[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now with a little bit of experience and understanding and knowledge in life, then there was, then it then was there when you're eight or nine or ten or eleven and so on. Symbols do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, given time and application a symbol just means more to you later in life than the first time you encounter it. And that means it continues to teach you long after you first heard about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If Masonry just used words, then there would be no opportunity for improvement, uh, or progress. No new discovery. And all of those ideas are central to the Enlightenment ethic I mentioned earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might think in words, but you dream in images. Uh, there's a depth to them that requires introspection and thought. When, uh, you know, when you recall a fictional book, like Alice in Wonderland or another one, when you recall the book,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you think of the words that were read or do you think of the story in the images in your mind when you read it? And we know that symbols


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Teach very powerfully because we see them in all kinds of traditions where parables and fables, even our fairy tales and epic adventures are used to impart instruction that's useful for life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So having set a framework so you understand where I'm coming from and what I'm talking about, uh, what Freemasonry is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, we can start to deal with history. Where does Freemasonry come from? Now, I need to say first that even Freemasons can't put together a complete definitive history, uh, of the tradition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's a lot of utter nonsense, uh, out there among Masons and non-Masons. And part of the challenge is that historical evidence


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, makes it clear that Freemasonry grew and evolved organically over several centuries. There was no one, uh, vision, no one purpose, no one author or leader, uh, or creator. There's no group setting a specific agenda.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now at times throughout history there have been individuals or groups who have tried to exert influence on Masonic lodges. Those have invariably failed. We'll talk about a couple tonight. But more significantly, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To an extent, Freemasonry has always been changing. It's always been, become something a little different with each generation than it was before. So it's simply just not controlled. It grows organically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nonetheless, there are all kinds of speculations about the origin of Masonry. A lot of things are thrown out about the Knights Templar, uh, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Pythagoras, uh, or Euclid, some of the ancient philosophers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Solomon, uh, for example, uh, Druids, Samaria, Persia, India, there are all kinds of theories. I've read lots about all of them and I've heard them for, for two decades. I've had well-intended Masons in all seriousness tell me that it goes back to the time of Abraham, or it goes, or Adam was the first Freemason. I've heard that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you ultimately have to unwind Freemasonry itself as a tradition and as an institution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to unwind the ideas and symbols which are far older than Freemasonry in many cases.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the actual group of men that called themselves Freemasons and the institution that resulted. Those two things are not the same thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the best evidence we have, the best case I can offer you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, suggests that it pretty much begins in the form we have it in the Middle Ages, uh, with the guilds that were practicing actual stone masonry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This, this brings up the subject of both guilds and confraternities. This is an engraving by the way from, uh, Cayenne France in a monastery, kind of depicting a stone mason at work there with a chisel, uh, and a gavel. Now what's a confraternity?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These primarily exist from about the 13th century, especially in Europe. We're talking about the Middle Ages here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're usually Christian and authorized by the Church. Of course in this time that means the Roman Catholic Church.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're lay membership, so they're not priests, they're not monks, they're not necessarily educated, they're lay members from the communities themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These are voluntary organizations. They promote perhaps special works, uh, and charity. They assist with burials or the ex- you know, assist families with expenses in the time of death. And we're talking about a period of time where there is often a lot of death between epidemics and fires, uh, and violence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that might involve putting on plays or mystery plays or, or, or shows or entertainment, uh, as well as providing, uh, and preparing, you know, food and the sorts of things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And time proves that these confraternities are far better at handling this than government, uh, especially at this time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in terms of structure, confraternities had rules that would govern their membership, who was able to join, and how they would join, and then what was the conduct expected of the member of the confraternity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very similar in structure, but guilds are groups of artisans or merchants. They're not necessarily, uhm, strictly organized around a community of people who are religiously


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the guilds are groups of artisans and merchants, and they're organized to control, uh, the practice of their particular craft in their particular town, uh, or region.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're usually authorized under the local, uh, regional government authority, the magistrate, uh, or the mayor. And occasionally we'll mention a couple of times the king, uh, or the monarchy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the guilds had local officers, leaders, and representatives from within the trade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they also existed in great numbers from the early 13th century, but especially in the 14th century. And like Khan fraternities, guilds had rules of conduct.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come in, be an apprentice, learn what they needed to know so they could work well and safely and be responsible in the job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then how you would certify the fact that they had accomplished that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the conduct that was expected of them to be a good, upright, and moral representative of their trade, of their craft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the guilds would settle disputes. They would organize training and apprenticeships, as I'd mentioned. And they also did charitable works. And very frequently were responsible for taking care of the members of their trade when they were in distress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that extends then to the community and you see guilds also responsible for larger charitable works, uh, within their communities outside of just the members of the trade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in terms of operative or practical stone masons, masons who are working on stone, cause I don't do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Masons who work on stone, we have a number of documents we call the old charges. The oldest one is the Hollywell manuscript, or sometimes it's called the Regius poem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The latest dating for that would be probably the early 15th century, so the early 1400s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a manuscript that's written as a poem. It's middle English. It's a little bit of a challenge to read if you're not used to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it talks about this legendary history of Freemasonry and the organization of the craft and it includes rules of conduct and expectations and so on. And it was probably written down about this time to magnify the reputation and legitimacy of the stonemason trade as something unique and special. This is about the time that stonemasons lodges


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Throughout Europe are seeking legitimacy and recognition and warrants or charters from the monarchy, which is higher than


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Higher up the totem pole than a lot of guilds and trades and merchant trade, uh, merchant guilds are able to accomplish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the history that's presented in this case is legendary, uh, you know, it's an oral tradition, and there's no supporting evidence in terms of history for it, but it's a fascinating read.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what's important is even though we're talking about the early 14th century, there's language in that document that's still present in Masonic ceremony and lecture even today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now at this time that you had operative or masons working on stone, uh, guilds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were two very clear degrees that had practical purposes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Brought in as an apprentice, your name would be entered into the role of the guild. I would call you an entered apprentice once your name was on that log.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you would study, usually for a period of time around seven years. You would learn the trade, you would be partnered with a journeyman or a fellow of the craft, a fellow craft, uh, or even the master of the lodge to learn the trade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then your work might be examined. You would perhaps prove yourself proficient as a stonemason. And then you would, you would be made a fellow of the craft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The modern word for that is fellowcraft. And that marks you as someone who's fully qualified to work as a stonemason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's common for these trades, this is especially true with masonry, but it's not just true with stone masonry. You have working tools associated with your craft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Masons have squares and levels and plums and gavels and chisels and setting mauls and trowels and all kinds of tools they use. And as an apprentice, you would learn how to use those in an operative sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we know from the old charges in the 15th, 16th centuries that the stonemasons guilds and some of the other trades we know were doing this too, were also imparting moral instruction along with the tangible instruction of how to use a tool. You know, a level tells you if a stone


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's really important if it's the first stone laid in the foundation of a building or a cornerstone. If that one's not level, the whole building is going to be off, right? So that level is really important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's an emblem of uprightness of conduct. You need to be as upright in your life as that stone is. And that level is the guide that's gonna teach you how to do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you start to see this merging of the idea that the mason himself, while he's learning to work on stone, is starting to work on himself as, as a stone for the purpose of creating a building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I've used the word operative several times. I'm going to use a couple more. Accepted and speculative masonry. Up to this point, everything


