The 2008 Annual California Masonic Symposium "Freemasonry and Women" was held on August 22nd-23rd at the Brotherhood Masonic Center in San Francisco, and according to Past Master Adam G. Kendall, the Curator of Collections, things went quite well.  The speaker line up included the likes of Dr. John L. Cooper III, Grand Secretary and noted Masonic scholar; Janet Wintermute, Master Mason of the Eastern Order of International Co-Masonry; Ill. Robert G. Davis, author of Understanding Manhood in America: Freemasonry’s Enduring Path to the Mature Masculine.  Those privileged to have been present at the Council of Nine Muses earlier this year in Alexandria, VA will no doubt recall his paper on the role of Masonry and male archetypes in the lives of young men as it brought several hundred people to their feet in standing ovation.  

In speaking to Adam Kendall, he told me that

"The crowd was pretty mellow and all seemed to enjoy themselves. It was engaging.  Bob did a great job on the subject for the keynote speech which brought forth a better honed dimension to the original theme as far as getting the attendees to contemplate Freemasonry’s place in the lives of its initiates, along with highlighting its masculine origins.  We had some members of the Grand Lodge Feminine in attendance.  I was exhausted—having slept on the floor of the meeting room the night before.  Unless I’m actually doing a presentation, me and large crowds do not mix and I tend to hang out in the background.  The crowd that attended the Friday night reception seemed to appreciate the museum and library, along with some of the new displays that went up just that week."

I can vouch for Adam's work ethic as for the last few months, every time I spoke to him after hours...he was still at work preparing for this symposium.  Our hats are off to him and the speakers that day.  It would have been ideal to make it out there to see Janet Wintermute and Bob Davis addressing the same topic from differing angles.  Adam tells me that Jay Kinney (of Gnosis Magazine fame) was also in attendance. We'll have to make sure to get out to the Coil Masonic Museum and check out some of Adam's work.  I've heard nothing but praise for the exhibits.

 I was asked to give an impromptu explanation the other day on the esoteric meanings behind the Royal Arch seal of an upright triple tau encased in a delta within a circle.  I was reminded of the infinite cipher of female knowledge that completes and complements the finite square of male knowledge.  The completion of these two form everything from the Past Master's compass to the Egyptian Ankh, the Celtic Cross and the letter G.  

On my way to the Bohemian Grove's Manhattan cousin, the Players... (home to Mark Twain and the Booth brothers of recent National Treasure fame) I stumbled upon the Steiner headquarters.

  Now, I have spent hours in the Jungian Center's bookstore in Murray Hill.  I've been to all of the Theosophical Society buildings from midtown on up to the geometria on 72nd street's occult ley line, but I have never been aware of this place with its quaint signage.  It interested me mainly because one of the books I am finishing up now (a Christmas present from my wife) is Steiner's Misraim Service.  Sadly, they were closed for some reason.  I'll have to double back at some point.  I then walked past the AMORC lodge's marble exterior in the refined blocks just south of Grammercy Park. 

On my way back from a film shoot at the cathedral next to the Ralph Lauren Mansion, I took time for prayer in St Patrick's Cathedral where I refilled on Holy Water and stood between the shrines of St John the Baptist 

and St John the Evangelist...

I took note of a splendid pelican in its piety upon the door.

In a letter to HVBV date March 4^th 1969, Right Reverend Dr. H.W. Cummings wrote, “Whether we like it or not, we who write about the doings of Freemasons some two centuries ago must remember that all branches of the society have been secretive if not secret in some measure, and in many quarters, completely.  Some records that should have been made never were made others that were made were deliberately destroyed;

and numerous ones were lost.  Now when you combine secrecy with skullduggery you enter a field already over occupied and overpopulated by past artists of imagination with which the literature of Freemasonry is replete.  Let us not add any more."

"The new Master Mason is encouraged, however, to expect the advent of 'that Bright and Morning Star Who brings peace and consolation to the human race."

"The mock secrets will give way to the true arcana and so the mystae will see their way. Here is a survival of the old Christian allusions which once had a place in these Mysteries before they fell under the editorship of Unitarians or Deists." (Arthur Edward Waite & the Rectified Scottish Rite by Trevor Stewart (Past Prestonian Lecturer UGLE) p. 22)

Casanova said on the subject of the "great secret" of Freemasonry, that if you know what it is, don't say anything to anyone, because if they are not smart enough to figure it out themselves, they are not smart enough to understand it even if told by another.

I tend not to think that 'smart' implied pure intellect as it would seem to lean more towards spiritual discernment. I cannot help but be reminded of Dion Fortune's Chapter VI on Hauntings in her occult classic "Psychic Self Defense" where she stated without apology that, "To perceive a 'haunting,' one needs, as a general rule, to be slightly psychic; it is for this reason that children, Celts and the coloured races suffer severely from such interferences, and the stolid Nordic type is comparatively immune."  

As intriguing as I find her observations & perception of racial karma and its astral capacity, the point here that strikes me as being relevant is that there are indeed variations in spiritual perception, sensory skill and discernment (being a natural ability that may be perfected with practice).  Just as there are various kinds of intelligence that one might be born with, there appears to be a great variance in people's ability to resonate with spiritual concepts or experience spiritual phenomena.  As the substance of the Craft of building that house not made with hands is undoubtedly spiritual in essence, to properly build one must be a receptive vessel for Divine Inspiration.  This is not possible with dismissive and narrow outlooks. 

Mystics successful in their life’s journey often come to an epiphany early on in their youth where they realize that the reactionary doubt that can arise in reaction to a notion or tale of the Supernatural shared by a fellow man is something to be subdued as it is the very restraint that keeps a profane man from insight into the little known sciences and realities of the unseen.  The subjacation of such a flaw in the Mystic’s character goes hand in hand with the Masonic Art were we develop the Listening Ear which itself works quite well with the Silent Tongue.