Doesn Freemasonry promise a path to salvation?
No. Freemasonry is not a religion and promotes no doctrine or dogma. The “search for light” found in Freemasonry is a reference to a quest for knowledge, not salvation. Freemasonry promotes a hope in resurrection, but it does not teach a belief about resurrection. The first is faith, the second is religion. Although the Master Mason, or Third Degree ritual includes references to the immortality of the soul, Freemasonry makes no impositions on the individual candidate s personal beliefs, nor requires its members to accept any specific teachings regarding resurrection. The ritual makes reference to “a vital and immortal principle” found within the perishable frame, and a hope that we will ascend to “those ethereal mansions above.” But these are poetical allusions and do not constitute a doctrine of belief imposed on candidates. If anything, Freemasonry teaches that death is a “mysterious veil which the eye of human reason cannot penetrate,” and only supports the hope, not the promise, of
