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Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a very famous, old (dating to Middle Ages), mysterious and large worldwide group of men claiming to pursue charitable goals, a group infamous for being the subject of countless conspiracy theories due to the secrecy of their conduct. They evolved from a literal guild of stonemasons (traced to the end of 14th century), but turned into something greater over time. To summarize them in short is difficult, but one will often hear about their use of symbols, rituals and meetings closed to the public, and indeed maybe about their plans to "secretly rule the world, unnoticed behind the curtains". Freemasons are in some ways similar to Illuminati.
Because matters are a bit complicated with Freemasons, let's summarize some of the group's characteristics:
- Typically they're NOT classified as a religion, cult, sect or club, but rather as "fraternity", i.e. something akin to a "group of brothers and friends" or "extended family" -- a bit confusingly perhaps, because they perform a lot of religion-like rituals and indeed DO require members to believe in "god", though it doesn't matter what kind of god, they accept all religions. Let's not forget rituals don't always have to be strictly religious, academic world for example also has its pompous graduation ceremonies.
- They make heavy use of symbolism, with most prominent symbols including the square and compass (with letter G inside), the eye of providence and three dots. They also have special handshakes and similar stuff. These carry meanings -- obscure knowledge of hidden meanings gets passed from higher ranked members downwards and serves initiation and progression through their system of ranks. Hopefully we can get away with the following comparison: it's a bit like how 4chan newfag becomes oldfag through acquiring knowledge of more and more obscure memes.
- They are part of conspiracy theories connected to jews and secretly ruling the world, manipulating world economy etc. This is firstly because of the secrecy and mystery, but also due to many famous and powerful people in their ranks (including some US presidents) AND their symbols actually appearing in many places (famously e.g. the dollar bills). For this many people hate them, including probably Nazis and atheists, but importantly also by the big religions who see a threat in their universal religious tolerance. It's not rare for them to be persecuted or even banned by various countries and regimes.
- Women can't join them :D Actually there are some spinoff "Freemason" organizations that relaxed the rule, but the TRUE Freemasons are conservative and uphold it.
- Atheists can't join either (CHECKMATE). Faith in higher power is required but without forcing any specific religion. All are tolerated as long as they believe in a supreme creator, including Christians, Muslims, Jews and others.
- Joining has further requirements such as financial stability, passing an interview etc.
- They organize and meet in local lodges, or "temples" of a sort. Just like religious temples these tend to sport luxury, excessive decoration and symbols everywhere, even requiring presence of a holy book (Bible, Quran or anything similar). The forefront is probably Grand Lodge in London, but it seems they're all quite decentralized, some lodges don't acknowledge other ones etc. Just like countries.
- They aim to be apolitical and tolerant, simply wanting to do "good", without subscribing to specific religions or political parties. Complete freedom from bias may indeed get hard to achieve at times but in general it seems to be so.
- Their core values are freedom, equality, brotherhood, tolerance and humanity.
- So WHAT do they actually do? Officially their goal is charity, to help both non-members and members, but that's not the only thing. They also carry on their tradition, values, enjoy time together, make friends, play a "social game" of rituals and rising in ranks, feeling important etc. Clearly it IS partly snobbish, like an exclusive club. The members are typically older rich men who wanna hang out with other such guys in style and along the way maybe do something good.
Is freemasonry good from LRS viewpoint? This cannot be clearly answered, they're most likely partly good and bad at the same time. But what's the ratio? Higher good and charity of course present good causes, but let's not jump to the conclusion that anything under the label of "charity" is always good. We must judge each case separately. Feeding the homeless is awesome, but things like supporting small businesses or getting people to work, for example, means probably supporting capitalism and therefore evil. We know words such as "good" and "morality" mean nothing when merely spoken, they've been used by evil to hide behind, their meaning is not hard to twist. We would also out of principle rather oppose the hierarchical structure of masonic organization based on ranks and titles, their secrecy (i.e. censorship) and approval of materialistic values (expensive suits, marble temples, ...). Some huge dicks like Winston Churchill were among Freemasons and great many of them, if not most, are literally the biggest capitalists, and that may speak for itself. On the other hand it's nice they stick to their own principles even if they might have become controversial, such as the refusal to accept women -- nice to see someone not immediately slip to populism nowadays. The initial idea of a federated local charitable organizations is good, one that would be nice to see implemented with more of a LRS taste.