Your First Visit to a Lodge: What Actually Happens

I still remember standing in the car park before mine, checking my tie in a wing mirror like a teenager. Then a man in his seventies opened the door, called me by my first name before I had given it, and asked if I wanted a drink. That was the whole ordeal.

Your first visit is almost never a meeting. It is a dinner, a drink, or a social evening where members quietly take your measure over a plate of food. Less intimidating than you are imagining. More decisive than you would guess, because by the time you are driving home a few of them have already formed a view, and one of them may end up seconding your petition. So here is how the night actually runs.

§Before you go

1. Confirm the date, the address and the dress code by email
2. Ask whether there is a cost for dinner and bring cash
3. Arrive fifteen minutes early, never five minutes late
4. Eat nothing beforehand. There will be food and refusing it is awkward
5. Have two or three questions ready that are not about secrets

§What to wear

A dark suit, a plain shirt and a conservative tie will never be wrong. If you do not own a suit, a jacket and smart trousers are fine. Nobody is checking the label. They are checking whether you took the evening seriously enough to iron something.

§The shape of the evening

Expect handshakes, small talk, an introduction to the Worshipful Master or the secretary, dinner, and then a period where members drift over one by one to talk to you. Nothing ritual happens in your presence. Nothing will be asked of you that you cannot answer.

If the lodge is holding its stated meeting that night, members will excuse themselves and go upstairs. That is normal and it is not a snub. You will usually be looked after by one or two members who stay behind.

§What to ask

• How often does the lodge meet, and on which nights
• What are the annual dues and the one time costs to join
• What is expected of a new member in the first year
• How many candidates have you taken in recently, and where are they now
• What does this lodge do that the one down the road does not
• Who would mentor me, and what does that actually look like

That fourth question is the sharpest one on the list. A lodge that initiated four men in two years and can tell you where all four are today is a healthy lodge. A lodge that has to think about it is telling you something important.

§What not to ask

Do not ask about secrets, handshakes, passwords or anything you saw in a documentary. Not because anyone will be offended, but because it signals that you came for the mystique rather than the men. Save your curiosity about symbolism for later, when it will be answered properly.

Show curiosity about the men rather than the mystique and you will do well.

§What they are looking for

Not polish. Not knowledge of ritual. They want to know whether you listen, whether you turn up, and whether you will still be here in three years. Most of what is being assessed is unglamorous: did he ask about anyone else's life, did he help stack the chairs, did he stay past the point where leaving was allowed.

§Visit more than one lodge

Lodges differ enormously in age, tone, formality, cost and energy. Two lodges in the same town can feel like entirely different organisations. Visiting three before you petition is completely normal and nobody will take offence, though it is good manners to be open about it if asked.

If you want the exact email to send a secretary, the questions to bring and the scorecard to compare lodges, all of it is in The First Step Roadmap.

§After the visit

Send a short thank you email the next morning. Two sentences is plenty. It is the most underused move in the entire process and it is remembered far longer than it should be.

Then go back. Once is a visit. Twice is interest. Three times and men start asking each other whether you have petitioned yet. When you are ready for the mechanics of that, read How to Join a Masonic Lodge, and if your family still has questions, Six Myths About Freemasonry is written to be handed over.