In the "lower" degrees, the first three ancient degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, & Master Mason), Freemasonry is more philosophical and has roots in the European Age of Enlightenment and the Naturalist Deism of that period. In that sense, Freemasonry proper is not occult. Most Freemasons of the first three degrees wouldn't even consider Freemasonry to be esoteric.
But when you get into the "higher" degrees, of Scottish Rite Freemasonry (the famous or notorious 32nd degree and 33 degrees), then you will find the occult, depending on how you define the word "occult." For example, the Scottish Rite degrees openly and explicitly states that the Kabbalah was used to create Freemasonry. Hence you will find the Three Pillars of the Tree of Life in the lower degrees, called therein the pillars of Strength, Wisdom, and Beauty. You will also see that the peculiar manner in which each of the 3 degrees of Freemasonry proper wears their apron corresponds to portions of the Tree of Life. RE: the Apprentice wears his apron with the triangular flap pointing upwards corresponds with the top portion of the Tree of Life, the Fellow Craft wears his apron with the triangular flap resting in a downwards position corresponds with the middle part of the Tree of Life, and the Master Mason wears his apron like a Fellow Craft but with a corner of the bottom folded up making a triangle corresponds to the bottom of the Tree of Life, where the bottom point of the said formed triangle of the apron is Malkuth.
The direction of travel indicated by the aprons flows from the top of the Tree of Life down to Malkuth which is the Kingdom. Meaning that, as with Kabbalistic philosophy, the supernal Light of Ain Sof descends and materializes as Malkuth. This direction from top to bottom, from heaven to earth is confluent with the symbol of Freemasonry itself. In ancient times, when a Freemason dies, they would etch an upside-down Square & Compass. The Square is the working tool of a Mason. The two points of the compass points to heaven, which means that the dead Freemason has finished his work on earth and has returned home to heaven. Therefore, the Masonic Square & Compass in its normal position that we are all familiar with, has the opposite meaning confluent with the descent of Light manifested as the World, where the two points of the Compass point down to the earth, meaning the Freemason descends from heaven on earth to work (symbolized by the Square).
The letter G itself, also has an occult meaning in the higher degrees. G stands both for God & Geometry. This itself is Hermetic in Nature. Geometry meaning the shapes and forms of the world or universe. The G standing for both God and Geometry at the same time expresses the Hermetic doctrine that the physical world is the emanation and manifestation of God: the Light of Ain Sof materialized as Malkuth, Shakti (energy) condensed as Loka (the world).
The 14th degree goes on to teach the definition of God. It teaches that the highest conception of God which your mind can conceive and receive is the closest to the Truth. This is also Hermetic philosophy, which teaches that reason and intelligence is not equally distributed among mankind. Some people are more rational than others and some people are more intelligent than others. This basically means that an ignorant person's mind may only be able to understand and receive the concept of a God as an anthropomorphic person, and a very intelligent person's mind may receive and understand a God that is formless, ineffable and beyond human comprehension, and both receptions of God - as approximations - are close to the Truth, but one is closer than the other.
God, in Freemasonry is called the "Great Architect of the Universe" or the "Supreme Architect." One of the most ancient Hindu deities is called "Vishvakarman" whose name means Supreme Architect. But this God is not a Creator God of Abrahamic religions. This is a Naturalistic Deist God of the Age of Enlightenment. An "architect" is not a builder per se. An architect is the person who designs a structure on a blueprint and establishes the rules for how the structure should be constructed. This concept of architect is expressed in Freemasonry in the person of the Master Architect Hiram Abiff who, in the third degree of Freemasonry, is said to the architect of King Solomon's Temple. It was his habit to draw designs of the said temple upon his "Trestle Board." A Trestle Board was what a "blueprint" was called in ancient times and was usually animal hide with drawings on it.
In the first degree ritual, it is taught: "[By] the Trestle Board we are reminded that, as the operative workman erect his temporal building agreeably to the rules and design laid down by the Master on his Trestle Board, so should we, both operative and speculative, endeavor to erect our spiritual temple agreeably to the rules and designs laid down by the Supreme Architect of the Universe in the Great Book of Nature and revelation..." The old Deists during the Age of Enlightenment believes that Nature was like a Book which can be read. They also believed that Nature is the material body or material manifestation of God, and therefore to study and understand the mysteries of Nature, you come to understand the mysteries and nature of God. The "rules and designs" of the Supreme Architect laid down on his "Trestle Board" are the Laws of Nature. Which is to say that the physical universe is a manifestation of processes that happen in context to and in accord with laws and principles of nature, such as gravity, the 4 forces, cause and effect. The rules or laws of nature themselves is what gradually creates the world, not God.
God is just the Divine Mind - like Plato and the early Stoics taught, the Logos - who held in his Mind ideas and thoughtforms. The third degree of Freemasonry says this about God the Great Architect: "It is [our spirit] the inspiration of that Divinity whom we adore, and bear the nearest resemblance or affinity to that Supreme Intelligence which pervades all nature, and which never, never, never dies." That quote talks about the immortal spirit we each have that animates our bodies. It says that our spirit is an inspiration, meaning In-Spire or to Breath In, meaning the Breath of God. And it says that this God is a "Supreme Intelligence" which "pervades" nature. The supreme intelligence is the Thinker of the Idea, and this Divine Intelligence is pantheistic where it is present everywhere in and of nature. This is the God of Spinosa and the God of Max Planck, where Max Planck once spoke about a great mind being the matrix of reality.
The 18th degree is a Rosicrucian degree, descended from one of the oldest working Rosicrucian degree rituals around. This degree deals with alchemy and teaches the occult philosophy behind the Rose & Cross.
The famous 32nd degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry is interestingly based not on Christian or Jewish mysticism, but on Vedic philosophy, where God is correlated with the Omkara. In Hinduism, the Omkara is the actual name of the sound OM. It is taught in Vedic philosophy that the sound OM manifested the universe. This is confluent with the Divine Mind as the Logos: "In the beginning was the Word."
Outside of Freemasonry, that concept of the Word or Logos takes on an even more occult flavor, where Crowley had his Word which was Thelema.
And so, depending on how one defines the word "occult," if you study Freemasonry's rituals and read Albert Pike's Morals & Dogma which is the official book of the higher degrees, you will find a lot of occult teachings and occult philosophy. But if by occult you mean shit like telekinesis, bilocation, summoning demons, remote viewing, witchcraft, magick, sorcery, walking through walls, astral projection, tarot cards, chakras, and shit, then no, you won't find that.
