free your mind... will the masonry follow?

Human progress is our cause,
liberty of thought our supreme wish,
freedom of conscience our mission,
and the guarantee of equal rights
to all people everywhere our ultimate goal.

now who could have a problem with someone saying that?
well, you, possibly. i think most folks would agree with what is being said. i'm not so sure who is saying it would be as warmly received. see, the above is the creed of the scottish rite supreme council, 33°, S.J. USA, the southern jurisdiction of the 'scottish rite' branch of freemasonry.

the image of freemasonry is, for me, all mixed up with some unexamined ideas about sectarianism in scotland, establishment figures, and some varied conspiracy lunacy encountered in my youth. my vague notion of the whole nebulous beast that is speculative masonry was given a face by grant morrison's character sir miles from the invisibles, and not much happened to change it from then on.

not much, that is, until i met a young german chap wandering australia and was present when someone initiated him into the temple of techno via the gates of ecstatic release.
his was the first voice that i had ever heard in favour of the order to which i gave any credence, and he started me wondering. my wondering didnt get very far, to be honest, still being massively tied to the notion of freemasons as a negative, 'establishment' influence on the world at large.

a big part of my difficulty with the whole idea, i think, is my early introduction to anarchism's favourite soundbyte "no gods, no managers", which would seem mutually exclusive with "the great architect" concept so central to masonic life.
in the battle of anarchists versus masons i've always been with the anarchists.
i have been a friend of the former for a while, my love of punk and the many tendrils of rebellious thinking that surround it informing that love.
but you know how it is with friends; you take their side without thinking too hard about it.

i guess i'm realising my folly, and refamiliarising myself with the truth that sometimes your friends are wrong. not always, clearly, but i reckon it pays to be open to the idea that they might be, especially when your friends are political ideologies.

what might be of interest to someone interrogating the unexamined prejudices about freemasonry they had swallowed whole all their life, as and when they were handed to them?
well, a before and after exposition of the experience of undergoing the 32nd degree would be a good start.

before:
tomorrow i'm taking the 32 degree of scottish rite masonry
after:
the slow motion revolution

thank you barbelith.
again.