‘Living in the Know’

     
I always recommend the School of Practical Philosophy for both its coursework and its special lectures, and, if you don’t believe me, make time June 3 to enjoy a lecture on Plato. No previous knowledge of the philosopher or his books is required; the talk will give you an appetite for them. From the publicity:

Plato’s Divided Line: a How-To Guide

A talk by Preethi Gopinath

Saturday, June 3 at 7 p.m.

School of Practical Philosophy

12 East 79th Street, Manhattan

$25 tickets here

The Divided Line, which appears in Book VI of Plato’s Republic, is a simple yet magnificent illustration of the various levels of knowledge, indicated as sections on a straight line. This elegant structure provides us with a guide for conscious seeing and learning, enabling us to uncover what and how we know anything.

Plato divides the world into the Realm of the Senses which is ever-changing, and the Intelligible Realm which is constant. He presents these Realms as existing on two sides of a divided line:

• The Visible World of opinion and belief, lit by the Sun, perceived by the senses.
• The Intelligible World of knowledge and understanding, authored by the Good, realized by the faculty of reason.

Join us for this presentation as we walk the line from the dark shadows into the light of the Good. Through the process of studying Plato’s Divided Line, we will find answers to some big questions:

• What do we know?
• Is it knowledge, or is it opinion?
• Is it true?
• How do we know?

And further, discover how we can use our understanding of the Divided Line to make our way to the Good in our own daily living.
     

‘Celebrate 15 years of OHNY at Masonic Hall’

     

Open House New York is an annual city-wide event in which hundreds of landmarks and other notable properties are made open to the public—or made more open than is usual—so the curious may enjoy tours highlighting architecture, art, décor, and history. Masonic Hall, featuring all the above in abundance, is a generous participant, and it will be there that OHNY will throw its Spring Benefit later this month. From the publicity:

Open House New York

15th Anniversary Spring Benefit

Monday, May 15 at 7 p.m.

Masonic Hall

71 West 23rd Street

Manhattan

Tickets here

Since 2003, Open House New York Weekend has opened thousands of buildings across New York City to educate and engage the public about architecture, urban design, and the future of the city.

The 15th Anniversary Spring Benefit will be held in the legendary Masonic Hall, one of a handful of sites that has opened its doors for OHNY Weekend every year since the first. Following cocktails in the Grand Lodge Room, guests will sit down to dinner in one of several exuberantly decorated rooms that Open House New York will open for the evening.

Please join us in celebrating the importance of openness and access to a vibrant civic life.

Click to enlarge.

How many rooms in Masonic Hall can you identify from the little images in the background?

Open House New York is the second city, following London, of what has become a worldwide movement to engage a broad public in a conversation about architecture, public space, and the future of urban life. Open House London was founded by Victoria Thornton in 1992. Thornton’s motivation was a simple one: open to the public the buildings that Londoners walk past everyday and in doing so foster a greater appreciation of the built environment. The Open House model was transferred to New York City in 2001 by OHNY founder Scott Lauer, a volunteer for Open House London before returning to his native United States. Taking shape in the months and years immediately following September 11, 2001, OHNY became an important platform for celebrating New York at a critical moment in its history. At a time when much of the city was closing itself off through increased security measures, OHNY offered a countervailing force, one that advocated for openness and access as key components of an enlightened and vibrant civic life. There are now more than thirty Open House cities around the world, ranging from Tel Aviv to Barcelona to Melbourne. Each Open House city is run as an independent organization but all adhere to a shared set of values and ideals.
The first Open House New York Weekend was held in 2003 as part of the city’s first Architecture Week. With the help of three hundred volunteers, the first OHNY Weekend included 84 sites in all five boroughs. Since the inaugural year, the event has grown exponentially, increasing its outreach and audience participation; the number of sites, talks and tours; and developing additional thematic and interpretive programming. The 2015 OHNY Weekend had more than 250 participating sites and tours with an estimated 80,000 visitors and more than 1,200 registered volunteers.

