Bringing the Work to Life: Bro. Salman Arif Asks Troy What Makes Good Masonic Ritual

For Episode 56 of The Mystic Tye, Bro. Salman Arif turned the microphone around for a second time and brought Troy Spreeuw a page of questions about ritual work. They cover why Freemasons call it the Work, the 200 man-hours behind a degree, why word perfect is only the beginning, ritual as performance, memory palaces, and The Five Minute Ritualist. What follows is their conversation, edited only for readability. The words are Troy's and Salman's, as spoken. Listen to the full episode at mystictye.com/episodes.

Troy: Welcome to The Mystic Tye, a podcast for Freemasons. I am your host, Troy Spreeuw. You can find us online at mystictye.com. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at troy@mystictye.com. You can find us on Patreon at patreon.com/mystictye.

What does it actually mean to be good at Masonic ritual? For me, ritual has never been simply about memorizing words and delivering them without making a mistake. The words matter, but so do understanding, intention, and performance. Good ritual should communicate something. Great ritual should make the candidate, the brethren, and even the ritualist himself experience something. In this episode of The Mystic Tye, Brother Salman Arif turns the microphone around and talks with me about my approach to ritual work.

We explore the difference between reciting and performing ritual, the importance of understanding its symbolism, and how pacing, emphasis, and presence can transform familiar words into genuine initiatory experience. We also get practical, looking at how I learn ritual through visualization, the classical art of memory palace techniques, and Brother Kim March's The Five-Minute Ritualist, because memorizing the words is only the beginning. The real work is bringing them to life. Please welcome Brother Salman Arif.

The Work, and the Magic That Works Anyway

Troy: Thanks for asking me back, Salman. We did a Q&A a few weeks ago before EFC, because you said I never make myself available for questions, or I don't make myself available as I should. So this is me making myself available, and we set a theme today, and you authored some questions. You've got some questions for me. Why don't you go ahead?

Salman: We're talking about different things today, and a few questions came to mind. I wrote them down, so you'll excuse me if I look down to go through them, because there's a few. But one of the questions that came up in my mind was, when you talk about ritual work, what do you actually mean by the word work? What is the actual effort, and what is the protocol to that?

Troy: Freemasons often use terms around labor and work, stuff that craftsmen or workmen might use. Masonic labor, right? The work of the craft. And so oftentimes I will capitalize Work, and when I do that, I'm referring to the Great Work. That's the type of work that a spiritual aspirant will attempt, the magnum opus, the summum bonum, the Great Work. But when I refer to Masonic work, that's often ritual work, but it isn't always ritual work. It can be all types of Freemasonry. But conferring degrees, which is the correct terminology for performing the dramas of the three degrees that we do in regular craft Freemasonry in a lodge environment, it is work.

I've said, and I don't have any statistics to back this up, I'm just like, "Oh, this is about right," about 200 man-hours per degree, I would say. Once you split up all the different parts across all the different officers, and the parts at the opening, and then the reception of the candidate in the certain way that it's done, and then the different steps in the degree. And there are similarities, but each degree has its own character and flavor. And all of those components, and all of their several parts, are typically shared across the lodge, or even across the district or jurisdiction, by other guys that are known for doing the particular lectures or the particular components of the degree.

And I say it's work because it is work. It's a lot of effort, and you really have to love it, first of all, to even apply yourself to it, because oftentimes there is antiquarian language that makes the craft stand out. It isn't written in modern language. It sounds a little bit older. Often we're using words that aren't used. The famous example I often use is inculcate. If you hear somebody in the outside world just throwing around the word inculcate, there's a pretty good chance that the person is familiar with Masonic ritual, because it's an important word to Freemasons, right? And there's lots of different words that aren't often used in regular parlance. So I refer to it as work because, first of all, it's something to be taken seriously, and it's something you have to apply yourself to, right?

Salman: I just had a comment there. I remember you telling me, just in the last session we had here, but also in person, that the magic works whether you believe in it or not, right? To a very strong extent, if the person delivering that ritual doesn't believe it internally himself, how much do you feel that would affect the actual carry-forward of that effect to the initiate?

Troy: I often say, and I could be quoted, the magic works whether you want it to or not. Having a ritual conferred on you as the candidate, whether you're by yourself or with a small cohort, the magic that's being intended by that, there are changes wrought in the candidate. These initiatory rituals... And we call it magic, in that it's the famous definition of magic, causing change in conformity with will. But even that, you're overthinking it. There's an intent to delivering these three degrees, the initiation of the Entered Apprentice, the passing to the Fellowcraft degree, and the raising to the Sublime degree of a Master Mason. There is an intent, an arc, that will work the change in a man to make him a better man. And even if he's not that good a man, he'll still be... Lon DuQuette reminded me, we were talking the other day, even if he's a terrible person and somehow gets through our door, he'll still be a much less terrible person because he's had the degrees.

Salman: Yes.

Troy: And I believe part of it is the contemplative nature of the work we deliver. We cover a lot of philosophy and traditional instruction, and we do it in a method that, and Ike Baker presented on this at the EFC, has been shown in Egyptian trade texts, like training texts. The method of transferring information from the masters to the students was done in this sort of call and answer, catechismic way that's very reminiscent of the Masonic work we do. So even if there is no... and I don't care. Ike and I agree on this, and he quotes Wilmshurst as saying, "It doesn't matter that there's no direct historical connection to the Egyptians or what came before." There is a methodology to the way the degrees are working on a candidate.

I gotta lower my camera a little bit here, just because I think you're seeing too much of my sparsely covered forehead. So we're just gonna lower this down a little bit.

Salman: Mine's an illusion, so.

Troy: Yes. Oh yeah, okay. But then what was I saying? So there's no direct historical relationship, but schools had their initiatic rites for each of their different trades programs, and that's how it's done. We use the imagery and the allegory of a trade, a builder's guild, a Freemason's guild, a mason's guild. But the methodology would've been recognizable, and when you look back on those texts, it's remarkably similar to how these degrees are constructed.

