Tag Archives: Masonic Central

Table Talk – post holiday catch up on 2009

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Update, leave your comment on this post to enter to win a signed edition of the book Crown of Serpents!

I know, its been a few weeks since the holiday… now that the christmas trees down, the bits of wrapping paper out of the nooks and the couch, and all the returns of unwanted gifts made, its time to catch up.   With the holidays past and the cold embrace of winter upon us, what better time to catch up with a warm conversation and some reminiscence of what was the Masonic year 2009.

This week on Masonic Central, join us as we go over the highlights (and low lights) of Masonry in 2009 and look ahead at some of the trends that seem to be already charting the course of 2010.

Missed the live show?  Listen now.

Download the podcast.

The show goes live promptly at 9pm EST/6pm PST Sunday evening January 24 and the phone lines will be open for your questions and comments.  I know it will be a lively show, and I hope you can make it!

Call-in Number for the show is (347) 677-0936 – we have a new high capacity for your call-ins, so don’t be shy and call in!

Listen to the show:

Listen to Masonic Central on Blog Talk Radio

Mark Koltko-Rivera on Masonic Central

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lostsymbol

Author Mark Koltko-Rivera joined Masonic Central on Sunday, September 27, 2009, to talk about Dan Brown’s book The Lost Symbol.

With the release of The Lost Symbol, many have had the opportunity to read though the work and see the results of Dan Brown’s non-Masonic contribution to the mythology of the fraternity.  Like his past work, Without a doubt The Lost Symbol is a layered thriller that can be analyzed on many different levels to find a variety of different meanings, not surprisingly, not unlike Freemasonry itself.

This week we welcome Brother Mark Koltko-Rivera, author of the forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol to help us deconstruct some of the underlying ideas of Brown’s book and to look at some of the things that Brown got wrong.  Specifically we plan to look at evidence for an actual Masonic message encoded into Brumidi’s famous fresco, “The Apotheosis of Washington”, a message that it appears Dan Brown missed; the round about source of Brown’s idea about apotheosis (humanity becoming gods), and the Masonic connection to that source; Further, we plan to talk about the psychological underpinnings for Dan Brown’s immense popularity, and the implications that has for both Freemasonry as a whole and individual Freemasons.

The Apotheosis of Washington
The Apotheosis of Washington

Br. Mark Koltko-Rivera is the author of the forthcoming book, Discovering The Lost Symbol: Masons, Magic, Mystery Religions, and the Thought that We Could Become Gods. He holds a doctoral degree in counseling psychology from New York University. He is an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and has been recognized for his scholarship regarding the psychology of world-views, humanistic psychology, and the psychology of religion. Within Freemasonry, Brother Koltko-Rivera is an active member of the Blue Lodge, the Scottish Rite, and the York Rite. His papers on Freemasonry have appeared in The Philalethes, the Scottish Rite Journal, and Heredom. He provided the Masonic content (and the conspiracy fiction) for the recent Wiley publication, Cracking Codes and Cryptograms For Dummies.

A second edition of his Freemasonry: An Introduction should also appear in 2010. He also writes the blogs “Freemasonry: Reality, Myth, and Legend” and “Freemasonry 101.”

Looking for more on The Lost Symbol?

The Lost Symbol – a review
The Lost Symbol – it’s the symbol of the symbolism. – The Masonic Perspective
The Lost Symbol – The Road Best Not Traveled

all seeing eye, masonic eye, eye in the sky, gods eye, occult eye

Masonic Central – What is Freemasonry?

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This show dedicated to talking about the fraternity of Freemasonry, what it is and what it represents.  It is an open line program for your questions, comments, ideas, and theories.  The goal is to talk about the various aspects of the fraternity and what it means to be a member.

Missed the Program?  Listen Now!

or Download

At its heart, Freemasonry is a fraternity of brothers who share common values, who gather to better serve society and improve themselves through their fellowship.  I encourage you to listen to the full program.

Also you can listen to the program live from our home at Masonic Central on Blog Talk Radio and join in with our live program chat, or from our player widget on our website at Freemason Information.

The return of Masonic Central and the “Masonic Baptism”!

