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.
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.