In addition to OHNY Weekend, Open House New York organizes year-round programs that extend the conversation that begins during the two days of the Weekend. Programs include the Projects in Planning lecture series, which explores the design process and unique challenges involved with designing and building large-scale projects in the contemporary city; the Field Guide series, in which a variety of architecturally and culturally significant sites in one neighborhood welcome visitors over the course of a Saturday afternoon to explore how different uses of space work in concert to create a sense of place and local identity; and the ongoing Urban Systems Series, year-long thematic programs that explore important issues in New York City’s built environment, from manufacturing, to food, to waste. Open House New York’s year-round programs are a significant platform for fostering discussion about how the city might take shape in the years ahead, and address issues including planning, preservation, infrastructure, and contemporary design.
     

‘The wise man knows himself to be a fool’

     
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

Touchstone in As You Like It
William Shakespeare
1599


The visual medium of the tarot deck, laden with lessons in symbols, could be an ideal way to unpack the varied meanings intertwined in the plots and dialog of William Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies. This Shakespeare Tarot might be proof.

This is not the first attempt to marry Shakespearean meanings with the voice of tarot cards, but I want to share the news of the publication of this deck because the art created here is arresting for its fascinating (but sometimes a little too busy) Renaissance-style imagery.

Click the images to enlarge.

Touchstone, Page of Crowns.

Ace of Cups.

Edmund, 5 of Swords.

Malvolio, 4 of Crowns.

Ophelia, 9 of Swords.

Othello, The Devil.

Richard II, 2 of Staffs.

Virgin Queen, High Priestess.

Designed by Chris Leech and published by Welkin, this 78-card deck has the 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor, and there is an explanatory book available to decode it all. The cards measure 5.75 x 3.5 inches, bigger than typical decks.

The deck can be purchased for $50; the key also costs $50; but they can be bought together for $75 by clicking here. As far as I can tell, it is due out in July.

Read the content of the website and peruse all the cards. There is a passion here I can admire.
     

‘Piers Vaughan at the Valley’

     
The flier says it all, but take note of the “open to Master Masons” part.

Click to enlarge.

     

‘Traveling Man Bluegrass Festival next month’

     

The lodges of the Ninth Manhattan District will be back at German Masonic Park to host its Sixth Annual Traveling Man Bluegrass Festival, with five new acts to perform all afternoon on Sunday, June 11. The park is located at 89 Western Highway in Tappan, New York, and is owned and operated by the Ninth Manhattan, which is home to New York City’s historic German heritage lodges.

This year, the brethren are promising additional attractions, like a classic car show, vendors, Shriner clowns, and that child ID thing.

Admission: $15 at the gate, or $10 in advance here. Children 12 and under admitted free. Gates open at 11 a.m., and the music starts at 1 p.m. (Music Workshop at noon.) Lots of free parking. Food and drink, including beer and wine, for sale in the park.

The bands slated to perform are:

RJ Storm and the Old School




Blue Plate Special




Feinberg Brothers




Jim Gaudet & Railroad Boys




Pork Chop Willie




It’s always a fun time. If you don’t know bluegrass music, or think you won’t enjoy it, you’re probably wrong. Bluegrass is heard best when heard live, so check it out. Proceeds go to several charities.
     

‘Moments of Vision’

     

Magpie file photo

Eighteenth century French engraving depicting First Degree ritual on display at the Livingston Library in Masonic Hall.

On Friday, Garibaldi Lodge 542 will meet in the Grand Lodge Room to confer its famous Entered Apprentice Degree. This is the French Rite ritual, entrusted to Garibaldi by l’Union Française Lodge 17, that Garibaldi works in Italian. It is heavy with alchemical and Rosicrucian meanings that one would expect in a European Masonic initiation, and near the end of the ceremony, the Youngest Entered Apprentice has thrust upon him a jolting moment of clarity.

Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. Launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, the celebration highlights the importance of poetry to us all by reading, by honoring poets past and present, by sharing books of poems, and by organizing support for poets and poetry. With this in mind, here is a great from 100 years ago.

