Speaker 1: 0:03

All we have to decide is what to do with the time of the Skeletons. You've reached the Internet's home for all things masonry. Join On the Level Podcast as we plumb the depths of our ancient craft and try to unlock the mysteries, dispel the fallacies and utilize the teachings of Freemasonry to unlock the greatness within each of us. I have you now All right, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, save your clapping for later, folks. Ah, welcome to On the Level Podcast. I'm your host, chris Burns, and today we have a very special guest to meet on the show with us. It's been a long time coming. This is Worshipful David Finkelstein, who is Worshipful Master of Liberty Lodge number 412. The only daylight lodge in the 23rd and Sonic District of Florida. Welcome to the show, brother Finkelstein.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Thank you, chris, glad to be here. I really loved your show. I think it's something very special, something that we could have used a long time ago, but of course, we didn't have you a long time ago. We probably would have, but thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Here's the thing I was thinking about this this morning, because I asked you to come on like a week ago or something and we kind of been planning it. I was thinking, you know, people might not know who David Finkelstein is this podcast obviously wouldn't exist without you. I wouldn't be a Mason today if it wasn't for you. You literally saved me from leaving the fraternity at a low point for me, when I was very early on, and did a lot of advisement for me, and you introduced me to a really core group of people that changed my life worshipful ramon hernandez, ron. Uh, you kind of made those introductions for me, um, and you guys really did formulate my thoughts about the fraternity and, like, reinforced my belief that it's a good thing and that I should not let it go so quickly uh, out of my own ignorance really, which was the case at the time. So, that being said, you know, yes, you're a past master of the lodge and, yes, you've been a committeeman for many years. And you know, yes, you've done tons of Scottish Rite degrees, some of the hardest parts and some of the toughest degrees. Yes, you've done lectures in probably nine lodges or more. I saw you do two lectures back-to-back two different lectures in two different lodges on two different days consecutively. So I'm aware that you have pretty hefty Masonic credentials behind you.

Speaker 1: 2:58

A lot of people probably don't know that about you because this younger generation, they just don't ask questions.

Speaker 1: 3:04

They don't know about the generation that came before them Not to make you feel old, because generations in Freemasonry are not like generations in life.

Speaker 1: 3:15

A generation in Freemasonry is like an officer line which is like five years basically, and then after five years you've got a whole new generation of people that don't even know what happened before them generally speak. So first of all, thank you for everything that you've done for me and that you've done for the fraternity. I watched you do a lot of charitable things in silence and never took credit for it. And, like me, you aren't afraid to ruffle some feathers when you feel very passionately about things and people probably know you more for that than the things you silently did that were positively good for people. And that is, you know, kind of like I'm talking my ass off. I'm going to let you talk in a second, but I think that's indicative of people that don't have a massive ego, that they are fine with being known for the fights that they fought instead of the good works that they did. Would you agree or disagree that you're a semi demigod?

Speaker 2: 4:19

I was about to say that I will stipulate to the historical timeline, but the rest of it's ridiculous. But thank you for saying that anyway. I appreciate that Lyndon Johnson had something funny to say about that. He said that's a great introduction. The best introduction I ever heard Actually, the second best introduction I ever heard, the was when the master ceremonies got stuck in traffic and I had to introduce myself you think you could have done a better job?

Speaker 1: 4:53

I remember some of that stuff.

Speaker 2: 4:58

But that's kind of say now um you, I, that took me a long time. I've been in masonry 15 years and it took me a long time to figure things out and you knew it intuitively and have had a tremendous influence with the.

Speaker 2: 5:15

It's not her arms, patting each other on the back, but the membership drive that you have. I don't know how many people have heard of that, but you advertise. I don't know how you do it. I'm not in marketing, but bringing people in drugs. I mean we were having 10 and 10 and 12-sized classrooms I mean classes, and it was really important.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Well, it's like I wasn't a part of as many groups as you were before I joined the fraternity, so my ignorance probably helped me in some ways. I know you guys, like you talked about the Rotary Club and you talked about other groups. You were a part of that. I didn't even know about or wasn't around, so maybe I just thought of ignorance got you know I wasn't burdened with like previous experience in organizations. Really yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:10

So I didn't know what was allowed or wasn't allowed. I didn't know what people liked and didn't like. I just did what was natural to me, which got me in a lot of trouble, obviously, but it also helped a lot of people. It's kind of the dichotomy of humanism. You know, great things come attached to human people and human people do dumb things and say dumb things all the time. And that's kind of one of the things we want to talk about today, which is brotherly love, keeping our passions within due bounds. These kind of basic tenets of Freemasonry that are really brought to us in the very beginning of our journey in Freemasonry. Right, we talk about them in the lectures and our inner apprentice degrees and then in the education we get afterwards and mentoring. So for months we're thinking about this stuff when we first join and then we're on to the next thing. I don't know how many people really realize how important these things are to keep coming back to, so that you don't lose sight of what's really important.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Yeah, that's a big thing of mine too. I think that we should go slowly through each degree, because there's a lot there and you're supposed to feel that you know that degree. When you're an under apprentice you're supposed to be humble, deferential to, to me, to, to people that are older, and it's good to be in there for a while and feel that, and then move on to the fellow craft and you know, feel that step up and then the step up to master Mason, where you can just be, or it's me, some people go through it too fast In my, in my opinion one of the things sorry go ahead Well in the state of florida in our jurisdiction oh, wow

Speaker 1: 8:10

that was an accidental cheer. I apologize for that, okay, um, we are only giving these people six months to go through each of the three degrees, like six months in between degrees, and if they take any longer we force them to come back into the lodge and get re-voted on as members, which is a little bit scary. So I think there's always that fear of like I don't want to go too close to six months because I don't want to have that whole ordeal of getting brought up for like now the whole lodge knows I'm taking too long or that you know something's not right with me, and so I think that kind of like deadline really drives people to go too fast.

Speaker 2: 8:48

Sometimes you're right you know, I didn't even know that. Um, they say, when you teach a class or participate in something, you always learn something.

Speaker 1: 8:56

I didn't know that, so I I take back everything I said no, but that's the truth, because I've had classes that took over six months and they get you got to go back in front of the lodge and ask the craft to allow you to continue to do your work, and it's kind of like it's not a big deal, it shouldn't be a big deal, but you know how it is.

Speaker 1: 9:15

We're talking about people, so people make it a big deal. They start like wondering what's going on. There is the catechism guy not doing his job. Are the students thick-headed lunks? What's going on with these people Everybody has a fear of I've got to get it done. That's as much for the catechism instructor as the students. I think they feel like it's a reflection on them as to how quickly they can get their class through.

Speaker 2: 9:44

I had a thought. Do you mind me throwing in random thoughts, because that's the way I run my life.

Speaker 1: 9:52

I love it.

Speaker 2: 9:53

Want a random thought? Yeah, okay, so the catechism. I decided that. You know, I speculated that back in the Middle Ages if you had a one-word password, somebody might guess it, overhear it and that meant death during the Inquisition. So I was thinking, maybe that whole catechism is one long password because that would be hard to overhear and replicate. So I have no citation for that, that's an interesting thought and me just speculating.

Speaker 1: 10:32

But if it was important, they wouldn't have written it down or everybody would have learned it. So you can't also say it's not true what you're suggesting there might be true what you're suggesting.

Speaker 2: 10:44

there might be true, but you know, right before I came in back in 1492, there was no red book. They had been doing it mouth to ear, the whole catechisms.

Speaker 1: 10:57

I hear a lot of guys say that they prefer that. They prefer that. I guess I can understand it. In the modern modern world it's a little difficult to get because we were doing such big classes like you said. We we did have a 10 person class more than once and, uh, try to get 11 guys to show up at the same spot every week on time and pay attention is like freaking monumental in this day and age.

Speaker 1: 11:26

So, it can be so difficult to do it mouth to ear like that, which is, I guess, why they came up with this, this book which in Florida looks like this and it basically codes everything. So you have like a sort of reference point. You can kind of go home and study on your own. Yeah, if you know, if you can decipher the code, at least.

Speaker 1: 11:45

And you know and study on your own If you can decipher the code at least. I use that a lot because, like you, I have a gold card. That means you have to memorize essentially everything that's in this book and show somebody that you know it. I bothered you like I know you were getting annoyed with me because I was constantly trying to get words and have you listen to me and tell me if I'm right and other people that I was calling up at the time. I tried not to annoy one person too much, so I'd have three people, I'd call for different things, so no one got really mad at me. But that's what it is. When it's mouth to ear, you literally are depending on other people to get education. It is when it's mouth to ear, you literally are depending on other people to get education.

