‘Justice.’

    

Masonic Exchange Store

“Justice, the boundary of right, constitutes the cement of civil society. This virtue, in a great measure, constitutes real goodness and is therefore represented as the perpetual study of the accomplished Mason. Without the exercise of justice, universal confusion would ensue, lawless force might overcome the principles of equity, and social intercourse no longer exist.”

William Preston

Illustrations of Masonry

Eighth Edition, 1792

Page 55

“The law of Justice is as universal a one as the law of Attraction; though we are very far from being able to reconcile all the phenomena of Nature with it. The lark has the same right, in our view, to live, to sing, to dart at pleasure through the ambient atmosphere, as the hawk has to ply his strong wings in the Summer sunshine, and yet the hawk pounces on and devours the harmless lark, as it devours the worm, and as the worm devours the animalcule; and, so far as we know, there is nowhere, in any future state of animal existence, any compensation for this apparent injustice.”

Albert Pike

Morals and Dogma

“Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander”

Page 829

“Justice as between man and man, and as between man and the animals below him, is that which, under and according to the God-created relations existing between them, and the whole aggregate of circumstances surrounding them, is fit and right and proper to be done, with a view to the general as well as to the individual interest.”

Ibid., Page 831

“A sense of justice belongs to human nature, and is a part of it. Men find a deep, permanent, and instinctive delight in justice, not only in the outward effects, but in the inward cause, and by their nature love this law of right, this reasonable rule of conduct, this justice, with a deep and abiding love. Justice is the object of the conscience, and fits it as light fits the eye and truth the mind.”

Ibid., Page 833

“The selfish, the grasping, the inhuman, the fraudulently unjust, the ungenerous employer, and the cruel master, are detested by the great popular heart; while the kind master, the liberal employer, the generous, the humane, and the just have the good opinion of all men, and even envy is a tribute to their virtues. Men honor all who stand up for truth and right, and never shrink.”

Ibid., Page 836

     

‘M&D’s Apprentice up for discussion in the Reading Room’

    

Masonry should be an energy, finding its aim and effect in the amelioration of mankind. Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius; in other words, bring forth from the man of enjoyments the man of wisdom. Masonry should not be a mere watchtower, built upon mystery, from which to gaze at ease upon the world, with no other result than to be a convenience for the curious. To hold the full cup of thought to the thirsty lips of men; to give to all the true ideas of Deity; to harmonize conscience and science, are the province of Philosophy. Morality is Faith in full bloom. Contemplation should lead to action, and the absolute be practical; the ideal be made air, food, and drink to the human mind. Wisdom is a sacred communion. It is only on that condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of Science, and becomes the one and supreme method by which to unite Humanity and arouse it to concerted action. Then Philosophy becomes Religion.

You didn’t get that in your EA Degree, didja?

Those sentences are a snippet of the first chapter, titled “Apprentice,” of Morals and Dogma by Albert Pike. This chapter is the material for the January 31 meeting in the Reading Room, hosted by Craftsmen Online. Click here for the text.

Sponsored by Deputy Grand Master Steven A. Rubin, the Reading Room is a hybrid meeting space with an in-person panel for discussion that the rest of us may join via Zoom. Hosts Bill Edwards and Michael LaRocco will welcome Cliff Jacobs and Walter Cook at seven o’clock to delve into this opening chapter of M&D.

All Master Masons in good standing are welcome to attend. (If you miss it, catch it later on YouTube.) For more information, visit Craftsmen Online here.

     

‘DC’s Albert Pike statue is felled, burned’

     

Courtesy NBC4-Washington

The soul hath its senses, like the body, that may be cultivated, enlarged, refined, as itself grows in stature and proportion; and he who cannot appreciate a fine painting or statue, a noble poem, a sweet harmony, a heroic thought, or a disinterested action, or to whom the wisdom of philosophy is but foolishness and babble, and the loftiest truths of less importance than the price of stocks or cotton, or the elevation of baseness to office, merely lives on the level of commonplace, and fitly prides himself upon that inferiority of the soul’s senses, which is the inferiority and imperfect development of the soul itself.

