0:00 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Intro to Freemasonry and the mysteries

All right, welcome to another episode of the Aetherica podcast, aka the Astral Garden. I am Sky Matthysse here with my co-host, Ike Baker. How you doing, Ike? >> Howdy. All right. So, this episode we're going to be covering and going into the mysteries. Um, so I actually I found this kind of cool book recently um called The Origins of Freemasonry and the Knights Templar by John R. Bennett. And I haven't really read into it a whole lot. I just kind of poked around a little bit and it had a really cool

0:48 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Intro to Freemasonry and the mysteries

table of contents and all that. Um, so it kind of inspired me to want to talk a little bit about some of these subject matters in this episode. And so I guess to start off, I kind of wanted to get your personal take on the origins of Freemasonry as you see it. And I don't know, perhaps it maybe has something to do with uh Syrian Adinesian mysteries uh as well. and and the figure of Adonis. Uh it's someone that I just recently discovered, so I'm not really sure. I just saw that mentioned in the book. Um

1:27 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ike’s background and approach to Masonry

but yeah, if there's anything that you know about Adonis andor the Adenian mysteries, uh that would be awesome to talk about. But I guess first I'd like to get your take on maybe if you have any conclusions or uh leads on the origins of Freemasonry as you've come to conclude >> leads I wish uh I've um so I I might not technically be the most well-qualified to to speak on these things. Um, just because I want to make an admission, I've only been a master mason for uh just over a year, but

2:23 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ike’s background and approach to Masonry

I spent um almost eight years now in the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn. Um, I've been uh a Martinist in the Martinist Order of America for formerly MOP. We had a split um for a number of years as well. So you can kind of look at those organizations as and I know it's crazy because from a mundane perspective Freemasonry is esoteric but from an esoteric perspective and a cultist perspective Freemasonry is not really explicitly overtly esoteric. Um, and that that's kind of uh that's kind of where the stumbling

3:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What Freemasonry is and why its origins are debated

block is. Nobody can really point to where it comes from because nobody can really agree uh on what it is at its core. Um, and you know, a lot of Masons will likely disagree, but there are the orders, you know, like the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, like the Elu Cohen, like Martinism, like the rectified right of Willer Moses, like uh, you know, Keglostro's Memphis and Misam. They're all kind of these takes on what those people that founded those things thought masonry really was, what it was

4:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What Freemasonry is and why its origins are debated

supposed to be. So they were like reading this esoteric book that was masonry, let's say for you know um as an analogy and trying to figure out what is this, you know, um I think I know what it is. Uh or you know some hidden tradition gets handed down or some intuition some insight you know uh that gets sort of you know it has bearing out in the contemplations and perhaps uh spiritual work of a practitioner and they decide they're going to go this way with it. Masonry has been very good as sort of

4:39 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What Freemasonry is and why its origins are debated

like a seed ground for that kind of stuff. Splinter orders. I consider things like the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, Martinism, El Collen, all that stuff. Um, I consider it within the greater framework of masonry. We're studying principally the same symbols. Uh, now that, you know, we want to be inclusive of the appendent bodies, right? It's not just Blue Lodge. Um, but we're studying a lot of the same symbols in just a a different context with a little bit a little bit more of a liberal

5:17 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

interpretation. Uh, and I I would say I use that term liberal not in any political context, but more so in um freely, you know, openly. Um, so what is masonry? Um well there are a couple of different uh interpretations. There's the mundane and then there's the esoteric and there is what masonry explicitly claims itself to be. So the mundane perspective was kind of I think the modern mundane perspective was really fleshed out like the 1930s. I might be incorrect really like one of the first things I read when I became uh

6:03 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

a um well an entered apprentice really right there's three degrees in masonry um when I took the first degree I became an entered apprentice I read the builders by Joseph Fort Newton and he the the lady's name she was an academic in that time period is escaping me now unfortunately but he references her work in tracing a historical lineage um through masonry from the Roman architects, the the the collegia, the Roman collegia. So, if I'm remembering this correctly, I mean, it goes as far back as as it can

6:43 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

go. Um just being in Egypt recently and seeing um the grandeur of that place, the only you know the the the most tangible lasting things from which we extrapolate and extract so many details of their lives. It was the in the the buildings and on the walls and the hieroglyphics and in their monuments and the things that they said about themselves, the things that they built to to commemorate themselves. Um yeah, and I and I like to say that uh you know these they had the gumption to to think that this stuff would be here forever

7:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

and so far they're correct. Um the the interesting thing is that these people they required right they required um skilled tradesmen not only in terms of understanding physics, understanding things like trigonometry is tremendous in building um uh understanding materials, understanding technology, right? because that's what tools are. Tools are a form of technology, you know. Um what technologies can we uh craft and create with what's around us using our mind, our ingenuity um to be

8:05 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

able to build these things and more importantly, how do we organize ourselves so that we can actually get this done? And that to me is the supreme secret of of the builders. But they had they exerted a tremendous influence over the societies in which they they helped to to build literally um and in ancient Egypt they were given their own uh space within the you know they had the perk their own lodges the house of life they were they had their own rituals they were buried near the um mummified near

8:41 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

the pharaohs whose tombs they build and um that carried forth obviously into uh Roman times and they they granted uh they granted I guess the precursor of what would become the craft guilds. They called it the Roman collegia and essentially it was a college of adepts um adept in their in their particular right adept just means like skilled skilled at a masterful level. Um that's all that word means. It has a lot of mystical connotation around it. thanks to, you know, people like Blavatzky who who

9:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

tossed that word out there like it was uh some kind of special candy that you only got after you finished your dinner, you know. Um but um they were adepts in their in their their fields, their trades, and they were essentially in charge of organizing these building projects and creating more tradesmen, skilled craftsmen, journeymen, um that could accomplish these these things, right? I mean, your emperor your emperor ain't [ __ ] if he doesn't have a huge palace, right? I mean, like, what

9:51 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

is he going to be doing? Living living in a hut? That doesn't really signal strength of political power, you know? Um, and beauty, right? These people could recreate according to nature natural principles, right? Because I don't care what you say, you know, it's very postmodern. And it's very edgy to say, well, beauty is in the beh the eye of the beholder. But we're not talking about the same thing when we say that. I'm talking about beauty as in the classical sense, ratio,

10:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mundane origins: builders, architects, and trade guilds

proportion, harmony, symmetry. We derive these things from nature. The only thing we're ever doing when we're trying to paint something beautiful, I mean, we're deriving all of these proportions from nature because there is no other place to derive them from. There is no other place to quarry what is beautiful than what you observe around you in the physical universe and it's it's things like that ratio proportion symmetry which is which are all forms of harmony harmonia and um you