Speaker 2: 12:26

You know that is the the, that that can roll us back back around to brotherhood, because I didn't for a minute feel imposed upon by you or anybody else that was learning it. Number one is because that's how I learned it I had to call people. Number two is brotherhood means it's a relationship. That means that we I think it's a symbol for the relationship we have. You know, brothers have a close relationship, some of them, some of them not so much much yeah, the. You know, the assumption is that brothers have a, yeah, close relationship. So brotherhood is a symbol for our relationship. We're not really brothers, but we call each other brothers brother is a symbol.

Speaker 2: 13:16

So, um, one of one way to look at all this is that you look for opportunities to display brotherhood, and when you call um, it's an opportunity, um, in um yeah and yeah you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1: 13:34

that is a very good point, like and it's something like you're new, right when you're trying to learn this stuff and you're applying the outward rules, or what we call the profane society's rules, onto the fraternal ones. So I'm like, oh, I must be annoying this guy, but I didn't even think masonically that you would be, as the person getting the phone call, feel like, oh, now I have an opportunity to show my lodge and everybody else how much I care about the fraternity by giving my time to this person who needs it. It's like an opportunity to show your love and you're always waiting for that opportunity because you can really only truly show love through your actions.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Right Words are cheap.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Yeah, or sometimes you can whistle, you know, not strike that, strike that uh pretty girl, but strike that um. Now there's some, some religions, that um where when somebody asks you for help, you thank them, and after you do something for somebody, you thank them because they gave you the opportunity to commit a good uh, commit um, to engage in a, in a um, in a good deed.

Speaker 1: 14:46

So kind of like. In that sense you're showing God how much you love your God by doing something good for another human that you didn't have to do.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Yeah, that may be in some religions. The ones I'm thinking about, though, are just that. One of them is the world is a vessel, and God came in there and smashed the vessel, and the pieces are everywhere. You're supposed to put them back and that when you do a good deed, you put back one of the parts of the vessel. So you and that's a a good deed by letting you do them a good deed, do you?

Speaker 1: 15:32

mind if I actually read what Freemasonry says to the Entered Apprentice about brotherly love specifically, as you know, in the Entered Apprentice lecture there's a section where we talk about brotherly love and we explain it to the new initiate. And don't worry, masons, it's not coded, it's written out. Don't call and write letters and try to get Grandmaster to remove me, there's better things to do that about. This is written out and we're allowed to talk about it. By the exercise of brotherly love we are taught to regard the whole human race as one family. So now it's going beyond just my friend. In Freemasonry they're saying brotherly love as a Mason means you love every living person as a family member, right?

Speaker 2: 16:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Yeah, the high, the low, the rich, rich and the poor who, being created by one almighty parent and inhabitants of the same planet, ought to aid, support and protect each other. I always laugh when I say that part in the in the lecture, because it makes it almost ridiculous how we don't treat each other properly. You know Like we're inhabitants.

Speaker 1: 16:48

We have the same almighty parents. Whether you're born in Istanbul or Florida, we share the same parentage and we're living here on the same planet. We have to share the same air resources, water. We should support and protect each other. We shouldn't divide and protect each other. We shouldn't divide and fight each other. On this principle, masonry unites men of every country, sect and opinion and conciliates true friendship among those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance. That's what we tell entered apprentices about brotherly love and what Masonry means when they talk about brotherly love. And what masonry means when they talk about brotherly love. And it's so true. Right Like, you and I only met because of the fraternity.

Speaker 2: 17:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:34

Yeah, and we've had a very close friendship. That's been, uh, seven years or something. Now it's been seven years, really.

Speaker 1: 17:41

Wow You've. You've been in my home for Thanksgiving. One year we had Thanksgiving dinner together, our families. We've been with you through some challenges you've had in the hospitals and stuff. I've come to you for advice over the years and you've given me counsel that I sometimes listen to and, to your chagrin, sometimes don't listen to, but I always appreciate it and that's a relationship in my life that's really important to me. And we've also had our differences. This is really important, I think, to share. We've had big blow up fights over the years but one of us calls the other the next day and says I'm sorry yeah, yeah and then it's like you know it doesn't matter what happens.

Speaker 1: 18:25

I'm always going to love you. You're my brother, right? You can never say anything bad enough to me that the next day I'm not going to be like it's okay, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2: 18:33

You told me that once you said um, you know I'll always be a friend, no matter what happens. That mad at you, I may have to turn you in and put you in jail you didn't say that part but I'm always going to love you. That meant a lot to me. I would do it. I would come visit you in jail. Yeah right, makes a big difference.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Bring me some cigarettes and other currencies. That would make your life easier.

Speaker 2: 18:58

That's right Now. You said something that I was going to remark on. I can't remember I'm getting old how old, are you? Now 68. Can you believe that 68? Oh, I do look 68.

Speaker 1: 19:13

Okay, keep the hat on and in your home life, you're a lawyer. Is that your profession? I'll admit to that, and you were a CPA in a former life.

Speaker 2: 19:26

Well, yeah, I didn't really practice CPA, but two years so I could get my entered apprentice. They have an apprenticeship with CPAs. So I did that for two years and then I became a lawyer, because that's what I'd always wanted to be was a lawyer you always wanted to be a lawyer.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Yeah, you just like arguing, or was it about helping people? What was the drive there?

Speaker 2: 19:54

It's kind of a weird drive for a little kid. But I said, you know? I asked my cousin, you know where, where I like science. I said, where do astronomers work? And they say, well, they work at universities and things like that. And I said, well, who are they? I said, so, do they all do that? And they said, yeah, they have to. And I thought, well, I don't want to work for the government because they may cut back my funding. And I was like 12 or 10. I said I'm going to stay away from that. Most sciences work for some big organization, a lot of them the government or funded by government. I said, forget that. I thought I'd be an independent person and be a lawyer.

Speaker 1: 20:39

The irony of that is, your daughter works for the government.

Speaker 2: 20:42

That's right, she's still got one of you, but she's a lot more mellow. They were going to cut off funding. She was going to not get paid and she just said, oh well, I'll walk dogs or something. And so she's a lot more mellow than me.

Speaker 1: 21:00

It's true, if the government cuts you off, you just go work for a private company and lobby the government. There's always money around the government, one way or the other.

Speaker 2: 21:08

Yeah, and I learned a lot. One thing is I mean, we're getting far afield. You know I'm not going to go into that, all right, so let's talk a little bit more about brotherhood. So you I'm going to give you one example. I have many where what's your nameris? Bailed me out. Um yeah, I was uh working really hard and wasn't sleeping much and I put together a um, a uh talk on mental health and so I went to the talk, wasn't feeling all that great, feeling tired, and I introduced the speaker, sat down and promptly fell out.

Speaker 1: 21:54

Just passed out.

Speaker 2: 21:57

And you know everybody apparently was you know, oh gosh, what happened. And fortunately we have a medic named Robert Leonard, who's currently the worshipful master of liberty. Lodge, great guy um yes and he checked me out and he said he's falling asleep. He's just asleep. So, um, uh, chris and scott ran, came and got me and took me home and made sure I was. Um, I don't know what you did, I was out of it. Was my wife there? Did you tell her on that? She wasn't there.

Speaker 1: 22:30

So what did you do?

Speaker 2: 22:31

You just shoved me in the door, or what did you do?

Speaker 1: 22:33

Well, actually, we put you on the couch. Scott wasn't there, it was just me and so you were able to walk, but not really well. And I put you on the couch. You were adamant that you had just, uh, forgotten that you had taken medication, and you took your medication twice and you said you just needed to sleep it off. So I left you there on your couch, and I got a call from you 12 hours later telling me you just woke up.

Speaker 2: 23:05

That's funny.

Speaker 1: 23:06

I don't remember that Apparently you slept on the couch for 12 hours after I dropped you off.

Speaker 2: 23:15

That's great. That's great. Apparently, I needed it. That's another good thing about masonry it can help you with the sleep. If you're in the lodge and they start reading the minutes, you can catch up on your sleep. Oh my gosh. Yeah, the minutes will put you right, please. Yeah, but no, you're required to, and there's a lot of good reasons. You know, we want to make sure everything's written down right.

Speaker 1: 23:34

Actually, this is probably the only time I'll ever see it, but there was a similar situation to the one you just described, but I wasn't at the place you were. I was summoned to the one you just described, but I wasn't at the place you were. I was summoned to you because you needed help and, uh, when I arrived, you were sitting outside on the bench and and uh, you were in distress. And it's the only time probably I'm ever going to see the actual grand healing sign of distress used um because you gave it and you were in distress and you needed.

