Wellington Amaral, Jeff Breunig and John Ertl are sitting in a small but comfortable room not far from Middleton High School. There are chairs, a low couch, and a couple portraits of George Washington on the wall. Sacrificial goats, satanic rituals and clandestine strings that control the world’s power structure are all conspicuously absent.
They are Masons, and they say being in the world’s most famous “secret society” is a little tricky in the digital age.
“We’re on Facebook and everything,” Breunig explains. “We’re not exactly a secret.”
The organization’s website even features an interactive “lodge finder,” as well as listing the names of high ranking members. No secret handshake or password is required to peruse the site.
The inner workings of the twice monthly meetings held at Middleton Ionic Lodge No. 180 are a bit of a secret, at least to non-Masons, but local members say their brotherhood is based on fairly simple, open principles.