‘Esoteric Grand Central’

     
Obscura Society New York wants you to take a walk. With author Mitch Horowitz. Through Grand Central Terminal to see the esoteric clues in its design and décor.

Magpie file photo

Mercury atop Grand Central Terminal.

The New York chapter of the Atlas Obscura Society, a group that unites those who are curious enough about cultural oddities and occult landmarks to actually visit and tour them, has a 90-minute walking tour of Grand Central Terminal planned for next month. From the publicity:

Occult Grand Central

Friday, October 10

Noon to 1:30

$60 per person

Meet at 11:50 on the southeast corner

of Park Avenue and East 41st Street

Every day thousands of travelers gaze in wonder at Grand Central Terminal’s vast zodiac ceiling and the figure of Mercury towering over Park Avenue, but few ever grasp their true significance.

After this tour you’ll understand the real meaning behind these and other cornerstones of Grand Central’s design. Indeed, this crowning edifice of the Beaux-Arts architectural movement can only be fully understood by appreciating the occult themes encrypted within its appearance.

In this lively and intellectually substantive journey, writer and historian Mitch Horowitz, whose occult walking tours have been called a “can’t-miss event” by Time Out, reveals the esoteric imagery and backstory of Grand Central’s design, including the station’s colossal exterior monuments, its interior symbols and insignias, and how its appearance shaped the gothic look and feel of midtown Manhattan. The tour also features wonderful stories of the Vanderbilt family, who oversaw the making of Grand Central, and explores the occult atmosphere of the late Victorian and Edwardian age.

Magpie file photo

Mitch Horowitz at Quest,
January 2014.

Horowitz, a modern day, nonfiction Rod Serling, has a passion for mysteries surpassed only by his desire to uncover the truth. Mitch is a PEN Award-winning historian and an acclaimed writer and speaker on alternative spirituality. The Washington Post says Mitch “treats esoteric ideas and movements with an even-handed intellectual studiousness that is too often lost in today’s raised-voice discussions.” Mitch has written on everything from the war on witches to the secret life of Ronald Reagan for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Salon, CNN.com, Time.com, and Boing Boing. He has discussed esoteric spirituality on CBS Sunday Morning, Dateline NBC, NPR’s All Things Considered, The Montel Williams Show, Coast to Coast AM, and virtually every cable network. Mitch is the author of Occult America and One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life, and is vice president and editor-in-chief at Tarcher/Penguin.
     

‘Number 9’

    
Issue No. 9 of The Journal of the Masonic Society is in the mail to Society members now.

Contents include:

“The Way Less Traveled” – Stephen M. Osborn on some of the intangibles of Masonry.

“A Possible Cabalistic Explanation for the Point within a Circle” by Leon Zeldis.

“Down the Path of Proper Research” – President Michael R. Poll on the benefits of solid scholarship, and the perils of the alternative.

“Our Esoteric Odyssey: How We Resurrected a Long-Lost, 220-Year-Old Masonic Oddity” – a literary labor of love by Randy Williams and Stephen Dafoe.

“A Trip to Cuba: One Man’s View of a Masonic Journey” by Gerald Connally, who went with his lodge brethren to Cuba on a humanitarian mission... only to become honorees in a historic fraternal celebration.

“Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler at Etoile Polaire Lodge No. 1” – Let the good times roll! The Masonic Society at Polar Star Lodge by Marc H. Conrad.

“Masonry in the Mountains: 2010 Masonic Spring Workshop in Kananaskis, Alberta” – Reportage by Editor Randy Williams.

“Alchemy and the First Degree of Freemasonry” – A take on symbolism by Donald J. Tansey.

“Hallowed Halls” – Poetry by Jason E. Marshall.

“The George Washington Masonic Memorial Freemasons’ White House Stones Exhibit” – News from Alexandria by Mark A. Tabbert.

“Cryptic Council of Research” – A York Rite variation of the research lodge model by Jonathan Horvath.

Plus:

President’s Message: “Come on Down and Find Out” – Michael Poll on the great city of New Orleans, where the Society will host its Semi-Annual Meeting, September 24-25.

From the Editor: “Tooting Masonry’s Vuvuzela” – Editor-in-Chief Christopher Hodapp on why the Masonic Order should be clear about its own identity... and not be bashful about it.

Book Reviews:

The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners For The Modern Man, by Brett and Kate McKay.

Haunted Chambers: The Lives of Early Women Freemasons by Karen Kidd.

Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions by Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney.

AND!

Masonic Treasures: Mendocino Lodge No. 179’s Past Master Jewel from 1868, and:

News of the Society

Conferences, Speeches, Symposia & Gatherings

Masonic News from around the world

...and Old Masters Scotch Whisky.

The cover shows “Silence,” by Beaux-Arts sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, located at the Grand Lodge of New York’s Tompkins Chapel in Utica. (Photo by Christopher L. Hodapp.)

Membership in The Masonic Society costs $39 per year, and I promise it will be the best 39 bucks you’ll spend in Masonry.