Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a very old society that has chapters throughout the world. As an organization, it's dedicated to practicing charity, respect for others, and a high standard of personal morality, but supposedly it also serves, through its imagery and the structure of its rites, to preserve a tradition of Western esoteric knowledge known as "The Mysteries." It's a society for men only--though there have been female orders connected with the Masons, they seem to have just been auxilliary organizations. As Kanoe mentions to Yuuto at one point, the fact that the Tokyo branch apparently let Satsuki join is beyond unusual.
The picture at left is a photograph of the Blue Lodge Hall in the Tokyo Masonic Building. (Photo by Eileen Tweedy) Everything in the room has particular symbolism: for instance the checkerboard floor represents reality as we perceive it in the physical world, an alternation of opposites that can be seen as either complementary or in conflict with each other.
Information and photograph from Freemasonry : A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol by W. Kirk MacNutly (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991).
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