freemasons

[_josie_]

Does anyone really know what freemasons get up to? Why are they so secretive if all they do is raise money for charity?

[badboy]

Mostly drinking shaking hands and helping each other out/sharing knowledge.

[WaldoMcFroog]

The thing to remember with the Freemasons is that they were at their most powerful when then secret societies were all the rage - in the mid 19th C. The point with a secret society is to shield your club from other people, and you can best achieve this through threatening. Masonic rituals are basically pretty sad and tragic rip offs of 'genuine' occult ceremonies and amount ot little more than playground threats and bullying. That said, the Masons, whilst being nowhere near as important as people might have heard, do act in the same way as the old boy network from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It's another of ensuring the status quo. Pretty tragic though really - it's like a grown up version of a Kellog's secret decoder ring...

[couchy]

Check out what David Icke thinks about them, it will make your hair curl (if its not curly already)

[mehlindi]

They also used to throw splendid children's Christmas parties, which I would attend as a youngster [my grandfather was a Grand Poobah of his Masonic Order or whatever it is that they have] All the men would wear bowler hats, and have a sticky label bearing the words 'Uncle ' on it. Come to think of it, it was all a little weird. Bit like the Masons themselves...

[WaldoMcFroog]

Since Freemasonry developed from non-Catholic elements of the church, it's a little churish to say they were descriminating against Catholics. And you cannot apply modern gender attitudes to something that was established in a time when the business comunity was 100% male! That's not to condone it, but it does reflect the prevailing attidtudes of the times.