Moments of Vision

Thomas Hardy

That mirror
     Which makes of men a transparency,
     Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bared spectacle to see
     Of you and me?
     That mirror
  Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
     Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
     Until we start?
     That mirror
   Works well in these night hours of ache;
     Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
     When the world is awake?
     That mirror
   Can test each mortal when unaware;
     Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
     Reflecting it—where?
     

‘Assorted Saturday stuff’

     
Here are a few things worth reading, if you’re not outdoors enjoying this beautiful spring day.

Courtesy GLNY

Ms. Catherine Walker, curator of the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library of the Grand Lodge of New York, has a featured page on Grand Lodge’s website where artifacts and other treasures are highlighted. A few days ago, she shared the Benjamin Franklin Miniature Gold-and-Ivory Trowel.

Read all about it here.


Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. government’s decision to provide the Temple of Dendur to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A gift from Egypt to the United States, this sandstone temple is on display in the Sackler Wing, just outside the Egyptian Art room. (Actually, Sackler is closed at the moment, but will reopen May 4.)

It was built in the first century BCE, about 900 years after KST, and it features architecture, décor, and other characteristics that would interest a Freemason. Go check it out, and you can read more here.

Courtesy The Met

And speaking of ancient Egypt, what do you suppose is the world’s oldest language?

Archaeologist Douglas Petrovich says it’s Hebrew.

In his first book, The World’s Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-Consonantal Script, Dr. Petrovich shows Israelites in Egypt took 22 ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to create the Hebrew alphabet more than 3,800 years ago.


RW Bill Maurer, a historian of some renown in Masonic and local circles, posted on his Facebook page several days ago something cool he found in the February 1786 edition of The Country magazine, namely a list of “New Masonic Toasts.” (Even Shawn Eyer was impressed!) They are:

1. May universal Masonry be the only universal Monarchy, and reign triumphant in the hearts of the worthy.
2. May the Members of Administration be all Masons, that they may act on the square with the people, and keep the tones within compass.
3. May nothing but the charms of beauty bring down the perpendicular uprightness of a Mason.
4. May the tongue of every Mason be the key of his heart; may it ever hang in just equilibrium, and never be suffered to lie to injure a brother.
5. May every Mason’s heart have the ardency of charcoal and the freedom of chalk, but not the coldness or hardness of marble when the distresses of a brother claim assistance.
6. The square in conduct, the level in condition, the plumb-line in rectitude, and the compost in prudence, to all Masons.
7. The glorious memory of the three Grand Masters, and may every Mason imitate the wisdom of the first, the friendship of the second, and the fidelity and skill of the third.
8. The splendor of the East, the repose of the South, and the solidity of the West, to every regular Lodge of free and accepted Masons.
9. May the fragrance of a good report, like a sprig of cassia, bloom over the head of every departed brother.
10. Our Sisters — May they have as much reason to admire our wisdom, as the Queen of Sheba did that of our Grand Master Solomon.
11. May we be entered apprentices to beauty, and fellow crafts in love, but still masters of our passions.
12. May wisdom contrive our happiness, strength support our virtuous resolutions, and beauty adorn our beds.
13. May the rays of celestial light pierce through the veil of ignorance, and perseverance remove the key-stone that covers truth.
14. May the Royal Arch cover every honest Mason’s heart, and the glory of the first temple overshadow all, who act up to the true principles of Masonry.


And, in closing, while I’m definitely thankful for you reading The Magpie Mason, there is great wisdom in digital detox. Read “Are You a Digital Hoarder?” from headspace.
     

‘Freemasonry in Cuba’

     
There’s no escaping this on social media today. Definitely stay for the Festive Board, but you must buy tickets in advance.

Click to enlarge.

     

‘Gurdjieff sacred dances to return to New York’

     
And now for something completely different: Gurdjieff Movements will be staged in New York City for the first time in a long time. From the publicity:

Gurdjieff Sacred Dances

and Exercises

Sunday, May 21

Noon, 3:30 & 7:30 p.m.

Miller Theatre at Columbia University

2960 Broadway

Tickets: $20-$25 here

These dances, called “Movements,” are practiced as part of the spiritual teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff. Based on ritual dances from ancient traditions, they are a personal study for self-knowledge requiring many years of work to execute as intended.

