inside of me and simply paint a picture for someone
who has an interest in historical fiction that's Masonic in nature.
That's what it is.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Well, it's the pain that they're carrying too, Like that's
kind of established really early in the book, Like there's
definitely a class system that's in play there at the
bottom of it. You're looking up your promise, this thing,
you're busting your you know what just trying to survive
every single time. And then you get into the physical
part of it, like the punishment, which was really torture
(18:04):
that they would get for just doing silly, stupid little things.
You're like, why are they making such a big deal
out of this? But man, they were just almost persecuted
in a sense, and you're like, Okay, this totally makes
sense as to the desperation, to the the opportunity that
they thought that they had what motivated them to do
what they did, and then to try to escape and
(18:25):
flee and get it like all of the things that
we remember from the Herramic legend that just seem like, oh, well,
you know, now this part is happening, and it's happening
over here, and you know here, here's these guys talking
about this, And as the person who's observing the degree,
you're sitting here trying to figure out, like what does
this have to do with all of the rest of
what I've learned in freemasonry. When I was reading this book,
(18:48):
I was thinking, like, man, this would make a great
History Channel movie. It was brilliantly written.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I can't thank you enough for your compliments. I mean,
they've they've been flowing. And you know, people are very
hesitant to accept praise, and you know when they do,
it's always, well, thank you. But look, this book is
never going to be done. In my mind, I could
have rewrote it five times and added for stuff. Right,
(19:15):
good enough has to be good enough. And I'm I'm
very proud of the work I did because I gave
myself a goal and I actually followed through. And you know,
I'm self selling it. It's not on Amazon they take
all your money. I sell it and people are buying it,
and I'm getting feedback that people are very happy with it.
(19:37):
When you're into any kind of art, you're trying to
make yourself and those who experience your art happy. Right
at the end of the day, you want a reaction
and you want feeling. For me, I want it to
be positive, happy feeling because we engage in masonry because
we love it, right, and I want I want the
stories to be loved, and I want the ritual which
(20:01):
does not need my help to make it great. Changes
are not necessary for me, but just to enhance what
we've been through that ties you, me and everyone else
together that we can say, you know what. This was
a fresh look on a bunch of Masonic books I've
read that might be more fact based, right, you say, oh,
(20:25):
you know you're a historian, grant historian is a different
role than what some people may think it is. But
having the creativity and the stick toativeness to write this
it definitely comes from that job function in a way.
I'm just I'm just not the guy to write a
strictly historical, straightforward book.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Mentioned he's the past Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge
of New Jersey. He's also a past master of Atlas
Pythagoras Lodge number ten in New Jersey. In the book,
you note that this novel is specific written for quote,
those who have gone through the third degree of Freemasonry
and beyond. That's kind of a key thing obviously if
you haven't seen the Herramic legend, it's a cool story,
(21:09):
But the deeper meaning and the connections, I mean, that's
going to be what pays off if you're a master
Mason and you've sat through that and now you're ready
to like open your mind to some parts of it.
You had kind of teased this as well. I want
to come back to it. The challenge of writing a
story based on Masonic ritual and as a member of
the Grand Lodge in New Jersey, where there are times
(21:30):
in your mind where like, oh, I can't talk about that,
I could be giving away a secret. How would I,
you know, change the angle of this or reframe or
reposition this so that I can still get into the characters,
the setting in the backstory without giving any way or
any parts of our ritual.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, so there were there were a couple things I
specifically changed, you know, the here's the fine line. What
can't you tell? Right, signs, tokens, words, But what can't
you say? What is violating your Masonic obligation with what
you tell people? You know, So when people come to
(22:07):
masonry and they'll they'll say this a lot, Oh, I
don't even know what I'm not allowed to ask, And
I go, you can ask anything you want. You're not
going to think of the questions that I need to
say I can't tell you at this time. Right. I
wrote a paper and did presentation a long time ago
on secrecy of Freemasonry that it's not really to our
(22:29):
benefit to act like it's cool to have secrets, because
it's really you know, we've seen it cause a lot
of problems or the secret society thing. I never tell
anyone who's interested in masonry that we are secret. I say,
we keep things private, and that's because if someone's ever
going to go through it, we don't want to tell
(22:49):
them what the end of the story is till they
go through the story. And I also say, you want
to find it online, it's there, you know, right, So
there was not a heavy duty juggling act between giving
stuff away and not doing so. Couple of things, like
I said, I specifically changed them enough that if you
(23:11):
were reading it closer, you'd go, that's not how it happened.