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're dealing with our masons, middle ages, early renaissance, who are actually practicing stone masonry. They're building things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It started to happen. We can speculate. But an accepted mason was a mason who did not work on stone and would never work on stone in a practical sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But was going to be made a mason, made a apprentice and fellow craft of a lodge, perhaps initially as an honor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably early on, this was a lot, perhaps, architects. We think some lodges in Scotland and England would have invited patrons or aristocracy to become accepted masons within their lodges to share a little bit of their tradition. Again, furthering the idea that stone masons as a trade are special among all the other trade guilds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have a couple of significant ones that pop up a lot in Masonic history. Uh, Robert Moray was an accepted Mason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Several hundred years ago in London by a group of Scottish Masons from Edinburgh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Robert Moray was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was a natural philosopher. He was an early scientist, a rationalist, a kind of a critical thinker. Very intelligent man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Elias Ashmole's another one. He's well known as the first English speculative mason, uh, cause Robert Morey was from Scotland. Elias Ashmole, June 1646, he was brought into a lodge. He was made an apprentice and fellow craft on the same night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was also a founder of the Royal Society, a natural philosopher, and well-known as an alchemist, mentioned a couple times in Harry Potter, you know, uh, as well as Nicolas Flamel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But these are early accepted masons. Masons who were never going to work on stone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other word that comes up is speculative. Speculative as opposed to operative. Operative stone masonry is working physically on rocks, stones, buildings. And speculative is to speculate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About other interpretations and meanings and applications of the lessons and the teachings and the working tools of Masonry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there probably wasn't one consistent reason, and it certainly wasn't in an organized fashion, where these accepted masons


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Started to come in, but we know that they were kind of universally speculative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The accepted masons who came in because they weren't going to learn the practical instruction were most interested in the speculative interpretation of the working tools and the symbols of these lodges.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by June 24th in 1717 at the Goose and Gridiron Tavern in St. Paul's Churchyard,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have four lodges in London that get together and declare themselves a Grand Lodge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they elect Anthony Sayer as their first Grandmaster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As far as we can tell, the real purpose of the Grand Lodge was to organize festivities, to have a feast day on St. John's Day, a big party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the responsibility of the Grandmaster was to make sure that that happened and that it went down well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That there's any attempt by these lodges declaring themselves to be a grand lodge, that there's no attempt to govern or organize Freemasonry at large.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, there was already a presence of elder, older, and larger lodges, uh, issuing charters and organizing lodges in their area. The big one that you'll stumble on, uh, in Masonic history is Killwinning. We now call that Killwinning number nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it says at least, it's zero because it's earlier than the first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but it's a Scottish Lodge and English Masons aren't really thrilled with the idea that Scottish Masonry is much older, but it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kill winning number nothing is at least as old as 1598 and they have consistent continuous written minutes back to 1642.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were chartering other lodges as early as 1677. They issued a charter for a new lodge called Lodge Cannon Gate Kilwinning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the Grand Lodge of London, established in 1717, begins to assert some organizational authority.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Charters other lodges in the area of London and around England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have a similar formation of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1725. The English-speaking lodges in France very early on, because there are Englishmen, you know, abroad in France. Uh, they established a lodge 1721 in Dunkirk. Uh, there's a French lodge meeting in London in 1723.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The master there is Jean de Ségolier. We'll mention him again in a minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the Grand Lodge of France is established for the first time in 1728 with the Grand Master William Wharton, who's the first Duke of Warden. And in England and France at this time, you really start to see higher levels of the aristocracy start to assume prominent and leadership positions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in Freemasonry. The other trend is you see a lot of scientists and natural philosophers and free thinkers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see the Grand Lodge of Scotland pops up in 1736. The Grand Lodge of London, uh, becomes the Grand Lodge of England in 1738. So, ambition growing a little bit for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in 1751 you have what's a group that styles itself the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons. It's established by about 80 Irish Masons in London who are unhappy with the authority that the Grand Lodge of England is trying to assert over lodges, uh, in England. These are Irishmen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's a lot of nationalism and a lot of sort of prejudice against Scottish and Irish and some crowds of England at this time. And so they were probably disgruntled for any number of reasons. Most of them, if not all, were operative stonemasons from Ireland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they style themselves as the ancients, Grand Lodge of masonry. In other words, we're the real old one. And those guys, those startups in 1717, they call them the moderns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now there really is no secession, there's no schism, uh, there were principally, as I said, Irish Masons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But nonetheless, the disparity of the organization of the craft in England is a bit confused at the time because out of aggression and competition,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ancients and the modern start chartering and organizing lodges in and around England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They ultimately reconcile on December 27th at St. John, the other St. John's Day in 1813.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, after several years of negotiation. So that's where Grand Lodges start to pop up. And all of these Grand Lodges outside of Scotland and the initial Ancients Lodge in Ireland, everything else we see in England and France, London, at this time, these are speculative, accepted masons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not necessary, and the new lodges created may have no operative masons at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now what really distinguishes the new lodges that are being created in the mid 1700s by these grand lodges is the third degree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The master's degree. Before this I mentioned apprentice and fellow craft, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before the 1720s, there's really only one reference to master in a Masonic context, and that was the leader of the lodge, uh, or perhaps someone who had demonstrated a real mastery over, uh, their craft. Their work was really good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the 1720s, we start to see this thing called the master's degree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the master's degree is different from the other two because it presents this very uniquely Masonic legend that's connected, uh, with the construction of King Solomon's temple. And before this time, that story appears nowhere. And it's a mystery play. It's an allegory, not a history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a Trinity College manuscript in 1711, maybe, could be later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it suggests the idea of this story of the master's degree with totally different characters. It actually has nothing to do with Solomon, it's about Noah and his three sons. But it's just a little snippet, and we can't be sure about the dating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we know that we have the Graham manuscript in 1726, and that's the first indication of anything that looks similar to the story of the master's degree, uh, as it's given today. Not much detail at all. Just the skeleton of a story, really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at least the characters are right and the general tone of what's going on. You can tell


