Personally:
The Scottish Rite Ritual Monitor and Guide
Morals and Dogma, Annotated
Esoterika
Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia
The Alchemical Keys To Masonic Ritual
Hmm, interesting.The Alchemical Keys To Masonic Ritual
You honestly used paddles on Masonic initiates? I would never join ANYTHING that required me to submit to hazing, much less physical abuse. Did your Grand Lodge know and approve of that?Lol we used to use them during certain aspects of initiation. Since I was a little heavy handed with them one of the brothers made that for me as a gift to show his appreciation. He said he wouldn't have felt like he earned his degrees without experiencing something outside of the actual ritual that made him appreciate his lessons and degrees more but do to a brother that came over from a Greek frat we stopped using them
SMIB /G\
Man this is TOUGH...I love to read. So I will do my best here. My first choice is easy.
I am going with Morals and Dogma. Next is probably Esoterika. Starting to sweat, but I am going with Alchemical Keys to Masonic Ritual, then Lost Keys of Freemasonry and....not sure I can do this without passing out because there is so much great stuff....but....for the sake of the post and having to stick to five I would go with Born In Blood (because it had such an effect on my journey)...he made me want to know more about my history.
That being said it would be super hard for me not to grab Restorations of Masonic Geometry and Symbolry, Egypt the Cradle of Ancient Masonry, Bob Davis new book on ritual called The Mason's Word. Also I love Jim Tresner's But I Digress...I always feel like we are sitting on the back porch of his cabin talking Masonry when I read it (I am biased though, I helped him with it and he allowed me to write the forward). Mitchell's two volume history rocks, Sickel's Ahiman Rezon would be very difficult to leave behind. I will admit to loving Book of Hiram by Lohmas....see its just getting worse.