I'm a Freemason. I haven't been to a lodge meeting in quite awhile, but there are a few observations I think worth making:
* "Secret societies" have an air of mystique about them, and that played no small part in my joining. The theatricality of some rituals gives a sense of gravitas to the group that is often lacking in everyday life.
* Freemasonry at least does a lot of quiet charity. There is a not-insignificant amount of money they give to help people out, and they do very little publicity of this. In fact... I'd wager you haven't heard of Freemasons doing anything at all in a long time, if ever.
* The perceived exclusivity of membership in a society like this is often portrayed as conducive to arrogance in its members in popular media, but every single Mason I've ever met is extraordinarily humble.
* It's an unfortunate reality that most societies like this are gender-specific.
* Freemasonry is theistic, rather than explicitly Christian. Interestingly, the Catholic church _hates_ Freemasonry, for some reason.
> Interestingly, the Catholic church _hates_ Freemasonry, for some reason.
Freemasonry (and secret societies of the same style) was very active in the Age of Revolution and participated in the uprooting of the Church's power base.
As an active Catholic, Freemasons have always been seen with extreme suspicion, if not outright fantasies. But you could say the same of the way Catholics are perceived in some places, in particular among Anglo-Protestants and Socialists.
I would say that the reasons run deeper than a power play.
Freemasonry demands active participation in a religious liturgy in which Christ is implicitly excluded.
When the Church warns against such worship and the basic attitudes (beliefs) it inevitably expresses, it is not expressing hatred but charity: concern for souls and loyalty to the mission it received from Christ in Mt 28:19-20. My guess is that you will find the same instincts in e.g. Eastern Orthodox churches.
That's an interesting way of putting it, and not inaccurate, either.
When I think about it... Freemasonry has a very different religious focus than most Abrahamic religions, despite its origins in the same. Yeshua ben Yosef is basically ignored in favor of other historical, and explicitly allegorical, figures.
I agree with you. I wanted to include in my post that it had likely to do with Freemasons having ritual without much in the way of doctrine, but I didn't want to appear inflammatory.
Dude, ping me with your lodge number and I will definitely visit if I'm in your city.
Part of what attracted me to Freemasonry was the quality of their enemies, as whatever those accusers had a problem with, I was pretty sure I wanted to be on the other team. The other thing was finding the pigpen cipher doing security work. It's so not-secret I don't mind being relatively open about it, as you know that every other guy you meet in it had to be vetted as not a total danger to himself and others.
The other part that interested me was a (perhaps apocryphal) story about how lodges in the UK were instrumental as neutral territory between religious partisans during the Troubles, and other stories about the idea of a persistent commitment to meeting on the level with men as peers that transcends the official politics of the day. To me, this is a crucial part of the fabric of civil society, just as much as the Chatham House rule is. We need this ability to have honest discussions as individuals now more than ever. There's a rule you don't use the privacy of lodge to discuss politics or religion, but outside, guys who would be on the opposite sides of a civil war right now sit and listen to each other over pints, test ideas, and really listen on the basis that dozens of other guys say this guy is ok, so even if I don't agree with him, there's something valuable about his experience. The continuity of basic fraternity among men as an essential principle of civic life is what religions and politics fundamentally lack.
I think the high bar is the theism, as that's probably the only irreconcilable difference in beliefs, as the logic of ideas from the axioms of theism vs. atheism are just alien to one another.
Men being able to meet and relate as equals outside their public lives requires a level of trust that only comes with the mutual guarantees of privacy. It sounds meta, but really, imagine just having a lot of friends you trusted and who would give you the benefit of the doubt, but had enough distance like co-workers where you weren't very judgmental of each other.
The secrecy aspect is really about setting a personal boundary, where the few secrets themselves are yours to keep, and this ability to have something that is yours, whereby there is a you independent of your other relationships, and that is a foundation for breaking co-dependency habits and other boyhood things a lot of guys never manage to grow past.