That was by design, But there wasn't a lot that
had to happen here. It was I was able to
pretty much have creative full creative control.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
So much of the ritual experience. And you got me
thinking about this is very internal and it's unique to
the individual. And there'll be times when I'm out for
a run in the morning and I'll start thinking about
a part of our ritual. I was like, huh, I've
never really thought about it that way before. Sometimes it's
just the line and like with the deeper meaning of it,
or multiple ways that you could express that. Books like this.
(23:45):
What I like about it is that you're giving me
another thing to think about the same thing that I
thought I've already thought about a thousand times, and you
state that, and we're reading the novel, you'll say that
the purpose of this is to stoke the imagination into
greater contemplation. What kind of discussions are you hoping that
brothers have after they read this, either in lodge or
(24:07):
with each other.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
You know, I the thing, the greatest tribute I had
alluded to someone gets inspired enough to create their own
art written, whatever it is, whatever their medium they're into,
but says, I'm inspired to push my comfort zone. Right,
Because my whole career has been based on human performance,
(24:30):
either physically emotionally, management training, sales training, I've done all
of that in my thirty five year career. So I
would hope people get inspired and say, maybe I'll contribute
in some way, even if it's writing an article something
I haven't done, take on an educational program, whether it's
(24:51):
Masonic or other. But you know, the thing that I
love is I love when someone brings up a specific
part and tells me we discuss it. Hey, this was
really cool because or like I had said, how would
you have written it different? Oh, I always pictured it
was going to be like this and that, and I
(25:12):
think that that's the the back and forth discourse we're
all looking for, right And you said contemplation. I want
someone to read and just go. I didn't consider that,
and I'm glad I am considering it. And you know
I I told this to some other people. I went
on the friendliest website on the planet read it and
(25:37):
and under the free Freemasonry subreddit, I asked the question,
when the master sounds the gavel to start the lodge,
has anyone considered that that is the moment of creation?
That's the bank Now. I got everything from absolutely not,
you're insane to I never thought of that, And it's
(26:00):
not that a bunch of people. No one said yes, right,
But that's something I've heard before and contemplated because we
want our members to have a certain level of seriousness
and solemnity when the lives starts. We don't want them giggling,
we don't want them talking on the sidelines, which people do.
But ideally, this is supposed to be the time where
(26:23):
you start preparing yourself to be away from the rest
of the world and divest yourself of the super fluidities
of life and really be present where you are. So
that went over like a lead balloon on Reddit. But
what you had just said, we want people to think
(26:47):
because the best mentors in masonry have their students contemplating
things they never thought about. So when I can say,
how do you think such and such really went, and
they start that conversation, that is how information is conveyed.
(27:08):
That's how ideas are spread, That's how people's brains work
over time and we all grow. It's it's I mean, look,
I wrote a book. Is it a big deal? It
is to me. It's not the cure of the world,
but it's a little piece where you go, you know what.
I'm entertained and it gave me something to think about.
That's like I said, that's good enough, right, I'm here
(27:30):
to entertain. But I really love masonry so much and
I love talking about masonry. And the ritual is what
really ties us all together until we get to know
each other as friends, as brothers. The ritual ties us
and that is the place you start from. And everything
spreads out.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Of vile and impious wretches. A novel of King Solomon's
Temple and the ancient Middle East. Our guest this week
is right Worship for Michael Sheck. He's a past Grand
(28:26):
Historian from the Grand Lodge of New Jersey. We're lucky
to have the book author here because I wish that
I could travel back in time and talk to Brother
Thomas B. Davis, who's the author of the Defense of
the Ruffians book slash play that I had mentioned. I
want to get into this part of You have your
creative sandbox here, you're writing this story. You're like, Hey,
(28:48):
I want to paint this with a different stroke. I
want people to see this other side. I kind of
tease you a little bit about this where the version
of the Herramic legend that we see Ian Lodge as
part of being a master Mason and going to the degrees.
That's like the Wizard of Oz movie that we all
grew up with. And then now this new series of
movies came out, The Wicked movies have come out, and
there's this other side of the coin, this other side
(29:10):
of the story that is being introduced to us. And
as people say, like somewhere's in the middle is probably
what really happened between the Wizard of Oz and just
like this, there's the defense of the Ruffians play, there's Doorbook,
and then there's also the Harramic legend of people trying
to look for other angles. What's the benefit of you
when you're creating this narrative, this new version of the story,
(29:31):
or as I would say, an enhanced version of the story,
giving some life to these characters. How are you taking
that Herramic legend to the next level?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
You know. So one of the things about society today,
and you can see this in the success of our media.
