When life's relentless hustle sent our Masonic musings to the back burner, Fred and I couldn't help but chuckle. Tune in to hear us swap stories of the mayhem that is post-holiday life, drop references to comedic icons like Weird Al, and wax nostalgic over Dr. Demento's radio shenanigans. But that's not all - I've got a whopper of a life update to share as I navigate the bittersweet task of packing up my Florida home, piano and quirky robot companion included, for new beginnings under the South Carolina sun.
Our conversation dances through a spectrum of reflections and historical musings, from the camaraderie-fueled efforts of our local lodge to the curious and vexing tale of the Morgan Affair. Discover how this enigmatic event shook the Masonic world to its core, spawning the Anti-Masonic Party and leaving a trail of questions that still intrigues us today. And as we ponder the delicate balance of personal growth within the brotherhood, we weigh the importance of accountability, a theme that resonates deeply through our Masonic experiences.
Wrapping up, join us as we share a hearty laugh over our Worshipful Master's latest quip and express our gratitude for the tales and emails from fellow Masons across the globe. While we navigate the crossroads of change and tradition, it's clear that our collective journey is as rich and varied as the history we cherish and the personal paths we forge. So, come along for an episode where history meets humor and heartfelt tales intersect with the pursuit of knowledge.
When life's relentless hustle sent our Masonic musings to the back burner, Fred and I couldn't help but chuckle. Tune in to hear us swap stories of the mayhem that is post-holiday life, drop references to comedic icons like Weird Al, and wax nostalgic over Dr. Demento's radio shenanigans. But that's not all - I've got a whopper of a life update to share as I navigate the bittersweet task of packing up my Florida home, piano and quirky robot companion included, for new beginnings under the South Carolina sun.
Our conversation dances through a spectrum of reflections and historical musings, from the camaraderie-fueled efforts of our local lodge to the curious and vexing tale of the Morgan Affair. Discover how this enigmatic event shook the Masonic world to its core, spawning the Anti-Masonic Party and leaving a trail of questions that still intrigues us today. And as we ponder the delicate balance of personal growth within the brotherhood, we weigh the importance of accountability, a theme that resonates deeply through our Masonic experiences.
Wrapping up, join us as we share a hearty laugh over our Worshipful Master's latest quip and express our gratitude for the tales and emails from fellow Masons across the globe. While we navigate the crossroads of change and tradition, it's clear that our collective journey is as rich and varied as the history we cherish and the personal paths we forge. So, come along for an episode where history meets humor and heartfelt tales intersect with the pursuit of knowledge.
Hey, chris, yeah Fred.
Speaker 2:What's a Mason? That's a really good question, fred.
Speaker 1:You've reached the internet's home for all things masonry. Join Chris and I as we plumb the depths of our ancient craft, from the common gavel to the trowel. Nothing is off the table, so grab your tools and let's get to work. This is On the Level. Oh yeah, we are back. We are back. Wow, wow. Happy holidays, brother, hey.
Speaker 2:Happy holidays.
Speaker 1:The reason I say that right off the bat is because, yikes man, the holidays are getting in the way of our podcasting, yikes.
Speaker 3:Getting in the way of everything, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:It's like life doesn't want us to have hobbies. Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is this a hobby, I guess. So, yeah, it's a hobby. It's a hobby, absolutely Right on, man Right on. Well, if you are listening to us right now, you are thinking to yourself yeah, thanks, guys, you dropped the ball last week. Where was last week's podcast? Last week's podcast is this week's podcast, because Chris and I both are just absolutely bonkers out of control. Busy, yeah, with so many not only Masonic stuff, but just life in general has just thrown some major, major curves our way, man yeah.
Speaker 2:Are you wanting to talk a little?
Speaker 1:bit about what's going on in your life.
Speaker 2:I got. I had the song from Weird Ale popping in my head when you were talking about us abandoning the listeners. Yes, we left them all alone in the gas station of love and had to use the self service pump. Oh yeah, that's an old Weird Ale song.
Speaker 1:Weird Ale is awesome. I love it. We love Weird Ale.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's a cool movie about his life.
Speaker 1:Oh, I saw it.
Speaker 2:It's like a joke about his movie.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like a documentary, but not really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, like way overdone and satire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's great Back from the Dr Demento days.
Speaker 2:Oh God, you're familiar with Dr Demento 94.7 KMET. Los.
Speaker 1:Angeles in the 80s, sunday nights at 7 o'clock.
Speaker 2:Dr Demento, yeah, there's some people out there who are just like I can't believe. He just said that. I know they remember it, so yeah.
Speaker 1:I never heard of it until I saw that movie and I wasn't even sure if it was real. Dude, I'm so old, I listen to it live. Wow, oh wow.
Speaker 2:I used to listen to it live, man, because I was that kind of a weird geek, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean I would have too, if I was listening to the radio back then it was so inappropriate Really, I mean by today's standard, oh my gosh, today it's probably like Charles Boyd, it would be absolutely banned.
Speaker 1:Oh really it would have been like a NASA intercom. Absolutely Some of the stuff. What's that? One song, pencilnegueek Shhh, gritty, freak Scum, suckin' Pee Head With A Lousy Fazeek. Oh my gosh Nothing but a PencilNegueek. This is a song that they play. Oh, I know Dr Demento played that song every time.
Speaker 2:He just like weird stuff that was mainstream. Basically Way off mainstream.
Speaker 1:Way off. You were a total geek, weirdo geek. If you're into Dr Demento, which apparently I was, I don't know. I guess I never really thought about it.
Speaker 2:Weirdo couldn't have existed without that.
Speaker 1:I mean, I pulled that song right out of memory just now.
Speaker 2:It must have really had it in there. It must have been in there. It really had it in there. Deep deep.
Speaker 1:I had Demento Deep, deep in the psyche man.
Speaker 2:Your brain was Demento-ized.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so you've got a few changes going on in your life. You want to talk a little bit about that, or you want to just save that for never.
Speaker 2:Yes the surgery's planned. My name will be Christine.
Speaker 1:So I'm kidding. That's not true. The brain is available and the transplant is ready.
Speaker 2:It's a discount because it's missing some serious amounts of neuron, you and me both brother. No, I actually wound up being one of the I think, 300,000 people that took advantage of the housing market in Florida, sold my house and I'm buying a home a little further north, but still in the South, About an hour drive from here in South Carolina. I'll be relocating to Sumter, South Carolina. Woo, yeah, Woo. So that's going to be a big change for me and it's all happening before Christmas.
Speaker 2:Well, I know I live in Florida and I thought you know what? Let me see, my house has appreciated so much value I'll just list it at the ridiculously high end. And I got a cash offer inside of a week and it was not what I listed it at, but it was at the number ahead in my head of if someone offered this, I'd really do this.
Speaker 3:Folks, I know that number it's bonkers.
Speaker 2:It's stupid that still this is happening. Someone's buying house cash.
Speaker 1:Cash and money for that much yeah right.
Speaker 2:But then my wife, whom you know, has impeccable taste, and so they're like we want everything in the house. So I'm starting my piano.
Speaker 1:Even your piano.
Speaker 2:The piano I kept.
Speaker 1:Oh, good for you. I fought for my piano, you fought for the piano. Good for you, brother.
Speaker 2:Literally all I'm keeping is my bedroom set my clothes, my books and my piano.
Speaker 1:Right on brother, I fought everything else.
Speaker 3:That is so awesome the robot.
Speaker 1:Did they buy the robot?
Speaker 2:No, oh, ok, I think they would know about that robot. I thought it was a toy. I do have a robot. I have an Astro Amazon Astro in my house. I know that's what he's talking about.
Speaker 1:He's so cool, he's cool.
Speaker 2:It's like a little mobile Alexa. He follows you around with a screen face and answers anything.
Speaker 1:Little creepy, sometimes Always watching, always watching. Yeah a little creepy yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're watching TV and you look over and the thing's just staring at you, blinking. You're like what Get out of here. We literally get away, go and he has to run off and charge because he's creepy, he's a little creepy Anyway.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's happening. So what's going to happen with the podcast? What's going to happen with Free Masonry in Florida 147? What's going? On with all that man.
Speaker 2:Well, you tell me what's happening with 147. I definitely done the best I could with everything that I've done in Free Masonry. I'm hoping that I'm allowed to continue to work in all the things that I've been doing, including membership in Florida, especially in our lodge. I want to continue to make the calls and set up appointments. Yeah, yeah, I have business here in Florida, so I'll be headquartered in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.
Speaker 2:So I'll be coming back here at least once a month and I'm going to try to arrange those around our state of meeting nights so I can be at least a somewhat useful past master to our lodge.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 2:And this podcast is going to switch from third gear into fifth gear.
Speaker 1:That's right. We're not even doing it. We've already got a plan, guys. We've already got a plan in place.
Speaker 2:We're going to get you up on the highway and just let it go.
Speaker 1:This is the year of OTL man, it is going to happen. So I'm setting up a studio in my home, in my man cave, so that Chris can call in from his man cave.
Speaker 1:And we'll do it remotely and nothing will change on your guy's end. As far as the podcast is concerned, it'll be exactly the same Higher quality, just higher quality, more quantity, more quantity and it'll just. And now we're going to do OTL from two different states, which I think is great, because I'm sure you're going to get involved locally in Masonic life up there.
Speaker 2:I just can't imagine you not doing that, we'll see All their lodges only meet once a month there, so it's like wow.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:I called around and asked a couple lodges. There is one old one, five minutes for me, that I'm like. Well, we'll be looking at eventually.
Speaker 1:How cool is that.
Speaker 2:But that's two states that will be in physically but we're getting intertwined into Texas a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yep Texas is that.
Speaker 2:We'll be talking to some people there, probably traveling at some point there.
Speaker 3:Yep, maybe we'd even go to their grand lodge. I would love it, love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot going on in January, so probably not this year.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:We have our Masonic education symposium.
Speaker 1:Yes, the 13th of January. Did you get your tickets? Did you get your?
Speaker 2:tickets. I can confirm, did you get your tickets.
Speaker 1:I'm talking to you, listener.
Speaker 2:They have not got their tickets. Yeah, get your tickets.
