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.
A bunch of Christians decided to reincorporate magic into the religion after folk magic had become detestable and demonized. They did it in a very nerdy way with organized ritual. You join as a newb/student and work your way up through several layers of seniority. It's kind of like Deism except that instead of incorporating Enlightenment natural philosophy into religion, it was hermetic philosophy. This was pre Enlightenment so that makes sense.
Masons are a derivative of this kind of thing. It's mainly a fellowship thing just like organized religion except with the nerd shit of esoteric/occult knowledge.
Imagine a 16th/17th century Discord group with roles and everything. The conspiracies come up because a lot historical figures were part of the discord server and they used esoteric imagery because they were big nerds.
Conspiracy stuff also comes up because during the bourgeois revolutions (American, French), revolutionaries did organize through their Masonic lodges, so pretty much every memorable figure of the American revolution was a Freemason. The conspiracy-brained part is thinking that Masonry is fundamentally a conspiratorial/revolutionary organization, that continues to control social changes today.
Conspiracies come up because of shit like this
Nah, that happened so late in the game it didn't matter. People have been accusing the Freemasons of running society from the shadows for as long as they've existed. The GLADIO thing was more that all the members of the conspiracy joined the same club because they were buddies, not that the Masons as a whole are always doing sneaky spy shit.