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That that's actually a master's degree. One year later in 1727, we have the Wilkinson manuscript that contains an apparent reference to a very simple version.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the same story. So 1726, 1727, we see not just that the master's degree exists, but that it's spreading.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now with the master's degree for speculative masons, this results in a three degree system, uh, of learning and growth. And it's loosely, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Resonant with the idea of youth, manhood, and age. A degree that imparts, uh, uh, talks about a period of time in which you're a novice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] uh, needing to learn and just absorb and be open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the things that you know you don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a fellow craft degree that's all about activity and adulthood and coming into fruition and, and really being, uh, uh, active in the world and trying to apply some of the things you learned as an apprentice. You're starting to build the building, not just shape the stone. And then the master's degree emphasizes mortality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the importance of, of spending your life happily and well. And that by the time you get to old age, if you make it there, you want to enjoy the fact that you've had a good life and that it was worth living. And here and now, if you're not quite yet old age,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Realizing that today could be your last. So live today as if it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These are the key lessons that you see early on, uh, in these degree systems. Now again, the originator of the master's degree, like so much of the rest of this, is completely unknown. There's always been plenty of speculation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've heard speculation about Elias Ashmole being an author. There's no evidence for that. I've heard Isaac Newton tossed out. There's no evidence. He was a Freemason. Boy, it would be great if he was. Masons would love to know that, but there's no evidence for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Francis Bacon, same thing. Boy, it's a good fit. It seems like something he would write, but there's no proof at all for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jean de Ciglier, I mentioned earlier, he was that master of the French Lodge operating in London. He was a deputy grandmaster very early on in the Grand Lodge of England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Grandmaster is a very influential mason and an intelligent man. That case is not a slam dunk, but it's the best I've ever heard. So maybe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the thing to keep in mind is that the master's degree and its legend are very simple in the beginning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the evolution and growth of that, the change of it is organic, just like the change and growth of masonry. And by the way, the operative lodges were slow to adopt it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We see it takes about a century for the Scottish logist to start to work the master's degree. So this is, appears to be a distinctly, uhm, English phenomenon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're just an old engraving of Solomon's temple. There you see a master, a symbol. It was actually created by Jeremy Ladd Cross here in the United States in the early 1800s, but it's a symbol associated with the master's degree. A depiction of a broken column.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three steps and that's, that figure is time. Time with the scythe standing at her back and she's in mourning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So with that, let's get a bit into, uh, Freemasonry in the United States. Again, a really vast subject. This is the painting by Alan Cox. It was a muralist. This is a laying of the cornerstone. That's a ceremony we still do. Uh, one just took place in Frisco, uh, a week or two ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this is laying the cornerstone of the United States Capitol. That's a ceremony in which President, uh, uh, George Washington, uh, was effectively the ma- the master of the lodge, uh, performing that cornerstone leveling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the first Masonic Lodge operating in the United States were definitely Scottish. And the Grand Lodge of Scotland has plenty of, of, of proof to that effect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they were operative lodges, there's no evidence that they initiated any Americans, and when the building was done, because they were building cathedrals and public buildings and things, uh, because we needed that in the colonies, then they went back home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In, uh, there's Jonathan Belcher as a figure who was born in Boston in 1681.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's initiated as a Mason while traveling in Europe in 1704 and he comes back to Boston in 1705. He's usually given credit as being the first real American, uh, Freemason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first documented lodge building, uh, lodge meeting takes place at King's Chapel in Boston in 1720. Documented means there's either an announcement in a local paper or there's a minute book that explains what happened there or somebody writes in a journal that they were at lodge, so it's documented history. 1720 in Boston.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first constituted lodge that receives a charter is in Boston, Massachusetts, uh, and that's the St. John's Lodge, which is meeting at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, and it's constituted in July 30th, 1733, but we know it was operating before that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's chartered by, uh, at least ostensibly the Provincial Grand Lodge of New England. And that's a warrant, uh, or patent that's given to a fellow by the name of Henry Price, uh, at the time by the Grand Lodge of London. But...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While we know that was chartered in 1733, there's no written records of that lodge. It has no minutes, no, no indication of what they were up to until 1751 in Massachusetts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that lodge and the provincial Grand Lodge of New England ultimately


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Constituted Lodge, the first documented lodge meeting. The earliest minute book is from the Tun Savern Lodge, number three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The date of that is June 24th, 1731. That's two years earlier than this lodge was constituted in Massachusetts. Now the Tonne Tavern is in Philadelphia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Benjamin Franklin mentions this lodge in a record of September 9th, 1731, and he mentions several other lodges operating at the same time. So we know that there were activities going on apart from this, but this is what's documented.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This lodge becomes associated with what's known as the Cox Provincial Grand Lodge. There's a warrant again from the Grand Lodge of London given to Daniel Cox that's effective from the 24th of June as St. John's Day 1731 and it's effective for two years and probably


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The province had the authority to elect a new provincial grandmaster at the end of that two year term.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is tremendous controversy over who's really first, who's the most legitimate, what was on those warrants when they were really effective, and whose territory was whose, you know, who did Pennsylvania belong to, and so on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the truth is I have very good friends who are Masons in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if I say anything beyond that, I'm gonna get in trouble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'll leave it with you and simply say, history is unsettled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As to who really has the claim of primacy in the US in terms of organized grand lodges.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they ultimately do charter some lodges over here, but this comes after the establishment of these early grand lodges in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. So these are the moderns, the ones coming out of London that are speculative, uh, masons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's fast forward a bit, give you a little snippet of the Grand Lodge of Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the main thing to take away from this is the nature of history and development of the United States, uh, is such that each state has its own Masonic jurisdiction. We don't have a Grand Lodge of the United States, uh, we have a Grand Lodge for Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Grand Lodges represent the leadership of Masonic Lodges within their jurisdiction, and there's no higher organizational authority. Grand Lodge of Texas doesn't report to anybody, uh, in terms of masonry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it, you know, there's a loose system of recognition where grand lodges agree, yes, you're legitimate, you're doing real masonry, we agree with the way you're doing things, and so we recognize you, and our members can visit each other, and so on. That's recognition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Grand Lodge of Texas, as I said, leads the Masonic Lodges in Texas. And in February 11th of 1828, Stephen F. Austin, you recognize that name, calls a meeting of Masons, because he is one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, at San Felipe de Austin to draft a petition, uh, for a lodge to the York Grand Lodge of Mexico. We're still part of Mexico at this time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That petition is never answered. In October 1828, the Mexican, uh, government makes Freemasonry illegal. And so that effort is abandoned. Now there's a Masonic meeting later in Texas, March 1835. The legend is it's near an oak tree. That's a picture of it. Um, may have been in a little grove of peach and laurel, but it's near the town of Brazoria.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's ostensibly for the purpose of establishing a Grand Lodge of Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They want to create the Grand Lodge in 1835 and a guy by the name of Anson Jones


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Might have heard of him. He, he led the effort. He's kind of the appointed leader.


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[Assistant] They get dispensation and a charter from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana to establish Holland Lodge number 36 under the jurisdiction of Louisiana. Today we call it Holland Lodge number 1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That charter was given to Anson Jones just before the Battle of San Jacinto.


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[Assistant] Of course, he's the last president of the Republic of Texas.


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[Assistant] By 1837, there are two other lodges chartered by Louisiana in Texas, one in Nagadoches, uh, and the other in St. Augustine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And these lodges, uh, combined with Harlem, met in Houston to establish a Grand Lodge for what is now the Republic of Texas on the 20th of December 1837.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sam Houston, who was the president of the Republic of Texas at this time, presided over, uh, that meeting in the city of Houston. And they elected Anson Jones as the first Grandmaster for the Grand Lodge of Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They agree that they would meet a few months later, April 16th of 1838. They do that. And they establish their independence as the Grand Lodge of Texas. And those three lodges become Holland Lodge number one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Milam Lodge number two and McFarland Lodge number three. So masonry enters, uh, Texas.


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[Assistant] Now everything I've discussed to this point has been what, what Masons refer to as the Blue Lodge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Masonic lodges that confer the first three degrees, apprentice, fellow craft, and master. And while all of these grand lodges are being established and the three degrees are being proliferated into the United States, into these grand lodge systems and elsewhere, there's something really interesting happening in France.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The story of the master's degree is incomplete. And there's a couple of different ways to address that. The Masons, uh, in England,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and some of the, and the Masons in the United States, for the most part,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They complete or expand on the story by making the master's degree more complex. The French masons create new degrees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they supplement the story, their master's degree is quite simple, or incomplete, and they add degrees to further elaborate on the story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that expands because there's a lot of interest in free thought, uh, in liberty and equality and progressive ideas that are happening in France because we're leading up


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the French Revolution, American Revolution hasn't quite happened yet, but those philosophical ideas are gestating, especially in France. And so we see those ideas incorporated into Masonic teaching and symbolism in those lodges in these various locations. And what springs up


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the growth of all of these degrees originally to complete or add material to the story of the master's degree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They really branch out and become something altogether different. You see the rise of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, connecting with the age of enlightenment, with the enlightenment ideal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And these rites in France, these degrees, they become known as the hautes grads, or the high degrees.


