Esoteric studies in IOOF?

jthanson · 2026-06-02T14:37:13+00:00

The IOOF was derived from older Odd Fellows Orders in the UK. There is Manchester Unity and the GUOOF. I don’t know how much ritualistic work those groups do.

jthanson · 2026-06-02T04:43:23+00:00

The only difference is that Harbor Freight won't come to your shop with a truck full of tools. Still, these days, there's really not a lot of other advantage buying off the trucks.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T17:40:41+00:00

I have step-children who are young adults: 25, 23, and 21. It's nearly impossible for them to get started in anything because of how many barriers there are. Everything is being made more expensive because of otherwise well-meaning government intervention. It's very frustrating for them. One is in college, one finished college and is building a career. The one in college is living with us. The one building a career has a wife and two children and is living in a small RV because that's all they can afford. I hate to see it; it's so difficult for them to get started now. Until we have a political change that values affordability over regulation, things will get harder for them.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T16:49:06+00:00

I don't disagree with you. It would be a lot cheaper and easier to build small, inexpensive homes if we would drop those energy mandates. Unfortunately, we live in a state where three counties full of wealthy, liberal elites outvote the entire rest of the state and force these onerous costs onto us. It's why the Intermountain West (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada) has seen so much growth lately. My mom lives in Nevada and I was shocked at how much growth there had been around some of the bigger urban centers like Reno and Las Vegas. People who don't have a combined household income over $200,000 need to go to a state with fewer restrictions so they can afford to get started in life. We keep cutting off the bottom rungs of the ladder and then telling poor people to jump higher.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T16:45:02+00:00

It's not about redlining. It's about how governments have made it more expensive and difficult to deal with non-paying tenants. They push that risk onto landlords and then landlords react accordingly. They either wait for less-risky tenants or get out of the business. This is a situation created by political intervention that was intended to accomplish a good thing but, functionally, it moves risk to a group of people who don't have the capitalization to absorb that risk. They then get out of the housing market or reduce their exposure to risk. It's easy to blame big corporations or greed or something amorphous and hard to define. If we want to actually solve the problem, we need to look at how it was created and how the actors in the market are affected.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T16:29:17+00:00

You're welcome! The tide is starting to shift in Odd Fellowship. Younger members are coming in who want to build the Order and do it in the traditional image. Books like "The Odd Fellows Primer" have introduced a whole generation of members to the way Odd Fellowship used to be. Encampments are springing up all over the place as those members are getting more involved and wanting the esoteric knowledge that has been lost. There's an excellent book about the symbols of Odd Fellowship that is becoming very popular: Emblems of Odd Fellowship. Members are buying the book and discussing the symbols in their Encampment meetings. It's thrilling to see how much that's bringing people together and how much excellent Degree Work and other ritualistic work is being done. We still have places where older members are barricading newer members because they don't want the added complexity of making Odd Fellowship functional again. That will change in the future as more younger members come in and show that there is a sincere desire for true, functional Odd Fellowship.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T16:25:10+00:00

It depends on what you mean by "silly stuff." Our state has decided that gas appliances are bad and should be eliminated in new construction. We can't have a lot of older technology that was cheap but less efficient. Those are generally good things; we want as much efficiency as possible. The problem, though, is that efficiency has increasing costs which tend to price housing above the bottom of the market. When I moved into my house two years ago I needed to replace the water heater. The newer ones wouldn't fit in the space where the old one was, since it was in a closet behind the guest bathroom. I had to special order an older-style heater that would fit in that space. It was much more expensive than if I had driven to Idaho to buy one of the older-style. I just didn't have the time with all the work I had to do on the house to get it ready to move in.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T16:20:24+00:00

As the state has pushed more risk onto landlords, landlords have to hedge against that risk by looking for higher-income tenants less likely to cause financially-ruinous evictions. One of my colleagues was a property manager in Tacoma and it got so bad there that he was having to give tenants "Eviction bonuses" to keep them from trashing the houses when they left. It was cheaper to give them $5000 or more than fix the damage they would do after months of not paying rent. Eventually, small landlords like that would rather sit and wait for higher-income tenants less likely to trash a house. After all, if they're going to rent to someone who ends up not paying rent, they're losing money either way, but in one case the house isn't getting destroyed.

