Brought to Light
eBook - PDF

Brought to Light

Contemporary Freemasonry, Meaning, and Society

  1. 308 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Brought to Light

Contemporary Freemasonry, Meaning, and Society

About this book

Secret societies are becoming increasingly controversial—thrust into public awareness by popular books, films, the Internet, and a host of recent documentaries. In academia, this exposure finds a parallel in the proliferation of research, institutes, and conferences. Yet the media depictions tend to be caricatures, a playing to pervasive stereotypes for public consumption, while the academic stress historical and philological matters. Indeed, to the extent a sociological focus exists, it largely emphasizes the roles these groups played in social history. And for the societies' members themselves, there has been a paucity of work on the contemporary meaning of these groups—a neglect made mystifying by the vast social changes that have taken place over the past century. In this study, and for the first time by any scholar, Kenney moves beyond history and applies the methods and theoretical tools of contemporary sociology to study the lived world of freemasons in today's society.

To provide a clear portrait of the patterned experiences of contemporary freemasons and the issues faced by "the Craft" today, Kenney draws on qualitative data from three primary sources: (1) extensive interviews with 121 contemporary freemasons in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia; (2) video footage shot for a feature film on contemporary freemasonry; and (3) his observations and experiences in nearly fifteen years as a freemason. Brought to Light provides a highly original contribution to sociology, Masonic scholarship, and the social sciences generally.

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Yes, you can access Brought to Light by J. Scott Kenney in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Sociology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Preface
  6. Acknowledgements
  7. 1 CONTEMPORARY FREEMASONRY: A NEGLECTED FIELD
  8. 2 PATHS TO MASONRY
  9. 3 TAKING THE DEGREES
  10. 4 SOCIAL ATMOSPHERE AND MEMBER INVOLVEMENT
  11. 5 ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS AND MEMBER INVOLVEMENT
  12. 6 FURTHER FACTORS IN MEMBER INVOLVEMENT AND AN OVERALL EXPLANATORY FRAMEWORK
  13. 7 CLAIMED LIFE CHANGES SINCE BECOMING A FREEMASON
  14. 8 CONTEMPORARY FREEMASONRY: THE DIRECTION FORWARD?
  15. Notes
  16. Glossary
  17. Works Cited
  18. Index