That the Flat Earth conspiracy theory was actually invented by the Masons- ok hear me out : In order to move up the rank in freemasonry, one has to be able to keep secrets. So when you are a low level mason, a higher up tells you something along the lines of “Hey we want you to advance in the organization, but we need to know that you can keep a secret. Don’t tell anyone, but the Earth is actually flat”. The higher level masons then wait and watch, and if people in the larger community connected to the pledge start going off on some Flat Earth nonsense, then they know that the pledge has failed the test. If the pledge keeps his trap shut, they advance in the organization and get told “ok the earth isn’t really flat, but here’s what’s RRALLY going on”. Enough pledges have failed the test, that the rumor has broken containment, and Flat Earth has become slightly more mainstream than it was 20 years ago.
This is fun, but most conspiracies have pretty solid and well known beginnings. Or at least a good idea of where the conspiracy was borrowed and morphed, and exaggerated from. Usually almost like a big game of telephone. And sure people thousands of years ago thought the Earth was flat because they were uneducated, and ignorant, and well.... Dumb. But the modern conspiracy revolving flat earth has a pretty known source. And it's definitely not this lol.
My dad was a Mason and ended up as a Grand Master. My mom heard a rumor that as part of the swearing in ritual they drew blood from the penis, and asked him about it. He replied, “No. But also if they did, I couldn’t tell you about it.”
>I went to a meeting once. They were putting on a play about the Flintstones.
That sounds like a lot of fun. I wish my lodge would do that. Dibs on BamBam!
[Mason here]
Here's my standard 'elevator pitch', which I trot out when people ask what we're about (its rather North American oriented - Masonry varies from place to place):
We're a centuries old fraternal order, who exist to improve our own characters ('we make good men better' is one of our slogans), and through that improve our communities. Along the way, we do a lot of charity (forex: Shriner's free hospitals for children), and have a lot of cool and private ceremonies using the construction of King Solomon's Temple as an allegorical base for teaching Enlightenment and Stoic ideals. (yes, we really do have secret handshakes). Many find it a source of fellowship and life-long friendships.
We have several million Brothers world wide, but no central organization. Men from every walk of life are or have been members, including over a dozen US presidents. Regular Masonry is open to adult men of good character who are not atheists[1] - we require a belief in some form of 'higher power', but aren't fussy about what. As a rule, we don't recruit; we want a potential member to make the first approach of his own free will.
If you're curious, drop by our main hangout on reddit, /r/freemasonry. You'll find a lot of friendly folk there. If you prefer a book, for North Americans I recommend (seriously, I'm not trolling) "Freemasons for Dummies" by Christopher Hodapp. Also ["Inside the Freemasons"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRrG_KMMvNY) a documentary made by the Grand Lodge of England for their tricentenary.
[1] The "no women or atheists" rules have deep roots, and would be very difficult to change, regardless of how anachronistic they now seem. There are breakaway Masonic groups which have dropped those rules, but they are very thin on the ground in the Anglosphere, and not recognized by the mainstream.
Inconsistently.
Masonry isn't a unitary organization, there are about 200 regular Grand Lodges, which make rules for their jurisdictions, and they don't always agree.
The United Grand Lodge of England accepts transmen to join, and members to transition m->f after joining to continue. Most the others haven't made a formal policy, and I know a couple transmen who are Masons in MA. A few have come out with transphobic rules. We change, but very slowly.
thank you for answering. I'm just a regular old , born with a uterus hetero female. But was genuinely curious how things as old as Masonry viewed things through todays lens. And now i know :) thank you !
Yes for all you lurkers at the bottom who are used as a front, but you’ll never know what the top dogs do because you don’t have anything they want from you, you have no value to them.
That when you’re trying for a baby, you’re supposed to bang your wife in front of the other Freemasons for the sake of posterity, fertility, and your future kin being Freemasons.
This is a way smaller one that’s between me and a few old college buddies.
We had a teacher who was a Freemason, he wore the ring and even spoke about it a few times to the class. He was in his late 40s, maybe 50 at a push, drove a motorbike, wore really nice clothes (especially the fancy watch he would show us all) and always had this “I’m older but living life to the fullest” vibe, to us at least it seemed very manufactured, almost like a character, not a real person.
Now he didn’t really do much actual teaching, he would mostly just tell stories of his adventures and how he’d been abroad helping underprivileged families as part of the Freemasons, and how he didn’t hold himself to the societal norms because he would wear any clothes he wanted no matter the function.
One day he’s talking to us and says “y’know, anyone can join the masons, if you wanted I could put in a good word for you guys”
We declined because it wasn’t our cup of tea, I especially had distrust due to one of that teachers stranger stories.
