New Zealand
Seven Sharp

Kiwi Freemasons uncover some of the mystery behind the secret society

February 4, 2021

The insight into the secret ancient society, which is recruiting, included an even rarer interview with the Grand Master.

There's one kind of building you'll see almost everywhere in New Zealand - but even today, most of us don't really know what goes on inside.

The local Masonic Lodge is home to the Freemasons, an ancient international organisation which is famous for never revealing its secrets. Resulting in countless conspiracy theories.

All across New Zealand, in the smallest towns and the biggest cities, there is a Lodge.

In the old Wellesley Hotel on a summer's evening down a little side street in Wellington Central, the Wellesley Lodge meets.

“I'm the Grand Master so my regalia represents my rank, as it does everybody else in the Lodge Room,” Graham Wrigley, the Grandmaster of Freemasons New Zealand, said.

It’s an ancient society with many secrets but its members are ordinary folk.

Callum works in payroll, Morayis a builder, while Matthew was in IT and the Grand Master used to be Wellington's fire chief.

“A very good friend of mine recommended that I join because he thought it would obviously make me a better man, not that I was a bad one but he thought it would be good for me. And to be quite honest it really has been and my only regret is I didn't join sooner,” Grand Steward Matthew Dyer said.

But the handshake is a well-kept secret they wouldn't divulge, and the secrets run far deeper.

“Most Freemasons would pick up another Freemason by the language they use and the way they talk,” Wrigley said.

“The lessons you learn in Freemasonry become part of the way you operate as an individual.”

For the full story, watch the video above.

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