Speaker 1: 24:04

You weren't able to articulate that, but you were conscious enough to know that there was a way you could get help, and Mason's listening will know what I'm talking about. He did express it and he did receive it and it worked the way it's supposed to work. Wow, that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2: 24:22

That's pretty neat. You know there's lots of things we find as Masonry goes on, but that's got to be the most impressive to me. I had forgotten about that and thank you for reminding me about that. I appreciate it. I really do.

Speaker 1: 24:36

This guy is a great man, and that's how we are. I always say that Masonry is, is giving us training wheels for life, and so we're able to have these close, caring relationships with people that are masons, because they're our brother. But pre-masonry tells us we're supposed to treat the whole world this way. Even people we don't know, even people we don't like, even people that are different than us or richer than us or poorer than us. We're supposed to treat them with the same compassion, and so, um, I've always found it a great challenge to try to take these lessons that we reaffirm all the time in lodges and take them out into the world and try to practice it with people that aren't close to us, that we don't know, try to show that same love for them. That can be a challenge in today's world which is not really used to that kind of behavior amongst people.

Speaker 2: 25:33

You know, what you said is actually one of the purposes of masonry. And some people tell you it is the purpose of masonry to have you become a better person and then send you out into the uh, into the profane world. Um, that's a funny. That's a funny um um word to me. It makes makes me think of people walking around cussing or something. I thought it was a derogatory word.

Speaker 1: 25:56

Yeah, the first time I heard it I thought that's a really derogatory way to talk about people yeah, yeah but anyway we're supposed to basically I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 26:06

A lot of words that like are in the fraternity are old words that had different meanings when they were used and now have been kind of, like you know, slangified and mean something a little different, like to us. You said profane, it's true. When I heard it I thought, oh this, why do they call us like that? Like not everybody's profane. You know I'll go around f this, f that, but when I googled it, profane meant something else in old english like commonplace or something yeah, something just like not not of, or not having the knowledge of, or just being outside of enlightenment kind of.

Speaker 1: 26:45

It didn't mean like a derogatory thing, like we take it to mean Same with worshipful. When Americans hear worshipful they're like, oh, this isn't good, I don't want to worship anybody. But that's not what it means. Heck, in England they still call judges worshipful, right, I think? Yeah, they sure do so it has just totally different meaning, and you're one of the people that tries to squash that pretty quick. I know when you meet with new entered apprentices, that's like one of the first things you're tackling is. I know what you're all thinking Worshipful doesn't mean we're going to get down and worship this guy, okay. And then you start to explain what it means so that they have a better understanding of the concept of these teachings and don't run wild with your imagination.

Speaker 2: 27:29

One of the things I tell them is you know, I was a worshipful and people certainly didn't worship me. They were like the opposite. Well, not the opposite, but they didn't bow and do my bidding, you could have ordered them too, yeah, right, I could have ordered them.

Speaker 2: 27:51

I could have ordered a pony and I wouldn't have gotten either one of them. That's one of my favorite sayings. When somebody says I want to do this, I go yeah, I want a pony. Kind of the equivalent of when Dr Phil says how's that working for you? How's that?

Speaker 1: 28:07

working for you.

Speaker 2: 28:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:08

Well, but that you know that part of the statement of brotherly love, which is that we need people that, through the fraternity, we definitely never would have associated with without the fraternity, that's true, and it is one of the great things of joining our fraternities that you will mingle with people that you wouldn't normally mingle with and and develop really close relationships with them, which is good for you as a person. It's good for you a little circle yeah, it really is.

Speaker 2: 28:38

Um, we need that and we don't have it in this world. We used to. I'm going to the. You've heard all these um, these are subjective lectures and uh, and mentoring, um, mentoring talks, um, one is that, um, I was listening. I never actually read the book.

Speaker 2: 28:57

Yeah, I did go back and read the book, but there was a guy talking about a book he had written and he said that people need to be in tribes. Book he had written and he said that people need to be in tribes. That's, um, the way we evolved or the way god made us. And in today's, ever since the car was invented, the beginning of the last century, people don't live in tribes anymore. Um, neil young has a saying about, I mean in a line, he a line in a song talking about, you know, native americans, americans, and he says that you know that he used to roam the plain and now he lives in his little box at the top of the stairs by himself and that's not helpful. And no matter where you are, you'll make a. You know a group of people will turn it into a tribe, a block. You know, in big cities like New York City, there's a block and you don't do certain things on somebody else's block and you're gone at a certain time and the modernization of that.

Speaker 1: 29:53

If you think about it, it's made it more dangerous because it used to be, like you said a block, like a geography thing right where you live was kind of going to be your tribe. You didn't have much say in it, that's just the way it was.

Speaker 1: 30:07

But, now, with the advent of the internet, people are making their tribes with people they may never meet all over the world, and they're wearing their hats and their little patches and they go out and they maybe even protest locally and the people around them are like who are you, what are you, what are you doing?

Speaker 1: 30:30

but they feel like they're part of something and they feel like they found a tribe that understands them and accepts them, and the internet's made it so different than it ever ever was meant for us as, like a species and evolution. You know where it's. It is a physical geography thing, where you're probably going to grow up around people and live with them and have to deal with them, and your neighboring block or tribe might not feel the same way and you might fight with them and war with them. Here on the internet it's like they can find a tribe of people that are in Germany from Florida. You hear about people being radicalized into terrorism in the United States through the internet. It's crazy how dangerous it can be, because I think the internet doesn't do a good job of identifying truth from false it kind of makes all information subjective, Like people can just choose what the truth is.

Speaker 1: 31:28

Now I think that's a really, really dangerous thing for us as a people to get away from, because we do need tribes. I mean, we are wired to be with other people, to feel satisfied and part of something, and people are always going to seek that out. But the internet always kind of distills things to the lowest common denominator. So when you go on the internet looking for your tribes, even if it starts cosplaying as something innocent, it's going to eventually get to a dark place where you may not even know it but you're potentially being radicalized into some crazy religion or cult.

Speaker 2: 32:09

I'm not really in any tribes on the internet.

Speaker 1: 32:14

You're 68, you said right 66? What's that?

Speaker 2: 32:20

66 tribes.

Speaker 1: 32:24

When the internet came about, you were already a grown man. Yeah so you had lived a life and formed relationships, and you knew what that meant. So why would? Someone like that. Go seeking that out on the internet it doesn't make sense. Very good point, but these kids who grew up with nothing but the internet. They don't know about the childhood you had. You know where you got. You had to go play with people, had to work with people.

Speaker 1: 32:54

Sometimes, they were scary and that you didn't like and you had to learn how to deal with that. They don't. They don't have that life today. It's crazy.

Speaker 2: 33:01

That's a good point. You can just disconnect. Also, everybody pumps up what they're doing, so you're not interacting with the actual person. You're interacting with a fictional version of that person.

Speaker 1: 33:13

It's like you curate only the highlights of someone's life and put it out there and people see that as the reality of a life. When it's a curated, specialized highlight reel of a life, it's not really that person's life.

Speaker 2: 33:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:29

That information isn't getting to the children. They're believing stuff that they see online is real.

Speaker 2: 33:37

Is that the way the world is just going to be from now on?

Speaker 1: 33:41

I think so. I don't see how you take the fire out once you give it to people right when Prometheus brought it to us he was like in big trouble because he can't take it back you know, I knew Prometheus.

Speaker 2: 33:57

I'm very old. I knew Prometheus. He was a nice guy.

Speaker 1: 34:02

I didn't know you were Greek was he Greek or? Roman. Is that a Roman character?

Speaker 2: 34:10

They had the same people, but they just gave them new names, like Zeus and Jupiter were the same person.

Speaker 1: 34:15

Is Christianity and Catholicism used kind of the same generally. Catholics are just Christian. Right when you talk about Christians in Ireland.

Speaker 2: 34:25

They're the first Christians in the most I guess you would say most Orthodox, or one of the most Orthodox.

Speaker 1: 34:32

Well, they came from the Roman Catholic church, which is where Christianity originated. I guess probably right.

Speaker 2: 34:38

No, that's where it spread a lot then. But Christianity had been around for a while and the Romans persecuted Christians for a long time and then one of the I can't remember one, everybody else probably knows it one of the emperors decided, you know, he looked at Christianity and says yes, that's the truth. And he said to all the Romans and then, you know, the Romans were wandering around, you know, to countries and taking them over, and so they brought their religion with them. I think that's how it happened. I think they were still wandering around at that point.

Speaker 1: 35:16

Yeah, and everything we saw was theirs right. Hey, hey, there's someone, and that's ours too. Hey, hey, hey, yeah, look at that, that's nice, that's ours too.

