No – they didn't cut a goat's throat.

And no – they didn't put a vestal virgin to the sword and there was no sun worship. It was all a bit underwhelming really.

Ian Morrison and Adrian Klein, members of the Gate Pa Lodge number 407.

But there is a very private high walled courtyard out the back that would do nicely for a bit of ritual blood-letting if members of Gate Pa Lodge number 407 had the inclination.

But no.

'Are you disappointed?” laughs Adrian Klein, a 50 year veteran freemason with 407 on the Hairini round-a-bout. 'Are you surprised?” He insists the courtyard is just for barbecues and beers.

I enjoy a beer on a hot day, but ritual slaughter in the suburbs would have been a much better story.

All this was prompted by clandestine and chameleon carryings on 36 kilometres away. Overnight, I'm told, the Katikati Lodge transformed from off-white to sky blue. Not a paint brush nor a painter in sight. Weird. The following night the dark blue trim manifested out of the blue. Very, very strange.

And all very secretive … which is a common perception of lodges. Enigmatic and shadowy institutions where they practice sinister medieval rites behind windowless walls. And all this supposedly happening in a neighbourhood near you.

Adrian harumphs – dripping with disdain and disbelief – he's heard all this a thousand times before.

'Come see for yourself.” So I do. Adrian and the brothers have thrown open the doors of 407 to scrutiny.

Snuggled in behind the dentist and overlooked by a motel, 407 has clean, modern, open lines and is nothing like the solemn, austere, pillared temples we associate with freemasonry of old. This could be a church or a community centre. Somewhere quite normal people go.

Temple…did I mention ‘temples'? More polite rebuke. 'We don't call them temples anymore, they're lodges.”

Seems that word ‘temple' has connotations that don't sit comfortably, don't fit the image. But it does mean we have a situation when a lodge goes to lodge in a lodge. That's either straightforward or utterly confusing.

My colleague, who was spooked by the alleged dead-of-night paint job in Katikati, asks the often-asked question: 'What the hell goes on in there?” I sensed she suspected dark satanic forces may be at play.

'In a word, fellowship,” explains Adrian in his charming put-the-record-straight, matter-of-fact way. 'Here I can put aside the woes of the day.

There is peace and rest here.” But apparently it also ‘unifies good men, men striving for perfection, regardless of colour, creed, or worldly possessions'. That's a noble pitch. Throw integrity, goodwill, and charity into the mix, and they're a high ideal bunch these freemasons.

But what does all that add up to?

'Well,” says Adrian going into bat again. 'The goodwill and charity means hundreds of thousands of dollars from our own pockets dispersed to good worthy causes – like Camp Quality, the children's cancer charity which got $200,000.” And don't forget the washing machines for the children's ward at Tauranga Hospital.

No, they aren't tithed.

'We don't rattle tins outside shopping malls, we don't do sausage sizzles. We just give what we can without fanfare or fuss.” Was that a veiled shot at other service groups?

We slip quietly through the ‘robing room'. That's where the freemasons don their elaborately decorated aprons and gauntlets and sashes. There's a whole regalia. They meet in style.

And when I am invited to the inner sanctum at 407 – the lodge room – I go where 20 years ago onlookers, the uninitiated, the unqualified, or the simply curious did not get to go. This was forbidden territory.

It was these closed doors, the policy of non-engagement and buttoned-up attitude, which fuelled suspicion of powerful secret societies.

'We did not do ourselves any favours. We did not confront the critics or deny things that needed to be denied,” rues Adrian. And if the critics didn't know, couldn't find out, they made it up. 'But nowadays everything's online – we are out there.”

Whether the new open door policy has been forced on the freemasons by falling numbers, like many service organisations, or its new enlightened thinking is unclear. But the doors are now ajar.

And when I step through those double wood-panelled doors…nothing!

'Did you expect to get struck dead?” asks Adrian.

I could easily have been decapitated by the huge cutlass propped against the wall. It belongs to the outer guard. He and the inner guard make sure the malicious don't get in and others don't get out.

But the sword's never been presented in anger.

There's a lot of theatre in freemasonry, a lot of symbolism, most of which can be traced back to the lodge's origins as a kind of trade union, a society of stone masons. And when the work ran out, the philosophy and the tools of the trade thrived in Masonic ritual.

Like the intertwined masonic square and compass: the square has become an emblem of virtue (the square man, upright, honest, dependable); the compass illustrates boundaries for conduct.

The square and compasses are in a cute cabinet in the middle of the lodge room. Yes, Adrian can show me those but he can't discuss the rituals they're used in – some things just have to remain secret.

But I sense you would see just as much symbolism and ritual in a requiem mass.

Without telling us too much, Adrian likens the rituals to a grand drama in which everyone has a role to play. 'Theatrical, yes, but absolutely nothing we need to be concerned about,” Adrian reassures us.

There is some damn fine furniture, particularly a rather ornate chair where the grand poobah sits – the lodge Master or His Worshipful Master as the Brothers call him. ‘His Worshipful Master' – a rather grand touch.

And there is a large letter ‘G' suspended from the ceiling. It stands for Great Architect – could that also be God? Freemasons have to believe in a greater being so I suppose it could also mean God. It could also mean Buddha or Allah, or any greater being. But definitely no room for agnostics or atheists.

A weighty tome sits very central – The Volume of Sacred Law, or Bible, on which all brothers swear their oath. A huge blue and white chessboard affair dominates the floor – it represents the diversity of ethnicity.

Interesting, but nothing here to feed the conspiracy theorists I feel. Nothing that I can see that would suggest the freemasons want to control the world. Just a bunch of wholesome, like-minded guys who meet once a month to toast the Queen, sing hymns, but not hymns as we know them, play out their secret ritual, have a beer, and do good works.

Then as a parting shot they try to sign me up. Half joking, half serious I suspect. That's new too. Once upon a time Freemasons weren't allowed to solicit new members. They have come a long way.