Posted on by Kyle Roques

The Craft

Freemasonrys secrecy is like a well. The men who built it know how deep it is. The rest of us can only peer over the wall that surrounds it and wonder. While we gaze downwards at the water, speculating on what might lurk below the black surface, it reflects back our anxieties. That, in essence, is why the craft has generated misunderstanding, suspicion, and hostility at every step.

Yet, until recently, Freemasons insisted on treating their history as confidential – a matter for masons alone. Cowans were refused access to the archives and libraries of Grand Lodges. Then, a generation ago, the wisest brothers realized that Masonic history is too important to be the exclusive property of the initiated. Because Freemasonry has had a role in shaping our world, its history belongs to us all. These days, professional historians who are not Freemasons are a familiar site in the archives of Grand Lodges. Their work, supplementing and challenging the efforts of the best Masonic historians, has maped out an exciting and ever growing field of investigation. One of the aims of this book is to bring some of that research to a much bigger audience.

John Dickie
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Atlas of the Heart

This is a deeply profound book. It’s almost biblical. In the introduction alone, there is a handful of lines you can spend ages breaking down and interpreting. Just about everything is quotable.

This book is sort of the hard, data driven science, behind the Christian maxim of redemption of the soul is to be found in truthful speech. This work also helps to explain the LOGOS (the creative power behind words/truthful speech).

Language is our portal to meaning making, connection, healing, learning, and self awareness. Having access to the right words can open up entire universes. When we don’t have the language to talk about what we are experiencing, our ability to make sense of what’s happening and share it with others is severely limited. Without accurate language, we struggle to get the help we need, we don’t always regulate or manage our emotions and experiences in a way that allows us to move through them productively, and our self awareness is diminished. Language shows us that naming and experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning….

Language speeds and strengthens connections in the brain when we are processing sensory information. But newer research shows that when our access to emotional language Is blocked, our ability to interpret incoming emotional information is significantly diminished. Likewise, having the correct words to describe specific emotions makes us better able to identify those emotions in others, as well as to recognize and manage the emotional experiences when we feel them ourselves.

Brene Brown
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Universal Law

The law of polarity is a constant in the universe. Something the sages have been dispensing to us for 1000s of years. A scientific reality we have discovered fairly recent. Nothing can exist without its opposite. You can’t have light without dark, good without bad, pain without pleasure, force without resistance, etc.

What I (and many wise thinkers of the past) feel our ‘spiritual’ purpose is on this earth is to experience this polarity. Whether or not you believe this, it’s a reality that we live in and can’t avoid.
We’re sort of taught, and/or conditioned, that the dark stuff is not as worthy as the good. That the dark should be hidden or shamed away. But that is literally half of our spiritual purpose in this realm, to experience all of this – to experience the entire spectrum of human emotion.

Many have a problem with experiencing a richness in life – experiencing true love, true gratitude, true happiness. When we don’t allow ourselves to feel the depths without judgement, to go to the darkest places, to run from our hurt, pain and sadness, it prevents us from being able to fully feel the positive aspects of life.

In my life, I have only experienced the overwhelming positive by embracing, fully, the darkest most painful parts of me. So, if you’re having an issue of fullfillment, of not feeling the richness of the overwhelming positive in life, increase your capacity to feel by allowing yourself to fully feel the dark/heavier parts you’ve been avoiding/tucking away.

Grief is a good example that forces a lot of people to recognize this. Many feel gratitude, love, and a richness in life they’ve never felt before only after a loved one has passed – grief is intrusive like that. But you don’t have to wait for a loved one to pass for this to happen. In fact, you should do this now so that you (and everyone around you) can all benefit from this overwhelming/outpouring of positive you will experience by opening your capacity to fully feel the depths. Fulfilling your spiritual purpose in this regard is a positive feed back loop that creates more fullfillment, I promise.

Posted on by Kyle Roques

Mystery School’s – What Are They?