People like to root for the bad guy a soprano
show breaking bad. Right. You can think of all the
shows that are based on crime, and the heroes are
all flawed, right, Yellowstone, these very popular shows. People are
(30:03):
not nice, but you still want them to win, right,
because conflict is interesting to people. So the whole idea
here was let's take that reverse approach of everything's wonderful
and delightful, and let's add the fact that life never
(30:25):
works out the way we plan it too, and lots
of stuff goes wrong all the time. But how do
people deal with it? That's where the interest comes in.
And you know, when you're an author, you want people
to turn the page for the simple reason that they say,
I want to see what happens next. I really wanted
to bring in the idea of let's take the reverse angle.
(30:51):
Let's talk about the bad guys. Let's realize not everybody's
happy and doing their work while they whistle and this.
You know, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. We're
not nas anymore. Right, We're we're in a real place
where we're working here because there's not a lot of
other opportunity. The King, you shut the country down to
(31:12):
get this thing built. Now there are things happening, but
if you need work, this is where you go, much
like the idea of the coal mining town of yesteryear,
where the company owns the store, the company owns the barbershop,
the company owns the bank, and every penny you get
kind of goes back to the company, making you an
(31:33):
indentured servant till the project's done or you drop dead.
Some of the promises that are made when the craftsmen
enter the contract they change during time. In the Darth Vader,
I've altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further,
because nobody has power but the king, the king can
do whatever he wants, and he does. And that's where
(31:56):
we have to realize that when we're looking back at history,
everyone's got their own interest, right. So it comes down
to the guys who built, to the guys who run
the project, to the people on top of them. Everyone's
got what they want out there, and they're all in
different positions to take it. And that conflict of how
(32:18):
they all get to where they want to go, that's
what interests people. How does that intersect with this that
and this right? So the Ruffians have an idea of
what they're hoping to get, it's not going to happen.
Now they have to solve their problem. Well, meanwhile, someone
else in the book is like, I just want to
get out of here. I just have had enough and
(32:40):
I'll just try to find work somewhere else, no matter
how hard it might be. And that confluence of how
they all meet and why the craftsmen get involved, and
how they get out of it, and what happens after
the fact when the Ruffians flee but are quiet. Not
only are the details given of every part of that,
including the fight, you know, how are they apprehended, but
(33:02):
the epilogue of Okay, does everyone live happily ever after?
Where did they go from here? And that part comes
out and no one has thought about that because it's
just never come up.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Thanks again to write. Worshipful Brother Michael check for his
time on the Craftsman Online Podcast. If you're a Craftsman
Online Podcast subscriber on Patreon, Dude, we get like a
whole another thirty minutes with this guy. On Thursday. We're
going to get deeper into the book, talk about some
more of the characters and the interesting way that he
kind of ended it but didn't really end it, if
(33:36):
you know what I mean about the story that's coming
up on Thursday with our extra. Until then, this is right,
Worshipful Brother Michael Arsa. The next time we catch up,
we'll be on Monday when we welcome back Brother Matthew Brockbank,
and we'll be talking about how you and I have
a very interesting position in Lodge as the bridge to
the generational gap in Freemasonry. Until then, let peace and
(33:59):
harmony prevail. O.
The Commons.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Opinions and views shared during this program are of those
individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official position of
a Grand Lodge, Concordant Body, Appendant Body, a Masonic authority,
or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
We are so proud to say that each and every
week I'm your host, right worship of Brother Michael Arsa.
Thanks again our Patreon subscribers coming through force. We love
you for that. You can get this podcast ad free
and access to all of our subscriber extra episodes, which incidentally,
(00:50):
this Thursday, because of our Patreon subscribers, you will get
some bonus time with this week's guests. And dude, I'm
telling you this book is different and you're gonna want
to know more about it. How do you become a
Patreon subscriber? Simple and Patreon It's at Craftsman Online, or
you can open up the episode description on whatever you
are listening to us on and in the notes right
(01:10):
there bang the link to start your free seven day trial.
And thank you in advance for even considering it. As
a kind of tease there in the Patreon moment. This
is a very interesting book and a very cool guest.
It's not very often that I get to say, join
me and welcoming a past Grand historian from the Grand
Lodge of New Jersey. As we are joined by right
(01:33):
Worshipful Brother Michael Sheck, who is the author of Vile
and Impious Wretches, a novel of King Solomon's Temple and
the ancient Middle East. Welcome to the Craftsman Online Podcast,
Brother Michael.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, thank you. Nice to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Oh dude, I can't wait to jump into this because
we've talked about the heramic legend, We've pulled it apart,
we put it back together. We've talked about the esoteric,
the historical, this that that the other. Here's the thing
that I'm always concerned about, and this is what I
loved about your bookok, is that for so many brothers,
they go in and they see that part of the
third Degree and they think, one, this is what really happened,
(02:09):
and two, this is what freemasonry is all about, and
they don't get the idea that it's really an allegory
within an allegory, and characters in deep, deep, deep, deep deep.
