Episodes

Julian Rees, nearly sixty years a Freemason, an accomplished English Emulation ritualist, and one of the best-known writers on the spiritual side of the Craft, returns to The Mystic Tye to talk about a book that turns his own lens around. A Life in Many Colours: A Masonic Memoir, published by Arima Publishing, started with a nudge from Dr. David Harrison, who told Julian his life in Freemasonry had been exceptional enough to merit one. Julian explains why Lewis Masonic passed ("we don't do biographies"), why a memoir is not a biography, and how a Romanian artist friend came to draw the cover.

Episode 54 is a change of pace: a forty five minute Best of EFC collection built around this year's Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference, pairing longer explanations from past Mystic Tye guests with two archival interviews Troy recorded for Scholomance at EFC 2024.

Bro. Salman Arif turns the microphones around and asks Troy Spreeuw the questions the other brothers have been saving up. No preamble, no plan, two Master Masons on the level.

Two weeks before EFC 2026, Lon Milo DuQuette previews his Seattle keynote: the three working tools of the Kabbalist, treated the way a Mason treats the square and compasses. The rough and perfect ashlars, the universe as a giant tuning fork, tarot as the flashcards of the Kabbalah, and Kabbalistic study as a cosmic lube job. Plus Young Aleister Crowley, a new Chicken Qabalah, Homemade Magick, and Joshua Tree.

Some people call Ike Baker omnipresent. Three weeks before the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2026, he sits down with Troy Spreeuw to preview a very full Seattle weekend. Friday night at Verity Lodge, Ike presents the tracing board of Walter Leslie Wilmshurst, author of The Meaning of Masonry. Found by Robert Lomas in a personal notebook and posted online too blurry to read, the board communicates in pure geometry, and Ike restored and deciphered nearly all of it. Saturday at EFC, he turns to Conversations in the House of Life, the new public translation of the ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth, a text that reads like an initiation ritual for the scribe-priests of Thoth, catechism and all, with correlations to Masonic ritual he calls startling.

First, Troy sits down with his fellow organizers Brett Wolfe and Ken Lane for a quick update on the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2026, coming to Ballard, Seattle on September 19th. Then the tables are turned. Art Szabo, the designer behind all of the Mystic Tye artwork, takes over the microphone and puts Troy in the guest chair.

What happens when the symbolic language of Freemasonry is taken off the tracing board and placed directly into your hands? This episode, I'm joined by Jonti Marks and Bridie Blaze, creators of the Masonic Wisdom Cards, A Deck for Daily Reflection, a 78-card illustrated deck exploring Masonic symbols, working tools, virtues, and sacred geometry as prompts for contemplation rather than divination.

Dago has been with the Southern California Research Lodge since 2015, first as managing editor and, since the magazine's 2016 rebrand, as creative director of Fraternal Review. What started as black and white photocopies folded and mailed out became a full color monthly periodical, one of the only Masonic publications still hitting eleven issues a year. Dago describes it as a bridge into Masonic education rather than a heavy research journal, and the conversation traces its growth from that first test issue through today's rotating slate of guest editors.

"The Esoteric Art of Memory" with Doug Russell The night he took his first degree, Doug Russell watched officers deliver the entire ritual from memory, including a lengthy lecture, and asked a question that would take him the next fourteen years to answer. Why do Masons memorize? Doug Russell returns to the show to reveal his forthcoming book, Remembering the Past, Present, and Future: Esoteric Memory Arts and Spiritual Freemasonry. It is a book about memory, about how memory connects to spirituality and to the esoteric side of our nature, and it is going to the publisher now, timed to launch at the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference.

Bro. Josef Wages returns to the show to discuss The Secret Freemasonry of a Priest in the Temple of Nature, an eighteenth century Rosicrucian Masonic system recorded by Johann Samuel Mund. The manuscript predates the Golden Rosy Cross by three years, and until Bro. Wages and his research partners transcribed, translated, and published it, no one had ever studied the system at all. The book appeared in a limited run of only 500 copies, and the last of them are disappearing fast. The conversation ranges across the wild landscape of continental high degree Masonry: the Chevalier de Beauchêne peddling degrees from a wagon behind the French army at Frankfurt, the patents of Bouchère de Lennoncourt, and how the trail leads directly to Étienne Morin and the Kadosh degree. Along the way, Bro. Wages makes his case for why primary sources matter, why the era was far more organized than the old assumption of institutional chaos suggests, and why researchers who rely on Gould and Mackey are recycling secondary sources.