And I would argue, and neither is provable, so I can just say it out loud and we can just pretend it's true even if it doesn't... the truthiness of it is very high, so we'll pretend it's true. Either we remember this through the collective unconscious, that this is a good way to teach, and maybe that's why it's specifically for men. Maybe it works better for men because we socialize differently. Maybe not. Maybe it's got nothing to do with gender at all. But it could also be some sort of outside force, outside of the collective unconscious, sort of making us do this over and over, because that's how it likes to either be worshiped or effect change, spiritual forces behind it. Or it could just be that humans are very curious and find the most efficacious way to do things by pure dumb luck, trial and error over and over. There's only so many ways to do things, and we keep rediscovering these ways over and over, the same way that crabs have evolved 10 separate times throughout history, right? Because society makes it evolve this way.

Salman: I feel there's something poetic about what you just said. Instead of a diminishing echo, it's more of an evolving echo. It updates with the times, but it tends to be of the same stuff every single time, right? And I feel like this is Masonry. And you mentioned something about archaic language, and I feel like language has diminished in its role over time, because it's just so easy to communicate nowadays. Whereas before, when you sent a letter, for example, you had to really put some thought into it, because it would take maybe a couple of months to reach the person who's reading it, and it needs to portray that message in its purest form. The archaic language that we use kind of makes sense to me in that way, that it's not just about being snobbish or something. There is an element of that, I'll admit, but the vast majority of it is that these words, like inculcate, if used commonly in our daily speech, carry much deeper meaning. Even bestow would not be strong enough. Even understand, or what we use nowadays, oh, retain, right? That's the word. It's just not the same thing.

Troy: Delineate is another. You'll hear me use the terms delimit and delineate in my language. Part of what's done as part of this work is that you've learned so much of this stuff by heart that it infects your thinking processes, and this is another way the magic works whether you want it to or not. And you will think back to these times when you yourself were having the degree conferred, or you yourself were sitting on the sidelines watching the degree be conferred.

So if you're having the degree conferred, you're like an Entered Apprentice. If you're watching the degree conferred, it's like being a Fellowcraft. And if it's you conferring the degree or the lecture, that's another level of appreciation, because now you've memorized it and you're delivering it, and that's like being the Master Mason. So there's another threefold nature to the way our degrees work. You don't just see them conferred once, right? You have them conferred once. You can only get them once, because the drama and the way it works only works on you the first time. But then you could be exemplified and have it done again, as an exemplar candidate, or you could be sitting on the sidelines watching it.

And I don't think you appreciate the magic of what the work can do for you until you start delivering pieces yourself, which is why I'm a big believer in asking guys that don't even know what they're saying to take on little pieces. They don't have to learn the 20 minutes of the address to the brethren. They could do the addition to the apron, or they could do a set of working tools, or they can do the lesser lights after the greater. There's lots of little four-line memorizations that they could do, and I think newer brethren can gain so much, even when they're still working on their individual catechisms and prove-ups. And if you don't know what those are, then you need to join to find that out.

Salman: There's plenty we're leaving in the dark here.

Troy: Sure. Look, everything I discuss is monitorial. I won't tip my hand. And really the only secrets we communicate are the nature of what the drama in the degrees is about, mostly in the Sublime degree especially, and the nature of the obligations, and the secrets, the modes of recognition. Those are the secrets, and they've always been the secrets, because that was how we would recognize each other as we traveled when we were operative Masons, and so it is now that we are speculative Masons. We are secretive for a good reason. The modes of recognition, if you don't get specific instruction, it would be very difficult to pass a true test of whether or not you're a brother. Even if you watch videos online, you'd have a hell of a time recreating the exact methodology each time, and especially from each jurisdiction, because there is lots of variability on that, right?

What Makes Good Ritual

Salman: There is a lot of richness in each and every action, posture, movement, word that is said. And you could spend a lifetime just figuring out the first three degrees, which are the main degrees, right? But now, congratulations again, by the way, Troy, you're District Deputy Grand Master. Big thing, and an honor for us that you're part of our lodge.

Troy: I don't know how wise that is, but I will do my best not to abuse it. Thanks for the recognition.

Salman: I think they couldn't have chosen a better candidate for that. Going back a little bit, you mentioned the quality of the ritual. I was there. You were the Worshipful Master when I was being initiated into my first degree. For me, and I'm gonna say this in every episode or every conversation we ever have, it was such a majestic, such a grand experience, and I believe you, and of course the rest of the brethren there, made it exactly what it was. But how do you qualify, now that you're in that middle management role, as you say, what is good ritual versus ritual that actually makes a difference? Or is it either/or? Is there a combination between the two? What's your opinion on that? I believe you've touched on that a little bit.

Troy: My favorite is when they break into song.

Salman: Ah, okay.

Troy: I've yet to see that, but I really want it, like a television episode, like that one episode of Buffy where they sing through the whole thing.

Salman: The Vampire Slayer?

Troy: Yeah. There's lots of other shows that have done musical episodes too. I think Grey's Anatomy's done them, which is not surprising, because so many actors get a lot of joy from musical theater, even though it doesn't have the same broad appeal it used to have. I wish we'd break into song. One day, you know what? We've got some pretty talented brethren on the musical side of the craft. One day I'm gonna be at a degree somewhere, and somebody's gonna be like, "Tonight we're not getting the regular lecture. Tonight we're getting a poetic lecture sung by such-and-such." And I will watch with rapt attention, and then I hope that brother drops the mic and leaves the stage. I don't know. Sorry, what was the question? What makes good ritual?

Salman: Yeah.

Troy: You know it when you see it. Here's what I can tell you. It's less about word perfection. Now, I've traveled a lot, and I've seen a lot of ritual delivered word perfect but with no inflection. They just rattle it off as quick as they can. And I understand for some guys, they're put under a lot of pressure to perform and whatnot, but it would be so much better if they missed half the words but they felt the half that they said. Know what I mean? It's delivering it with some sort of feeling or inflection.