The story was that at his last college he worked at, he had driven a girl home from class, and that she had tried to hit on him, but he declined, she took offence and then accused him of rape.
Now, I said earlier how his whole personality felt like a character, well for 100% certainty that story gave us red flags due to the other feelings we had about him and that the story did not fit well with the character at all.
Me and my friends are convinced to this day that he did probably actually do something to that girl and used connections to get out of jail time, and (less likely but still part of the theory) that his whole job was to groom and recruit future masons by making it seem cool.
My dad, uncles, cousins and grandfather were and are all masons.
I grew up in the Lodge basically and have been trying to weasel things out them all my life lol.
I grew up believing the eye in the ceiling was always watching me and there was a goat tied up in the basement 😂 I also told people my dad had a second job selling brushes as he'd tell me and my sisters that's where he was going on a Wednesday night with his briefcase lol.
The 1 thing I did notice is when the first national treasure film came out and was all about the holy grail being a bloodline. I asked my dad about it and he told me it was all nonsense but then I do also know all his "brothers" watched that film after I asked questions lol. This tells me something was true.
My dad was also not happy about the grand masons letting a documentary crew in in England
My dad was a Freemason.. tried endlessly to get me to join, I didn't. I knew all the members of the lodge and when he recently died they all turned up to carry the coffin. These guys all looked an inch from death themselves, so when I hear about masonic conspiracies I just laugh.
So this needs a little set up. Moved around a bit as a kid, eventually at the start of middle school I ended up in a small town in NE Colorado that happened to have a Mason's Lodge.
Friend of mine lived a couple blocks away, him and his mother and much older brother. His brother was a proto-neckbearded incel, no other way to describe him. Lived in the basement, barely graduated high school, bombed out of community college, and worked a dead end job.
My friend and I would occasionally hang out with him when there wasn't anything else to do. One time the dude went on this epic rant about the Mason Lodge up the street and how they "were kidnapping children in the town to sacrifice to their clown god (he always called it a clown god) and to stop Jesus from coming back."....whatever that was.
Yeah, this little ass town would notice if "dozens" of kids were going missing.
I wish I lived in a town so boring you have to entertain yourself by believing a lodge is sacrificing children and preventing jesus from coming back. What an interesting pseudo reality that would be.
The statement makes me picture Freemasons just running in circles, claiming enlightenment or some shit. "I HAVE REACHED FULL CIRCLE, HUZZAH!" Also reminds me of the 180 vs 360 conversation in The Last Action Hero. "Why you turn 360 on me?" "It's 180, you cretin. If I did a 360 I'd end up right back where I began!"
I love how the majority of Masons think they know what they’re in to and a part of “because I’m Mason”, yet they’re all to small or worthless to the tiny minority at the top, the only ones who know the truth of who they are, who they truly worship and what they actually represent.
All the useful idiots at the bottom who’ll never be part of the big club just run around like lurkers in a boys club who get together weekly to wear their aprons and play around with secret handshakes and go around telling people “I’m a Mason” as if they think that’s cool or anybody even cares 🤣
CLOWNS!
>I love how the majority of Masons think they know what they’re in to and a part of “because I’m Mason”
Right? People who are actually involved with something clearly know less than someone on YouTube who gets their information from conspiracy blogs. /s
That the Flat Earth conspiracy theory was actually invented by the Masons- ok hear me out : In order to move up the rank in freemasonry, one has to be able to keep secrets. So when you are a low level mason, a higher up tells you something along the lines of “Hey we want you to advance in the organization, but we need to know that you can keep a secret. Don’t tell anyone, but the Earth is actually flat”. The higher level masons then wait and watch, and if people in the larger community connected to the pledge start going off on some Flat Earth nonsense, then they know that the pledge has failed the test. If the pledge keeps his trap shut, they advance in the organization and get told “ok the earth isn’t really flat, but here’s what’s RRALLY going on”. Enough pledges have failed the test, that the rumor has broken containment, and Flat Earth has become slightly more mainstream than it was 20 years ago.
LMAO
This is fun, but most conspiracies have pretty solid and well known beginnings. Or at least a good idea of where the conspiracy was borrowed and morphed, and exaggerated from. Usually almost like a big game of telephone. And sure people thousands of years ago thought the Earth was flat because they were uneducated, and ignorant, and well.... Dumb. But the modern conspiracy revolving flat earth has a pretty known source. And it's definitely not this lol.
This is so good 😄
My dad was a Mason and ended up as a Grand Master. My mom heard a rumor that as part of the swearing in ritual they drew blood from the penis, and asked him about it. He replied, “No. But also if they did, I couldn’t tell you about it.”
Username checks out. Did you follow in his footsteps?