There was no England and no America. There was a greater Britain, and a few thousand people in London held most of the levers. Dr. Ric Berman joins us to talk about his new book, The Genesis of American Freemasonry, published this June and timed for the semi quincentennial. It traces the craft in America from its earliest colonial footholds, through independence, to the creation of the state Grand Lodges, and it asks a question most American brethren have never had answered plainly: how did our ritual, our structure, and our lodges actually get here?

For over one hundred and fifty years, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia has pursued its founding mission quietly, rigorously, and away from public view: to investigate the philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus, the secrets of the Kabbalah, and the meaning and symbolism of the wisdom, art, and literature of the ancient world. Now, for the first time, that work steps into the open. The Rosicrucian is the first global publication to emerge from the world's oldest independent society of Masonic Rosicrucians. Produced in partnership with Lewis Masonic, its purpose is to bring the mysteries of the Western Tradition into the light, in a voice that is scholarly in its foundations and accessible to every sincere seeker.

Recorded at the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2022, this throwback episode features Br. Jaime Paul Lamb, professional astrologer and author. Recently uncovered from an archive of conference recordings, this presentation is titled Astrology in the Western Esoteric Traditions. Please forgive any audio irregularities, as this was captured live at the event. Slides are available to follow along on our YouTube channel. Br. Lamb opens with a personal story: two weeks after being raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason, he came across Robert Hewitt Brown's Stellar Theology and Masonic Astronomy, a book he describes as producing a kind of Sixth Sense moment, where the symbolic architecture of the Craft suddenly resolved into something far larger. That book remains a touchstone for everything that follows. The presentation offers a definition of astrology as the study of the mirroring of celestial events on the terrestrial sphere, the sympathetic resonant relationship between microcosm and macrocosm. Lamb draws a structural analogy: astrology is to astronomy as alchemy is to chemistry, as magic is to technology. What separates the pairs, he argues, is the quality of enchantment, the qualitative dimension that the Enlightenment stripped from the quantitative sciences and which he identifies as a genuine cultural loss.

The conversation digs into why academics are only now beginning to take Freemasonry seriously as a subject of study, how the craft intersects with broader currents in Western Esoteric thought, and what it means for brethren when scholars start examining the traditions from the outside looking in.

Recorded in support of the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2022, this throwback episode features Grand Lodge of Washington State brother Richard Harris in conversation with Troy about his conference presentation on Elias Ashmole, initiation, alchemy, and Freemasonry.

The final recording from Grand Masonic Day 2026 brings together four distinguished brothers for a panel discussion moderated by Bro. Troy Spreeuw. Joining the conversation are Bro. Josef Wages, Bro. Arturo de Hoyos, Bro. Zane McCune, and Bro. Wes Regan.

Every March, for the better part of two centuries, lodge secretaries across England and Wales sat down and did something we almost never think about today. They wrote out a full list of their members, names, addresses, occupations, and sent it to the clerk of the peace, sworn before a magistrate as a legal document. They had to. Under the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799

This is a recording of the opening presentation from Grand Masonic Day 2026, featuring Bro. Josef Wages and Bro. Arturo de Hoyos. These respected Masonic historians ran through an impressive number of slides in record time. We join RWBro. Wes Regan for his introduction.

Recorded ahead of Grand Masonic Day, Troy welcomes back Brother Joseph Wages for the story behind one of the most important Masonic source books of the last decade, The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrines of the Illuminati.

Grand Masonic Day 2026 took place several weeks ago. We were pleased to welcome Arturo de Hoyos to the podium on his own, after a first joint presentation with Josef Wages.

Dr David Harrison is a UK based Masonic historian and lecturer who has written fifteen books on the history of English Freemasonry and has published many papers and articles.

The Grand Lodge of Washington State has held a Lodge Leadership Retreat for many years. In more recent years, VW Bro. Zane McCune has been one of the organizers.

To kick off the first Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference in 2022, we invited one of the most respected voices in modern Western esotericism to set the tone. Lon Milo DuQuette did not disappoint.

RWBr. Royston Colbourne is introduced by friend of the show RWBr. Wes Regan.

He has written more than 20 books, is an award winning singer/songwriter and recording artist, and somebody I am proud to call my good friend. Please welcome Lon Milo DuQuette.

RWBr. Michael Demers has been honored to serve MWBr. Ken Christofferson as Deputy Grand Master of District 17 of the GLBCY for the 2025/2026 Masonic Year. I was recently informed that I would be his successor. We get together to discuss what this was like for him.