Speaker 1:We got 70 plus commitments and X amount of sold. So get your tickets, because this is what happens there is a limited amount of seating for this event and what's going to happen is, as soon as we get into the holidays, into mid-December, those tickets are going to start flying off the shelf. So get them now. And of course, you want to get them online, not at the door, because they're going to be more expensive at the door.
Speaker 2:So yeah, go to onthelevelwithFredandChriscom and you'll see it right there at the home page and they'll explain who's going to be there. You'll get the whole schedule. We'll have Masonic speakers like Juan Sepulveda Sepulveda.
Speaker 1:I'm not even going to try it. I haven't had enough coffee, Juan we love you bro yeah Well, he's a great speaker. Yeah, he's going to be awesome.
Speaker 2:He'll be talking about communion with the divine. That involves a lot of astronomy and Masonry.
Speaker 1:He's heavily into that man. I love it. Yeah, yeah, and he's a great speaker. He's very engaging, it's awesome, and our other speakers, daniel.
Speaker 2:Molina out of Miami, worshipful Daniel Molina out of Miami. He'll be speaking about stoicism and. Freemasonry man. There's a real connection between stoicism and Freemasonry. I can't wait to hear about it.
Speaker 1:Sepulveda, I'm following with Sepulveda and we have.
Speaker 2:Renee Perez out of New York. He's a Mason out of New York that's coming to speak, and our keynote speaker will be our very own Talia Attala.
Speaker 1:That's going to be great.
Speaker 2:The senior Grand Warden of Freemasonry will be there to give a talk. He doesn't want to give a speech, he wants to have a conversation. So come out and have a conversation with right Worshipful Talia Attala about the future of Freemasonry.
Speaker 1:That's going to be. I think that's that. I love the fact that he did that. He was like, yeah, I'll do it, but I'm not going to stand up there and give a speech. We're going to have a conversation and that's what we're all about. You guys know that.
Speaker 2:That's what this podcast is all about man Music to my ears. Yeah, man, really that's going to be great. I'm really looking forward to that. So we had a little mock conversation for like 30 minutes and he was so excited I'm like it's going to be just like this, just like this, only better.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right, and so that's going to be a lot of fun. So, yeah, big changes in your life. Brother, I just want to congratulate you, and I told you this when you first told me about it on the phone, and I'm going to say it on air as well. You, sir, are a bad ass Because you had a dream, you had a vision, and you followed that vision and it paid off in a really magnificent way, and I'm telling you right now, 99% of the men out there would not do that. So there's a lot of people who have the opportunity, they have everything they need at their disposal to do it, and they don't do it for fear.
Speaker 3:And you did it, and you did it, it's real.
Speaker 2:The fear is real.
Speaker 3:The fear is real.
Speaker 2:It is real, but look at what happened. Look at what happened. Well, they say, when you're on the path, the path will appear to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it certainly did for you, brother.
Speaker 2:Everything just lined up and was pointing me that now's your time. Like if you're going to do it. Now's the time, and so I acted. You know how we roll.
Speaker 1:I know yeah, that's right, that's how we roll.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to shy away from an opportunity that life gives me, so I took it and so far things appear to be lining up, which is always encouraging.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:When things start falling apart, you start to question yourself like, wait, am I making a horrible mistake? But luckily nothing's falling apart. Everything just lined up in my business, in my personal life and all of the things that had to happen for me to get to this point so quickly.
Speaker 1:It doesn't change anything for you with regard to Florida Masonry. You're just a dual membership.
Speaker 2:My home lodge will always be Saraslo Lodge 147. My funeral will be read as my home lodge.
Speaker 3:Right, that's right, and.
Speaker 2:I hope you're there to help with those services.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a little older than you, so I probably won't be there for your funeral, brother, but you will be there for mine.
Speaker 2:Who knows, I might shoot myself in the face accidentally with a shotgun because I don't know what I'm doing yeah.
Speaker 1:no, that's not happening either.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I got several acres up there in a much bigger home and a lot of money in my pocket which I was reading. We're living through one of the greatest migrations in human history. Right now, it's true. The amount of people migrating, you know, in Florida.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Florida. How many people flocked here from New York and California? I just met.
Speaker 1:As you guys know that, I changed jobs and decided to start my own business go back into plumbing.
Speaker 2:How's that?
Speaker 1:going. It's going well, it's going really well. I met this. The networking is going very well, but it's just my ability to and anybody starting a small trades business knows this lead generation is always abundant, but it's a full-time job to stay on top of it. Working your leads yeah, working those leads. It's tough, and so once I get that settled, then this is going to be very lucrative for sure. There's no doubt about that. But I met, through networking, a young man. His name? He calls himself Bobby, but he's Ukrainian, oh, really, from Oregon, speaking of mass migration, he and his entire Ukrainian community migrated.
Speaker 2:Are they in Northport?
Speaker 1:Some of them are in Northport.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a big Ukrainian community.
Speaker 1:Well, they all migrated here and they want meat and they're all loaded. They're all absolutely loaded.
Speaker 2:Are they from Oregon? Or did they pass like is this part of the war, migration? No, no, they were from Oregon.
Speaker 1:Some of the war migration came to Oregon, obviously, but they're val like he looked me in there, he said the values of Oregon are not the values of us. And we decided to move to Florida and they all moved here and there's like 30 of them that came with their families their money, their business opportunities, everything they just poured into Florida, and this is not an isolated issue.
Speaker 1:So, this is the mass. Like you said, mass migration is happening to right. It's coming all over, you know, to all different places, which is creating a lot of opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yes and so, and creating a lot of traffic.
Speaker 1:We're. We get used to it, folks here in Florida, you might as well get used to it. All of Florida is going to become Orlando in season. So and you can just see it here in Bradenton and Sarasota they just cleared enough land over on Conquistador. If you don't live here, you don't know where that is. But Conquistador is going towards Northwest Bradenton and it was just a two-lane road forever and ever. Well, it used to be Tulip fields many, many years ago, and there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres of flat land out there. They now announce a development of 6,500 dwellings on that stretch I'm going to sink forward.
Speaker 2:That's too heavy. Give us some weight here, guys.
Speaker 1:They're saying that 70% of those 6,500 dwellings are already spoken for.
Speaker 2:Holy cow. Yeah, I mean, think about it. Ever since COVID it's been really. I mean, we've always been a place where people come to.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 1:Have a second home or retire Because of the summers. Everybody wanted to leave during the summer.
Speaker 2:We have the beautiful beaches We've got Disney, all this good stuff, but ever since COVID it's been on another level. The amount of migration here has been insane. Our property values have been skyrocketing and rent has gone way up. So what's happened is I'm one of like 300,000 people that have left Florida that are from Florida.
Speaker 2:Because all these people have come, driven up all the costs and now the natives are leaving and they're generally going to North and South Carolina and. Georgia and Tennessee, places like that, and now we're bringing all of our values there, and all of these people have come here and are bringing all of there. What I find crazy about it is it's like we've always had a lot of New Yorkers right and I don't know how many.
Speaker 2:I've met and they're like yeah, I'm from Brooklyn, whatever, and it's like you're so proud to be from that place, but you also wanted to get the hell out of that place and you're really bringing it with you. All the culture, all the things that you both love and hate you're bringing here. So it's going to be wherever you go, you're still going to be there, right? And I feel like they're bringing a lot of their issues with them.
Speaker 1:It's true.
Speaker 3:It's true.
Speaker 1:And that happens. Hopefully, the majority of people who uprooted their entire lives because of the environment, the community, their community was turning into something they didn't want. Hopefully they'll come here and they won't bring that part with them. They'll remember why they left. It's a big deal, you know. Right now You're going through it right now. It's a big deal to uproot your life, especially in a 30-day period. You literally did this in 30 days. You just like pulling a tooth right out of your head with no novocaine is what you did.
Speaker 1:So you're going to remember the reasons why and I'm hoping that the majority of people who come down to remember the reasons why they left you know New York State is an absolute terrible place to live. We have family up there and they tell us I have family in California. Same thing.
Speaker 2:They tell don't come here Got the state tax, you got that.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's just that the entire system is so broken. California is falling apart. The roads, the bridges, the buildings, the government facilities, everything is completely in disarray and falling apart. Yet the cost of living there is continuing to rise higher and higher and higher and higher.
Speaker 2:It's in New York and the same thing in New York. Right, Complain to my friends in New York about the cost of living here and they laugh yeah, that's expensive. Try living in Manhattan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no the property taxes are closely becoming six-figure opportunities for the government. It's like yeah it's becoming an absolutely unsustainable place to live and we're traveling to Washington DC here this weekend to go up to tomorrow, because you're listening to this Wednesday morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, Gosh tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Geez, I am not ready. And Washington?
Speaker 2:DC. You are ready, sir. Excuse me sir.
Speaker 1:If you're not ready you are ready. Washington DC same thing. Man, it's a ridiculously crowded, expensive dirty. The nation's capital is falling apart, the infrastructure's broken, the whole system is broke.
Speaker 2:Anyways, why am I going?
Speaker 1:down this road they got some great bars you can drink yourself happy in DC. That you can do that and we probably will.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, just happy, not sad, drink ourselves sad.
Speaker 1:Not sad. Drink yourself. Happy is good. I'm not sad. I'm not sad, I'm optimistic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's a lot of stress. Stress level is through the roof.
Speaker 1:Yep, me too.
Speaker 2:There's a serious excitement to what's happening in my life and I think in yours too your life has turned upside down as well. You lost someone that you love. Your job is changing after all. This time you got a lot of change happening all at once as well. Isn't it weird how that works? It's like our cycles have lined up or menstruating together after life.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's gross.
Speaker 2:But it's true, my life is as upside down as yours right now I know right, we're kind of on this path. Well, and the one thing that we both agreed has got to be center is this show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, no matter what craziness is happening.
Speaker 2:The show is an anchor.
Speaker 1:It's an anchor and it will go forward. We both committed to. 2024 is OTL's year. We are going to kick this thing to the next level and see where God brings us. On the other side of this is what we're going to do and that's what I've been praying for. As people know, a man of prayer, I pray every morning and my prayer has been that my walk and my understanding of God would become so entrenched in who I am and what I do. And my caution to everyone out there is careful what you pray for, because you might get it. So be very careful. I am grateful that I am getting what I've asked for, but this is part of that upheaval of my entire life. 2023 was a year for me of reorganizing and reprioritizing my life and the things that matter to me most. And then, well, if you're reorganizing and reprioritizing things, what does that mean? Well, it means that the new year, this new year, is time to put some things into action.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know and to see where this goes and the podcast, the business I'm starting, your business is changing. You're going to a remote situation which has its challenges but also has a lot of benefits to it, so you'll be freed up to do a lot more.