What you did with your book was took you know,
the idea of the defense of the Ruffian play, which
I was telling you that I'm like a huge fan
of that, but you also gave like another perspective. So
(02:33):
as a grand historian, I guess the first question you
got to ask an author is like, what gave you
the idea not only to write this book, but to
take the angle from the other side.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
So you know, the book is called Violent Impius Wretch
is a novel of King Solomon's temple and the ancient
Middle East and the impetus to start it was a
program I created five years ago, which was a presentation
to given lodges. It was it was a time after
I had been in the Master Mason degree in New
(03:04):
Jersey and played a part, and I thought about, what's
the motivation to play this part a little more realistically
or differently, because one of the issues that we talk
about in all of masonry is ritual recitation. Right, do
(03:25):
we get it all right word for word at the
expense of making it maybe exciting, living it a little
more within reason, or do we want to give people
something they can remember, not the candidate. Candidate is going
to love what we do. The guy who's sitting in
the lodge and he's seen forty of these, that's when
(03:47):
the phones come out, the whispers on the sideline. And
I've always been the type of person that when I'm
speaking in a degree, I want everyone to be looking
at so fast forward. After that, I decided I was
going to create a presentation because I thought to myself,
what are these people really about behind the scenes some
(04:08):
popular series on TV. One of the most popular I
came out at the time was the Netflix series Making
of a Murderer. And my wife is a huge forty
eight hours Hard Evidence fan, which is like the true
crime documentary. So I put together a slideshow with about
one hundred and twenty slides, and as I go through
the images, I'm narrating the story. Now that's an eighteen
(04:35):
minute presentation. After I created that, and I've been giving
it all over for five years, my worshful master at
the time asked me to do it in our mother
lodge Atlas Pythagoras Lodge, Number ten, Westfield, New Jersey, and
we finished and he said, you know, that's my favorite presentation.
And that night I went home and I said, I'm
(04:56):
going to make this into a novel. I'm going to
see what I can do here. And that was the
beginning of what made me.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Start doing what I found interesting about this book. And
I don't know if anyone else has ever given this
feedback before, but when I started reading it, I actually
was confused in the beginning because there were so many
characters that I did not know that you were introducing it.
And I realized as I was going through the book,
you were introducing all of the craftsmen that are a
(05:23):
part of the Herraamic legend, and you were giving them names,
and I was like, who is And then I started
recognizing a couple of the names, and I'm like, ooh,
I know who these guys are. This is going to
be the important but these are the Ruffians here. How
much of this is based on like Masonic research, and
how much of this is based on kind of a
fictional piece that you're pulling together.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I made up a book about something we all made up,
which was a degree. It's there was research done in
terms of all the geographies correct, the names of the
period for where they're from is correct. Now, if you
talk to some Brethren in ten to see their ritual
actually has the craftsmen named. I did not use that.
(06:06):
I used creativity and what I thought to make their
names and create their backstories. And you certainly know who
the three Ruffians are, and I actually explain where the
root of their name comes from and why they're named such,
which is the root is correct. The reason why they're
(06:27):
named that is fictional. You'll see if you read it,
you'll see how I put that together. But we brought
the characters all in from different angles. And one of
the books that really inspired me the most was the
Game of Thrones books. Every chapter is named after a person,
which is what I did, And if it wasn't a
proper name, it was a situation of what a person
(06:48):
was going to be in for that chapter. So the
focus the chapter focus is usually on one person or
a small group based on the situation that they're in.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
This is the first book that I've been sent from
a guest that it was just so damn good. I
had to share it with another brother, Thank you. That
brother was our grand Tyler of the Grand Lodge in
New York, Don Gorum, and Don and I had done
an episode on the Defense of the Rugbians play. We're
huge fans of that, we love the story of it.
We're thinking of like making this like a two man
traveling act show and going around lodges in New York
(07:21):
and pulling this off. And I was like, don You've
got to read this. And here's why. Because you paint
a very violent, gritty, dark This is not the King
Solomon's temple that we hear about. Of this wonderful everybody
is getting along and working together, and there's no sound
(07:41):
of tools ever being used in cooperation and harmony and strength.
You took a completely different angle. How did you get
to that point?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I always tell people, if you like the movie pulp
fiction and you enjoy like the Sopranos, nothing in this
book should make you feel like, oh I can't handle this. Right,
it is, it is, it goes. But the themes and
things that happen are sort of shown from every historical
(08:11):
movie that has done so well, right, violence of Gladiator,
in any ancient Roman time, there are references to homosexuality, pedophilia,
major league violence, right, and this is this isn't new.