10:57 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

know there was an old saying I I forget who who exactly it was it had to be some old English or German man I I put it in one of the Arcanum episodes but he basically said Um, architecture is frozen music, >> I think. >> And back back then it back then it was >> Yeah, I think I heard that quoted by uh Gerta. I'm not sure if he was the original person that said that, but I think I have heard that quoted by Gerta. >> Yeah. >> Or read that quoted by Gerta >> probably. But um

11:32 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

so you you you have the the collegia of of architects in ancient Rome and after a while they were disbanded because they exercised too much power. Um they became too strong unwieldy uh in terms of the the control by the repan of the republic. It could have could have had to do with the switch over to um you know empire. I'm not really 100% sure on the the exact details right now. I've read them. It's I can only fit so much in my brain. Um, but it's in a book called The Builders by Joseph Fort New Newton. And it's it's

12:10 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

a classic for the more mundane Mason. And it's it's also, you know, you can when you join organizations like masonry, you could have these pie in the sky ideals. Like it's you're going to walk in, it's going to be eyes wide shut meets boiler room or something crazy like that, you I don't even I don't even know, you know, meets like Wolf of Wall Street. You you have all these ideas of of certain hierarchies and behind the scenes guys behind the guys and sometimes you can get there and and it's

12:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

a bunch of guys that uh you know uh can can barely put a dinner together, no less uh you know control the government. But so it's really good to read things like the mundane interpretations to keep your head on straight if you come into this from a a very esoteric perspective. And so then you basically have the um the Lombardi Magistri Komasini, the Komasine masters, the Italian Lombardi uh architectural masters. and they they kind of are considered to carry uh the vestigages of Roman architecture through

13:17 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

and they these these secrets and and these these you know uh trade adapts are descended let's say from these these ancient trade guilds. They kind of make their way through and the thing is like trade guilds were important. trade guilds did have initiations, you know, because you had to swear that you would keep these trade secrets. You can't you can't just have anybody a claiming to be right. Right. You when you become like a master builder, I mean, you have a totally different lifestyle. You you know, you're you're

13:51 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

eligible for more responsibility and can be very dangerous. Lots of money, lots of lives at stake. Um if you screw something up, you don't know what you're doing. And also, you know, they're they're privy to privileges. There there's a lot of privilege that comes in in any um field where you you you become masterful. And so, they didn't want just anybody claiming to be uh master builders, architects. And they didn't want anybody just claiming to uh to, you know, have these trade secrets and be

14:23 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

eligible for for wages and a certain lifestyle and the ability to move from town to town. That's what they call a journeyman. They move from town to town for work and then they they as a team and then there's different stratifications of that team. There's the apprentices who like you know they they lay out the tools in the morning. Um there's the the the journeymen who uh in masonry they're called uh fellowcraft fellows of the craft and uh they're basically the laborers. Um, and

14:55 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

then you have the masters who essentially design everything and set everybody to work in their proper place and arbitrate, right? They pay and they arbitrate disputes and they watch over the workmen. Workmen typically being, you know, skilled with their hands, but bluecollar people. So, you got to make sure they don't get too rowdy. You know, you have no mutinies on your hands or anything like that. It all has to be harmonious, right? That's a skill. for anybody that's ever been in charge or uh

15:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Architecture, harmony, and sacred geometry

kind of helmed something with a group of people, it's extremely difficult. Um uh so you have the McGistri Komasini who essentially um are the descendants of the Roman collegia of architects and they essentially and and Freemasonry kind of to make a long story short comes out of those rituals comes out of those things and then uh from there what happens is you have even in masonry today there's a distinction between uh operative and speculative so what we do as as blue lodge mason Mason is

15:58 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Operative versus speculative Masonry

speculative masonry. We don't do operative masonry. I do operative masonry because that's I work as a carpenter. Um but uh not everybody does operative masonry. So our brand is speculative. And apparently they they began opening up their doors to noblemen that had the time on their hands, that had the financial influence as the these trade guilds started to suffer, you know. Um, and architecture essentially devolved into slowly over time what we have now, which is just a bunch of triangles. You know, there's no

16:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Operative versus speculative Masonry

consideration of design in a classical sense. It's all this very postmodern um utilitarian. Yeah. But what about beauty, you know? Um what about natural beauty rather than this kind of postmodern aesthetic that we consider um to be it's it's aesthetically relevant doesn't mean that it's classically beautiful. Beauty is supposed to amplify the soul, you know, because it's it's the soul's recognition of the patterns that are beyond. It's our connection to the what Plato would call the the realm

17:14 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Operative versus speculative Masonry

of forms, the realm of ideals. Um it's our connection to that stuff and uh historically just in general um shapes and and and buildings, dwelling places, uh they've been very important to preodern people. Uh even in even in you read like black elk speaks you know I think he was a Lakota and he talks about he talks about um how you know the white man came and put us all in boxed homes and we lost all our power. Our men became effeminite. They have no strength. There is no strength. We used to live in circles. Circles are

17:55 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Operative versus speculative Masonry

the best. You know this is this is black elk speaking now. A shaman of the Lakota tribe. He's he's telling uh his his son who's translating to uh to this journalist in the 1930s for him and he's telling him you know uh we had strength because strength is in the circle. It has no beginning it has no end and everything in nature tries to be circular. It tries it has some aspect of it that is part of a circle a cycle. And when we lived in the circle the great circle of the nations we were powerful.

18:25 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Operative versus speculative Masonry

Our men were strong um our women were strong. And now uh it's all gone to hell because they've put us in rectangles. Which it's kind of interesting. It's kind of interesting, right? Because when you as a magician or or anything when you create the first step in creating a sacred space is to cast the magical circle. That's your circle of power, you know. And even in Freemasonry, the compasses circumscribe us, right? Compasses make a circle. They make a perfect circle. And they're one of the

18:53 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Operative versus speculative Masonry

the chief emblems. And you know, three great lights of masonry. Um so uh they opened up their doors to these noblemen who were very interested in things like uh liberal arts education and geometry and wanted to learn all this stuff and eventually it just kind of devolved into a completely speculative system which we have today. Okay, that's the mundane interpretation. Very very popular in the 1930s when everybody was just sort of you know uh wa washing trying to wash the stink of that 1920s

19:33 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric interpretations of Masonry

early 1900s uh pre pre-war uh sort of uh spiritual synratism, eclecticism and occultism. It happens to be one of my favorite times in in human history. But um there was a push towards rationalism again quote unquote. So then you have you have the more esoteric uh line through line for masonry which uh is kind of propounded by a million different people to this day. Um, traditionally it was Masons, you know, using their resources, using research, using what have you, uh, to attempt to understand the esoteric

20:15 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric interpretations of Masonry

secrets or esot esoteric side of Freemasonry. Now you have just anybody claiming that it's like that Charlie Day meme that they have now. It's like non-Masons trying to explain to Masons what masonry is about. Um, you know that whole like, oh, you don't have the 360th degree, so you don't know. You don't know? Well, how about this? You don't [ __ ] know. And if you want to know, come join us. Um, that's that's the real thing. Even, you know, anyway, um, before I lose my cool, I uh