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[Assistant] They particularly attract the interests of French free thinkers, both religious and political. They're natural scientists, they're scholars, they're philosophers.


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[Assistant] And this is the origin of that mantra of French Masonic lodges, liberty, equality, fraternity, that we hear again when the French Revolution comes around.


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[Assistant] Now the vast majority of these rights and groups cease to exist almost as soon as they began. But some of the degrees survive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we have modern organizations in masonry that have inherited some of those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it should be said these organizations are completely separate in terms of leadership and structure from the grand lodges and the lodges conferring those three degrees that I've mentioned up to this point.


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[Assistant] One example I'll mention again in a bit and we'll elaborate on is the Scottish Rite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I mentioned that and I'm gonna get into more detail because most of you will have heard this idea of a 32nd degree mason, a 33rd degree mason. Those are Scottish Rite degrees. So those are masons who decided to join the Scottish Rite and receive those degrees and they've


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, which ca- it has a royal arch tradition, probably began, looks like history says it started in the United States, uh, in 1750s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then grafted onto that were additional sets of degrees. A couple of them were side degrees that originally belonged to the Scottish Rite. And then within the York Rite at the end, there's a series of chivalric orders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, like the Order of Malta and the Order of the Temple, which is where you get Knights Templars associated, uh, with masonry in terms of guys who have the swords and the hats and so on and, and wear that sort of regalia. Uh, in masonry, that's the Yorkrite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then there's Shriners and so on. There's, there's a lot of organizations that are connected with Masonry simply because in order to join those organizations, you have to be a master Mason. You have to have gone through the three degrees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now let's dig a little bit into the Scottish Rites specifically. Now you have all of these rites and systems in France that I mentioned that are kind of bubbling and proliferating and evolving and changing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in France in 1743, we have the Grand Lodge. They officially...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Disparage. They complain about guys claiming to be Scott's masters. They call them echo-say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, masters, because they want special privileges in Grand Lodge. And the Grand Lodge of France says, pfft, forget that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then they come back a short time later, pretty much at their next meeting, and they enact those privileges into their Grand Lodge law.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably what happened is some of the Grand Lodge officers became Scots masters, right? We don't really, we have some good guesses ceremonially about what was going on in that degree, but it's the first time you hear about Scottish masonry, and it's in France. So while we call this the Scottish Rite,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should understand that degrees themselves are coming from this proliferation of Masonic degrees and rights that I talk about in France.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably by about 1751 in France, we have about 14 new degree, or 14 degrees total, uh, 11 of which are building on the story of the master's degree, organized in something that becomes, uh, that starts to be called perfect masonry or a lodge of perfection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Few years earlier, there's a guy named Etienne Marin, uh, in France. He presided over a lodge called Perfect Harmony.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and probably others. He was a prominent mason in France. In 1761, he's granted a patent by the Council of Sublime Princes. We start to get some really interesting and, and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pompous titles, uh, in Masonic systems about this time. Council of Sublime Princes in Bordeaux issue him a charter, uh, to confer all of the grades of perfect and sublime Masonry anywhere in the world. That's a pretty serious charter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we know now, I mean the latest in terms of Masonic scholarship suggests that Moran himself really had a handle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, had a hand in, uh, organizing and creating many of the degrees that have survived into the Scottish Rites. So it's not unusual for them to perhaps grant him a charter to that effect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And establishes a lodge of perfection there and starts working his system of degrees. By about this time we know, or at least by 1771,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We know that there are 25 degrees in the rite that he's, uh, offering. The final degree is Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, so it's kind of loosely called the Order of the Royal Secret. The first three degrees are Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master, and then there are 22 degrees, uh, in addition to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He established lodges that do this in Jamaica in 1770. He initiates other men, gives them similar organizational authority who go on, uh, to establish, uh, the rights of these degrees in New York and South Carolina, uh, and so on. Other bodies established all the way through 1790.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By this time Marin is dead, his inheritors, his students, his successors are passing this on, but it's a bit of chaos. There's kind of an organizational looseless, there's no, there's no one kind of authority


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, to control this and frankly a lot of the guys who, who receive the authority to confer these degrees are more interested in the money they'll receive from the men who are taking the degrees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so it's, it's kind of getting out of hand. It no longer really starts to respect the tradition or probably the vision that Etienne Morin had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This culminates in May 31st of 1801 in Charleston, South Carolina, when nine men who are initiates of this system of degrees that came from Marin and in France say, all right, rather than 25 degrees, we're going to have 32. And we're going to call it the ancient and accepted Scottish rite. They establish the nine of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, constitute the first supreme council, which is the governing body, uh, over the Scottish right, uh, only the Scottish right, degrees.


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[Assistant] And they reserve what they call the 33rd degree for the members of that Supreme Council, the nine men who are administrators or leaders of the Scottish Rite.


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[Assistant] That body in South Carolina refers itself to itself today as the Mother Supreme Council because what this Scottish right, which really comes from France, is established


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Formally in the United States in Charleston, South Carolina in 1801, we then export it back, uh, to France and to England and eventually Scotland. Uhm, and that's the story, uh, of the Scottish Rite. And that's where you get the 32nd degree and the 33rd degree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can get into some detail of that, but I want to clarify.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the Supreme Council is now much larger. The members of the Supreme Council are the state leaders, uh, for, uh, the Scottish rights. So we have, uh, we have a man who's in charge of the Scottish right, his name is Doug Atkins, here in Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] West of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio River. It's most of the United States. And that's the original Supreme Council.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a lot of Masons, you'll hear are 33rd degree Masons and that's because it's an honorarium. It's really an honor that's conferred on Scottish Rite Masons, uh, who have, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and you're sincere about it. And so when you hear that someone is a 33rd degree or they'll say a 33rd degree honorary, they've received that honor. But again, all of that's within the context of the Scottish Rite. Alright. Really quickly. I gotta talk about anti-masonry.


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[Assistant] The ideas we've talked about, liberty, equality, tolerance, freedom of thought, freedom of conscious, freedom of expression, uh, restrictions, uh, perhaps, or, or,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that's especially in Freemasonry, in French Freemasonry, restrictions on the collusion of church and state. Those are radical ideas at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They remain so today, and as a result, Masonic lodges and Freemasons represent a threat to those who find those ideas dangerous. That's, that's just the reality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Freemasons were persecuted and killed by the Nazis when Hitler came to power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were interrogated and in more than a few cases killed by the Vichy government during the Nazi occupation of France.


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[Assistant] Uh, in the Islamic world, there are conspiracy theorists, conspiracy minded Muslims, uh, who equate Freemasonry with Zionism, and similarly, uh, persecute Muslims who are Freemasons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and if your faith prohibits friendship with those who disagree with you, then Masonry probably isn't a good fit for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And others still equate Freemasonry with the Bavarian Illuminati or some alleged continuation of them. I'm going to recommend a book to that effect, by the way, that's a good source of material on the real Illuminati, uh, if you want to know. Uhm, but that doesn't show up on television. At least it hasn't yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I don't have time to express every aspect or talk about every aspect of anti-masonry, but I want to touch on a few quickly. The first is the Morgan Affair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] William Morgan was born in Virginia, this is about 1774, just before the revolution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He may have served as a captain during the War of 1812. They call him Captain William Morgan later. There's no record to prove, uh, that he served, uh, or served in that rank but it may very well have been the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's married in 1819. He moves his family to Canada. He operates a brewery there and then loses almost everything, uh, in a fire.