Speaker 2: 35:25

Yeah, look at that, that's nice, that's ours too. Yeah, that brings up the word superfluity. Because they didn't need it, it was unnecessary and it was tacky that they would want it, but they went and got it anyway, kind of like hoarders that you hear about, where they've got 16 cats. You know, 15 or 14 of them are superfluous, and so I was going to talk about that word too, and that was a good segue into it.

Speaker 1: 35:50

Let me tell you my experience with the word superfluity. There are so many great unknown people in our fraternity. Before I even joined the fraternity, before I was an intern apprentice, I was going to Phoenix Lodge. Number 346 is where I was going to be initiated in Sarasota. There was a gentleman there named Albert Dahl. Very similar to you, he was holding these Masonic groups where you would just get together and talk about Masonic stuff.

Speaker 1: 36:21

I got invited to one before I was even an apprentice. I didn't know what was going on or what to expect. He handed out playing cards to everybody around the round table and said I want everyone, one at a time, to flip over your card and I've written some words there and I want you to tell me the first things that come to your mind when you see it. And you know my word was wisdom. So I didn't have a whole lot of Masonic experience to say what this means. The first thing that came to my mind with wisdom was it's the accumulation of mistakes. That's what I think of as wisdom. People think a wise man never made a mistake. No, he made the most mistakes. The wise guy guy, he's done all the mistakes.

Speaker 1: 37:07

But, um, another guy next to me got superfluity. Now, I never heard the word superfluity, I thought it was a made-up word. And um, they started to talk about to them what came up when that word was said and they were very masonic things they were saying. But as a non-mason I didn't really get it. And then, obviously as an inner apprentice, I heard it again and I realized how masonic the word is. Um, and now in hindsight I look back at it and, like we were talking before the recording, um, you found a reference to the word in the king james bible.

Speaker 2: 37:42

Yeah. So, that was the first reference to it. Linguists have great respect for the King James Bible. More than that, it's like a Bible to them. That and Shakespeare, that's where a lot of our words came from in the King James Bible. And I don't know if I read this right, but I think it said this was on vocabularycom you know me, I like to give citations and they said I think they said that it was the first use of it in James 1. Oh really.

Speaker 1: 38:22

That's the first use of it. We can find.

Speaker 2: 38:25

Yeah, and it said and there's a lot of words like that, a lot of words in Shakespeare too, and I think they might have been around the same time. Anyway, this is the quote James 121. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naught and receive the meekness and something word which is able to save your souls I sometimes can't out a word and receive the meekness and something word which is able to save your souls. I sometimes can't read my writing, but filthiness and superfluity and several. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary calls it immoderate and especially luxurious, kind of like a Tesla. He drives a Tesla. Oh, hey, hey, superfluity. Like a shopaholic is a superfluid person.

Speaker 2: 39:13

Vocabularycom said it's so unnecessary that it can be done away with. Charles Stoddard, who apparently walked around glaciers in 1899, said let's see, for a climb over glaciers the very thickest shoes are absolutely necessary. All else seems superfluous to me, so it's got a very negative connotation. A lot of people didn't know what it was until Jerry Gocher told us and also he told us how to pronounce it, and he was right. According to these dictionaries. We just kind of glanced over it. And we do that not just with strange words, we do that with our own words, for instance, brotherhood. We all talk about it. We think no. What is your definition? Or did I already ask you that? No, you haven't Okay. What? Or did I already ask you that? No, you haven't Okay. What is your definition of brotherhood?

Speaker 1: 40:12

Not definition, but what do you think of it as Well, the word brotherhood to me it's identifying like a group of people that are brothers, meaning that you take care of each other. So a fraternity is a brotherhood in that it's a group of men that treat each other like brothers and that they take care of each other like family. That's what brotherhood means to me.

Speaker 2: 40:35

That's good, that's good. Good definition Well, brotherhood. If you dig down a little bit, drill down a little bit into the thought, you'll find areas where you can, where you have an opportunity to demonstrate brotherhood. And my big one for the last I don't know five years or so has been you know, we show brotherhood to each other. We need to show brotherhood. We have the opportunity to show brotherhood to the new brothers and to the petitioners and to an EA and to the petitioners and to an EA, because that's a place where it really makes a difference. You know, it's wonderful that you know.

Speaker 2: 41:16

If I see you at a lodge I'll smile, trade a few words, and to me that's brotherhood, like when you say how are you, how do you do? Louis Armstrong said neighbors passing saying how do you do? They're really saying I love you. So that's a brotherhood that we have. But there's there's a much greater opportunity. I don't want to. There's another opportunity. That's great. The people, many of them these days, who come to our lodge and you've seen this more than me you say, why did you?

Speaker 1: 41:55

come here and they say because I don't't have any friends, I don't want to have some friends. And of course, we tell them yeah, yeah and honestly, that's one of the reasons I joined. Um, yeah, the idea of a fraternal group, which means it's only dudes I didn't have any male friends my really my whole life. So I was seeking out like friends, like you just said. On a certain level, that is one of the reasons I joined. How do you like them?

Speaker 2: 42:15

now that you've experienced them.

Speaker 1: 42:18

I've been through a rollercoaster on that. Like in the beginning, I just believed everything 100%, that. I was told. And then what happens is it's kind of like your first divorce is how I. In the beginning I just believed everything 100% that I was told. And then what happens is it's kind of like your first divorce is how I feel about it. When I was married for the first time, I thought divorce was just a thing on TV and movies. I didn't think it was real or could happen to me.

Speaker 1: 42:43

And when my marriage fell apart, my whole world crashed. Everything I believed I had to question now, because I had believed so much that this was a forever thing. And so, joining the Lodge, all the tenants of the fraternity, I had the same experience. Like an idiot, I just believed everything and I thought everybody would think and act the way that we're told to, and in reality it's not the case. A lot of people don't take it seriously and they just continue to act profane, even though they're Masons. And I had a very radical period of time where I thought it was all made up.

Speaker 1: 43:26

And now I've come to a place where I realize, oh, people are just people.

Speaker 1: 43:32

The people that took the time to think through a system and put it into place cared about it so passionately that they wanted to transmit it through time.

Speaker 1: 43:42

It's really up to us to keep it alive and going and not let it die, because these are important ideals, things we're never going to live up to you and I, or nobody's ever going to live up to these ideals, but it's the act of trying that makes us good. So I've come to the realization that men are just men and it doesn't matter if you're in politics or if you're in Freemasonry or it's in your own home, you'll you'll love and hate the same person, yeah, and it's just the humanity, the nature of being human. And so what makes us good is that we keep trying to do better. That's, that's beautiful, that really is, and this fraternity gives us those things to try to be good at and it gives you a way to do it, and even some exercises and tools and things to visualize and think about, like it really does give us a way to improve ourselves. If we're willing to try to do it, it sure improved me.

Speaker 2: 44:40

I was before Masonry. I was so obnoxious I didn't even like having myself around. But the one thing that you didn't like yourself no, I didn't even like having myself around. But the one thing that Did you write yourself no, I thought it was okay. But anyway, we're really getting into the weeds here. But one thing I wanted to say is that there's a movie called the Verdict, and movies have I'm a lawyer and they have wonderful closing arguments. You know they've got a team of writers writing them, and the one in the, the verdict, was especially good, and he started off by talking about the Supreme Court building. It says justice and equality for all. Is that a description of us? Is that an accurate description of us? Is that a guarantee? And he said no, and I always get goosebumps when I get to this part. He said it's a prayer. Yeah, it's a prayer that will have equal justice for all, and that's what you know these Masonic principles are something we strive for, and Masonry recognizes that.

Speaker 2: 45:51

It says everywhere. It's not perfection that we're looking for Right. And someone once told me if something, if we were all following a rule, you wouldn't need the rule in the first place. Rules are there so that we follow them when we weren't going to.

Speaker 1: 46:11

Yeah that's true. By the way the verdict is a 1982 American legal drama film, and it starred Paul Newman.

Speaker 2: 46:21

Yeah, that's just talking to the jury, and it's great. He says we impanel juriesuries and the legislature can't affect this, the Supreme Court can't. Well, they can't. The president can't affect it, the judge can't. And he said there's only one person that can give justice to my, to my client. And then he goes it's you. Ladies and gentlemen, that's just it. It just really. That's a good movie.

Speaker 1: 46:46

I recommend it Well because you're in the legal profession and I feel like the legal system, our American government system, are all fraternal extensions of this fraternity. Right Like this country was founded on the principles of the masons who built it, and I think the legal system is kind of part of that. And masonry has its own legal system and rules and masonic digest. And so how do you, as a lawyer, see, do you see the similarities between the masonic like masonic law digest and our Masonic trial system and the American government system? Or is that something I'm imagining in my head?

Speaker 2: 47:31

No, it's you're right, and it's a huge. It's a huge question. Um and spare me a little time to say it Um, there have always been courts, but they weren't always, as um does that desire us?