This is the first public presentation by the New York Gurdjieff Foundation in more than 55 years—a rare opportunity to witness the beauty of Gurdjieff’s exercises as a search for conscious movement.
     

‘Jolly good show’

     
Inside the Freemasons, the Sky TV five-part documentary series being presented to television viewers in Britain on Monday nights, is available on YouTube unexpectedly. YouTuber Stewart Charlesworth promises to upload each episode after it is broadcast on television.

These films reveal a little too much, if you ask me. There are snippets of ritual that I wouldn’t think the Grand Lodge would have permitted, but there they are.

Part One, broadcast last Monday:




Part Two, from Monday:


     

‘Live deep and suck out the marrow of life’

     
July 12 will bring the 200th anniversary of the birth of Henry David Thoreau, a seminal figure, to say the least, in American letters and thinking. The School of Practical Philosophy will mark this bicentenary with a morning of reading and study next month. From the publicity:

Thoreau Bicentennial Celebration

Study Day

Sunday, May 21

8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

School of Practical Philosophy

12 East 79th Street, Manhattan

Henry David Thoreau’s life embodies the Transcendental vision of self-reliance and a love of freedom. His great experiment at Walden Pond was focused on living simply and deliberately. His example teaches us to crave reality by embracing the present and to follow the voice of conscience. From Walden:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

Come and join us in celebrating this great American philosopher whose influence powerfully shaped the 20th century through the work of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Discover how relevant his ideals are today.

We will explore selected passages from his master work Walden, and sections from “Civil Disobedience.” All are welcome. No prior study of Thoreau is required.

8:30 a.m. - Sign in/coffee available
9 a.m. - Brief History and Introduction, followed by two study sessions in small groups
Fee: $30 (includes a light brunch and printed material)

To register, click here. Special Events tend to sell out quickly, so it is suggested that you register well in advance to secure a seat.
     

‘Parallel Universes and Eternal Life’

     
Maryland Masonic Research Society will meet in a few weeks for another luncheon-lecture that makes me wish I didn’t live so far away. From the publicity:

Parallel Universes

and Eternal Life

Presented by John Maclay

Saturday, May 6 at noon

Silver Spring Lodge 215

410 University Blvd., West

Silver Spring, Maryland

One of the 25 Landmarks of Masonry says “every Mason must believe in a resurrection to a future life.” Scientists are now convinced that there are parallel universes. Is it possible that a future or eternal life exists there? And how might a transition to it occur?

John Maclay is a Past President of Maryland Masonic Research Society, a Past Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Maryland, a Past Master of two lodges, a Past Grand Inspector, and a past presiding officer of five other Masonic bodies.

Lunch at noon. Meeting and presentation at 1 p.m. $20 per person, payable at the door. Please RSVP to the Secretary by Wednesday, May 3. We look forward to having you attend.
     

‘Book report: titles coming this fall’

     
Inner Traditions/Bear & Co., “one of the largest and oldest publishing houses in the world devoted exclusively to the subjects of spirituality, the occult, ancient mysteries, new science, holistic health, and natural medicine,” will release a number of titles in those subjects later this year, including several of interest to Magpie readers. I’ll highlight a few very subjectively.

American Freemasonry: Its Revolutionary History and Challenging Future, the latest from Alain de Keghel of the Grand Orient of France, is due in September. (I had the pleasure of meeting him at Masonic Hall a few years ago.) The man knows his business, and with forwards by Art de Hoyos and Margaret Jacob, this sounds like a winner I look forward to reading. From the publicity:

American Freemasonry: Its Revolutionary History and Challenging Future explores the American Masonic system and its strengths and failings.

• Examines the history of Freemasonry in the United States from the colonial era and the Revolutionary War to the rise of the Scottish branch onward.
• Investigates the racial split in American Freemasonry between black lodges and white and how, unlike French lodges, women are ineligible to become Masons in the United States.
• Reveals the factors that have resulted in shrinking Masonic enrollment in America and explores the revitalization work done by the Grand Lodge of California.