I love referring to the point in your degree when you're brought to light. There's a certain way I do it, and you were like, "Wow," and I broke character and chuckled. It's little things like that. I'd never seen anybody really do it that way. I just started doing it that way, right? And now that's the way I've always done it, and that's the way we do it now. But there's lots of other innovations that I've seen. Guys get better, and it's not that they're changing the words at all. It's the rubric. It's the action. It's the way it's delivered, and that matters so much more.

Salman: So acting, you would say, is a big element in this. The power of delivery really matters, right?

Troy: Oh, sure. Yes. And the methodology of delivery. You could take any line and just say it over in all the different ways you could say it. Put a question mark at the end, put an exclamation mark at the end. Inflect each word differently, and get a feel for what that does to the delivery, as an actor might, right? I wish guys did it more. And that's what I think separates it from a passable ritualist who gets it word perfect, which is no slouch, right? For some of these pieces. The tracing board in the Entered Apprentice Canadian work is 12 minutes. It's very disjointed. It's six different lectures all put together. It's a very weird bouillabaisse of information, and it doesn't flow, but it's beautiful when delivered word perfect. And Lawrence Putnam, Brother Putnam, did it for me when he was the Junior Warden the year I was initiated. He may have had to call for a word a couple of times, but his performance left an impression, so much so that it's always been my favorite piece, and that's what I've always wanted to excel at.

Salman: He's extremely articulate. I've heard him do a couple of pieces myself. Profound delivery every single time. So I agree with you there.

Troy: There again, getting the words right is only the barest minimum of what makes Masonry amazing. And you hear these stories, guys going and getting their degrees, and everything's delivered from memory. We take it for granted, but people in the outside world don't really realize how much of that there is. And then the concordant bodies are just a whole other bunch more stuff, right? The York Rite bodies, the Scottish Rite bodies, you get a whole bunch more degrees with not just a word, grip, and sign for each one, different names and different addresses, but then all of the lectures and degree story that goes with it. And guys deliver that, too.

They have this little book that contains it, these little cipher books. People find them around now, and here's my Duke's Cipher. I keep losing it and then finding it again in my library. But these little ritual books, you'll find them sometimes in cipher, and this one's got words in it. But you'll find them in cipher, where it's letter dot, and you have to know what that letter means, right? That's how guys kept it mouth to ear. But these ciphers are an innovation that's less than 100 years old in most jurisdictions, and in some states, I don't think there's any provinces, but in some states of the United States, it's still illegal to publish the ritual in any form. They don't even have one written down in a safe for Grand Lodge referral. It's transmitted mouth to ear. And the reason given that they keep doing it is that otherwise there is no mentorship. If you're just gonna take your cipher book out to the outhouse and read it, you don't need to get the mentorship from the older members. And then you're not spending weeks and weeks preparing for your degrees by seeing your mentor, or several mentors, over and over again and getting that relationship built.

Salman: That's so true.

Troy: Yeah. So we lose something in not doing that, right? But in the modern world, you gotta take the good with the bad. And some of the good is we have cipher manuscripts, and some of the bad is the mentorship isn't as good, right? Or you've gotta chase your mentors a little bit, or make schedules with them, or corner them on Zoom and ask them questions.

Stop Scrolling: A Detour Through the Movies

Salman: I guess that's a very large argument about how convenience has overtaken richness from life, right? Maybe a topic for another day, but for sure, I agree with you there entirely. Let me just jump forward.

Troy: Here's an example before you go on. Are you going to be enriched by watching three hours of TikTok? Or are you gonna be more enriched by re-watching, say, The King and I, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Or The Ten Commandments, or Gone with the Wind. Or, for example, I've never seen A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I've never seen them.

Salman: You should. It will change you forever.

Troy: Yeah, and I was listening to the movie podcast I like. They were talking about the Leone films, and I might have watched a scene or two on TV, but I've never sat down and watched them. So why would you spend all that time on Facebook or TikTok, cumulatively, that many of us do scrolling every day? This isn't an accusation. I'm just trying to get you to think about this now. You're much better off to grab some friends, or your partner, or your kids, or your parents, and sit down and watch a beautiful piece of high artwork. I believe the highest art form now is the motion picture. Although some people would argue with me. I really think that it's an art form that is respected and had a huge business built around it, and I think that we've lost some of what was going on there. Anyway, so you were gonna say? Sorry I interrupted you.

Salman: No, IMAX has deteriorated the experience of the silver screen. Even though it's much more explosive in terms of what it captures, imperfection is what made it more beautiful back in the day. That's why I kind of revert back to some of the older movies myself. I was watching Thunderball today, James Bond.

Troy: Oh, one of the terrible James Bonds, but it's still good. It's so bad it's good.

Salman: Sean Connery. You just can't get away from the whole... It's so sophisticated, and there's so much eloquence. And yes, there's some misogyny, and yes, some of the effects could be better, but at the end of the day, it just becomes one of those most epic pieces of work that everybody kind of compares the new movies to still, right? And it's been 65 years, and still people are...

Troy: Somebody was saying to me the other day that each generation can have their own James Bond, and I'm guilty of saying out loud to my partner, who heard this said, "You know what? I liked all the actors that did it." Of course everybody loves Connery, but I thought Roger Moore did a good job. I think Timothy Dalton did a good job. My first Bond movie in the theater was A View to a Kill, and I think that was Timothy Dalton, and Grace Jones, who had just been in Conan the Barbarian, or Conan the Destroyer, and I just remember how bananas she was. And then she was in that Eddie Murphy flick, Boomerang, huge flop, but a movie I really enjoyed. Let's not go down the rabbit hole of movies here. But yes, I appreciate... And Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. And you know what? If they have a lady or a Black guy be Bond next time, great. I think that's great. And I will not be one of those people being like, "Oh, they're destroying the franchise." No. Let somebody else tell a different story with the archetypes. Let's reuse those archetypes to death.

