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The Masonic Roundtable - 0571 - PHA to UGLE · The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons

• 0:22
  Speaker: Hello and welcome back to Masonic Roundtable, a weekly
• 0:24
  Speaker: program where Masons from around the world get together to talk
• 0:27
  Speaker: about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner.
• 0:30
  Speaker: As a reminder, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are
• 0:33
  Speaker: solely the opinions of the participants and do not
• 0:36
  Speaker: represent any Grand Lodge statements or positions.
• 0:38
  Speaker: Make sure you keep your conversations open for the
• 0:40
  Speaker: public and on the level to interact with us.
• 0:43
  Speaker: We love seeing you live every Thursday night, Facebook and
• 0:46
  Speaker: YouTube land and your questions are always great.
• 0:48
  Speaker: But remember, we might not be
• 0:50
  Speaker: able to get to every question or
• 0:51
  Speaker: comment on the show, but check
• 0:53
  Speaker: yourself.
• 0:53
  Speaker: And as always, if you can't
• 0:55
  Speaker: catch us live, catch us in the
• 0:56
  Speaker: replay or in your favorite
• 0:57
  Speaker: podcast app.
• 0:59
  Speaker: You know me, John.
• 1:00
  Speaker: Past master of the Patriot Lodge, number nineteen fifty
• 1:03
  Speaker: seven in Fairfax, Virginia.
• 1:06
  Speaker: And let's go over to Jason for his introduction.
• 1:08
  Speaker: Hello and good evening.
• 1:10
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:11
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:12
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:14
  Speaker: Jason Richards here past Master of Acacia Lodge, number sixteen
• 1:17
  Speaker: in Clifton, Virginia.
• 1:18
  Speaker: Glad to be here.
• 1:21
  Speaker: Glad to have you.
• 1:22
  Speaker: Next up Joe.
• 1:23
  Speaker: Better to be had than viewed.
• 1:26
  Speaker: Yes we had.
• 1:27
  Speaker: Yes it is.
• 1:28
  Speaker: We've had you.
• 1:30
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:31
  Speaker: I don't even know what we're talking about.
• 1:34
  Speaker: Yes, that's on Friday night show.
• 1:37
  Speaker: Uh, Joe Martinez, past Master
• 1:39
  Speaker: Lodge number one eighty two in
• 1:41
  Speaker: Manassas, Virginia.
• 1:42
  Speaker: And as always, damn glad to be here.
• 1:45
  Speaker: And, uh, not the host this week, so I, I don't have to sing or
• 1:49
  Speaker: press buttons, so we're going to be a great show.
• 1:51
  Speaker: It was so popular.
• 1:53
  Speaker: You always push everyone's buttons anyway.
• 1:56
  Speaker: Indeed, indeed, indeed Indeed.
• 1:58
  Speaker: And we'll bring up our special guest now tonight.
• 2:01
  Speaker: So. Hello and good evening to Antonio Alston.
• 2:05
  Speaker: Uh, Antonio, why don't you give
• 2:07
  Speaker: us a run through of your Masonic
• 2:10
  Speaker: credentials?
• 2:15
  Speaker: Can you hear us?
• 2:21
  Speaker: Are you on?
• 2:22
  Speaker: Can you hear us?
• 2:24
  Speaker: Antonio?
• 2:24
  Speaker: It's your time to shine, Bud.
• 2:28
  Speaker: Can you hear us?
• 2:29
  Speaker: It's going to be a short episode.
• 2:31
  Speaker: Can you hear us?
• 2:32
  Speaker: Can you hear us?
• 2:34
  Speaker: Hello?
• 2:35
  Speaker: It was.
• 2:35
  Speaker: Everything was working great in the green room.
• 2:37
  Speaker: I know we talked to him for, like, twenty minutes.
• 2:41
  Speaker: Uh, can you hear us, Antonio?
• 2:43
  Speaker: I blame John.
• 2:44
  Speaker: Can you hear us?
• 2:46
  Speaker: Oh, no. All right.
• 2:49
  Speaker: Live show everybody.
• 2:53
  Speaker: We'll give him a chance.
• 2:54
  Speaker: Down in history as the shortest TMR episode ever.
• 2:59
  Speaker: Yes, we can hear you.
• 3:02
  Speaker: Yeah, we can hear you typing.
• 3:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:04
  Speaker: Oh, he's in here twice.
• 3:05
  Speaker: Hello?
• 3:06
  Speaker: Switch over.
• 3:06
  Speaker: There we go.
• 3:08
  Speaker: How about now?
• 3:09
  Speaker: We switched you over.
• 3:11
  Speaker: Okay.
• 3:12
  Speaker: Great, great.
• 3:13
  Speaker: As a person, you always prepare for something to go wrong.
• 3:17
  Speaker: So I had it set up on my laptop as well.
• 3:21
  Speaker: Everyone can hear me.
• 3:21
  Speaker: Alright.
• 3:22
  Speaker: Yes we can.
• 3:23
  Speaker: Loud and clear.
• 3:24
  Speaker: Great.
• 3:24
  Speaker: Okay, great.
• 3:26
  Speaker: So, Antonio, um, where are you from?
• 3:28
  Speaker: What?
• 3:29
  Speaker: What's, uh.
• 3:30
  Speaker: What titles do you have?
• 3:32
  Speaker: Oh, titles.
• 3:32
  Speaker: Okay, so brother, first and foremost, um, well, I'm from
• 3:35
  Speaker: Georgia, meaning Masonically.
• 3:38
  Speaker: I was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and then I
• 3:42
  Speaker: relocated to Georgia in nineteen ninety nine, March fourth,
• 3:46
  Speaker: nineteen ninety nine, and, uh, two thousand and one, um, I
• 3:52
  Speaker: became, um, Prince Hall free and accepted Masons under the most
• 3:56
  Speaker: worshipful Prince Hall, Grand Lodge of Georgia.
• 3:59
  Speaker: Um, as far as titles, um, I'm a brother.
• 4:03
  Speaker: I'm a past master.
• 4:05
  Speaker: I'm a, uh.
• 4:09
  Speaker: Companion.
• 4:10
  Speaker: Uh, a prince of the sublime.
• 4:14
  Speaker: Sublime.
• 4:14
  Speaker: Prince of the royal secret.
• 4:15
  Speaker: A past venerable grand commander.
• 4:18
  Speaker: But brother is the, uh, the highest.
• 4:21
  Speaker: Excellent.
• 4:23
  Speaker: We agree with that.
• 4:24
  Speaker: Love it.
• 4:24
  Speaker: All right.
• 4:25
  Speaker: So let's, um, pay some bills and
• 4:27
  Speaker: then we'll, we'll get to the fun
• 4:28
  Speaker: stuff.
• 4:29
  Speaker: So, um, if, if you're a fan of
• 4:31
  Speaker: the show, head over to patreon
• 4:32
  Speaker: dot com slash Masonic
• 4:34
  Speaker: roundtable.
• 4:35
  Speaker: Consider supporting the show.
• 4:36
  Speaker: Uh, this helps pay for tech and
• 4:39
  Speaker: hosting and storage and all that
• 4:41
  Speaker: fun stuff.
• 4:42
  Speaker: And so, um, you guys are amazing.
• 4:44
  Speaker: We appreciate everything that you have done so far.
• 4:47
  Speaker: So if you want to keep this free Masonic education, uh, up and
• 4:51
  Speaker: running for until twenty forty or whichever comes first.
• 4:55
  Speaker: You know where to go.
• 4:55
  Speaker: So thank you for that.
• 4:57
  Speaker: And, um, then we also go to
• 5:01
  Speaker: everyone's favorite segment of
• 5:03
  Speaker: the show that is tarot card of
• 5:06
  Speaker: the week.
• 5:06
  Speaker: Right?
• 5:06
  Speaker: Right.
• 5:06
  Speaker: Jason.
• 5:09
  Speaker: Yes.
• 5:12
  Speaker: Tarot card of the week.
• 5:21
  Speaker: Can I say something funny?
• 5:23
  Speaker: Um, I just found the back.
• 5:25
  Speaker: Can you tab?
• 5:26
  Speaker: Um, so I didn't have to sing it for everybody.
• 5:29
  Speaker: Last week I found the button, so we're good now.
• 5:33
  Speaker: Thank you, thank you.
• 5:34
  Speaker: You're welcome.
• 5:36
  Speaker: All right.
• 5:37
  Speaker: Um, so I'm going to talk about Antonio's journey today.
• 5:41
  Speaker: So what have we got Jason.
• 5:44
  Speaker: What's a good card to pull for that's not well that's.
• 5:47
  Speaker: Jason.
• 5:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:48
  Speaker: Well tonight we have the tattoo tarot, ink and intuition.
• 5:54
  Speaker: This is a Marseille deck, so
• 5:56
  Speaker: it's got ink, cards, ink
• 5:58
  Speaker: tuition.
• 6:01
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:01
  Speaker: Interesting.
• 6:03
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:04
  Speaker: Tonight we're going to be talking about the two of cups.
• 6:06
  Speaker: Ooh.
• 6:07
  Speaker: Emotional choices.
• 6:09
  Speaker: Emotional choices.
• 6:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:11
  Speaker: We've had emotional damage.
• 6:14
  Speaker: Perhaps relationships.
• 6:17
  Speaker: And.
• 6:19
  Speaker: Oh, and the twos are dangerous, right.
• 6:22
  Speaker: Because it's an either or.
• 6:23
  Speaker: Right.
• 6:23
  Speaker: It's.
• 6:24
  Speaker: You have to make a choice.
• 6:26
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker: Santonio.
• 6:30
  Speaker: That's interesting.
• 6:33
  Speaker: Does it resonate?
• 6:34
  Speaker: It definitely resonates in terms
• 6:37
  Speaker: of, uh, this side, that side,
• 6:39
  Speaker: emotional choices.
• 6:40
  Speaker: There was a lot of emotion wrapped up in the choices.
• 6:46
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 6:48
  Speaker: Well, great.
• 6:48
  Speaker: That is a perfect segue to get to the topic for tonight.
• 6:54
  Speaker: So, um, yeah, so let me set the
• 6:57
  Speaker: stage while our, uh, our key
• 7:00
  Speaker: grip complains about the, uh,
• 7:02
  Speaker: the banner.
• 7:03
  Speaker: Um, so we had, uh, brother metal drew on.
• 7:08
  Speaker: He says, hey, you gotta, you gotta meet this guy on TikTok
• 7:11
  Speaker: goes by the name of Soul Magic.
• 7:13
  Speaker: Okay, so I follow this guy for a
• 7:16
  Speaker: while and love everything that
• 7:19
  Speaker: he posts.