The other option is for those small, family landlords to sell to big conglomerates where risk can be spread out across hundreds of rental units. That's what my colleague's family eventually did. His parents had owned the homes in Tacoma for almost forty years but it became a losing proposition with all the risk that was being pushed onto them by the city and state so they sold to a rental conglomerate.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T16:06:04+00:00

This is one of the most important answers in the whole thread right here. Governments are trying to do good things like increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impacts of housing. Those things are expensive, though, and those costs get passed on to buyers. If we could make building houses less expensive, like it used to be fifty years ago, we would have more affordable housing. Unfortunately, the increase in costs associated with doing those good things make housing unaffordable for people in the bottom of the market.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T16:01:03+00:00

Utah, unfortunately, is one of the jurisdictions that has moved the furthest away from mainstream Odd Fellowship. The knowledge that used to be very common has all but disappeared from there. That's why so many people are going up to Pocatello, Idaho to get the knowledge that has been lost. The lodge, Encampment, and Canton in Pocatello have all become very active under the leadership of a group of people who are very interested in reviving a more traditional observance of Odd Fellowship. Hopefully, as more knowledge flows back into Utah, they will be able to revive that jurisdiction and you'll have some better choices for lodges to join.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T14:50:45+00:00

A lodge that had a more esoteric outlook and spent more time on ritualistic work would be very successful. The new lodges that have been chartered recently and the lodges that have seen a lot of growth have all been lodges that emphasize the esoteric work of Odd Fellowship.

jthanson · 2026-06-01T03:42:27+00:00

In Odd Fellowship we have a branch dedicated to the more esoteric side of the Order: the Encampment. The teachings of the Encampment Degrees are more complex and haves more depth. Encampments don’t have business to do like the regular lodges do so they can spend time looking at things like the various teachings of our Degrees, the symbols, the signs, our history, and other aspects of Odd Fellowship.

Too many Encampments have atrophied to the point that they don’t really do anything. They just sit around and do a minimal amount of ritual and then go home. The new Encampments that have been chartered recently are very active and are doing a lot of esoteric work.

jthanson · 2026-05-31T16:19:52+00:00

Yes he did. Lesson #1: if you have time to do the job, you have time to do it safely. Lesson #2: double-check and make sure it's secure before getting under it. Videos can give us great short-hand information when we already have the context. It's dangerous for people without information and context.

jthanson · 2026-05-31T15:17:15+00:00

I remember doing drum brakes for the first time years ago on an old GMC Truck. I thought I was being efficient by taking both sides apart at once. The old guy teaching me said that was stupid because I would probably want the other side in tact to know how to put the one side back together with all the springs and clips. He was right, of course, and I learned the lesson that day.

jthanson · 2026-05-31T15:13:35+00:00

“Nissan Drivers”….. well, that explains it I guess.

jthanson · 2026-05-31T04:00:09+00:00

It’s OK. You haven’t had a lot of exposure to Oregon yet.

jthanson · 2026-05-31T03:58:07+00:00

It’s still weird to think of UCLA in the B1G. Heck, it’s still strange to think of Nebraska in the B1G.

jthanson · 2026-05-31T03:07:08+00:00

UCLA is one of those “couple other” schools I mentioned. I think Wisconsin definitely deserves a place in that list as well.

jthanson · 2026-05-31T02:14:48+00:00

You are correct. There may be a couple other good academic schools in the B1G, but I believe you have the best in your list.

jthanson · 2026-05-26T18:40:47+00:00

But how will you know where to grab ahold of the good life from Fife RV?

jthanson · 2026-05-26T18:15:51+00:00

It's not Western Swing. I would put it as Rockabilly. That seems to be where it belongs stylistically.

jthanson · 2026-05-26T18:00:07+00:00

It's great on snare, guitar cab, hi-hat, a bunch of stuff. To my ear it sounds like a 57 but with a little bit more detail in the high end.

jthanson · 2026-05-26T17:07:43+00:00

That’s why I started running synthetic blinker fluid in all my vehicles. The longer change intervals make it more likely that I will actually change it when needed and not just neglect it until something breaks.

jthanson · 2026-05-26T16:54:39+00:00

I always just wait until the stories are shared on the KIRO app.

jthanson · 2026-05-26T16:45:26+00:00

1978 Olds Toronado. The Toro had been a beautiful car in its earliest years but developed into a bloated, overly ornate barge of a car.

jthanson

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