Freemasonry bears the imprint of the society in which it exists, and Freemasonry in North America is no exception. While keeping close ties to French lodges until 1913, American Freemasonry was also deeply influenced by the experiences of many early American political leaders, leading to distinctive differences from European lodges.

Offering an unobstructed view of the American system and its strengths and failings, Alain de Keghel, an elder of the Grand Orient de France and, since 1999, a lifetime member of the Scottish Rite Research Society (Southern Jurisdiction), examines the history of Freemasonry in the United States from the colonial era to the Revolutionary War to the rise of the Scottish branch onward. He reveals the special relationship between the French Masonic hero, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Founding Fathers, especially George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, including French Freemasonry’s role in the American Revolution. He also explores Franklin’s Masonic membership, including how he was Elder of the lodge of the Nine Sisters in Paris.

The author investigates the racial split in American Freemasonry between black lodges and white and how, unlike French lodges, women are ineligible to become Masons in the U.S. He examines how American Freemasonry has remained deeply religious across the centuries and forbids discussion of religious or social issues in its lodges, unlike some branches of French Freemasonry, which removed belief in God as a prerequisite for membership in 1877 and whose lodges operate in some respects as philosophical debating societies. Revealing the factors that have resulted in shrinking Masonic enrollment in America, the author explores the revitalization work done by the Grand Lodge of California and sounds the call to make Freemasonry and its principles relevant to America once again.


Coming in December will be another hefty study (704 pages!) on one Aleister Crowley by the great Tobias Churton. I cannot say Crowley is a subject that interests me—I admit to carrying a prejudice that I can’t quite articulate and probably won’t shed—but Crowley’s story as rendered by Churton entices even the reluctant reader. Read the publisher’s synopsis, and see if you can resist:

Aleister Crowley in America: Art, Espionage, and Sex Magick in the New World is an exploration of Crowley’s relationship with the United States.

• Details Crowley’s travels, passions, literary and artistic endeavors, sex magick, and psychedelic experimentation.
• Investigates Crowley’s undercover intelligence adventures that actively promoted U.S. involvement in WW I.
• Includes an abundance of previously unpublished letters and diaries.

Occultist, magician, poet, painter, and writer Aleister Crowley’s three sojourns in America sealed both his notoriety and his lasting influence. Using previously unpublished diaries and letters, Tobias Churton traces Crowley’s extensive travels through America and his quest to implant a new magical and spiritual consciousness in the United States, while working to undermine Germany’s propaganda campaign to keep the United States out of World War I.

Masterfully recreating turn-of-the-century America in all its startling strangeness, Churton explains how Crowley arrived in New York amid dramatic circumstances in 1900. After other travels, in 1914 Crowley returned to the U.S. and stayed for five years: turbulent years that changed him, the world, and the face of occultism forever. Diving deeply into Crowley’s five-year stay, we meet artists, writers, spies, and government agents as we uncover Crowley’s complex work for British and U.S. intelligence agencies. Exploring Crowley’s involvement with the birth of the Greenwich Village radical art scene, we discover his relations with writers Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser and artists John Butler Yeats, Leon Engers Kennedy, and Robert Winthrop Chanler while living and lecturing on now-vanished “Genius Row.” We experience his love affairs and share Crowley’s hard times in New Orleans and his return to health, magical dynamism, and the most colorful sex life in America. We examine his controversial political stunts, his role in the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania, his making of the “Elixir of Life” in 1915, his psychedelic experimentation, his prolific literary achievements, and his run-in with Detroit Freemasonry. We also witness Crowley’s influence on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and rocket fuel genius Jack Parsons. We learn why J. Edgar Hoover wouldn’t let Crowley back in the country and why the FBI raided Crowley’s organization in LA.

Offering a 20th century history of the occult movement in the United States, Churton shows how Crowley’s U.S. visits laid the groundwork for the establishment of his syncretic “religion” of Thelema and the now flourishing OTO, as well as how Crowley’s final wish was to have his ashes scattered in the Hamptons.


