My take is that the original idea of the masons was that they were a group who helped young men learn a trade. Back then, there were no trade schools. If you wanted to learn how to build a house or be a blacksmith, you became an apprentice to learn the trade from experienced veterans.

The group grew into a larger network of men helping men.

But once the Illuminati network in Bavaria was discovered, and the government outlawed secret societies, they went underground by infiltrating the masons.

They kept the "respectable" public image of the masons, but also added in a secret society element within. This gave them a way to recruit men, and identify those who were weak and could be manipulated into rising up and into the criminal ranks, where they would create power centers within society, but only allowing the corrupt and corruptable to be part of that system.

It is not a coincidence that outsiders like Bill Clinton were identified via the Rhodes Scholarship system, and then brought into the inner circle when he proved to be easily corrupted and manipulated, until he became one of the corrupt criminals himself.

Not everyone who is invited to be a mason or a Rhodes Scholar is a criminal. But the criminals are recruited, identified, and groomed through those types of systems.

My take is that the original idea of the masons was that they were a group who helped young men learn a trade. Back then, there were no trade schools. If you wanted to learn how to build a house or be a blacksmith, you became an apprentice to learn the trade from experienced veterans.

The group grew into a larger network of men helping men.

But once the Illuminati network in Bavaria was discovered, and the government outlawed secret societies, they went underground by infiltrating the masons.

They kept the "respectable" public image of the masons, but also added in a secret society element within. This gave them a way to recruit men, and identify those who were weak and could be manipulated into rising up and into the criminal ranks, where they would create power centers within society, but only allowing the corrupt and corruptable to be part of that system.