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Masonic Baptism by Cliff Porter

After a long summer hiatus, Masonic Central is back and to recommit ourselves to our second year, this weeks show is highly appropriate.

Coming on the program is Brother Cliff Porter to talk with us about his new book “Masonic Baptism – A Post Modern Ritual for an Ancient Craft“.

For some background, Mackey says of the ritual that it is “… simply a lustration or purification by water, a ceremony which was common to all the ancient initiations”.

Missed the LIVE program?  Listen NOW!
or Download

In the present day, the ceremony and ritual are designed to be performed in lodges wishing to baptize children of Masonic families. The ceremony is not a religious function, nor does it compete with the baptisms of the different religions of the world. Rather it is a solemn act of fidelity and a pledge to the children of  Freemasons to signify that they are now a part of a broader community and that they will never be alone.  Br. Porter’s work has brought the ritual back into a modern parlance and reintroduces us to this past practice in a modern era.

Reconnect with Dean and Greg, and travel with them through their summer adventures and this appropriate topic of the Masonic Baptism on this special hour and a half long program on Masonic Central this Sunday, August 16th starting at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT. For your questions and comments to the guest live on the air call: (347) 677-0936 during the program.

Listen to the program live from our home at Masonic Central on Blog Talk Radio and join in with our live program chat, or from our player widget on our website at Freemason Information.

Its good to be back!

Masonic Central on BTR Basics

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Masonic Central can now be found on Blog Talk Radio, but unfortunately with any “new” technology there will be some minor glitches along the way, but rest assured that behind the scenes Dean and Greg are working diligently to give their listeners what they desire. Please feel free to contact either with questions, comments, or concerns.

However, since the user interface is somewhat different at Blog Talk Radio than at TalkShoe, we here at FreemasonInformation would like to provide to our users a tutorial on the basics of listening via the new technology.

You can find Masonic Central on Blog Talk Radio by either entering in http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Masonic-Central in your web browser, typing masonic central in the search feature on the Blog Talk Radio website, or following the link found on FreemasonInformation.

To insert the player into your own site, copy and paste the following code where you want the player to show.

[code]<code language="actionscript">Copy all of the EMBED code below the —– and paste it within the code of your site
—————————————————————————-
<embed src=’http://www.blogtalkradio.com/BTRPlayer.swf?displayheight=&file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2fMasonic-Central%2fplay_list.xml&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded’ width=’210′ height=’105′ type=’application/x-shockwave-flash’ pluginspage=’http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer’ quality=’high’ wmode=’transparent’ menu=’false’></embed>[/code]

Masonic Central Podcast

Masonic Historian Margaret C. Jacob

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masonic central

In this episode of Masonic Central, recorded on March 15, 2009, UCLA Professor Margaret C. Jacob explors with us how she became the eminent scholar of Freemasonry that she is today. In that conversation, we look behind the veil of time to learn from her about the early origins of the craft, its present, and future of Freemasonry. This was a unique opportunity to hear from the top American scholar on the subject, and a program I strongly recommend that you listen to. Give a listen to this 2009 interview with Dr. Jacob and decide for yourself how far Freemasonry has stretched from the armchair historian into scholarly academia.

Some say that history is written by the victors. That triumphs are in fact triumphant, and the losses are only momentary set backs in a progressive path to the eventual story that you read in the history books.

But at times some histories run concurrently with others, and that there isn’t really a victor or vanquished, but instead parallel paths where points merge and blend together. Freemasonry, it would seem, is just one of these histories where its various paths of existence seem to weave in and out of society and with other branches of itself.

pjacob
Dr. Margaret C. Jacob

For many years the fraternity has sprouted its own cadre of story tellers, its own historians.  From Anderson’s early mythologies of its existence, to Yarker and Pike to name only a few, none have ever really stepped out of the box to understand the intricate workings as it relates to society.  Robinson tried to do some justice, as did Ridley in his historical work, but neither brought the study of the Freemasons out of the realm of the speculative and in to academia, at least not in any meaningful way.

It wasn’t until the last decade or two that the study of Freemasonry took on a more meaningful study where today the craft stands at a turning point in the broader study of civil society. At the helm of that change is the scholarship of UCLA professor, Dr. Margaret C. Jacob.

