Open Secrets of Freemasonry

The word occult means hidden, or more specifically hidden within. The occult space has often been referred to as some undiscovered country but it is the real estate within our own consciousness and psychology.

Freemasonry holds itself to be a moral science and while at times this idea may be overstated it is also true to its foundations. Like many mystery traditions Freemasonry uses the format of the object lesson and deals with the idea of symbolic (ego) death very clearly in the Hiramic myth.

Ego death is the ritualized imitation of the near death experience, one of many forms of transcendent experience used as far back as Eleusis. Unlike other forms of transcendent experience ego death addresses a specific aspect of human psychology, that being mortality salience or the awareness of death under the rubric of Terror Management Theory.

Mortality salience can have a significant deleterious effect on interpersonal relationships and society in general by people being triggered towards harsher judgment for moral transgressions and inspire ideas of martyrdom or military intervention. The effect is greater in those with low self esteem and or low mindfulness.

Those who have embraced the experience of ego death (or have had a near death experience) are more often able to transcend egoic attachment and develop a greater sense of self.

As masons are admonished to make an advancement in masonic knowledge every day. Wherever we begin life as a Mason there is some expectation that we will sojourn to foreign countries geographically, emotionally, intellectually and that diversity of experience gives one a broader set of tools by which to assess and engage the world, experience can be valuable whether or not it is particularly enjoyable. To this end there is some expectation that a committed mason will make some progress through the officers chairs.

Each of these chairs comes with a set of duties and responsibilities that are required for the maintenance of an organization. Past masters help maintain institutional knowledge, Secretaries and Treasurers have obvious duties towards institutional integrity while other offices have responsibilities for ritual or meeting requirements. By the time someone has taken this journey from “janitor to president”, they should, having applied due diligence to their duties developed both competence and confidence to execute all of these duties effectively and to bring these abilities to the other areas of their life. This should imbue one with a sense of self confidence having been tried, tested and tried again on multiple occasions in differing contexts.

All of these activities serve to create a more competent and confident individual, someone who is more resilient in the face of difficulty and in the face of mortality salience.

While the ritual in Freemasonry did not emerge from from modern science it was created by those who had such prescient insight that their intuitions are supported by modern psychological science.