MORALS and DOGMA
by: Albert Pike
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p. 325
XX.
GRAND MASTER
OF ALL SYMBOLIC LODGES
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.
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[paragraph continues] 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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
Next: XXI. Noachite, or Prussian
Knight