The Masons!


Contrary to what you might have heard elsewhere, what the world really needs is more secret societies. Because secret societies are awesome. You may not yet agree, and that's fine. I once would have shared your skepticism on the inherent greatness of such secretive organizations. In fact, I was only recently convinced to change my opinion by the cool way in which the Masons were portrayed in National Treasure. These Masons were apparently descended from the Knights-Templar and included such amazing members as George Washington, the founding fathers and some modern day police inspector. Who wouldn't want to join ranks with such illustrious individuals? Especially since doing so would make you privy to all sorts of top secret information and shoulder you with the responsibility to guard massive caches of treasure. Frankly, I'd be a bit surprised if National Treasure wasn't intended as a recruiting tool for the Masons. Their treatment in this film wouldn't have looked out of place for the Knights of the Cruciform Sword.

I'll be the first to admit that I know almost nothing about the Masons organization, aside from the mostly fictitious tidbits presented intermittently by Hollywood. Of course, this is not surprising given that we're talking about a secret society here. I'm sure it wouldn't seem nearly as exciting if I knew what real Masons do. Though if I had to guess, I would probably say bowling and fund-raising. Anyway, despite my lack of knowledge on this subject, or more likely because of it, I now want to join the Masons. It seems like all your time would be spent hiding or guarding treasure while manipulating history to fit your own ends. Furthermore, you'd probably be charged with creating trails of clues to lead right to the treasures you've just finished concealing. This might seem like anathema to the second aforementioned goal (guarding the treasure), but apparently it's not. It would then be your responsibility to embed all the clues into the fabric of society, so that only someone with the star power of oh, say, Nick Cage, would be able to decipher them. It would be like being employed to create giant treasure hunts, with the entire country as your available playing field. At some point during this process, you would also probably get the chance to wear a disguise. Nothing less could befit a secret society of such caliber.

Unfortunately, I'm sure being part of an organization like the Masons involves more than just fun and games. There are probably a huge number of rules that have to be followed, most of them secret. So secret, in fact, that if you even discovered some of the rules you were supposed to be following, they would probably have to kill you. As such, I can only guess at the directives that keep the Masons in line. For example, I'm fairly confident there must be a way for two masons to identify themselves to one another. And it's probably not as blatant as simply wearing a ring emblazoned with the Masons' symbol (see the aforementioned modern day police inspector). I'm guessing that they probably have a secret handshake for just such a purpose. As Monty Python once speculated, it may involve something as inconspicuous as lying down on the street and swinging your legs in the general direction of your fellow mason. People might suspect that the two of you were crazy, but they'd never imagine that you were actually masons. When, in fact, you're really probably both of the above.


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