20:48 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric interpretations of Masonry

you have now this massive kind of drowning white noise just drowning everything out, competing for for for space within this kind of like political socopolitical like town crier board. People just screaming from the rooftops about um uh masonry. Nobody really knows what it is. I mean, you know, least of all a lot of Masons in my experience. Um but we we'll get to I'll elaborate that. I don't mean that as as something derisive. I think that there is an underlying truth there that like we don't have to

21:27 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric interpretations of Masonry

know. You know, we don't have to really be able to pinpoint this [ __ ] If it works, use it. You know, all this intellectual speculation, it gets us nowhere. It's we're chasing our tails. We have it. It's right in front of it's in our hands. We don't need you don't need to, you know, understand it in any other light. But um the esoteric sort of exposition of this stuff basically is that I mean it all boils down to Freemasonry descending from ancient Egypt you know and and beyond it

21:56 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric interpretations of Masonry

being passed down you know there's some verbiage in Masonic ritual which is not it's not it it's written down so it can be spoken about quote unquote uh you know beyond the tiled confines of the lodge so I can talk about it because it's written you can buy it on Amazon Amazon in uh you know Duncan's ritual monitor or something like that. Um but there's some verbiage that says you know and thusly is transmitted through a succession of ages unimpaired the sublime tenants of our instit of our

22:28 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric interpretations of Masonry

great institution. And so um you know the supposedly the ravages of time destroy the physical monuments. It lays waste the temple of Solomon. But masonry continues. masonry notwithstanding has survived. Um and and and that to me is the key, right? You got all these people talking about ancient Egyptian initiate priests. You got got like Kagglestro and his Memphis Mizrame, right? Uh Albert Pike, um and his, you know, wacky synretatism which he basically stole whole cloth from Elephice Levy. Um all sorts of interpretations. I mean,

23:10 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric interpretations of Masonry

even the guys from the Golden Dawn, right? they they they have a very Egyptian kind of thing going on there that the founders and a lot of that had to do with that that sort of um archaeological boom in Egypt around that time, right? 1700s, 1800s. Um they thought that they had finally uncovered all these secrets. What they' really uncovered is just a bunch more questions. So, but that's how it goes. Um >> yeah, it's definitely one of my pet peeves these days, too. um kind of going back to what you were

23:43 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Modern architecture and loss of beauty

saying about like the you know the current modern application in regards to architecture and structures. It's like it's just it's like this annoyingly boxy, basic, cheap, temporary, fragile, lame uh architecture that we've come to adopt over time for the sake of most probably uh you know, financial, you know, just it being cheaper to produce buildings like this. But it's also comes with it not being something that lasts and within time. And so that's always been kind of like one of my gripes just about

24:26 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Modern architecture and loss of beauty

like looking at these beautiful ancient structures that we find a lot in Europe. And and nowadays it's just like we have these cubicle boxy office buildings. I'm just like h it just it drives me crazy. But >> I mean look at our lives, right? Look at our lives. Cheap, temporary, fragile. You know, it's like there's no concept of of strength or lasting legacy or and the things that really contribute to lasting legacy in in a meaningful way beyond blind egotism and sort of this

25:04 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Modern architecture and loss of beauty

carried on a stick ambition. Um, and that's what masonry attempts to inculcate. Now, the same way a a a a carpenter square proves an angle, right? That's what that's what we say in in carpentry. The the the square proves the angle. It's telling me this is, you know, 45°, you know, or or or or or 90°. This is this is 90°. Um this is a strong angle. This is this is strength right here. It's it's not you this you can put, you know, can bear weight. it can, you know, um you've you've got to get your level

25:42 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Modern architecture and loss of beauty

line. You've got to make sure everything is plum. And that is the those are the the tools that you use to test the building and test its longevity and test its utility and um and its quality. And those are essentially symbols within masonry that we use for less tangible laws of behavior, >> cosmic cause and effect. How do you talk about building a life on right principles? Well, you analogize it, you know, and and in the Platonic conception and in the ancient Egyptian conception, you only had um because of the vicious

26:27 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Moral symbolism and the tools of Masonry

nature, the potential danger of materiality to the inddwelling soul that you risked dissolution on the level of the soul. If you gave into the blind impulses of materiality, if the soul became so inshed in materiality, so identified with the body, it could dissolve, it could reach a state from which it did not return. And this is what we say in masonry. We we believe in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of men and the hope of the immortality of the soul. We hope that we have immortality. And how do we go about

27:05 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Moral symbolism and the tools of Masonry

gaining that immortality? conduct, right conduct to walk uprightly in our several stations before God and man, you know, um and and that's essentially what masonry itself says it is, right? So masonry, you're told from the worshipful master in the east, right? Worshipful is an archaic English word, right? When when it's an archaic word, it worship does not mean this gro it never did. It adopted a connotation kind of like when you just call a bandage a band-aid. Well, band-aid is a brand. That's not

27:39 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Moral symbolism and the tools of Masonry

what that thing is, right? Band-aid is a brand. It's not. But what you're putting on you is a bandage. So, we have these words that completely lose all [ __ ] meaning because people use them mindlessly and they can't be bothered to learn anything, >> you know? So, it's worship did not mean to grow. Worship meant to honor, right? That's why they call the judge the right worshipful, you know? It's it just means honorable. That's all it means. So when we say worshipful master,

28:09 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Moral symbolism and the tools of Masonry

what we're saying is honorable master. And it's not a person. It's an office. And that office changes every single year. And every man in masonry is eligible for that. To sit in that office and learn what it means to have honor and be a master and set the craft to work, give them proper instruction because you've put in the time. I mean, it takes typically seven years to get there at least. So you've gone through all the other chairs in the lodge by that point. you've you've

28:37 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Moral symbolism and the tools of Masonry

you've paid your dues quite literally and figuratively, but um aside from digressing into obviously something I'm very passionate about, um you know, you're told by the worshipful master as an entered apprentice that masonry is a beautiful system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. So that's what masonry itself has to say about what it is. So here we have three different ts. My theory is that it's all somewhere in between, right? Because that's typically where the truth lies.