This book was written about the time. So I wanted
to take this away from the happiness, Like you said,
(08:36):
the happiness and cooperation. This is fifty thousand plus guys
who live on a work site. None of them are scholars.
They are all contractors. How would they interact? Right? Some
of them are good, some of them are not good guys.
You know, we do make these assumptions from our ritual
(08:56):
and from the Bible and other sources. Oh, King Solomon
was a wi man and so fair. He's a king.
He has a kingdom to run. You do not become
a king by being a nice guy, no matter what
our degrees say. There's another side to the story, and
that's where I came from. Right. The Ruffians are seen
(09:19):
as premeditated bad guys, and they the reality is that
that's not always how crime and life works. Right. People
are brought into something maybe they didn't agree with, but
they get caught up. It gets too big and I
can't get out right. The story takes you to why
(09:42):
the three of them meet, why they commit the act,
What are the circumstances that push them to that. None
of this is explained in any detail in the degree
because it would take too long. So this is able
to break out everything behind the scenes of the degree.
You know and give you the idea to start thinking why,
(10:06):
why did it happen? And the thing I tell people
if they read the book, I say, get in touch
with me and tell me how you would have wrote
it differently. All I want you to do is start
to think, think, and maybe it'll be your motivation the
next time you do the degree.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
I'll let the listener note number one. It is visual
aid night. If you're a YouTube live streamer. That is
a copy of what the book looks like, that is
on your screen next to Michael. If you're looking to
get a copy of it, we've got the links and
how you can get it in the notes for this episode.
Let's start with the part that I keep choking on
and just not getting correct. The title of the book
vile and impious, wretched. What does that mean and why
(10:45):
is it so powerful? The way that King Solomon's reaction
and how he kind of yells that to the Ruffians
when everything goes down.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So impious or it's pronounced impious and in other parts
of the country impious right piety meaning the reverence for
God right, so impious or impious, it's ungodly men who
are not of faith, right vile speaks for itself. So
Solomon is realizing that his chief architect has been murdered
(11:15):
in a premeditated fashion. And what I'm explaining to everyone
in the writing is this is a major problem for
both Solomon and Hiram of Tire. And I'm explaining in
this why because the two kings have innermost thoughts about
(11:35):
each other. We all assume from the Bible, which is
extremely straight when it tells you, oh, Hiram came from
Tire and as he helped Solomon's father David, he agreed
to help Solomon. That is just not how international relations work.
No one does anything because they're a nice guy. Right.
Kings have interests. That's a line I use in the
(11:58):
book more than once. I believe it twice. Kings have
interest and their own kingdom is what matters the most.
So at the point of realization, Solomon is literally looking
at a good eight years of work plus just stopping
(12:19):
because it's like handing. It's like Picasso handing me the
brush when he's halfway done. I can't possibly finish that
with any continuity. So the kings are looking at the
fact of my masterpiece is going to have to be
done by someone else. Hiram saying, oh my god, that's
(12:40):
our meal ticket because I supplied this guy and he
is going to make Solomon very happy, and I'm going
to exact a major toll from him in return. Right,
you know, money gold is going that way. Solomon makes
a promise to give land to Hiram. The sea is
(13:01):
open for tire to go south of Israel and trade
all the way to Africa. This relationship is hinging on
this temple going right, and the guy who's the lynchpin
is dead. The Plan B is not strong, and Plan
(13:23):
B is discussed in this and the discussions with many
of the characters that you know nothing about, like the
Senior Grand Board who has to bio in a background
and is involved in this. Right, we bring in a
look at some royal arch lore. It's taken guys from
(13:43):
all these different places and different degrees, like in the
Scottish right a little bit and the York right. And
you see these mentions. Some of it's subtle. Right, Like
you had said earlier, you know, I didn't even know
who was who. Things come around like fifty pages later,
So you hang in, try to enjoy just the story
(14:07):
being built and a lot of it is made evident
as you go. If you're always keeping the degree in
the back of your mind, you'll start It's almost like
opening easter eggs constantly. And there's a couple of Easter
eggs I put in there that are historical in nature.