Albert Pike
Morals and Dogma


The above is excerpted from Albert Pike’s lecture in Morals and Dogma for the 5° of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry: the Perfect Master Degree. By “perfect,” this lecture intends another Masonic lesson in achieving equilibrium for the self and harmony in the world.

The adjective “perfect” that we use in the English language derives from the French word for “flawless” and “complete.” It is a coinage as apt for use by those engaged in the good work, square work of operative masonry as it is for those in the speculative art. Otto Jespersen, one of the great linguists, said:


The difference between the Preterit and the Perfect is in English observed more strictly than in the other languages possessing corresponding tenses. The Preterit refers to some time in the past without telling anything about the connection with the present moment, while the Perfect is a retrospective present, which connects a past occurrence with the present time, either as continued up to the present moment (inclusive time) or as having results or consequences bearing on the present moment.


Perfect, as in connecting past to the current moment.

Courtesy Shelton Herald

Albert Pike was a complicated man. Yes, he served in the Confederate army for several months during the Civil War. He was, in fact, a general, until he resigned. Because of this brief military background the “news media” keep referring to his statue in Washington, DC as a Confederate statue. It was not. It was a monument erected by Scottish Rite Masons to honor Albert Pike the Freemason.

In Freemasonry, it was Albert Pike who provided Scottish Rite rituals to Prince Hall brethren so that they too could have Scottish Rite Masonry. It was he who eliminated the medieval religious bar in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite so that Masons who are not Christian may advance to the Rose Croix Degree and beyond—and he did that about a century before the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction got around to emulating that example.

You will see all over the internet today libels about how Pike was a member—or even the founder—of the Klan. He was no such thing. You also will see the accusation that he owned slaves. I have no idea about that, but Pike was a lawyer who moved about the country; he was not a farmer on a plantation.

The mobs in the streets will not be appeased. They are not going to stop destroying historical symbols until there is no more memory of Fill in the Blank. Unchecked by civil authorities, the mobs will continue rampaging. Today’s violence may be against figures, real or imagined, of the Confederacy, but tomorrow it surely will be against the Founders of the United States and many, many, many others who contributed to the complex, but magnificent, history of this unparalleled society.

You destroy a people by obliterating their history. Religious community mocked and marginalized? Check! The family unit discredited and dispersed? Check! Symbols and traditions of common identity rejected and renounced? Double Check! Education crimped to stunt the human mind? Triple Check! And the mobs will continue erasing the historical record itself until people won’t have a past they could protest. “Who controls the past controls the future,” George Orwell instructed in 1984, and “who controls the present controls the past.” Oh, that reminds me: They will defeat and erase language also.

Courtesy WTOP

The destruction of this statue in the middle of the nation’s capital while the police watched speaks to the impotence of Freemasonry in the United States today. The Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction had years of opportunity to retake possession of and relocate the monument. I appreciate how just maintaining the House of the Temple requires so much in precious resources, but an effort to raise funds and devise a plan toward that goal could have been possible had they cared—but they didn’t. So now what’s left of this historic likeness of the man who all but singlehandedly ensured that the Southern Jurisdiction would endure into the twentieth century and beyond will be trucked to some government graveyard where the remains of the mob’s Two Minute Hates will be dumped. He’ll be in good company with Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and many, many, many others.

Some history, from three years ago, here.
     

‘Be an almoner of God’s bounties’

     
Q: What is the seventh great Truth in Masonry?

A: The immutable law of God requires, that besides respecting the absolute rights of others, and being merely just, we should do good, be charitable, and obey the dictates of the generous and noble sentiments of the soul. Charity is a law, because our conscience is not satisfied nor at ease if we have not relieved the suffering, the distressed, and the destitute…. We are the Almoners of God’s bounties.

Albert Pike
Prince of Mercy Degree (26º)
Morals and Dogma


This is a request for charity in its material form, inspired by charity in its spiritual form: sincere fraternal regard and kindness.

A lodge brother has set up a Go Fund Me page to help, aid, and assist a Mason in need. Click here to contribute to a veteran of our nation’s armed forces (ten years in not one, but two airborne divisions) and a career school teacher sidelined by medical challenges. I know him to be a virtuous being who deserves far better than what the unkind vagaries of fate have dealt him recently.

His lodge, the lodge’s district, and the grand lodge have done what they can, and hopefully Magpie readers could keep the energy moving.

