They’re literally just frats but for middle-aged, usually settled men. Far less wild and rapey, more grill-and-charity-drive-y. They do rituals and rites because having secret dress up with your boys is fun as shit, it essentially serves the same social function as any in-joke.

My dad was a mason and from close exposure to it it’s basically just a drinking club that does community service type things occasionally. Maybe 250 years ago they were some elite powerful network but nowadays it’s grill city.

He certainly wasn’t rich either, I think the wealth demographics are dependent on the area

Remember when you were a kid and had a tree house or fort or something like that? A big part of the appeal was that it was only you and you friends who were allowed in there whole other kids was not in on it. Freemasonry is sort of the same thing but for bougie men who also enjoy the possibility to get an evening away from their wives once in a while.

The costs of buying costumes and props are not insignificant and membership is invitation only do naturally it tends to be the local elite who are freemasons; lawyers, business owners, higher-level bureaucrats etc. They don’t congregate to make big conspiracies, it’s a goofy social club with some larping elements, but naturally they talk to eachother and befriend eachother. They collude but no more than they would have done anyways in the country club.

The secretive and quasi-religious nature of freemasonry has made it the target of lots of conspiracies over the years. However almost all of them have been completely baseless. An important exception to this is Liberia where the ruling elite did in fact use the freemasonry lodge to organise themselves and run the country.