I'm one of those Star Wars fans too. I've said on this podcast before, X-wings fighting in atmosphere with TIE fighters, that to me doesn't work. But when they make more Star Wars, I'm not the guy being like, "Oh, that's some bullshit there." I'm the guy that's like, "More Star Wars? Yes. More? I'll take it. Even if it's bad, I'll still enjoy it." Did they squander the confrontation between Anakin and Palpatine? Yes, that will be one of the greatest movie misses of all time. They had this great opportunity. It was shot beautifully, and the dialogue was terrible. But we can't go back. We only can move forward, so learn the lesson.

Salman: Yeah. I still watch the movies in order, right? And not in the new order as people like to watch it nowadays, because it just takes away so much from the whole experience.

Troy: I think you should watch them in reverse order, like Memento.

Salman: Really?

Troy: Yes, and then hit yourself over the head every 15 minutes and see if you could figure out what went on. They might make more sense if it's like Memento. Why are we down this particular rabbit hole?

Salman: You're really interested in this rabbit hole.

Troy: This particular one, yeah. So yes, stop scrolling through TikTok, especially TikTok. Stop browsing the Intertubes. Stop talking to ChatGPT as if you're flirting with a real live person. Go to the theater and flirt with a real live person. Go out and experiment with talking to real people. I highly recommend it. I highly recommend it, anyways.

Salman: No, that's profound advice. I think there's something very true and honest about what you just said, exactly in the sense of live life. Don't look at the reflection, but actually be there in real life and try to do something of your own. Create something, right?

Troy: And then be present. I wish I could take my own advice. If you could figure out how to do that, please tell me. Be present, and not be worried about next week's bill payments, or what you're doing for work next month, or what you're gonna get your wife for her birthday, or what next holiday you're gonna take, or what color tie you should wear to the next lodge meeting.

Ritual as Performing a Prayer

Salman: Symbology, now that is one of the main things that I feel like you really resonate with, and it's something that I'd really want to bring out as well. You've been a very avid practitioner of the Western esoteric tradition, and...

Troy: That's a nice way of saying it, yes.

Salman: Yeah. I don't wanna call you the devil man. Oh, oops. I guess I did.

Troy: You could call me the devil man. Doesn't mean I'm the devil man. It might mean that when people get the angel and the devil on their shoulders, I just get two devils. One devil, and then a more devil on the other.

Salman: I'd call you the angel, Troy.

Troy: That's what I keep trying to tell all my critics, especially people who don't even know me but criticize me anyway.

Salman: Yeah. Everybody has their own stage of evolution, as my dad used to say, and it's not your business or your responsibility to make sure everybody evolves at the same pace as you. Not to be too pompous about it, and not to bring ego into it, but there's always some element of ego when we're separate, right? So it's okay. It's just a relative term.

Troy: It takes two for there to be an offense. Somebody's gotta give offense, somebody's gotta take offense.

Salman: Somebody's gotta take it too.

Troy: If I'm actively out there giving offense, you'll fucking know. I'm big enough to admit that I'm that small. Look at me. Ouch, I'm growing. Look at, watch me grow. Ouch.

Salman: Yeah, no, I don't want people to start hating you, because that would be unfair to you, because you're your own worst enemy when it comes to defending yourself. That's what I've noticed the most.

Troy: I'll step in it.

Salman: Yeah, you'll step in it, even though that's not you, but you're just, "You know what? Is that what you think? All right, here's more of it."

Troy: For those people easily triggered, if you are so easily triggered by me, wait until you meet the people that I'm studying with and learning from. Boy, they got a surprise for you, pal.

Salman: Talking about the people that you study with, how much has that influenced your overall perspective on ritual? So more towards the more esoteric side that you've been practicing. How much do you bring from that into Masonic ritual?

Troy: Let's just say that there are times when the ritual I'm doing is with myself, or the higher aspects of myself, or I'm talking to other aspects of self, or not self. It's like prayer. People wanna know what that's like. It's not like reciting a prayer, it's like performing a prayer. And I don't mean to belabor the point, but in a lodge, when the chaplain is saying the prayers, or the Worshipful Master is invoking the deity, the rest of the degree is the same thing. There again, it's shards of the higher self sort of introducing itself to itself, trying to wake up from its torpor. Torpor. There's a delicious word. Anybody who knows what that is, is a role-playing game fan of some variety.

So when you invest in some of these ritual practices, and there's lots of different religious traditions that invest in these types of religious practices, but then you add the symbology of a mystery tradition to it, it adds layers of meaning, right? And then if you treat the symbols as if they're alive, or they're all aspects of the same sort of living, breathing, existing consciousness, whatever aspect of that is, it just adds layers and layers of further richness to it, right?

Salman: Evolving echoes, right? All kind of part of the same, just a different perspective. You know what that reminds me of? And I'm sorry to interrupt you here, because you were on a train of thought.

Troy: No, not at all.

Salman: But when you sit in the different positions around the lodge, you see the same thing happening, and maybe it's too much of an exaggeration, but it is such a different experience, right? Sitting in the east, west, north, south, wherever you are, you see the same stuff, even if it's done exactly the same, and I feel like the kind of impression it leaves on you is totally different. And I think that is part of the richness of the ritual work itself too, and why you should progress through all of the chairs and make sure that you don't miss any one of them, right?

Troy: No, I've missed several, and I'll get back to them eventually, hopefully.

Salman: We're taking on three at a time in our lodge sometimes.

Troy: Sometimes the traffic works against us, right? No, there's a different perspective in each chair, from each officer's position and each responsibility, and there's so much going on, right? And if you just think of that, the observer and the observed, there's so much being born at those moments. The point events going on over and over. And when you think about it in those terms, it can be really quite a sacred thing, if you focus on it that way.

