Last night I met a guy at Halloween party who told me he was a Free Mason. He was hilarious and fit right in with my friend group. Upon asking him what the Free Masons are he just said “basically we’re a bunch of dudes who get together for pancakes on Saturday.”
I’ve also heard conspiracies about the group in the past, and I even had an ex coworker once tell me the Free Masons were a cult and were out to get him.
Anyone have any insights? The internet is not very helpful.
In days past they were a secret society that put its members in positions of power, and conspired with one another to drive the destinies of nations. But they didn’t keep the secrets very well, and got found out and disrupted.
These days they’re like all the other fraternal organizations of the 1950s: moribund, empty, and just a lame social club for their membership which is slowly dying off. Another decade or two and they’ll be gone.
In days past they were a secret society that put its members in positions of power, and conspired with one another to drive the destinies of nations.
This was never really true. There were a few places and times were individual chapters had a lot of clout, but it’s pretty much always been a middle class social club. People just freaked out and spun wild conspiracies about it because it’s had secret meetings and a secret handshake.
I don’t think this is generally true of the Masons as a whole, but a sub-lodge, Propaganda Due (how’s that for on the nose…), was used to do some pretty nefarious stuff during Operation Gladio
In the UK at least, they were primarily made up from people like senior police, members of the judiciary, doctors, local businessmen, and the like. There has been various hoohahs in the past with judges being Masons and potential conflict of interests but because the order is so secretive, no-one can do shit. But it seems to be an Old Boys Network who look out for each other.
An interesting clue to look out for is when old buildings have black and white tiles at the entrance - no matter how large or small - either the building was used by the Masons as a meeting place or the owner was a member. So that’s why some old banks have it, and pubs too because the owner was a Mason.
It’s the He-Man-Woman-Haters club but with a veneer of other cultures and histories (shieks, shrines, medieval guilds) to make it “secret”.
Just a bunch of mostly old dudes hanging out, networking, and usually being kinda chuddy. They have some kinda cool secret rituals and do some community outreach, but are pretty harmless anyway. Source:
spoiler
I received a couple degrees in my trans cope phase, and grew up in/around appendant bodies