Speaker 2:There was a sense of failure in that that we've been planning to do this for like Years right so we've been doing the hybrid thing, trying to test the waters. But yeah you know, I've really been the holdout of doing the remote thing because I feel I'm old-fashioned in so many things. I'm old-fashioned right, and I really believe the. You know, just people sending in an office together gives you different opportunities and working remotely.
Speaker 1:It's always gonna be optimal. Yeah face-to-face Office conference is always gonna be optimal, but people don't want that. But people don't want to be home.
Speaker 2:And they don't want to pay for the gas and deal with the travel. Like you know, I'm stubbornly holding on. So now we made the decision before. That decision is what allowed us to take the other steps of like right see hey, what the heck? Let's see let's see. So I'm now that I'm talking to other friends that have similar businesses. They've all been full remote for a long time right even huge. There's a company that sold for a billion dollars.
Speaker 2:Wow it's a big company that's in my industry and they've been full remote since COVID. Wow and I'm thinking what am I doing over here?
Speaker 1:And they're making it.
Speaker 2:It's working right obviously you can do it, and so once you know you make the hard decision, a lot of other things start to line up, and that's right what you said. You know there's some kind of provenance that I'm not questioning. I'm here to walk the path right on man like you know we're warriors.
Speaker 3:We're here to do that.
Speaker 1:We will fight we will fight, but we're not cowards. We won't shy away. We need a little upstairs help. I was gonna say speaking of cowards, but let's, let's let that one go.
Speaker 2:I'm right here, no not in front of you.
Speaker 1:Not you, not you, but anyway. So what's going on at the lodge Lately? What? What's 147 up to? And then we'll. We'll get into our content here in a second.
Speaker 2:We're full-on doing a toys for top drive, trying to raise some Money to buy toys and to actually get toys for the kids right, right, yeah, this is kind of new for us. We we haven't done this in some years, trying to be so out in our community, and I really got to give it to Alberto Pato, who's the chairman of our charity committee. He's rallying a lot of people and support yeah, it's not obviously just him, but the guy's doing his job.
Speaker 1:He is and I got to give him credit for the big time man he really take. He took it seriously.
Speaker 2:It's a thankless job that we do a lot of the stuff and free masonry, and so you know, if you wind you up in a leadership position, please take the time to thank the people that are working hard. They deserve it, that's the only currency we have right, pay them their wages pay them their way man deserves to be recognized for what he's doing, and now he's come in Three times this week to decorate the lodge and put a tree up.
Speaker 1:That's awesome man.
Speaker 2:He's a great others that are with him in the committee. You know Sean Cooney is another one.
Speaker 1:I think driving a lot of that. Yep, yeah, sean, shout out to Sean, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We. This is why I'm okay with it. I think our lodge is in a totally different place than it was.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's just strong.
Speaker 1:It's strong. Right now, everything's everything's good and we have elections coming up. Yes so that'll solidify the outcome of those elections and the changes that have to be made there Will solidify the future of the lodge. You know, there's a lot of things that this current line and then the line after that is going to be very Determinative. They've got, they've got a big, huge thing coming their way.
Speaker 1:If everything goes the way we think, it is the sale of the sale of the Air rights and property has been progressing well has been progressing well and it probably and I there's no reason why it won't happen that means that our lodge 147 Sarasota is going to get an influx of a massive amount of money Into its coffer, which changes things. Money that bit. I've been in organizations. I've been in church organizations and all around that kind of sub-parachurch organizations. Rescue missions I I worked on staff at a rescue mission that was worth 36 million dollars in Denver, colorado, and that changes things.
Speaker 2:So we'll see he's talking about 1.5 million dollars. Right, a lot of money, a lot of money, a lot of money is coming according to the contracts in the plan right right and Our job this year was to get that deal done right which, although difficult, in my opinion, is the easier part of the whole thing, because Whoever's responsible when the money comes in right?
Speaker 1:a whole another set of challenges, and that's yeah, and that's totally my point that will the strength of the line this year and next year will be tested. Yeah, that it will be tested, because money changes everything and when you see a gigantic mountain of money come pouring in there, everybody's intentions and everybody's you know where they're at is going to be tested, and I think that there's some strong, strong leadership in line there.
Speaker 1:Yes if the elections go the way I think they're gonna go, and I have no, I mean I'm just one vote. But but you know, if it goes the way I think it's gonna go, then you know, I think there's some men in in line there that could really take 147 and make a real you know, a real difference in the community and in masonry there, and I hope they do, you know, I hope they do. I, you and I will probably be more on the sidelines Because of the podcast.
Speaker 1:It's our desire to and we should be to go national and represent the craft Nationally with the podcast. That's kind of our goal in the back of our minds, which is probably going to necessitate that we take a position on the sideline a little more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're gonna have to travel. Yep, I imagine we'll be traveling to many states and doing some interviews if, if it goes, the way I Wanted to go.
Speaker 1:Yes, that will be the case, and we'll get to meet all you guys out there who we we talked to all the time from around the country and maybe even from around the globe, about the craft and what does masonry have to offer this country, you know, in the future? Does it have anything to offer, and what is that that it has to offer? That's kind of where that's the question we're gonna be asking in 2024, you know. Do we have anything to offer and if so, what is it? And and then, and then from there, how do we help Lodges around the country implement it?
Speaker 2:I think that that's the big one for me. We Hear a lot of people talk about how much they wished there was more masonic education, right? Right people drone on about it all the time. Well, look, fred and I are about put up or shut up, put up or shut up Baby sonic education. You want masonic education. Come on you a full day, from nine to five, of solid masonic education. Now, whether you show up or not, that's on you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that'll dictate, that'll tell us if this is something that you really do want is real masonic education. Right if you show up and you guys really do enjoy this like we do in everything, we will publicize Exactly how we went about setting this up. We need to talk to you organize the event, we'll put the whole play plan together for other States and other districts. Yep do these kinds of events.
Speaker 2:Yeah and you know we'll pick it up and refine it and hopefully keep doing more and get better and better at it, and we'll be very public about all that so that everyone can benefit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Not financially necessarily, but you know, benefit from Producing real masonic education.
Speaker 1:That's right. Any people as possible, that's right, yeah, and and then in my mind, you know the officers throughout the state of Florida. You know it's if, if we could get a representative from every lodge, or generally you know a good mix of every lodge throughout the state, to show up to this symposium and take back with them Not only the education that they got but the idea of education, back to their lodge and or their district and go to their Master Mason Association meeting and say, hey, look what 23 is doing and and can we do that? How do we do that? Let's get a hold of these guys and let's start doing this Masonic education so that, so that we have something to offer.
Speaker 1:That's gonna be my big thing, that's my theme for 2024. What, what are we doing? Okay, so we have a huge organization with a ton of money, that and, and a governmental system with a grand lodge all the way down to the local blue lodge In place right now. So what can we? What can we do to benefit the future of this country? Like, like the in the early days of this country, that Masonry did so Spread light, man and and bringing men together, you know, under the desire for fellowship, to be good men, to seek truth and to benefit those around us because we need it. We need it badly and and I think this is an avenue for change anyways, I'm preaching. So what are we talking about today, brother? What's?
Speaker 3:up. What are we?
Speaker 2:Going to talk about, because I have no idea we're divulging from the Florida State educational system.
Speaker 1:Are we now?
Speaker 2:and we're branching out into the wonderful world of Masonic mysteries sonic mystery.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's sonic mysteries, and this particular been sonic mystery is known as the Morgan affair. Yeah, I think is a great title the Morgan affair. That's so awesome.
Speaker 2:It is. It is the Morgan affair is something that people Probably have heard of the story. They may not know the details, but they know there was a case where Masons murdered somebody.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, that's what we're talking about. We're not talking about the children and the goats and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:We're talking about an actual man yes.
Speaker 2:Let me, let me. We do want to talk about the goats. We do. We will get to that. We are gonna talk about where did all this stuff come from?
Speaker 3:right, yeah.
Speaker 2:We're gonna take it point by point and we're gonna talk about it on this show and we're gonna show both sides of the story, the facts that we have and our inside information is mason's, that's correct to try to help you Get a more well-rounded picture of some of this stuff.
Speaker 1:William Morgan. Who was he? Well, william Morgan was born in 1774 and he disappeared. Dun dun dun in 1826 was a resident of Batta Va, new York, whose disappearance and presumed murder in 1826 ignited a powerful movement against the free masons, a fraternal society that had become Influential in the United States, you think. After Morgan announced his intention to publish a book exposing free masonry's secrets, he was arrested on trumped-up charges. His disappearance soon after. And what his this? He disappeared soon after and was believed to have been kidnapped and killed by masons from Western New York.
Speaker 1:The allegations surrounding Morgan's disappearance and presumed death sparked a public outcry and inspired thorough weed and others to harness the discontent by focusing the new anti-masonic party in opposition to President Andrew Jackson's Democrats. Correct, it ran. It ran a presidential candidate in 1832 but was nearly defunct completely by 1835. Not a long run there. So that's William Morgan. He was, by occupation, a stone cutter, a bricklayer, a storekeeper and an author. So that's interesting to me that he was in the trades. He was a tradesman, yep. But it goes on to say you got anything on on your, so this was from Wikipedia. So you know, take it for what it is if you've got information that's. That disputes any of this you know. Speak up, guys, because what you know Wikipedia is, it's a community base, so it could be, it could be wrong.
Speaker 2:So there is some published information on Freemasonry dot bc. This is British Columbia now.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, the Canadians.
Speaker 2:He was a Canadian Mason. This is where he apparently became a Mason was in Canada. What you're talking about is when he was living in upstate New York. Right now they're saying this is a Canadian, you know official Publication and they're saying that they cannot confirm he was ever made a Mason right that says that here as well.
