Freemason secret revealed?

KIRK HARGREAVES/The Press

SHAKEDOWN: Is this strange handshake the Freemasons secret handshake? It might be, but they're not saying.

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Is this the secret Freemasons handshake?

The moment was caught at the 150th anniversary celebration of the Freemasons' 1859 formation of the Canterbury district at Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday.

Four men were spotted giving unusual-looking handshakes, the right hand rolled slightly more to the left than usual.

District grand secretary Ron Sutherland said he shook "a lot of hands" during the weekend celebrations in Christchurch, but, "not every handshake I gave was a secret handshake".

He declined to describe the handshake because he had undertaken "obligations" when he joined.

However, "it's nothing that can't be found on Google".

More than 200 people from Britain, India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and New Zealand attended the celebrations.

Sutherland said there was talk at the meetings of the new focus on Freemasonry brought about by American author Dan Brown.

"From what I understand, he was quite complimentary," he said. Sutherland said storytellers were naturally drawn to "an organisation that has got some mystique about it".

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Zoggie   #3   04:46 pm Oct 28 2009

I can't believe there was only one photo taken or that this was the best of the bunch... surely readers would have been more interested in seeing who was in the parade...

Alex Sumner   #2   09:53 pm Oct 27 2009

Let me get this straight: there were about two hundred people at this event, and you only saw *four* people giving each other funny handshakes? What are you, blind or something?

Aaron Mason   #1   11:53 am Oct 27 2009

The photo isn't very clear, but I suspect that it is only an ordinary handshake. At a meeting of Freemasons there isn't likely to be the need to 'test' each other with a handshake, and even less likely that they would be using the 'secret' handshake in public. A quick search on Google indeed shows the handshakes. There are various handshakes for the various degrees, and these can be seen at: http://www.masonicsecrets.org/masonic-secrets.html

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