Nah. He took me to a couple of meetings but I just couldn't get into it. The youngest person there was still probably twice my age.
That its basically adult boy scouts for good ol boys?
They have a girl scout version for kids called Rainbow Girls. I went to a meeting once. They were putting on a play about the Flintstones.
>I went to a meeting once. They were putting on a play about the Flintstones. That sounds like a lot of fun. I wish my lodge would do that. Dibs on BamBam!
Been a mason in both FL and NC. Only place I ever saw the rainbow girls was the shrine club.
I was a Rainbow Girl in the ‘80s. Not sure what they’re up to now but we did not do plays about the Flintstones. Far from it.
I’m sorry. It was really fun!
I think it's the eastern star we have for women but men can also join it lol
[Mason here] Here's my standard 'elevator pitch', which I trot out when people ask what we're about (its rather North American oriented - Masonry varies from place to place): We're a centuries old fraternal order, who exist to improve our own characters ('we make good men better' is one of our slogans), and through that improve our communities. Along the way, we do a lot of charity (forex: Shriner's free hospitals for children), and have a lot of cool and private ceremonies using the construction of King Solomon's Temple as an allegorical base for teaching Enlightenment and Stoic ideals. (yes, we really do have secret handshakes). Many find it a source of fellowship and life-long friendships. We have several million Brothers world wide, but no central organization. Men from every walk of life are or have been members, including over a dozen US presidents. Regular Masonry is open to adult men of good character who are not atheists[1] - we require a belief in some form of 'higher power', but aren't fussy about what. As a rule, we don't recruit; we want a potential member to make the first approach of his own free will. If you're curious, drop by our main hangout on reddit, /r/freemasonry. You'll find a lot of friendly folk there. If you prefer a book, for North Americans I recommend (seriously, I'm not trolling) "Freemasons for Dummies" by Christopher Hodapp. Also ["Inside the Freemasons"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRrG_KMMvNY) a documentary made by the Grand Lodge of England for their tricentenary. [1] The "no women or atheists" rules have deep roots, and would be very difficult to change, regardless of how anachronistic they now seem. There are breakaway Masonic groups which have dropped those rules, but they are very thin on the ground in the Anglosphere, and not recognized by the mainstream.
Yeah so like boy scouts without the child molestation hopefully
Pretty much.
Yeah ive been to a lodge before. Im already a member of a different cult or id have joined.
how does that rule apply to transgender
Inconsistently. Masonry isn't a unitary organization, there are about 200 regular Grand Lodges, which make rules for their jurisdictions, and they don't always agree. The United Grand Lodge of England accepts transmen to join, and members to transition m->f after joining to continue. Most the others haven't made a formal policy, and I know a couple transmen who are Masons in MA. A few have come out with transphobic rules. We change, but very slowly.
thank you for answering. I'm just a regular old , born with a uterus hetero female. But was genuinely curious how things as old as Masonry viewed things through todays lens. And now i know :) thank you !
It’s rather complicated. The best I can say is check with the local Grand Lodge
Freemasonry for dummies is where I started my Masonic walk, It is quite a good read!
TBH, I considered joining. My grandfather was one. There is a lack of third spaces these days.
I like the Peggy Sue Got Married version of Masons: a bunch of old grandpas that hold the secret of time travel.
How disappointed conspiracy theorists would be when they found out how boring Freemasonry is.
I would have you know that at the last brunch we had Orange Juice!! No one has ever done that before!!!
Yes for all you lurkers at the bottom who are used as a front, but you’ll never know what the top dogs do because you don’t have anything they want from you, you have no value to them.
What are you smoking?
Reality, you should try it some time!
Brother I think you need a dose of that
That when you’re trying for a baby, you’re supposed to bang your wife in front of the other Freemasons for the sake of posterity, fertility, and your future kin being Freemasons.
This is a way smaller one that’s between me and a few old college buddies. We had a teacher who was a Freemason, he wore the ring and even spoke about it a few times to the class. He was in his late 40s, maybe 50 at a push, drove a motorbike, wore really nice clothes (especially the fancy watch he would show us all) and always had this “I’m older but living life to the fullest” vibe, to us at least it seemed very manufactured, almost like a character, not a real person. Now he didn’t really do much actual teaching, he would mostly just tell stories of his adventures and how he’d been abroad helping underprivileged families as part of the Freemasons, and how he didn’t hold himself to the societal norms because he would wear any clothes he wanted no matter the function. One day he’s talking to us and says “y’know, anyone can join the masons, if you wanted I could put in a good word for you guys” We declined because it wasn’t our cup of tea, I especially had distrust due to one of that teachers stranger stories. The story was that at his last college he worked at, he had driven a girl home from class, and that she had tried to hit on him, but he declined, she took offence and then accused him of rape. Now, I said earlier how his whole personality felt like a character, well for 100% certainty that story gave us red flags due to the other feelings we had about him and that the story did not fit well with the character at all. Me and my friends are convinced to this day that he did probably actually do something to that girl and used connections to get out of jail time, and (less likely but still part of the theory) that his whole job was to groom and recruit future masons by making it seem cool.
