Masons

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Can someone please explain to me what Freemasons are, politically?

As far as I know they're an engineering brotherhood (sisterhood?) with a secret code and a ring. I know they used to hold clandestine meetings with rites of initiation, because Branwell Brontë was one (Emily Brontë's brother).

Today it seems to be a very political or nuanced thing.

My grandfather and uncles were Masons in UK and USA, and my brother wanted to join but my mother wouldn't let him. At the same time when I ask my brother or my mum what the problem was with it, they say there was no problem and it wasn't anything bad. My brother said they don't have any political or religious persuasion either. My grandfather was pretty conservative afaik and he was an aerospace engineer. One of my uncles was a pretty old-school accountant but the other was a drug addict hippy type who was much more liberal.

I don't get it.

What's the big deal, and is it bad to be a Mason?

It's a secret society of sorts and because of the secrecy, people start creating colourful conspiracies about what freemasons do in secret meetings.

I have heard of child sacrifice being a supposed freemason ritual.

I imagine the truth is a lot less interesting.

They are a secret society. A Fraternal order. A great place to make business contacts. That was its main purpose in the mid twentieth century when everyone's grandad who was a member.

A thousand years ago they were an actual craft guild (tradesmen had mutual aid societies for their crafts)of guys who worked in stone. Freemasons were "free". They werent tied to the land like most peasant farmers who were feudal serfs. Could move around. They helped build the castles and the Gothic Cathedrals.

But sometime in the 1600s they morphed from an association of actual tradesmen who cut stone- in to a club for gentlemen who never did anything with their hands. But were into the imagery of masonry as a spiritual metaphor.

In the 1700s they apparently were into the new think, and like the real Illuminatti (not the mythic illumanati of hysterical conspiracy theory) they were into spreading the ideals of the Enlightenment and the age of reason.

Like half or two thirds of America's Founding Fathers were Freemasons. A painting of G.W. in the Capitol Rotunda shows him wearing a Mason's ritual apron, and American paper money is festooned with trippy surreal Masonic imagery (like the Pyramid with the eye ball).

But by the 19th Century Americans got a bit paranoid about the Masons and for a few decades there was a political Party devoted to the sole purpose of stamping out their influence called "the Anti Masonic Party" that fielded minor candidates for POTUS in several elections. Both the party and the Masons themselves kind of faded by the Civil War. But Masons and Shriners (a subset of Masons) became popular in the late nineteenth and 20th century.

I dont know how "political" or "partisan" they are today.

There are myths about them. They have their own internal myths that trace their roots even farther back than the European Middle Ages back to King David in the Bible and to the Pyramids of Egypt.

And there are hysterical tales spun by outsiders that the Masons are an all powerful group manipulating things behind the scenes down through the ages (as in the novel "The DaVinci Code").

These days they're basically a Rotary club that doesn't accept women.

I remember seeing their recruiting poster at university. It said something like "we don't discriminate on the grounds of race, creed, nationality, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, disability, class, or background", and simultaneously thinking "that sounds good" and "that sounds bad but I can't quite work out why".

Dan Brown ( Da Vinci Code) was wrong. The REAL power is not with the Freemasons, but with these guys...


https://youtu.be/iEtgXxi9ZYY

Uhmm.. sorry to be a sour puss here, and actually havent any real opinion on the masons, but believe they are a
semi private group , using rituals and requiring to do public service acts of any or some kind . And their connections seem to be documented back to the builders of Egypt. Gotta wonder if public service acts are primarily corporate benefit?? ...But that being said ... "The Daughters of the Eastern Star" is the extremely older branch female branch/ network of the FreeMasons.
Entire Org. appears to be by invitation only .

Thank you for all the info NP, and everyone else. I got the impression they were viewed as bad or a conspiracy or something.

The funny thing is that my grandad was a total autistic homebody. He and my grandmother refused to have "friends" and only spent time with family. It's hard to imagine he even went to meetings or did anything with this supposed brotherhood. I don't see him being like that at all. I know he liked his ring though.

My cousin actually named her son Mason, so I thought that might mean something too. I always thought it was a nice name but I have no idea if it's related to freemasonry in our family.

Can a man be a freemason but also in a fraternity or does that cancel out?

It's a holdover from the 18th century as far as mystical humanism (that came out of the Renaissance via alchemy, Hermeticism, etc.) preceding secular humanism where the idea is to make 'good men better'. Really the idea seemed to be both to have an intellectual speak-easy for places where free inquiry was illegal and could get you executed (either by the monarch or the local religious demagogue), in a way as well with the initiations the idea seemed to be something like a modern remake of a Greek mystery school. How 'speculative' Masons became a thing is likely much more historically contingent as to why it shook out that way - other than perhaps the easy analogy of a Neoplatonist deity could be described as a master builder.

These days it's a blend of things, someone said male-only Rotary, there's something to that for a good portion of it but there are still some Masons who are still quite interested in the Hermetic aspects of Masonry. I was in AMORC for five years and I remember the guy who was head Mason in our state both was a member of AMORC and also (I believe still) leads the local AMORC atrium from the downstairs of the lodge that he's based out of. When I asked him about how many Masons there were in the state who were into the esotericism he said it was growing - and I remember him saying it was close to 1,000, which is good in my opinion because there were a lot of interesting / useful frames in that content.

Dear Isabella...as I understand if you can link your grandfather to the Masons ? If you were thinking about it,
They maybe a very supportive group of their members ...And the family connection, can most often get your into the Org. To the best of my knowledge ...And your family members would be welcome, i believe as they age. Provided no outright documentable public misconduct . And no one contests your entry to the org. Do believe they have many legacy members..As well as inactive .You actually have a "in" with your grandaddy.And might learn about them ?
OR NOT.....

What I know about the Freemasons is:

If you're blood related to a Freemason, you are one. You can also get an invitation to become one if you save the life of one.

Contrary to popular belief, a Freemason can tell a non-freemason if they're a Freemason. BUT, that is all they can tell them.

If a Freemason ends up in court and another Freemason ends up on the jury, the Freemason in the jury is obliged to help his fellow Freemason to get out of being declared Guilty.

They have a peculiar handshake.

All Freemasons must believe in god.