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Evolution: An Occult Doctrine?



Last night I was continuing my research into the Masonic origins of modern science. It is a difficult topic to track down as there is so much conjecture and misinformation about the Freemasons. Anyway, I found one resource online which took a very circuitous route in linking the theory of evolution to the Freemasons.

Now, I’d like to say that I don’t necessarily follow or agree with all the hoops they jumped through in that article, but I think the basic point they make is a very compelling one. In particular, this quote they use by W.L. Wilmhurst’s The Meaning of Masonry has a great deal of punch:

“This - the evolution of man into superman - was always the purpose of the ancient Mysteries, and the real purpose of modern Masonry is not the social and charitable purposes to which so much attention is paid, but the expediting of the spiritual evolution of those who aspire to perfect their own nature and transform it into a more god-like quality. And this is a definite science, a royal art, which it is possible for each of us to put into practice; whilst to join the Craft for any other purpose than to study and pursue this science is to misunderstand its meaning.”

Thinking this through, it seems to really ring true about occultism in general: the idea of an individual progressing towards a divine spiritual goal, towards apotheosis. You see it in alchemy, and in gnosticism very strongly - both of which fed into Freemasonry later on. Thus, it may very well be that the idea of evolution and of progress itself even, truly did originate as occult doctrines. But the notion of progress, of making things better through study, experimentation and further fine-tuning is inextricably linked to science. In fact, it IS science. It is starting to seem entirely accurate, then, to pronounce that science IS occultism. It didn’t just rise out of it, it’s a continuation: a probing of the unseen, a quest for knowledge, to unveil nature’s mysteries and to enact Will upon reality.

The only jump from occult to science that we need to make seems to be in taking this concept of individual evolution and perfection and projecting it outward onto the society as a whole, and even upon the species itself. It becomes a guiding myth about the betterment of man through knowledge and struggle…

What did sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke state? “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Starting to make more and more sense, no?

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9 Reader Responses

  1. Mr. Blind Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:04 pm

    One thing that caught my eye in the quote is where he says: “…a definite science, a royal art…” It doesn’t seem to me that those words would just pop up in your writing if you hadn’t read something about hermeticism.

  2. David Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 5:06 pm

    That’s why it’s called “The (some say Great) Work.”

    “There can be no self-improvement without self-knowledge, and that the technique of self-knowledge is the technique of techniques.”

    –A.R. Orage

    A person should be a scientist in pursuit of their own reality.

    But this science requires more exactitude than most can even imagine. And the worst part is, even if people realize that science is needed–which is already rare–they have no idea how to go about getting it into practice.

    But it’s an adventure that’s unparalleled.

  3. Gnomely Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 5:17 pm

    I like science it just it seems that it is intent upon regimenting the human spirit by sucking the poetry out of life, soul out of being. The romantic movement which was a reaction to Age of Reason is important to remember and its spirit must constantly be invoked so to be a counter current to the nastiest forms of materialism.
    Are human beings really evolving? It would be such a hoot if we were devolving. I have noticied a lot more young people who look like apes. Maybe in short while we will resort back to being singled cell. But some people see humans getting smarter

    In what is known as the Flynn Effect, underlying IQ scores — before adjustments to keep the average steady — have been rising for years. Nobody is sure why this is so

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2101-2256968,00.html

    Oh and Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra discussing things at a comic book convention http://comics.ign.com/articles/720/720103p1.html

  4. Tim Boucher Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 5:51 pm

    I just remembered a post I did summarizing Ken Wilber’s points about the scientific method, the Enlightenment and Liberalism that may be worth pulling into this conversation:

    http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/07/22/ken-wilber-critique-part-6/

  5. Gnomely Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 7:07 pm

    I found the Wilber’s equating liberalism to exterior states and conservatism to interior states kind of silly if not very, very silly. I think liberals, like Taoists acknowledge no one is an island and we are all influenced by many forces inside and out.
    But conservatives usually have a very patriarchal view of the world- which simply does not acknowledge an inner world that is inscrutable- filled with many energies which would eat the phallus-dominant mindset alive. One of the great things the age of reason did was challenge the conservative unabashed male God theology. Christian theology for the longest time did not really care about the interior because they were concerned about social cohesion. Right now who is leading the war on science and evolution? Why it is the religious right!
    On a side note- I thought I lived in a dangerous city! What the dickens/hell is happening in Seattle? Interior or exterior causes of violence? http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4077666.html

  6. Tim Boucher Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 11:45 pm

    God, now that I think more about it, Darwinian evolution is SOOO intended as a social statement and a goal of consciousness:

    (1) We have the monkey who is our “ancestor” - ie, in the past, men behaved like beasts.