It's a very mixed bag, but you see where you are, and where other guys are at different stages of their lives and circumstances. It does seem unlikely in hindsight that a committed Catholic partisan would defy the papal bull, risking excommunication, and accept initiation into masonry, but the principles of masonry, encoded in allegories and a kind of memory palace (the method of loci) of symbols gives you a set of reference ideals you can measure your own character by and develop personally against them.
Lumping masonry in with secret socieities and cults is pretty dumb. When I hear conspiracy theories about masons, I always ask, "cui bono?" Who benefits from discouraging good men looking for moral and ethical lessons from finding each other and recognizing each other as equals? When you look at historical movements against fraternal organizations, it's worth asking, who fears good men?
Anyway, looking back, all it has cost me is the ability to give short answers.
I have not visited a lodge since I moved across country. My "home" lodge was Blue Lodge #24, in Brookings, SD.
But yes, I agree with your observation about Masonry being a kind of neutral territory and equalizer. I have known Masons that, in public, I am adamantly opposed to... but under the roof of a lodge, get along with perfectly fine.
Another thing that always struck me as interesting is that Masons do not recruit. This is an intentional policy, and fascinating. Once I discovered the existence of my home lodge, I had to seek them out. There were no flyers or "you should come by sometime" offhand comments.
It's a huge barrier, but also, it sets a high bar where the only way it grows is by being great somehow. I always acknowledge to applicants that it takes a lot of courage to approach a bunch of guys like that, and also mention that we do have to get to know them a bit because it's very possible they're just nuts. I watched the clubhouse.io thing play out pretty closely because they were dealing with the exact same trade offs of "guarding the west gate." This idea of managing and growing a community online is very close to what masons have been figuring out over 300 years, and the problems are closely analagous.
Internet communities are essentially fraternal socieities and we know the good ones when we see them, but don't quite have the recipe for making ones that thrive. Open source projects are the closest thing I've seen to masonry, where you are only the quality of your work. I'd even wonder whether the BDFL model of open source projects could learn something from how to use progressive chairs and a rotating executive.
Anyway, I'm generously tolerated as a member of #581 in Toronto. It's been quite an adventure. :)
I went as far as asking a friend who was in the initiation stage to recommend me. My great uncle was a mason. Ultimately I decided any group that would have me I wouldn’t want to join.
There must be some lone and hungry men left solitary in the world, like Diogenes, to irrationally and unpopulary make war on the consensus of kings and groups reasonable men.
I've always been interested in them, my brother found a load of old Masonic items in his attic and when I moved to a new town the masons held an open day and I was really impressed by the charity work and the meals/drinks sounded fun. I was about to join (or rather begin the process) when I mentioned it to my aunt who was visiting.
She went on to tell me a long story of how my grandfather had to join the masons to be allowed to play in a jazz orchestra in South Africa, where he had moved. When he tried to leave the masons years later, they made his life difficult for a period and even went so far as appealing to his manager that he was not a person of good standing, and spreading rumours.
He stood fast and nothing came of it, but the story left a bad taste - I can believe it was a one off and most lodges wouldn't act like that, but the story stopped me from proceeding.
Shame as it sounded interesting. (my other issue was that I'd have to lie to pretend I believe in a god, and I didn't really fancy lying about that as my lack of belief is fairly core to me)
You don't have to believe in a god, but you do have to believe in a higher power. That's a really subtle but crucial difference.
Also... it's also my experience that once you become a Mason, you are a Mason for life, regardless of your feelings on the matter. You can't quit. This, I think, is similar to how you can't be an ex-Marine. There's a whole lotta philosophy I could chat about there, but that's really a subject for an in-person talk over a few pints, not something to spout bytes over the Internet about.
I once made friends with an old former freemason. He was one of the kindest guys I ever met and claimed to once have been a rather high rank (he told me his rank, but I forgot). He quit when he realized that freemasonry does not live up to their ideals anymore. According to him, freemasons keep the same religious animosities among each other that we have in public society and freemasonry is used by many (most?) freemasons mainly as a networking vehicle.
