ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF THE ARCHETYPAL TEMPLE!
I’m super excited to announce the release of my third book, The Archetypal Temple and Other Writings on Masonic Esotericism, on Tria Prima Press. The official release is set for Wednesday, September 22nd at 8:17 am AZ time (more on this date and time below).
Here’s how it started: last year, I wrote a blog post for the Tria Prima website entitled “The Archetypal Temple” wherein I explored the multivalence of the temple archetype. I noted that the Temple exists simultaneously on several ontological planes, such as the physical, mental, historic, mnemonic, egregorical, astral, cosmic, etc., and that it is perhaps the central project of Freemasonry to erect and maintain these manifestations of the Temple archetype. This idea became the organizing principle of my latest manuscript.
I had lots of ideas for new pieces, as well as some I had already written, that fit this thesis in one way or another. As you may or may not know, I had become deeply interested in astrology and cosmology in the past couple years and I found that these also seemed to conceptually support not only the sympathetic relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm but also the fractal expanse of the Temple archetype. This is, of course, the same underlying Hermetic principle that differentiates astrology from astronomy; alchemy from chemistry; and speculative Freemasonry from operative stonemasonry, in a sense (an argument that I unpack in minute detail in the new book).
I’m really proud of how this book came out and I think it may be one of my more accessible projects. I say that because the individual ideas are presented in short, digestible pieces that may be read in one sitting, as well as being discrete in themselves while still contributing in some way to the fundamental thesis of the book – the Archetypal Temple.
I also want to say a big thank you to Travis Lawrence for creating the fantastic cover art. He also designed the cover for P.D. Newman’s Angels in Vermilion published by Tria Prima earlier this year. Travis is a brother in the St. Louis area specializing in printmaking. He’s a talent. Make sure to check out his work at Infinity Prints.
Determining the Release Date
Let’s talk about the release date for a second. In keeping with the ideas of cosmic sympathies and Hermetic resonance, I decided to elect an astrologically auspicious day, date and time. First, I sort of ballparked what might be a good date that allowed Tria Prima enough time to get a feasible timeline together and discovered that we’d be in the proximity of the autumnal equinox. This is a powerful seasonal nodal point in the annual solar circuit, so I looked into it and found it was a Wednesday – the day or Hermes/Mercury! Already off to a great start, I wanted to get into a little more micro-timing of the release, so I erected an electional chart for noon that day and figured I could tweak it in either direction to see if I could get some good placements of planets in signs and houses (see the chart below).
I ended up finding that I could get Mercury (Hermes; the scribe and ruler of literature, magic, alchemy and astrology) on the degree of the Ascendant at precisely 8:17 am AZ time (Libra rising). Also, the Sun would still be in the last degree of Virgo, an earth sign, which is ruled by Mercury and sort of represents written communication, as opposed to Gemini’s (an air sign also ruled by Mercury) spoken communication. Innovative Uranus was conjunct the part of Fortune in Taurus in the 8th house at this time, which could signify both the unprecedented nature of the work as well as it being materially successful. There’s never a perfect electional chart, and this one is no exception – there are some retrogrades in the social and transpersonal planets and some hard aspects (including that gnarly opposition between debilitated Venus in Scorpio on the 2nd house and the aforementioned Uranus placement but, whatever, it’s about the best election I can see for that day.
The idea behind electional and inceptional astrology is to utilize the momentum of the cosmos in order to get it working behind the commencement of your project or event, because you either have favorable stars behind your endeavor or you are cosmically doomed. Obviously, I wanted to harness this astrologically auspicious and sympathetic influence to give my book a good send off – and I think this election is pretty great.
Anyway, I hope you decide to pick up a copy – I think there are some crucial concepts that could really help enrich the Masonic experience and – just like with my other two books – I wouldn’t even bother putting it out there if I didn’t truly believe that I was doing a service to the Craft, which has given me so much, by offering some new insights, ideas, interpretations and commentaries, all in an honest effort to make our experiences of Freemasonry more meaningful. I view the Craft as a living tradition – not merely some static, historical edifice to be autopsied – and it is in this spirit that I have undertaken the labor that has materialized in The Archetypal Temple.