Speaker 1: 47:52

uh, courts, but they weren't always as desirous of being fair and keeping people free.

Speaker 2: 47:55

You know the kangaroo or the courts out in the woods. They call them the. I forgot what they call them. It's a great name, but anyway. So this brings up something that is a topic I was going to maybe do if we had time. There's things we don't know about masonry just masons all the time, because you can't. A lot of it's not in there in the books or the lectures and the books are really all we have right Like.

Speaker 1: 48:31

There's no oral tradition outside the books these days.

Speaker 2: 48:34

Well, I think this is an oral tradition. You know we haven't cited the books, but just a little while, and this, since this is laudatory and a little flowery, what I'm going to say I think it's part of the oral tradition. One of the things that we don't recognize enough, or even say enough, or even know, is that and I'm not saying this because it's our organization and yay, our organization but Freemasonry is one of the noblest institutions in the world and history. Because of what I'm going to tell you, it's almost a fact. I mean, the word noblest has to be an opinion, but if you know what, the facts that I'm going to tell you are facts Prior to the 1700s, the late 1700s, freedom was unknown.

Speaker 2: 49:39

We take it for granted. We don't take it for granted. We talk about it all the time the land of the free and the home of the brave, about it all the time the land of the free and the home of the brave. Um, uh I can't remember the guy's name, um, who says I'm proud to be american, or at least I know I'm free, yeah, uh, there's dozens of songs like, like that, maybe more. Um, we do appreciate our freedom, but I don't know how much. I don't know if anybody knows except tomas Zentner, the smartest person I know. Sorry, chris.

Speaker 1: 50:12

I don't claim to be smart, it doesn't hurt my feelings and I know. Tomas is a genius, so we need to get him on the podcast to talk about the Enlightenment and some of the things he's passionate about, because people would love to hear it.

Speaker 2: 50:26

You do, because he will, rather than me.

Speaker 1: 50:28

he'll actually say accurate things and he sounds exactly like you would think a vampire should sound like.

Speaker 2: 50:36

He's hungry. Yeah, yes, chris, I will do it. Ha ha ha.

Speaker 1: 50:44

We'll have him on. You'll see, I'm going to put Count Dracula and him next to each other voice to voice. We'll have him on. You'll see, I'm going to put Count Dracula and him next to each other voice to voice. You'll be like I can't deal with it.

Speaker 2: 50:52

Yeah, I see him every two weeks. We have a philosophy and principles class. Yes, he's really into that and very knowledgeable. But here's what happened. You know, you see TV shows. What's that? One that was so popular with the blonde-headed girl that everybody was always getting naked and excited about?

Speaker 1: 51:22

Game of.

Speaker 2: 51:23

Thrones. Oh, game of Thrones. Okay, yeah, if you notice, there's no voting booth there and there's no election side.

Speaker 1: 51:33

It was kings.

Speaker 2: 51:36

In our fairy tales that we read kids, there's a prince and beautiful and he makes this woman princess.

Speaker 2: 51:45

You don't hear about that stuff because it didn't exist. He makes this woman princess. You don't see, you don't hear about. You know, saying you don't hear about this stuff because it didn't exist, yeah, the idea of people, just regular people, deciding things for themselves, just wasn't there. There were kings and lords. And it was even worse than that because the people that lived on the on the land were basically slaves. They weren't chained and the thing that you normally think about as slaves, but they were serfs. If you look up serfs, and that's with an E, if you look up with a U, you'll get the Beach Boys songs. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is serfs and masonry comes from the tradition of. In England there were a couple of revolutions. One of them worked and one of them didn't the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution and a lot of people came out of that philosophizing and talking about freedom that, um, philosophizing and talking about freedom, um, john lock, but the peasants revolution is that?

Speaker 1: 52:55

what is that one of them that you're talking about? What's that? I? I remember there was one called the peasants revolution or something like that yeah, there were little ones too.

Speaker 2: 53:03

Yeah, my favorite one is the first one, because of the guy that later was named robert the bruce. I just think that's a great name. I was thinking about calling mine changing my name to david the nathan, but um, nice, nice, I haven't um, so anyway like chris the burns so what does that mean?

Speaker 1: 53:23

go around burning people, like with the, with my words or with my things, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 53:28

I don't know. Maybe you were a fire watcher. Your families were Well.

Speaker 1: 53:32

Robert the Bruce has ties to the fraternity oh he does.

Speaker 2: 53:38

I didn't know that that's cool If you go through the Scottish Rite.

Speaker 1: 53:41

The later degrees were all about the Knight of St Andrews and supposedly the order of the Knights of St Andrews was formed under Robert the Bruce in Scotland.

Speaker 2: 53:55

And we learned about Masons. Learned about people voting and working together and the power in the people, because they were building cathedrals and you couldn't just ignore a person and put them out there like a machine. They had to be, they had to exercise their own judgment. I'm told that on aircraft carriers, the lowest man in the ship can stop the ship. He can call the admiral and say of the ship and say stop the ship. He can call the admiral of the ship and say stop the ship, and he will. He has a lot of trouble if he just made it up, but that's how that works. If he sees an iceberg or a goldberg or anything like that, that's a joke.

Speaker 1: 54:45

Right before this podcast, I was in the middle of watching a netflix documentary, like a nine-part series on the cold war and the nuclear yeah, the nuclear weapon and and its impact on society. And, um, I'm only on episode like six and there's already been three cases where entire annihilation of all life on earth hinged on one person. Yeah, exercising human judgment and not following the system that was set up, because the system is set up for war, the system is set up to be aggressive, the system is to either respond or initiate aggression, and the only thing that saved all life on earth three times so far in this documentary and you they interview the people is people saying let me think about this first, hold on a second. And those people were right. Um, in one case of 50 cent electronic piece caused, uh, it caused people monitoring the equipment to think there were 2000 nuclear warheads headed to the United States.

Speaker 1: 55:53

God, 50 cent equipment malfunction and the people should have done their job and told the president, who would have obviously immediately retaliated. And they knew that. And so they didn't, and they waited and they looked closer and, uh, turns out. And so they didn't, and they waited, and they looked closer and turns out they were right, but it's a person, one person, and so you need a system where every single person can have an effect on the end result, like you just said. But when you have these military type or authoritarian type situations, where there's a system that funnels everything to one person whose goal is aggression, it's never going to go well for anybody, and Mayfury is a system like that. Yes, we do have a grandmaster, but he doesn't walk around like a dictator.

Speaker 1: 56:50

He answers to the brothers right. He essentially only has power during the grand lodge session, which lasts for three days. Even then, he's just bringing up legislation that's voted on by the brothers in a very democratic process up legislation that's voted on by the brothers in a very democratic process. So freemasonry, you said it came out of the enlightenment which makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 1: 57:14

Yeah, like people wanted to get away from this authoritarian system which clearly doesn't work for society, go closer to a place where every man's voice should be heard in way, in order to have a better outcome for the common good of everybody and it was.

Speaker 2: 57:30

It was so unheard of as to be bizarre. Um, you know the kings were just the way. You know they said they got their power from god. Um, and yeah, you know, to vote on stuff, you know, to ask all the, all the service and everybody was just a ridiculous thing. It would be like saying to put a dog in charge of the presidency of the United States. It was just weird. But Masons wrote about it for years and years. And I don't know if John Locke was a Mason. A lot of people claim him to be. I think he just hung out with a lot of Masons. I don't think he was actually a Mason, just hung out with a lot of masons. I don't think he was actually a mason. Um, but, um, uh, people like voltaire. And what I told my mason classes if you ever want to sound smart, say voltaire, it just sounds intellectual doesn't sound intellectual, it does.

Speaker 1: 58:21

Yeah, I want to know more about voltaire. I don't know anything about it.

Speaker 2: 58:25

Well, you don't need to know about him, you just need to quote him, you just need to say his name.

Speaker 1: 58:29

But I actually want to be smart. I don't want to just sound smart, that's so sad.

Speaker 2: 58:33

How does that happen? He was a mason and he was oh, he was Voltaire, yeah.

Speaker 1: 58:43

Very, very. What's that? Voltaire was a writer.

Speaker 2: 58:48

He was a philosopher and a writer A philosopher, ok, and a big thinker, and he had, you know, radical, radical ideas as well. He was one of the people in this, one of the steps along the way that brought us to the, to the 1700s late 1700s where we actually started doing things about it and we all are very proud of our founding fathers, and of the. American Revolution but that's another thing.

Speaker 2: 59:20

We don't realize how monumental that was. They threw off the king. Nobody had done that. That was, they threw off the king. Nobody had done that. Oliver Cromwell threw off the king King Charles II, I think. But then he became a king and some lists of the kings of England actually put his name in there as one of the kings. So that really didn't have much to do with the common man.