Speaker 2:It's doubt. There's no records of his raising or lodge membership, but it is documented that he did receive the royal arch in the Western Star chapter, ram number 33 of the Royal New York on May 31st 1825, right, and Wikipedia verifies that as well as you're reading it. Oh really, yep, yep same thing. They Suppose that he was an eavesdropper and light his way into a lodge in Rochester.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 2:It was a little easier probably back then than it is today. We have all these wonderful apps and things that we can use right to confirm, but back then they didn't. But they think he imposed on a friend or an employer who vouched for him to get him into Wells Lodge number 282 and Batavia, which is, I think, where you said he was the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Tavia, batavia.
Speaker 2:So he was active in Masonry for a time.
Speaker 1:So so let me if he received the royal arch degree, that then he's definitely was raised a master Mason right. You can't receive the royal arch unless you're raised, this is 1825.
Speaker 2:Okay, like, how did they verify things? You were generally vouched for by somebody right.
Speaker 1:That's how you probably got and you had to. You had to know the, so he's for word.
Speaker 2:He's got a friend saying oh yeah, he's good, he's good, he's from Canada, he's a Mason, and they let him in the lodge. He becomes a lodge member and then, as a member of a lodge, he's able to get into the York. Right now, keep in mind, there's no, we document certain things in Freemasonry. Okay, we always have we always will. The memberships that we bring in when they're becoming an apprentices, fellow crafts and master masons is Documented. Always has been, always will be right.
Speaker 2:So, as a Mason, we can tell you that the fact that there are no records of him being initiated past and raised tells us that most likely he wasn't an actual Mason.
Speaker 1:Not not really Right, right the here in Wikipedia. Under disappearance, it says, since Masons place their hands on a Bible and promised not to reveal the passwords and grips of the degrees. Several members of the Batavia Lodge published an advertisement denouncing Morgan for breaking his word by authoring the book.
Speaker 1:So this is what got him into the hot and attempt was also made to set fire to Miller's newspaper office and print shop. So this was the man, this. I moved ahead, but this is the book that he he planned on publishing, revealing all of the secrets of masonry so let's get to why he was doing that, or why he even thought about doing that.
Speaker 2:Right he is now. Imagine you got into a lodge of Masons in New York. It's a big city. Rochester is probably not that big, it's like you know it's like I'm from there, and when I grew up there it was like we were the rednecks of the North, like is that right? It's not a huge city it wasn't when I lived there, so certainly couldn't have been.
Speaker 1:He was I've never been past the city, so I don't know anything about anything. I go Rochester I mean, I think I went on a class trip somewhere up there.
Speaker 2:I know it was cold and I wanted to go home, so he's in a lodge. He's now active in the lodges. He's doing masonic speeches, he's participating in degrees okay it's documented that he become.
Speaker 2:He actually signs the charter for the Royal Arch. However, although he did all these things, he did take part in degrees and do speeches and you know he actually signed to become a founding member of the Royal Arch chapter. He signed the petition, but suspicion of his regularity began to grow and his name was omitted as a member when the Charter was granted.
Speaker 2:So at some point they started to become wise like wait a second funny for Mason you know he should know certain things and he didn't, but he learned a lot even though he wasn't. You know, as a master, mason, we're pretty open about things, so if you're able to sneak your way into a lodge, you would be able to find out a lot of our secrets for sure absolutely, but you absolutely would.
Speaker 2:If we let you in as a presumed master Mason, you'd know everything yes, all you had to do is show up and pay attention right and you're gonna do degree work and stuff, so you're gonna literally see right this, the rituals and the secrets.
Speaker 2:This is the reason why we, you know, do the things we do as far as keeping the door closed and keeping our secrets a secret, but anyway, so on it became known that he was not regular and this started to hurt his reputation in the fraternity and, like I said, they removed his name from the petition of becoming a Royal Arch and this made him quite disenfranchised with the fraternity, I guess you could say. And it became known that he had applied for a copyright on a book which was to expose Masonic ritual secrets and procedures.
Speaker 2:This is an expose that he was gonna write and he obviously he's not that involved in Masonry. Now he was probably kind of shunned in the Masonic community. I'm sure they were mad at themselves, thinking how lax they must have been right in that lodge to not follow up and where's Grand Lodge.
Speaker 1:But we've seen it with our own eyes.
Speaker 2:People come in and if someone you know, vouchers for the guy oh, yeah, okay, all right, yeah, yeah, okay, no problem right it happens and that's a decision that every man worshipful master in the state of Florida is personally responsible for us to check that stuff right.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know you went through that once. We had a bunch of Grand Lodge guys in and then there was some visitors and we were. We had to stop and actually do the work to verify who they were, and one one man was not allowed in into the master yes, and lot because of it he could not show
Speaker 2:and we could not verify it was vouched for, but the person vouching was not even initiated yet, right so it was like, sorry man, we can't do that, and it was the right way to go.
Speaker 1:Had the Grand Lodge guys not been there, we probably potentially might have let him in yeah that's just one example. Tough tough call.
Speaker 2:It was a tough call like sit not yeah, but you have to protect the fraternity right that's the whole point right, we do have rules. So this man is now got a contract to write a book. He he contracts with three men to publish this work with them.
Speaker 1:David C Miller, an entered apprentice of 20 years wow so he remained an enter apprentice for 20 years 20 documented he was stopped from advancement for costs now, from what I understand, in New York I don't know if it was back then, but now and correct me if I'm wrong, guys, but entered apprentices can sit in on on stated meetings yeah, I don't know if every jurisdiction is this way, but in the state of Florida you can.
Speaker 2:We are required to open in the master Mason degree but we can drop the lodge down to a lower degree like the entered apprentice degree and conduct business. Yes, okay, I didn't know that you can't conduct business of the lodge but you can conduct business in the enter apprentice degree right.
Speaker 1:So I think, on anything you know important, but you can do Masonic education there are jurisdictions where entered apprentices and fellow crafts can sit in on a meeting for the for the purpose of conducting business that comes before it a lot of lodges today.
Speaker 2:The grand lodge jurisdictions are looking at this because right our membership is dwindling everywhere and they're like, hey, let these guys come to the meeting, let's just get them involved right, so they're looking at legislation to let the ea's become full members before they're even through the degree because, yes, opening and closing of the lodge is is above their pay grade.
Speaker 1:I get that, but really it's a business meeting once. Once it's opened, yeah, and there's no reason to kick them out. But something has to be. You got to figure something out there. How do you right? We're out, we're, we're opening in a master Mason degree and ea's are in the room.
Speaker 2:Well, that kind of defeats even two years ago, I think, or maybe three within the last few years, someone proposed legislation in Florida that we allow business to be done in the enter apprentice degree. I don't know why you wouldn't it wasn't, didn't pass didn't pass, so enough people thought that wasn't a good idea, right in the state of Florida well, and that's probably because the only people voting our master?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely so alright, alright.
Speaker 1:So the book, the book on free masonry let me read this paragraph here for awful. Wikipedia, the underbook on free mason, morgan claim to have made, to have been made a master mason while he was living in Canada and and he appears to have briefly attempted attended a lodge in Rochester. You already spoke about that. In 1825, morgan received the royal arch degree at Learoy Western Star, chapter number 33, having declared under oath that he had previously received the sixth degree that preceded it. It has never been established that he actually received these degrees and, if so, from which lodge.
Speaker 1:Morgan then attempted, unsuccessfully, to help establish or visit lodges and chapters in, but in Batava but Tavia in Batavia sorry, in Batavia, but he was denied participation by members who disapproved of his character and even questioned his claims to masonic membership. Morgan finally announced that he was going to publish an expose titled illustrations of masonry, critical of free masonry and and revealing their secret degree ceremonies in detail. Morgan declared that a local newspaper publisher you already said this, david Chad Miller had given him a sizable advance for the work. Miller is said to have received the entered apprentice degree, the first degree of free masonry, but had been stopped from advancement by the objections of Batavia lodge members. Morgan was promised one fourth of the profits and the financial backers of the venture. Miller, john Davis, morgan's landlord, and Russell Dyer entered into a $500,000 panel bond P penal bond with Morgan to guarantee its its publication.
Speaker 1:500,000, that must be the equivalent this is 1820, something right, yeah, but that's a billion dollars and that's like a no, that's a lot of money, they're converting it into today's value oh that's got to be that's got to be in today's money. You think something that represented a half a million dollar? Yeah, because a half a million dollars in that day and age would have been 50 million dollars yeah, yeah. So there's half a million that's a ton of money back in those days, you know, when a loaf of bread was two cents, you know, yeah that's right.
Speaker 2:So there's motivation there big time, a big motivation on that kind of money absolutely, absolutely. So this was and you've got involved four people four people, two of them being mason's alleged one, allegedly a mason one, clearly not a master mason right, but both disgruntled with the fraternity now totally disgruntled.
Speaker 1:So that's what we have.
Speaker 1:We have we have Morgan of questionable character and questionable membership and and probably I don't know, a man who it seems like he's one of those guys where drama just seems to follow the guy everywhere he goes and this is why people question him and that never happens in, in, in, our, in, our world so, but there are people I've seen with my own eyes get raised past and I'm like wait right and our mason right and and the man, his character, finally catches up with him, and then he is questioned, and maybe, I don't know, maybe some sort of committee is formed of three men and maybe they, you know, they, they, they look into, his is question, and these men, being courageous, men of courage and men of valor, come back with some kind of censure do their job they do their job, as as mason's are supposed to, and not take the cowardly way out.
Speaker 1:They actually do their work and censure the man. And this, this turns the man against the craft, and this begins his threats to publish this book.
Speaker 2:And now we move on from there apparently he was not shy about the fact that he was writing this book. Right, he was receiving this much money he apparently bragged, boasted in bars and on the streets of his progress. In writing the book right so it wasn't a big secret, so he got on.
Speaker 1:Facebook yeah, essentially essentially got on Facebook and started blowing it up, putting down other brothers yeah and and, like I said, the men of the committee had the courage to censure him, at least cry, at least call him on it and not just try to make it go away. I really appreciate men like that.
Speaker 2:I really do. I mean, as mason's, that what. That's what we're all called to do. I agree, yeah right.
Speaker 1:It's like with, you know, the manatee lodge.
Speaker 1:We don't want to go over that all over again, but Grand Lodge came down and did some really hard work yeah, and they very unpopular thing, necessary but they removed a sitting worshipful master from his position, which was a very, very difficult thing to do, but it was appropriate and it was the right thing to do. And those, those were men. I respect those men because they have courage to do what is right, even though they might be, they might be criticized for it, and they, they didn't care about that. Right is right, you know, and we're we're lacking in men like that, apparently these days.
