December 3, 2019

I Was Interviewed by Freemasons!

A couple weeks ago I spoke to the friendly Masons behind the Masonic Lite Podcast; these fellas had got in touch because they have been listening to the SHWEP and finding it useful for what they are doing as Masons. It’s about time someone interviewed me for a change, so I gladly accepted their kind invitation and we chatted about initiation, katabasis, and some other stuff. The bit with me in it starts from about 10.20.

I enjoyed the experience greatly, and it’s got me thinking again about the whole ‘scholar-practitioner divide’ business which is a live topic across anthropological disciplines, but particularly relevant when you study stuff like freemasonry, ritual magic, and so forth, where folks are out there doing the stuff and very often informing what they do with scholarly research. So there is a revolving door between the Ivory Tower and the Masonic Lodge, and in this interview we sort of stand in the middle of it without walking through either way, which is always an interesting, liminal place to stop and have a conversation.

Thanks, guys, it was loads of fun and we’ll do it again.