My own interest in Knights Templar, both the medieval and neo varieties, is kaput, but I might check out Freddy Silva’s First Templar Nation: How Eleven Knights Created a New Country and a Refuge for the Grail, coming in November. From the publicity:

First Templar Nation overturns the long-established historical narrative about the origins and purpose of the Knights Templar.

• Explains how and why the Templars created Europe’s first nation-state, Portugal, with one of their own as king.
• Reveals the Portuguese roots of key founding members, their relationship with the Order of Sion, the Templars’ devotion to Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, and the meaning and exact location of the Grail.
• Provides evidence of Templar holy sites and hidden chambers throughout Portugal.
• Includes over 700 references, many from new and rare sources.

Conventional history claims that nine men formed a brotherhood called the Knights Templar in Jerusalem in 1118 to provide protection for pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Overturning this long-established historical narrative, Freddy Silva shows that the Order of the Temple existed a decade earlier on the opposite side of Europe, that the protection of pilgrims was entrusted to a separate organization, and that, in league with the Cistercian monks and the equally mysterious Order of Sion, the Templars executed one of history’s most daring and covert plans: the creation of Europe’s first nation-state, Portugal, with one of their own as king.

Including over 700 references, many from new and rare sources, Silva reveals Portugal, not Jerusalem, as the first Templar stronghold. He shows how there were eleven founding members and how the first king of Portugal, a secret Templar, was related to Bernard de Clairvaux, head of the Cistercians. The author explains the Templars’ motivation to create a country far from the grasp of Rome, where they could conduct their living resurrection initiation—whose candidates were declared “risen from the dead”—a secret for which the Church silenced millions and which the Templars protected to the death.

Placing the intrepid Knights in a previously unknown time and place, Silva’s historical narrative reveals the Portuguese roots of key founding members, their relationship with the Order of Sion, the Templars’ unshakeable devotion to Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, and how they protected a holy bloodline in Portugal. He also provides evidence of secret Templar holy sites, initiation chambers, and hidden passageways throughout Portugal, often coinciding with pagan and Neolithic temples, and explains how their most important site forms a perfect triangle with the Abbey of Mont Sion in Jerusalem and the Osirion temple in Egypt. The author also reappraises the meaning of the Grail and reveals its exact location, hidden in plain sight to this very day.

Freddy Silva is a leading researcher of alternative history, ancient knowledge, sacred sites, and the interaction between temples and consciousness. He has appeared on Discovery Channel, BBC, and Coast to Coast AM radio. He is the author of five books and lives in Portland, Maine.


The Metaphysical World of Isaac Newton: Alchemy, Prophecy, and the Search for Lost Knowledge by John Chambers, due next February, recounts “Newton’s heretical, yet equation-incisive, writings on theology, spirituality, alchemy, and prophecy, written in secret alongside his Principia Mathematica.” From the publicity (mention of the Flood brings to mind Antediluvian Freemasonry):

The Metaphysical World of Isaac Newton shows how Newton’s brilliance extended far beyond math and science into alchemy, spirituality, prophecy, and the search for lost continents such as Atlantis.

• Explains how he was seeking to rediscover the one true religion that existed prior to the Flood of Noah, when science and spirituality were one.
• Examines Newton’s alternate timeline of prehistory and his study of prophecy through the Book of Revelations, including his prediction of Apocalypse in the year 2060.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727) is still regarded by the world as the greatest scientist who ever lived. He invented calculus, discovered the binomial theorem, explained the rainbow, built the first reflecting telescope, and explained the force of gravity. In his famous masterpiece, Principia Mathematica, he described the mechanics of the physical universe with unimagined precision, proving the cosmos was put together according to laws. The perfection of these laws implied a perfect legislator. To Newton, they were proof that God existed.

At the same time Newton was writing Principia Mathematica, he was writing a twin volume that he might have called, had it been completed, Principia Theologia—Principles of Theology. This other masterpiece of Newton, kept secret because of the heresies it contained, consists of thousands of essays providing equation-incisive answers to the spiritual questions that have plagued mankind through the ages. Examining Newton’s secret writings, John Chambers shows how his brilliance extended into alchemy, spirituality, the search for lost continents such as Atlantis, and a quest to uncover the “corrupted texts” that were rife in the Bibles of his time. Although he was a devout Christian, Newton’s work on the Bible was focused not on restoring the original Jewish and Christian texts but on rediscovering the one true religion that existed prior to the Flood of Noah, when science and spirituality were one.