29:12 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Moral symbolism and the tools of Masonry

Absolutely. Um Yeah. And it's funny too with like the compass as a symbol. The compass is it's one of my favorite symbols as a a graphic designer, just a designer and a lover of art and geometry in general. Um I utilized it for my graphic design business years ago. And so it's funny because when I when I ask people if they know what a compass is, they typically have no idea. And they think that it's, you know, they think of the compass in terms of the directional compass that, you know, northeast,

29:44 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Moral symbolism and the tools of Masonry

southwest, and whatnot. And >> I'm like, this should be something >> that we're all familiar with. But yeah, >> and so I wanted >> it's a geometer's tool really and a and a navigator's tool to be and and there's something that you're saying that is is spot on too because yeah, everybody should know what the compasses are, but there's also a pretty cool analogy in this idea of of like a moral compass, right? That kind of >> that there's overlap there in the

30:12 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

symbolism. >> And so I wondered if you knew anything about this Adam Adinus figure andor adiseianism because this is something I I just recently come across and I don't know much about this figure or his uh mysteries or anything in regard to that. I don't know if you have come across any information or anything like that. So I wanted to ask you about that as well. >> Yeah, I mean this might come across as like a garbled mess because it's not not my not my favorite myth. Uh but uh

30:52 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

first time I encountered Adonis was probably in the secret teachings of all ages by Manley Palmer Hall. Um early on, you know, I had only known of like, you know, saying somebody was in was an Adonis if they were in really good shape or something. You know, this cheesy like '8s line or um but there's a couple of interesting things about when you examine Greek mythology. For instance, Adonis, right? That is cognate, right? It's a lone word from from the Canaanite Adoni meaning lord, right? So the right right out of the

31:28 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

gate that tells you what that tells you that that that the Greeks cult a lot of their mythology from surrounding cultures and of course they were a people a seafaring people that made that had their economy that had their you know their the ground of their being in trade and and commerce in the literal sense of you know uh um interaction and exchange um and and Greek Ultimately at the end of the day ancient Greek was it was not a race it was a language you know and and if anything it was a structure in terms of

32:06 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

like the polus the city citystate that's you know there wasn't a lot of interaction because of vast bodies of water in between the islands and then the rest of the place is mountains that you you can barely get up on a on a donkey or something like that you know so it's they were isolated but they did have a lot of foreign exchange overall. Um, you were very curious people. They were not uh some of them were were were were less xenophobic than others and they you know they were trained in Egypt and they they took all

32:42 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

these myths and things like this. Um but Adonis essentially from my understanding of the myth is kind of again relating to immortality. Um something underlying the physical that causes it to reemerge perhaps in different forms but its underlying essence is still there. It's still alive. And I think I think Adonis is I think I think Manley Palmer Hall in secret teachings of all ages if I'm remembering this correctly uh he kind of correlates the reason for us celebrating Christmas with an evergreen tree is

33:21 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

because of the the myth of Adonis. Apparently once he dies an evergreen tree grows out of his chest or grows you know his body kind of turns into this evergreen tree and he's embodied there. I think his lover was Aphrodite or something like that. And um yeah, and he was cuz he was I think he was a mortal, right? He wasn't like a demigod or anything. I think he was slain because of some sort of uh altercation. Um some some rival quarter or something like suitor. Uh but yeah, so I mean that's basically the

33:56 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

the the broadstrokes uh version of of what I know about the myth of Adonis. Um, but what's interesting to me as it pertains to masonry again is this idea of the hope of the immortality of the soul. And in you hit you hit a certain degree where you are admonished to study geometry. And it's by it's through things like geometry that we are able to um you know curiously trace nature through her winding and circuitous path. You know it's it's it's kind of like being able to see the fingerprint of of the

34:36 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

creative god. In masonry we'd call that the great architect of the universe. Being able to see their brush strokes, right, of the painter, the brush strokes of the painter. Um so so to speak to poetic analogy but but things like that the the and Plato would agree right everything in existence is expressive of something that is eternal. It has a certain shape because of the sh the underlying shape which exists in eternity as an idea and we manifest on those things or around those things like

35:16 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

scaffolding and I mean if you if you even look at like you know uh basic you know chemistry biochem anything like that the the geometric shapes that these that these molecules form you know it's it's all based on this kind of underlying uh geometric pattern. which is, you know, basically a relation in in in space, right? Spatial location and relation things like that. And so masonry would claim that like look, you can begin to contemplate what is eternal if you study things like geometry because they're going to show

35:54 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

you the underlying patterns that no matter how many time things change or how many people, you know, if you die, if you live, if the sand castle of materiality continually is swept away by the the tide, it will come back again on X, Y, and Z. It'll look like this. It'll have these shapes. it'll have these forms. There's nothing new under the sun. And it's because it's those underlying patterns that are the thing that's actually being expressed. And materiality is merely its vehicle for

36:23 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

expression. Uh and masonry is the same thing. You know, masonry is just an arc. It's it's a vessel for for transmission and expression. You know, like the that's the important thing to remember about masonry. It's just a vehicle. It doesn't matter where it came from. it like any and all things can and will be superimposed on upon it because its language is symbolic, right? The teachings of masonry are the symbols and everything else is is commentary. And and what are symbols, right? I mean,

36:54 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Adonis and the hope of immortality

geometrical, you know, uh figures, they're lines, they're curves, you know, they have they have color, they have form, uh they have proportion, they have ratio, they have beauty. Um those are the real teachings of masonry. allegory symbol. >> Absolutely. And in terms of the of Egyptian mysteries, uh Egyptian are are the Egyptian mysteries synonymous with uh Mithraic or Myithism? because I think I read that Zazamos the alchemist was somewhat associated with the rights of Mithros or Mithraic rights

37:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

but maybe that was just a kind of like a side thing that he was doing but yeah maybe um talk >> you also there's a couple of things so the the Egyptian mysteries as we understand them would have been ancient Egypt and that would have predated Zosimos right he was alive during the the I think the third and fourth century CE, right? That's the common era. That's that's even after I think the tameic dynasty might have just been falling and and or no, yeah, it had been it would be

38:08 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

Roman that's Roman Egypt after the Talmies which were the Greeks who who uh who came after Alexander conquered and then died and Tameus after the war of Alexander's generals he took over Egypt and installed his his dynasty there. Um, so it was ancient Egyptian then Persian really. That's how Alexander conquered. He conquered the Persians and by extension took Egypt. Egypt did not fight him. They he they welcomed him as he came in through the city because he was very respectful. Um, and he honored

38:41 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

their their supreme god, the Apisbull, um, in Memphis, their capital. So by the time you're talking about Zashimos, you're talking about Roman Egypt, right? That's totally different than the Egyptian mysteries as they would have been taking place in uh really I late middle kingdom to uh to the new kingdom really to me you know or or let's just say middle kingdom and new kingdom Egypt. uh after that there was a synratism. I think the mysteries got better when it was helenized and things

39:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

like neoplatonic the narcissism started. I think the mysteries I mean you look at the temple of Dendura um the the temple to Hathor and Dendura that is that's a that's a helanized temple that did not exist in ancient Egypt but it's the most magical [ __ ] place I that I went to you know like it was otherworldly unbelievable um compared to a lot of a lot of the other stuff so that's that's not a value judgment it's just not it's not the the Egyptian rights proper >> and you als And but he did exist during

39:55 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

the Roman times. And so Mithraism was specifically Roman, right? It was it was open, I think, only to the Roman centurion, right? The guard, the the the only soldiers. It was a military organization. It was it was a cl I I want to say clandestine. Um, but it was an underground kind of secret perhaps invitational body within the Roman uh military at the time and that would have been consonant with the period in which Zimus lived. But Zashimus, you also have to understand he's associated with

40:31 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

everything. He's associated with alchemy, hermitism, neoplatanism, the uhnosticism because he was a great harmonizer of these things. Actually, I just spoke to uh Dr. Shannon Grimes. She wrote uh she's the the um >> heard of her >> department head yeah of the of religious and ethical studies at Meredith College over in Raleigh. >> And she wrote she wrote an excellent book. I got it right here. Becoming gold. >> Awesome. Yes. >> About >> I've seen that one.

41:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

>> It's about the the Zimeian corpus and and sort of this cultural biography of the place. and she talks, you know, she mentioned to me that she viewed him as a great harmonizer of everything. He it was beautiful the way he took all those things and uh and put them together. And I said, well, because it's all one thing. She disagreed. Obviously, she, you know, she's a scholar, so she has a little bit more sense of nuance, whereas I'm I'm not talking about it literally being the same thing, but they have the

41:32 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

same ground. they're underscored by the same mystery, the same question, the same cosmogy, the same cosmology. Um, when you strip aside the, you know, the the uh very minor, very minor cultural variations, it's this, it's the same thing. I'm definitely more of a of of a Campbell Jung archetype mono myth type because it's there. It's there. It's just wearing different clothes, you know. Um but um uh so Zosimus may have had uh may have had interaction or or knowledge of uh

42:14 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

the Mithraic rights being right a scribe priest. He was an Egyptian scribed priest scribe priest in in Egypt. But his special purview was uh the coloring of metals. That's really what what his area of specialization was. Mithraism it's another thing actually the first time I I read about it was in uh secret teachings manly Palmer Hall was great for that man um encyclopedic knowledge man traveled all over the world before he wrote that book you it's not like the internet there wasn't like one place you

42:50 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

could go he went to China to learn about Chinese stuff you know like it's a totally different uh totally different way of life I respect the [ __ ] out of that um and and it shows in his writing, you know, it really shows his depth of understanding and the the the poetic license that is necessary when you're talking about spiritual things. Like you can't to talk about it in these this this you know dead scientific materialist paradigm is to reduce it you know it's to reduce it to its only form.

43:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

It's like taking a talisman, right? Talisman is charged with a certain energy and just when you talk about things scientifically, you just pull all the [ __ ] energy out and it's like, well, now I have this piece of metal and this is what it is. Like, well, no, but you you complete you completely disempowered the the energetic, spiritual, and symbolic reality reality. Yeah. >> But um so uh you know myithraism was kind of cool because it it was around it was kind of like that people call it a a a

43:57 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos

competitor with early Christianity. Um I don't view it that way. There's something much larger at play. And I think that we'll get into that a little further down the line because I I feel like we're going to keep going with the the these these little these little Mediterranean cults. Yeah, maybe I wonder if in terms of maybe at least the Egyptian mysteries, um, if you have any particular overview or little tidbits or notes on what they may have entailed, um, that kind of can illustrate just a general idea of what

44:31 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

they encompassed. Uh, maybe that would be cool to kind of describe a little bit. Well, that has been a a question for, you know, like 5,000 years or something like that. Nobody really knows. Um, but there are a lot of clues. Uh, I'll I'll I'll say this. Um, so it changed, right? If you're talking about so the ancient Greeks went to Egypt to be initiated to study astronomy to study geometry right in in in Purery's life of Pythagoras is his biography of Pythagoras he says that

45:20 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

Pythagoras spent 22 years there studying these things um it's attested that Plato went there it's attested that Thales the father of logic went there it's attested that Solon the lawgiver was initiated and learned in Egyptian Right. And and one of the reasons is because to the ancient Greeks, the Egyptians were already an ancient culture. So think about how how much has just changed in your lifetime. >> Yeah. >> And then try and condense, you know, like it's like a blip. It's like a blip. It's

45:53 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

completely unnoticeable. It's like a a wrinkle on a raisin, you know, like it's a it's just the tiniest thing. And and so when we talk about the Egyptian mysteries, they changed dynasties. They changed the location of their capitals. They changed their creator gods. You know, it was Pata in the beginning, then it was, you know, Ra atum in the in the Middle Kingdom. It was things are constantly changing as they should be. Otherwise, they're no longer living traditions, right? But what's underneath stays the

46:27 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

same. And what we find is a a nature religion, but not a nature religion that is it's a magical nature religion, right? Heekkah. That's another that's another Greek loan word or it's an Egyptian loan word that the Greeks used, right? They come up with this idea of hecate, the triplefaced god. Well, why is she the goddess of magic? Because her name is is the Egyptian word for magic, Heekka. But Heekka was on the barge of Ra Atun, the boat, the solar bark that he sailed uh through the heavens at the day and in

47:05 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

the underworld at night. Heka was one of the gods that um was on this barge. And so that implies that he magic was one of the forces or natural elements at play in the creation and maintenance of the entire cosmos. So because that's that's the entourage that would be on that boat. So uh they viewed things and even even the the the Egyptian word for god or goddess is netch it's it's essentially cognate etmologically with nature >> and and so you you see over time like they're following the sun they're

47:53 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

following the moon you know they're following the winds uh the their gods in order to symbolize their attributes they anthropomorphize animals you know I'm telling you something about that. Like it's no coincidence that Horus, a falcon, has his eye plucked out. It's the most valuable thing to him, right? I mean, hawks are farseeing. That's their thing. They can be like hundreds of feet in the air and see a mouse that you don't, you know? So, it's they're meant to convey things um uh uh that are that

48:25 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

are specific and somewhat naturally obvious um pertaining to these specific animals. Um, but what I can say is that in my own personal estimation from all of the research that I've done from, you know, just talking with the Egyptologist who was our guide, um, we had two of them in Egypt and just relentless persistent study, you know, uh, it really seems that the stratification in particularly the late kingdom Um and in helanized Egypt uh the stratification of the priest class who really were the power they

49:13 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

were the power um they were the locusts of actual authority and power in Egypt um regardless of the pharaoh right they deposed Akenatan then they deposed his son Tutant Aken and renamed him Tutant Kamun because they didn't want anything to do with Atan they wanted Ammon to be the god again, you know, be he stripped the priest class of their power, moves their moved their capital and got rid of their pantheon of gods. And I think it was not just like this power play thing. I think it's like each priest was in charge of

49:47 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

ministering to a particular god. Okay, if P then Q. If each god was symbolic of a particular aspect of the natural magical cosmos, then that priest's purview would eventually become whatever is related to the working of that god. And that's why you have things like the Evers Papyrus showing us, you know, uh um physician priests and uh uh dedicated to to to semmet um uh herbalism, you know, make the crafting of early essential oils and linaments and things like that for mummification. uh under Anubis. Um you