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[Assistant] Becomes destitute, settles in Batavia for a while, uh, in New York, which is a relatively small community, and he works as a brick mason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He claims to have been initiated while he's in Canada as a Mason, and he


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Goes to lodges, uh, in New York in other, in order to be received as a visitor. Especially in Rochester.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Morgan, about this time, claims to have been contacted by David Cade Miller, who's an EA with a lodge in Batavia, and he was denied advancement to the subsequent degrees. Scott is a little bitter about masonry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's a new eh, newspaper editor. And he gives an advance, at least this is a suggestion, he gives an advance to Morgan to write a book that will be called The Illustrations of Masonry as an exposure of all the Masonic ritual or ceremony and, and his criticism of Freemasonry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now as an aside, I should say, there have been exposures of Masonic rituals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, since the 1730s, I mean almost as old as the master's degree. We couldn't keep the secret really more than four or five years before people started writing about it. So there's nothing really threatening in what Morgan is offering. However,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, guys who either didn't like Morgan or were suspicious of this or didn't want that book published.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They land him in debtor's prison for a debt of $2.68, uh, which may or may not have been the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that debt's almost immediately paid and he's released to a group of men with a coach and there's a suggestion that maybe Morgan didn't want to go with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now there's a lot of different versions and stories about what happened. Some say Morgan was drowned in the Niagara River, or that he was paid to leave town, that he was kidnapped and taken to Canada. Morgan's body actually was never found.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was the body of another man who turned out to be Timothy Monroe, who was fished out of the river.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the idea that that body before it was identified might have been Morgan, uh, lit the story on fire. And conspiracy was presumed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so the sheriff, who was also a Mason in the town, was removed from office and jailed for conspiracy and kidnapping. Three other Masons were convicted and served time for kidnapping.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'll tell you, modern scholarship is pretty well satisfied that Morgan probably was killed. But it's not definitive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In getting rid of masonry to the extent that you have what's known as the anti-masonic party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, who was running for president at this time and was a well known to be a Mason and spoke well of Mason republicly at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the truth with Morgan is that in the end sometimes corrupt men make terrible decisions and do corrupt and bad, uh, things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the idea of this conspiracy or a systemic corruption in Freemasonry caught the public imagination, especially in New England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then religious groups begin to pile on. The Quakers, the Lutherans, Mennonites, German Reform Church, who don't like the idea of taking promises, and Masons do make promises to each other when we go through the degrees.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have leaders, ministers, pastors of other faiths that condemn Freemasonry in one way or another, especially the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Baptists at this time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's an overall perception of elitism, because at least in this part of the country, it's not really true outside of New England at this time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in this part of the country, Masons are physicians and lawyers and businessmen. They really are social, uh, and economic elites.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a guy named Thurlow Weed who's a newspaper, a New York newspaper, uh, uh, uh, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's highly influential, eventually, he's politically influential now, but eventually in the Whig and the Republican parties. And he's an opponent of Jackson, especially because he likes John Quincy Adams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he is really instrumental in establishing this anti-Masonic party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whose stated purpose was really to obliterate Freemasonry in the United States. It was formed in New York in February of 1828.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's really no question, I think it's pretty objective to say that it was nothing more than political opportunism. These guys saw the public interest in the, in, in the, in anger toward Freemasonry and they wanted to get rid of Jackson and this was a convenient way to do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they, uh, they run a candidate for New York governor. He loses, but they did become.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The primary opposition and a handful of state legislators.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, because they're an opposition party with numbers in these state legislatures, they're able to get and influence the appointment of senators, uh, who are elected by the state legislatures at this time in the U.S. Senate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1832, there's even a presidential candidate, William Wirt. He's pictured there on the left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, he won a little more than 7% of the popular vote and he won the electors for the state of Vermont.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Vermont was heavily into the anti-Masonic party, uh, probably more than any other state.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But by 1836, the members of the anti-Masonic party start to disagree. There's internal, uh, you know, disagreement, condescension.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, during this time, some states enact laws that make masonry illegal, lodges go dark, they shut down. Uh, in New York, about 75% of the lodges that were chartered, uh, within a few years, demise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a papal encyclical in 1884, Pope Leo XIII, who's pictured here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His papacy runs from 1878 to 1903. In 1884, he issues an encyclical called the Humanum genus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he flags, he identifies Freemasonry as the great perpetrators of several ideas that he sees as, uh, dangerous and, and ideas that he equates, uh, with the, the, the city of, or the kingdom of evil, uh, in St. Augustine's work. He says that, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At every period of time, each has been in conflict with the other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With a variety and multiplicity of weapons and warfare, although not always with equal ardor and assault. At this period, however, the partisans of evil seem to be combining together and to be struggling with united vehemence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Led on or assisted by the strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he goes on to condemn specifically the ideas that Freemasons are spreading. And I'll paraphrase, but I'm not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, go read the Humanum Genus. The ideas that he's criticizing are...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that the authority of the church and the authority of the state should be separate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That all men have the same right, this is a quote, and are in every respect of equal and like condition. That each one is naturally free, that no one has the right to command another. Pope Leo XIII disagreed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He says that Freemasons say that all things belong to free people. Power is held by the command or permission of the people so that when the popular will changes, rulers may be lawfully disposed. And he finds that abhorrent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he condemns Freemasonry for this in the papal encyclical. This is not the first blow to Freemasonry within the church, not the last, but it is the first. And so we find ourselves in a state


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, today, uh, where Catholics, uh, who happen, who are Masons are, are generally, if that's known, they're denied, uh, Communions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll mention Leo Taxwell real briefly because it comes up in the literature. I'll do my best to hurry. Sorry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Leo Taxel is a hoaxster. He's a well-known sort of trickster in France these days. He feigned a conversion to Roman Catholicism, but he didn't like the church.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he published, he, he, he proclaimed publicly after this conversion his intention to undo


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he published a four volume history of Freemasonry and it contains very detailed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But entirely fictitious accounts of Masonic, uh, rituals and ceremonies that he intended to appear satanic in character.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He fabricated in these books correspondence between well-known Masonic leaders at the time. Uh, you know, saying some, some things about, uh, about, uh, about these ceremonies and, and conspiracies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He collaborated on a second book called The Devil in the Nineteenth Century, which again was very detailed and again fictitious accounts of a character named Diana Vaughan, uh, who