I hope people think so. I hope they spot it
because some of it's subtle, but the ability to take
(14:30):
that degree and that pivotal point when the three Ruffians
confess their guilt and now build that out to the reader,
like why does this matter?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It matters, and all of that's told to you.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You talked about King Solomon and the characters and they're
not perfect, and that they're flawed, and that they're people,
and that's what I think. That context in the way
that you're writing your story really hit with me. I
opened up my phone and I was doing a Google
search while I was reading this book, and I'm like,
what were the problems with King Solomon? Like, and there
were issues that he definitely had. You're like, wow, we
(15:32):
don't ever really talk about that. We look at him
as this like pillar of being a great king. It's
also interesting you talked as well, like it does. I
was going to the same vein where brothers that are
in the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic jurisdiction. You know, I
think that fourth degree the builder that is like a
great Star Wars prequel, you know to the Saga story
(15:53):
that we all know the way that that degree ends,
like bam picks right up where we know the third
degree is going. If your experience with that the Tall
Seater's Elebanon I participated in that degree as well. They
got a great story about the him king of Tire
and kind of his role, and they try to put
some context to that. You're like, oh wow, So I
think for brothers that are on the fence about this
(16:17):
and are interested in this book, like I would say,
this is like a Marvel kind of franchise where you
do give origin story to the characters. And because you've
done a great job of putting color and other parts
of the picture or the frame that we're not used
to seeing, that I think really helps connect some of
the other things in the allegory that's in the Heramic legend.
(16:39):
It makes that first experience that we had so much
more vivid, if you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I was at a Scottish Rite Reunion and I'm watching
The Fourth Degree for many times now, and I actually
started taking notes because one of the craftsman's name is
joe Bert. That comes right from the Degree, and he
has an overseer name's sam right in the Degree. Samuel's
not nice. I wrote that right in. I said I've
(17:05):
got to use this, and I actually took some things
out and said, I'm going to rewrite that character with
again that easter egg. If somebody ever watches it and
thinks about it, and if they really absorb the material, go,
wait a second, I know that name, I know where
that name came from. And boy, that his overseer is
not a good dude, right, So you know it was.
(17:29):
It's the whole writing is to take the creative stuff
inside of me and simply paint a picture for someone
who has an interest in historical fiction that's Masonic in nature.
That's what it is.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Well, it's the pain that they're carrying too, Like that's
kind of established really early in the book, Like there's
definitely a class system that's in play there at the
bottom of it. You're looking up your promise, this thing,
you're busting your you know what just trying to survive
every single time. And then you get into the physical
part of it, like the punishment, which was really torture
(18:04):
that they would get for just doing silly, stupid little things.
You're like, why are they making such a big deal
out of this? But man, they were just almost persecuted
in a sense, and you're like, Okay, this totally makes
sense as to the desperation, to the the opportunity that
they thought that they had what motivated them to do
what they did, and then to try to escape and
(18:25):
flee and get it like all of the things that
we remember from the Herramic legend that just seem like, oh, well,
you know, now this part is happening, and it's happening
over here, and you know here, here's these guys talking
about this, And as the person who's observing the degree,
you're sitting here trying to figure out, like what does
this have to do with all of the rest of
what I've learned in freemasonry. When I was reading this book,
(18:48):
I was thinking, like, man, this would make a great
History Channel movie. It was brilliantly written.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I can't thank you enough for your compliments. I mean,
they've they've been flowing. And you know, people are very
hesitant to accept praise, and you know when they do,
it's always, well, thank you. But look, this book is
never going to be done. In my mind, I could
have rewrote it five times and added for stuff. Right,
(19:15):
good enough has to be good enough. And I'm I'm
very proud of the work I did because I gave
myself a goal and I actually followed through. And you know,
I'm self selling it. It's not on Amazon they take
all your money. I sell it and people are buying it,
and I'm getting feedback that people are very happy with it.
(19:37):
When you're into any kind of art, you're trying to
make yourself and those who experience your art happy. Right
at the end of the day, you want a reaction
and you want feeling. For me, I want it to
be positive, happy feeling because we engage in masonry because
we love it, right, and I want I want the
stories to be loved, and I want the ritual which
(20:01):
does not need my help to make it great. Changes
are not necessary for me, but just to enhance what
we've been through that ties you, me and everyone else
together that we can say, you know what. This was
a fresh look on a bunch of Masonic books I've
read that might be more fact based, right, you say, oh,
(20:25):
you know you're a historian, grant historian is a different
role than what some people may think it is. But
having the creativity and the stick toativeness to write this
it definitely comes from that job function in a way.
I'm just I'm just not the guy to write a
strictly historical, straightforward book.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Mentioned he's the past Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge
of New Jersey. He's also a past master of Atlas
Pythagoras Lodge number ten in New Jersey. In the book,
you note that this novel is specific written for quote,
those who have gone through the third degree of Freemasonry
and beyond. That's kind of a key thing obviously if
you haven't seen the Herramic legend, it's a cool story,
(21:09):
But the deeper meaning and the connections, I mean, that's
going to be what pays off if you're a master
Mason and you've sat through that and now you're ready
to like open your mind to some parts of it.
