Most of my friends know that I read a great deal and as a result a number of books sometimes come to me that I would not have selected myself. Last week such a book arrived on my shelf, and in the mood for something strange I gave it a read.

The book was about Masons, specifically the evil that Masons do. Obviously the author, and the book are a bit more than a little nuts, but it was interesting to read the author's conspiracy theories anyway.

A bit of looking around the internet reveals that lots of people are convinced that the Masons are involved in conspiracy, and I must assume that the belief is a result of the fact that they believe Freemasonry to be a 'secret society.'

I wonder, what is it about secrets that make people seemingly automatically deem evil intention behind them? Could it be envy by those who feel slighted because they are not in on the secret, whatever it may be? Could it be some kind of dogmatic view that nothing of the good ever needs to be kept a secret?

I found this to be especially odd because Freemasonry is surely not a secret, no matter how many times the author assured himself, and his readers of the fact that it is a 'secret society.' Here in Washington State we have special license plates for Masons, one sees them on cars fairly frequently, right along with the Square and Compass symbol on bumper stickers, or even the Eastern Star. It seems that every little town across our nation has it's Masonic Lodge with it's own building, plainly marked with signage for all to see. Men proudly wearing a Masonic ring with a big red stone walk every Main Street in America. What is the secret? Where is the secret? Wouldn't a successful and powerful conspiracy as outlined by Anti-Masonic writers at least try to hide?

The writer of this particular book did of course have an explanation. In his view, most Masons are given no knowledge of the conspiracy; it is only an inner circle that truly knows the evil intentions of the organization. That the 'secret' rituals of the group over time bond the member to the group, and ensure that once he is given 'secret' knowledge of the conspiracy he is at a point at which the evil cannot be fought.

Of course, the 'secret' rituals of Freemasonry are all detailed in the book, as is the 'secret' knowledge of the conspiracy. All of this with footnotes pointing to other books published over the last hundred years or so.

Indeed, to actually believe the book one would have to believe two completely opposite things at the same time. One would have to believe that Masonic rituals are 'secret' as are it's true aims, but one would also have to believe that these 'secrets' truly remain secret after being written about countless times over a long period of history.

Certainly there have been periods in history when Masonry needed to guard itself, and secrecy would have been important. When the Catholic Church was in full pursuit of those it deemed heretics, outing oneself as a Mason likely would have been a very poor idea, as it would have been when Nazi Germany was doing it's best to rid Europe of Masons.

Beyond those considerations, the 'secrecy' aspect of Masonry was probably also extremely useful to those of our nations founding fathers who were Masons as the privacy of the lodge would have helped them plan the birth of our nation.

To somehow though stretch these legitimate needs for privacy into secrecy for evil intent as this book did is a stretch that a rational mind can't truly make in my view.

All of this brings me right back around to my initial wondering, what is it in human nature that causes so many of us to believe that secrets must have evil intent? I suppose that we shall never know, but it is an interesting question to ponder I think.