Click here. To donate, click the orange Donate Now button at top right. Thank you.
     

‘Throwback Thursday: A new Morals and Dogma’

     
When Brent Morris assigns you a book to review, you review the book. This Throwback Thursday edition of The Magpie Mason reaches back five years, when The Scottish Rite Journal published my take on the then newly revised Morals and Dogma produced by Arturo de Hoyos. This was published in the September-October 2012 issue, and my submission was trimmed by about 400 words in my recollection.


Morals And Dogma

In his Prestonian Lecture of 1997, Bro. R. A. Gilbert mentions how since the 1720s more than 10,000 books, journals, articles, periodicals, papers, pamphlets, and other output devoted to Freemasonry have been published, and although this reviewer has made barely a scratch into that tonnage of material, he cannot name another book that has been so passionately embraced and widely neglected; as studied and scrutinized, yet frequently misunderstood; and hailed as both epochal accomplishment and anti-Masonic favorite than Morals and Dogma of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry by Albert Pike. Making it even more remarkable is that it was published in 1871 and was intended for the education of a small minority of Freemasons, those of the A&ASR, Southern Jurisdiction.

There simply are no other books on Freemasonry from 140 years ago—even Pike’s other works—that are as widely known today, let alone deserving of a brand new edition, revised and annotated by Ill. Arturo de Hoyos, 33°, GC, one of the most knowledgeable and prolific scholars in Freemasonry in the United States. The work assigned to this laborer is to rate de Hoyos’s success in conveying Pike’s largest legacy to “the other” Scottish Rite Masons in America—those of us within the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.

First, it is necessary to explain what Morals and Dogma is and is not. Written in the late 1860s, it perhaps is the inevitable product of the fraternity that made brothers out of men from myriad diverse backgrounds in that grim time shaped by industrialization and urbanization, and by Civil War and Reconstruction. Simultaneously the country also underwent a period of religious revolution marked by the birth of Reform Judaism, Christian Science, Pentecostalism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Salvation Army, and other movements. Elsewhere in the world, Masonry had begun admitting men of the major Eastern religious faiths, as empires emanating from the British Isles and Europe created lodges across Asia, Africa, and the Holy Land.

Fittingly, if not exactly intentionally, Pike responded, authoring a work of comparative religion in Masonry’s name, one that not only traverses the world’s borders and cultural barriers, but also reaches back through time to codify for the Scottish Rite Freemason mankind’s numerous efforts to find communion with deity. Despite how its title sounds to the modern ear, the book never was the sectarian bible authored for a supposed Masonic religion by its purported father, as is alleged even today by certain Christian fundamentalist anti-Masons.

As de Hoyos reveals in his preface to the text, Grand Commander Ronald A. Seale, 33°, had charged him with the huge job of revising this book, which went out of print in 1969. “We either need to republish Morals and Dogma or stop talking about Albert Pike,” Seale told de Hoyos. The result: A new Morals and Dogma consisting of Pike’s original writings in their entirety, augmented with de Hoyos’s notes and commentary.

Morals and Dogma was tailored for the comprehension of Freemasons who had received the new A&ASR degrees that had been penned by Pike. The previous rituals of the Rite were deficient due to problems varying from absent passages of text to confounding messages and more. Pike converted a pastiche of inadequately defined European ceremonies into a single cohesive Masonic rite consisting of degrees in a progressive structure for gradual enlightenment. Morals and Dogma contains the lectures for those degrees. The Southern Jurisdiction works variations of the Pike degrees to this day, while its sister jurisdiction in the northeast of the United States works hard not to modernize Pike rituals, but to replace them with melodramas that are not rituals of any kind, and that are bereft of any form of symbolism. It is here where the new Morals and Dogma can connect Masons to the transformational teachings of traditional Scottish Rite Masonry, “the College of Freemasonry.”

In the NMJ, 30°, Knight Kadosh, was eliminated in 2004, resulting in 31°, Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander, becoming the new 30°, and 32°, Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, being divided into two degrees, 31° and 32°. To conserve that which had been lost, the reader of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma, Annotated Edition may look inside this Templar degree to see its virtues, albeit anachronistic, laid bare and contextualized by 60 footnotes. Other rituals eliminated by the NMJ in recent years include: 4°, Secret Master; 12°, Master Architect; 19°, Grand Pontiff; 28°, Knight of the Sun; and more. (It also is true that the brethren of the NMJ are free to exemplify these now defunct rituals, but rituals rendered defunct tend not to get the attention paid to official degrees, where the labor and talent is expected to go first.) These degrees’ lectures, too, are available in the pages of this weighty text, communicating their meanings in textured prose made clearer by de Hoyos’s notes and commentaries.

There is no substitute for receiving meaningful degrees laden with lessons and symbols as conferred by knowing ritualists, but where that is unavailable, this resource text can fill in the blanks and keep concerned Masons in touch with their heritage and history. And this need not be confined to the United States, as brethren in the Ancient and Accepted Rite of England and Wales, where rituals are hardly worked at all and degrees are conferred largely in name only, can profit from this book as well.

Absent from the new book is the “Digest of Morals and Dogma,” the 218-page concordance compiled by Ill. Trevanion W. Hugo, 33°, that was added in 1909. In its stead are five appendices: “Textual Corrections” rectifies and standardizes the various errors in spelling and usage in the original (e.g. Cabala, Kabala, and Kabalah correctly become Kabbalah.) “A Glossary to Morals and Dogma” by Ill. Rex R. Hutchens, 33°, GC, is 82 pages of A-to-Z definitions of mostly difficult terms. The bibliography lists the several hundred published source materials that made de Hoyos’s work possible. “The Point Within a Circle: More Than Just an Allusion?” by Bro. William “Steve” Burkle, 32°, shows how that important symbol from the Entered Apprentice Degree also offers an apt method for inscribing a right angle within a circle. That leads nicely into Appendix 5: “The Hidden Secrets of a Master Mason: A Speculation on Unrecognized Operative Secrets in Modern Masonic Ritual” by Ill. S. Brent Morris, 33°, GC—and editor of this periodical—that brings Morals and Dogma, Annotated Edition full circle by showing how operative builders lay out foundations using the Pythagorean Theorem, the very same geometrical device Pike cites to conclude his 32°, Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, chapter, explaining how the Triangle of Perfection symbolizes the ideal equilibrium by bringing into harmony the spiritual and the material.

This text is a gift to all thinking Masons, but especially to those in the NMJ where there are no educational publications or programs to reflect the Light of Scottish Rite Masonry, which probably is what leads to the elimination of our traditional rituals. Until this can be rectified, de Hoyos’s amazing feat is a handy tool to assist us in our daily labors at self-improvement.


The writer is a Past Most Wise Master of Northern New Jersey Chapter of Rose Croix and is the Treasurer of the four Scottish Rite bodies of Northern New Jersey. He is in the process of establishing Architects Lodge of Perfection, the first lodge of philosophical research in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. His blog, The Magpie Mason, is very widely read and seemingly enjoyed by Masons around the globe.
     

‘Journal 29 is out’

     

The Journal of the Masonic Society No. 29 has been reaching Society members these past weeks. Dubbed “The Review Issue,” this Journal offers opinions on a variety of goods marketed to Freemasons—from books to clothing to regalia, and beyond—in addition to feature articles, Masonic studies, analysis of the state of the Craft, plus the Journal’s regular features.

The Journal is the primary, but not only, benefit to members of The Masonic Society—the best $39 you’ll spend in Freemasonry. Membership is open to regular Freemasons from recognized grand lodges. Click here for more membership information.

Patrick C. Carr, the Right Worshipful Grand Senior Warden of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, treats us to his “In Search of the Genuine Æthelstan,” in which he reviews the known history and biography of the early English king who figures so prominently in Freemasonry’s embryonic literature. Carr reasons “While we cannot ever know exactly what impact King Athelstan and his rule did directly for the Craft, we can agree that King Athelstan and his actions provided the world with a laudable set of values in which we should meet, act, and part. Whether or not it directly impacted the creation of the fraternity is irrelevant. What it did manage to do was place the beliefs of the king strictly into the rituals and the belief systems that Freemasonry still teaches today.”

Always a popular topic of conversation is Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma, the dense collection of lectures the early Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction) intended to accompany the 32 degrees, as worked by A&ASR bodies for many decades. Giovanni A. Villegas, of Jacobo Zobel Memorial Lodge 202 in the Philippines, bravely offers his “Unabashed Literary Book Review” outlining the problems he perceives in the text. “The true test of understanding Morals and Dogma is finding the honesty to first admit that one does not fully understand it,” he says, “or at least not immediately.” He continues, explaining how factors such as the period style of the writing, Pike’s lifting of text from earlier sources, and Pike’s personal interpretations of mystical subjects conspire to leave readers in 2015 vexed. He concedes M&D is “essential reading” for the Scottish Rite Mason who can weather it, but also recommends the casual reader seek out more recent texts, including Rex Hutchens’ A Bridge to Light, and, of course, Arturo de Hoyos’ Annotated Edition, which provides tons of clarifications, corrections, references, and other useful guides to those who want the full Morals and Dogma experience.

Yasha Berensiner’s regular feature “Masonic Collectibles” treats us to a look at William Hogarth, the eighteenth century (today is his 318th birthday) English artist and satirist—and brother Mason—whose “comic histories” paintings chronicled London life, and didn’t spare the Masonic fraternity his lampooning. Perhaps you are acquainted with his Times of the Day prints but, if not, seek it out, and get an eyeful of the one titled “Night.”

Under “Thoughts on the Craft,” Stephen J. Ponzillo, III, a Past Grand Master of Maryland, visits the touchy topic of lodge dues and other expenses in his “The Cost of Belonging: Is it Enough?” In the early years of this century, when the Knights of the North and the Masonic Restoration Foundation were advancing the simple view that lodges must collect in dues the revenue they need to function properly and survive into the future, it was so inflammatory to the establishment that a mere whisper of responsibly addressing lodge financing would prompt anger and panic. Today, younger and wiser heads are prevailing in lodges all over the country, and appreciation for the cost of living these days affects how forward-thinking lodges plan their financial futures. In his article, inspired by a recent discussion on the Masonic Society’s Facebook page, he scores several points structured around his comparing and contrasting cost of living figures of 1957 and 2014. It’s actually not simply a matter of inflation; Ponzillo illustrates the more significant facts of what Freemasonry asked men to pay for initiation and dues during those two periods. It’s about the percentage of a man’s annual income. In 1957, for example, a lodge that collected a $75 initiation fee from a man who earned $5,000 for that year was taking 1.5 percent of that income. In 2014, a man making just less than $70,000, and paying a $250 initiation fee, gave about a third of 1 percent of his annual pay to join a lodge. Is it enough? Indeed.

In his President’s Message, Jim Dillman humorously bemoans his efforts to meet his deadline, but in all seriousness, he writes on “Uncovering Freemasonry’s History,” urging us to look at what is right in front of us—as in lodge records, ephemera, books, etc. stored away in lodge closets and corners. “I’m going to challenge each of you to take a day, a week, or a month off from social media or your time-waster of choice, and devote the time you would have spent to some sort of Masonic research. Go back and read the minutes of your lodge from 50 or 100 years ago,” he says. “Dig through some of those old boxes lying around.” I know we all want to uncover the mysteries of Masonic secrets, but a curious and diligent brother can do his lodge great good simply by bringing to life local Masonic history for his own lodge.

There is a lot more to Issue 29: “The Masonic Baseball Game,” current news from around the globe, the detailed calendar of Masonic events through next May, and a great “Guide to Masonic Encyclopedias” by Tyler Anderson of New Mexico, among other attractions.

In other Masonic Society news, the Board of Directors and Officers gathered in St. Louis over the weekend to give shape to some serious plans for the Society’s future. We’ll meet again at Masonic Week to finalize some of these designs upon the trestleboard, and when you find out about them, your eyes will pop. Stay tuned to The Magpie Mind in February for those details.

The Masonic Society Board of Directors’ marathon planning session over the weekend at the St. Louis Airport Hilton just happened to coincide with the annual meeting of something named St. Matthew’s Grand Lodge. In fact, when I arrived at the hotel Friday afternoon, I found the lobby crowded with their members and Eastern Star ladies having a grand time. This photo partially shows the schedule of Saturday events posted in the lobby. Unfortunately, I couldn’t undertake my usual membership development efforts, as St. Matthew’s exists outside the mainstream of the Masonic fraternity. (Click here for membership guidelines.) I wonder what they thought of us!