Salman: I hear you. You didn't go too deep on the esoteric side, and I don't blame you. There's a lot more to the experiences that you've had that would be a tangent from what we do in Freemasonry, generally speaking. Which is fine. But I still believe that the intent, the purpose, and it's not just how well you intonate, it's not just how well you memorized it, it's not just how good of an actor you are. I feel like on some level, it's how much you've internalized it, emoted it, that kind of resonates.

So you and I were both in sales, okay? There's an element to that where we need to believe, even more so than the prospect that we're talking to, that what we're providing them is actually something that's good for them. If you're not, you're just a scam artist, right? You kind of need to believe in the product or the service that you're offering. And that's part of the esoteric tradition which really appeals to me, where it's not just how well you've said it, it's not just how good you look in that outfit, it's also about how deeply you've internalized that entire concept. And when you say it to somebody using those specific words, which have been used for eons, or maybe even newer ritual, it does leave a much more lasting impression.

Memorize First, or Internalize First?

Salman: So that leads to a question that I have here, which is the chicken and the egg, right? Do you memorize first, or do you internalize the concept first? What's more important? Is there something that's more important than the other?

Troy: Depends. If I have time to learn all the words, then I learn all the words. And there's a methodology that I've learned from The Five-Minute Ritualist, which I'll share in a minute, and I'm gonna teach classes on in the coming weeks, about the technique to do it letter by letter, word by word.

Salman: Yeah. Excited about that.

Troy: But if I don't have time, I will get the gist of what is being said in the lecture. Like at an install. Sometimes you show up at an install, and somebody's, "Hey, do you know how to install the Senior Deacon?" And you're just like, "Nope." They're like, "There's nobody else, so it's gonna be you." And you're like, "I better look at that." And then you wanna hit the key words. You're giving them the staves, you wanna make sure you talk about that. You're putting on their jewel, you wanna make sure you talk about that. But getting the gist, and being confident and delivering it with confidence, matters way more. The installation's a bad example, but oftentimes most of the crowd isn't gonna know your specific lodge's ritual well enough that they're gonna be correcting you, or just be like, "Oh, he doesn't know what he's talking about." But a good ritualist will extemporize and cover all his bases anyway.

Now, I wouldn't recommend standing up and delivering one of the larger lectures extemporaneously. That being said, I saw recently an address to the Worshipful Master delivered in a Board of Installed Masters by somebody who doesn't normally do it. There's an address that happens there. And I watched a brother deliver it to a more junior brother, and he has installed this more junior brother in all his degrees and at every chair, and now he's there to install him as his Worshipful Master. So this brother who was doing it doesn't even do that piece. He didn't have time to learn the whole ritual, or for whatever reason didn't have the bandwidth to learn the ritual word perfect. Didn't matter. He got up there and he was confident, and he covered all his bases. He made sure he delivered all the information that he needed to deliver, and it was beautiful. Now, more senior guys can get away with stuff like that, or guys with more positive delivery can get away with stuff like that.

You asked, so look, if you've got the time, don't wait. If you have six weeks to learn a big piece, start, not now, but right now. One of the things I like doing is recording it in my own voice, and even though we say we're not supposed to do that, recording it in my own voice on a secure device and then playing it in my headphones, even while I sleep, right? Just to get it beaten into my stupid subconscious. This is how it sounds. Just like this. And then you start working on it in the shower, and then you've got it. But I would say find a ritual system that works, and this Five-Minute Ritualist is good, and apply it. Find a mentor to give you tips, and take them. But don't wait. If you have six weeks, start working on it immediately.

It's like if you have a presentation to give, like I do on freedom of conscience on October 28th at Capilano Lodge. It's a new slide presentation where I'm gonna be talking about this idea of religious forbearance and tolerance, known as freedom of conscience, where you can't force somebody to believe anything, and it's up to people to come to deity on their own terms. I'm doing research every day, even just little bits. Right now I'm reading John Stuart Mill, for some idea of what he was saying in the 1840s, 1860s, which is an important pivotal time in the idea of religious freedom. And these ideas are under attack, right? So I wanna talk about that, so I'm doing the research right away.

Now, all that said, it's more important when you deliver that you be confident. And if you completely fall apart, apologize and try and do the best you can, right? And if you know you're not gonna be able to do a good job, go out of your way to find somebody else to fill in, rather than showing up on the day and letting them down. It's on your honor as a Mason to try and find somebody to fill in. True hardship, family hardship or something, guys'll understand. But you've taken it on, and it's up to you to make sure that you've done your best, or found somebody else to do it, right?

Salman: That's the commitment, right?

Troy: That is the commitment. That is the commitment. Did I answer your question? I can't remember.

Salman: You did, and then some.

Troy: Okay, good.

Salman: On the same note, I'm excited about the new lecture. I didn't know about this. Is it scheduled yet?

Troy: Yeah, it's on my DDGM calendar. Probably this Friday night, October the 9th, Mount Garibaldi Lodge was supposed to be a Fellowcraft. It's not gonna be, so I'll have some more fulsome comments. And I'm hoping we'll have our district education officer there. I gotta call him tomorrow and see. But there'll be other educational presentations that night, and then it'll be the amazing festive board the guys at Mount Garibaldi are known for. Worshipful Master Trevor Derrick will be an excellent host.

The 17th, Mount Elphinstone in Roberts Creek, that's up between Gibsons and Sechelt, towards my hometown. October 17th there is going to be a funeral in the morning, and then, I believe, a Fellowcraft degree at noon that day. And then an excellent festive board, always, up that way, and you'll be able to catch the 8:30 ferry over and like a 4 or 5 or 6:00 ferry back, so it'll be a long day, but should be a good time. And then October 27th at North Shore Lodge 93, where I'm hoping to obligate the Entered Apprentice candidates, and I've been working on that, too, in my own particular manner that I like to do, as you well know. And then the 28th. So I've got four District Deputy Grand Master official visits this month. Plus, I'm working for Elections Canada right now, so it's gonna be a busy...

Salman: Yeah.

Troy: September was crazy. This month's gonna be also crazy.

Salman: Yeah, welcome to October.

Troy: Yeah. It just seems like I'm just a girl who can't say no, so I just keep adding more things. And then we're gonna do some showings of Join or Die, that documentary about Dr. Robert Putnam. We're gonna be doing them open to the public generally. We're gonna be asking brethren to come and invite a friend, to talk about why fraternal organizations, unions, sports teams, all organizations cannot attract members right now. And we're gonna do Q&A afterwards, and then a bit of a recruiting pitch to some people who come. Should be interesting. Details forthcoming. I think the 28th at Agnes Street Temple in New West. The 28th of November, not October, because I can't be in two places at once.

Memory Palaces and the Archetypal Temple

Salman: Changing the topic a little bit, but still on topic. I don't wanna lead into your workshop just yet. There's one more point I wanted to touch on, which is something I'm a fan of. I've been to, I believe, three different lodges where I've seen your memory palaces presentation.

Troy: Ah, yes.

Salman: I absolutely love the concept. I believe when we were at North Shore Lodge, if I'm not mistaken, I was the only one who asked the most pertinent questions, while plenty of people were scratching their heads at, "Okay, what exactly just happened to us right now?"

Troy: And to be fair, I didn't even load you with questions. You just already knew what questions to ask, because you'd seen me present it before.

Salman: This was not prepped at all, for sure. I was just generally very curious, and I took the opportunity, because there was some silence there for me to actually say something.

Troy: That's hard to believe, when I'm around, that there'd be silence enough to ask a question, but yes.

Salman: That was probably because you were out of time.

Troy: I was out of breath. Yeah, like 70, 75 minutes later, I was like, "Have I said enough? All right, anybody awake out there? Hello? Hello?"

Salman: The point was to bring up that topic, because we're talking about ritual. Memorization versus actually creating a vivid memory palace in your mind. What is the difference, and to what extent does that maybe improve the overall experience you have, not just as a ritualist, but also in the journey in Freemasonry? How would you put that in your own terms?

Troy: With the practice of memory palace, there's a very specific methodology when building memory palaces. And there's some famous examples in some great books. Frances Yates's The Life of Giordano Bruno, The Hermetic Studies of Giordano Bruno. Anyway, there's good examples in there, and then I've seen some other great examples in some presentations I've seen recently, including some frescoes in monasteries and whatnot from the Dark Ages, where the only people allowed to learn anything were the clergy and the monks. I digress.

But the practice of building a memory palace can make your memory and imagination work together to provide a more vivid feeling experience. So you're not just memorizing the words, you're delivering the words with an intentional passion in a particular manner, right? And the memory palaces help you construct those ideas. And it's a technique that one needs to study, and the more one applies it, the better you get at it. And it's famous to give people a hard time about their memory palace practices. There's some good memes going around about it now that amuse me. But the practice of adding ridiculous images, and then adding really strong emotional triggers to those visuals that make them very easy to remember, really does help. But that's more about recalling the meaning. Still, if you wanna be word perfect in a way that Masons respect, using a word memorization technique is different than a memory palace. But the memory palaces can help, because that technique improves your overall memory and can make you much better at being able to recall and recite information quickly.

Salman: Definitely. And I don't mean to jump on the conclusion you just made, but a question that I feel like I could have asked you the last time, that just came to me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I'm looking into this way too deep. Would you say that creating this memory palace, where essentially you're memorizing the whole lodge as you do this, right?

Troy: You can use the lodge as a memory palace, but it doesn't have to be. It could be a church, it could be a house or a castle or a monastery. Any of these things will work.

Salman: But let's put it in the strictest of Masonic terms.

Troy: The lodge's layout is ideal as a memory palace.

Salman: That's what I mean. If it is ideal, do you mean that only in a more superficial way, where the dimensions and all that will help you memorize? Or, and this is something that I firmly believe about Freemasonry, and it kind of alludes to the same point, where the magic works whether you want it to or not, would these dimensions, once internalized and memorized in a certain way, affect your psyche, and maybe even spirit, in a certain way? Is that something that you've ever thought about?

Troy: There are those of us who believe that Freemasonry is all about archetypal temple building. The constant building allegory, even around the initiates as living stones. This idea of the temple not made with hands. This idea of all the pieces fitting together so perfectly as to appear to be more the handiwork of the Great Architect than of mortal man. This idea that there was no sound of metal implement, only wood and stone used in the construction of the temple. All of this, I don't wanna call it superstition, all of this tradition, this traditional history, this Masonic tradition informs us... When anybody says that, you know they're just slinging bullshit. Masonic tradition informs us that this is the purpose of the craft, right?

And so I believe that we're tapping into an unconscious idea that we're all building the same archetypal temple. We're not only building our own temple internally, inside, but we're building a greater archetypal temple that represents King Solomon's Temple, and the idea that King Solomon's Temple is a perfect exemplar for the universe, right? For God to indwell. Perhaps that's what we're supposed to do with the temples of our lives, so we can have the deity indwell. These sorts of things are fun to contemplate. I'm not gonna give you the answer, though. You gotta do the work and come to those answers yourself. Maybe I'm crazy, right? Maybe I've already gone.

Salman: No. So on that note, Theosophy, right? Jiddu Krishnamurti. He very famously said, "It is no measure of sanity to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Troy: Yeah. And ain't that the truth? And don't we expend so much of our good stuff trying to fit in? And that's just how we're socially constructed. I don't know how anybody's getting any better about that. Yes, I agree. We all waste too much good stuff trying to get by and fitting in and being normal, and if you can figure out how to get past that, just let me know. I wanna know, because I wanna not do that.

Salman: If anybody has part of the answer, I believe you're one of them.

Troy: Oh, come on. Come on.

The Five Minute Ritualist

Salman: Now, I'm gonna let you talk more about your upcoming workshop, especially about The Five-Minute Ritualist. I really wanna know more.