“Mystery School’s, the ancient Mysteries, Mystery traditions” – what does “Mystery” mean, and why is it sometimes capitalized?

I had the question myself the first time I heard the term. I use the term often when speaking about Freemasonry and it’s a term you’ll see often when studying esoteric/occult teachings. It’s definition is quite vast and can’t really be articulated, but I’ll attempt to be as succinct as possible here, with a few quotes to aid in understanding.

Taken from Wiki:
“Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which may not be revealed to outsiders.”

“A ‘mystery’, as it was originally defined in ancient Greece and used in the Orphic and Eleusinian mystery schools, is a type of divine revelation that can only be conveyed by experience and is incomprehensible to reason. The revelation initiates or begins a cognitive change in the recipient – also known as the initiate – that alters the way he or she sees and interacts with the world. It is not based on information or even feelings and therefore, it cannot be put into words.” – Kirk C. White

Simply put, what all Mystery schools have in common, is that they just offer a circumstance dedicated to giving the necessary space one needs to start to understand who they really are, for one to discover their real Self. So it’s the study of the Self, as an individual endeavor, and cannot be learnt/learned from anything/anyone outside of yourself.

Some of the documented, original, most ancient Mystery School’s that some may know are the Greco-Roman Mysteries (ie. Eleusinian, Samothracian, Mithriac, Dionysian, etc.)

Historically, “Their primary mission was to protect and preserve the ancient systems of enlightenment, healing, manifestation, transmutation and transformation so that they can be continually used by humanity for its collective progression. Mystery School teachings are imparted by an oral tradition. Rooted in shamanic and mystic ways of wisdom, these teachings are handed down unbroken from teacher to student in an unbroken lineage that has withstood the test of time. … To understand GOD, we must first understand ourselves who were made in their image. Mystery schools exist to empower us to ‘Know Thyself’.

As you can see, the term Mystery, when used to speak about the ancient tradition of the Mystery School’s, is not defined as most people use the word ‘mystery’ today.
Hopefully this helps one to understand what the ancient Mysteries are and what the Mystery School’s impart. But like I stated above, the “Mysteries” can only be known and felt by the individual. No one can explain to you what it is. You have to have direct contact with diety to truly understand.

Posted on by Kyle Roques

Opulence

The Freemasonic ritual is intended to be a spiritually transformative experience. The initiatic aspect of Freemasonry is “intended to actually change the candidate; a rebirth with a new cognitive frame that allows him to see that he could not before – to behold the ‘mysteries’ of Freemasonry and not just the secrets.”

W.L. Wilmhurst writes:
“The purpose of initiation may be defined as follows: – it is to stimulate and awaken the candidate to direct cognition and irrefutable demonstration of facts and truths of his own being about which previously he has been either wholly ignorant or only notionally informed; It is to bring him into direct conscious contact with the Realities underlying the surface images of things, so that, instead of holding merely beliefs or opinions about himself, the universe and God, he is directly and convincingly confronted with truth itself; And finally it is to move him to become the Good and the Truth revealed to him by identifying himself with it.”

Part of how we make good men better is by this process of initiation. Which, when done right, fundamentally changes the way our brothers see, think, and act in the world. Mircea Eliade has this to say about the initiation process: “…the novice emerges from the ordeal endowed with a totally different being from that which he possessed before his initiation; he has become another.”

This is what happened to me when I was Initiated, Passed, and Raised through the fraternity. This is the main reason I stay active in the lodge, because this was so transformative and important to me. So now I am paying it forward to give new canindates the same experience. Because without me, new, and veteran Masons conferring these rituals, Freemasonry dies.

I get to take part in these initiations on a regular basis. I regularly have new canindates personally thank me and tell me that I helped in spiritually transforming them (since I typically perform very critical and involved roles) – as my brothers did for me when I was a new canindate. I’ve seen the transformations, sometimes even the very moment of epiphany.