    (2) And we have the “modern” man who evolved out of the monkey - ie, men used to behave like beasts, but then we bettered ourselves by overcoming our animal nature (the “missing link” fits in here somewhere)

    (3) Natural selection and survival of the fittest simply say that the natural order implicitly approves of this suppression of our animal nature and our rise into modern rational man, homo sapiens

    (4) By that same process, we will continue improving, continue suppressing our animal nature and become like supermen, and eventually like gods…

    I gotta go back and look at the Scopes Monkey Trial again!

  7. alistair Says:
    July 28th, 2006 at 7:56 am

    anyone who thinks we have side-stepped our animal nature is deluded. the idea that we “evolved” from another distinct species is looking for a new religion to follow. lloyd pye summed it up in simple english at his site. www.lloydpye.com his point was made for me when he showed that darwin himself was proving micro-evolution, the ability for a species to adapt over time, whereas the religion has been based on the unfounded idea that one specied, due to an outside agency, can become another. there has never been proof of that on the surface of the planet ever. not with physical evidence such as bones, or fossils or missing links and not with an outside agency capable of effecting the dna of a species sufficiently to make it change perfectly and with stability. any changes to animal or vegetable dna have borne out as mutations in subsequent generations that are destructive. any child in grade six know this, yet the religion of evolution wants hold this idea that we came from monkeys dear to it`s heart and claim it as science teachable in the classroom. they then go further and say that anything that goes to refute thier claims isn`t science and must be kept out of the classroom. they are so adament to censor opposition that lawyers are immediately called.

  8. Richard Says:
    July 28th, 2006 at 7:57 am

    Funny you should mention Arthur C. Clarke. I just finished reading The Chaos Point by Ervin Laszlo, and Clarke wrote the intro to it. Laszlo speaks of many of the same things, and even brings the Mayan Calendar into the equation. He, like Jean Gebser, Ken Wilber and others, suggests mankind is undergoing a huge mutation that seems to require individuals to have a spiritual awakening, though the mutation idea sort of goes against the notion of evolution in a way.

    Laszlo also says that the survival of the fittest notion is something we need to jettison for various reasons. He called it a misreading of Darwin. Heh, probably wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.

  9. hf Says:
    July 30th, 2006 at 11:43 pm

    his point was made for me when he showed that darwin himself was proving micro-evolution, the ability for a species to adapt over time, whereas the religion has been based on the unfounded idea that one specied, due to an outside agency, can become another. there has never been proof of that on the surface of the planet ever.

    Actually, genius (did you mean that post sarcastically?) we have observed plants produce new species in the wild and in the lab. You may not know about it, because it doesn’t seem earth-shattering from a scientific perspective; no sane person believes in inviolable species boundaries anymore. And we’ve seen at least one beneficial mutation in humans, though understanding this requires you to ditch the popular distorted view of Darwinism* and take “beneficial” to mean nothing more or less than “increasing the chance of reproduction in some environment.” (A mutation for sickle-cell anemia helps prevent death by malaria, thus increasing the chance of reproduction in environments that include malaria without modern medicine.) In general, Tim, you’ve conflated science with science fiction. The latter (as I define it) predates modern science. It comes from Descartes and Bacon, who, yes, may have derived it from occult studies. I personally think science couldn’t exist without SF, but let’s not go out of our way to weaken the argument through ambiguity.

    *Yes, Richard. While I don’t know what Lazlo meant, that silly phrase “survival of the fittest” did not appear in the first draft of Origin. It may have helped ease opposition among the general public, but it drastically misrepresents the theory as scientists understand it. And I think the process of acceptance among scientists followed logically from the Four Rules (see link).



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