You had kind of teased this as well. I want
to come back to it. The challenge of writing a
story based on Masonic ritual and as a member of
the Grand Lodge in New Jersey, where there are times
(21:30):
in your mind where like, oh, I can't talk about that,
I could be giving away a secret. How would I,
you know, change the angle of this or reframe or
reposition this so that I can still get into the characters,
the setting in the backstory without giving any way or
any parts of our ritual.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, so there were there were a couple things I
specifically changed, you know, the here's the fine line. What
can't you tell? Right, signs, tokens, words, But what can't
you say? What is violating your Masonic obligation with what
you tell people? You know, So when people come to
(22:07):
masonry and they'll they'll say this a lot, Oh, I
don't even know what I'm not allowed to ask, And
I go, you can ask anything you want. You're not
going to think of the questions that I need to
say I can't tell you at this time. Right. I
wrote a paper and did presentation a long time ago
on secrecy of Freemasonry that it's not really to our
(22:29):
benefit to act like it's cool to have secrets, because
it's really you know, we've seen it cause a lot
of problems or the secret society thing. I never tell
anyone who's interested in masonry that we are secret. I say,
we keep things private, and that's because if someone's ever
going to go through it, we don't want to tell
(22:49):
them what the end of the story is till they
go through the story. And I also say, you want
to find it online, it's there, you know, right, So
there was not a heavy duty juggling act between giving
stuff away and not doing so. Couple of things, like
I said, I specifically changed them enough that if you
(23:11):
were reading it closer, you'd go, that's not how it happened.
That was by design, But there wasn't a lot that
had to happen here. It was I was able to
pretty much have creative full creative control.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
So much of the ritual experience. And you got me
thinking about this is very internal and it's unique to
the individual. And there'll be times when I'm out for
a run in the morning and I'll start thinking about
a part of our ritual. I was like, huh, I've
never really thought about it that way before. Sometimes it's
just the line and like with the deeper meaning of it,
or multiple ways that you could express that. Books like this.
(23:45):
What I like about it is that you're giving me
another thing to think about the same thing that I
thought I've already thought about a thousand times, and you
state that, and we're reading the novel, you'll say that
the purpose of this is to stoke the imagination into
greater contemplation. What kind of discussions are you hoping that
brothers have after they read this, either in lodge or
(24:07):
with each other.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
You know, I the thing, the greatest tribute I had
alluded to someone gets inspired enough to create their own
art written, whatever it is, whatever their medium they're into,
but says, I'm inspired to push my comfort zone. Right,
Because my whole career has been based on human performance,
(24:30):
either physically emotionally, management training, sales training, I've done all
of that in my thirty five year career. So I
would hope people get inspired and say, maybe I'll contribute
in some way, even if it's writing an article something
I haven't done, take on an educational program, whether it's
(24:51):
Masonic or other. But you know, the thing that I
love is I love when someone brings up a specific
part and tells me we discuss it. Hey, this was
really cool because or like I had said, how would
you have written it different? Oh, I always pictured it
was going to be like this and that, and I
(25:12):
think that that's the the back and forth discourse we're
all looking for, right And you said contemplation. I want
someone to read and just go. I didn't consider that,
and I'm glad I am considering it. And you know
I I told this to some other people. I went
on the friendliest website on the planet read it and
(25:37):
and under the free Freemasonry subreddit, I asked the question,
when the master sounds the gavel to start the lodge,
has anyone considered that that is the moment of creation?
That's the bank Now. I got everything from absolutely not,
you're insane to I never thought of that, And it's
(26:00):
not that a bunch of people. No one said yes, right,
But that's something I've heard before and contemplated because we
want our members to have a certain level of seriousness
and solemnity when the lives starts. We don't want them giggling,
we don't want them talking on the sidelines, which people do.
But ideally, this is supposed to be the time where
(26:23):
you start preparing yourself to be away from the rest
of the world and divest yourself of the super fluidities
of life and really be present where you are. So
that went over like a lead balloon on Reddit. But
what you had just said, we want people to think
(26:47):
because the best mentors in masonry have their students contemplating
things they never thought about. So when I can say,
how do you think such and such really went, and
they start that conversation, that is how information is conveyed.
(27:08):
That's how ideas are spread, That's how people's brains work
over time and we all grow. It's it's I mean, look,
I wrote a book. Is it a big deal? It
is to me. It's not the cure of the world,
but it's a little piece where you go, you know what.
I'm entertained and it gave me something to think about.