• 7:20
  Speaker: And it's about the time that I actually start following him
• 7:24
  Speaker: when he's making a transition of his own in Freemasonry.
• 7:28
  Speaker: And so that's been, that's been fun to watch for a while.
• 7:31
  Speaker: And when I was thinking about upcoming episodes, I said, man,
• 7:35
  Speaker: this is just, this is fascinating because every time
• 7:37
  Speaker: you post, I always want to see what the latest update is.
• 7:40
  Speaker: And, uh, his, his journey even brought him to England.
• 7:44
  Speaker: But, uh, before we get to that, Why don't you start from the
• 7:49
  Speaker: beginning, Brother Antonio?
• 7:50
  Speaker: Like, uh, let's tell.
• 7:51
  Speaker: I want to hear your whole Masonic journey.
• 7:54
  Speaker: But more importantly, what, uh, what led you to.
• 7:59
  Speaker: To change things up a bit.
• 8:00
  Speaker: So take it away.
• 8:02
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 8:03
  Speaker: I, I just want to shout out Brother Metal Drew.
• 8:06
  Speaker: Um, he sent me a message earlier this week and said, nice, you're
• 8:10
  Speaker: going to annoy John.
• 8:11
  Speaker: So I was like, okay, that's what's up.
• 8:14
  Speaker: He's just jealous that he's not able to tonight.
• 8:18
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:19
  Speaker: Cool.
• 8:20
  Speaker: So if I start at the very
• 8:21
  Speaker: beginning, I would say for sure,
• 8:23
  Speaker: my journey into Freemasonry is
• 8:26
  Speaker: is started before I became a
• 8:27
  Speaker: Freemason.
• 8:28
  Speaker: And what I mean by is that there's just certain synchronous
• 8:32
  Speaker: events that when I look back on my life, kind of, you know, just
• 8:35
  Speaker: led me to where I am today.
• 8:37
  Speaker: Um, one such event was the, as a
• 8:41
  Speaker: kid, a lot of the kids where I'm
• 8:43
  Speaker: from during the time I grew up,
• 8:44
  Speaker: I was born in Nineteen seventy
• 8:46
  Speaker: five.
• 8:47
  Speaker: Um, didn't necessarily have a father at home.
• 8:50
  Speaker: You know, it was pretty uncommon during that time.
• 8:53
  Speaker: And so I found a lot of my
• 8:55
  Speaker: heroes, number one, through my
• 8:56
  Speaker: grandfather.
• 8:57
  Speaker: He was my, uh, most prevalent role model.
• 9:00
  Speaker: My mother's father and books.
• 9:04
  Speaker: So I read about a whole lot of
• 9:06
  Speaker: transformational people,
• 9:08
  Speaker: particularly within the African
• 9:09
  Speaker: American, African American
• 9:11
  Speaker: community.
• 9:12
  Speaker: You know, people like James four ten, uh, Prince Hall, uh,
• 9:17
  Speaker: particularly, um, Marcus Garvey.
• 9:21
  Speaker: The list goes on and on.
• 9:22
  Speaker: So I'm just reading Black History.
• 9:24
  Speaker: I'm about seven or eight.
• 9:26
  Speaker: Um, some years later, of course, you get to high school.
• 9:30
  Speaker: I ended up applying to and getting into the Baltimore
• 9:33
  Speaker: Polytechnic Institute, which in and of itself not a big deal.
• 9:36
  Speaker: But when you look at the seal of the school and you notice that
• 9:39
  Speaker: there's a square and a compass in the school seal, and it's
• 9:42
  Speaker: like, you know, looking back like, wow, whoa, I've been on
• 9:45
  Speaker: this journey for a while.
• 9:46
  Speaker: So fast forward, I'm in college
• 9:49
  Speaker: and I hear some young men that I
• 9:51
  Speaker: knew talking about the Masons,
• 9:53
  Speaker: and it was from an anti-mason
• 9:55
  Speaker: perspective.
• 9:56
  Speaker: Um, the conversation went
• 9:58
  Speaker: something like, you know, the
• 9:59
  Speaker: Masons run the world Bank, don't
• 10:01
  Speaker: you?
• 10:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:02
  Speaker: Illuminati.
• 10:03
  Speaker: That's how I was introduced to the subject of Freemasonry.
• 10:07
  Speaker: Exactly, exactly.
• 10:09
  Speaker: And so for I would say about two or three years, I began to
• 10:13
  Speaker: consume a lot of information based on Freemasonry.
• 10:16
  Speaker: This is about nineteen ninety
• 10:17
  Speaker: six to nineteen ninety eight,
• 10:19
  Speaker: ninety nine.
• 10:21
  Speaker: That's it.
• 10:22
  Speaker: That's my high school, the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute.
• 10:24
  Speaker: And you can see clearly.
• 10:26
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:28
  Speaker: Um, square and compass right there.
• 10:30
  Speaker: Right in the middle.
• 10:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:32
  Speaker: So, uh.
• 10:36
  Speaker: I got to, I got to college and I'm hearing about the Masons.
• 10:39
  Speaker: I'm taking in information.
• 10:40
  Speaker: I read a book by a man named Bill Schnebelen that confirmed a
• 10:44
  Speaker: lot of my already pre-existing biases about Freemasonry.
• 10:48
  Speaker: And then I started to pick up on names Prince Hall.
• 10:52
  Speaker: I was like, wait a minute,
• 10:52
  Speaker: Prince Hall can't be a part of
• 10:54
  Speaker: that.
• 10:55
  Speaker: And then, you know, it just kind of unraveled to the point where
• 10:58
  Speaker: now I had information that was in favor of Freemasonry, and
• 11:03
  Speaker: then I had information that was in opposition of Freemasonry.
• 11:07
  Speaker: All of it was equally compelling, in my opinion, and
• 11:12
  Speaker: it came to a point where I felt like the only way to really know
• 11:14
  Speaker: something is by doing it right.
• 11:16
  Speaker: So I asked my grandfather about it at the time.
• 11:20
  Speaker: Um, again, my number one male role model.
• 11:22
  Speaker: And he looked at me and he said, boy, that's a beautiful thing.
• 11:26
  Speaker: I didn't know what that meant.
• 11:29
  Speaker: And long story short, my grandfather was a Freemason.
• 11:33
  Speaker: Didn't mention it did wasn't flashy.
• 11:36
  Speaker: But when I look back on it, a
• 11:37
  Speaker: lot of the things that he said
• 11:39
  Speaker: and how he carried himself, it
• 11:40
  Speaker: made sense.
• 11:41
  Speaker: So I went ahead and I was initiated in Carrollton Lodge
• 11:45
  Speaker: number fifty seven in Carrollton, Georgia, on.
• 11:48
  Speaker: I was initiated April twenty fourth.
• 11:52
  Speaker: And then I was raised.
• 11:53
  Speaker: Of course, I was passed in May,
• 11:55
  Speaker: um, fourth Tuesday and I was
• 11:57
  Speaker: raised in June of two thousand
• 11:59
  Speaker: and one, June twenty sixth,
• 12:01
  Speaker: fourth Tuesday.
• 12:02
  Speaker: That's when I became a master Mason.
• 12:05
  Speaker: And I was there for on roll for about five years.
• 12:11
  Speaker: Um, I was unable to attend a lot
• 12:14
  Speaker: because I ended up moving from
• 12:15
  Speaker: Carrollton back to Metro
• 12:17
  Speaker: Atlanta.
• 12:18
  Speaker: Um, it's a one hundred and twenty mile round trip, right?
• 12:22
  Speaker: So I wasn't making meetings.
• 12:24
  Speaker: Yeah, I wasn't making meetings at all.
• 12:26
  Speaker: I ended up rusting out is, you
• 12:28
  Speaker: know, kind of when you're not a,
• 12:29
  Speaker: you're a mason, but you, you
• 12:31
  Speaker: don't have the membership,
• 12:32
  Speaker: right?
• 12:33
  Speaker: So then I ended up reinstating into a Saturday lodge.
• 12:38
  Speaker: I determined I needed a Saturday
• 12:40
  Speaker: lodge in order to make my
• 12:41
  Speaker: meetings because my work week
• 12:43
  Speaker: was crazy.
• 12:44
  Speaker: Uh, was it much closer to where you live then?
• 12:47
  Speaker: Yes, yes, yes.
• 12:48
  Speaker: Instead of one hundred and twenty mile round trip, it
• 12:50
  Speaker: became a thirty mile round trip.
• 12:53
  Speaker: So it was much closer and I ended up affiliating with the
• 12:59
  Speaker: lodge called Silverleaf Lodge four hundred and fifty seven.
• 13:01
  Speaker: That's where I spent the bulk of my Prince Hall journey.
• 13:04
  Speaker: Twelve years, uh, from two
• 13:06
  Speaker: thousand and six until twenty
• 13:08
  Speaker: eighteen.
• 13:09
  Speaker: Um, I had the privilege of
• 13:10
  Speaker: serving as master twenty twelve
• 13:12
  Speaker: twenty thirteen.
• 13:14
  Speaker: And, uh, you know, the lodge was doing very well.
• 13:18
  Speaker: I would say about twenty seventeen.
• 13:21
  Speaker: I wasn't really quote unquote
• 13:22
  Speaker: feeling Freemasonry, um, or the
• 13:26
  Speaker: lodge system.
• 13:26
  Speaker: It wasn't Freemasonry per se.
• 13:28
  Speaker: It was just, you know, I was getting bored.
• 13:30
  Speaker: I was already thirty second degree.
• 13:33
  Speaker: I already had my, uh, you know, holy royal arch.
• 13:37
  Speaker: I didn't really, you know, want to do much more.
• 13:40
  Speaker: And so I felt like my personality is kind of big.
• 13:43
  Speaker: And I was asked, I noticed I was
• 13:45
  Speaker: inadvertently, accidentally, not
• 13:47
  Speaker: on purpose, stepping on the toes
• 13:49
  Speaker: of the people that came behind
• 13:50
  Speaker: me.
• 13:50
  Speaker: And I never wanted to be that pass master that be like, well,
• 13:53
  Speaker: in my day.
• 13:54
  Speaker: Well, actually, and that was beginning to happen.
• 13:58
  Speaker: I was beginning to do that.
• 14:00
  Speaker: And so I was thinking about
• 14:02
  Speaker: stepping away from the large
• 14:04
  Speaker: system altogether.
• 14:05
  Speaker: And a good friend of mine came
• 14:08
  Speaker: to me, he was master of his
• 14:10
  Speaker: lodge, and he wanted me to
• 14:11
  Speaker: visit.
• 14:12
  Speaker: When I told him I was about to leave, he said, come visit.
• 14:14
  Speaker: So I went and visited.
