|
20°- grand master of all symbolic lodges
Morals and Dogma
Albert Pike
The true Mason is a practical Philosopher, who, under religious
emblems, in all ages adopted by wisdom, builds upon plans traced by nature and
reason the moral edifice of knowledge. He ought to find, in the symmetrical
relation of all the parts of this rational edifice, the principle and rule of
all his duties, the source of all his pleasures. He improves his moral nature,
becomes a better man, and finds in the reunion of virtuous men, assembled with
pure views, the means of multiplying his acts of beneficence. Masonry and
Philosophy, without being one and the same thing, have the same object, and
propose to themselves the same end, the worship of the Grand Architect of the
Universe, acquaintance and familiarity with the wonders of nature, and the
happiness of humanity attained by the constant practice of all the virtues.
As Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges, it is your especial duty
to aid in restoring Masonry to its primitive purity. You have become an
instructor. Masonry long wandered in error. Instead of improving, it degenerated
from its primitive simplicity, and retrograded toward a system, distorted by
stupidity and ignorance, which, unable to construct a beautiful machine, made a
complicated one. Less than two hundred years ago, its organization was simple,
and altogether moral, its emblems, allegories, and ceremonies easy to be
understood, and their purpose and object readily to be seen. It was then
confined to a very small number of Degrees. Its constitutions were like those of
a Society of Essenes, written in the first century of our era. There could be
seen the primitive Christianity, organized into Masonry, the school of
Pythagoras without incongruities or absurdities; a Masonry simple and
significant, in which it was not necessary to torture the mind to discover
reasonable interpretations; a Masonry at once religious and philosophical,
worthy of a good citizen and an enlightened philanthropist.
Innovators and inventors overturned that primitive simplicity.
Ignorance engaged in the work of making Degrees, and trifles and gewgaws and
pretended mysteries, absurd or hideous, usurped the place of Masonic Truth. The
picture of a horrid vengeance, the poniard and the bloody head, appeared in the
peaceful Temple of Masonry, without sufficient explanation of their symbolic
meaning: Oaths out of all proportion with their object, shocked the candidate,
and then became ridiculous, and were wholly disregarded. Acolytes were exposed
to tests, and compelled to perform acts, which, if real, would have been
abominable; but being mere chimeras, were preposterous, and excited contempt and
laughter only. Eight hundred Degrees of one kind and another were invented:
Infidelity and even Jesuitry were taught under the mask of Masonry. The rituals
even of the respectable Degrees, copied and mutilated by ignorant men, became
nonsensical and trivial; and the words so corrupted that it has hitherto been
found impossible to recover many of them at all. Candidates were made to degrade
themselves, and to submit to insults not tolerable to a man of spirit and honor.
Hence it was that, practically, the largest portion of the
Degrees claimed by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and before it by the
Rite of Perfection, fell into disuse, were merely communicated, and their
rituals became jejune and insignificant. These Rites resembled those old palaces
and baronial castles, the different parts of which, built at different periods
remote from one another, upon plans and according to tastes that greatly varied,
formed a discordant and incongruous whole. Judaism and chivalry, superstition
and philosophy, philanthropy and insane hatred and longing for vengeance, a pure
morality and unjust and illegal revenge, were found strangely mated and standing
hand in hand within the Temples of Peace and Concord; and the whole system was
one grotesque commingling of incongruous things, of contrasts and
contradictions, of shocking and fantastic extravagances, of parts repugnant to
good taste, and fine conceptions overlaid and disfigured by absurdities
engendered by ignorance, fanaticism, and a senseless mysticism.
An empty and sterile pomp, impossible indeed to be carried out,
and to which no meaning whatever was attached, with far-fetched explanations
that were either so many stupid platitudes or themselves needed an interpreter;
lofty titles, arbitrarily assumed, and to which the inventors had not
condescended to attach any explanation
that should acquit them of the folly of assuming temporal rank,
power, and titles of nobility, made the world laugh, and the Initiate feel
ashamed.
