The day began early with throngs of people lined up for the art showing at noon.  There were vendors of rare European Heraldic and Masonic jewelry, books on Hermeticism, art prints, and more.  By the time 2 PM rolled around, the Egyptian Temple Room was packed with people from all walks of life (many making the trek from England, Portugal, Spain, France, and from states as far away as Kentucky, Missouri and Maine.  Additional chairs had to be extracted from other floors in the building to accommodate the crowd.  Rose Circle President Piers A. Vaughan delivered his expert lecture & artistically crafted slide presentation on Alchemy from the perspective of its historic origins, its relationship with the early Christian Church, the builders of cathedrals, the Masonic Lodge and the practical application of the principles of transmutation within the spiritual arena.  David Lindez delivered his grounding historical lecture on the history of the SRICF, and R.A. Gilbert (noted for his highly critical and cynical take on things) delivered what was a ground breaking report of academic, technical research in climactic fashion, showing his hand for perhaps the first time in the public realm as a practicing esotericist himself.  Those who have only skimmed a few google results of his hundreds of books and journal  articles, have for years now referred to Gilbert as the primary critic of fantasists, unscholarly masonic research, the occult, Waite, and magical orders.  Near the end of this presentation, coupled with slides of never before seen images from Waite's own collection, Gilbert began to propose some of his own subjective approaches to understanding images and distinguishing between those which work effectively and come alive and those which fail.  All along, he was careful to assert certain guidelines, providing heaps of evidence and pointing to documents such as the Fama in citing that once one moves away from the Trinitarian Christian approach to this ascent up the Tree of Life, it ceases to be Rosicrucian.  The dialogue and discourse to be had in the Q&A session was at times heated with the intensity of great zeal, but it was tempered by our Moderator, Mr. Robert Morton, a retired US Marine and CEO of Mortonbooks Publishers.  Afterwards, R.A. Gilbert was presented with his Certificate as a Fellow of the Rose Circle Research Society.

Christopher McIntosh

Christopher McIntosh was born in England in 1943 and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and German at London University, later returning to Oxford to take a doctorate in history with a dissertation on the Rosicrucian revival in the context of the German Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. After working in London in journalism and publishing he spent four years in New York as an information officer with the United Nations Development Programme, then moved to Germany to work for UNESCO. In parallel he has pursued a career as a writer and researcher specialising in the esoteric traditions. His books include The Astrologers and their Creed (1969); Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival (1972); The Rosicrucians (latest edition 1997); The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (1992), based on his D.Phil. dissertation; The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria (latest edition 2003); and Gardens of the Gods (2005). His fictional work includes the occult novel Return of the Tetrad published in Czech as Navrat Tetradi (1998). He also has a long-standing interest in nature-oriented belief systems. He has lectured widely and is on the faculty of the distance M.A. programme in Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter, England. His home is in Bremen, North Germany. Mr McIntosh is a long-standing member of the Pilgrim Lodge No. 238, London. This is a very unusual lodge in that it was founded in 1779 by Germans living in London and still conducts its rituals in German. It also uses an unusual German working different from the regular English Emulation working.

Dr. Raphael Ortiz was the founder and first director of the El Museo Del Barrio on 5th Avenue & 93rd St. in New York in 1969. His sculptures are included in many museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he has twice been included in the Whitney Biennial.  Ortiz is famous for his exploding piano of his "Destructivism" movement as displayed on the Johnny Carson show, and his art "Happenings" later picked up by Yoko Ono and others in the 1970's.  Born to Nuyorican, Rosicrucian & Masonic Parents in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, (later coming of age in LES & East Harlem) Raphael's parent's esoteric leanings later would influence his work in both holistic healing & kabbalistic art.   He has created mixed-media ritual performances and installations for museums and galleries in Europe and Canada and throughout the United States. His computer- laser-video works are in numerous museum collections, including the Ludwai Museum in Cologne, Germany, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France. His video, Dance Number 22, won the Gran Prix at the 1993 Locarno International Video Festival of Switzerland.  Raphael's first showing for the Rose Circle was at the premiere Rose Circle Conference in Bayonne, NJ in April of 2006 when the Salon de la Rose Croix was adorned with large scale kabbalistic paintings and vinyl posters from Ortiz, adding heavily to the environmental ambiance.  

Traditionally the Saturday of the Seventh Week marks the morning of a procession to the Chruch of Lazarus in Bethany.  This is the sight of the raising of Lazarus.  Along the way, there is a momentary stop at the spot where Jesus met Mary, the sister of Lazarus.  Once the procession reaches the Lazarium (see:  www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-bethany.htm ) there commences a reading of John 11:45 and various hymns written about Lazarus.  The next morning, the eucharist is administered, followed by batizands reciting the Cyril creed from memory.  They are told that they are still only "hearers".  It is not until they are baptized that the knowledge transforms to understanding of the "higher mystery".  This is the "misteri altioris".  

There are in operation today a number of Grand Priories of Military & Hospitaller Orders of St Lazarus.  They come under various protections of Primates & Sovereigns, some aligned to specific churches and others ecumenical in nature.  Some have a knighting ceremony similar in nature to the Knights of Malta, while still at least one in existence preserves the misteri altioris.

Here is the tomb of St Lazarus and the courtyard of the castle reserved for the Order of Lazarus in Malta...

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.