50:29 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

have uh things like ancient metallurgy, you know, that's Zasimus' purview, the alchemical hermetic path of uh dying metals, things like that. Uh which essentially came out of uh sacred statuary, right? Because they would they would insole statues with the god. The the statue would quote unquote come to life with the spirit of the god. The the spirit of the god would live there. And they did this through a ceremony called the opening of the mouth. And and not just that, but when the pharaoh died,

51:00 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

they created a simulacum of the pharaoh. And his ca, his his etheric body was supposed to inhabit that statue that resembled his physical life likeness in his former life. And they would give it food and things like that to keep the ka alive in that statue. So it it comes out of like there was nothing mundane that didn't have a a primarily a spiritual application or purpose. And so the stratification of the priest class essentially created these natural philosopher magicians. In my estimation, the Egyptian priest class

51:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

were the first philosophers as we understand it. They were investigating nature. They were protoscientists as we understand it. They were investigating, right? They discovered the underlying patterns inherent in all things. And and that was their purview. You know, it's kind of like nowadays modern alchemists see the tree of prima at work under the four elements. Well, they were they were observing some species of that in everything. And that's why in my estimation, you have the great philosophers, natural

52:08 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

philosophers, geometers going to Egypt and coming back these great men, right? They they're not they're not brilliant when they go there, but they come back and they're almost like superhuman in their knowledge. They changed the course of human history by bringing that light to their respective little corners of of the world, the Mediterranean. So, those are my thoughts really on, you know, quote unquote Egyptian mysteries. There's a lot that have has been written. Normandy de Ellis is one

52:37 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

of my favorites. Believe it or not, Budg's work on Egyptian magic, I think, is really really good. all you know the theererary texts as a corpus the book of gates the book of hours and the book of coming forth by day or the Egyptian book of that it's all one book that's it's like people people make the mistake of thinking that there's separateerary texts when it's all part of a larger corpus it's the same way the Bible is 66 books and if I die I want like you know a line you know a verse from Matthew on

53:08 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught

my tombstone I can't fit the entire gospel you know so It's it's it's like it's I would recommend that that you look there really for the mysteries because they were about what happens to you when that exterior materiality that we're talking about dies and you continue onward and that's that's essentially the mystery tradition is is the imort the the rights of the immortality of the soul. >> Yeah. Beautiful. All right. Now, so Dian uh first I guess my question is uh who was

53:47 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Bacchus, Dionysus, and divine ecstasy

Bacus? Who whom the Greeks referred to as Dionius? Um maybe like where did the name Bacas originate from? And then second uh kind of what are some of the details in regards to the Dian mysteries? Are those an evolution of the Egyptian in your estimation? Um maybe you could elaborate a little on that. >> Um so Bakus I feel like Bakus I feel like Bakus is is more Latin but I'm not really sure. Um, so I don't I don't really know if if that predates the term uh Dionus or or Dianisis as it

54:35 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Bacchus, Dionysus, and divine ecstasy

is anglicized, but I know that uh essentially Dianisis or or Bakus, they were gods of wine and realry. >> So that's that's that's a definite um that's a definite connotation. That's the definite purview particularly of Dionis, right? He was the god of the vine. Um and he was the god of divine inebriation. And what I have found interesting, what I have found interesting about Dianisis is the polarity with which he is and his overall mysteries are portrayed. So it's and and it's just like anything

55:23 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Bacchus, Dionysus, and divine ecstasy

else, right? This is them using mythological terminology to talk about the mundane and the spiritual qualities of getting wasted because it's a fact. We look at everything like it's separate when at the end of the day you cannot toggle. It's I I can't take this side of this coin and move it over here. Sweet coin >> and then I know and then leave this part this side >> over here >> right exactly it's a beautiful coin Mark thank you very much but um >> you you essentially you cannot move one

56:03 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Bacchus, Dionysus, and divine ecstasy

side of that coin without moving the other >> um and and it's the same thing with materiality and spirituality there is no material action that does not have a spiritual consequence and vice versa so um They talked about this dual polarity of the um I think they're called the main ads. His sort of like uh entourage of female devotees who were given to just like these explosive uh bouts of wine induced mania and they were the ones who ripped Orpheus like to pieces. they ripped him to shreds and

56:44 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Bacchus, Dionysus, and divine ecstasy

they stuck his head on a pike and it sang for eternity, you know, beautiful, beautiful myth. But um and then on the other hand, you have the divine revelation of inebriation which I kind of correlate to the Platonic idea of mantia, right? we call the the mantic arts uh arts of divination, arts of intuition. Um what that word really means is madness. And Plato kind of delineates it as this divine ecstasy. Now ecstasy is ecstasis means standing outside of yourself literally like an outof body experience or a separation

57:35 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Bacchus, Dionysus, and divine ecstasy

from the mundane persona for a minute. Right? And that's that's really what we're trying to create when we're divining. When we're see searching for intuition, you have to shut your intellect off. You have to shut your persona down. You must put it in obeyance temporarily to allow space for that which is within you that remembers right anomnesis in the Platonic Corpus. The fog of leth lifts momentarily in the divine mantia of inebriation and it's actually a higher rationale

58:11 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Bacchus, Dionysus, and divine ecstasy

to Plato. It's a higher rationale than the intellective and rational faculties and that to me is Dionian the divine ecstasy that gives you a momentary clarity amid the hallucination of material life. Yeah. And I would say uh if anybody's interested in maybe that sort of thing, I've deferred to a couple different individuals. I'd say Brian, I think it's Brian Morazzu or something like that. He wrote a book on that. Uh and then PD Newman as well, if you want to explore those territories.