• 14:17
  Speaker: I ended up joining that lodge, um, elected junior warden in
• 14:21
  Speaker: twenty nineteen and became master in twenty twenty and
• 14:25
  Speaker: served until twenty twenty five for five years.
• 14:28
  Speaker: And we did some amazing things.
• 14:30
  Speaker: Friendship Lodge number twenty.
• 14:32
  Speaker: Uh, we restored our building ourselves.
• 14:35
  Speaker: We, uh, did a lot of things in the community.
• 14:38
  Speaker: Um, uh, I'm very proud of that time, but again, it's beginning
• 14:43
  Speaker: to happen again.
• 14:43
  Speaker: My big personality is really
• 14:45
  Speaker: getting in my, in my opinion,
• 14:46
  Speaker: getting in the way because I
• 14:48
  Speaker: don't want to bring any
• 14:49
  Speaker: disharmony or anything like
• 14:51
  Speaker: that.
• 14:52
  Speaker: And I want to say, let me back up to twenty twenty.
• 14:55
  Speaker: Um, quarantine was a unique challenge for us.
• 15:00
  Speaker: I can't speak for anybody else, but it was a unique challenge.
• 15:03
  Speaker: Um, we, we were faced with the, uh, I just, you know, became the
• 15:10
  Speaker: worst master of the lodge.
• 15:11
  Speaker: And we were faced with the
• 15:12
  Speaker: keeping the lodge together
• 15:14
  Speaker: during a shelter in place
• 15:16
  Speaker: situation.
• 15:17
  Speaker: And a lot of people use Zoom for that.
• 15:20
  Speaker: And we were able to, we weren't
• 15:22
  Speaker: meeting per se, but we kept
• 15:24
  Speaker: those same timelines every first
• 15:26
  Speaker: and third.
• 15:27
  Speaker: Um, every first and third Saturday, everybody hopped on
• 15:30
  Speaker: Zoom talked or whatever, you know, and we kept the
• 15:33
  Speaker: camaraderie That way.
• 15:35
  Speaker: And then we opened or reopened in twenty twenty three.
• 15:40
  Speaker: And, um, that I would say that
• 15:43
  Speaker: that was a very difficult time,
• 15:46
  Speaker: you know, but anyway, that's
• 15:47
  Speaker: when I first started reading
• 15:49
  Speaker: about things.
• 15:50
  Speaker: I don't know if anyone realizes,
• 15:52
  Speaker: but I may never said I go by the
• 15:54
  Speaker: name Soul Magic because I'm a
• 15:55
  Speaker: self-styled magician.
• 15:57
  Speaker: And when I say magician, I mean
• 15:59
  Speaker: in the sense of like, uh, the
• 16:01
  Speaker: Golden Dawn, you know, W Wynn
• 16:03
  Speaker: Westcott, Robert Woodman, Samuel
• 16:06
  Speaker: MacGregor Mathers type of magic,
• 16:08
  Speaker: you know, derived through
• 16:09
  Speaker: children's parties or anything
• 16:10
  Speaker: like that.
• 16:10
  Speaker: Right?
• 16:11
  Speaker: No, no, no, no. Okay.
• 16:12
  Speaker: All right.
• 16:12
  Speaker: No, no, no. And I think some people may describe it even as a
• 16:16
  Speaker: type of, uh, hermetic or Rosicrucian type deal.
• 16:20
  Speaker: So I started to I got a book by
• 16:21
  Speaker: a man named Poke Runyon, um,
• 16:24
  Speaker: called the cipher and the Cipher
• 16:25
  Speaker: manuscripts.
• 16:27
  Speaker: And he, he gives a lot of history.
• 16:29
  Speaker: And I learned about the
• 16:30
  Speaker: society's rosicruciana in
• 16:32
  Speaker: Anglia.
• 16:32
  Speaker: So I was like, oh, this is cool.
• 16:34
  Speaker: I want to join that.
• 16:35
  Speaker: So I reached out to them not
• 16:36
  Speaker: knowing that it didn't work that
• 16:38
  Speaker: way.
• 16:39
  Speaker: You know, the secretary there.
• 16:41
  Speaker: Uh, Brother Priestly told me about the American version.
• 16:46
  Speaker: And so that's kind of when it all started for me.
• 16:49
  Speaker: I learned about Internet Lodge about twenty twenty two sitting
• 16:51
  Speaker: at home scrolling and um, twenty twenty five comes.
• 16:57
  Speaker: I asked my leadership about it.
• 16:59
  Speaker: I never really got feedback about it particularly, and I
• 17:03
  Speaker: didn't see anything that seemed to forbid it.
• 17:07
  Speaker: Um, but what really rang the bell for me is I was in, I was
• 17:12
  Speaker: in a TikTok live and there was a brother in there who was a
• 17:15
  Speaker: member who said that, you know, his his Prince Hall, Grand Lodge
• 17:19
  Speaker: was the only Prince Hall Grand Lodge where you could join.
• 17:23
  Speaker: And I didn't read that at first.
• 17:27
  Speaker: And so I reached out to my leadership to get clarity and
• 17:32
  Speaker: never really got the clarity I was looking for in terms of how
• 17:36
  Speaker: it applied or not applied.
• 17:37
  Speaker: So I just decided to take the leap.
• 17:40
  Speaker: Um, people were asking me about
• 17:44
  Speaker: what I was doing and some people
• 17:46
  Speaker: said, well, so just, just so I'm
• 17:48
  Speaker: clear, right?
• 17:48
  Speaker: You were saying you, you, you
• 17:49
  Speaker: talked to another brother,
• 17:51
  Speaker: Prince Hall brother in a
• 17:52
  Speaker: different jurisdiction.
• 17:53
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 17:53
  Speaker: And you were inquiring about joining Internet Lodge.
• 17:57
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 17:58
  Speaker: November nineteen ninety six, fifty nine out of England.
• 18:03
  Speaker: But, um, the brother you were
• 18:05
  Speaker: talking to said that his
• 18:06
  Speaker: jurisdiction allowed, like, uh,
• 18:08
  Speaker: dual membership.
• 18:09
  Speaker: Right?
• 18:10
  Speaker: Correct.
• 18:10
  Speaker: So can you explain for most of our listeners how dual
• 18:16
  Speaker: membership works in Prince Hall?
• 18:18
  Speaker: It doesn't exactly.
• 18:20
  Speaker: There you go.
• 18:21
  Speaker: There's there's the end of the conversation there.
• 18:24
  Speaker: Well, I, I would say nuance to everything, but so.
• 18:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:29
  Speaker: So Brother Antonio, I had a question to you while, uh, while
• 18:31
  Speaker: John stopped you, uh, while I was listening to your story and
• 18:35
  Speaker: rudely interrupted you.
• 18:36
  Speaker: Um, so just to make sure I understand.
• 18:38
  Speaker: So you were still a Prince Hall
• 18:41
  Speaker: Mason in Georgia, and you were
• 18:44
  Speaker: interested in joining Masonic
• 18:46
  Speaker: Rosicrucians, essentially.
• 18:47
  Speaker: Right?
• 18:47
  Speaker: Societies.
• 18:48
  Speaker: Christiana.
• 18:49
  Speaker: Correct.
• 18:50
  Speaker: You first found Sria, right, in
• 18:53
  Speaker: the UK, and then somebody told
• 18:55
  Speaker: you about Schrick here in the
• 18:58
  Speaker: United States.
• 18:59
  Speaker: Yeah, s r I a the secretary
• 19:01
  Speaker: there, Brother Priestly, told me
• 19:03
  Speaker: about s r I c f here in the
• 19:05
  Speaker: United States.
• 19:08
  Speaker: And then how do we get from there to ug l e?
• 19:11
  Speaker: I think that's where you were
• 19:12
  Speaker: starting to tell the story,
• 19:14
  Speaker: right?
• 19:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:15
  Speaker: Well, that's where I first was kind of, uh, introduced into,
• 19:19
  Speaker: hey, I can reach out and see what's going on.
• 19:22
  Speaker: And so I started to look at
• 19:23
  Speaker: other things that was going on
• 19:25
  Speaker: in England.
• 19:26
  Speaker: I mean, as a, as a Mason in
• 19:28
  Speaker: general in the United States,
• 19:29
  Speaker: you hear a lot about England,
• 19:31
  Speaker: you know.
• 19:32
  Speaker: And so, uh, that's how I ended up coming across internet lodge,
• 19:36
  Speaker: internet chapter, you know, things of that nature.
• 19:40
  Speaker: Yep.
• 19:41
  Speaker: And, um, the site was a little different than, um, the guy.
• 19:45
  Speaker: Well, anyway, that's neither here nor there.
• 19:47
  Speaker: Um, so remember, I think most of us are members of Jason.
• 19:51
  Speaker: Do you remember of Internet Lodge also?
• 19:53
  Speaker: So two out of I think three out
• 19:55
  Speaker: of the four of the hosts are
• 19:55
  Speaker: members.
• 19:56
  Speaker: I remember that old.
• 19:57
  Speaker: I need to get on that geocities web page.
• 20:00
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 20:01
  Speaker: It was like green and terrible.
• 20:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:03
  Speaker: Right.
• 20:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:06
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:07
  Speaker: So and I looked at the, the site
• 20:09
  Speaker: for them and internet chapter,
• 20:11
  Speaker: uh, I think Mark Mason's lodge
• 20:14
  Speaker: had a website, etcetera,
• 20:16
  Speaker: etcetera.
• 20:17
  Speaker: And then when I read on internet
• 20:19
  Speaker: Lodge's site that it was
• 20:20
  Speaker: particularly a lodge for
• 20:22
  Speaker: brothers of recognized
• 20:24
  Speaker: constitutions.
• 20:25
  Speaker: Well, I would say the timing is everything because in Georgia,
• 20:30
  Speaker: um, Prince Hall and the most worshipful Grand Lodge
• 20:34
  Speaker: established mutual recognition in twenty twenty two.
• 20:38
  Speaker: April ninth, twenty twenty two.
• 20:40
  Speaker: And so earlier, I wouldn't have been able to reach out to them
• 20:44
  Speaker: in hopes of membership.
• 20:46
  Speaker: Oh, interesting.
• 20:46
  Speaker: That's right.
• 20:48
  Speaker: But then, you know, then now we're on the ugly website.
• 20:51
  Speaker: They, you know, Georgia is on ugly website.
• 20:54
  Speaker: They're recognizing them.
• 20:56
  Speaker: So I'm like, okay, well, I guess it's open to me too.
• 21:00
  Speaker: Right.
• 21:01
  Speaker: And no, it wasn't, it wasn't.
• 21:03
  Speaker: Um, and interestingly enough,
• 21:05
  Speaker: even though they didn't have a
• 21:07
  Speaker: problem with it, it was more
• 21:09
  Speaker: like my, uh, my for a
• 21:12
  Speaker: constitution.