Br. J.P. Gomez is an active Freemason and founder of www.fraternalties.com. He is most well known for doing battle with the forces of superstition and intolerance on various social media platforms

Brother Kim March is a Freemason, published author, and philanthropist based in Shropshire, England. The story of how he came to publish "The Five Minute Ritualist" and subsequently the "Freemason's Friend" series of degree guides is a great example of how the content and messaging from the craft degrees themselves can have an amazing positive effect in the world.

Br. Ike Baker is the creative force behind The Arcanvm Podcast, co-host of Aetherica Podcast, and organizer of the 2026 Southeastern Masonic Symposium

Br. Julian Rees has been a Freemason for more than 60 years and is a long-time contributor and News Editor of Freemasonry Today periodical. He is the author of five books, including the recently updated "Tracing Boards of the Three Degrees in Craft Freemasonry Explained."

Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, Br. Lucas Minton joins us to discuss an exciting development from their recent Grand Communication. A conversation rooted in years of friendship and shared commitment to the Craft.

Br. Martin Faulks is a dedicated spiritual seeker, Freemason and martial arts enthusiast. This is the third and final part of this interview.

This is part two of a three part interview. Br. Faulks and I cover a lot of material from his personal experiences as well as his recent reprint of “Long Livers”. We join the conversation in progress.

Br. Martin Faulks is a dedicated spiritual seeker, Freemason and martial arts enthusiast. He is well known for his interest in mediation and various memory improvement practices.

This is Part 2 of an interview in advance of his appearance at Grand Masonic Day 2026

Br. Josef Wäges will be the Keynote Speaker at Grand Masonic day 2026. He will be joined by his mentor and research partner Br. Arturo De Hoyos.

oday’s guest needs no introduction. Here to talk about his current research, past presentations and all things Masonic, please welcome Wes Regan.

a remaster of nearly the entire eposide from 2021 with Br. Wes Regan about the state of his research in Cnsiracy and remasonry.

Hailing from Mississippi, Bro. Lane Dossett, 33°, serves as the Personal Representative of the Scottish Rite Valley of Hattiesburg and is a member of Mystic Tie, #222, a practicing TO Lodge.

Dr. Nathan Schick is a university professor, active Freemason, and friend of the show. I interviewed him on Episode 3 of The Mystic Tye about his book “The Grand Communication”.

Bro. Robert G. Davis is the Secretary Emeritus of the Guthrie Scottish Rite Bodies, having served the Scottish Rite as Executive Secretary for 30 years.

Organist is a collective of Initiates encourage artistic expressions of the initiatic experience. The first release “Thank God We Die” will be available everywhere April 16th.

Today’s guest is a Brother who works every day to advance Freemasonry. Brother, seeker, student of The Work and Friend of the show Martin Faulks

Zane is a past recipient of the prestigious Hiram Award and the Grand Master’s Achievement Award. He is also a prior winner of the annual Senior Warden State Ritual Competition

My Esotericism in Freemasonry Co-Organizer Ken Lane and I talk about some of the presentations.

Jaime Paul Lamb is an astrologer and tarotist interested in the intersection of the Western Esoteric Tradition and Freemasonry.

Wes & Troy Commentary on Chris Hodapp Address

This recording took place at Grand Masonic Day 2024 at the Agnes Street Masonic Centre on May 25th 2024. Brother Christopher Hodapp was the keynote speaker that day and he delivered a great presentation full of the candor and humour about our Gentle Craft that he is known for.

Russ Charvonia is the Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of California and co-author of “The Civility Mosiac"

A new feature we hope to update regularly.

Christopher L. Hodapp is the author of Freemasons For Dummies, the world's best-selling introduction to the Masonic fraternity.

Ike Baker is an initiate of several lineages within the modern Western Esoteric traditions including Freemasonry, Martinism and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He is Imperator of the Aroueris-Hathor Temple in Asheville, North Carolina, as well as an author and content creator who hosts the ARCANVM YouTube Channel and Podcast. creating documentary-style presentations and interviewing some of the top scholars, practitioners, and authors in occultism, magic, and esoteric traditions.

Dr. Nathan Schick was brought to my attention by Jaime Paul Lamb at Tria Prima Press. Br. Schick and I discuss his new book “The Grand Communication”

Wes Regan and I discuss our roles in organizing Grand Masonic Day 2024 on May 25, including Wes's presentation on Freemasonic building attacks. Chris Hodapp is announced as the keynote speaker.

The Mystic Tye is a podcast for Freemasons.