Is this a legit masonic chat? Where does masonry start?

The historical origin of the Craft's three-degree English Rite is placed by critical scholars with the Revivalists of 1717, who elaborated the system from older guild legends 1. In the Royal Arch, the degree arose approximately twenty years later as an amplification of the latter portion of the Third Degree 1.

Earlier legendary accounts, preserved in manuscript constitutions such as the Regius Manuscript (c. 1390), trace the origin of English Masonry to a general assembly convened at York in 926 under Prince Edwin during the reign of King Athelstan 4. Beyond these formal records, various theories have linked the fraternity's origins to the building of King Solomon's Temple, the Roman Colleges of Artificers, the medieval stonemasons of Germany, the Rosicrucians, or the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral under Sir Christopher Wren 2.

Philosophical writers distinguish between the institution's recent organizational history and its spiritual antecedents. Wilmshurst holds that the modern system has no direct historical continuity with ancient Egypt or the builders of Solomon's Temple, maintaining instead that what is ancient is the underlying spiritual doctrine expressed through architectural terms 3. Similarly, Pike argued that modern Freemasonry is the successor to the Ancient Mysteries of Greece, Egypt, and Samothrace, inheriting their symbolic methods of instruction regarding moral duty and the immortality of the soul 2.