• 21:13
  Speaker: What we were saying before there
• 21:15
  Speaker: isn't really widespread, uh,
• 21:17
  Speaker: duality.
• 21:19
  Speaker: So and so, so you basically have to now choose at this point, you
• 21:24
  Speaker: have to choose number two.
• 21:27
  Speaker: Yeah, right.
• 21:28
  Speaker: You have to go left or right.
• 21:29
  Speaker: Right.
• 21:30
  Speaker: And, uh, which is tough because in a lot of other jurisdictions,
• 21:36
  Speaker: uh, being plural, membership is no big thing.
• 21:39
  Speaker: And, uh, I know.
• 21:42
  Speaker: Well, I think for the other three of us here, we're all at
• 21:47
  Speaker: least members of one other jurisdiction outside of our own.
• 21:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:51
  Speaker: Uh, that we came in as.
• 21:52
  Speaker: So yeah, it's, it gives you flexibility.
• 21:55
  Speaker: It gives you, um, a further amount of recognition.
• 22:02
  Speaker: Um, it gives you travel opportunities.
• 22:04
  Speaker: There's just so many good
• 22:05
  Speaker: reasons to do, um, dual
• 22:09
  Speaker: membership.
• 22:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Speaker: Choices and choices.
• 22:12
  Speaker: You can go practice masonry how
• 22:14
  Speaker: you want to practice masonry,
• 22:15
  Speaker: right.
• 22:16
  Speaker: You're not stuck geographically anymore, right?
• 22:18
  Speaker: It's not horse and buggy time anymore.
• 22:21
  Speaker: I mean the one hundred and twenty miles, Uh, you know, that
• 22:24
  Speaker: was that's probably the limit, you know, for for traveling for
• 22:27
  Speaker: a lodge night.
• 22:28
  Speaker: But, you know, we know many
• 22:29
  Speaker: Masons, um, and some of us are
• 22:32
  Speaker: many Masons that will travel,
• 22:33
  Speaker: you know, two, three hours to go
• 22:35
  Speaker: to a lodge, you know, so it's
• 22:36
  Speaker: not, it's not like it was, you
• 22:38
  Speaker: know, two, three hundred years
• 22:39
  Speaker: ago where you had to go wherever
• 22:42
  Speaker: the closest place was, you know,
• 22:43
  Speaker: you have options and making
• 22:45
  Speaker: your, the move that you're
• 22:46
  Speaker: telling us about gives, gives
• 22:47
  Speaker: you more of those options, you
• 22:48
  Speaker: know?
• 22:49
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 22:51
  Speaker: Options was, uh, a factor.
• 22:53
  Speaker: I wouldn't say it was the, the,
• 22:55
  Speaker: the deciding factor because it,
• 22:57
  Speaker: it boiled down to pros and cons,
• 22:59
  Speaker: right?
• 23:00
  Speaker: And at the end of it, it was more for me realizing that, uh,
• 23:08
  Speaker: the relationships that I thought I had built over the last twenty
• 23:12
  Speaker: five years weren't exactly what I thought they were, you know,
• 23:16
  Speaker: and so that, yeah, I'm not going to say it was good or bad.
• 23:21
  Speaker: It was.
• 23:22
  Speaker: It was a learning experience for me.
• 23:24
  Speaker: It still is, you know, and that's why I alluded to earlier
• 23:27
  Speaker: when I said that there is there was a certain emotional
• 23:30
  Speaker: component as well.
• 23:32
  Speaker: Right.
• 23:33
  Speaker: And that's why I decided myself because as you know, you can
• 23:36
  Speaker: join internet lies.
• 23:37
  Speaker: You don't have to go there, you know, but for me, my mind was,
• 23:42
  Speaker: this is my lodge now I'm going, you know, and I didn't know how
• 23:48
  Speaker: I was going to make that happen for people that wondered.
• 23:50
  Speaker: But you know, where there's a will, there's a way.
• 23:52
  Speaker: You know, it's almost like you manifested it.
• 23:55
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, you could use that word.
• 23:56
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:58
  Speaker: And I would say I, I would
• 24:00
  Speaker: recommend the trip to anybody,
• 24:03
  Speaker: not just, you know, to visit
• 24:04
  Speaker: internet lodge or joint internet
• 24:06
  Speaker: lodge.
• 24:06
  Speaker: But my experience was such that while I was in England, um, of
• 24:12
  Speaker: course you go to the, the Grand Lodge hall, you know, I was in,
• 24:15
  Speaker: in London on, on Queen Street or what have you, but then there's
• 24:19
  Speaker: the museum inside?
• 24:20
  Speaker: I didn't know it was a bookstore in there.
• 24:23
  Speaker: And things of that nature.
• 24:24
  Speaker: Not too far from there.
• 24:25
  Speaker: All in walking distance is Saint Paul's Cathedral, which is where
• 24:30
  Speaker: the goose and gridiron was in the courtyard there.
• 24:33
  Speaker: You know, they have a placard there.
• 24:35
  Speaker: Um, it was a lot of Masonic
• 24:37
  Speaker: sites that really kind of made
• 24:40
  Speaker: my, my Masonic journey that much
• 24:43
  Speaker: more enriched.
• 24:45
  Speaker: You know, I hate to compare
• 24:46
  Speaker: Freemasonry to religion because
• 24:49
  Speaker: they're not the same, but I
• 24:50
  Speaker: would say it would perhaps be
• 24:52
  Speaker: like going to wherever your,
• 24:55
  Speaker: your, your.
• 24:58
  Speaker: I don't hesitate to say Mecca, but imagine that type of
• 25:02
  Speaker: experience for Freemasonry.
• 25:03
  Speaker: Like, wow, this is, you know
• 25:05
  Speaker: what the Grand Lodge system
• 25:06
  Speaker: started.
• 25:07
  Speaker: So, you know, so so you traveled over there.
• 25:11
  Speaker: When did you travel?
• 25:13
  Speaker: What did I travel?
• 25:14
  Speaker: When, when did you travel to,
• 25:15
  Speaker: um, the meeting was I, I left
• 25:18
  Speaker: August fifth and I stayed to
• 25:21
  Speaker: August seventh.
• 25:22
  Speaker: So from Wednesday to Wednesday.
• 25:25
  Speaker: And you did that because they
• 25:27
  Speaker: were actually voting the
• 25:29
  Speaker: petition.
• 25:29
  Speaker: They were going to vote on my
• 25:30
  Speaker: petition on the eighth that
• 25:32
  Speaker: Saturday.
• 25:33
  Speaker: And so when with the with the process, you know, you fill out
• 25:36
  Speaker: everything they tell you when they're going to ballot, and
• 25:39
  Speaker: then they say you're invited.
• 25:40
  Speaker: And I was like, well, I'm invited to go.
• 25:43
  Speaker: So I was like, you know, I wanted to be there, you know, a
• 25:45
  Speaker: little bit more than one hundred and twenty miles.
• 25:47
  Speaker: But yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:49
  Speaker: But they only meet quarterly.
• 25:50
  Speaker: So, but, um, yeah, I was, I went out there specifically for that,
• 25:57
  Speaker: for the balloting.
• 25:59
  Speaker: Um, and also just to see how
• 26:02
  Speaker: they do things there, which was
• 26:05
  Speaker: quite different.
• 26:06
  Speaker: So, and I was happy to see what
• 26:09
  Speaker: I saw, you know, so that
• 26:10
  Speaker: actually brings up a really good
• 26:11
  Speaker: point.
• 26:12
  Speaker: You probably haven't traveled outside of your jurisdiction.
• 26:17
  Speaker: No, not Prince Hall wise, like
• 26:20
  Speaker: I've been to other states like
• 26:22
  Speaker: Florida.
• 26:23
  Speaker: I've been to New Mexico,
• 26:24
  Speaker: Maryland, traveling in Prince
• 26:27
  Speaker: Hall lodges.
• 26:28
  Speaker: Right.
• 26:28
  Speaker: This is my first experience
• 26:30
  Speaker: because Prince Hall free and
• 26:31
  Speaker: accepted, right?
• 26:32
  Speaker: Correct.
• 26:33
  Speaker: And u g l e we don't necessarily say it, but it's United Grand
• 26:36
  Speaker: Lodge of England of ancient free and accepted Masons of England.
• 26:40
  Speaker: So I think that might be the difference.
• 26:42
  Speaker: But there were some things that were really.
• 26:46
  Speaker: Enlightening, I would say, you know, perhaps a bit different.
• 26:51
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
• 26:53
  Speaker: So when I hear people on TikTok, for example, in the lives, uh,
• 26:58
  Speaker: will often say things like, oh, it's all the same.
• 27:01
  Speaker: We all do the same things.
• 27:02
  Speaker: And I'm like, I now I'm like, I
• 27:05
  Speaker: don't know, I was one of those
• 27:07
  Speaker: guys that's a universal
• 27:08
  Speaker: fraternity.
• 27:09
  Speaker: We really have a terrible job of
• 27:11
  Speaker: keeping it consistent, you know,
• 27:13
  Speaker: especially in England where you
• 27:16
  Speaker: have any working, it's like they
• 27:19
  Speaker: got like you mentioned the, uh,
• 27:21
  Speaker: the gift shop in Freemasons
• 27:23
  Speaker: Hall.
• 27:23
  Speaker: Um, I remember the first time I went there, they have a whole
• 27:26
  Speaker: wall of different ritual books that they practice in, in, you
• 27:32
  Speaker: know, that jurisdiction.
• 27:33
  Speaker: And I remember counting at least forty of them, all different.
• 27:36
  Speaker: I was like, Holy crap, who's going to remember all of this?
• 27:38
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, it's it's amazing.
• 27:40
  Speaker: Yeah, it is.
• 27:42
  Speaker: And I, I went there just to get the, uh, the, the, the books or
• 27:47
  Speaker: what have you.
• 27:48
  Speaker: Um, and I found it interesting
• 27:50
  Speaker: that they didn't even have the
• 27:51
  Speaker: one that we were going to use on
• 27:53
  Speaker: display.
• 27:53
  Speaker: He had it like behind the counter.
• 27:55
  Speaker: I was like, oh, y'all are serious.
• 27:57
  Speaker: Okay.
• 27:58
  Speaker: You know, you're not just going
• 27:59
  Speaker: to accidentally get your hands
• 28:00
  Speaker: on one.
• 28:01
  Speaker: So yeah.
• 28:03
  Speaker: All right.
• 28:03
  Speaker: So then what was the process?
• 28:08
  Speaker: Okay, so you, you, you said you made your choice.
• 28:11
  Speaker: You're going to go join, uh, U g l e as your jurisdiction.
