Three weeks out from the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference, Bro. Ike Baker joins Troy for a preview of a very full Seattle weekend, and a tour of everything else the man some call omnipresent has going on.
Ike opens with his Friday night talk at Verity Lodge: the tracing board of Walter Leslie Wilmshurst, author of The Meaning of Masonry and founder of the Lodge of the Living Stones in Leeds. Found by Robert Lomas in one of Wilmshurst's personal notebooks and posted online at a resolution too poor to read, the board is almost rudimentary, communicating in pure geometry rather than beautiful imagery. Ike restored it and deciphered nearly the entirety of the chart, working through The Meaning of Masonry with a brother out of Montana along the way.
Then the Saturday EFC talk: Conversations in the House of Life, the new public translation of the ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth by Richard Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich. Reading it line by line with the academic advisory board of the newly launching Hermopolis Academy (alongside Dr. Aaron Cheak, Dr. Shannon Grimes, Dr. Charles Stang, and Wouter Hanegraaff), Ike found the correlations to Freemasonic ritual startling: the text works as an initiation ritual for the scribe-priests of Thoth, structured like an entered apprentice degree, catechism and all.
The conversation ranges from there into Ike's sold-out week in the South of France with Magical Retreats: Cathar strongholds, consecrated caves, Templar country, the cult of the Black Madonna, Martinism and the Élus Coëns, Rosicrucian France, and the Dan Brown history that needs dispelling along the way. Plus the story of how a hidden page on the band Tool's website about Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château set a teenage Ike on this path in the first place.
Also in this episode: Ike's new book Esoteric Mythology, coming from Inner Traditions in November, and the number theology hiding inside the world's cosmological myths; the book tour through the Adocentyn Research Library, the Philosophical Research Society, and the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam; his public courses on Rosicrucian ceremonial evocation, astral travel, and the magic of Dion Fortune; the one-on-one trajectory through the seven classical liberal arts; freedom of conscience in the craft; and Troy's very full September, including a cornerstone relaying at the rebuilt Lynn Valley Masonic building and his first official visit as District Deputy Grand Master.
EFC 2026 has record advance attendance and may sell out. Tickets at <a href="https://esotericmasonry.com">esotericmasonry.com</a>.
Books mentioned in this episode
The Meaning of Masonry, Walter Leslie Wilmshurst Conversations in the House of Life, translated by Richard Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich Stellar Theology and Masonic Astronomy, Robert Hewitt Brown The Secret Freemasonry of a Priest in the Temple of Nature, edited by Josef Wäges Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln The Temple and the Lodge, Baigent and Leigh The Templar Revelation, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince Esoteric Mythology, Ike Baker (Inner Traditions, November)
Coming up on The Mystic Tye: the Esotericism in Freemasonry Conference, Saturday September 19th, Ballard, Seattle.
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Happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again.
