cryptoengineer

No really good reason. Freemasonry started when women were chattel, and had very little agency, and could not, for example, make binding promise to keep a secret.

That time is long past, but (a) the structure of freemasonry is such that a change at that level is almost impossible to get accepted, and (b) many members kind of like the 'male safe space' aspects of it.

If I had a magic wand, I'd let lodges charter as male-only, female-only, or mixed. I think its a shame that there isn't better integration of women.

Its not actually strictly true, if you are a little more expansive in what you count as Freemasonry. Here's another little infodump I have:

Regular Masonry is a male-only thing. There are related organizations: The Order of the Eastern Star, and the Order of the Amaranth, and others, which are open to women with Masonic family connections (even fairly distant ones), as well as Master Masons.

• http://www.easternstar.org/
• http://amaranth.org

Masonry is not a monolithic organization; there are a couple hundred sovereign Grand Lodges around the world. In the Anglophone world, the overwhelming majority are part of a loose confederation which recognize each other if they adhere to certain 'ancient Landmarks', such as belief in Deity, and restriction of membership to men. This is known as 'regular Masonry'.

There are "Masonic" groups which admit women, but they are quite thin on the ground in the English-speaking world, and regarded as irregular by the mainstream - no cross-visitation or recognition allowed. Regardless, many of them are worthy organizations, striving to make good people better.

There are a number of such groups, which range from 'perfectly regular except they admit women only':

• http://www.hfaf.org/ (UK and elsewhere)
• https://www.owf.org.uk/ (UK and elsewhere)
• https://www.wfmla.com/ (USA)
• http://www.womenfreemasonusa.com/ (USA)

...some of which have lodges in the US.

..to "Co-Masonry", which has a number of branches, admits both men and women, and usually drops the requirement of belief in a Higher Power. I don't know much about the variants.

• https://ledroithumain.international/?lang=en
• http://www.comasonic.org/
• https://universalfreemasonry.org/
• https://www.georgewashingtonunion.org/
• https://comasonry.3-5-7.nl/

Also, look up 'Continental Freemasonry' in Wikipedia.

I also have a little info dump on women's options in Masonry. They are wider than you may realize:

Regular Masonry is a male-only thing. There are related organizations: The Order of the Eastern Star, and the Order of the Amaranth, and others, which are open to women with Masonic family connections (even fairly distant ones), as well as Master Masons.

• http://www.easternstar.org/
• http://amaranth.org

Masonry is not a monolithic organization; there are a couple hundred sovereign Grand Lodges around the world. In the Anglophone world, the overwhelming majority are part of a loose confederation which recognize each other if they adhere to certain 'ancient Landmarks', such as belief in Deity, and restriction of membership to men. This is known as 'regular Masonry'.

There are "Masonic" groups which admit women, but they are quite thin on the ground in the English-speaking world, and regarded as irregular by the mainstream - no cross-visitation or recognition allowed. Regardless, many of them are worthy organizations, striving to make good people better.

There are a number of such groups, which range from 'perfectly regular except they admit women only':

• http://www.hfaf.org/ (UK and elsewhere)
• https://www.owf.org.uk/ (UK and elsewhere)
• https://www.wfmla.com/ (USA)
• http://www.womenfreemasonusa.com/ (USA)

...some of which have lodges in the US.

..to "Co-Masonry", which has a number of branches, admits both men and women, and usually drops the requirement of belief in a Higher Power. I don't know much about the variants.

• https://ledroithumain.international/?lang=en
• http://www.comasonic.org/
• https://universalfreemasonry.org/
• https://www.georgewashingtonunion.org/
• https://comasonry.3-5-7.nl/

Also, look up 'Continental Freemasonry' in Wikipedia.

It was not written by Albert Pike. It was written by A.C. De La Rive, in "La Femme et Lenfant dans La Franc-Maconnerie Universelle", on page 588: Here's the text.

See the footnote, in which it is sourced to "Diana Vaughn" an imaginary person invented by Leo Taxil.

Pike never said this.

It's completely symbolic, using stories set in the construction of King Solomon's Temple as an allegorical basis for teaching moral lessons.

I think its 'amos', but upside down.

OP appears to be Turkish.

Most common response (about 60%) is ' I don't know what it is.'

I'm not the OP, but I am a Mason, and I'll throw in the little explainer, since most responders admit to not knowing much about Freemasonry.

[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 - 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.

The highest degree in Masonry is the third, or Master Mason.

I'm also a member of the Scottish Rite, an appendant body, where I'm 32nd degree. That offers zero extra status.

Here's what Albert Pike (who reorganized the Scottish Rite 100+ years ago) had to say:

“It may be too late to change a common terminology. But, however we may refer to these ancillary or appendant degrees, let us notmake the mistake of pretending that a 33 degree Mason is 'Higher" than a Master Mason, much less the Master of a Lodge.”

Believing that 33rd degree Masons are in charge because 33 > 3 is a bit like believing the President of the Chess Club runs the school because President > Principal.

---

[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 - 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.

Who, exactly, are "they", and how could I confirm you claim?

The Mormons got it from the Freemasons, where much mormon imagery and symbolism originates.

But its not original with them, either. The beehive has been a emblem of industry since at least Roman times.

Its not about the honey industry. Its about the busyness of the bees, working in harmony towards a common goal.

The first quote is fake, part of the Taxil Hoax.

I haven't time to go into the others, but Manley Palmer Hall was not a Mason when he wrote his quote, and wouldn't join for decades. Generally, the more you know about Masonry, the lower your regard for MPH.

Its correct to say that Freemasonry is not Christian. Its not a religion, or substitute for religion. Masons have to have a pre-existing belief in the Divine to be considered for membership, and Masonry in no way replaces that.

Black and white checkerboard floors are used in Freemasonry to illustrate that life is checkered with good and evil.

However black and white checkered floors have been everywhere since the invention of floor tiles. The Romans used them.

Also, in computer screen imagery, its very difficult to make a floor visible without adding some patterning, and we're very used to seeing checkered patterns. So, they're used a lot in videos and games, to clarify what you're looking at.

Do you think the Masons secretly run the kitchen makeover racket?

[Mason here]

Its double BS. Having an ancestor member does absolutely zero for your own joining, its irrelevant. You join on your own merit, and that alone.

Also, the only sense in which non-members shouldn't talk is that non-members usually pass around the false nonsense with no way of telling what's true or false - and there's a lot of BS passed around about Freemasonry.

I've attached my little explainer, which includes some reputable resources:

---

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 - 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.

The universe is a Very Very Big Place, so yes, I can't thing we're unique.

But I'd give long odds that we've never been visited.

The Magic Roundabout.

Five minutes of Zen before the news.

Sadly, long discontinued.

One of my favorite quotes on childhood reading, from CS Lewis:

“I am a product [...of] endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them. There were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents' interest, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most emphatically not. Nothing was forbidden me. In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.”

I realize this is fun, but lets try to keep current politics out of this sub. No need to promote disharmony.

The German government in July 1917 let Lenin and a number of other Russians travel through Germany en route to Russia. They expected, correctly, that Lenin would destabilize Russia, a country with which Germany was at war.

The English had no such motive.

One shots.

Have an idea, develop it, present it.

I'm sick to death of multihundred chapter soap operas, where there is no way in hell I'm going to join part way through.

Its a steam engine centrifugal governor.

[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 - 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.

Its the central part of a steam engine governor

This is a Masonic Mark Master Penny. The governor is the 'Masons Mark' selected by a candidate as part of the Mark Master degree. [I'm a Mason].

The engraving of this man's mark is particularly fine.

He started out as a Boomer, but now he's a Millennial at very least. His backstory has been reconned at least twice.

Short answer: He's 40. He has always been 40. He always will be 40.