How many people join the Freemasons every year?

Answer 1

Although many people are under the impression that Freemasonry is a highly centralized top-down organization, nothing could be further from the truth. Any Grand Lodge could give you information about how many new members they have acquired in any given year, but that is just one Grand Lodge. There are hundreds of Grand Lodges, some of whom do not recognize each other as being legitimate. In order to get the information you want, you would have to identify all of the Masonic Lodges in the world which you decide are regular enough to count, and ask each one individually how many initiates they have had. A daunting task!