Also, my grand uncle was a freemason, but he was rather arrogant and did not care much about the rest of the family, so I never learned anything about freemasonry from him.
Those are the only touch points that I had with freemasonry.
It was my impression that the Catholic ban on Freemasonry was lifted some time ago. It also seems to have been codified in the 19th Century, later than I'd have guessed, and at least in some areas depended (like the earlier shutdown of the Jesuits) on the local sovereign putting it into effect.
I believe that the Scottish Rite Temple at Columbia Road and 16th St. NW in Washington, DC, funds a children's health center around the corner for it.
Back when I was still active, it was a sense of belonging more profound than simple friendship or kinship. Moving away made that feeling diminish over time.
I miss that. I think I need to get in touch with the local lodge and reconnect.
Secret societies have an air of mystique around them, but often they're just social clubs with extra steps. People are social creatures, and having something to belong to is healthy for most!
Leonard Leo, who's had more influence over the selection of Supreme Court Justices than just about anyone, belongs to a Catholic secret society. It's not silliness or paranoia to worry about groups like these.
There have been real secret organizations, but they tend to be more like terrorist groups. The League of Free Jurists, the Irgun, etc. Ones that work as lobbies have to have some visibility. You can't stay completely behind the scenes forever and accomplish much.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is arguably one such. Its existence is not a secret, but its 1970s plan to make the US more friendly to corporations didn't become known until it had already worked.
'The Power of Ritual in Prehistory: Secret Societies and Origins of Social Complexity' by Brian Hayden is a super interesting read on the origin of secret societies. Apparently there has always been a dynamic in communities that whenever there is a production surplus (according to the author happens in 'transegalitarian societies'), there tends to be a very small number of individuals that feel entitled to the surplus so they start to create multiple secret society startups with rituals and initiation practices often involving a high initiation cost to eventually centralize power (and publicly punish skeptics when possible).
Another characteristic about secret societies is that actually they need to be very public (to get new members), and what is a secret instead is the reason why the society exists, that part is not revealed unless becoming part of the group.
Last month, I had that moment every parent¹ dreams of. My daughter asked me, “what’s ‘the Illuminati’?”
It was fun explaining the whole concept of secret societies and conspiracy theories in terms that would be intelligible to an 8-year-old. My kids (her brother is her twin) had a hard idea with the whole concept of secretly coercing somebody to do something that’s not in their interests.
Then how anytime you feel you made a decision it was actually the Illuminati that coerced you into that decision making you believe you came up with it yourself.
Hmm, half of what I told them was derived from the game (and The Illuminatus! Trilogy). I think they might be just old enough to play the game (I’ll have to check for any cards I might need to hold back though).
Believe it or not, a "secret" society refers to the secrets they hold, not that the society itself is secret. The Masons are public about their existence (if quiet) but their inner "rites and rituals" are secret.
While I’m sure that used to the case, that is no longer really the case with the Masons. You can find out and read through all the different ceremonies and rites online.
Masons [have been known to] occasionally change certain things to keep known secrets to stay secret: 'letter and begin', for example.
Duncans Ceremonies is the most famous revelation of Masonic secrets, but no dues-card and not being 'in the book', ultimately counts for nothing, as you won't even be able to properly converse with a mason, nor enter a lodge, without either.
One of the most fundamental characteristics of evil is that the evil person cannot help but desire to gain fame for their crimes. (Just look up how many criminals have been arrested by their social media posts.)
A Secret Society might be completely secretive, and yet be unable to resist helping themselves to claiming some credit. Kind of like the Anonymous hacker group in their day. Or Ross Ulbricht adopting the name "Dread Pirate Roberts" on all of his work which really hurt him when he was caught.
This is almost a paraphrase of the definition of survivorship bias. You would expect a preponderance of bigmouths amongst people who are widely known to have been caught for crimes. It would be bad to assume that this is because people who do crimes love to talk about them, rather than that people who talk about crimes get caught.
> One of the most fundamental characteristics of evil is that the evil person cannot help but desire to gain fame for their crimes. (Just look up how many criminals have been arrested by their social media posts.)