Speaker 1: 59:46

But there's a book.

Speaker 2: 59:48

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 59:49

No, I thought you were done there, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 59:52

Well, I was going to say that there's a book. I forgot the name. Oh, the Cousins Wars Instead of brothers. You know the movements in England. The ones here were not quite brothers, were cousins.

Speaker 2: 1:00:06

Yeah, so you said that the, the English Civil War, the American Revolution and the Civil War were all one war. They were all about the same thing and that was the common man against the aristocracy in the Civil War. I'm from the South and a lot of us talk about you know. We needed this, we wanted that, but it was really only the aristocracy that pushed for the war. First of all, they were the only ones that could vote then. I think so the people that you know in the North who had come over from Ireland and places like that where people were oppressed, they saw it as a common man versus the aristocracy. They looked at the South as an aristocracy. They'd get right off the boat and go fight and they came in great numbers. I'm not sure we would have won the war, the North would have won the war without all the Irish that came over. They were very, they had been very oppressed. They were, you know, very, very motivated to throw off an England. It was like an England to them.

Speaker 1: 1:01:14

Oh, yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 1:01:15

Yeah, and there was a lot of support for the American Revolution in England To this day.

Speaker 1: 1:01:21

You know, the Irish people are very on the side of the little man, the little country, the underdog.

Speaker 1: 1:01:29

Um, when I I went to ireland with my wife a couple years ago and they had so many places that they were housing ukrainian refugees, so many like and I'm thinking this is such a small country and I'm seeing so many more ukrainian refugees here than in my home country, which could actually house a whole, a hell of a lot more. Um, and when I asked the people like why? Because my wife is ukrainian, so obviously this caught our eye and my wife was like what is up with this? And they said we, we get there, we, we feel their fate like it's much, it's much closer in their history to them than it is to us, that oppression that they dealt with, that they're still holding on to today, and so they have an empathy for others that are in a similar situation yeah, the way things that were put together didn't end until when Clinton was president.

Speaker 2: 1:02:33

He went over there and got them to sign it up. I mean, it was about to happen anyway, but he got them to sign it up. Another thing I want to say about the Irish they get around. There's one of the great founding fathers, also a Mason, of South America, all the countries of South America. Well, there were two of them. One was named Simone Bolivar. He was a Mason, oh I didn't know that.

Speaker 2: 1:02:58

Yeah, the guy that freed Mexico and Cuba were Masons, Especially in the Western hemisphere. A lot of the people that that brought about freedom he's from.

Speaker 2: 1:03:11

Venezuela, yeah, but Venezuela was also Simon Bolivar, because he at first South America wasn't broken into countries. It was later broken into countries after they had already gained their freedom, so he's the founding father of three quarters of the states there, and maybe more so. Like one country has as its currency the Bolivar and there's other things, other people like that. But the other guy was, I always think, first time I heard it. I still laugh at it because it's such a testament to how the Irish went all over the world and did great things. The other guy's name was Bernardo O'Higgins. That was one of the founding fathers of South America Simone Bolivar and Bernardo O'Higgins. And he was a Mason, really, yeah, and actually when I was talking about Voltaire, he was initiated by Jefferson, who was a Mason.

Speaker 1: 1:04:17

Well, that makes sense he's a French writer and I'm sure Jefferson was. He was all about the French for a while there. Yeah, yeah, he was an ambassador, right to France.

Speaker 2: 1:04:28

Yeah, he was sent over there. George Washington sent him over there to try to get the French on our side, and he did, yeah, and I think that won the war for us, because they had a big fleet and we had no fleet. Yeah, and they had a big fleet, lafayette. Lafayette was also. I have that wrong? I have that wrong. No, I don't. Lafayette was also a Mason. So Jefferson went over to France. A Mason talked to another Mason there. Lafayette, who was the admiral of all the fleet, got him to bring over or the next. You know, they were blockading us. There wasn't anything we could do, but the French, they, they fought him real well and defeated him here and there. And then another Franklin Franklin went to Germany I think it was Franklin, ben Franklin and he met up with a mason there named Von Stuben, met up with a Mason there named Von Stuben. Von Stuben came to America to help out too, his help was that he organized the army.

Speaker 2: 1:05:36

Yes, and he helped out Washington's army right, yeah, Washington's army Made them organize, you know, taught them tactics. But now let me back up one more. Do we still have time?

Speaker 1: 1:05:48

Okay, there's no limits on us. We have unlimited time.

Speaker 2: 1:05:52

Maybe we can make it a part one and a part two, and three and four. Hold on, we have unlimited time.

Speaker 1: 1:06:03

That's much better than I can be. I like that when you do that.

Speaker 2: 1:06:05

That cracks me up. That's one better than I can be. I like that when you do that. That cracks me up. That's one of those little things about you that endear you to everybody. I'm human.

Speaker 1: 1:06:15

My knife will laugh so let me ask you because we over the years, you and I, we go way off the reservation when we talk yeah, we do. Normal people would listen to us and think we're insane, because we both follow an idea with logical conclusion wherever that leads. Okay, it can sound ridiculous, but I have been thinking and you kind of alluded to this in the beginning that humans are tribal. It's in our genetics to be a tribal people. I would go further and say that it's in our genetics to be followers, that we probably survived because a strong person led other people. And there's something in us also to follow people. And in order to do that it can't be normal you have to lift them up and make them something greater than you in order for you to die for what they're going to tell you to do.

Speaker 1: 1:07:19

And this is something that we've seen throughout our history, forever, as long as we've had recorded history, we always coalesce behind a strong man, right, always. Long as we've had recorded history, we always coalesce behind a strong man, right, always. And then here comes the enlightenment, where you've got educated people saying wait a second. There's something within each of us important and critical to our survival and we probably won't continue to thrive if we let our genetics and our animal brain follow a strong man for the rest of time and you look at human history like we had hunter-gatherers right for how many hundreds of thousands of years. And then we had agriculture came onto the scene and we advanced much more quickly because we had time to think we weren't always just hand to mouth anymore.

Speaker 1: 1:08:12

we were like, oh, we have like shelter and food and like we can now sit and think. And so we started this technological um path that, you know, in the matter of hundreds of years got us to just basic agrarian life, to technology and building things. And in the last 50 years technology skyrocketed so fast that we've gone from you know, radio being like the pinnacle which I think we were both alive for the time when radio was the pinnacle of technology and the way that we communicated To now we have satellites in orbit that beam signals everywhere on the planet all the time at will, and that's only happened in the last 50, 60 years, right?

Speaker 2: 1:09:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:09:06

Our evolution is speeding up and it's because the further we get away from the poles of nature, which is follow a strong man, um, be afraid of things in the dark. Like make up stories for things we can't understand, to like let's, let's really get our heads together, let's get our shit together, let's cooperate, let's, like work together. Truly, as people, we see ourselves skyrocketing in success as a species.

Speaker 1: 1:09:36

So, in my mind, we have to get away from the thinking of follow a strong man and we have to get more into a democratic world not just country but world if we're going to survive as a species, because the technology is advancing too fast. If we can't get a handle on it, the strong man is going to use the technology in a way that will end all life for all of us. Is that crazy thinking?

Speaker 2: 1:10:03

That's very, very interesting and it dovetails with so many things that I've read and they're in this overcrowded mind of mine. Um, it dovetails with all of that, um, the um, the strong man. You know, we politicians are better for that. You know, putin is a strong man. He appeals to people's fear, which which is a very basic part of us. We've got the basic part, which is animalistic and just, you know, you see a bear, you run, you don't think about it. Oh, what's that bear doing there? And then you've got the cortex, which thinks. And I read something. This is off the beaten track of the beaten tracks. I'm just gonna go ahead with this. It's like this the um just light that on fire.

Speaker 2: 1:10:53

You don't need that a lot of the, the people that were surfs. You know how you talk to yourself in your mind yeah, and you say I'm the queen of shiva. No, you talk to yourself in your mind and you're never good for me.

Speaker 1: 1:11:06

it's always like some negative crap I'm feeding myself about. You're stupid, you're dumb. You shouldn't have said that. My voice is really annoying. I don't know about yours.

Speaker 2: 1:11:16

Mine is weird, is it? Mine connects weird things, things that don't have a connection, and they come out as jokes sometimes. But, um, one of the things that, um, the the lower mind cannot. It does not have the ability to understand or implement logic. It just doesn't exist for the lower mind. So, and not that long ago, they started a series of studies that said that when you're talking politics, you're using that lower mind that has your logic, and you'll see people I'm talking and they'll contradict themselves. Enlightenment, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:11:52

I just want to say one thing the Enlightenment brought rationality into focus yeah thinking things through instead of being an animal, and so that's why it was um so effective and so so different, and out was so effective and so different.