And speaking of Masonic Week 2016, the registration information should be posted this week, I’m told, and you’ll see the Masonic Society’s banquet has been moved from the Friday night to Saturday, making us the only official dining choice for that evening. President Dillman will announce the choice of keynote speaker shortly, and I hope those of you who will attend Masonic Week will elect to be with us that night. We will have a number of big announcements.

See you there.

This blurry photo shows the left arm of the guy in front of me on line to board the plane back to New York. That tattoo is an attempt (it doesn’t have it quite right) to ink the Hand of Fatima, or the Khamsa, an ancient symbol from the Middle East that is significant to both Jews and Muslims. ‘The eye in its palm wards off the evil eye,’ according to The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols. In modern times, it is a kind of peace symbol, showing how the two great faiths share much in common, the book also says.

     

‘On the Magic Square’

    
Last night was the long-awaited appearance of Bro. Steve Burkle at Atlas-Pythagoras Lodge, where he spoke on “The 47th Problem of Euclid and the Magic Squares,” an exploration of historic and esoteric aspects of the Pythagorean Theorem. Steve is a prolific writer and presenter of research work, keeping busy in a variety of venues, including the AMD. His lecture was the last in the lodge’s “Enlightening the Temple” series, that brought to the podium seven guest speakers during the year, including Rashied Bey, Trevor Stewart, and Tim Wallace-Murphy.

On the historical side, Steve explained the known origins – mathematical and historical – of the Theorem, and explained away the clumsy manner in which it is explained in the lecture of the Third Degree. In the process, he told us about John Dee and a curiosity named Plimpton 322. The former, of course, was the 16th century English esotericist and mathematician. The latter is an ancient Babylonian cuneiform, numbered 322 among the G.A. Plimpton Collection at Columbia University, and might be the best known artifact to show mathematics in archeological history. It dates to 1900-1600 BCE, and it reveals the most advanced mathematics known previous to ancient Greece because it teaches how to form right triangles akin to the Pythagorean way.

The 47th Problem of Euclid is key to Freemasonry because it is elemental to the design of the universe. In short:

In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (the two sides that meet at a right angle).

Often written as the equation:

a² + b² = c²

With the number 3 being a common denominator of deity, there are many ways the triad speaks to divinity. Plato’s three-fold principle has Thought (father/generative power), Primitive Matter (mother/passive principle), and Kosmos (offspring/product). Plutarch, writing of Isis and Osiris, continues along this thinking and explains that within this right triangle the perpendicular is the masculine; the base is the feminine; and their offspring (Horus) is the hypotenuse. (Read the Master Mason chapter in Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma for a smarter rendering of this. Regardless of how much or how little one might meditate on geometrical theorems, this particular one can be appreciated as part of the “DNA” of the universe.)

Bro. Steve later explored numerology and gematria, linking the Pythagorean Theorem to what is called the Magic Square. A Magic Square is a matrix of rows and columns containing numbers that all agree on the same sum, no matter which direction is taken to add those numbers. To wit:

I think what I like most about Powerpoint presentations is how I can
photograph the images, instead of frantically taking notes!

Then, combining the geometry of the Pythagorean triangle with the numerology of the Magic Square and the cosmic implications of Kaballah, Steve illustrated his theory of a kind of code that defines the universe.

Read more about Steve’s presentation here. He explains Masonic symbolism very poetically and cogently, especially regarding the place occupied by the initiate upon taking his oath and obligation.

The Worshipful Master thanks Bro. Steve for the lecture.

Worshipful Master Mohamad Yatim deserves hearty praise for his work this year, a term during which he not only successfully governed the lodge’s traditional operations while setting attendance records with his lecture series, but also remained on top of the ever increasing mandates of the grand lodge. I am proud to know him, and am very excited to be working with him in 2011 at the Valley of Northern New Jersey, where we will be part of a group that revives a long-dormant Masonic education program. More on that later this fall.
  