That's like I said, that's good enough, right, I'm here
(27:30):
to entertain. But I really love masonry so much and
I love talking about masonry. And the ritual is what
really ties us all together until we get to know
each other as friends, as brothers. The ritual ties us
and that is the place you start from. And everything
spreads out.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Of vile and impious wretches. A novel of King Solomon's
Temple and the ancient Middle East. Our guest this week
is right Worship for Michael Sheck. He's a past Grand
(28:26):
Historian from the Grand Lodge of New Jersey. We're lucky
to have the book author here because I wish that
I could travel back in time and talk to Brother
Thomas B. Davis, who's the author of the Defense of
the Ruffians book slash play that I had mentioned. I
want to get into this part of You have your
creative sandbox here, you're writing this story. You're like, Hey,
(28:48):
I want to paint this with a different stroke. I
want people to see this other side. I kind of
tease you a little bit about this where the version
of the Herramic legend that we see Ian Lodge as
part of being a master Mason and going to the degrees.
That's like the Wizard of Oz movie that we all
grew up with. And then now this new series of
movies came out, The Wicked movies have come out, and
there's this other side of the coin, this other side
(29:10):
of the story that is being introduced to us. And
as people say, like somewhere's in the middle is probably
what really happened between the Wizard of Oz and just
like this, there's the defense of the Ruffians play, there's Doorbook,
and then there's also the Harramic legend of people trying
to look for other angles. What's the benefit of you
when you're creating this narrative, this new version of the story,
(29:31):
or as I would say, an enhanced version of the story,
giving some life to these characters. How are you taking
that Herramic legend to the next level?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
You know. So one of the things about society today,
and you can see this in the success of our media.
People like to root for the bad guy a soprano
show breaking bad. Right. You can think of all the
shows that are based on crime, and the heroes are
all flawed, right, Yellowstone, these very popular shows. People are
(30:03):
not nice, but you still want them to win, right,
because conflict is interesting to people. So the whole idea
here was let's take that reverse approach of everything's wonderful
and delightful, and let's add the fact that life never
(30:25):
works out the way we plan it too, and lots
of stuff goes wrong all the time. But how do
people deal with it? That's where the interest comes in.
And you know, when you're an author, you want people
to turn the page for the simple reason that they say,
I want to see what happens next. I really wanted
to bring in the idea of let's take the reverse angle.
(30:51):
Let's talk about the bad guys. Let's realize not everybody's
happy and doing their work while they whistle and this.
You know, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. We're
not nas anymore. Right, We're we're in a real place
where we're working here because there's not a lot of
other opportunity. The King, you shut the country down to
(31:12):
get this thing built. Now there are things happening, but
if you need work, this is where you go, much
like the idea of the coal mining town of yesteryear,
where the company owns the store, the company owns the barbershop,
the company owns the bank, and every penny you get
kind of goes back to the company, making you an
(31:33):
indentured servant till the project's done or you drop dead.
Some of the promises that are made when the craftsmen
enter the contract they change during time. In the Darth Vader,
I've altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further,
because nobody has power but the king, the king can
do whatever he wants, and he does. And that's where
(31:56):
we have to realize that when we're looking back at history,
everyone's got their own interest, right. So it comes down
to the guys who built, to the guys who run
the project, to the people on top of them. Everyone's
got what they want out there, and they're all in
different positions to take it. And that conflict of how
(32:18):
they all get to where they want to go, that's
what interests people. How does that intersect with this that
and this right? So the Ruffians have an idea of
what they're hoping to get, it's not going to happen.
Now they have to solve their problem. Well, meanwhile, someone
else in the book is like, I just want to
get out of here. I just have had enough and
(32:40):
I'll just try to find work somewhere else, no matter
how hard it might be. And that confluence of how
they all meet and why the craftsmen get involved, and
how they get out of it, and what happens after
the fact when the Ruffians flee but are quiet. Not
only are the details given of every part of that,
including the fight, you know, how are they apprehended, but
(33:02):
the epilogue of Okay, does everyone live happily ever after?
Where did they go from here? And that part comes
out and no one has thought about that because it's
just never come up.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Thanks again to write. Worshipful Brother Michael check for his
time on the Craftsman Online Podcast. If you're a Craftsman
Online Podcast subscriber on Patreon, Dude, we get like a
whole another thirty minutes with this guy. On Thursday. We're
going to get deeper into the book, talk about some
more of the characters and the interesting way that he
kind of ended it but didn't really end it, if
(33:36):
you know what I mean about the story that's coming
up on Thursday with our extra. Until then, this is right,
Worshipful Brother Michael Arsa. The next time we catch up,
we'll be on Monday when we welcome back Brother Matthew Brockbank,
and we'll be talking about how you and I have
a very interesting position in Lodge as the bridge to
the generational gap in Freemasonry. Until then, let peace and
(33:59):
harmony prevail. O.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Kingdom of Fraud
It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of Kingdom of Fraud completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!