Speaker 1: 1:12:08

And out of the Enlightenment came modern democracy.

Speaker 2: 1:12:12

It came at the same time, it came right along with it. Yeah, that was part of the plan they said. I think it was John Locke that said there's natural law and there's natural rights and from that, from logic steps, he got to the point that we have inalienable rights. So that you know that came right from masonry.

Speaker 1: 1:12:37

Now you're. You're a big. You're obviously very educated person. Like I said, you, you you got your CPA's license. You're a a very educated person. Like I said, you got your CPA's license. You're a practicing attorney. These aren't things the average Joe accomplishes in their life. And you read a lot. You probably always read a lot and as a Mason, you've utilized your love for knowledge and you've read a lot of Mackey Albert Mackey writings about Freemasonry and you've read a lot of Mackey.

Speaker 1: 1:13:04

Albert Mackey ratings about Freemasonry. How much has that impacted your Masonic life, what you've read from Albert Mackey?

Speaker 2: 1:13:10

I'm glad you brought that up because, as I said earlier, I like to make sure that what I'm reading is correct and you know, scientific and that kind of thing. You know you'll never see me quoting the Internet. You'll see me quoting the person who wrote the thing on the Internet. And I'll only quote them if I see where they studied, where they got it, if they're for real and one of the things that I was curious because ever since I've known you, you've always referenced Albert Mackey.

Speaker 1: 1:13:44

Oh right I wondered, and now I have you on a podcast, I thought it would be a good opportunity to ask you how much has what you've read about Albert Mackey impacted your life as a Mason in Masonry.

Speaker 2: 1:13:56

Well, the only two and this was again the only two writers that I um know are authoritative are mackie and um albert pike right I haven't taken the time to find out.

Speaker 2: 1:14:12

I've read a lot of other stuff from people, but I was wondering if anybody listening to the podcast can tell me another um, writer or philosophy of masonry, that um that is considered authoritative, and we can figure out why he's considered authoritative and I can start quoting him. It's a very funny thing. I'll tell the listeners. We used to have these kind of discussion groups and Chris and I didn't even realize I was doing this.

Speaker 2: 1:14:43

I was always citing mackie everything I said was mackie and maybe one pike, and so, um, yeah, it was what's that I busted your balls. A little bit about that yeah, you said do you have anybody else to cite except mackie? I got very defensive because, first of all, I didn't.

Speaker 2: 1:15:05

Second of all, to me it seemed like that was enough because the guy's very prolific. He's a major world-class mind. That went on for a long time. Thank you for lightening up on that. It's a very serious question, something I've been looking for. If anybody knows whether any of the other authors out there are considered authoritative, and why, or authors that I haven't seen, that's great. I really need that.

Speaker 1: 1:15:36

If you're listening to this show whenever it is could be a year after this was released and you happen to be listening to it go ahead and email Chris at OnTheLevelPodcastcom and send us who you read, who are your Masonic authors that you trust, and we'll put a list up on our website of everyone's favorite Masonic authors for you to go get information. Here's the thing about it. This is why I busted your balls about it Not to bust your balls, because what you're doing is the right thing. When I see a lecturer and at the end of his lecture he has citations, I respect that lecturer so much more than the person who just says a bunch of sensational things and says, thank you, have a nice night, and walks away.

Speaker 1: 1:16:19

I don't know what was real and what wasn't real. The fact that you're citing a person makes makes it much more um, authoritative. Whatever is being talked about and it is good people should do that my problem with it was always this isn't a person who has any authority to speak about freemasonry, any more than you or me. He's just a brother talking about what he thinks about the fraternity. It's not necessarily a Masonic author in the sense of a creator of Freemasonry. This is just a person who's passionate about the fraternity in the same way we are, and so I Blasphemy.

Speaker 1: 1:16:59

I know, I know I didn't say that, but to me it's like we are all searching for our own answers to this stuff and if we take Albert Mackey as the definitive source of the meaning of everything in Freemasonry, we might lose some of our required critical thinking process to find our own answer if we just take his answer answer, if we just take his answer. But I know that's not what you're doing. When you cite him, you're actually sparking discussion when you cite Maki, and this is what Maki says about it. And then I know this about you and something I greatly appreciate about you Whenever you're hosting any kind of dialogue, you make sure everybody talks, whether they want to or not.

Speaker 1: 1:17:39

You always look at them and say what do you think about that, chris? And you're forcing them to think about it. And even if they don't want to, when you call somebody out, they have to say something. They got to think about it, and so you're forcing them to think about the top. So don't think that I don't appreciate what you're doing. I just you know, I just like to bust your balls. That had nothing to do with saying you were wrong for that at all. I need to say this.

Speaker 2: 1:18:05

You are right. Quoting one source is not the way things should be done. It should be a lot of sources. One of the problems is that there are he wrote so much that nobody else is even close.

Speaker 2: 1:18:20

You're right that nobody else is even close, and I only cite him blindly when he hasn't given the derivation. But he often takes you through the whole logical steps that lead him to what he says, and that's another reason that people respect him. So, but it's hard for me to describe the volume of the material and it's hard for me to describe the um, the support, the great support and thinking that went into that stuff. So I've never been one to just cite one person, but, like I say I can't find any other and his is just so good it is good and it is logical too.

Speaker 1: 1:18:58

You're right. When you read what mackie writes about things, you always wind up shaking your head. I think on yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess he's right.

Speaker 2: 1:19:06

I could see that let me give you an example. Um, I think I just opened up one of his books and in there it says um mason's revere labor. Yeah, I didn't know, that I never heard of that and he goes into all this, you know, and it makes sense once you hear that, because we're all about labor, the working tools, and we're building something yeah yeah, but he says we hate permits because they don't make anything.

Speaker 2: 1:19:34

And that's just an example of um of dozens of things that um. You'll read something and you look at the bottom it was written by Albert Mackey, so I don't want to focus too much on him. I want to get some other people and so anybody else knows, yes, send it in. I love the authoritative writers.

Speaker 1: 1:19:50

Send us your favorite Masonic writers so that we can publish it and Dave can have new sources to cite.

Speaker 2: 1:19:56

Dan Brown doesn't count.

Speaker 1: 1:19:58

I don't think Dan Brown is a Mason or was a Mason.

Speaker 2: 1:20:02

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:20:04

He just wrote about things that involve Masonry. Yeah, I had Jeremy.

Speaker 2: 1:20:14

Barnes on the podcast. Who's the creator of Amity? Yeah, I heard that.

Speaker 1: 1:20:16

Do you know, jeremy? No, but I heard the podcast. Okay, yeah, he actually met. You know, dan Brown did research in his lodge and he wrote the book the year he was the master. Wow, yeah, and there's a character like whose hand got cut off. That could potentially be Jeremy. So it's a really small world masonically in the United States. This is one of the great things about our fraternity is that we're supposed to be finding our own answers.

Speaker 1: 1:20:50

We're supposed to be asking these questions and taking in other sources and deciding for ourselves what's right and wrong. Because there is no real dogma to the fraternity that says you must believe this Really. It's more about, like you said, we revere labor. So our dogma is more about you must do this. If you want to be a good person, you must do charity. If you want to be a better person, you must help other people. You must must listen to other people, you must try to subdue your passions. We're all about like what we should do to become better. That's our dogma, is like action. And if you're not doing the work, how are you ever going to become a better person?

Speaker 1: 1:21:39

it takes effort and labor and work. It's hard work to change negative things about yourself. Really hard work, I would agree with that.

Speaker 2: 1:21:49

I would agree 50% with that, because I think there's also a lot to be said for studying yeah, because studying can give you ideas and it can start taking you.

Speaker 1: 1:22:01

when you see how somebody interprets something, you can kind of like spark your own ideas about things and say I never thought about that, I never really imagined it. It meant that and uh, it's happened to me many times, and and I we've talked about it like there's a part of our ritual in the opening and closing of our ceremonies called the battery, and I'm not going to say what it is or when it happens, but you know what I'm talking about when I say it, and I came to you and asked what is this, not that battery? There's a really good joke, though. Uh, you know, what did the battery say to the bag of chips? If you're ever ready, I'm free to lay, okay. If you're ever ready, I'm free to lay, okay. I just made babies cry. Don't cry, baby don't cry.

Speaker 2: 1:22:52

That's right, that's funny. I love the sound effects where was I going then?

Speaker 1: 1:22:58

uh, the battery, yeah, the battery. This is a good example. Um, a couple of us were wondering what does this really mean? Why do we really do this? And we got some answers that made logical sense, and I think you gave me one, which was well, there's a number, the number equates to the degree, and this is a signal to us as to which degree we're in, and that's why the battery is important. Logical makes sense.

