There is no advantage, and anyone approaching a masons lodge with the intention of advancing their careers would likely be turned away. It would be like someone

There is no advantage, and anyone approaching a masons lodge with the intention of advancing their careers would likely be turned away. It would be like someone joining your D&D game to hand out business cards, just weird and uncomfortable. Masonry isn't actually secret or mysterious, and I'd suggest any interpretation of it as something other than just a sincere interest in developing as a man is probably overly informed by the internet. What got me interested was when I saw who in history had organized against it, and I thought, well then, that's a team I'd like to be on. If I could characterize it for a general audience, it presents a small hurdle to being a complete knob, and while many do manage to surmount that obstacle, on the other side of it I find they are at least in the minority. Being accepted into a peer group by a dozen or so guys is a big deal, and as a means to maintain social connections into old age, for many it's a lifeline. Those casual friendships form a fabric that endures in the face of the problems of the world, and they form a foundation for other things. It's absolutely weird, but that's necessary to have something completely unique in common that can overcome other differences, where even if it's the only thing you have in common, it's still a pretty good basis for relating. So, no advantages in the implied sense of the original question, and the advantage of the perspective is not something that seeing it merely as advantage can capture, imo.