A Mason's Work

In the final episode of the series, we arrive at “knock and it shall be opened unto you.” Here, the focus shifts from external searching and relational asking to an internalized integration—where effort, practice, and commitment solidify into identity. We explore the irreversible nature of certain choices, the opening of heart and mind, and how the three knocks form a repeatable pattern for integrating any deep learning into who we are.

🔑 Key Takeaways
  • Knocking is a distinct, irreversible act: once you knock, you cannot “unknock.”
  • “Opened unto you” describes an integrative state where a domain becomes part of who you are, not just what you know.
  • Seeking, asking, and knocking together form a reusable pattern for skill and knowledge acquisition across a lifetime.
💬 Featured Quotes
  • 0:00:41 — “When you knock, you can't un-knock, if that makes sense.”
  • 0:01:03 — “When you've made the effort, when you've practiced or when you have committed, that is a real movement from the seeking process, which is external, to the asking process, which is relatedness and interactivity, and into this internalized integration model where you've knocked and it's become a part of you.”
  • 0:01:26 — “This opened unto you, this in the phrasing, the biblical phrasing, that opened unto you is really, it's an integrative kind of understanding that the entire domain is now a part of who you are and what you are.”
  • 0:01:47 — “When it is opened unto you, it is an opening of your heart, it's an opening of your mind, it's an opening of your consciousness, and it builds to this deep and meaningful, integrative understanding of a subject or a concept or what have you.”
  • 0:03:21 — “When you look through this kind of overall process, you can very easily look back through some of your own skill acquisition or some of your own knowledge acquisition and understand that it follows this process at some level.”
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Creators and Guests

Host
Brian Mattocks
Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

While each and every one of the knocks in the three knocks requires some form of action

or effort, the knock and it should be made open to you is really an important distinction.

There's an important distinction there at this sort of philosophical level.

And it is that the knocking process is a distinct and discrete action that cannot change.

When you ask a question, you can ask more questions and get more understanding and more

insight.

When you knock, you can't unknock, if that makes sense.

So when you're looking at this systemic understanding of this philosophical understanding at a high

level of the three knocks, what you get to is when you have knocked on that door and we're

going to use knocking as when you've made the effort, when you've practiced or when you

have committed, that is a real movement from the seeking process, which is external, to the

asking process, which is relatedness and interactivity, and into this internalized integration

model where you've knocked and it's become a part of you.

This opened unto you, this in the phrasing, the biblical phrasing, that opened unto

you is really, it's an integrative kind of understanding that the entire domain is now

a part of who you are and what you are.

When it is opened unto you, it is an opening of your heart, it's an opening of your mind,

it's an opening of your consciousness, and it builds to this deep and meaningful, integrative

understanding of a subject or a concept or what have you.

Now that does not necessarily mean instant expertise, so let me be clear.

So what it does mean is an internalized kind of movement from this external kind of

extroverted expression to an internalized, maybe function of part of your identity or

part of the way you are in the world.

When we talk about it in Masonic terms, once you've kind of entered the lodge and become

an enter into predisposition or phallic roughly, a center of astramasement, that bell

can't be unwrong.

This is the kind of third and we'll say final, at least for the context of integrating

these, you know, the things you're looking for into who you are as a person.

That the other thing that becomes fairly obvious, fairly quickly is that these three

knocks become the process by which you integrate all concepts and ideas into yourself.

You have to have a seeking process.

You have to have some level of interactivity, whatever that might be, and then you have

to take action to support that intent to integrate new ideas and new concepts.

When you look through this kind of overall process, you can very easily look back through

some of your own skill acquisition or some of your own knowledge acquisition and understand

that it follows this process at some level.

Now it may be very, very quick.

It may be over the course of a lifetime, but this process will repeat itself over and

over and over again.

And the better you get at being directive about how to apply it, the quicker you can

move through the learning process and better leverage the other tools in the Masonic

toolkit that will help you grow and evolve.

This is again a huge kind of angle for understanding the ways that this can go, the ways that

you can internalize or gain new information.

Again, based on something that is so easy and so obvious in terms of its application,

you're not going to endorse three times, it should be a constant and regular reminder

of the process you follow to go and gain and learn anything.