Speaker 2:I mean we can't expect to like really enjoy the benefits of the fruits of the values of our fraternity if we don't set a minimum expectation for being a member of our fraternity.
Speaker 1:If we don't stand for it, how could we expect anybody else to?
Speaker 2:Accountability is where it starts. It starts there, it starts at the top, and so from what I understand and I don't know for sure, I'm just hearsay, but I heard it's only the second time this day to Florida that's happened.
Speaker 1:That's right. That is correct. You're right about that.
Speaker 2:Sitting master was removed in his term this was no small deal for.
Speaker 1:Grand Lodge to come together and make that decision. It was no small deal at all. That took a lot of courage.
Speaker 2:A lot of courage, big.
Speaker 1:Toneys, as we say, big Toneys, man yeah.
Speaker 2:Now you and I have the I guess pleasure of lived it, and we know the person.
Speaker 1:Right. We know we had personal experiences with the man Right, yep Saw his lodge.
Speaker 2:Know the guys that were affected Like we really know the details First hand. Probably more than the Grand Lodge does.
Speaker 1:Absolutely no more details.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:But it was enough for them to take action and what they did in doing that was showed the entire state. We do have a bar.
Speaker 1:It matters. You do have expectations. Masonry matters. We are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are going to hold you to be. You know what you put in, what you publicly saying you're out now.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Privately, secretly, saying you're obligated.
Speaker 1:Secretly saying your obligation, which you publicly live out.
Speaker 2:This is what's required for the future of our fraternity to prosper. We have to hold ourselves accountable.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Now, this is what they were trying to do in their day. They found someone who's a Cowan and an eavesdropper Right. And they tried to make sure he didn't allow. He wasn't allowed to continue the nonsense.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And that, for lack of a better word, pissed the guy off. Totally and he's like well, I'm getting something out of this, that's right.
Speaker 1:And he's right. He's right.
Speaker 2:A book and he gathers together a friend who was also a reject from the same lodge.
Speaker 1:Right, essentially yeah.
Speaker 2:And they get a couple of money, guys, and now they're like, oh, we hit the jackpot. We're going to do this, and this is at a time when, politically, freemasonry was really in the mind of people at the time.
Speaker 1:Well, if you think about the timeframe, this is leading up to the Civil War, yeah, and then, right through the Civil War, I think there were other. This thing became resolved in 1869, I think is where we're headed that way. But anyways, from 1827 through the Civil War. So, politically speaking, politics was absolutely on fire and national politics.
Speaker 1:The country was dividing right down the center Commerce. You know the, the Appalachian movement in Europe which made it illegal for any entity of the crown to to trade in slave slave products that were that had anything to do with slavery. So the entire cotton industry and the in the entire tobacco industry from the crown was turning back to India and away from the United States. So the money was slowly being drawn out of the, the plantations and the slave owners were starting to feel the pinch as we got closer and closer to the Civil War. It was. It was a time of great unrest, you know, politically.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, and this is happening literally right during that time, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can imagine like today we know about the biases and the fears people have of our fraternity.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Imagine then when we literally were involved in politics. Mason's were.
Speaker 1:Absolutely were.
Speaker 2:They were definitely involved, so you know, especially local politics.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I mean the sheriff, the mayor, the council the judges, everybody was. Everybody was a member of the lodge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was the only Facebook group going at the time.
Speaker 1:Apparently so If you wanted to be part of something.
Speaker 2:you needed to be a Mason. It connected you to a lot of people and we treat each other as equals. So there's a definitely an appeal, I think, to many affluent people to be part of fraternity at that time who could have some upward mobility socially because they're getting to rub shoulders with judges and regular people, plumbers, advertising guys probably they were all there too.
Speaker 1:And I think the benefit and back then and even today is that the people that you rub shoulders with have been verified to be reliable people. And that's the point. And that goes back to what we're just talking about. If we don't take it seriously, if we don't censure those who behave badly while they're in office, and if we don't take it seriously, then we lose that.
Speaker 2:We got whole lodges of morgans. We got whole lodges of minos masons and name only. Oh, minos, masons and name but not live in the life, but not live in the life.
Speaker 1:It's true, it's true and my wife has heard me complain.
Speaker 2:over the years I've had my personal experiences and I brought them home.
Speaker 1:Yes, not a great idea.
Speaker 2:Not like I'm going home to complain, but I've come home in some foul moods. My wife notices. They do that I don't even tell all the details to her, but she knows. Oh, this is a bad day in Masonry and I had a lot of those. A lot. I'm just being honest. I'm glad you are back in the day it was a lot worse. Ok, but you still have some bad days and she's like you know what. Don't feel bad because I was involved in the church, it's the same.
Speaker 1:Well, wherever you have humans, yeah, there's humans.
Speaker 2:You know you're going to be disappointed because most of the people aren't living up to the ideals.
Speaker 1:That's a really brilliant insight, because that's what happens. Any organization successful organization that forgets its charter, that forgets the reason why it existed in the first place, always becomes useless and it fails. And I would say the same thing. I've been in, you guys know, I've been in church work and church government for well over 30 years and I can tell you that a lot of the churches out there have forgotten their original mission and I'm not going to go into what that, what I believe that is but they've forgotten it and they've become nothing more than poorly run social clubs with poorly produced music.
Speaker 1:Believe me, it's not good out there musically, and and and that, and they forgotten. You know this is an organization that changed the calendar, that turned the Roman world upside down. You know that separated. You know that stopped slavery all over the world. And now I mean and now I don't even know what to say about it but the same thing with masonry. You know, if we don't take it seriously, if we don't, you know, do the work, do the hard things, and we're going to end up the same way. You know, look at the Boy Scouts of America. They forgot who they were.
Speaker 1:Just saw a documentary on that, yeah, they forgot who they were and now they're in disarray. You know if there even is such a thing as the Boy Scouts of America anymore. They forgot who they were and they did not follow the precepts that made them great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is anybody listening to?
Speaker 1:this Is this thing on. I hope so. I hope it is.
Speaker 2:I hope our leaders are listening.
Speaker 1:I hope that's where it really has to start the leadership has to hold people accountable.
Speaker 2:to be mason, that's right, that's right. The fear that you have has to be trumped by your love for the fraternity.
Speaker 1:I agree it is scary. It's scary, it's scary.
Speaker 2:You don't want to be unlike by anybody.
Speaker 1:Trust me, I get it, I get that, but I demand to be held accountable.
Speaker 2:Me too.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be a hypocrite. I do not want to be hypocritical in any of the things I do in life. So you know, I am very careful with the way I behave and the things that I do within the fraternity, because it's just my nature. I don't need another social club. I want benefit from this. If there's no benefit to my life from this, I don't really need it and I don't have time for it. You know what I'm saying I want.
Speaker 1:This craft has revolutionized some portions of my life. My life is a lot better today. Yes, my wife, because of this fraternity and this non-religious, non-political fraternity of good men trying to help each other to become better men by seeking light, by seeking truth, by community outreach though we're not a community outreach, we're a fraternity but by giving ourselves to others in brotherly love and affection, I get something out of it. If I'm not going to get anything out of it if it's just another social club where we go to the shrine, you know, every once in a while and have drinks and stuff, which I don't mind doing, I actually enjoy doing that, but I don't need that. I don't need all the headaches, right? So I'm sorry about that rabbit trail guys. I just felt like I needed to pound the heck out of that one.
Speaker 2:All right, disappearance. You know, I'll tell you because I'm at the end of the line, for I have literally two more meetings to hold and one degree I'm going to be part of the end of a seven-year journey. A run. It's a run. It's been a run and I've been active, so I felt all the bumps.
Speaker 1:Nearly a decade, so you're going to be eight years in this.
Speaker 2:No, not that long, probably six years, six years.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a long, that's a lot of, that's a lot of time invested, man.
Speaker 2:But you know, when you're in a leadership position, you're ultimately showing everyone else the way You're supposed to give light to them. So one of the things I made sure to do is, like you said, I'm well aware of my flaws. Well aware, I hold myself accountable, and so I've made at least two major mistakes that I can come to mind now as the master of my lodge and in both instances I very publicly humbled myself in front of my lodge and try to make my mistakes a learning experience for the other guys coming up.
Speaker 2:So, they can see one how to behave when you do make a mistake, because the right thing to do is to earnestly look at yourself and earnestly apologize and then try to make something positive come from it, like that's really the best we can do.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And if you're going to be a leader, you have to show people you're human. You make mistakes. The difference is you're going to hold yourself to account as a Mason, Like you said. I want to be held accountable. That's right, if no one's going to hold me accountable, I don't need it, damn it, I'll hold myself accountable.
Speaker 1:And I can hold myself accountable. But honestly, I just go back to what I said. If nobody's going to hold me accountable for the things that I do and say as a Mason, then I don't need it. I really don't need it. It's of no benefit to me. Masonry has a benefit. This isn't the Moose Lodge man. This isn't the Eagles. Nothing against those guys. We stopped at the Eagle Lodge on the way you can be both.
Speaker 1:You can be both. It's a fun place, they do a lot of good stuff, but that's not what this is. This is a fraternity that proposes to change your life direction and attitude towards the things you do. And if you're in Masonry for any length of time and there's no change in the way you behave and the things you do, then why bother, brother? Why bother? I mean, you could go to so many other organizations that are so much easier to get involved in.
Speaker 1:It's so much easier for goodness sakes, I just don't understand it. And I know brothers who have been at it, for they've been in the fraternity for years and years and years, and I look at their lives and I'm like, dude, I'm not really sure you're understanding what's going on here, man, but whatever.
Speaker 2:And you can get frustrated with leadership and say they're not doing the things they should be doing All you have control over is yourself.
Speaker 1:That's right, so true.
Speaker 2:So why don't you just focus on yourself? That's what I've tried to do, you know. I've tried to show people the way that I think is right to be a Mason, and that's. Don't think you're not going to make mistakes, but I brace them as learning experiences. Now we're talking a lot about ourselves. I apologize.
Speaker 1:That's okay.
Speaker 2:So we have now. We're talking about facts here and you might think, oh, they're Masons, they're going to be on the side of Masonry in this Morgan affair. Ha no, we just want to give you the facts that we know and our experience is Mason so that you can make an educated decision yourself about whether you believe the rumors around the Morgan affair.