Jacob, at the time of the interview, was one of the eminent scholars of Freemasonry, studying the role of the fraternity looking for its context within the world it inhabited. One of the interesting subjects covered was the Masonic ephemera horde amassed by the Nazis in WWII, and confiscated by Russian allied troops and taken back to Moscow and recovered in the post Cold War era, a topic Jaconb covers in her book Strangers Nowhere in the World.

Masonry still has its arm chair and library historians, but Dr. Jacob has elevated the speculative history of our gentle craft to the hallowed halls of the university, and its from this study that our understanding of the fraternity today has far exceeding beyond what our understanding was of it before.

In the episode we talk about:

You can read more on Dr. Jacob on her UCLA biography.

Works concerning Freemasonry by Dr. Margaret C. Jacob:

Masonic Central Pod-Cast Talk Show

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What is Masonic Central?
Masonic Central if an interview based weekly pod-cast talk show made by Freemasons for Freemasons. It is hosted by Greg Stewart and Dean Kennedy (see below for bios), and is recorded in front of a live audience of brothers and other interested guests. The show is broadcast LIVE on Sunday evenings at 6pm PST, and available afterward for streaming or download. To see a Calendar of upcoming show, visit our show website at MasonicCentral.com.

The show is hosted on a unique website for people to participate in live interactive pod casts called Talkshoe. You can listen along to a live or to a previously recorded program. Hundreds of people can talk and interact live, thousands can listen in by audio streaming and you can download a pod-cast of the recorded show.

The Player Widget.
This widget allows your visitors to be able to listen directly from the site in which it resides, and it provides call in and participation information for our program.

You can use the player on the left of this page. Click the large arrow button to stream the show, or use the pull down arrow to select a past episode of the show to to play NOW on your computer.

Download
You can also Download a copy of the show to play on your MP3 Player or IPod.
To download the show, first go to the shows Talkshoe website.
Halfway down the page look for Past Shows.
Select the show you desire, then click on the download icon.

Also, you can find us on Itunes by doing an Itunes search for Masonic Central and stream the shows on your computer or download to take them with you.

How to participate in a Masonic Central Live Show.
To call into the show when it is live, dial 724-444-7444 And the Talkshoe Call in ID 19162

To participate in a call via phone only, dial +1-724-444-7444 and when prompted, enter the Call ID 19162 followed by #. If prompted for a PIN, enter the 10-digit PIN you selected (typically your phone number), or enter 1# if you don’t know it.

To participate in the studio audience, call 15 minutes prior to the show going “live” which is at the scheduled time of the show.

If you want to join in the chat-room during the show, and appear with your name, you need to create an account on talkshoe, which is very fast and easy. To create a Talkshoe account, go to talkshoe.com and sign up, then follow the link back to our show from the show posting.

How do I participate in a call if I do not have access to P.C. at time of call?
You do not need a computer to call in. To participate in a call via phone only, at the time of the call, dial +1-724-444-7444 and when prompted, enter the Call ID 19162 followed by #. If prompted for a PIN, enter the 10-digit PIN you selected (typically your phone number), or enter 1# if you don’t know it.

Who are the hosts of Masonic Central?
Greg Stewart is the host and editor of Masonic Central. He is a 32nd degree Master Mason form the Grand Lodge of California and is a member of Hollywood Lodge No. 355 in Tarzana California. In addition to Masonic Central, he is the writer of the Masonic Blog Masonic Traveler, and the editor of the Masonic Information site Freemason Information. Outside of the pod-cast, Greg belongs to several Masonic bodies and is active in his lodge as the chair of several committees. Outside of Freemasonry, Greg is a Brand Manager, Graphic Designer, and web developer. He is very passionate about Freemasonry, history, religion, and their contributions to the fraternity.

To contact Greg, you can send him an email at Masonic Traveler

Dean is the co-host and producer of Masonic Central. He is a past master, Shriner and 14th degree Master Mason from the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a proud member of Ad Astra Lodge #130 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As well he owns a blog called Freemason’s Corner. Outside of Masonry Dean is a father of two (three in a month) and a business owner. He is a benefits consultant/insurance broker. When he is done with that he is running his other business, an e-marketing firm.