• 28:15
  Speaker: What process did you have to go
• 28:18
  Speaker: through in order to demit from p
• 28:22
  Speaker: h a?
• 28:22
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Speaker: Well, for for one.
• 28:25
  Speaker: And this was a part of the emotional part.
• 28:27
  Speaker: Um, I was informed in no uncertain terms that there would
• 28:32
  Speaker: be no. Dammit.
• 28:34
  Speaker: Um, I was told that if I decided
• 28:38
  Speaker: to go over there, over there,
• 28:41
  Speaker: um, that, uh, it would be like,
• 28:47
  Speaker: um, as if I had gone to any
• 28:51
  Speaker: other jurisdiction.
• 28:52
  Speaker: Um, I was also told that I would have to denounce Prince Hall
• 28:58
  Speaker: Freemasonry, which I was like, I was like that don't even.
• 29:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:03
  Speaker: Interesting.
• 29:05
  Speaker: Okay.
• 29:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:08
  Speaker: And, um.
• 29:09
  Speaker: Now that.
• 29:09
  Speaker: Now, were you told that brother Antonio by the Prince Hall side
• 29:13
  Speaker: or by the ugly side.
• 29:15
  Speaker: Um. I was told that by the Prince Hall side.
• 29:16
  Speaker: The ugly side, uh, which I, I
• 29:20
  Speaker: can go into um in terms of first
• 29:24
  Speaker: you go to the website, you
• 29:25
  Speaker: inquire, an ambassador reaches
• 29:28
  Speaker: out to you and just so happen,
• 29:30
  Speaker: the ambassador that reached out
• 29:31
  Speaker: to me was also a former a
• 29:35
  Speaker: Georgia Freemason.
• 29:36
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:37
  Speaker: Ah that's awesome.
• 29:38
  Speaker: So let me let me back up a little bit, because when I first
• 29:41
  Speaker: made the inquiry about Internet Lodge, remember I mentioned the
• 29:45
  Speaker: man that I spoke to, the brother I spoke to who said that only
• 29:49
  Speaker: his Prince Hall Grand Lodge allowed that, right?
• 29:52
  Speaker: He made mention that there was a brother from Georgia who got
• 29:55
  Speaker: suspended for doing that.
• 29:58
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:58
  Speaker: So that was my initial inquiry to my leadership.
• 30:02
  Speaker: Hey, do you know someone who was
• 30:04
  Speaker: suspended for joining the
• 30:05
  Speaker: internet lodge?
• 30:06
  Speaker: And they was like, no, we don't
• 30:07
  Speaker: we don't have any record of
• 30:08
  Speaker: that.
• 30:09
  Speaker: So then I began to press it and so forth.
• 30:11
  Speaker: Made my choice.
• 30:13
  Speaker: Now I'm talking to my ambassador and he tells me exactly what I
• 30:16
  Speaker: need to do.
• 30:16
  Speaker: He told me to get a dammit.
• 30:18
  Speaker: So I reached out to my secretary
• 30:20
  Speaker: and was like, can I get a.
• 30:21
  Speaker: Dammit!
• 30:23
  Speaker: And, you know, a person from leadership reached out to me and
• 30:27
  Speaker: said, yeah, you know, you don't get it, dammit.
• 30:30
  Speaker: So I went back to my ambassador.
• 30:32
  Speaker: They won't give me a dammit!
• 30:34
  Speaker: He said, no problem, we'll handle this.
• 30:36
  Speaker: How?
• 30:37
  Speaker: However it goes according to, you know, ugly constitution.
• 30:41
  Speaker: And, um, I got emails saying that I passed because you go
• 30:46
  Speaker: through like this system called Hermes before you can actually
• 30:49
  Speaker: get to the balloting process.
• 30:50
  Speaker: Right.
• 30:51
  Speaker: So I went through all of that, got to the balloting process,
• 30:55
  Speaker: and I got my confirmation, um, went out there for it.
• 31:00
  Speaker: They balloted and accepted me in, you know, and um, yeah, I've
• 31:04
  Speaker: been a member ever since.
• 31:06
  Speaker: So then what happened with your
• 31:07
  Speaker: for membership then see
• 31:09
  Speaker: effectively that.
• 31:12
  Speaker: That's the interesting part.
• 31:13
  Speaker: Let me let me just say this.
• 31:16
  Speaker: So I get back well before I even get back, right?
• 31:19
  Speaker: I made a TikTok video and I put it in my drafts.
• 31:23
  Speaker: I wasn't going to whatever.
• 31:25
  Speaker: And then I was talking to it was another brother in my lodge that
• 31:28
  Speaker: did the same thing, right?
• 31:30
  Speaker: And he was talking to people in the lodge.
• 31:32
  Speaker: And so it was pretty much said to the our lodge secretary.
• 31:38
  Speaker: And, you know, if we made that
• 31:40
  Speaker: move, we'd get removed from the
• 31:41
  Speaker: rolls, whatever.
• 31:43
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:44
  Speaker: And so it was like.
• 31:52
  Speaker: I didn't want to risk getting suspended for something.
• 31:56
  Speaker: And when I talked to the other brothers that had been pH.
• 31:59
  Speaker: It's a few of them that are internet lodge members.
• 32:03
  Speaker: Um, they because admit, let me back up.
• 32:07
  Speaker: Oftentimes when we say Demet and
• 32:09
  Speaker: for it's to go from one place to
• 32:11
  Speaker: another, like I'm a minute from
• 32:13
  Speaker: this lodge to that lodge, I will
• 32:15
  Speaker: still be a mason in good
• 32:16
  Speaker: standing.
• 32:16
  Speaker: I'm just removing my membership off that rolls and transferring
• 32:20
  Speaker: my membership to another rolls.
• 32:21
  Speaker: Right.
• 32:22
  Speaker: Right.
• 32:22
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 32:23
  Speaker: And so from what I understand, there's also the connotation of
• 32:29
  Speaker: resignation associated with it.
• 32:31
  Speaker: Like you can Demet and not join another lodge in some
• 32:35
  Speaker: jurisdictions or what have you.
• 32:37
  Speaker: And for me, I tended a
• 32:42
  Speaker: resignation to my lodge as soon
• 32:44
  Speaker: as I got back to the United
• 32:45
  Speaker: States.
• 32:46
  Speaker: And when I say resignation, I gave them that.
• 32:49
  Speaker: Then they they escalated it.
• 32:51
  Speaker: Of course, forgotten from our jurisdiction.
• 32:55
  Speaker: And, um, it was effectively cut off from that point.
• 33:00
  Speaker: Um, I can't say that there is an actual provision that at the
• 33:05
  Speaker: time I joined Google, I was automatically dropped off at pH.
• 33:09
  Speaker: I think having been previously
• 33:11
  Speaker: advised that I would have to
• 33:13
  Speaker: denounce.
• 33:15
  Speaker: I've resigned, but also told
• 33:17
  Speaker: them that I'm not going to
• 33:18
  Speaker: denounce anything.
• 33:19
  Speaker: So.
• 33:20
  Speaker: Right.
• 33:20
  Speaker: Because you don't you don't want to denounce.
• 33:22
  Speaker: Not only do I not want to denounce, but you g l e
• 33:25
  Speaker: recognizes p h a who am I to who am I to say right?
• 33:30
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 33:31
  Speaker: Yeah, that's not my determination.
• 33:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 33:34
  Speaker: We actually have a brother here
• 33:35
  Speaker: in Virginia that both of you
• 33:37
  Speaker: know, I'm not going to mention
• 33:38
  Speaker: his name.
• 33:38
  Speaker: Um, but he was a member of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge in
• 33:43
  Speaker: Texas, joined our Grand Lodge here in Virginia.
• 33:48
  Speaker: They wouldn't issue a permit.
• 33:50
  Speaker: They he kind of had the same issue.
• 33:52
  Speaker: So our Grand Lodge made him
• 33:53
  Speaker: write basically a letter
• 33:54
  Speaker: renouncing his membership in the
• 33:57
  Speaker: Prince Hall.
• 33:57
  Speaker: Grand Lodge?
• 33:58
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 33:59
  Speaker: Because they knew he couldn't be a dual member.
• 34:01
  Speaker: Um, so he never officially got a date or anything from his Prince
• 34:06
  Speaker: Hall Grand Lodge.
• 34:07
  Speaker: But our Grand Lodge has a record saying, hey, I renounce all ties
• 34:10
  Speaker: to, you know, Prince Hall, Grand Lodge, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:13
  Speaker: And now I'm a member in Virginia.
• 34:14
  Speaker: So, um, and they made him go through the degrees again here.
• 34:17
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:19
  Speaker: That's interesting.
• 34:20
  Speaker: That's interesting.
• 34:22
  Speaker: I will say as a as a follow up, uh, I was asked to send, um,
• 34:28
  Speaker: because when I posted the resignation was in my lodge's
• 34:32
  Speaker: group, our closed group.
• 34:34
  Speaker: Right.
• 34:35
  Speaker: So they wanted me, they've been my district wanted me to send,
• 34:39
  Speaker: uh, in writing to the district.
• 34:41
  Speaker: And so I sent a instead of a instead of a notice of
• 34:46
  Speaker: renouncing or denouncing, I sent a notice of affiliation, meaning
• 34:50
  Speaker: I gave them notice that I was now affiliated with Internet
• 34:53
  Speaker: Lodge nine six five nine, East Lancashire Province, U g l e and
• 34:59
  Speaker: you know, it's up to you guys if you want to, but I'm not going
• 35:03
  Speaker: to denounce pH because I don't have that capacity.
• 35:07
  Speaker: You know, that's smart.
• 35:08
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker: So and then they just stopped responding to me.
• 35:12
  Speaker: So I just I'm just going on and it is what it is at this point
• 35:16
  Speaker: because, uh, the, the reason why I pushed it this way.
• 35:20
  Speaker: You guys familiar with Grandview where you are?
• 35:23
  Speaker: Do you use Grandview?
• 35:24
  Speaker: Yes.
• 35:25
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 35:25
  Speaker: Okay.
• 35:26
  Speaker: So if you look for me on Grandview, I don't know if you
• 35:29
  Speaker: can see my jurisdiction, but people who can, if you look for
• 35:32
  Speaker: me a a Austin Antonio, Austin Bay hyphen b e y, um, it'll come
• 35:38
  Speaker: up as suspended.
• 35:40
  Speaker: I was never suspended.
• 35:41
  Speaker: Oh, I never received a notice of suspension.
• 35:44
  Speaker: And if I got a notice of
• 35:45
  Speaker: suspension, I wouldn't refute
• 35:46
  Speaker: it.
• 35:46
  Speaker: I'm just saying I didn't get one, you know.