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was a figure he invented who, who said that, uh, uh, she had been involved in this satanic masonry and the book details her peculiar adventures with all sorts of demons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But by some inspiration, she says she invokes the name of Joan of Arc and the demons disperse. And so, uh, it's under this name through this figure of Diana Vaughan, Taxel publishes a book of prayers, um, called Eucharistic Novena.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, inspired by this experience invoking Joan of Arc. And that book received praise from the Pope himself. But, and this is important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On April 19th, 1897, Taxel calls a press conference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he tells everybody Diana Vaughan's gonna be here, so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Catholics are there, there's some Freemasons in the audience interested to see what's going on too because they don't understand these books he's written. And he confesses. He says none of this is true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my intention was to discredit both the Catholic Church and Freemasonry. Ha ha!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, particularly within some segments of Christianity that have been very hard on masonry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Found the work of Leo Taxel, but didn't know the confession. They didn't know it was an admitted hoax. That it was a trick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that subsequently gets quoted and borrowed and quoted. And I mean, you know, this is how Wikipedia works. If it's in a book, you can cite it, then it must be true, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's Leo Taxel, and his stuff continues to come up, especially around this man, Albert Pike.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Interesting figure. If there's any questions, we can go into depth about him. Albert Pike, he's alleged to be, you know, the Pope of Freemasonry or that he wrote the Bible of Freemasonry, some of these ridiculous things. And in Taxel's books, he's got some crazy correspondence that he attributes to Pike because he was so, so well known. You know, Pike was a scholar. Uh, he knew several languages, French, Latin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Greek, uh, Greek, Hebrew. He studied Sanskrit so he could do his own translation of the Vedic poems, uh, in his eighties.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hayek is a figure in the Scottish Rite specifically, although he was really involved in all aspects of Masonry, uh, in many ways. He leaves his imprimatur on the Scottish Rite, uh, and its degree system, and he creates lectures. He's most well known for a book which is the most misunderstood and misquoted book in all of Masonry, which is called Morals and Dogma, published in 1871.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That book you can find everywhere because there was a time when every Scottish right mason received a copy and none of them were capable of reading it because you get to the first page and it's like, you know, it's so dense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so a lot of them end up for sale. So they're everywhere. You can walk into Half Price Books and find at least a couple copies. But it's, it's hard to understand. Pike is brilliant, but his language is dense. He's writing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, kind of in Victorian English, he assumes you have an expertise in classical history, that you know a little Greek, you know a little Hebrew. Uhm, and so it's hard to, it's hard to understand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Pike, uh, influences the Scottish Rite degrees to the extent that he adds a lot of lecture material. And he provides a philosophical and intellectual framework of study.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, for Scottish right masons who go through the degrees and are interested in the symbolism and its relationship to the grand sort of philosophical and religious, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And social ideas that have existed throughout time. Morals and dogma is legitimately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the extent we have time, and I'll hang back late of course with questions if you don't want to ask publicly. Look, masonry has always been controversial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, by established religious and political authority.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Masonry has had among its members several great and famous heroes, and we've had a few scoundrels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Freemasonry didn't put any of those men in positions or powers of leadership.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now it's often been true that men who are capable of great things are interested in Freemasonry. But that's the reason they're Masons. Just not the other way around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're mostly, Masons are just ordinary men from all walks of life and they're trying to be better men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their detractors have gone to great lengths to condemn the fraternity and masons. And for the most part, masons go about their business and ignore them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Masonry persists in the idea that if we disagree, that's okay, because most people are well intended, and it's worth trying to get along.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have to be open to being wrong in order to learn or experience something new. And this is really important. If we work together, we can accomplish great things. Masonry suggests it's better to be part of something bigger than yourself. So I apologize. I ran a few minutes late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I do want to open up to any questions you have. That's the material I have this evening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't like podiums, but I'll come back to here if I have to. So I don't, I can't speak with authority on the history of Knights Columbus, but I'm certainly sure


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That there were masons, uh, who were Catholic at the time, who were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who felt strongly about their adherence to the Catholic faith and would have done whatever was necessary, uh, to, to do what the Pope wanted them to do and would have renounced their membership in Masonry. At that time, it's shortly thereafter, of course, the Knights of Columbus do come into existence and it seems pretty clear that a man who enjoyed what he was doing with Freemasonry


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would probably like the sort of things that the Knights of Columbus were up to, because they're very similar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, just very Catholic, and of course, you know, allowed within the faith. But certainly, the truth is, there are Catholics who are Masons today. They just, you know, they do their own thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in early documentation like the old charges, uh, that I mentioned, the 15th, 16th, 17th century, actually Solomon's temple is inconsequential, uh, I don't think that it's ever really mentioned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in the old documentation, what seems to fascinate masons who want, and their legendary history of masonry, you'll see tied, uh, more often actually to the Tower of Babel, the Tower of Babel story, as this great construction or public works project, even though the outcome was questionable, uhm, or the intention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really with the emergence of the master's degree where you start to have an interest in Solomon's Temple. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, of the temple, uh, in and of itself, sort of inseparably links speculative masonry, not the operative tradition of the craft, but speculative masonry, uh, to Solomon and to the temple. And so there are symbols that pre-existed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the emergence of the master's degree to tradition. There are symbols associated with the apprentice degree, for example. That then get to have explanations associated with Solomon and that period of construction. And so the symbolism evolves and changes. It's just part of that organic growth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I can't tell you why because we don't really know, uh, what the impetus for it was or who did it except the, uh, the idea of the Tower of Babel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Solomon's temple begins to be far more important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, as kind of this great edifice or this representation of a great spiritual edifice, not of a religious tradition that all Masons belong to, but as an example of men who are trying to build godly lives or lives that are an expression of what God means to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, in terms of the symbolism, the Temple of Solomon's a far better fit for that than the Tower of Babel. That make sense?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I'm sorry, third, I didn't mention you're right, and I guess I did say there's three, uh, I probably left it on my notes, but the third general requirement that's almost universal in Mace, well it really is universal, this one in particular, uh, is that you have to be a man of good character.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're expected to be a man of good character, you have to be able to express that you have some sort of spiritual viewpoint, some sort of spiritual framework, uh, or foundation in your life, and you have to do it of your own free will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yes, so the first question, free. The easiest explanation for the word free in terms of Freemason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is an operative explanation. And the idea that is, is unlike other trades where, you know, a smith, for example, would, would, would perform his trade in a community for the entirety of his life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a stonemason who's building a cathedral, uh, when the cathedral's done,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so the stonemason has to have the liberty to travel across, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Territorial boundaries, you know, from one town to the next, uh, or even, you know, occasionally perhaps from one nation to the next or one kingdom to the next. And, uh, that was simply not have been necessarily permissible, uh, in the Middle Ages, uh, for a typical tradesman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but then, you know, by the time you get to France and speculative masonry,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is really probably the first place the word appears. It's kind of an odd thing, but franc, franc-maçon was probably the earliest form of it in French. That may have been the source of the word Freemason as a single word in terms of the speculative craft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, uh, that might have had a more symbolic sense of, of a more free thinking, uh, or liberated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, individual, but, you know, that's, that's speculation, but there is an operative tradition around the word free. Other question was the other trades. You know, I, I can't claim expertise, but I've certainly read, uh, papers and works that talk about the other trades doing a similar thing, having a sort of speculative, uh, moral, uh, teaching.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, associated with that, and certainly in the, uh, especially in the late 1800s, early 1900s when you had the proliferation of lots of these social and civic organizations. Just as Freemasonry tied itself to Masonry, you had a lot of organizations tie themselves to earlier trades as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The direct connection probably is a little more tenuous there. I don't know. Can't speak with authority. But certainly the other trades were doing it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well there were men who were members of both, uh, but organizationally not really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, uh, there was a different sort of organization, the Woodmen of the World, and they had kind of a different purpose. Uh, Masonry has its own woodworking, uh, group. It's called Cedars of Lebanon, which are associated with the cedar trees that were used in the construction of Solomon's Temple. It's kind of wood-focused.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But no, they're, they were different organizations, but a lot of men, I know, I have family, uh, that were certainly both, um, but not related directly. Yes, ma'am. Good question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And grand lodges in our traditions do not. It's a tradition that's just for men. Uh, there are other traditions of masonry, and we don't intervisit, but, you know, they're free to do their own thing. Uh, feminine masonry has been very active in England and in continental Europe for over a century. Uh, we have all kinds of records of women