The author shows that a single thread runs through Newton’s metaphysical explorations: He is attempting to chart the descent of man’s soul from perfection to the present day. The author also examines Newton’s alternate timeline of ancient history and his study of prophecy through the Book of Revelation, including his prediction of an Apocalypse in the year 2060 followed by a radically transformed world. He shows that Newton’s great hope was that these writings would provide a moral compass for humanity as it embarked upon the great enterprise that became our technological world.

John Chambers is the author of Victor Hugo’s Conversations with the Spirit World and The Secret Life of Genius. He has contributed essays to Forbidden Religion: Suppressed Heresies of the West. He lives in Redding, California.


Gotta go. Ranger game.
     

‘Next Friday: seems like old times’

     
It’s that time of year. Already.

On April 30, 1789, Bro. George Washington, America’s most famous Freemason—a title he retains to this day!—was inaugurated as his country’s first president in a ceremony at Federal Hall on Wall Street. Next Friday, a group of New York Masons will host their annual re-enactment of that historical event, right where it happened 228 years ago. From the publicity:

Re-enactment

of George Washington’s

Inauguration as First President

of the United States

Friday, April 28 at 11 a.m.

Federal Hall National Memorial

26 Wall Street, Manhattan

The George Washington Inauguration Reenactment Committee requests the pleasure of your company at the annual re-enactment. 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with the ceremony at 11:30 sharp.

The Most Worshipful Jeffrey M. Williamson, Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York, will be in attendance, accompanied by his Grand Line. A true replica of the Bible upon which our First President took his Oath of Office will be on display during the event, courtesy of St. John’s Lodge No. 1, AYM.

Take a lunch break and join your brethren in commemorating our Founding Fathers. Federal Hall is providing us with a hospitality room where we will serve sandwiches, side dishes, refreshments, coffee, and cookies immediately after the event.

Please forward this notice to your brothers throughout the jurisdiction, we would love to pack the Hall.


Did Bro. Washington improvise the “So help me God” at the end of his oath? Read all about it here.
     

‘In Thy light shall we see light’

     

The title of this edition of The Magpie Mason derives from Psalm 36, and it is the motto of Columbia University, the elder of the two Ivy League institutions located in New York State. Columbia is in the Masonic news today thanks to the effort being undertaken to establish a Masonic lodge with a relationship to the university. I told you about Illumination Lodge last month, and now Grand Lodge’s Fraternity on Campus Committee is seeking brethren to create Morningside Alma Mater Lodge 1754.

Morningside Heights is the area of Manhattan where the university is located, and 1754 is the year when the institution was founded as King’s College. Bro. Misha from Old No. 2 is leading this effort. From the publicity:


Some of you may be aware that, at our last Grand Lodge session, a motion was passed to lower the admission age to 18. Since then, the Grand Master has formed the Fraternity on Campus Committee, which was tasked with establishing lodges to be dedicated to serving institutions of higher learning in New York State, identifying young men who are interested in Freemasonry, and facilitating a safe environment for them to learn and grow beyond the university setting. After months of meetings and planning, the committee has approved moving forward with the petition to establish a lodge serving the Columbia University community, comprising students, alumni, faculty, and staff of Columbia’s degree-granting faculties.

This is a call to all brothers who wish to support this historic initiative as founding members of this lodge, which will be named Morningside Alma Mater Lodge. It is also a call for members of the Craft in New York and beyond to propose eligible men to be considered for admission into Morningside Alma Mater.

Please make your interest in joining and/or your ideas about possible new petitioners by email here.

I don’t know if anyone on the 17th floor reads this website, but I am free to organize a group to work on Perstare et Praestare Lodge 1831. Or maybe Washington Square Lodge 1831.

I love being part of a Grand Lodge that makes Freemasonry so significant in so many ways!