To contact Dean, you can send him an email at Dean kennedy

Masonic Central Podcast

Tom Accuosti

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Masonic Central podcast

Join Greg and Dean in this episode, originally recorded on July 6th, 2008, as we interview Tom Accuosti author of the Masonic blog the Masonic Tao. Tom takes us back to a Golden Age when blogging about Freemasonry was new, or at least new-ish.

This was a fun conversation and a nice glimpse of Freemasonry from “back in the day.” Tom was always good for a laugh, a jab at the orthodoxy and his fresh insight of Connecticut Freemasonry.

You can hear our newness in the podcast. It’s refreshing.

An early adopter of the Freemasons online world, today Tom spends most of his online masonic time as the moderator for the r/freemasonry subreddit.

We hit all the Masonic highlights:

  • Anti-Masonry
  • Jack Chick Comics
  • What brought Tom into Freemasonry
  • His expectations about joining
  • When and where the deeper meaning go masonry gets discussed
  • And lots more.

We even get into the shrinking ranks of the fraternity and the loss of history at the local lodge level.

More importantly, in the conversation we dig deep into the early days of Freemasonry on the web, many of the message boards we haunted—many of which have long since gone under. Re-listening to the conversation reminded me just how different Freemasonry was in the pre-social world. It makes me think how online masonry is done today “isn’t how we used to do it.”

Tim Bryce and Fred Milliken join in on the conversation, too. Tom has a great wit—I was surprised how many times I caught myself laughing during the conversation. I’m glad I was able to restore and clean this episode up to republish it.

I hope you enjoy it.

And, pardon the ringing phone.

More from Tom Accuosti: The Secret Lesson of Hiram and the Ruffians

Masonic Central Podcast

Masonic Central: John Ratcliff

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Masonic Central podcast

In this episode, Dean and Greg spent some time with John Ratcliff, a Freemason under the Grand Lodge of Missouri. Recorded June 22, 2008, this episode covered several topics relevant to Freemasons including his own personal story into Freemasonry, blogging, books on Freemasonry, esoteric Freemasonry vs. ritual magic, symbolism, the Boy Scouts, and traveling to visit other lodges.

This episode is unique as it features an impromptu candid conversation with a brother about regular life—something lost in the social landscape today.

It was a pretty dense conversation.

Some notable points in the show touched on:

  • Esotericism vs. non-esotericism
  • Why people believe in the “fantastic”
  • John’s philosophy behind the fraternity
  • And what it means for a man to be a “Good Mason.”

John even challenged Greg to define his ideas of the esoteric aspects of Freemasonry.

Masonic Central Podcast

Masonic Central: Brother Tim Bryce

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Masonic Central podcast

In this episode, recorded on June 15, 2008, Greg and Dean are joined by a long-time contributor to Freemason Information, Tim Bryce.

Tim has been a shining light in Freemasonry publishing several Masonic magazines and websites with the goal of spreading the light of Freemasonry. Listening to this episode from more than 10 years ago, it’s interesting to hear it in schema and framework of the current era. One thing that shines through is the passion all involved have for the fraternity.

In this episode we chat about Tim’s masonic journey, balancing work and life, and the bodies of Freemasonry. In particular we talk about the requirement of Blue Lodge membership for entrance into the Shrine.

We also define what “true masonry” means—a squishy term that seems to have a vague definition which Tim clearly articulates an answer to.

Tim’s work in Freemasonry was a huge influence in the formation of this site and efforts to be a candle in the dark on what it means to BE a Freemason.

Together we talk through a number of subjects, including:

  • Communications in Masonic Systems
  • A Nationwide Masonic Congress
  • Recognizing Prince Hall Freemasonry
  • Asking who Governs Freemasonry
  • Visiting other lodges
  • Marketing/Soliciting for membership
  • A state/national masonic press office
  • and much more

Tim is the author of The Freethinking Freemason – Collected Masonic Works of Tim Bryce from Cornerstone publishing. And in the call, Tim mentions the book Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1717-1927 by Jessica Harland-Jacobs.