Brother Freemasons Kiss and Make Up, The Masonic Blogosphere Rejoices

My esoteric flavored Freemason brethren finally relented and spoke to me about their inclinations, leanings, and general intuitions about their personal views regarding Freemason ritual.

My namesake, Brother Radcliffe, left a generous and polite comment; far more polite than I have been of late. Meanwhile the Wayfaring Man shared his favorite Masonic authors which, really, was all I was ever asking for to begin with.

What these brothers would find, were we ever to actually talk in person, is that we share far more in common than they may have ever imagined in the first place.

As part of full disclosure I would have to say that the single greatest influence in my entire life on esoteric topics has been the author Robert Anton Wilson. In fact, when RAW passed away last year it is the only time in my entire life that I have actually wept tears of grief for the passing of someone I had never actually met in person; RAW impacted me that much.

If you asked me what writing has had the greatest influence on my Masonic thought it would have to be 'The Widow's Son' by RAW; in my personal opinion it is his great masterpiece.

If you asked me what author most influenced my spiritual world view I would say it was a ghost named Seth who was channeled by a nice lady named Jane Roberts.

At the end of the day the most important lesson I ever learned from my dear companion Robert Anton Wilson was never, and I mean never, 'believe' anything.

The moment you begin believing something you freeze neurological circuits in your brain and you stop learning. Personally, I think that this is a generally 'bad thing' to do because, if life on this earth has any real purpose, it is to always learn and grow creatively.

I am a multi-model agnostic. Like RAW I try very hard not to 'believe' anything. I can, however, contemplate a myriad of models of reality; sometimes simultaneously without having my brain explode, and I remain quite comfortable with that challenge.

There are things I won't share online in a public forum but I would tell readily in a private conversation. I'm sure that the same is true for some of my internet brethren. A phone call is a powerful piece of technology. It can bring individuals in close personal touch even if they are separated halfway across the world.

Perhaps now I will take this rambling post just a tiny bit further. I struggle, not just with my agnosticism, but also with my personal neurological biochemistry. Let us say there is a compound, we will call this compound (X). And, when most people take this compound they experience an incredible transformation of consciousness. Let us call this 'enlightenment'. Now, imagine that I imbibe this same compound (X). My personal experience may be just a tiny tingling, maybe a tickle, and I walk away generally disappointed even though my curiosity has been aroused. Why do so many who experience this alteration of consciousness have a profound experience while I remain a casual tourist who receives only the tiniest whiff of what others may inhale deeply?

While my open minded self is quite willing to believe that my friends and brothers have the most illuminating experiences during altered states of consciousness, I remain steadfastly the voyeur who must satisfy himself with the stories of others.

I have never seen a UFO; yet I remain enthralled by the stories of the witnesses to these strange craft. I have never been abducted by an alien, but I love to hear the experiences of these contactees I call friends. I have never been accosted by poltergeist activity yet I generally accept the sincere witness of my afflicted brother. I have never contacted the 'higher planes', spoken to disincarnate entities, made contact with the ethereal realm or formed tulpas that would fool James Randi on a Sunday morn.

Nevertheless, I audit these experiences, I collect these stories, and I weigh them all in my deeply agnostic state of non-belief. Sometimes I think my only real gift is in the ability to communicate between people who share radically disparate reality labyrinths.

So, by all means, help spread the light as you see it. Ask me some questions, I won't be shy. The only vaguely esoteric episodes I have to share involve some fairly lucid dreaming experiences often augmented by mega doses of melatonin; a hormone in pill form which I am pleased to report can be consumed in handfuls of ten to twenty tablets at a time with no side affect greater than one vivid dream stacked up against the other.

As far as releasing my cell phone number on the Internet, that is nothing new for me. I am a well listed man and hope to stake a claim to such a vast swath of Internet real-estate that I will remain the top Google search term for my own name, let's say, some five to ten years after my death.