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For one reason or another, who were actually initiated as Masons, even in the United States, uh, there's a great author, Karen Kidd, and I can't remember the name of the book, uh, but she has all kinds of documentation in there about women who were initiated as Masons under various circumstances, sometimes because they happened to see the ceremony anyway and they didn't know what else to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes they wanted to communicate the, the degree to a wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that when they went to war, like in the Civil War, that she would know something to say, so that Masons in the opposing army would take care of her, for example, if necessary, that sort of thing. Uh, but in the United States, there are active, uh, what they call comasonic groups. I'm not aware of any, uh, uh, feminine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Masonic organizations, but there are co-Masonic groups that are for both men and women.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we do have Rainbow Girls as a youth organization for girls within Masonry. And there are, there are, yes? Eastern Star. And, well yea, and there are Masonic bodies, uh, for which women connected with Freemasons can join. Eastern Star is an example of that. If you're a wife, widow, mother, sister, or daughter of a Mason, you can join that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are a few other bodies associated with some of the other organizations like the Orc Rite and the Shrine and so on, uh, similar. But in terms of those three degrees, apprentice, fellow, craft, and master, uh, women could find that within either a feminine Masonic tradition or a co-Masonic tradition, but that's not mine. Does that answer your question?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, okay, well there is, I didn't mention it, but there are various forms of Masonic burial services that connects directly with the symbolism of the master's degree and the aspects of mortality connected with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That ceremony as it's been worked in the United States, there's several different forms of it. That's done either at the graveside or during the service in front of the family and everyone. Not, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've never encountered anything that would involve an unmarked grave or being unknown. There have been plenty of prominent masons. Pike was one, for example. Albert Pike wanted to be in an unmarked grave and he was just so important that they had to give him a stone and an epitaph and he didn't. I'm sure he wouldn't have liked that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, while there have been variants in Masonic services, I'm not aware of anything that would have been done with, I'll mention one exception, anything that would have been done when the family wasn't present, and certainly nothing that would specifically involve an unmarked grave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in about 75 years. Albert Pike, this was his burial service, and he was really the one who, he said he translated it from some old French manuscripts. And that's a burial, that's a, that's a funeral service, not a burial, that would be done the night before the funeral with the family. And only Masons were allowed to be there for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the reason was he was doing some things that non-Masons really wouldn't understand because they hadn't seen the Scottish right degrees. But that's a very rare and unusual thing and it's just never done anymore. But again, even in that condition, you're talking about something that was done before the main burial service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't find a way to reconcile the teachings of Freemasonry with things like slavery and racism and segregation and all that kind of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't put myself in the mindset of someone born in a different place and time to know how they did that. And I wouldn't judge them, necessarily.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can only say that I don't understand it now how they put the two of those together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's clear that there were Masons on both sides of the conflict in the Civil War. There are all kinds of documented evidence, there's whole books devoted to this subject, uhm, of, of circumstances where Masons crossed, uh, crossed the boundaries of battle, I should say, and breached


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every time there's been a conflict, this was true in the American Revolution and 1812, War of 1812, and certainly in the Civil War as well, uh, there were a lot of soldiers who, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so it's a very common occurrence, uh, in the midst of warfare for there to be military lodges. They may not have charters, they may not have anything official.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, uh, even though the grand lodges probably wouldn't like that, the truth is, under circumstances of something like the Civil War, it happens all the, it happened all the time. And there were masons, you know, men who were made masons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a military context that happened in the case of my family. So it's absolutely a common occurrence. Uh, I'm sure Google can assist you. I wish I could remember some of the names of the books off the top of my head. Uh, but there are good books on this subject.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really in England, with the speculative lodges, and then it finds its way back into some of the operative traditions, and into Scotland, but not all of them. So let's separate that. In terms of apprenticeship, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, this was a time when if a family didn't have much money, you know, you send one kid off to the priesthood, you know, maybe one, one kid takes care of the homestead that you have, and then what do you do with the other boys?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that was great because then he would have his own livelihood, he wouldn't depend on your homestead, and he might have a better life than you did, actually. And so, really,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Young, I mean really young, certainly by modern standards. And the traditional period of apprenticeship was, was about seven years. You could probably imagine that he would be maybe ready to become a fellow of the craft, maybe 17 years old, 18 years old, probably, if not a little bit younger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so you're in a time where that's an age where you don't have public education in an organized way. You do have religious instruction, and of course these trades had laws, you know, rules and regulations that required you to go to mass and so on on a regular basis and celebrate the feasts. So they would get religious instruction, but they needed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they needed the sort of instruction that would come from a dad, I guess. You know, for lack of a better way of putting that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, when the, when the rubber hits the road in life, how do you make moral decisions? How do you, how do you overcome, you know, maybe your tendency to make bad decisions?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's the sort of instruction that they were doing. And, and they reached for probably what was at hand, which were these working tools and the trade. And it was a perfect way to kind of illustrate those lessons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think probably what you're asking about in terms of free thought would be closer to what Anderson would have meant as a libertine. Someone who simply is amoral.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, doesn't, doesn't have any sense of direction or guidance of right and wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not what I'm intending. When I was saying free thinking, in terms of 18th century France, I'm talking about someone who is into and interested in ideas of the emergent kind of, you know, laissez-faire, freedom, equality, social contract.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sort of philosophies that were kind of gestating at that period of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there's a couple of ways to answer that. Uh, first of all, I should say that in terms of the operative tradition, Masons were Catholic, right? It's only in the speculative tradition


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know, the speculative Masons are saying, we want men of other faiths, uh, to be part of Freemasonry, and it starts almost immediately, uh, especially with the Jewish communities being invited in, uh, and certainly other men who, who wouldn't have fallen into particular religious categories, um, at the time. In terms of a special relationship,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the obvious connection is with the importance of the Temple of Solomon, uh, in, uh, the structure of the master's degree and especially within the Scottish Rite degrees, uh, and the continuation of that story. The other thing I will say, and this is, this is true in the earliest form of the French degrees,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that falls under the broader umbrella of Kabbalah. You can find elements of that in some of these French degrees that find their way into the Scottish Rite. And so we have, uh, many sincere Jewish men who study those traditions within the Jewish faith who are fascinated by the fact that there are elements of that in some of the Scottish Rite degrees today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I think the timing and the place is wrong, uh, for that to have been a major factor. There certainly were divisions, uh, at times between the Protestants and the Jewish communities, or the Catholics and the Jewish communities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the most part, uh, Freemasonry seems to do its thing independent of that. Uh, and, you know, it, it, and, like I said, the timing of the Inquisition, although it continued on for a long period of time, I think really, by the time, uh, Freemasonry emerges in the forms that you start to see it in France and, and elsewhere in the world, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By that time, the power of the church has waned, and the ideas of, of the things like we associate with the Inquisition, that time has really passed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I never really talked a whole bunch of trash because there was too many moving parts, uhm, and I couldn't initiate contact. So I wasn't a trash talker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, I don't have a problem with guys that talk trash, but you gotta be careful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With what position you play when you talk trash. Because when those receipts come, a quarterback don't get those receipts. But your own line does. Not to mention Bayer is a guy who can dish it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because a quarterback does not put his team in harm's way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the fact that he went over there like he was going to do something and now you got to go defend your quarterback. That's what escalated that situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as a quarterback, you have to be careful not to put your team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In harm's way. Because those receipts are not coming to the quarterback. They come into all the other guys that can actually get hit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, if your quarterback get hit or pushed or shoved, and you don't go over there and defend your quarterback,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now it's on you. Yeah, right. So you have to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regardless of who's in there. Now, every running back does things a little bit different, right? But when you see a style in which they play,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is on the coaches, that's on Stump Mitchell, right? The message is very clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How we gonna do things in this room? And they all have bought in. Because they all run the ball extremely hard. They're aggressive. They don't mess around. There's not a whole bunch of running around. They get, everybody getting it. And that could also come from watching Nick Chubb. Watching Kareem Hunt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to be a part of this, you better be in line with how this man does things. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that's just a fact. That's, that's what having leadership on a team is. He don't have to be outspoken. He don't have to tell you what you did wrong, but Nick could give you that look and say, Hey, get in line, bruh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so from that standpoint, when you go to Jerome Ford, you go to Kareem Hunt, you go even further down the line, they all seem to have


