Alexandra Heidle studied in Mainz and Heidelberg (Germany) and was attached to the Institute for the Sciences of Religions at the University of Heidelberg. Since 2007 she is Scientific Project Manager of the Colloborative Research Center "Ritual Dynamics" of the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Jan Snoek studied in Leiden (The Netherlands). In 1996 he held the Théodore Verhaegen Chair (Freemasonry) of the Free University of Brussels (ULB). He is attached to the Institute for the Sciences of Religions at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), and published widely about the development of masonic rituals. With Jens Kreinath and Michael Stausberg he published Theorizing Rituals (two volumes), Brill 2006 & 2007. In preparation is a monograph: The Initiation of Women into Freemasonry.

• Contributors include: Bärbel Raschke, Malcolm Davies, Andreas Önnerfors, James Smith Allen, Anton van de Sande, Henrik Bogdan, Bernard Dat, Ann Pilcher-Dayton, Andrew Prescott, and Anne van Marion-Weijer

"Heidle and Snoek have edited a useful volume for the emerging area of Freemasonic studies in the Anglophone academic space."Amy Hale, St. Petersburg College, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Vol.6