Some of these titles we retain; but they have with us meanings
entirely consistent with that Spirit of Equality which is the foundation and
peremptory law of its being of all Masonry. The Knight, with us, is he
who devotes his hand, his heart, his brain, to the Science of Masonry, and
professes himself the Sworn Soldier of Truth: the Prince is he who aims
to be Chief, [Princeps], first, leader, among his
equals, in virtue and good deeds: the Sovereign is he who, one of an
order whose members are all Sovereigns, is Supreme only because the law and
constitutions are so, which he administers, and by which he, like every other
brother, is governed. The titles, Puissant, Potent, Wise,
and Venerable, indicate that power of Virtue, Intelligence, and Wisdom,
which those ought to strive to attain who are placed in high office by the
suffrages of their brethren: and all our other titles and designations have an
esoteric meaning, consistent with modesty and equality, and which those who
receive them should fully understand. As Master of a Lodge it is your duty to
instruct your Brethren that they are all so many constant lessons, teaching the
lofty qualifications which are required of those who claim them, and not merely
idle gewgaws worn in ridiculous imitation of the times when the Nobles and
Priests were masters and the people slaves: and that, in all true Masonry, the
Knight, the Pontiff, the Prince, and the Sovereign are but the first among their
equals: and the cordon, the clothing, and the jewel but symbols and emblems of
the virtues required of all good Masons.
The Mason kneels, no longer to present his petition for
admittance or to receive the answer, no longer to a man as his superior, who is
but his brother, but to his God; to whom he appeals for the rectitude of his
intentions, and whose aid he asks to enable him to keep his vows. No one is
degraded by bending his knee to God at the altar, or to receive the honor of
Knighthood as Bayard and Du Guesclin knelt. To kneel for other purposes, Masonry
does not require. God gave to man a head to be borne erect, a port upright and
majestic. We assemble in our Temples to cherish and inculcate sentiments that
conform to that loftiness of bearing which the just and upright man is entitled
to maintain, and we do not require those who desire to be admitted among us,
ignominiously to bow the
head. We respect man, because we respect ourselves that he may conceive a lofty
idea of his dignity as a human being free and independent. If modesty is a
virtue, humility and obsequiousness to man are base: for there is a noble pride
which is the most real and solid basis of virtue. Man should humble himself
before the Infinite God; but not before his erring and imperfect brother.
As Master of a Lodge, you will therefore be exceedingly careful
that no Candidate, in any Degree, be. required to submit to any degradation
whatever; as has been too much the custom in some of the Degrees: and take it as
a certain and inflexible rule, to which there is no exception, that real
Masonry requires of no man anything to which a Knight and Gentleman cannot
honorably, and without feeling outraged or humiliated submit.
The Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United
States at length undertook the indispensable and long-delayed task of revising
and reforming the work and rituals of the thirty Degrees under its jurisdiction.
Retaining the essentials of the Degrees and all the means by which the members
recognize one another, it has sought out and developed the leading idea of each
Degree, rejected the puerilities and absurdities with which many of them were
disfigured, and made of them a connected system of moral, religious, and
philosophical instruction. Sectarian of no creed, it has yet thought it not
improper to use the old allegories, based on occurrences detailed in the Hebrew
and Christian books, and drawn from the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt, Persia,
Greece, India, the Druids and the Essenes, as vehicles to communicate the Great
Masonic Truths; as it has used the legends of the Crusades, and the ceremonies
of the orders of Knighthood.
It no longer inculcates a criminal and wicked vengeance. It has
not allowed Masonry to play the assassin: to avenge the death either of Hiram,
of Charles the 1st, or of Jaques De Molay and the Templars. The Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry has now become, what Masonry at first was
meant to be, a Teacher of Great Truths, inspired by an upright and enlightened
reason, a firm and constant wisdom, and an affectionate and liberal
philanthropy.
It is no longer a system, over the composition and arrangement
of the different parts of which, want of reflection, chance, ignorance, and
perhaps motives still more ignoble presided; a system
unsuited to our habits, our manners, our ideas, or the world-wide
philanthropy and universal toleration of Masonry; or to bodies small in number,
whose revenues should be devoted to the relief of the unfortunate, and not to
empty show; no longer a heterogeneous aggregate of Degrees, shocking by its
anachronisms and contradictions, powerless to disseminate light, information,
and moral and philosophical ideas.
As Master, you will teach those who are under you, and to whom
you will owe your office, that the decorations of many of the Degrees are to be
dispensed with, whenever the expense would interfere with the duties of charity,
relief, and benevolence; and to be indulged in only by wealthy bodies that will
thereby do no wrong to those entitled to their assistance. The essentials of all
the Degrees may be procured at slight expense; and it is at the option of every
Brother to procure or not to procure, as he pleases, the dress, decorations, and
jewels of any Degree other than the 14th, 18th, 30th, and 32d.