Selection bias, no? You're drawing a conclusion about the whole from the subset who seek fame and get caught.
There’s no such thing as evil.
It therefore has no fundamental traits.
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks of himself as evil. Everyone is the hero of his own story.
Take “the dread pirate roberts” you know it’s a reference to The Princess Bride right? The hero of The Princess Bride?
Now Ross ram a high drug site on the dark web.
Was Ross evil? He certainly didn’t think so. He philosophically disagreed with drug laws. The Silk Road didn’t trade in things Ross thought were evil (I seem to recall from the write up in wires that he banned human trafficking etc). He simply thought everyone should have the right to choose for themselves. I bet he thought he was providing a service.
Was he evil? Not in his own mind. Did he seek fame with his name? Err, no? He was choosing a handle to specifically mask his name (he always planned to play the “it was the other dread pirate roberts the whole time” card)
I don’t think you can point to a single person who thinks of themselves as evil. (Even psychopaths don’t think of themselves as evil, they just don’t think other people are worthy of consideration. —I seem to recall that hitler was a vegetarian. If you asked him he’d say he was a hero of his people.)
And as for criminals seeking fame… probably no more or less than any human seeks fame. Or maybe to say it another way, everyone probably seeks recognition of skill.
Evil exists. You’re rationalizing pure logic. If I stalked you, terrorized you, did the most irrationally consistently irrational things to anything in your world and those near you, you’d be hard pressed to call me anything other than driven by evil.
There is meticulous, introspective, malicious, terrible intent that reads its head. Luckily it seems rare but sadly I’ve come across it.
1. Greed: You desire something that someone else has so you steal it, or cheat to get it etc. and thus cause harm to those who lose what you gain.
2. Jealousy: You love/want somebody but they give their love to someone else, you hate that someone else - because you think it prevents you from getting love. Then you do bad things to those people who you are jealous of to make them look bad etc., or even do things to make them disappear from the scene etc.
3. Envy: You see that some people have what you don't and therefore you hate them and want to destroy their happiness.
The last one is the worst kind of evil. In 1. you get something by stealing. You benefit from that. In 2. you (try to) prevent someone from directing love away from you. But you still do it for love, to get love, and maybe you do. In 3. you are just pure evil because nobody benefits, not even you, from destroying the happiness of others.
Envy is the worst kind of Evil. You try to prevent others from having something you can not have.
Yes there are people like that even as leaders of nations I think. Sometimes they are called sociopaths, sometimes psychopaths. There's even serial killers. Naturally they don't advertise their character.
I think you make a good point that maybe "Evil" does not exist but "Evil People" do. We need to recognize them and condemns them, and avoid getting killed by them.
In Switzerland there was a court case in which the court ruled that even Opus Dei can be called a secret society, because they have principles of keeping member names, internal writings structure structure secret.
"Secret" means there is less supply of information. And when there is less supply but same demand, it means the price goes up. Isn't that a bit like Non-Fungible Tokens?
The article mentions how in the past, the Patriotic Order Sons of America didn't allow black people to join. They eventually changed but I'm wondering if the change was forced. Is it legal to discriminate on the basis of race or sex today?
I am a former Mason. I left the lodge due to no longer complying with their requirement to believe in a higher power (God). To be explicit: Masonry used to be segregated into "Prince Hall" masonic halls (for non-white folks) and "normal" masonic halls. This split was ended, and now Prince Hall masonic halls are full masonic lodges, and membership is recognized in both directions. In practice; every lodge I ever attended was integrated even if it was a significant white majority.
When we were voting on new members, it was a silent vote with unanimous consent required. Any vote could be retaken at the order of the master. This means that if someone is eligible and should be a mason, and the vote comes up with a negative vote, the master can say a few words suggesting people reconsider and take the vote up again.
There was only once that I saw someone not pass the first ballot to become a mason. The master said that we should reconsider, and most of the brothers in the room chose not to vote the second time (as a symbol they were not the negative vote), and many of those who did showed their ballot before casting it. The second vote passed.
