Editing Risto Ryti (section)

== Freemason and believer in Fate and spirituality ==
Risto Ryti was a [[freemasonry|Freemason]], but after his prison sentence, was required to give up membership in his lodge, as convicts were barred from membership. He had become a Freemason in 1924, but according to the Finnish Grand Lodge's assistant grand scribe Reijo Ahtokari, he did not very actively participate in Masonic activities. In January 1941, he appointed a fellow Freemason, [[Johan Wilhelm Rangell|Johan Wilhelm "Jukka" Rangell]], as prime minister only after his secretary Lauri Puntila suggested that he do so.{{citation needed|date=June 2018}}

Ryti did, according to some of his friends and acquaintances, strongly believe in fate. After a dinner in the 1930s at the home of a friend, Alvar Renqvist, in Helsinki, Ryti told the other guests, according to {{ill|Heikki A. Reenpää|fi}}, Alvar Renqvist's grandson:  "In my life, fate has been the ruling force. If it had not been benevolent, I would not sit here now."{{quote without source|date=June 2018}}

One of Finland's most famous [[clairvoyance|clairvoyants]], Aino Kassinen, recalled in her memoirs that she met Ryti in the 1930s in Helsinki, and got the understanding that Ryti strongly believed in people's being guided by the higher divine powers, and that he strongly believed in God, and had studied [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]] and [[anthroposophy]]. Ryti's wife Gerda was a much more active [[Spiritualism (movement)|spiritualist]] and theosophist than Ryti himself; she even claimed to have a spirit guide.{{sfnp|Turtola|1994}}{{sfnp|Virkkunen|1994}}