We teach the truth of none of the legends we recite. They are to
us but parables and allegories, involving and enveloping Masonic instruction;
and vehicles of useful and interesting information. They represent the different
phases of the human mind, its efforts and struggles to comprehend nature, God,
the government of the Universe, the permitted existence of sorrow and evil. To
teach us wisdom, and the folly of endeavoring to explain to ourselves that which
we are not capable of understanding, we reproduce the speculations of the
Philosophers, the Kabalists, the Mystagogues and the Gnostics. Every one being
at liberty to apply our symbols and emblems as he thinks most consistent with
truth and reason and with his own faith, we give them such an interpretation
only as may be accepted by all. Our Degrees may be conferred in France or
Turkey, at Pekin, Ispàhan, Rome, or Geneva, in the city of Penn or in Catholic
Louisiana, upon the subject of an absolute government or the citizen of a Free
State, upon Sectarian or Theist. To honor the Deity, to regard all men as our
Brethren, as children, equally dear to Him, of the Supreme Creator of the
Universe, and to make himself useful to society and himself by his labor, are
its teachings to its Initiates in all the Degrees.
Preacher of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, it desires them
to be attained by making men fit to receive them, and by the moral power of an
intelligent and enlightened People. It lays no plots
and conspiracies. It hatches no premature revolutions; it encourages
no people to revolt against the constituted authorities; but recognizing the
great truth that freedom follows fitness for freedom as the corollary follows
the axiom, it strives to prepare men to govern themselves.
Where domestic slavery exists, it teaches the master humanity
and the alleviation of the condition of his slave, and moderate correction and
gentle discipline; as it teaches them to the master of the apprentice: and as it
teaches to the employers of other men, in mines, manufactories, and workshops,
consideration and humanity for those who depend upon their labor for their
bread, and to whom want of employment is starvation, and overwork is fever,
consumption, and death.
As Master of a Lodge, you are to inculcate these duties on your
brethren. Teach the employed to be honest, punctual, and faithful as well as
respectful and obedient to all proper orders: but also teach the employer that
every man or woman who desires to work, has a right to have work to do; and that
they, and those who from sickness or feebleness, loss of limb or of bodily
vigor, old age or infancy, are not able to work, have a right to be fed,
clothed, and sheltered from the inclement elements: that he commits an awful sin
against Masonry and in the sight of God, if he closes his workshops or
factories, or ceases to work his mines, when they do not yield him what he
regards as sufficient profit, and so dismisses his workmen and workwomen to
starve; or when he reduces the wages of man or woman to so low a standard that
they and their families cannot be clothed and fed and comfortably housed; or by
overwork must give him their blood and life in exchange for the pittance of
their wages: and that his duty as a Mason and Brother peremptorily requires him
to continue to employ those who else will be pinched with hunger and cold, or
resort to theft and vice: and to pay them fair wages, though it may reduce or
annul his profits or even eat into his capital; for God hath but loaned him his
wealth, and made him His almoner and agent to invest it.
Except as mere symbols of the moral virtues and intellectual
qualities, the tools and implements of Masonry belong exclusively to the first
three Degrees. They also, however, serve to remind the Mason who has advanced
further, that his new rank is based upon the humble labors of the symbolic
Degrees, as they are improperly termed, inasmuch as all the Degrees are
symbolic.
Thus the Initiates are inspired with a just idea of Masonry,
to-wit, that it is essentially WORK; both teaching and practising LABOR; and
that it is altogether emblematic. Three kinds of work are necessary to the
preservation and protection of man and society: manual labor, specially
belonging to the three blue Degrees; labor in arms, symbolized by the Knightly
or chivalric Degrees; and intellectual labor, belonging particularly to the
Philosophical Degrees.
We have preserved and multiplied such emblems as have a true and
profound meaning. We reject many of the old and senseless explanations. We have
not reduced Masonry to a cold metaphysics that exiles everything belonging to
the domain of the imagination. The ignorant, and those half-wise in
reality, but over-wise in their own conceit, may assail our symbols with
sarcasms; but they are nevertheless ingenious veils that cover the Truth,
respected by all who know the means by which the heart of man is reached and his
feelings enlisted. The Great Moralists often had recourse to allegories, in
order to instruct men without repelling them. But we have been careful not to
allow our emblems to be too obscure, so as to require farfetched and forced
interpretations. In our days, and in the enlightened land in which we live, we
do not need to wrap ourselves in veils so strange and impenetrable, as to
prevent or hinder instruction instead of furthering it; or to induce the
suspicion that we have concealed meanings which we communicate only to the most
reliable adepts, because they are contrary to good order or the well-being of
society.
