Reddit reviews Corpus Hermeticum: The Divine Pymander

Lodge 49 S01E06 The Mysteries

We are somewhere between Albedo and Citrinitas, or the White Phase to the Yellow Phase. Larry's memory is heavily cast in yellow light, as is his room and upholstered chairs, even his shirt. Cinitras is when we change from the Moon to the Sun, from reflecting the light of others to becoming a source of light ourselves.

In the three Pillars of the Tree of Life, Severity, Mercy and Balance, Dud seems to be taking the path of Severity (which starts with passivity), Liz the Path of Mercy (which starts with taking action), and Ernie the Path of Balance (living in the here and now).

“He who thinks a fire, is a fire.” is a hex being cast by Wallis Smith onto child Larry. What a dickish thing to do to your girl-on-the-side’s son. In real lodges, a President only serves a one year term, to keep their heads from getting too swelled like this, and the officer’s line keeps moving people up so that will be many Past Presidents lying around to check the power of the current year’s one should he get out of line. Those Thanksgiving decorations, including the bark canoe, are pretty sweet tho.

“Except we’re the Lynx. Not the Masons. The Masons were wannabe Rosicrucians. And the Rosicrucians were a hoax that pretty much just got out of hand. You know, there's a really great essay by this British junkie--" There have been so many conjectures about the origins of Freemasonry by so many authors, all of whom contradict each other, that this essay of Duds could be hidden among any of the Prestonian Lectures, the hundreds of books published by Lewis Masonic, or since Scotland is part of Great Britain, it could be Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century. But we see Dud has taken seriously Blaise’s statement that he wouldn’t respect Dud if he didn’t put in the work and study necessary to earn becoming a Knight.

[Edit: Hat tip to /u/ficta, who saw the clue was in "British junkie", which I completely missed despite it being there in the closed captions. This makes the essay most likely Historico-Critical Inquiry Into the Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons by Thomas De Quincey. Warning: It has a wandering, fatiguing intro, just skip to Chapter 2. ]

“Who’s not afraid of the dark, Liz? At least it makes sense. You know what doesn’t make sense? Being afraid of the light.” …says the guy starting a nightshift job where he will be chased by dark shadowy figures similar to the shadow man alchemical symbol for Earth.

Champ’s Marxist rants about corporations are self-fulfilling. He chooses to place himself in the pressure cooker, and refuses to step away. He chooses to work two jobs at the same time. I wonder if he also saves money by having no home or bed to sleep in. His anti-capitalism rants offer no solution, no way out, nothing to change to, just bitterness at his alienation and disempowerment. Maybe if he quit his speed habit he could afford to quit one of his bottom of the ladder jobs and be less stressed. While Dud idealizes pastoral naturalism, Champ demonizes industrial capitalism. Even a future when Champ retires and is replaced by robots is dystopian. Dystopian literature is a particularly bad fantasy genre that misleads angsty teen mid-wits into believing they’re in-on-the-secret visionaries.

Ernie is declared Sovereign Protector, which Jung would say now makes Ernie a Senex.

Larry “goes down swinging” in the same spot outside the lodge of his childhood fist fight.

Dud is quickly moving up in the world. From a Fool, through the three Medieval ranks of Those who Work, and now to Those Who Fight. (Er, those who drive away quickly.)

Notice what the thieves are stealing? They’re cutting out copper electrical lines from the Orbis warehouse.

Alice’s motivational exhortations ("You're so weak! You suck at this!") are all dude bro shit talking, which takes a shift in thinking for some to understand how it works: She challenges you, saying who you are is not good enough. You overcome her by proving her wrong and doing better. It’s her quick way of filtering for winners, which are people willing to push themselves to improve.

Alice has displaced the Father's "Relax" pillow, throwing it onto the floor, and taken the Father's position on the couch herself while she challenges Liz to "improve her core". She can casually do this because Alice's name means "nobility".

"You moved the couch". The couch for Liz is the structure that she has placed herself, her father, and her brother into since childhood, giving her comfort. Liz has finally developed enough core (spirit) to shift her couch, and shift the relationships that the three have all been locked in even past death, breaking at last the parent's hold over them all. This breakthrough was not without risk, and the power released by the child rebelling against the parent and breaking these relationship constraints has injured and hospitalized her.

Liz has destroyed the image of her old self, transforming into someone new. While Dud's changes come from study and learning, Liz's changes result from intoxication. She ends with a cable tow tied around her neck. She may have stumbled on the carpet in the same place a second time as when she went to answer the door earlier ...or she may have stumbled on her father's Relax pillow that was thrown there by Alice. And did she really stumble there earlier, or just injure herself in the same place Dud is injured when she said his name out loud?

The scrolls will now become the McGuffin of the show? They're going to feel really dumb when they find out the Corpus Hermeticum is available on Kindle. What about all the first editions already sitting in the rediscovered library? Are they chopped liver?

Avery again gets 15 seconds of screen time, now making the character a Chekhov's gun. His name means "counsel". Real lodges issue membership cards that travelling members use to identify themselves as "members in good standing" to other lodges that also shows their rank within the organization. There used to be certain phrases and handshakes, but are only used ceremonially anymore because frankly once learned those don't expire when members get cheap and stop paying their dues. We're all now trained to look for a current membership card to enforce against travelling cheapskates that aren't current in dues with their home lodge drifting around satellite lodges to continue milking unpaid for membership benefits. You quickly learn to flash your current membership card first thing to the bartender when visiting any of your order's out of town lodge's taverns to show you're in good standing with your home lodge, and the first thing every bartender looks for is the current year on your card. The Grand Lodge officers are particularly diligent on flashing their membership cards because they want to discourage lax security and encourage enforcing keeping everyone up in their dues. "Is there room at the Inn?", if a real Lynx phrase used to identify a travelling Lynx member to another lodge when they don't have a current membership card, has got to be the lamest phrase ever, and this kind of easy to fake impostor credentialism is precisely why all the fraternities have moved on from using secret handshakes and password phrases to rewarding paying your annual dues with a membership card with the new year's graphics, card color background, and the newly paid for year prominently displayed ...that expires when the next lodge dues are up.

There is a theory that Lodge 49 itself is a character, and that its spirits speaks to the main characters through birds and weather. If so, the happy bird chirps and bright light when Avery crosses over the threshold and under the lintel means at least the Lodge spirits like him.

Kenneth Welsh has his own theory why his character Larry punched Dud.

The closing a cappella version of “Nature Boy” was sang by Tom Patterson's wife Susy Kane in their living room.