• 35:49
  Speaker: So. And it is what it is.
• 35:52
  Speaker: But that's the reason why I was pressing it.
• 35:54
  Speaker: I wanted to get a decision one way or the other of their stance
• 35:58
  Speaker: one way or the other.
• 35:59
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 36:00
  Speaker: Just let me know.
• 36:01
  Speaker: Let me know what, what, what the rules are.
• 36:03
  Speaker: And.
• 36:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:04
  Speaker: And that way, because that would drive me crazy because I need, I
• 36:07
  Speaker: need closure, I need, like, I need to know if I'm in or out.
• 36:10
  Speaker: I need that, that line in the sand.
• 36:12
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:12
  Speaker: And, uh, to be in that sort of awkward limbo, you know?
• 36:16
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:16
  Speaker: It is like you said, it is what it is.
• 36:18
  Speaker: Um, you do have membership in Internet Lodge now, so.
• 36:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:25
  Speaker: You have that to, to stand on.
• 36:26
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:27
  Speaker: It is what it is at this point.
• 36:29
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 36:31
  Speaker: And, and you know, one thing that, um, we've covered a while
• 36:33
  Speaker: back when we talked about internet lodge and some of these
• 36:35
  Speaker: other jurisdictions, but I did want to share that.
• 36:39
  Speaker: Um, one of the benefits that you
• 36:41
  Speaker: get from joining internet Lodge,
• 36:43
  Speaker: um, even if you're not as cool
• 36:45
  Speaker: as Antonio and you've never
• 36:47
  Speaker: visited like the rest of us, um,
• 36:50
  Speaker: is that you get, uh, you know,
• 36:54
  Speaker: we talked about recognition,
• 36:55
  Speaker: man, that that gives you a
• 36:57
  Speaker: greater travel card to go out
• 37:00
  Speaker: and, and go to different
• 37:02
  Speaker: jurisdictions, right?
• 37:03
  Speaker: So yeah, you can go look up
• 37:05
  Speaker: which foreign grand lodges can
• 37:08
  Speaker: you does usually have amity with
• 37:11
  Speaker: and even just in North America
• 37:13
  Speaker: alone.
• 37:14
  Speaker: These are all of the recognised grand lodges.
• 37:17
  Speaker: Here's a list in Canada and here's recognised grand lodges
• 37:21
  Speaker: in the USA.
• 37:22
  Speaker: So you know you could visit with your ugly.
• 37:28
  Speaker: The membership card prints, all Grand lodges, mainstream Grand
• 37:34
  Speaker: lodges for the most part.
• 37:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 37:38
  Speaker: Yes and no. I mean, like, um, even though I mean.
• 37:42
  Speaker: And most of us are ugly members, but even.
• 37:44
  Speaker: And I'll let Brother Antonio speak about this, even though we
• 37:47
  Speaker: have amity with them, you can't just walk into a lodge.
• 37:50
  Speaker: And that happens in some regular grand lodges.
• 37:53
  Speaker: And as many Prince Hall Grand
• 37:55
  Speaker: lodges as well, like here in
• 37:56
  Speaker: Virginia, we still need to send
• 37:58
  Speaker: an email or a letter basically
• 38:00
  Speaker: saying that, hey, we'd like to
• 38:01
  Speaker: attend.
• 38:02
  Speaker: And then our Prince Hall Grand Lodge counterpart lets us know
• 38:05
  Speaker: whether we can or not.
• 38:06
  Speaker: So even though we have Amity, we can't just show up and say hello
• 38:09
  Speaker: and sit down.
• 38:10
  Speaker: So. Well, good thing I didn't say that.
• 38:12
  Speaker: Yeah, but you did.
• 38:16
  Speaker: But you.
• 38:17
  Speaker: Your opportunities for inter visitation are an order of
• 38:23
  Speaker: magnitude more than than what you had before.
• 38:26
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 38:27
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 38:28
  Speaker: And, um, I will also say and correct me if I'm wrong, because
• 38:33
  Speaker: this is being my, my only lodge at the moment.
• 38:37
  Speaker: Um, it occurred to me in the ugly, I want to say
• 38:43
  Speaker: Constitution, there are certain guidelines for visiting lodges,
• 38:46
  Speaker: of course, but there's guidelines for visiting lodges
• 38:49
  Speaker: when you're planning to go to that jurisdiction, meaning
• 38:53
  Speaker: you're not there already.
• 38:54
  Speaker: And then there's guidelines for
• 38:56
  Speaker: if you're already in that
• 38:57
  Speaker: jurisdiction.
• 38:58
  Speaker: So in theory, I'm already in
• 39:00
  Speaker: Georgia, so I could show up at a
• 39:03
  Speaker: lodge.
• 39:03
  Speaker: They don't have to let me in.
• 39:05
  Speaker: Interestingly, I think, you
• 39:07
  Speaker: know, and that that's just
• 39:08
  Speaker: normal.
• 39:08
  Speaker: That's just called masonry.
• 39:10
  Speaker: They can say no all day, you know.
• 39:12
  Speaker: So yeah, they all have the power to do that because, because
• 39:15
  Speaker: every grand lodge is sovereign.
• 39:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:18
  Speaker: Well, it's funny you said that too, because I've, I've a lot of
• 39:21
  Speaker: us have traveled for, for masonry, uh, a lot of places.
• 39:24
  Speaker: But when I travel
• 39:26
  Speaker: internationally and this is
• 39:27
  Speaker: funny, um, I don't ask my local
• 39:30
  Speaker: grand lodge for, you know, a
• 39:32
  Speaker: traveling letter.
• 39:33
  Speaker: I actually go to the lodge
• 39:35
  Speaker: website and I pull down my
• 39:36
  Speaker: patent.
• 39:37
  Speaker: You know, you can pull your own
• 39:37
  Speaker: patent that they don't have dues
• 39:38
  Speaker: cards there.
• 39:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker: Um, because that that patent is
• 39:43
  Speaker: got more pull than just a
• 39:45
  Speaker: regular letter from my local
• 39:47
  Speaker: grand lodge.
• 39:48
  Speaker: So when I travel
• 39:49
  Speaker: internationally, I always pull
• 39:50
  Speaker: that down.
• 39:50
  Speaker: Um, because to John's point,
• 39:52
  Speaker: it's, it's less of a barrier to
• 39:54
  Speaker: entry.
• 39:55
  Speaker: Well, yeah.
• 39:56
  Speaker: Well, to that point.
• 39:57
  Speaker: Right.
• 39:57
  Speaker: Because, um, I mean, right here
• 40:01
  Speaker: on that list of foreign grand
• 40:02
  Speaker: lodges.
• 40:03
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 40:04
  Speaker: Include the Grand Lodge of Georgia and the Prince Hall.
• 40:06
  Speaker: Grand Lodge of Georgia.
• 40:08
  Speaker: But I can't, I can't go into a Prince Hall Grand.
• 40:10
  Speaker: I can't go into a Prince Hall lodge here.
• 40:13
  Speaker: And I'm a yeah, I, I see what to say on that.
• 40:16
  Speaker: Theoretically you can.
• 40:19
  Speaker: Theoretically you can.
• 40:20
  Speaker: Whether they'll open the door for you.
• 40:22
  Speaker: That's a different conversation.
• 40:24
  Speaker: True.
• 40:24
  Speaker: True true.
• 40:26
  Speaker: You can wait in the parking lot and take it.
• 40:30
  Speaker: There you go.
• 40:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:33
  Speaker: So that's fascinating.
• 40:35
  Speaker: Um, so questions, Joe.
• 40:38
  Speaker: Jason, jump on in.
• 40:39
  Speaker: Any other questions?
• 40:41
  Speaker: Now that you've just become a new internet lodge member.
• 40:47
  Speaker: Um, what's the.
• 40:52
  Speaker: Most surprising difference that you've noticed between the two?
• 40:59
  Speaker: Not the biggest, just the one that was most surprising to you
• 41:03
  Speaker: the most, I would say the most surprising was you.
• 41:08
  Speaker: Okay, so for twenty five years, I learned that certain things
• 41:13
  Speaker: meant certain things.
• 41:16
  Speaker: And what I learned is that those certain things don't always mean
• 41:22
  Speaker: those things depending on where you are in the world.
• 41:25
  Speaker: So if something, you know, how can I, how can I say?
• 41:35
  Speaker: It sounds like you don't want to get into specifics.
• 41:37
  Speaker: Could it be something to the
• 41:38
  Speaker: effect you go to other places
• 41:40
  Speaker: now and you're like, oh, this
• 41:42
  Speaker: symbol doesn't have to mean this
• 41:43
  Speaker: one thing.
• 41:44
  Speaker: It could mean these two or three
• 41:45
  Speaker: things, as opposed to probably
• 41:47
  Speaker: the way you were raised in
• 41:48
  Speaker: masonry.
• 41:49
  Speaker: It's just one thing and this one thing only, and you're not
• 41:51
  Speaker: allowed to interpret it.
• 41:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:53
  Speaker: That.
• 41:54
  Speaker: But you know, say if this is one
• 41:57
  Speaker: symbol and this means something
• 41:58
  Speaker: and this symbol means something,
• 42:00
  Speaker: and then to learn they mean
• 42:01
  Speaker: something, they they've switched
• 42:03
  Speaker: places and it's like, wow,
• 42:05
  Speaker: really?
• 42:06
  Speaker: You know, but yeah.
• 42:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:11
  Speaker: I got a question, brother Antonio.
• 42:12
  Speaker: Um, as a new world travel Mason,
• 42:16
  Speaker: uh, where have you gone to lodge
• 42:18
  Speaker: since you've been a member of
• 42:20
  Speaker: internet lodge?
• 42:21
  Speaker: Nowhere, nowhere.
• 42:23
  Speaker: We gotta get you out there, bud.
• 42:25
  Speaker: Uh, it's not for a lack of trying.
• 42:28
  Speaker: It's not.
• 42:29
  Speaker: It's not for lack of trying.
• 42:30
  Speaker: Um, so I got my, um.
• 42:34
  Speaker: And for, we call it birth certificate.
• 42:36
  Speaker: I think you mentioned a patent.
• 42:38
  Speaker: I got mine in the mail.
• 42:39
  Speaker: Got the Grand Lodge seal on it.
• 42:40
  Speaker: I signed it and they said, put it with your with your regalia.
• 42:44
  Speaker: And whenever you go somewhere, this is what you pull out.
• 42:47
  Speaker: I got my clearance letter to show that I'm paid up.
• 42:50
  Speaker: So I got an invitation of sorts to attend a degree, but I can't
• 42:59
  Speaker: attend it because I have to, you know, I have to work that day.
• 43:02
  Speaker: I t you got to do what you got to do, right.