This as a process indicates there's plenty of room for abuse: any single master mason can anonymously vote to exclude someone for any reason they want. It's up to the folks around them to set them square if they are out of line. I can easily see an lodge existing where there wouldn't be any members willing to speak up in someone's defense.
It's my belief that none of what I've posted here is exposing any of the secrets of a master mason; but if any fraternal members disagree I'll happily edit and delete this post, and I don't intend to expose anything; but instead demonstrate that masonry (as well as, I'd assume, most other 'secret' societies), is as good as the members in the lodge.
You dont have to believe in God.
Segregation (PHL) is a US only thing.
You were correct to leave. That voting system was not Masonic and I've never seen it anywhere else, and nor do i believe it would be tolerated anywhere else.
Please dont edit or delete your post.
During my time as a Mason (I left for much the same reason as jayofdoom), we followed the same procedure when voting for new members. The couple of times there was a non-unanimous vote, the Master called for another vote, in case anyone made a mistake or wanted to reconsider. In none of the cases did anyone make a show of not voting or showing their votes, though. I think it only happened twice in the 12 or so years I was there. I have no idea why someone rejected one of the candidates; and in the other, I suspect some of our members thought the candidate wanted to join because he thought it would help him with a political career (this is purely speculation; we didn't discuss this at all).
I believe the Prince Hall lodges were always proper Masonic lodges, they just derived their charters from Irish then English lodges, rather than from the American lodges. They were always fully legit.
It took a while for American lodges to recognise that.
In the UK (& I believe EU) that's true to the extent that you could have an even more personal ('I don't like your face') objection, but your reasoning can't be on the basis of a 'protected characteristic', such as race.
Though actually maybe private members' clubs have some kind of exception to that - gender is also a protected characteristic under that act, but there are gentlemen's (only) clubs still (ladies' too perhaps, I'm not sure).
There are male-only clubs (The Garrack, Savage Club), and more modern female and non-binary only clubs (such as the marguerite).
They are all, by definition sexist, but you are allowed under UK law to be such when deciding who to invite to a party.
What would be interesting, is if one became a monopoly in its niche (often clubs have a _thing_), whether one could argue they missed out on serious opportunities in work because they were not allowed to join, but I don't know of such a case being risen.
Indeed it was The Garrick about which Baroness Hale made something rather like that argument, noting that many of her male colleagues were members, perhaps implying that they enjoyed a networking opportunity that she had been denied:
If a club is truly private they can. ianal but I believe they have to be very specific about their membership criteria. Like you couldn't have criteria that permits anyone who isn't black it would have to be a lot more specific than just that.
You can legally exclude on any basis if you’re running an actual private club. But if it smells like a public accommodation (a restaurant that you can patronize without being a member of the club, for example), then the prohibitions against exclusion on the basis of race, religion, etc. kick in.
It is legal for private clubs that do not offer services to the public to discriminate based on race, sex, national origin etc. Butler National, Preston Trail, Burning Tree Club are examples of male only golf clubs/courses.
Kind of, but that's why (most of) them have a disclaimer similar to "We welcome people of all races/genders/[whatever characteristic the group is organized around." on their flyers.
Sounds like you never went to college. Those clubs aren't allowed to discriminate, so you'll see a Jewish girl as an officer in an Asian students society, or a woman engineers club admitting men.
Nice that they found a mix, I expected >90% of them to be religious or semi-religious (what you hear about the freemasons sounds quite cult-ish too, eg).
But not sure why they decided to include the Molly Maguires. Sounds like a plain mob to me, the Yakuzas and the Cosa Nostra probably have more rituals than those, and both are still very much in existence.
I think there's a strong correlation. For example, there was an Oddfellows chapter near me I checked out a few times. They turned out to be some weird sect of Wiccans. I mean, it's nice that they do good works, and I guess alls as well if they keep them separate, but I didn't intend spending time with people who pray to antlers and host nude religious gatherings. And it felt to me, perhaps in a way, they were using a known organization to 'recruit', even if they didn't see it that way.
