It's just a frat for grown men. College fraternities can be similarly secretive and try to appear "fancy", but at the end of the day it's all just dudes hanging out in a clubhouse.

They're a literal secret society. The secrecy leads to all sorts of wild rumors, which just get amplified, altered, and exaggerated over time until you've got Reptilian Illuminati trying to conquer the world through subliminal messages being broadcast through tooth fillings via fluoride in the water.

Because they're secretive fucks.

I am one if you want to AMA

Because conspiracists are lazy. They can't even get past the flat earth stuff.

Idk but as one there is no way a bunch slightly racist old white Christian men can organize anything beyond the local and maybe state level.

Masonry is really cool and used to be highly influential for all levels of society but it’s not that anymore. It’s really sad. My grandparents generations were joiners. After the war everyone joined a society. My parents joined some. But nowadays that’s very rare. Everyone in my lodge was 50-80.

I think the propaganda comes from a similar place of earlier Jesuit propaganda. A bunch of men meeting in secret, seeking education away from church and state, highly involved in the community. Now it’s just having meals, meetings, and planning which charity event to do.