This brings me a level of joy that I never knew existed. My life has never been more meaningful. I have never had so much direction, drive, and determination. I have never felt so powerful and strong. I have never been so happy. Words cannot convey my feelings. At the very least, all I can say is that all these feelings are felt with an intensity I never knew existed.

I now know the reason the Mystery School tradition has been passed down for 1000s of years. And I couldn’t be more honored to keep it alive and well.

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Operative Freemasonry

…Freemasonry is exceptional. That is, I believe that Freemasonry is something special. It isn’t the same as the Rotary, Lions, or any other civic group. Nor is it equivalent to your bowling team. It is a very specific system designed to effect the moral and spiritual transformation of its members. When done conciously and properly, it should actually change the men who join. It should set them in a lifelong journey of spiritual, moral, and mental growth that the average person can’t get anywhere else.

Kirk C. White
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Masonic Archeology

It is true that Freemasonry is the parent of all religion, the original worldwide cosmic gnosis, diffused in ancient times to the uttermost ends of the earth. Freemasonry is the Pompeii of prehistoric science. All the Masonic ritual, it’s Egyptian signs, it’s Chaldean grips, it’s Sanskirt passwords, is ancient Hebrew symbols, it’s cabalistic allusions and its historical records are supremely scientific and a survival through long ages, by various underground channels, of the knowledge of the universe which was gained by Sabian astronomers from the temple tops of Chaldea, India and China and recorded by the equally learned geometers and mathematicians of the ancient Orient.

Frank C. Higgins
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Freemasonry’s Priceless Heritage

The sanctum sanctorum of Freemasonry is ornamented with the gnostic jewels of a thousand ages; its rituals ring with the divinely inspired words of seers and sages. A hundred religions have brought their gifts of wisdom to its altar; arts and sciences unnumbered have contributed to its symbolism. Freemasonry is a world-wide university, teaching the liberal arts and sciences of of the soul to all who will hearken to its words. It’s chairs are seats of learning and its pillars uphold an arch of universal education.

The philosophic power of Freemasonry lies in its symbols – it’s priceless heritage from the Mystery schools of antiquity. In a letter to Robert Freke Gould, Albert Pike writes:

“In it’s symbolism, which and it’s spirit of brotherhood are its essence, Freemasonry is more ancient than any of the world’s living religions. …”

Though Zoroaster, Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato. and Aristotle are now but dim memories in a world once rocked by the transcendency of their intellectual genius, still in the mystic temple of Freemasonry these god-men live again in their words and symbols; and the candidate, passing through the initiations, feels himself face-to-face with these illumined heirphants of days long past.

Manly P. Hall
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Philosophy of Occultism in Pictures & Numbers

No study of Occult Philosophy is possible without an acquaintance with symbolism…. Symbolism cannot be learned as one learns to build bridges or speak a foreign language, and for the interpretation of symbols a special cast of mind is necessary; in addition to knowledge, special faculties, the power of creative thought and developed imagination are required.

In order to become acquainted with the tarot, it is necessary to understand the basic ideas of Kabala and of Alchemy. For it represents, as, indeed, many commentators of the tarot think, a summary of the Hermetic Sciences – the Kabala, Alchemy, Astrology, Magic, with their different divisions. All these sciences really represent one system of a very broad and deep psychological investigation of the nature of man in his relation to the world of noumena (God, the world of spirit) and to the world of phenomena (the visible physical world).

The letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the various allegories of the Kabala, the names of metals, acids and salts in Alchemy; of planets and constellations in Astrology; of good and evil spirits in Magic – all these were only means to veil truth from the uninitiated

P.D. Oupensky
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The Value of Imagination

To the Hermeticists, imagination is real. It is an aspect of consciousness and the door for entering the reality of the soul. Without imagination the soul is not perceptible. Dreams and visions, as in shamanism, are valued and open us to communication with the gods. Skill at focusing imagination is gained through the practice of meditation, and this skill can help consciousness to effect changes in physical reality. Magic is actually the craft of working with the imagination.

Robert M. Place