Freemasonry References throughout LOTR?

[Menolly]

Does anyone have information on this? Paul (dh) seems to be on some sort of kick regarding this, and other possible esoteric references. He said I could share some of his findings a little later, but I was wondering if anyone else knows anything aobut the possibility.

[Variol Farseer]

It would be extremely unlikely. Tolkien himself was not a Freemason. The Catholic Church forbids its members to join any secret society, including the Freemasons; there is some evidence that this rule was first enacted specifically to target the Freemasons. There are of course plenty of Catholics who don't care and become Masons anyway, but Tolkien was exceptionally devout and would not have flouted the Church in that way.

Since Tolkien had nothing to do with the Masons himself, he would be poorly qualified to write coded messages about them in his work.