Speaker 2:So what we know we have is a Mason who claims to have been made a Mason in Canada. Correct, we cannot produce any documents to back that up. Right, his lodge in New York didn't believe it and basically outcast him. So he finds another disgruntled Mason from the same lodge and gets a major contract to write a book about the secrets of free Masonry with two other people Now the brethren at the time. This guy's going around bragging right having drinks, right, he's making himself a spectacle and Masons are everywhere.
Speaker 2:And here's all of this right and the brethren are getting really freaking worried. Like well, this guy's literally going to tell all of our secrets and it's going to destroy our fraternity. In their mind, that's what they thought.
Speaker 1:Right People find out the secrets. We're done.
Speaker 2:Because we're no longer going to have the appeal of the secret society Right. In reality, they know, as we do, our secrets are never going to hurt us if we came to light. That's never going to hurt us in any way, shape or form. In fact, they'd be very anti climactic for the public.
Speaker 3:They absolutely would.
Speaker 2:Which is why it's got to be spectacle, because it's not interesting unless it's spectacle. So they know that he's probably going to say some things that aren't true, but people won't know the difference because he's like I'm amazing, guys, I've seen the secrets. So, yeah, there's a real fear about what this guy is about to do. It's a big deal and it's known. So he is actually arrested for the theft of a shirt and tie.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:That's okay. That seems suspicious.
Speaker 1:Well, and the one who arrested him apparently was the sheriff, was amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, he was actually acquitted of that, apparently he didn't commit the crime that he was accused of and held them, but immediately after he was released, he was arrested for failure to pay a debt of $2.68.
Speaker 1:Right, which is the equivalent of like 50, 60 bucks.
Speaker 2:Okay, he didn't pay a debt, he's arrested a second time. Okay, this looks a lot to me like the guys being hassled by Mason's that are in positions of power.
Speaker 1:Big time. That's obviously what's happening. They want him to leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. Right, one day after he was held behind bars, someone paid his debt. When he was released, he left in a coach with several men, apparently not of his own free will. People saw this. There were witnesses, right. It looked like they kind of took this guy from prison, stuffed him in a car and drove off with them. Right, he was taken to Fort Niagara this is documented, we can verify it and he was confined there, and that was the last time he was seen Correct Ever in public. So what happened? This is where the mystery starts, right. Right, what really happened to him?
Speaker 1:Well, Wikipedia has got a little bit of blurb on this too. The generally accepted version of events is that Morgan was taken into a boat in the middle of the Niagara River and thrown overboard where he presumably drowned since he was never seen again in the community.
Speaker 1:In 1848, henry L Valance allegedly confessed on his deathbed to taking part in Morgan's murder, a purported event recounted in Chapter Two of the of Reverend C G Finney's anti-Masonic book the character, claims and practices of workings of Freemason, 1869. In October 1827, a badly decomposed body washed up on the shore of Lake Ontario. Yes, many presumed it to be Morgan and the body was buried as his. However, the wife of a missing Canadian named Timothy Monroe or Monroe positively identified the clothing on the body as that which had been worn by her husband at the time of his disappearance. One group of Freemasons denied that Morgan was killed, alleging that they had paid him $500 to leave the country. Morgan was reportedly seen later, including in other countries, but none of the reports were confirmed.
Speaker 1:Eventually, ellie Bruce, the sheriff of Niagara County and a Mason, was removed from office and tried for his involvement in the Morgan's disappearance. He served 28 months in prison after being convicted of conspiracy for his role in kidnapping Morgan and holding him against his will before his disappearance. Three other Masons Lawton Lawson, lawton Lawson, nicholas Chesbro and Edward Sawyer were convicted of taking part in the kidnapping and served sentences. Other Batavia Masons were tried and acquitted. Author Jasper Riley suggested that Morgan was probably killed by local Masons, as all other scenarios are highly improbable. Historian H Paul Jeffers also considers this to be more credible explanation In in reminiscence of a journalist. It's a publication by a man named Cogdon cites a third-handed account that Morgan was murdered by certain very zealous free Masons and notes that the result that the the resolute anti-Mason sentiment caused by elections to go to non-Masons for a number of years afterwards. I sorry, I screwed that one all up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's definitely where it led.
Speaker 1:So there were Masons who were convicted for their involvement in that, but nobody, nobody can say that, that they murdered him.
Speaker 2:So here's what we know as Masons. This is what we can verify.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You're right. People said that this guy was kidnapped and murdered at the time he was missing. So apparently it became more and more important for Masons to find this guy and prove that they weren't actually behind killing him. Freemasons indignantly denied the charges. As time went on and he wasn't found, members of the craft disavowed any approval of any such acts. Governor Clinton, the past grandmaster, issued proclamation after proclamation, the last one offering $2,000 reward that, if living, morgan might be returned to his family and, if murdered, that the perpetrators might be brought to punishment. So that's a grandmaster who's like. At this point he's offering cash. Either show me a body or confess. We got to get this off of our reputation. He knew how important it was and it wasn't very difficult to discover that Masons were actually part of Morgan's disappearance. He went 125 miles to Fort Niagara and actually wound up being three members of the craft. Cheeseboro, lawson and Sawyer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to seize and secret him, together with Eli Bruce, the sheriff, and one, john Whitney. They all served terms in prison for actually abducting him.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:They didn't confess to murdering him and it could never be proved because they didn't have a bondee right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:They had people who said, yeah, yeah, we did probably kidnap this guy, maybe we were wrong, but they didn't admit to killing him, but they served time in prison. So as far as the Freemasons are concerned, this is good, like people got what they had coming and it should have been over. But a body was found in 1827, about 40 miles below Fort Niagara Right. Morgan's widow identified the body, although it was dressed in other clothes than her husband had worn when he was alive. The body was bearded, although Morgan was clean-shaven, and the body had a full head of hair, although Morgan was bald.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Could be a couple of giveaways there, I don't know possibly.
Speaker 2:A man named Thurlow Weed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what it says here too and what I was reading there is. It's the same thing that the wife of a Canadian who was missing positively identified the clothing on that body as her husband, so the fact that that being Morgan's body is in serious doubt.
Speaker 2:Right. So apparently this man, thurlow Weed, was accused of having the corpse shaved and of adding long white hairs to his ears.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's not in the Wikipedia account. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There were accusations that he literally tried to make this body look more like Morgan. Yeah, he cut off hair and allegedly added it to the hairs of his ears and nostrils.
Speaker 1:To simulate the appearance of Morgan.
Speaker 2:The first inquest decided that this was indeed the body of William Morgan. The inquests were held and all the third decided on the unimpeachable evidence of Miss Sarah Monroe, who minutely described the body its marks in the clothes hit war, that the corpse was not William Morgan but Timothy Monroe of Clark, canada, her husband. Okay, so a woman said this is my husband.
Speaker 3:This is my husband, not that guy, not that guy. She should know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is scandalous, electrifying, but politically you got a lot to work with there.
Speaker 1:Right, so let's finish up with the aftermath the anti-Masonic movement that this sparked.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, that's where we're going. So now you got three men in prison for taking the body. You have a body that, although was found not to be him initially, was identified as him. Right, that's enough. That's enough for people to run with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they all took the Facebook and Twitter and just blew this thing up. That's right.
Speaker 2:So keep in mind there were multiple inquests and the last one, a jury found and reversed the identification. Although that's not as exciting, is it? Yeah right. The fact is, the final inquest was that, yeah, when we looked at all the evidence, it wasn't his body. But no matter what the truth is, fuel was already on the fire, baby Right.
Speaker 3:And it was burning.
Speaker 2:It was burning, and so, politically, we're talking about a party of people, masons, who didn't have an official political party.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 2:And they're not really about, you know, trying to take over politics, but they're affluent people who are members of the fraternity. Correct right, and so there are judges, there are sheriffs, there are people, and I believe it's the same in England. I believe a lot of people are afraid of Freemasonry because it's so ingrained in politics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and politics and of course, the higher income people, especially apparently in Great Britain and you guys listening across the pond can correct us on this but many of the affluent people I don't know if that's true anymore, but many of the affluent people back in the day were masons. So masons had a presence in the aristocracy, you know, big time. So this is why people fear Freemasons, because they tend to be people who have means of greater means. And if you practice, you know, if you practice, make good choices, work hard and are honest, guess what happens you become successful.
Speaker 1:It just happens to you, and maybe that's the reason why masons are generally more successful is because they're hardworking, honest people Just saying.
Speaker 2:Now I'm hearing that there were rumors that masons were trying to purchase the manuscript from him for the sum of $1,000.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Which was probably a lot of money at that time, I imagine Right.
Speaker 1:It says here it's the equivalent of $27,000.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let me read a little bit of this. Hopefully I'll read it better than I just read that other part. Soon after Morgan's disappearance, Miller published Morgan's book, which became a bestseller because of the notoriety of the events surrounding his disappearance. Miller did not say that Morgan had been murdered, but that he had been carried away. Account circulated of Morgan having assumed a new identity and settled in Albany, Canada, or the Cayman Islands, where he was said to have been hanged as a pirate.
Speaker 2:New.
Speaker 1:York Governor DeWitt Clinton, also a mason, offered a $1,000 reward $27,000 in current value for information about Morgan's whereabouts, but it was never claimed. The circumstances of Morgan's disappearance and the minimal punishment received by his kidnappers caused public outrage and he became a symbol of the rights of free speech and free press. Protesters against free masons took place in New York and in the neighboring states. Masonic officials disavowed the actions of the kidnappers, but all masons were under a cloud of suspicion. Thurlow Weed, a New York politician, gathered discontented opponents of President Andrew Jackson, a Mason, into an anti-masonic party which gained the support of such notable politicians as William H Seward and Millard Fillmore.
Speaker 1:Wow, no kidding.