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The coach need to go in that room and say, Hey, I don't care who it is, but we're going to have some weight on us for part of this season. We're going to have some heat on us, except the challenge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't care how deep we gotta go. I don't care how far down we gotta go. On the depth chart, everybody be ready because we gonna need everybody because we gonna have to run the football consistently and on a daily basis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think when you watch them play and you watch how they do things, uhm, the message is loud and clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The only people that really don't need to be in there that much are the running backs. And here's why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because once you get a feel for the speed and the level of contact, you can shut it down till the season starts. So whether that's 5, 10 carries,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, throughout the preseason, just to get an idea of what, what, how, how you working with the old line, how you working with, you know, the, the rest of the offense. That's it. You need live action though. There's nobody, listen, there's nobody that plays this game that can just come back from the off season and play football. There's a reason why you have camp. You got to get your body ready for being tackled to block


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, all these receivers that look pretty in shorts and tights with the bandanas and the bucket hats in the off season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I think everybody needs to get something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out of these preseason games, and the argument I have with everybody is, is that there's only one way to get ready for football. That's to play football.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seems like there's more injuries now. So I don't know where we got this, where all of a sudden we got soft. I'm like, listen, I played five preseason games, and I played in all of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the last preseason game when I played was the dress rehearsal. So not only did you play the first half, you went in, you made some adjustments, you played a couple of series in the second half. And guess what? I averaged 14 games a year. And I wasn't, and guess what? You could get horse collar, you could get cleaned up on picks, you could get knocked out, cracked backs, all that was fair game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As, as far as health, right? I had the health of a football player, banged up, broken up, but was still able to play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why? Look, first of all, if you're gonna play in a preseason game, you play in the first one. In the second one. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I don't, I don't know what, what are we protecting? Because here's what's going to happen. We're going to have this conversation after about week two or three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here's what the conversation's gonna be. Hey Leroy!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I knew after I got tackled a couple of times, you know, after I got, you know, you gotta burn off. Look, I don't care how much you work out in the summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you never go through that, guess when you go through it? Week 2!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That soreness comes to everybody during camp. I don't care how much you run, I don't care how much you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prepare in the off season? After like day three or four?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody looking for that ice tub cause your legs are dead and you gotta fight through it. So you spend the next couple of weeks, preseason games, getting your mind right, your, your, your game prep and all that fighting through it. So you're ready at the start of the season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The last few years with everybody sitting out all of training camp, only everybody starts off slow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if Aaron Rodgers was showing up at your door to play for your team, you gon' give him his flowers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's put on our big boy pants, bull. I got my big boy pants on. I know I said big boy pants, not big pants.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't mean we have to get alone! No, I know! I'm a pro!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Phil, you, you, you, you, uh, boy, you know, uh, San Francisco got 11 guys on that field too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do we think differently of Bill Parcells if Scott Norwood- Yeah, exactly. ...makes a kick? Wow. Exactly. From facts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Aaron Rodgers is great. I don't disagree. Now here's what the problem is. Here's what the problem is sometimes with Aaron Rodgers. You gotta put it on you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stop looking around. That's right. You always blame someone else. And so from that standpoint, I have one play burned in my mind about Aaron Rodgers last year. It was third or fourth down. He rolls out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not really. Like, you know what it is? It's a football thing. Right? Even as a, as a little kid, it was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I would say this, uhm, there is a way they could keep more. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had, I had, in my running back room in, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody else was special teams. Uhm, when I was in Cleveland, everybody in the room played. Except for, we had, uh, we had, uhm, Randy Baldwin and a couple other guys that were special teams guys. They were turn guys. But for the most part,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you're talking about, if you look at who's a, what's a position they keep extra guys, it's linebacker, it's running back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you may keep either extra receiver or extra DB because those are your special teams guys also.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so it always, any guy that comes into the league.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would say, uh, play a little special teams. You never know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes the numbers just don't add up. And you gotta be able to do something else. Hey Leroy. They'll keep all four of these guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so you have to be able to do multiple things because Bill Belichick used to have a thing. He says, I roster 53 guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we actually have 85 players because we have 30 of our guys that do a number of different things. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Usually, you have a couple of guards, a couple of centers, but they all interchangeable. So if a center goes down, a guard can move over the center, or if a guard goes down, you can take your backup center and move him to guard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, you are now, if you're the quarterback and you get into something, your whole offense now has to go over and that escalates the situation, right? So as a quarterback, you get guys back. You don't get involved in it because you're not thinking about you. You thinking about your whole team, your whole squad, and you don't want that to escalate. Uh, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I would, I would say I don't, I didn't, look, here's the people that fight. Okay, let's be clear. I'ma break it down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Linebackers fight with tight ends because they ain't no officials at practice, so they be grabbing the hell out of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] DB's talking so much trash that eventually somebody just get mad and they just go at it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is a lot of situations or circumstances in which I don't even, I won't even call it don't deserve the job. I would say get opportunities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, either through injury, uhm, either through, uh, somebody on the staff sees your upside. Uhm, only thing that we care about on the field is whether you produce it or not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if Donald P. Jones goes out there and he start dropping balls, now the coach has a responsibility to the other 10 men on the field. And that's where the problem comes in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Like you can be, you can be supportive of your guy and see it through when he's struggling. But you also have a responsibility to the other guys on the field.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you know those guys, but you don't think of it as he shouldn't be there. You think of it as he's there. We need him to do what he needs to do because it's all about winning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We ain't sitting back worrying about what your circumstances are, what your situation is, or why you there. But once you get there, now we gonna hold you accountable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's kind of where, that's kind of how that goes because I'll tell you like this, every opportunity I ever got, I wasn't the first choice, right? But guess what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I say, look, my second year in the league, I had like nine or ten, uh, receiving touchdowns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what they did? They had so much faith in me. They drafted Tom Vardell as the ninth pick in the draft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so, I'm thinking, oh, they must think I'm terrible. So I say, well, we'll see, right? Season starts, they go, they come to me, they want some money back, right? Had to give them some money back. I go play out the year. Tommy Verdel gets hurt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Old Bill Belichick, gotta look over to his right. Guess who's standing there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether that guy should be there. But I'm not gonna say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, a guy got his job this way, or got his job that way, it don't matter. Man, there's some weird, what, wait, you think, you think they were real confident when Kurt Warner took over?