ST. PAUL, Minn.—No self-respecting secret society can get by without a Facebook fan page anymore.
That's transparently true of the Freemasons, renowned for their medieval blood oaths, their often-alleged plot to create a New World Order, their locked-door conclaves of U.S. presidents and power brokers and their boring pancake breakfasts.
A menagerie of 19th-century civic and social brotherhoods, and their attendant sisterhoods, lives on around the globe: the Elks, the Moose, the Lions, the Odd Fellows. Freemasonry is the oldest of all, still the biggest, and—in the public mind—about as penetrable as the mythic crypt beneath the ninth vault of Solomon's Temple.
more A Secret Society Goes Public to Lure a New Generation of Freemasons - WSJ.com
The order's main manual used to be "Duncan's Ritual," published in 1866. Today it's "Freemasons for Dummies" by Christopher Hodapp, published in 2005. "We've got an explosion of openness," said Mr. Hodapp. "And it started—face it—in a panic over membership."
That's transparently true of the Freemasons, renowned for their medieval blood oaths, their often-alleged plot to create a New World Order, their locked-door conclaves of U.S. presidents and power brokers and their boring pancake breakfasts.
A menagerie of 19th-century civic and social brotherhoods, and their attendant sisterhoods, lives on around the globe: the Elks, the Moose, the Lions, the Odd Fellows. Freemasonry is the oldest of all, still the biggest, and—in the public mind—about as penetrable as the mythic crypt beneath the ninth vault of Solomon's Temple.
more A Secret Society Goes Public to Lure a New Generation of Freemasons - WSJ.com
The order's main manual used to be "Duncan's Ritual," published in 1866. Today it's "Freemasons for Dummies" by Christopher Hodapp, published in 2005. "We've got an explosion of openness," said Mr. Hodapp. "And it started—face it—in a panic over membership."