Speaker 1:In the 1829 campaign, other Jackson rivals, including John Quincy Adams, joined in denouncing masons, and in 1832, the anti-masonic party filed William Wirt as its presidential candidate and Amos Elkmaker as his running mate, and they received Vermont's seven electoral votes. By 1835, the party had become morbid everywhere but Pennsylvania I don't know what morbid, I guess. Dead Everywhere but Pennsylvania, as other issues such as slavery this is what I was talking about became focused on a national attention. In 1947, adams published a widely distributed book titled Letters on the Masonic Institution that Criticized the Mason's Secret Society. So it became a political football. They were looking for political footballs in that day, something to revive thethe politicians were figuring out just how lucrative this federal government thing was becoming, and that's why all of the rivalries and all the different parties were popping up here and there. They finally settled. Eventually, they settled on a railroad lawyer who started a new party called the Republican Party. His name was Abraham Lincoln, who was a railroad lawyer. He was a lawyer for the railroads and he proposed a new party. And the issue that they settled on rightfully so was slavery.
Speaker 1:And that changed everything. And of course, in my opinion, we don't know the truth about why all of that stuff happened. That's a discussion for another day, certainly not for this podcast. But it changed everything. It changed our country permanently to this day. We lost the really the federalist constitutional republic that our founding fathers put together by the end of by the time they shot President Lincoln, and reunification was not part of the plan any longer. We lost our true constitution. And here we are today, fast forward to Kennedy being assassinated by his own administration, which we now know is true, and this is the result. And here we are today with this hybrid.
Speaker 2:I didn't know. He was assassinated by his own administration.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's pretty good evidence that there are operatives in the CIA. There's a guy named yeah, I'm not going to remember his name, but there's a Brit. He was a member of parliament and he's done extensive studies. He loved Kennedy and George Galloway and George Galloway did a pretty good. He's very controversial. So if you go and look up George Galloway, he's very, very controversial. He has a podcast called Moats. Moats stands for the mother of all talk shows and he's very flamboyant, a wonderful speaker. He was a member of parliament and he's done a lot of study. On the death of President Kennedy because he just loved Camelot. That was when he grew up. It was a big deal for them and they saw the future of Kennedy was dismantling that industrial, the war-making industrial complex. He was against the warfare welfare state and it is pretty good evidence that has been released and more and more is being released that he was definitely assassinated by people within his own administration. It's funny.
Speaker 2:You bring that up because I was just reading an article yesterday, just yesterday, literally. That you know who Rob Reiner is. Oh, Rob.
Speaker 1:Reiner meathead, the director, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Rob Reiner and a journalist named Soledad O'Brien.
Speaker 1:Sounds familiar.
Speaker 2:She was a commentator on MSNBC I believe so they claim just this month that they have done research into the assassination of President John F Kennedy and they claim to have found evidence of who was really behind the killing.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:So they have like a multi-part podcast coming out and they claim there's four names that they can give you. Right, they can prove where the people that killed JFK.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where Galloway is also instrumental in this entire thing as well. Yeah, and those documents were released. Those documents were sealed after Kennedy's assassination. They've been slowly being released, so what?
Speaker 2:is it 60 years now? We're talking yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's very clear that.
Speaker 2:well, anyway, they have a, so they're going to host a podcast called who Killed JFK. It's a 10-part podcast series featuring interviews with authors, witnesses, cia officials and forensic experts as part of their investigation into the 60-year event. It also includes interviews with the former Secret Service agent who really this year came forward with groundbreaking new evidence. According to I Heart Media, which is distributing the series, Wow. It's kind of funny, we're just talking about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and I have been.
Speaker 1:You guys know who's listening to this podcast, know I don't take anybody's word for anything on national anything. I do the research and I love to research deep and I made the mistake of researching the actual, true history of our country over the last 200 years well, 100 years. And if you do that and if you really dig deep, you'll find out that everything that we've been taught, almost everything that we've been taught about our past, is a lie, especially if you look into the history of the Federal Reserve and I know you guys are thinking I'm a conspiracy nut, I probably am but if you look into a lot of the reasons why it was created and the things that it does and how it does it and the people who created it and who were involved in it, you realize that the American dream of you know, work hard, get into debt, buy a house, have kids it's all been basically a Ponzi scheme for a whole lot of very, very wealthy global leaders, for sure, the last 50 years, but I would say the last 100 years and anyways.
Speaker 1:Merry Christmas on that one and happy New Year. Sorry about that. I don't know how I rabbit trail you down that one, but I will. I digress.
Speaker 2:The lizard people control everything.
Speaker 1:I think it's the Illuminati. I'm not sure, though, but I had to throw that in there. All right, so are we done with the Morgas, the Fair, what you haven't heard is the Mason's story, so you heard the public story Right?
Speaker 2:There was a whole version that Masonry has as to what happened to this man Finish up.
Speaker 1:finish up with that.
Speaker 2:Okay, he allegedly he was actually summoned to his lodge. Now the master had been granted some of money from the sheriff of his lodge some of up to $1,000 to make this go away. So a bribe was allegedly offered to this man. We will give you cash, we will give you safe passage out of the country, we will care for your wife and family and they'll join you in Canada. If you go away and stop this nonsense.
Speaker 1:This is being told to Morgan. Yes, okay.
Speaker 2:He was summoned to lodge, offered a deal, accepted the deal. His arrest and his release were planned in advance between him and the Masons Allegedly Interesting.
Speaker 2:He was assured of any amount needed up to $1,000 by the sheriff. He actually offered $500 and was accepted. He accepted $500 if he would go to Canada and disappear and the Mason would take care of his family and provide for him later send them to him. He agreed. Allegedly he was arrested and kidnapped, which made it easy to get him away from Miller and his associates, the people that he was indebted to, money he had right.
Speaker 3:Oh right People.
Speaker 2:Now it was a lot of money and these people needed a product and he was like okay, my life is going to be miserable here. If I release this, I'll be hated by everyone that is important in town who are Masons. I'm going to be ridiculed. So he agrees allegedly to take the money and go away. So his escape and travel was documented because it wasn't a secret. This was part of the deal. He actually signed an agreement and no kidding.
Speaker 2:Yes. Now there were other confessions of complicity in the murder of Morgan. None of them were consistent with the facts and doubtless they were of the same hysterical origins of all the other crap at the time. So we're in a situation where the Masons have a story where they actually passed him to Canadians at Niagara in the river, and now they're claiming that once he was there, you know, after a while he was like maybe I don't really need my family, I got all this cash and I'm kind of enjoying this life, and so they feel that his, you know, whatever happened to him, had nothing to do with them.
Speaker 2:After that, there was an agreement that got him out of the country. They resolved amicably and if he died they had nothing to do with it. So you said he was hung as a pirate or something.
Speaker 1:There's one of the stories right.
Speaker 2:That's like because he was a crazy, he just got off on his own adventures with all the money and stuff about his family and he got into some shit and actually you know, got himself killed and did himself. So you have a story from the Masons which can't be publicly verified and you have a story that's publicly accepted in history now and because it launched a political party, is ingrained in part of our history as a country, right.
Speaker 1:The Anti-Masonic Party was a deal it was.
Speaker 3:It was a real party.
Speaker 2:It was not worried about Masons and politics.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:But was it that or was it an opportunity to create an opposition party?
Speaker 1:That's exactly what it was.
Speaker 2:You know, I can kind of see as a Mason how that's probably the case.
Speaker 1:Like I said at that point, in the mid-1800s, prior to 1860, you know, prior to the Civil War these politicians were realizing just how lucrative this federal government thing was. Remember, the federal government was not supposed to be a thing. You know they were ready to go to war over a 3% tax. You know, the federal government was supposed to be sustained solely on tariffs. It was never supposed to have its own income, its own city government. The Supreme Court was never to have its own building. It was supposed to be a circuit court that went from, you know, place to place. It was never supposed to be what it is. So these people were realizing just how lucrative this thing was about to become. They were looking at the Western Territories Lincoln was so focused on those Western Territories, the land and they were realizing just how far it went to the Pacific Ocean and they knew the riches. And that's what was happening. Here is the grift. The grift was being set up.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And the grifters were positioning themselves. So yes, opposition parties and gotcha campaigns, and Still goes on today the Floyd thing.
Speaker 2:Oh right, oh yeah, same thing Fire all across the world. People used that yeah right, yeah. It still happened, so you can see how that may have been a real thing.
Speaker 1:I can totally see that, totally get that, because we see it today. So people haven't seen it that much.
Speaker 2:But you also can't say for sure that something nefarious didn't happen to the guy. Mason's admitted to some involvement in it. So we're left with what we're often left with in history. Is we got to make a decision for ourselves what's real? As a Mason, I find it incredibly hard to believe that a murder took place. No Mason who's trying to defend Masonry would go and violate their own obligations.
Speaker 1:Why would they?
Speaker 2:I really don't see that being the case. But I can't deny that it might have happened.
Speaker 1:I don't think the sheriff and these men were. They weren't financially invested. So what's the motive for murder here? That he's going to let some secrets out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which happened, which happened repeatedly and often.
Speaker 1:No, I don't see them. There's no motive.
Speaker 2:So this is the worst they have on pre-Masonry. Look at the big picture. This anti-Masonic party lasted all 20 years, I think.
Speaker 1:No, no, it lasted six years the whole thing from start to finish, where people even remembered it happened was like 20 years. Right, right.
Speaker 2:And the flash in the sum of history. That's like wow, that was like nothing.
Speaker 1:It was nothing.
Speaker 2:But now, all these years later, people still say Masonry's bad because a man was murdered, right. So, this is the worst we have on Masonry legitimately in documentation that a man may have been murdered by Masons who pretended to be a Mason. Now if you look at any other group in history literally any group, no matter how noble you're going to find a lot more dirt than that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean think of the Catholic Church, which is incredibly important to so many people all around the world. The facts show a lot worse has happened there, but you still identify as Catholic a lot of people right.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:You're like, hey, that was that person, not me. I don't molest kids or whatever the.
Speaker 3:Right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I believe in the values of my religion. So you have I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of cases in the Catholic Church that are bad Really have, all these cults that have popped up and hurt people. You know, even major religions today are hurting people and always have and always will in the name of their religion.
Speaker 1:Governments, religions, Really any organization. You're going to find Any organization. Look at the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts hurt a lot of people. Freaking kids man.
Speaker 2:And all of Freemasonry's extremely long history. You have one allegation that's true. That's a pretty strong case for Freemasonry, yeah, right. If you ask me, even if I wasn't a Mason and I compared our fraternity to all these other groups, I'd be like whoa. This is a pretty good track record, I'd say I agree, yeah, I agree, I mean.