• 43:04
  Speaker: Um, I reached out to another
• 43:06
  Speaker: lodge that is local to me, spoke
• 43:08
  Speaker: to somebody and, you know, just
• 43:10
  Speaker: I just haven't heard anything
• 43:12
  Speaker: back.
• 43:12
  Speaker: Um, if I was to visit, I definitely would want it to be
• 43:16
  Speaker: close to home.
• 43:18
  Speaker: Uh, I told my wife I would want it to be in actually in my
• 43:22
  Speaker: community where I live because all the lodges I've ever been
• 43:25
  Speaker: members of have been situated in other communities, you know?
• 43:29
  Speaker: So, um, that that's where I am now.
• 43:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:32
  Speaker: Okay.
• 43:34
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker: We got a question from the.
• 43:36
  Speaker: Yep.
• 43:37
  Speaker: That's the one I was going to pull up so far.
• 43:40
  Speaker: Does it fit?
• 43:41
  Speaker: Yes.
• 43:42
  Speaker: It does feel like it's worth it,
• 43:43
  Speaker: but I caution anyone from doing
• 43:46
  Speaker: it.
• 43:47
  Speaker: Uh, because it, it's more of a
• 43:49
  Speaker: commitment than what it sounds
• 43:50
  Speaker: like when, especially if that's
• 43:52
  Speaker: your lodge lodge and not just
• 43:54
  Speaker: like something that you're
• 43:55
  Speaker: joining for.
• 43:57
  Speaker: I want to say because you're out of luxury.
• 44:00
  Speaker: Um, every, every Sunday, um, there is a, a call, a
• 44:05
  Speaker: teleconference call where members can join.
• 44:08
  Speaker: We just this past Sunday, there was a, a town hall of sorts.
• 44:11
  Speaker: Right.
• 44:12
  Speaker: And, um, just, there's some serious things that, uh, that
• 44:17
  Speaker: impact lodge that you might not necessarily realize if, you
• 44:22
  Speaker: know, you've, you, you're affiliating just for how they
• 44:27
  Speaker: say they said some people just joined to be covered is what
• 44:30
  Speaker: they said just, you know, so that you're regular.
• 44:33
  Speaker: Um, which I thought was kind of funny, but, um, back to the
• 44:38
  Speaker: question, I do think it's worth it, but it's more of a
• 44:40
  Speaker: commitment, I think, than, than people realize or may realize.
• 44:46
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:46
  Speaker: But if I if I had to do it over again, I would do it again.
• 44:49
  Speaker: And I also learned that there's,
• 44:52
  Speaker: you know, not just internet
• 44:53
  Speaker: lodge.
• 44:54
  Speaker: You can join any lodge over there if you want to, you know,
• 44:57
  Speaker: they, they're open to it.
• 44:58
  Speaker: So.
• 44:59
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 45:05
  Speaker: So what you're saying is don't
• 45:06
  Speaker: don't join for the old Masonic
• 45:09
  Speaker: insurance policy.
• 45:10
  Speaker: Exactly right, exactly right.
• 45:12
  Speaker: You you have to worry about things.
• 45:14
  Speaker: You gotta worry about the upkeep of your lodge.
• 45:16
  Speaker: You know, you, you, you, they meet three times a year and then
• 45:19
  Speaker: they have a trip.
• 45:20
  Speaker: So essentially four meetings a year, right?
• 45:23
  Speaker: Three of those meetings, uh, the wash master, you know, um.
• 45:30
  Speaker: It's hard to say for me to say what people should be doing or
• 45:33
  Speaker: shouldn't be doing.
• 45:34
  Speaker: I don't want to seem
• 45:35
  Speaker: condescending at all, but, you
• 45:38
  Speaker: know, there's just certain
• 45:39
  Speaker: things that the worshipful
• 45:39
  Speaker: master should have in place, you
• 45:41
  Speaker: know, that he shouldn't have to
• 45:43
  Speaker: worry about.
• 45:43
  Speaker: And these are things that they
• 45:45
  Speaker: talked about during the town
• 45:47
  Speaker: hall.
• 45:47
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 45:48
  Speaker: Um, the costs associated with maintaining the lodge.
• 45:52
  Speaker: These are things that even though it's out of sight, out of
• 45:54
  Speaker: mind, they still go on.
• 45:56
  Speaker: And I think we can all relate to
• 45:58
  Speaker: the idea of the faithful,
• 46:00
  Speaker: faithful you that keep the lodge
• 46:03
  Speaker: afloat.
• 46:04
  Speaker: Well, it's it's even more critical infrastructure with
• 46:06
  Speaker: Internet Lodge, I think.
• 46:08
  Speaker: Well, what's interesting is that and like I, you know, I get
• 46:12
  Speaker: thirty emails a day from their from their bulletin board and,
• 46:16
  Speaker: and I have joined some of the meetings on, on Sundays.
• 46:19
  Speaker: Um, what's interesting is that the bulk of the membership is
• 46:23
  Speaker: not in the UK.
• 46:24
  Speaker: You know, you've got people all
• 46:26
  Speaker: over Europe, they have a bunch
• 46:27
  Speaker: of Americans, but there's people
• 46:29
  Speaker: from Greece, from Italy, from
• 46:30
  Speaker: Germany, you know, France, like
• 46:32
  Speaker: their membership is really,
• 46:33
  Speaker: really international.
• 46:34
  Speaker: So, you know, put putting butts in seats has gotta be hard
• 46:38
  Speaker: regardless, you know.
• 46:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:40
  Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
• 46:41
  Speaker: They um the senior warden, who is, I think the the next to be
• 46:46
  Speaker: master, um, uh, spoke about that, how difficult it is.
• 46:50
  Speaker: They have, you know, they call
• 46:51
  Speaker: people and they email people and
• 46:54
  Speaker: etcetera, etcetera.
• 46:55
  Speaker: Um, but it comes down to having people that's willing to make
• 46:59
  Speaker: those kind of calls and volunteer and get in and do the
• 47:02
  Speaker: work where it's needed.
• 47:04
  Speaker: You know, but it is a, he said it's a definitely a difficult
• 47:08
  Speaker: task to get people to, to consistently come out, you know.
• 47:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:16
  Speaker: Well, and they're, uh, it's funny you were talking about
• 47:18
  Speaker: their senior warden.
• 47:20
  Speaker: Um, I think we, most of us have gotten the emails, uh, to go log
• 47:23
  Speaker: into the website.
• 47:24
  Speaker: Their election process for
• 47:26
  Speaker: master, I think is personally
• 47:27
  Speaker: great.
• 47:28
  Speaker: You know, like, you know, it's
• 47:29
  Speaker: not, it's not a progressive
• 47:30
  Speaker: line.
• 47:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:32
  Speaker: Um, and you get, you know, you log into the website and you get
• 47:35
  Speaker: whoever wants to run for master, you find out who it is, and then
• 47:38
  Speaker: you get their Masonic resume, all the things they've done.
• 47:41
  Speaker: And then they also write a letter to the lodge saying, hey,
• 47:43
  Speaker: here's why I want to be master and here's why.
• 47:46
  Speaker: The proposal.
• 47:47
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:47
  Speaker: The proposal.
• 47:48
  Speaker: Um, I think that's awesome.
• 47:50
  Speaker: I think that's way better than how some other places do it, you
• 47:53
  Speaker: know, like you've got guys that give you their plan and give you
• 47:56
  Speaker: their vision and give you what their, what their year or years
• 47:59
  Speaker: are going to be like.
• 48:00
  Speaker: Um, so I think that's super beneficial.
• 48:03
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:05
  Speaker: It keeps it going.
• 48:06
  Speaker: Um, and it gives the, I think to your point, whoever is master,
• 48:13
  Speaker: then they have two that will become the wardens, right?
• 48:16
  Speaker: And so it's like they have all of this, I'm not going to say
• 48:19
  Speaker: all of this time, but they have like three years to implement
• 48:23
  Speaker: their program and have what we call the trestle board and
• 48:26
  Speaker: everything in order so that when they get installed in March,
• 48:28
  Speaker: they're off to the races.
• 48:30
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:31
  Speaker: It's great.
• 48:32
  Speaker: I think, um, if that happened in
• 48:33
  Speaker: my old jurisdiction though,
• 48:34
  Speaker: people would be getting
• 48:35
  Speaker: suspended.
• 48:36
  Speaker: That would be called canvassing for votes.
• 48:38
  Speaker: And it's going to be a problem, right?
• 48:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 48:40
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:41
  Speaker: There's a lot of jurisdictions here in the states that um, um,
• 48:45
  Speaker: have have a different approach to, uh, electioneering.
• 48:49
  Speaker: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 48:51
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:53
  Speaker: I think that part, now that you bring that up, uh, Joe, I think
• 48:57
  Speaker: that probably was the most surprising thing that I'm
• 49:00
  Speaker: thinking about that.
• 49:01
  Speaker: Yeah, that probably was the most surprising thing.
• 49:03
  Speaker: I had never seen an election like that the first time I saw
• 49:06
  Speaker: that and I read those proposals, I'm like, this is awesome.
• 49:09
  Speaker: I'm like, yeah, this guy's telling you why he's going to be
• 49:11
  Speaker: a great master and all the cool things he's going to do.
• 49:13
  Speaker: And to your point, I remember the first time I read it, there
• 49:16
  Speaker: was a brother, I think he was from Greece who was running for.
• 49:21
  Speaker: And he talked about like the
• 49:22
  Speaker: budget, hey, I'm going to spend
• 49:23
  Speaker: this much money and fly out here
• 49:25
  Speaker: and I'm going to come see these
• 49:26
  Speaker: brothers, and then I'm going to
• 49:27
  Speaker: fly over here and come see
• 49:28
  Speaker: these.
• 49:28
  Speaker: So it was like this cool business plan.
• 49:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:31
  Speaker: You know, and obviously this
• 49:32
  Speaker: brother had a lot of money
• 49:33
  Speaker: because he wanted to travel
• 49:34
  Speaker: everywhere.
• 49:34
  Speaker: But, um, but yeah, it's just
• 49:37
  Speaker: interesting that you've got all
• 49:38
  Speaker: these brothers that are not
• 49:39
  Speaker: geographically there, that are
• 49:41
  Speaker: doing the work right and
• 49:43
  Speaker: committing to it, you know, both
• 49:45
  Speaker: financially and personally and
• 49:47
  Speaker: physically.
• 49:48
  Speaker: Um, so I just think that's really neat.
• 49:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:54
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 49:56
  Speaker: I, I was, I will make an
• 49:57
  Speaker: argument for probably one of the
• 49:59
  Speaker: most diverse lodges out there
• 50:01
  Speaker: for sure.
