What does it actually mean to be good at Masonic ritual? Bro. Salman Arif of Duke of Connaught Lodge turns the microphone around for a second time, with a page of written questions and one theme: the Work. Troy, newly installed as District Deputy Grand Master, takes them one at a time, and argues that getting the words right is only the barest minimum of what makes Masonry amazing.

Salman starts with the word itself. Why call it work? Troy separates the capital W Great Work of the spiritual aspirant from the ritual work of a lodge, estimates roughly 200 man-hours to confer a single degree once every part is shared across the officers, and explains why antiquarian words like inculcate and delineate end up infecting the way a Mason thinks. From there to the magic that works whether you want it to or not, Lon Milo DuQuette's line that even a terrible man who gets through the door comes out a much less terrible one, and Ike Baker's EFC presentation on the call and answer teaching method found in Egyptian training texts. Salman offers a phrase Troy runs with: not a diminishing echo, but an evolving one.

Then the core question. What separates good ritual from ritual that is merely correct? Troy has watched plenty of word perfect delivery rattled off with no inflection, and would rather a brother missed half the words and felt the half he said. He talks about the way he brings a candidate to light, the actor's trick of saying one line every possible way, the twelve minute Entered Apprentice tracing board in the Canadian work, and the night Bro. Lawrence Putnam delivered it and made it Troy's favourite piece. Along the way: cipher books, the jurisdictions where the ritual is still passed only mouth to ear, and what mentorship loses when a brother can learn alone.

A long and very Troy detour follows: TikTok versus The King and I, the Leone westerns he has never seen, Thunderball, every James Bond, Star Wars, and a plea to go and talk to real people. Then back to the work. Salman asks how much of Troy's esoteric practice comes into lodge, and Troy describes ritual as performing a prayer rather than reciting one, symbols treated as if they are alive, and the different perspective that each chair around the lodge gives on the same ceremony.

The chicken and the egg: memorize first, or internalize first? It depends on the time you have. Troy explains how to get the gist and deliver with confidence when you are handed an installation at the last minute, why you should record a piece in your own voice and play it while you sleep, and why, if you have six weeks, you start not now but right now. Then memory palaces, the lodge as the ideal palace, the archetypal temple not made with hands, and Jiddu Krishnamurti on being well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Troy also tells the story behind his new approach. A hypoxic brain injury last year took a toll on his memory, and after a disastrous performance this spring he stopped learning by brute force and started using Kim March's The Five Minute Ritualist. He plans a monthly Zoom class on it starting in November, plus a tarot and Qabalah class, and the bonus round takes in Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, a conversion at twelve, and a reconciliation with a former employer.

Coming up with Troy

October 9: District Deputy Grand Master visit, Mount Garibaldi Lodge October 17: Funeral in the morning and a Fellowcraft degree at noon, Mount Elphinstone Lodge, Roberts Creek October 27: Obligating Entered Apprentice candidates, North Shore Lodge No. 93 October 28: Freedom of Conscience, a new presentation, Capilano Lodge November: The Five Minute Ritualist classes begin on Zoom. Sign up for the newsletter at mystictye.com for details. November 28: A showing of Join or Die, open to seekers, at the Agnes Street Temple, New Westminster Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference 2027: speaker applications and advance tickets at esotericmasonry.com

Books mentioned in this episode

The Five Minute Ritualist, Kim March Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances Yates The Key of It All, Book One: The Eastern Mysteries, David Allen Hulse The Key of It All, Book Two: The Western Mysteries, David Allen Hulse Bowling Alone, Robert D. Putnam

Also mentioned

Join or Die, the documentary on Robert D. Putnam John Stuart Mill, Troy's current reading for Freedom of Conscience W. L. Wilmshurst, Ike Baker, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell