there freemasons in turkey in sweden in england across the planet and right here in seattle the rituals change slightly from place to place but the goal is always the same the goal is to make good men better this has been the goal of freemasonry for over three hundred years the rituals and the teaching of freemasonry is specifically designed to encourage self improvement to encourage men to live with faith hope and charity to encourage men to live with temperance fortitude prudence and justice good men teach each other these personality traits these personality traits do not just happen in our d n a we learn to be good men by being around other good men freemasonry is the oldest and largest fraternal organization in the world with perhaps three million masons worldwide and one million in the us this is a decline from the late fifties in one nine hundred sixty s when in the us alone there were four million freemasons since freemasonry is new to most viewers i will take a few minutes to explain the structure of masonry and mention a few of the popular branches of freemasonry the shriners are probably the most visible group of freemasons because of the shriners children's hospitals there are twenty one children's hospitals in the united states and one in mexico city the shriners were established in eight seventy with just two goals to have fun and to raise money for hospitals shriners do not spend much time teaching good men to be better they're out for a good time most writers in seattle spend an awful lot of time playing golf at the nile shrine with their friends and drinking occasionally the main purpose of the nile shrine is for men to have a good time and to raise money for the hospitals and those two things are very important for freemasonry the nile shrine is of course quite different from the blue lodges and the scottish rite and the york write those lodges also like to have a good time brotherhood is always the first goal but masonic learning that is teaching good men to be better is the primary objective of blue lodges the blue lodges offer the first three masonic degrees the entered apprenticed the fellowcraft and the master mason degree all masons all members of the niles shrine the scottish rite and york right pass through the three degrees the three rituals entered apprentice fellowcraft master mason the scottish rite offers further degrees and further learning all the way up to the thirty second degree the thirty third degree masons which conspiracy theorists just love to talk about the thirty third degree is an honorary degree given to masons by their brothers for outstanding work within freemasonry i've mentioned the blue lot is the nile shrine the york right and scottish ri there is also an important group called prince hall the prince hall lodges were established in seven hundred eighty five and are predominantly attended by black then they have been a crucial part of masonry ever since they came into existence the prince hall lodges have been essential to masonry from the very beginning and are now recognized and welcomed by most all the other lodges in the united states you know the greatest story is kind of tasked with keeping a historical record for a grand lodge but what you end up doing is looking into