Masonic Articles and Essays
Freemasonry and the Quickening of Evolution
Exc... Bro... Aksel Suvari 18°
Date Published: 10/2/2024
Freemasonry is a system of creating change in human consciousness. It is a magical art and the magic that it practices is the quickening of the evolution of its initiates, a most effective work for the uplifting of all mankind.
What does it mean to evolve? One dictionary defines the word as meaning “to change gradually, especially from a simple to a more complex form” while the etymology of the word shows us that the term has its origins in the Latin word for “expanding, unfolding and opening up”. Both of these definitions, while accurate in themselves, do not capture the full meaning of the term – especially from the Masonic perspective. There is, I believe, a missing component that is defined in Freemasonry that sheds light upon the true meaning of evolution where it concerns human beings and that is that the evolution of all life is carried on in accordance with a Divine Plan, a plan designed with great intelligence and foresight that is executed across many planes of space and time. It is this missing component that I believe Freemasonry identifies and educates us upon so that we may more effectively evolve ourselves and thereby assist in the evolution of all life.
If we begin from the Hermetic premise that “All is Mind” – that all forms, essences and ideals are the creation of a great Universal Mind – it then follows that this Mind creates, dissolves and evolves the forms of the material world and the non-material essences and entities that inhabit it according to Thought. If all is Mind and Mind is governed, ordered and expressed by Thought then we must accept that this Thought or Thoughts form a Plan and that Plan is what we find ourselves operating within in our material and non-material incarnations.
Freemasonry recognizes this plan as “the Divine Will in evolution”. We are also told that Freemasonry is a system that “quickens the evolution of its initiates”. But how is this to be done? The conventional understanding of evolution is that circumstances of environment and genetics produce in living beings genetic mutations, alterations of physical characteristics that improve a life forms chances of survival. Through the process of selection, if these mutations are helpful to the organisms survival it has more chances to breed and propagate this mutation through the genetics of his species. Thus it is that we have rabbits with exceptionally large ears, horses with powerful legs and human beings with their abnormally large brains. Freemasonry recognizes and utilizes this same system of evolution but applies the method to consciousness instead of the physical form.
The changes in consciousness that Freemasonry seeks to create can be likened to mutations. Man, in his animalistic state, is a rather brutal creature concerned only with his personal survival and perhaps the survival of his immediate family or tribe. In today’s society we have managed to contain most of the more savage impulses of our species for the sake of social harmony, yet we retain many rough edges on our ashlars. In the rituals of Freemasonry, we find the circumstances of environment that are required to provoke mutations, this time not in the physical form but in the consciousness of the neophyte experiencing the ritual. The moments of fear, exaltation and high drama that are created by Masonic ritual serve as inducements to change our consciousness. They are the condensation of experiences that are undergone by individuals across many lifetimes and in many different eras, brought together and distilled for the benefit of the individual who may take 50 or 60 years to experience these moments in a natural lifetime, if he even experiences them at all.
Thankfully, however, Freemasonry does not leave us to explain these moments to ourselves on our own but rather provides the help of a community of like-minded individuals who have shared in these potent experiences while also unveiling a vast wealth of symbols that we can use to contextualize our experience. New patterns of consciousness, mutations if you will, are provided for us to emulate. In emulating the heroic acts of these “meta-humans” we quicken our evolution by assimilating the life experiences of the best of our ancestors, activating genetic memories that may have otherwise lain dormant.
Freemasonry benefits from being the recipient and custodian of the results of thousands of years of uninterrupted observation of human behavior and in doing so has been able to select, isolate and dramatize the key moments that induce an individual to evolve and change. What is unique in Freemasonry is that there is no dogma provided at these points of change. The importance of this cannot be emphasized enough, as this is the reason why Freemasonry excels above all other systems of human evolution.
By not contextualizing the pivotal moment in some kind of human dogma, Freemasonry instead invites the Divine Plan to work on its own, without the hampering of human explanations. By allowing its initiates to come to their own conclusions, Freemasonry creates an opportunity for the Divine Plan to work that may not have otherwise existed without the aid of ritual drama to alter the initiate’s consciousness enough to be receptive to the revelation of a new state of consciousness. Freemasonry itself does not contain or directly provide a certain state of consciousness in any of its rituals. Instead, from the knowledge it has gained from the many millennia of human observation it has conducted, it has mastered the creation of the conditions necessary for producing certain and specific mutations in consciousness. However, the actual changing of consciousness is left to the interaction of the mind of the neophyte with the Divine inspiration produced in these moments of high drama.
As we began from a Hermetic premise it is only fitting that we end this examination with the consideration of another Hermetic principle, that of the law of Correspondence – which states that that which is above is like that which is below and that which is within is like that which is without. If evolution, in the physical form or in the realm of consciousness, is indeed carried on in accordance with a Divine Plan and the Divine exists in a realm beyond the physical then the evolved forms that we will one day inhabit and possess also exist in the non-material realm. Therefore it is Masonry, with its rituals, symbolism and Great Work of thousands of years, that serves as a link between the Above and the Below. It is Freemasonry that is the Hermetic bridge between the present, the past and the destiny of Humanity.