Troy: So yeah. There's the book by Kim March. I shouldn't put it in front of the microphone. There. And I've got more copies. In order to come to the class, you need to be a listener to get the information, but you don't have to have a copy. It'll help if you have a copy, but we're gonna go over the materials that are in the book. If you sign up for the newsletter at mystictye.com, it'll give you the details. We may start doing meetings later in the month, on Sundays or Mondays, depending on what people's availability is. And we're gonna be talking, first of all, about the methodologies expressed in this amazing book, and other methodologies that work for people to deliver excellent ritual performances, or acting performances, or singing performances, or any of the number of things that are adjacent to the work that we do.

Salman: You're just looking for a musical there, Troy. That's all you want. The question I was gonna ask you is, from this Five-Minute Ritualist book and the workshop that you're planning to do, what have you taken from Kim's approach? What is something that you've added, and what is ultimately the result you'd hope the brethren attain from attending this?

Troy: I've been using it now since a disastrous performance this spring. I was tasked with doing a particular type of ritual. I showed up on the day, and I was terrible. And I realized then that my memory took a beating when I was injured last year. I had a hypoxic brain injury. It took me probably more than a year to get over it, because of the surgery. But then once I started studying and applying myself in a different fashion... I used to brute force it, just listen to it over and over, repeat, repeat. Memory by rote, and it works okay, but it's very time-consuming.

What I appreciate about Kim's approach is that there's a way to build your own mnemonics, and he breaks down how it works, and he gives you a tool, a technique to apply, and if that doesn't work, try this one, and if this one doesn't work, try that one. So there's a couple of different ways to do it. And then he breaks it down so that you're scheduling a bit every day, because that's the key, to not just get repetition, but to stay on it and keep it fresh. And once you get it, then embedding it in deep memory, because there's other ways to do that. And I didn't really realize that there's a whole science to that.

Now, what did I bring to it? I still have certain techniques that I use that aren't delimited in this book that have helped me, especially with performance. What we were talking about earlier, where you take a line that sounds like it's going to be impactful, and you say it, and you put a different inflection on each word each time, until you've done every possible permutation you can think of, one sentence over and over. This is a trick that actors use to get different levels of performance, or different interpretations of the same group of words, right? So we're gonna do all of that, and I would expect it's gonna be once a month, it's gonna be on Zoom, it's gonna be for the next six months, maybe five months, and then maybe we'll repeat it again.

I'm also going to be doing a tarot and Qabalah class for esotericists, Freemasons, and Wiccans, and Pagans, and other people interested in religious symbology. Because those are the cornerstones of the Western esoteric tradition, and combined with the symbols from astrology and alchemy, that's everything. I've got a couple of books here that are called The Key of It All, The Eastern Mysteries and The Western Mysteries. If you'll learn those four systems fairly well, you pretty much have it cased, and any sigil, anything at all anybody puts in front of you, you can figure it out from those groups of symbologies.

Salman: I'm at the edge of my seat for that one, for sure. I've been waiting for a while.

Troy: I haven't taught any of that. I think the last time I did that was for an AMD group during the pandemic, and lots of people were like, "How dare he?" I remember that it really upset all the right people, so now I'm likely to do it again.

Salman: So now you know it's good.

Troy: Yeah, I know it's excellent. Anything worth doing is gonna upset somebody, and the first rule of Masonic leadership is, if somebody doesn't have a problem with it, you're not doing it right.

Salman: Ironically, that's how standup comedians test their material too.

Troy: Really?

Salman: Yeah. There you go. The Five-Minute Ritualist.

Troy: Screen cap it. The shameless plug. We're gonna be doing that starting in November. And then at the end of November, as I was saying, November 28th at Agnes Street for sure, a showing of Join or Die, open to seekers and other interested parties that wanna come join us and watch the 75-minute documentary about the life of Dr. Robert Putnam. That's the guy who wrote Bowling Alone, a very influential sociologist, evidence-based sociologist and behavioral scientist, who had just some amazing influence on the world in the last 30 years. I believe it came out in 2022, 2023. We showed it at Agnes Street in 2024, provided popcorn, and it was a really good turnout. We had a really good time. And so we're hoping to get a few more, and we're asking the brethren to invite any seekers or people they know that would make good Masons to come out.

Not that it's a recruiting venture, but we will be giving a short how-do-you-become-a-Freemason at the end, and then introducing people to brothers who can help make that happen. Because to be one, ask one, right? What does that even mean? It means you gotta know some brothers to get in, and people are like, "Oh, I was waiting for somebody to ask." You could wait your whole life. Our detractors have spread that rumor for generations, that you're gonna wait to be asked. You'll never get asked. You've gotta ask, of your own free will and accord. We say that. Is this of your own free will and accord? Are you here of your own volition? We ask, I think, seven times before the end of the Entered Apprentice degree, "Are you sure? Are you sure?" Just wanna make sure that we're sure, and you're sure.

Salman: Without equivocation.

Troy: Or mental reservation. See, this is why we don't wanna spend those 200 hours just on anybody. It's gotta be somebody who's worth it. So, anyway, that's what I got coming up. And of course, we're gonna do EFC 2027. We're just waiting on three specific speakers we're going to invite next year. We still may have a slot for one more, if people wanna apply at esotericmasonry.com. I'd highly recommend that. Advance tickets will be at a discount, but the ticket price will be going up this year. We had record attendance this year, and we're afraid that if we don't raise the price, we're gonna sell out the little venue we've got. So gotta do that.

Salman: Exciting.

Troy: If you're living in the States and you missed the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference, but you want a book that we featured at that conference, please DM me. I'll make sure we get it out to you somehow.

Bonus Round: Krishnamurti, Campbell, and Leaving No Hats on the Ground

Troy: Is that all the questions? Did you have any more questions?

Salman: No, I've gone through my little list.

Troy: Then how about a bonus question? You got a bonus question? We could edit it out.

Salman: I have tons of bonus questions.

Troy: Make something up and see what I have to say. Jiddu Krishnamurti. Did it shock you that I knew who that was? Come on. Lots of people haven't read Krishnamurti, but I have. Lots of people will know Blavatsky, or Leadbeater, or Annie Besant, but most people won't know Krishnamurti.