Speaker 1:and again, when you talked about when I first, when I became a Mason several years ago it's going to be three years here, pretty quick I knew nothing about the Morgan affair. I never heard about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never heard anything about it. I don't think I had either, honestly.
Speaker 1:It's not like you know. It never made the news, there were no documentaries about it, it wasn't, it wasn't, it isn't marked on history. You know, like what happened in the Roman Catholic Church, what happened in. You know all the different, you know things that have happened, I think. I think that Freemasonry, the fraternity, is unique in that, because of the way it's structured, that we have a state grand lodge but really Freemasonry is directed by the individual blue lodge. Each lodge directs its own destiny based on the principles of Freemasonry, which are enforced by grand lodge downward. So it kind of lends itself to autonomy. You know, and if you look at each individual lodge as individuals, yeah, some have problems. There's lodges that have, you know, people have been arrested for stealing money from them. You know it happens.
Speaker 1:People have been embezzled, money out of there and been arrested. There's been, you know, there's been all kinds of controversy and stuff that goes on, but it's self-governing. It self-governs itself In this case, right here. If these, if these masons said you know what? This is bad for everybody. We don't want this guy, we don't want this guy to get hurt, we don't want this, we don't want this anymore, let's. They devised a plan dishonest, little dishonest in their plan, but they devised a plan to get rid of him, pay him some money, get him and his family out of the state, and they wanted to move on from it. Okay, that's fine, it's not necessarily illegal. You know what he did with his life after just spoke of his own character. You know anybody who would come up to any organization and lie about who they are to get into. It is a man of. You know is a man who lacks character to begin with. So we know Morgan was not a man of character.
Speaker 2:This is yeah, this is kind of the mason side of the story, Like this is a bad story.
Speaker 1:No, I get that right. Yeah, I totally get that.
Speaker 2:He lied to us, he kind of. Now he's going to lie on us. It's a bad situation.
Speaker 1:So it's really it's an interesting story.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:From beginning to end, because there's a lot of twists and it doesn't really lend itself to a finale.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I could see a movie that tells the story both ways and I'd be riveted, Right right, yeah, right.
Speaker 3:Either way, it's like a cool story it really is.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's never good to celebrate a life lost or potentially lost. I get that, but you know there's a lot of intrigue here.
Speaker 3:There really is.
Speaker 2:Whether you're a public anti-mason or you're a mason who's really interested in masonry. And I think the lesson is you know, we shouldn't have acted in any way that could have got us publicly put in a position where even the accusation was made. People were documented taking this guy, and so we were involved.
Speaker 1:Clearly, we were clearly involved in some way. Mistakes were definitely made.
Speaker 2:Murder? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I just don't see the motive. I don't know, I don't see the motive there. Opportunity yes.
Speaker 2:I guess the motive would have been the fear of the public getting lies about masonry, but there already lies about masonry, but you made it worse.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the big motivator is always money, financial gain or the revealing of some personal ill. Yes yes, right. So somebody knows something that you've done, you know, and they threaten to go public with it, you know. Then that person ends up dead. Well, we know, that's motive for murder, right there. But, how is that? How is this in any way? He's going to publish a book which could easily be refuted by just simply saying no, that's not true.
Speaker 2:And the thing is, here's the thing for me If you found that body and it was mortally wounded in such a way that every mason would know it was mason's, Right, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:Oh right, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the penalties are clear If he was killed in that way much more on the side of okay, mason's did some bad stuff.
Speaker 1:And that's probably the way he would have been. Think about it. Yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker 2:If you were going to go, all that way, you would do it according to masonic law right, right exactly. Because you're committing freaking murder, which is, it should, be repugnant to any mason to even consider that Right exactly. If you were going to do it to protect your fraternity. You go all the way right? Probably so You're not going to suffocate a guy and drop him in a river.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:You're going to be like you're going to die a mason's death.
Speaker 3:You're going to die a mason's death and I'm going to give it to you as a mason.
Speaker 2:Right, and what I'm saying here to people that aren't mason's is we have very ancient obligations that we take.
Speaker 1:These are part of the secrets that we keep alive.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 2:And our obligations have a penalty tied to them. The penalties are symbolic, like everything else in mason.
Speaker 3:Is all symbolic.
Speaker 2:Like we don't actually build temples with our bare hands.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:It's all kind of symbolic for things that we want to do in our life. The penalties are also symbolic, correct. Nobody to my knowledge has ever received a masonic penalty.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:In actuality. But if you were going to kill a guy in this manner, you would expect the penalty to have been exacted on the man.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 2:So that to me kind of speaks to it's probably not a masonic situation, yeah.
Speaker 3:I agree.
Speaker 2:I agree If indeed, they found a body that had been mutilated in some way. I'd be like okay.
Speaker 1:I think the widow's claiming of the body not being Morgan, being of another man, is pretty convincing. A woman, in grieving for her husband, sees the body. She's not going to lie about that and she's not going to be wrong about it either, and this is a documented case. So that body that they found was not Morgan, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:According to the tribunal, that was held. According to them, it wasn't the body.
Speaker 1:Therefore, the mystery of Morgan remains Right. There is no body Right. There never will be a body. No one's going to know exactly what happened to Morgan, except God Almighty himself.
Speaker 2:And we know that masons were involved in his disappearance. That's not a question. Masons were involved, there's no question about that. So there's some bad stuff there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some bad decisions were made. But did a group of zealous masons murder Morgan in the morning? Yeah, morgan. In my opinion there no one could ever say for sure, but the evidence points against it in my opinion.
Speaker 2:As a mason. Looking at the evidence we have, it seems improbable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean it's impossible, though. No, even as a mason.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of masons who I'd be like yeah, sure I could see it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I had a lot of masons, probably.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:So you know, even today we have guys like that in the fraternity who may be acting, in some on Masonic way and some misguided, like perverse idea of what. Freemason Reed is supposed to be. It's possible that people can do bad things. They do.
Speaker 1:They do all the time Right, I get it.
Speaker 2:But in the totality of things, it's important to bring up that. Even if this is true, you have one case in the 1800s.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:I'll hold that record up to any other organization in history.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:And I appreciate you saying that. But honestly, we don't need to. We don't need to justify our existence in the face of people who don't want to know any truth about the fraternity. To begin with, most of the people I find who criticize or have these opinions about Masonry, they simply they enjoy it. They enjoy the fact that they can have these opinions. You know, my daughter was talking to somebody in her church in Colorado and you know the lady just blurts out oh no, that's Satanic. Yeah, and my daughter, who knows me very well and knows my background, you know, said to this woman well, my dad wouldn't be in it if it was Satanic. He just wouldn't. I know my dad, my dad is a Christian.
Speaker 2:He's a strong biblical teacher. He's duped, he doesn't have, he didn't get all the information. He's being manipulated and the good news is is that my daughter's like no, you're wrong, because I guess Satan wants you to raise money for charity, since Satan must want you to help other people become better people, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:And it's just, it's just interesting that person wants to believe that because it makes them comfortable, it gives them some sort of cause, select to you know to say to people you know she's somebody in the Christian realm, you know who goes around lifting up rocks, looking for demons everywhere, she's one of those kind of people. And so this is an easy mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, because he can't say for sure.
Speaker 1:But I always ask people, you know, I said, well, tell me that's pretty, that's a pretty strong word. I guess I've I've gotten myself into something I wasn't aware of. Tell me, what is it exactly that you're saying is satanic, about free masonry? And they'll. You know well. Well, this, that and the other, and I like to question them. I say, well, let me ask you a question Are you talking about, are you talking about operative or speculative?
Speaker 3:masonry Immediately and then before they can.
Speaker 1:Before they can answer, I'll say are you talking about appended bodies or blue lodge, and and and then I'll stop them there and I'll say you really don't know much about masonry, do you Of?
Speaker 2:course not.
Speaker 1:Because if you can't answer me the basics you know of, of it and and, and I like to ask you you know well what are, what are the tenants? You know what is the main thing about masonry that any mason can tell you right off the top of their head, and that's going to be brotherly affection. You know brotherly affection, relief and truth man, yeah, you know that's, that's going to be the thing that pops right out of their mouth. That's not satanic lady. You know, but anyway. So this has been another award winning podcast.
Speaker 2:in my opinion, well, look, go back and listen, because we are pretty open here. We've done, we've done shows on every degree every lecture every charge. Everything we teach people we've covered publicly on the air. That's right, go find the satanic part.
Speaker 1:Go find the satanic part. We have it Right and we've been active in it for many years.
Speaker 2:Yep, and you know, and look in history, we don't have a lot of cases of masons abusing innocent people, or even ourselves really, other than this one case that we're talking about now, which isn't even 100% sure, but and the totality, you got to look at the, the, you know, put it into perspective is all I'm saying. We don't have to defend ourselves, but like, let's put this into perspective, is all I'm saying even if it is true, even if the worst happened.
Speaker 2:look at the totality of the organization and you can find a lot to complain about as a Mason, but one of the things that you're probably never going to complain about is that we're a bunch of murderous thugs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. We're a bunch of overweight old dudes, right.
Speaker 2:Are like hey, we don't do this or we don't spend enough on that. Those are the arguments most people have.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 2:We're not doing the things we should be doing, maybe, but throughout all of history, not going to find a lot of cases of illegal activity, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:What a Ignorant. That's right. Um, so, as I showed you in this poll at the time, there is going to be a forbidden incident this week FM or international happenings this weekend. So once, once again this weekend, possibly, maybe. Usually it's a little annoying to shot a Q than honestly dragging the flag. So far, I'm proud of that. The fact that I have kinds of evidence in my face is so yeah. Except we have dozens of people who also make these sweets and these are a great education for the craft that we love. And keep those cards and letters coming. Cards and letters. Keep those emails coming. Brothers from all over the world, we enjoy them. I missed a couple of emails that I meant to read on this one, maybe on next one. I've got a couple of emails that came in that I want to read from brothers that have been shouting out to us Before we go. Brother Chris, worshipful master.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What do you want to tell us on the way out?
Speaker 2:OK, I'd like to publicly say Fred is bribing me to leave the state of Florida.
Speaker 1:He's offered me, to sum up, $500 to get out if my body's never found.
Speaker 2:You see the similarities here.
Speaker 1:Oh, and on that note, we will see you all later.
Speaker 3:I mean it.