The Duties of the Class of Instructors, that is, the
Masons of the Degrees from the 4th to the 8th, inclusive, are, particularly, to
perfect the younger Masons in the words, signs and tokens and other work of the
Degrees they have received; to explain to them the meaning of the different
emblems, and to expound the moral instruction which they convey. And upon their
report of proficiency alone can their pupils be allowed to advance and receive
an increase of wages.
The Directors of the Work, or those of the 9th, 10th, and
11th Degrees are to report to the Chapters upon the regularity, activity and
proper direction of the work of bodies in the lower Degrees, and what is needed
to be enacted for their prosperity and usefulness. In the Symbolic Lodges, they
are particularly charged to stimulate the zeal of the workmen, to induce them to
engage in new labors and enterprises for the good of Masonry, their country and
mankind, and to give them fraternal advice when they fall short of their duty;
or, in cases that require it, to invoke against them the rigor of Masonic law.
The Architects, or those of the 12th, 13th, and 14th,
should be selected from none but Brothers well instructed in the preceding
Degrees; zealous, and capable of discoursing upon that Masonry; illustrating it,
and discussing the simple questions of moral philosophy. And one of them, at
every communication, should be prepared with a lecture, communicating useful
knowledge or giving good advice to the Brethren.
The Knights, of the 15th and 16th Degrees, wear the
sword. They are bound to prevent and repair, as far as may be in their power,
all injustice, both in the world and in Masonry; to protect the weak and to
bring oppressors to justice. Their works and lectures must be in this spirit.
They should inquire whether Masonry fulfills, as far as it ought and can, its
principal purpose, which is to succor the unfortunate. That it may do so, they
should prepare propositions to be offered in the Blue Lodges calculated to
attain that end, to put an end to abuses, and to prevent or correct negligence.
Those in the Lodges who have attained the rank of Knights, are most fit to be
appointed Almoners, and charged to ascertain and make known who need and are
entitled to the charity of the Order.
In the higher Degrees those only should be received who have
sufficient reading and information to discuss the great questions of philosophy.
From them the Orators of the Lodges should be selected, as well as those of the
Councils and Chapters. They are charged to suggest such measures as are
necessary to make Masonry entirely faithful to the spirit of its institution,
both as to its charitable purposes, and the diffusion of light and knowledge;
such as are needed to correct abuses that have crept in, and offences against
the rules and general spirit of the Order; and such as will tend to make it, as
it was meant to be, the great Teacher of Mankind.
As Master of a Lodge, Council, or Chapter, it will be your duty
to impress upon the minds of your Brethren these views of the general plan and
separate parts of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite; of its spirit and
design; its harmony and regularity; of the duties of the officers and members;
and of the particular lessons intended to be taught by each Degree.
Especially you are not to allow any assembly of the body over
which you may preside, to close, without recalling to the minds of the Brethren
the Masonic virtues and duties which are represented upon the Tracing Board of
this Degree. That is an imperative duty. Forget not that, more than three
thousand years ago, ZOROASTER said: "Be good, be kind, be humane, and
charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done
you wrong." Nor that more than two thousand three hundred years ago
CONFUCIUS repeated, also quoting the language of those who had lived before
himself: "Love thy neighbor as thyself: Do not to others what thou wouldst
not wish should be done to thyself: Forgive injuries. Forgive your enemy, be
reconciled to him, give him assistance, invoke God in his behalf!"
Let not the morality of your Lodge be inferior to that of the
Persian or the Chinese Philosopher.
Urge upon your Brethren the teaching and the unostentatious
practice of the morality of the Lodge, without regard to times, places,
religions, or peoples.
Urge them to love one another, to be devoted to one another, to
be faithful to the country, the government, and the laws: for to serve the
country is to pay a dear and sacred debt:
To respect all forms of worship, to tolerate all political and
religious opinions; not to blame, and still less to condemn the religion of
others: not to seek to make converts; but to be content if they have the
religion of Socrates; a veneration for the Creator, the religion of good works,
and grateful acknowledgment of God's blessings:
To fraternize with all men; to assist all who are unfortunate;
and to cheerfully postpone their own interests to that of the Order:
To make it the constant rule of their lives, to think well, to
speak well, and to act well:
To place the sage above the soldier, the noble, or the prince:
and take the wise and good as their models:
To see that their professions and practice, their teachings and
conduct, do always agree:
To make this also their motto: Do that which thou oughtest to
do; let the result be what it will.
Such, my Brother, are some of the duties of that office which
you have sought to be qualified to exercise. May you perform them well; and in
so doing gain honor for yourself, and advance the great cause of Masonry,
Humanity, and Progress.
back to top |