Salman: So technically he's the Blavatsky of the 21st century, right? He was supposed to be.

Troy: Yeah. He was raised to be their World Teacher, and he rejected it all. He was like, "No, not me." It was a Life of Brian moment, that guy. We're not supposed to collect shoes. We're supposed to take off our shoes. Anyway.

Salman: I love the guy. I love his speeches. Some of them are so profound. And the concepts he has are unsustainable, for sure, if you want to be part of a profoundly sick society. But I guess that's part of the appeal. He's that opposite extreme. Or maybe he's right in the middle, and we just don't get it, and we're on an extreme, right?

Troy: Yes. I don't wanna judge Krishnamurti. Not only that, I think he's dead. Isn't he dead? He's gotta be dead.

Salman: Ten, fifteen years ago at least now, right? But it was very important to me to read his stuff and to watch his lectures. I'll say another thing. Somebody who is not a Freemason or a Theosophist at all, but Alan Watts has had a profound influence on me as well.

Troy: Who is that? You wanna give me an idea of who that might be? I might be familiar with his work, but his name isn't ringing a bell.

Salman: Alan Watts is more of a hippie. He used to talk about different types of life philosophies, and spirit and soul and life purpose. They're doing a whole thing downtown at, I believe it's the Orpheum, or somewhere, where they're going to be playing his lectures with some background music. It's gonna be a whole psychedelic moment for many people, I'm sure, because it's BC, after all.

Troy: That sounds cool. Was he associated with Leary or anybody like that?

Salman: No, I don't believe so. He was more of a standalone. He was very into the Taoist movement back in the '70s.

Troy: I have a lot of time for Joseph Campbell, and I've got a bunch of his series here. And a lot of people are like, "Oh, poo-poo that," but I think his rediscovery of the archetype, the application of the archetype, is probably the most influential work since Jung. And I remember the transformative experience of stumbling across his stuff on PBS when I was a kid. And I was that egghead kid that would be like, "Wow, this is really cool. Mom, can we get these books?" And she's like, "Yes, honey, next time we go to the store," and then you just... "Oh yeah, no problem, when we go to the library."

Salman: You grew up in a more religious household back in the day too, right?

Troy: I converted myself when I was 12. Our household was not religious until I started going. One of my grade school friends, his dad was a minister at the United Church, and I went there. And then as a teenager, I got radicalized in some strange way, and we had a breakaway sect from the United Church, because they wanted to let gay people be ministers. Shocking. Shocking that human beings that just happen to be differently inclined would want to also be attracted to being a minister. And I can't believe it, because the person I am now just thinks that person I was then was a dick. That's dumb. But that was 35 years ago.

Salman: No, but if you don't actually feel like that guy was a dick, then you haven't evolved. I was, in my opinion, a very petty kind of person as well.

Troy: And it makes me wonder what kind of a shank I am now.

Salman: And what will become of you later?

Troy: I had occasion today to go talk to a former employer, with whom I had variance for a while, and it was a bit cathartic. So that actually happened today, and it was like, I can't believe that was so easy. Why did I wait 18 months, or 20 months, to go do that? I didn't need to wait. Anyway, his daughter engineered that. I had lunch with her a little while ago. She's like, "You should just go talk to him. He's fine. You're fine, he's fine, everything's fine."

Salman: Good to know. That's a good thing.

Troy: Yeah. And it's a small industry I work in, the heavy equipment materials handling, and he's a big wheel locally. He doesn't need me, but I could sure use him, right? And why would I not? It's silly.

Salman: Yeah, no, you say that, Troy, but I know you, and even if that were not the reason, you would've gone. Because you have nothing to gain from me, and yet you give me time at your worst of times, and I appreciate you for that.

Troy: I don't like leaving hats on the ground. Again, there's very few people that are beyond the pale, and they know who they are. And I know they're listening and being really mad. Why? Don't listen. If I make you crazy, don't listen to my stuff. Don't lend me any credence. Don't let me take up any room inside your head, mortal enemy. I don't even know why it's a problem. I'm mostly harmless over here.

Salman: Mostly harmless. I believe that, actually. I won't get into another topic here, but something did come to mind. But Troy, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you expanding on these, I believe, interesting questions, right? And explaining to a youngin here, or maybe a less experienced brother, what the intricacies of these concepts are. I always appreciate that about you.

Troy: Yes. Go register to vote wherever you live. Go vote. Exercise your franchise. If you don't know what that means, go to civics class and learn. I don't care who you vote for, go vote. Even if you spoil your ballot, go vote. I finished my soda, and I finished my water. And one of my in-laws passed away, and so we've got his cat here, a foster cat, for the first time tonight. He was hiding, and he came out and wandered around by my feet while we were talking. Whatever I was saying was quite appealing. Yeah, it was sweet. Salman, thanks so much for that. I'll edit this up, and it'll drop on Thursday.

Salman: That sounds amazing. You gave me such a good ending to my day today, and it was not a good start, I'll tell you.

Troy: Thanks. That's a joy. That's a real joy.

Salman: You have a great night, okay?

Troy: You too.

Troy: Thanks for listening today. You can support the show by liking, sharing, and subscribing on your favorite podcast syndicator. Even more helpful, leave us a review. We are looking to create a directory of Freemasonic events and publications. If you are aware of something coming up, please let me know by email. In the meantime, check out the Masonic Conferences website at masonicconferences.com. Upcoming classes and events will all be listed on the Mystic Tye show calendar, including upcoming Five-Minute Ritualist classes, tarot and Qabalah classes, and super secret in-person listener gatherings. Make sure to sign up for our regular newsletter updates at mystictye.com. The Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2027 is being planned right now. Speakers and advance tickets will be announced soon at esotericmasonry.com. Graphics and web hosting are by Art Szabo Creative. A special thanks to Organist for our theme music. Happy to meet, sorry to part, and happy to meet again.