If you are ever in SF and want a good 30 seconds of fun, head over to Post and Taylor street. There is a large door there. Just open it. You will see a 6ft metal OWL "Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" - just walk around someone will be with you shortly.
Didn't see The Ancient Order of Free Gardeners listed:
> Although the Free Gardeners have always remained independent of Freemasonry, the history and organisation of the two orders show numerous similarities. Some commentators have pointed to possible mutual influences in the ancient history of the two organisations
I will add the Lautaro Lodge, known before as Lodge of Rational Knights, from where the revolutionary movements to free Latin American territory from Spain started.
Game-theoretically I think it is clear that members of a secret society have an advantage over individuals who are not part of the society, and who don't know that the other people they are interacting with are.
Think about a game of Poker where the members of the society gave each other nodes and winks about their hand.
Aye. I was at my friend's grandparent's house (he grew up in his grandparents house) as a youth, probably 11 or 12, and his grandfather mentioned he was offered to join the masons by a work buddy. He promptly told us he did not join.
The Orange Order is a religious hate group who burn effigies of Catholic and Irish "enemies" on two story high bonfires every year. This article glosses over who they really are entirely.
I'm talking about currently living people not some historical figure who tried to blow up government buildings. Political rivals. Irish flags burning, hell even EU flags and Palestinian flags. They're professional hate trolls. It's fairly sad to see but let's call a spade a spade here.
The majority of the nice people of the UK don't follow or even understand them.
I haven't even mentioned their parades.
Ireland has similar groups but they're tiny and mostly ignored.
I'm "blood brothers" with some kid who was five when I was, and his name escaped me decades ago. Nobody is to ever know this, so I guess I just broke that oath.
Hey! That was me, you oathbreaker - your infidelity against the Art of Sworn Secrets contained in the Ark of Secrets will not go unpunished!
By the powers invested in me as the Head Inquisitor of Occult Secrets I banish you from the Secret Society of Occult Blood Brothers of Hidden Blood Secrets which shall not be named!
FOREVERMORE you are banished and may never enter the Secret Santorum of the Holy Lodge!
I remember when I was a young, another kid showed me how to do a magic trick, making a toothpick bounce without touching it. I had to promise to never explain the trick to a girl.
Yeah - the real Secret Societies are actually Secret and probably operating in our world all the time without displaying it. There's no evidence, just because you don't see Secret Societies much anymore, that they don't exist. There was a lack of evidence at the time for all the societies on the list.
It's a secret, but I'll tell you if you keep it between the two of us. The secret password is "Leonore" without quotes - so don't do any air quotes when you offer the secret password for most illustrious entrances.
I get the joke, but I don't think the existence of the society itself is supposed to be a secret, but what happens within the confines is held to secrecy.
The secret society vs. society with secrets distinction is what Anglo-American Freemasonry has historically highlighted to disclaim the label "secret society." Agree with it or not, that usage does have some currency.
I think it’s the existence / private activities that are secret rather than the mere existence. But perhaps it’s just another meaning of secret, eg the ‘secret archives’ at the Vatican would better be described as ‘private archives’ as laypeople may enter and be given access to (some) records.
* "Secret societies" have an air of mystique about them, and that played no small part in my joining. The theatricality of some rituals gives a sense of gravitas to the group that is often lacking in everyday life.
* Freemasonry at least does a lot of quiet charity. There is a not-insignificant amount of money they give to help people out, and they do very little publicity of this. In fact... I'd wager you haven't heard of Freemasons doing anything at all in a long time, if ever.
* The perceived exclusivity of membership in a society like this is often portrayed as conducive to arrogance in its members in popular media, but every single Mason I've ever met is extraordinarily humble.
* It's an unfortunate reality that most societies like this are gender-specific.
* Freemasonry is theistic, rather than explicitly Christian. Interestingly, the Catholic church _hates_ Freemasonry, for some reason.