Speaker 2: 1:23:20

I get that.

Speaker 1: 1:23:21

But I was looking for an esoteric answer that I never got. No matter how many people I asked, nobody really had a good esoteric answer. For what's the symbolism of it? The logical reason behind it does make sense to me, but everything in Freemasonry has an esoteric meaning too.

Speaker 2: 1:23:41

I have my opinion on that. My opinion is it means sit down and shut up.

Speaker 1: 1:23:48

You know what? But nobody does sit down when they do the battery in the opening and closing ceremony. It's like not related, is it? No, it's not. Everybody's already standing when they do that.

Speaker 2: 1:24:00

Is it to break the bad things off of you, to make your stone smooth.

Speaker 1: 1:24:05

That's, that's how I take it honestly and so um, in my research, which was just asking people, I kind of understood the logical reasoning for it and I get it. But, um, that symbolic meaning and esoteric meaning I had to come up with on my own and I did adopt it and it's forever going to be a part of who I am as a Mason. Now, whenever I go to an opening or closing of a lodge, I close my eyes and I force myself to imagine those rough parts breaking off. When I hear that and more for one degree than another, because you need it more in that degree than the other, one degree than another, because you need it more in that degree than the other when you're about to go into a full business meeting, you better be preparing yourself to be a vessel. For what do we call it? Uninterested brotherly love, like we're not passionate. Uninterested, there's a word they use for that?

Speaker 2: 1:25:04

I don't know that word.

Speaker 1: 1:25:06

No, no. But I think that's one of the great things about our fraternity is that you can pull those little things out of it for yourself that nobody but you might believe. But it's not wrong if it's making you better. It's right for you and that's kind of a beautiful thing about Freemasonry is that we can.

Speaker 2: 1:25:29

We're all having our own individual experiences, even though we're doing it together well, I talk out of both sides of my mouth because I say that. You know, young people need to learn stuff. Learn it all, go through the steps before they start giving their interpretations to it. But, by the same token, there's something in one of the rituals I won't say which it talks about good and evil, and I changed it. I just felt like changing it. I changed it to good and bad. So you know you're having a good day, you know there'll be a bad one, you're having a bad day, you'll have a good one. And I was not authorized to do it. It's not right and I have no excuse for it. And you know, let me have it those are themes in the fraternity right.

Speaker 1: 1:26:21

The light and the dark, the good and the bad, those are are themes in the fraternity right. The light and the dark, the good and the bad, those are definite themes in the fraternity. So, you're not wrong in talking about it like that.

Speaker 2: 1:26:31

That's not that simple, Matt.

Speaker 1: 1:26:34

No, it was definitely about good and evil and how. I think what you're talking about is where it's trying to tell us that inside of man, all men are good and evil.

Speaker 2: 1:26:44

Like nobody's pure, nobody good and evil, nobody's pure.

Speaker 1: 1:26:45

Nobody's pure evil, nobody's pure good.

Speaker 2: 1:26:47

We all have both inside of us Again you taught me something, and that's just mine, is that if you're having a, if everything's going badly, people say, oh, I'm just a jerk, everything's going to go bad. Yeah, but then there's a good, then there's a good part, and the same thing with the good, everything is going well. Be prepared because a hurricane might hit you.

Speaker 1: 1:27:15

Actually I've used your explanation of that to other people. I have you and I know you wouldn't be mad about that, but the very same explanation you used.

Speaker 1: 1:27:26

I've given it to people Because it does make sense to me. It does actually help people. I think it can help people to start looking at it that way when the sun's shining, you better start planning for the darkness, because that sun ain't going to stay out forever. And when you're fumbling alone in the dark, don't think it goes on for eternity. It's going to end. You'll find the light again, and so don't get lost in the darkness. Keep moving forward. Hey man, those are good lessons for people.

Speaker 2: 1:27:56

I think I could just say that reminds me of another thought, instead of just saying that's what it stands for.

Speaker 1: 1:28:02

Yeah, I just thought of that now, even on this podcast, because I talk a lot, people think I'm trying to be authoritative. So I have to repeatedly say and again, I'm not trying to teach anybody here, I'm just telling you One man's perspective on this thing we're talking about. I can't speak for the whole fraternity Other than when I'm citing stuff out of here. That's the only time I'm speaking for the fraternity. Talking things out really does help. I mean, when I have anxiety about something, I notice when that, because my voice is evil, like I said, it's always feeding me negativity. So if I'm left to my own devices, I get darker and darker in the places that I'm thinking about. So for me it's really helpful to talk about things, because people other people have way more positive outlooks on things than I do and I can be like oh OK, I can see that you know, know, and I could take some of their positivity into myself I. But I need to talk about it with people or else I'm going to be a depressive person.

Speaker 2: 1:29:09

yeah well, that's probably part of our like tribal need. Well, I mean, I told you I make those crazy connections, so I must have been the medicine man in the uh in evolution, or the or the village idiot I can totally see you with those big gauge holes in your ears and like a bone in your nose maybe, and some paint on your face.

Speaker 1: 1:29:31

I can totally see that because you'd be, stylish man.

Speaker 2: 1:29:39

I'll have to give you some of those. I wish I had some examples because they're really weird Of your medicine man. Thinking Of my connections. Oh weird connections you make.

Speaker 1: 1:29:51

Can you remember any of them, Sheesh? We've talked a lot about space and the universe and the meaning of life and time. We've talked a lot about psychology. Well, here's one. That's what you gave me REM sleep, when your eyes are going, when you reach that rapid eye movement Part of your sleep. That's like when you're having the most productive sleep. And I've always known that. But you told me oh hey, modern psychology has this thinking that if you can reproduce that eye movement, you can process it in your waking mind.

Speaker 2: 1:30:27

Yeah, my boss also told me. He said you know, when you're happy, you smile. It also goes the other way around. So if you're not happy, if you smile, it'll make you happier. And I'd like you to do some research on that, if you don't mind. The physical act of smiling, making you emotionally feel better yeah, so when you're happy, you smile, and it works the other way around when you smile, you become happy it's true, it's so primal.

Speaker 1: 1:31:02

Go look on YouTube for a clip of this really old gorilla. And this gorilla is dying and almost doesn't really interact with the world at all anymore because the gorilla is so old and dying. But the man who actually taught that gorilla as a baby sign language and stuff came to see it on his deathbed and that gorilla's face lit up with the most heartfelt smile and joy that you could imagine and you're like, wow, this is definitely something primal within us that's smiling, reflecting our happiness.

Speaker 1: 1:31:40

I know you're right about that. There's definitely a physical connection to the emotional happiness yeah, and uh, maybe, maybe, if you can fake, you got to fake it till you make it, isn't that? That's exactly what that means yeah if you're not feeling happy, just smile, you'll get there yeah, and I'm jewish and a rabbi once told me.

Speaker 2: 1:32:00

He says you know if you're, we told everybody. It was a sermon. He said if you're not sure you believe in God, you know, go through, go to services and go through everything anyway and eventually you will. Yeah, you know it goes both ways. If you believe in God, you go to the services. If you go to the services, he can help you believe in God.

Speaker 1: 1:32:21

Well, we have covered brotherhood. We've talked about the superfluities of life and what that means to us as Masons. We've talked about doing our passions, as well as a lot of other crazy things, on this short podcast. This podcast is by no means a huge deal, but it does get out there, so you're potentially, now and in the future, going to be heard by a lot of people that are Masons all over the world, and maybe by some people that aren't Masons, and so I always like to leave every podcast by giving our guests the opportunity to speak to those people directly. So, as we leave the worshipful David Finkelstein on the way out, what would you say to those Masons listening today?

Speaker 2: 1:33:08

I would say don't leave your new Masons in the dark. Show them brotherhood the brotherhood they're Masons. An EA is a Mason and you want to show him brotherhood the Brotherhood they're Masons. An EA is a Mason and you want to show him Brotherhood. And the way to show him Brotherhood is to be his friend. Don't leave him sitting in the dark for a month until you hear from us Call him. Take him to lunch, go bowling ballgame.

Speaker 1: 1:33:47

Show Brotherhood to the new brothers. I love it. It's never too soon to start showing that you care about somebody. Once they join the fraternity, they need it. That being said, for On the Level podcast, we appreciate the wonderful David Finkelstein of Liberty Lodge and for a member, it's Arizona Lodge number 147, my home lodge, and I hope you come back. I hope I didn't scare you away. Love to have you back on the show to talk more. All right, thank you, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:34:16

Thank you. That's it for us on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:34:19

We're out.