‘Burning bridges, raising doubt’

    
It’s not news that the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction changes the corpus of its degrees very frequently, either by altering rituals or outright replacing them, but one of the newest innovations is especially painful. The Grand Pontiff Degree was one of those “Higher Grades” that connects the AASR to its roots in the French Rite of Perfection of the 18th century. It was the 19° then, and it was the 19° throughout the nearly two centuries of AASR-NMJ history, but as of August 31 it is gone.

The reasons for such shocking changes now are a familiar refrain: The traditional degrees are “dead, dull, overloaded with symbolism,” (see page 3 of the August 2010 issue of The Northern Light magazine) and too difficult to confer because too many ritualists are required. I don’t believe any of that could be said about Grand Pontiff. And no, this degree has nothing to do with the Holy Father of the Roman Catholic Church. “Pontiff” derives from the Latin for “bridge builder.” In the degree’s context, it means the life of the 19° Mason is but a connection between what was built before him, and what will arise after he is gone. The concept is not foreign or hard to understand; nor is it accidental that this ritual is the first of the Consistorial degrees, as it bridges the right thinking of the Rose Croix Chapter to the right actions exemplified in the Consistory. (I put that in the present tense because Grand Pontiff still lives among the degrees of the Mother Supreme Council and other jurisdictions. Thank God.)

The purportedly inscrutable Albert Pike, writing in his allegedly incomprehensible Morals and Dogma, his anthology of lectures for Scottish Rite degrees 1-32, perfectly lucidly explains:

“The true Mason labors for the benefit of those who are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of [the human] race. [It] is a poor ambition which contents itself within the limits of a single life. All men who deserve to live, desire to survive their funerals, and to live afterward in the good that they have done mankind, rather than in the fading characters written in men’s memories. Most men desire to leave some work behind them that may outlast their own day and brief generation. That is an instinctive impulse, given by God, and often found in the rudest human heart; [it is] the surest proof of the soul’s immortality, and of the fundamental difference between man and the wisest brutes. To plant the trees that, after we are dead, shall shelter our children, is as natural as to love the shade of those our fathers planted. The rudest unlettered husbandman, painfully conscious of his own inferiority; the poorest widowed mother, giving her lifeblood to those who pay only for the work of her needle, will toil and stint themselves to educate their child, that he may take a higher station in the world than they – the world’s greatest benefactors.”

Later in the lecture:

“It is the ambition of a true and genuine Mason [to know] the slow processes by which the Deity brings about great results; he does not expect to reap as well as sow in a single lifetime. It is the inflexible fate and noblest destiny, with rare exceptions, of the great and good, to work and let others reap the harvest of their labors....

“To sow, that others may reap; to work and plant for those who are to occupy the earth when we are dead; to project our influences far into the future, and live beyond our time; to rule as the Kings of Thought, over men who are yet unborn; to bless with the glorious gifts of Truth and Light and Liberty those who will neither know the name of the giver, nor care in what grave his unregarded ashes repose, is the true office of a Mason and the proudest destiny of a man.

“All the great and beneficent operations of Nature are produced by slow and often imperceptible degrees. The work of destruction and devastation only is violent and rapid. The volcano and earthquake; the tornado and the avalanche leap suddenly into full life and fearful energy, and smite with an unexpected blow....”

It’s a digression, but perhaps something additional was at work here, even if ulteriorly. This same lecture in Morals and Dogma also contains the quotation most often jerked out of context by religious demagogues accusing Freemasonry of {cough} devil worship: “Lucifer the Light-bearer! ... Lucifer, the Son of the Morning!” Left in its stated context, this is part of a short paragraph that explains how those who receive the Grand Pontiff Degree despise “all the pomps and works of Lucifer,” and warns that this most ironically named spirit (“Lucifer,” again from Latin, means simply “bearer of light.”) wields the power to blind “feeble, sensual, [and] selfish souls.”

So what has replaced this ritual? The new degree is called Brothers of the Trail, and it takes place on the Oregon Trail during the 1840s. It imparts a lesson in integrity.