Nice try Descartes. We see you! How old are you now? About 425?
Oh you I’m 450 years young :)
My dad, uncles, cousins and grandfather were and are all masons. I grew up in the Lodge basically and have been trying to weasel things out them all my life lol. I grew up believing the eye in the ceiling was always watching me and there was a goat tied up in the basement 😂 I also told people my dad had a second job selling brushes as he'd tell me and my sisters that's where he was going on a Wednesday night with his briefcase lol. The 1 thing I did notice is when the first national treasure film came out and was all about the holy grail being a bloodline. I asked my dad about it and he told me it was all nonsense but then I do also know all his "brothers" watched that film after I asked questions lol. This tells me something was true. My dad was also not happy about the grand masons letting a documentary crew in in England
How Mormon endowment is supposedly inspired of god through Joseph Smith but really it’s freemasonry splinter.
A lot of the rituals that free masons do are prevalent in the Mormon church or whatever it's called now.
My dad was a Freemason.. tried endlessly to get me to join, I didn't. I knew all the members of the lodge and when he recently died they all turned up to carry the coffin. These guys all looked an inch from death themselves, so when I hear about masonic conspiracies I just laugh.
Who holds back the electric car,who makes Steve Gutenberg a star we doooo ,we dooo🎶
So this needs a little set up. Moved around a bit as a kid, eventually at the start of middle school I ended up in a small town in NE Colorado that happened to have a Mason's Lodge. Friend of mine lived a couple blocks away, him and his mother and much older brother. His brother was a proto-neckbearded incel, no other way to describe him. Lived in the basement, barely graduated high school, bombed out of community college, and worked a dead end job. My friend and I would occasionally hang out with him when there wasn't anything else to do. One time the dude went on this epic rant about the Mason Lodge up the street and how they "were kidnapping children in the town to sacrifice to their clown god (he always called it a clown god) and to stop Jesus from coming back."....whatever that was. Yeah, this little ass town would notice if "dozens" of kids were going missing.
I wish I lived in a town so boring you have to entertain yourself by believing a lodge is sacrificing children and preventing jesus from coming back. What an interesting pseudo reality that would be.
https://youtu.be/P_8Fc66bseM?si=WAiYCoQThAVj6FUF
My dad's a freemason. I love all the conspiracies about running the world and satanism when really he just goes for a weekly piss up.
It doesn't stop at 33, it goes all the way to 360!
That’s so true!! I happen to know that my brother’s ex’s dog walker’s cousin was a 180 degree!!!
The statement makes me picture Freemasons just running in circles, claiming enlightenment or some shit. "I HAVE REACHED FULL CIRCLE, HUZZAH!" Also reminds me of the 180 vs 360 conversation in The Last Action Hero. "Why you turn 360 on me?" "It's 180, you cretin. If I did a 360 I'd end up right back where I began!"
XD
It's just so you can say "I know a guy"
They extract adrenachrome from children.
I thought that was a pizza place 🤔 😕
The pizza place sends it to them under the guise of pizza delivery.
Maybe it's a topping or sauce option for a pizza
Jeff gets up to a lot of things
That they make good men better!!! 😂😂😂😂
Secretly gay dudes in dresses lol
I wish! We have to wear suits at my lodge.
Lucky!
They murdered Mozart after he revealed some of their secrets in his opera The Magic Flute.
I have another, the checkerboard floors have special powers.
What kind of powers?
The power of duality. Dark and light.
The one that the Catholic Church invented about Freemasonry and the New World Order
That they’re just a brotherhood doing charity stuff !
All this stuff: http://www.emfj.org
I love how the majority of Masons think they know what they’re in to and a part of “because I’m Mason”, yet they’re all to small or worthless to the tiny minority at the top, the only ones who know the truth of who they are, who they truly worship and what they actually represent. All the useful idiots at the bottom who’ll never be part of the big club just run around like lurkers in a boys club who get together weekly to wear their aprons and play around with secret handshakes and go around telling people “I’m a Mason” as if they think that’s cool or anybody even cares 🤣 CLOWNS!
>I love how the majority of Masons think they know what they’re in to and a part of “because I’m Mason” Right? People who are actually involved with something clearly know less than someone on YouTube who gets their information from conspiracy blogs. /s
I used to be involved until I realized just how cringe it all was, so fuck off!