58:51 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Entheogens and spiritual initiation

>> Yeah, man. He's he's great, dude. I I talked to him quite a bit. I'm I'm working my way through uh Angels in Vermillion >> and uh it's really interesting. He has definitely swayed my perspective in in some senses. I still I still think that um there has to be so the reason why enthiogens were so effective as spiritual catalysts is because the way in which they were handled they were sort of sequestered. They were controlled not by the state but by the priests of the mysteries. We don't have

59:32 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Entheogens and spiritual initiation

that anymore. And it's very difficult for the uninitiated to self-initiate. It just becomes self-medicate at that point. And so if we could return to if it if we could return to a state of this kind of you know administration under the opaces of spirituality via symbols and and via the syntheata of rituals and I guess a a a a modicum of teaching or training while in that state and leading up to it sure that's great but you know I I don't care what Terrence McKenna says you can't unleash

1:00:12 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

psychedelics on the population and expect us not to go even further into hell. You know, it's just not possible. >> For sure. Uh I guess the last inquiry I have into this subject of the mysteries um is along the lines of the Elucinian andor Samothracian. So, I read that Elusus was an old priest of Samothrace, and you've mentioned Samothracian mysteries prior, but we didn't really touch on it too much. And I wonder, are Samothian mysteries something of the same vein as Illusinian mysteries? Because I would

1:00:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

assume the Illusinian mysteries have something to do with this Samothian priest, Elusus. But yeah, maybe you can elaborate a little bit on that. Yeah. So, Samotraki was um a Greek island. I think it was over by Turkey though. Not really sure, but I know it was Greek. So, Greek speaking had intercourse with that seafarian culture, its peoples, you know, uh as defined by the language and the po their their their structure of the polus. And um uh they have a really cool set of mysteries that the Golden Dawn kind of

1:01:30 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

co-opted for some of their for one of their rituals. Um now you talk to a typical Golden Dawner and they'll know something of the Seamothracian mysteries. Um but they you know it's not the tack I have on it is not necessarily typical of of I think a more Golden Dawn exclusive um perspective. But you essentially have like the great gods. I think it's like uh to to you know the the the the great gods um being worshiped in uh in Samotrai Seamoth and one of which is the great mother. Um

1:02:11 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

another is right for all intents and purposes uh Deitra Deer. Um, and then you have Hekati. Um, again was another I forget she was worshiped under like a couple different forms, right? She is the triplefaced goddess. Um, maiden mother crone type of thing. Um, I forget which aspect which one of her aspects she was worshiped in. Could have been all of them. But uh and then you have this really interesting triad called Axios, Axioa and Axiosa and Axios. Uh these this triad of gods and uh in the Golden Dawn they they kind of

1:02:54 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

interact with this candidate that's called Casmillos. But um I think the the name of of that that fourth kind of player in there was Cadmillos uh in in the Samothacian mysteries. And I do without getting too far into it because not not a tremendous amount is known about any of this stuff but there is a direct correlation to this relationship of Deita the great mother Pphanie whose name uh archaically like more originally was Kore meaning the maiden um right an an attribute of of Hecate and uh Hades or uh Pluton

1:03:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

the god of the underworld. And that that was that was exactly and I think and I think Cadmillos was was uh was Hermes. So So right there that cast and crew of those mysteries that's a onetoone with the Elusinian mysteries. Okay. Um I don't all I know is that the town was called Alfina. It's not Elusis. You go you you go to Greece trying to look for elus. You can be chasing your tail for days like I did. It's alfsina. Um the oopsilon is usually translated uh by academic anglicization to uh a u I think

1:04:18 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

by way of Latin, right? Because the Romans actually at a certain point sponsored those mysteries. Marcus Aurelius himself was initiated at Alfina. But it's Greeks do not pronounce uh the oopsilon like a U. Um it's usually like an F. So it's uh or or a Y if anything. Um so uh it's LFC and and so that was my understanding of it. I don't know about who went where or did what and and how any of that stuff was was transmitted. But the thing is again we're talking about symbols. We're

1:04:57 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

talking about the outer garb of an underlying truth. And the best that we can do is talk about it in these terms, right? I mean, Plato talks about that in the Timeus. Timus basically says, "Look, is there this big dude in the sky named the demi urge that's, you know, putting building block?" No. Or I don't know because I'm just a person and you guys are just people that are listening to me. But at the end of the day, if this is the best that we can do, then we should do it, right? If if the if if the

1:05:27 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

best that we can do to talk about things that transcend words is to put them into symbolic form in which we can sort of understand them, then let's just do that and leave it be instead of trying to they didn't have this conception of like abstract quantum physics that we have. We look back and scoff at them. But that the mythological terminology was their scientific vernacular. You know, it it was the same thing. So, you know, it's different point in time. They didn't have the technology that

1:05:54 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

allowed us to uh they also didn't have you know it wasn't really until Aristotle that they had this you know left brain dissectional categorize it put it in this filing cabinet they had no way of coming to those you know uh those very fine-tuned uh quantifications right it was Aristotle who wrote about the categories and things like that uh quantification um and and and and and quality but Um, the myth of Pphanie to me really changed when I really understood it. Uh, the myths of Elusus, the rights of

1:06:32 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries

Elusis. I was I was there uh and I did some vision work actually the first time I went. I went there twice and actually I did vision work both times. The first time was kind of weird, but um it was incredible. It's just incred. It's just a field at this point with a bunch of stones similar to most uh ancient ruins. But when I really understood it, it unlocked kind of this door of understanding of of spiritual perception. Um and a lot of it is etmology or not a lot of it, some of it is etmology.

1:07:11 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

And it clued me into the necessity of etmology in our studies. So pphanany in Greek means like the murderer, like the slayer. And you sit there and you scratch your head. You're like, well, how the hell what does that have to do with anything, you know? Um, so I'll retell the myth briefly with, right, myths have all sorts of variations. I'll tell the variation that I like. So, uh, Pphanie is Deer's daughter, right? Deer is the great mother, the great earth mother. She she is the the goddess of of grain and the

1:07:46 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

harvest and and really consequently the seasons um the cycle of of of birth, growth, decay and death, right? Kind of like Isis. Um and her daughter is Pphanie the maiden, the virgin. So she Pphanie is out one day in the field collecting flowers and she bends down kind of not paying attention. The this flower catches her eye. It's the most beautiful flower she's ever seen. She reaches down and she grasps hold of it and it's the narcissist flower. And what happens is as she's pulling on the

1:08:29 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

narcissist flower, reaching downward, she's reaching downward, the ground opens up and the horses of Hades come charging force forth with the lord of the underworld, the black brother of the Olympian triad. Um, and he grabs her and abducts her and pulls her down into the underworld. Some say that she's raped. I don't really like that version. I like the version where she's just abducted because what's really important comes later. So Deer goes looking for her and she's weeping and she's crying and uh

1:09:09 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

searching all the land. And then finally she goes to Zeus and she's like, I don't know where my daughter is. And uh Zeus finds out that uh from Poseidon, I think that the the sort of middle brother of of the three um that Hades has has abducted her and she's now queen of the underworld. She is his queen, his prize. So Deer says, "Listen, um you've got to get her back." And Zeus says, "Look, he's in charge of what happens down there. I can't do anything. That's those are the rules. those that's

1:09:44 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

the agreement we made. And so she says, "Well, for as long as Pphanie remains in the underworld, I am going to weep and no grain shall grow in the land. The seasons will stop." And so she begins to cry and a and a and a winter comes upon the earth. Nothing grows and the the people are dying. And now what does that matter to Zeus, right? He don't eat. But what the gods live off of is worship and tribute, right? those those big thigh bones wrapped in fat. That's what they want. Um and so that stops happening

