Conversation with a taxi driver about Freemasonry

Wearing a dinner jacket with brief case in hand the conversation with a taxi driver went on to Freemasonry. Clearly he knew how to spot a Freemasonry, but the give away was usually when you asked for the masonic hall at .......................

He was clearly troubled by something. Some people had told him that Freemasons worshiped the devil. However, he found this difficult to believe as he had met quite a number of Freemasons and, in his words, found them all to be nice people. I explained to the taxi driver that sometimes stories are more compelling than that truth, and that people believe things because they want to believe in them. I explained Freemasonry was a secular organisation and was not a religion. Rather it was a system of ethical self-reflection that is aimed at self-development.

The reason we are called Masons is a metaphor. We are not operative masons, but rather speculative. The ashlar represents each individual; the building represents society. Therefore our Masonry is how we can fit 'better' in society. To use a phrase sometimes used in Freemasonry, we are 'living stones'.

The five steps to tyranny are given below:


1. ‘Us’ and ‘them’: use prejudice to foster the (fictional) notion of the existence of superior and dominant in-groups and inferior and powerless out-groups.
2. Obey orders: insist that all people under your wing are to obey your orders.
3. Dehumanize the enemy: emphasize on making inimical factions look less than human.
4. ‘Stand up’ or ’stand by’: suppress dissenting or opposing opinions to your own.
5. Suppress Individuality: foster the development of group identities while suppressing the individual.

Clearly the anti-masonic propaganda is using step 1.

We had quite a long time in the taxi. Huddersfield Town were playing at home, and this had created something of a traffic jam. By the time we parted the taxi driver seemed to have resolved the apparent incompatibility between the stories he had heard, and the pleasant people he had met.

Freemasons 1, Anti-masons 0.