What kind of masons are there

Anna is a confident, intelligent woman who neither looks nor sounds like someone who would want to join an organisation often thought of as a stuffy, elitist boys' club.

So why did she? Michael, a man in his late forties who has been a member for six years, says, like Anna, he joined on the recommendation of somebody close to him. That's what it is all about. Unsurprisingly, many Freemasons are vague when discussing the fraternity's purpose, but two things crop up repeatedly when you ask why they enjoy being members.

Anna, too, lists the charitable side of membership as something she enjoys. Admirable though charity may be, people donate all the time without joining secretive societies. What else, then, compels people to not only join but remain committed members?

You will come across people you've met in the past, certainly if you've lived in the area for a number of years. But what is a network for if it does not operate for the benefit of those involved? It is not to be used for your own personal benefit.

They were free men, and not indentured, and were free to travel about and pursue their vocation when and where they wished; 2. Stonemasons who were employed on ecclesiastical properties churches, abbeys, monasteries, preceptories, etc.

These more highly skilled stonemasons, often worked in freestone, a type of soft quarry-stone, that could be sculpted into elaborate decorative elements, like window tracery, fan-vaulting and statuary. Freestone masons came to be known as Free-Masons or Freemasons. In , in London, a dispute arose between the lesser-paid Masons layers and setters , and the more skilled and better paid Freemasons mason-hewers , who were usually the contractor-employers of the rank and file Masons.

But who are the Freemasons and what do they stand for? Is there really a secret Freemason handshake? Here are seven things you may not know about Freemasons. Freemasons belong to the oldest fraternal organization in the world, a group begun during the Middle Ages in Europe as a guild of skilled builders.

With the decline of cathedral building, the focus of the society shifted. Today, these degrees are more philosophical.

But there are no priests, there are no ministers, there are no rabbis, there's no system of clergy of any sort. Everybody's their own thinker. Jacob said the initial response to Freemasonry in continental Europe, particularly in Catholic Europe, was suspicion from seeing "all these men [from] different neighborhoods, different professions meeting in the cafe, breaking bread together, doing rituals, what could this be?

Political conspiracy or religion. In the Catholic Church condemned Freemasonry, and has since issued about 20 decrees -- directly or indirectly -- against the fraternity.

Freemasonry is not a religion per se, but agnostics or atheists cannot belong, said Brent Morris, a Masonic historian, editor of the Scottish Rite Journal , and a 33rd degree Freemason.

The Catholics would get in power and beat up on the Protestants; the Protestants would get in power and beat up on the Catholics; and everyone was beating up on the Jews.