1:10:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

because animals die. It's winter. People just stop sacrificing. So then he finally he finally says to to to Hermes, right, who carries the Kaducia staff. So he is able by that implement given to him by Apollo to traverse Olympus, the celestial realm, you know, a quote unquote Middle Earth, the the the middle realm, and then the underworld. So he says to Hermes, "Go down and tell Hades uh that he's got to give her back." So Hermes goes down and he sees Hades with Praphanie. He's like,

1:10:54 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

"Listen, we've got a real problem. She's got to come back topside." And uh Hades kind of puts up a fight, but he says, "Look, Zeus sent me." And so he has to he has to he's got to listen to that. But what happens is that Pphanie had been down there for so long that she had hardly eaten. And Hades knew this. And so his last his last bout of trickery was to offer her something to eat. And she refused. She kept refusing. She kept refusing. And then he said, "Just

1:11:25 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

something small. have this pomegranate seed. And finally, she relents. She's so hungry, she just eats the pomegranate seed and she says, "No more. That's all I'll accept from you." So, when Hermes comes to barter barter the uh you know um uh arbitrate this deal and get her out of there, Hades says, "Listen," and this is right. This is classic Greek myth mythological logic. Um, I'll let her go back up, but she has tasted of the fruit of my realm. She has eaten a pomegranate seed, and therefore

1:12:00 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

she must return. At which point, Pphanany wales, but they take her back up topside. She's able to to to be with her mother. Grain grows again, right? The spring, the summer, the fall harvest, and then she's got to go back for a season, every year, every cycle. And that's when winter happens. Now, you get a lot of really thickheaded people who talk about, well, it was just their way of s, you know, explaining why the seasons change. I don't know. I tend not to think so. The people who, you know, built the

1:12:33 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

parthonon and and gave us philosophy and and and mathematics and things like that, I tend to think that as a population, they're a little better than that. But as was customary uh in all these traditions over all time something highly symbolic and when you understand the myth for what it is it's mindblowing. Praphanany reaches down right so we talked about the Samothracian mysteries in the golden dawn those are linked to something called the Calan oracles attributed to Zoroaster. In reality that collection of

1:13:05 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

documents is just sayings by neoplatonists like Platinus and Proclas and and all that stuff. Um but one of the lines actually is stoop not down into that darkly splendid world where in lith uh um a continually faithless gloom or something to that effect. Hades wrapped in gloom delighting in unintelligible images ever espousing a body unluminous formless and void. Something to that effect. Um, but stoop not down into that darkly splendid world. And she stoops down and what does she reach for? The

1:13:42 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

narcissist flower. The image the image of the self. Seeing being lured into into the underworld by an image of the self, a narcissistic kind of simulacum. And she's pulled down and she's she stays there and she has a divine mother. The great mother weeps for her, right? Pphanie is the soul that has descended into the underworld, which really in Greek mythology was the sublunary realm. The underworld was not like the underworld was this. We live in the in the classical Greek underworld. Had the

1:14:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

realm of Hades is where is the earth, you know. Um that's really what what what it was meant to convey materiality. And so Pphanie reaches down. And we see this also in the Golden Dawn uh in the the the diagram of the uh of the um uh the fall from the the tree of uh or from the Garden of Eden. You know, uh, Eve is on the bottom supporting Adam and she reaches downward leaving everything unsupported and Adam and Eve both fall into materiality. Right? The next step is that they're wearing animal skins. This this this is

1:15:06 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

the animal skin. >> Um, and and that is the story of right Pphanie is the bringer of death, the slayer because embodied existence is a death to the soul. Right? That's that whole Platonic conception of soma sema. S meaning body, sema meaning prison. The human form is the prison of the once far wandering soul which we say in the golden dawn has been bound into a narrow place by the three-fold material inclination. That's what all these traditions are trying to to tell you about. It's a

1:15:42 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

Gnostic tale. We're stuck here. We've got to get out. And uh and the pomegranate seed is what lures us back. Tasting of the fruits of materiality, desire, predelection, taste, um comfort, all these even even the attachments to the people that you love, right? Plato also says through Socrates and I think the Fedrris, you are just as enthralled to the illusion of me materiality as when you are happy than as you are when you're sad. It's not just sadness that is that is is a lie. It's the happiness because you're

1:16:20 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Persephone, Hades, and the soul’s descent

investing in the illusion. And those investments over time are believed to imbue the soul with desire. And that desire, that attachment, this is Buddhist. This is vidantic. This is straight out of Platinus in the Neoplatonic philosophy who was taught by Ammonia Sakus, the Cythian sage. The attachments pull us back down into the cycle of reincarnation and we cannot ascend. That's the cycle. She has tasted of the fruits of the underworld and so she keeps going back. That's the story of the soul and that was the Elusinian

1:16:59 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Samothrace, architecture, and closing thoughts

mysteries. Yeah. >> Yeah. Man, I wish I had the self-control to only taste just one pomegranate seed and call it good. I love me some pomegranate. >> I mean, look at this right here. Look at this right here. >> Yeah. Wow. That was incredible. Um, and I think I had originally come across the Samothian inquiry cuz I was I was going down a Tartaria rabbit hole. I don't know if you've gone down that hole, but it revolves a lot around a lot like a around an analysis of various like

1:17:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Samothrace, architecture, and closing thoughts

architectural structures and kind of looking and speculating a lot about the symbolism and functionality and so on and mud floods and all kinds of stuff. But so many branches of interesting ideas and thoughts, some really intriguing and plausible, others not so much. But I was looking at uh the capital building here in Arizona and there's a statue on top of it of this what looks like kind of like an angel. But I looked up what it was and it was actually a modeled after uh what's it the goddess of

1:18:07 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Samothrace, architecture, and closing thoughts

the statue that was found on the island. Yes. >> Niki you say in Greek. Yeah. >> Yeah. And so that kind of got me my interest peaked. But um uh yeah, so uh to close this out uh just thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the the Etherica podcast. If you enjoyed this, I please would ask to consider checking out the Patreon at patreon.com/etherica. There's always going to be quite a few episodes loaded on there prior to a public release on the RSS. Uh so quite some good value there. Um, also for

1:18:44 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Samothrace, architecture, and closing thoughts

myself, if anyone wants more of my other stuff, you can please check out philosophical mind pod philosophical minds podcast. And um, how about for you, Mike? Where would you like to direct people? Um, so I'm at uh, YouTube.comcanum. A ran VM. Uh, and you can uh I I have my links to to uh my Instagram and email if you want to reach out and contact me there. And I have uh podcast interviews that I do myself. Sky has I've had the honor of having him as a guest and uh many other practitioners, academics, researchers,

1:19:28 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Samothrace, architecture, and closing thoughts

scholars in the fields of the occult, esoteric and um and also I give presentation style lectures with a pretty solid production value. I would say they're a little bit more formal um and they're uh they contain show notes and things like that. So you can find the bulk of my cont uh my content there. Awesome.