• 50:02
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 50:04
  Speaker: Which is kind of why I became a mason as well.
• 50:09
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 50:10
  Speaker: So what about, uh, internet chapter?
• 50:11
  Speaker: Are we joining that yet?
• 50:13
  Speaker: Um, I was gonna ask what's next?
• 50:15
  Speaker: Yeah, that's actually next on my list.
• 50:17
  Speaker: Um, I intend to go for
• 50:19
  Speaker: installation in March, and a few
• 50:22
  Speaker: of us who are, um, former Prince
• 50:24
  Speaker: Hall Masons were going to, um,
• 50:26
  Speaker: we're thinking of getting
• 50:27
  Speaker: exalted.
• 50:28
  Speaker: Uh, they meet the Friday before the blue House.
• 50:31
  Speaker: Well, I don't think they call it blue House.
• 50:34
  Speaker: Bad habits.
• 50:34
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 50:35
  Speaker: Um. Old it happened, not bad habit, but um they don't they
• 50:39
  Speaker: meet the day before the regular lodge, let's say that.
• 50:45
  Speaker: So yeah, that's, that's next on the list.
• 50:47
  Speaker: The, the um ancient accepted
• 50:50
  Speaker: right is a bit different and I'm
• 50:53
  Speaker: not sure if I'm up for that
• 50:55
  Speaker: challenge just yet because, uh,
• 50:58
  Speaker: you know, it's, well, if you've
• 51:00
  Speaker: got eighteen years, then you
• 51:01
  Speaker: know, you'll be up for the long
• 51:04
  Speaker: journey, right?
• 51:05
  Speaker: Long road.
• 51:06
  Speaker: Right?
• 51:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:07
  Speaker: In fact, we, we, we've spoken about this quite a bit.
• 51:09
  Speaker: We know many.
• 51:11
  Speaker: And I think some of us who are Scottish Rite Masons here in the
• 51:14
  Speaker: United States have seen it.
• 51:15
  Speaker: We've met so many brothers from other countries that come to the
• 51:19
  Speaker: United States and join the Scottish Rite here, because, you
• 51:23
  Speaker: know, you get all your degrees in one weekend or two weekends
• 51:25
  Speaker: or something like that.
• 51:26
  Speaker: Fast pass.
• 51:27
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:28
  Speaker: But as opposed to the ancient and accepted.
• 51:30
  Speaker: Right.
• 51:30
  Speaker: Um, I think the highest I've ever I don't want to speak for
• 51:33
  Speaker: John or Jason.
• 51:34
  Speaker: The highest I've ever met is an eighteenth degree.
• 51:37
  Speaker: Wow.
• 51:37
  Speaker: From the UK.
• 51:38
  Speaker: Because you just.
• 51:39
  Speaker: It's not the same progression path, you know.
• 51:41
  Speaker: Like it takes you decades.
• 51:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:44
  Speaker: So if you got the time and and
• 51:47
  Speaker: the miles to put on your credit
• 51:49
  Speaker: card there, then you're good to
• 51:50
  Speaker: go.
• 51:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:53
  Speaker: It almost feels like I would need to live there before I'm
• 51:57
  Speaker: taking something like that.
• 51:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:59
  Speaker: That's true.
• 52:00
  Speaker: That's true.
• 52:02
  Speaker: All right.
• 52:02
  Speaker: We are at that time.
• 52:04
  Speaker: So let's hand it over to Jason to start bringing us home.
• 52:09
  Speaker: What's your final thought, Jason?
• 52:11
  Speaker: Final thought.
• 52:12
  Speaker: Uh, super interesting hearing
• 52:14
  Speaker: about your your journey,
• 52:16
  Speaker: brother.
• 52:16
  Speaker: Thanks so much for, for coming online and sharing.
• 52:20
  Speaker: Um, does your, your experience with us?
• 52:23
  Speaker: Um, I did go on to internet Lodge's website.
• 52:28
  Speaker: Um, tonight as we were talking and filled out the contact form.
• 52:33
  Speaker: Yay!
• 52:34
  Speaker: Yay!
• 52:35
  Speaker: Nice.
• 52:36
  Speaker: You spurred me to action.
• 52:39
  Speaker: Um, yes.
• 52:39
  Speaker: As a as it were.
• 52:41
  Speaker: So, um, can't thank you enough for for coming on and sharing
• 52:45
  Speaker: your story with us.
• 52:47
  Speaker: Uh, super fun episode.
• 52:48
  Speaker: Really appreciate you having you.
• 52:51
  Speaker: Hopefully you'll get someone to vouch for you.
• 52:52
  Speaker: That's the, that's the hardest part.
• 52:54
  Speaker: Maybe maybe, maybe, maybe one of the three of us will see.
• 53:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 53:00
  Speaker: All right.
• 53:01
  Speaker: Definitely.
• 53:01
  Speaker: I have friends everywhere.
• 53:04
  Speaker: Yes.
• 53:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 53:05
  Speaker: Brother Joe.
• 53:05
  Speaker: Final thoughts?
• 53:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 53:07
  Speaker: Uh, brother Antonio, nice to finally meet you in person.
• 53:09
  Speaker: Um, this was a fantastic episode.
• 53:12
  Speaker: Thank you for sharing your journey with us.
• 53:13
  Speaker: I thought it was remarkably interesting.
• 53:16
  Speaker: Um, you know, and thank you for for putting yourself out there.
• 53:20
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 53:20
  Speaker: Like this.
• 53:21
  Speaker: This sounds like it was a journey that had some struggle
• 53:23
  Speaker: to it and there was a lot of emotional baggage there.
• 53:26
  Speaker: Um, so I mean, thank you for sharing it with us.
• 53:28
  Speaker: It was, it was awesome.
• 53:29
  Speaker: So, um, I don't have any further
• 53:31
  Speaker: questions, but yeah, you, uh,
• 53:33
  Speaker: yeah, it was definitely
• 53:34
  Speaker: impressive hearing your story
• 53:35
  Speaker: and and you sharing that with us
• 53:37
  Speaker: and, and letting us be a part of
• 53:39
  Speaker: that.
• 53:39
  Speaker: So thank you again for coming on tonight.
• 53:42
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 53:43
  Speaker: My pleasure.
• 53:43
  Speaker: Thanks for having me.
• 53:45
  Speaker: All right.
• 53:46
  Speaker: Well, I'll I'll hand it over to you, Antonio, and then I will
• 53:50
  Speaker: bring us home and wrap it up.
• 53:51
  Speaker: So um, yeah, your your final
• 53:54
  Speaker: words of wisdom to share with
• 53:56
  Speaker: everyone.
• 53:57
  Speaker: Well, before that, uh, uh, Joe, Jason, John, thank you for
• 54:00
  Speaker: having me on.
• 54:01
  Speaker: And, uh, one thing I definitely learned is I need to step my, my
• 54:05
  Speaker: Mason room game up because your backgrounds, I was just looking
• 54:09
  Speaker: like, fascinated at your backgrounds, like y'all got
• 54:12
  Speaker: stuff going on in y'all rooms and we'll send you things.
• 54:15
  Speaker: Don't worry about it.
• 54:16
  Speaker: Yes.
• 54:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 54:17
  Speaker: There you go.
• 54:18
  Speaker: Nice.
• 54:19
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:21
  Speaker: But nice.
• 54:23
  Speaker: Oh, we have too much.
• 54:25
  Speaker: Oh, man, I definitely gotta.
• 54:27
  Speaker: Okay.
• 54:27
  Speaker: Alright, alright.
• 54:30
  Speaker: Make some phone calls.
• 54:31
  Speaker: We'll take care of you.
• 54:31
  Speaker: Appreciate you.
• 54:32
  Speaker: Appreciate you.
• 54:33
  Speaker: And I definitely in terms of
• 54:35
  Speaker: words of wisdom, I, you know,
• 54:37
  Speaker: just can't stress enough that
• 54:38
  Speaker: everybody's journey is their
• 54:40
  Speaker: journey.
• 54:40
  Speaker: Um, it people may tell you that you're crazy for doing what
• 54:44
  Speaker: you're doing and that's fine.
• 54:45
  Speaker: You know, Alexander Graham Bell was called crazy and not
• 54:48
  Speaker: everybody's on phones.
• 54:49
  Speaker: So, you know, you might not be
• 54:51
  Speaker: recognized for whatever you're
• 54:53
  Speaker: doing.
• 54:53
  Speaker: But as long as you stay true to yourself and, and what you're
• 54:55
  Speaker: about, then you know it's the right thing to do.
• 54:58
  Speaker: So, uh, once again, I want to thank the Masonic Roundtable for
• 55:02
  Speaker: having me on.
• 55:03
  Speaker: And, uh, hope everyone has a great evening.
• 55:06
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 55:07
  Speaker: All right.
• 55:07
  Speaker: I couldn't have said it better than that.
• 55:08
  Speaker: Thank you very much, Brother Antonio, for coming on.
• 55:11
  Speaker: Before you go, give us your TikTok details.
• 55:14
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 55:15
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 55:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:16
  Speaker: On TikTok, it is, uh, at Soul Magic.
• 55:20
  Speaker: S o l m a g I c k at Soul Magic and I, I talk about Freemasonry,
• 55:29
  Speaker: I talk about magic.
• 55:30
  Speaker: I do some silly things here and there.
• 55:33
  Speaker: It's a hodgepodge of, uh, you know, we like to just have fun.
• 55:37
  Speaker: So that's what you can find me.
• 55:39
  Speaker: Great.
• 55:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:40
  Speaker: Thank you so much.
• 55:41
  Speaker: This has been great.
• 55:42
  Speaker: It's great to finally meet you
• 55:43
  Speaker: in person and hear the long
• 55:46
  Speaker: version of your story and your
• 55:48
  Speaker: journey.
• 55:48
  Speaker: And, uh, just happy to, uh, meet another fellow brother, internet
• 55:53
  Speaker: lodge member out in the wild.
• 55:54
  Speaker: So this is great.
• 55:55
  Speaker: Um, thanks again.
• 55:57
  Speaker: I hope everyone kind of took something away.
• 55:59
  Speaker: And I'll echo what Brother
• 56:00
  Speaker: Antonio said that, you know,
• 56:02
  Speaker: everybody's journey is
• 56:03
  Speaker: different.
• 56:03
  Speaker: And this was just an example of an unorthodox, an unusual
• 56:08
  Speaker: journey, but one that certainly is filled with enlightenment.
• 56:11
  Speaker: So with that, I want to thank
• 56:12
  Speaker: you all very much for watching
• 56:14
  Speaker: and keep searching for more
• 56:15
  Speaker: light.
• 56:15
  Speaker: Have a good night.
• 56:16
  Speaker: Wow.