Three other rituals were eliminated this year: Intendant of the Building (8°), Master Elect (10°), and Knight of the Sun (28°). In addition, Grand Inspector (30°) is subject to review, as the NMJ strives to reinvent itself on behalf of 21st century man. I was told privately that these changes are necessary because modern man does not learn in the same ways as our grandfathers, to which I immediately replied “But we coexist in the same country as the Southern Jurisdiction.” It cannot be said that the SJ makes no changes to its rituals – it certainly has – but it opts to retain its heritage and culture in the form of its traditional teachings.

Speaking of Knight of the Sun, which was the 23° of the Rite of Perfection, Pike writes: “Doubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany all the stages of man’s onward progress.”
  

Born on this date: Albert Pike

Today is the bicentennial of the birth of Albert Pike.

This man enjoyed a long, illustrious life with careers in law, the military, journalism, and of course, Freemasonry. Pike served as Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry from 1859 until his death in 1891. A more controvertible personality in Masonic history I cannot name.

His most famous (but I suspect least read, and most misunderstood) book is Morals and Dogma, an anthology of lectures explanatory of the entire corpus of degrees of the A&ASR, which themselves were penned or otherwise crafted by Pike. Some of his other writings that, frankly, I find a lot more useful include:

Magnum Opus, his first revision of the degrees of the Scottish Rite;

The Porch and the Middle Chamber: The Book of the Lodge, his interpretation of the ritual and symbols of the three Craft degrees;

Esoterika, a longer discussion of the Craft degrees, including details, some humorous, of his own experiences in Masonry; and

various Legenda and other shorter works, all intended to promote clear understanding of the many lessons imparted by Freemasonry.

Above and Below: Some of Albert Pike’s Scottish Rite regalia displayed in the Albert Pike Room at the House of the Temple in Washington, DC.

Above: Several of Pike’s pipes. Below: A miniature replica of the statue of Pike located in Judiciary Square in Washington. Pike is the only Confederate Army general depicted in statuary in the American capital.

‘Masonry, religion, and Pike’

     
It comes up so often, The Magpie Mason had to address it eventually. In fact, it came up in conversation today on Masonic Light, and it figured into the discussion at the meeting of American Lodge of Research a few weeks ago.

“It” is the confusion of whether Freemasonry is a religion, but more specifically why so many claim that it is a religion because of what they think they’ve understood in the book “Morals and Dogma” by Albert Pike.

Albert Pike. Talk about confusion.

One need understand only that Albert Pike did not, does not, and cannot speak for all of Freemasonry – nobody can – but his role in particular was that of Sovereign Grand Commander (presiding officer) of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (a distinct minority within Masonry in the United States) during the latter half of the 19th century. True, his book “Morals and Dogma” was an official text of the A&ASR, whose initiates received copies of it for about a century, but did they read it? I suspect 99 percent of them did not.

It is 861 pages of very dense material authored in Victorian prose that explores subjects that were not as well understood in 1871 as they are today, such as Egyptology, and the studies of other ancient cultures. The book is so complicated that it has been revisited a number of times by other authors. One of Pike’s successors as Sovereign Grand Commander, Ill. Henry C. Clausen, who served during the 1970s, wrote “Commentaries on Morals and Dogma” to make Pike’s ideas approachable for the modern reader.

In more recent years, Ill. Rex Hutchens authored “A Glossary to Morals and Dogma,” which attempts to define the terms and references Pike used. More recent still is the purported rewriting of “Morals and Dogma” by four Masons in Texas. And, as you read this, Ill. Arturo de Hoyos is laboring on a new publication that will offer an annotated version of Pike’s book, that I suppose will document his sources of information.

(As an aside, do yourself a favor and watch video of Clausen here and here.)

Nevertheless it is Pike’s “Morals and Dogma” that is cited by the confrontational, confused, and curious alike. The confrontational are not above jerking a phrase out of context to vindicate their “believing is seeing” approach to learning. The confused are vexed by “M&D” because its innumerable mentions of ancient gods, philosophers, and texts serve to complicate the truly simple concepts of Freemasonry. And the curious are trusting and happy to read from “M&D,” to use its 218-page index for reference, and to try to make the best of what Pike was saying.

So, what did he say about Freemasonry being a religion anyway? (This is a great example of why that massive index, added to the text in 1909 by T.W. Hugo, is crucial to approaching this book.)

On Pages 212-13, in the lecture of the 13°, Royal Arch of Solomon:

“Books, to be of religious tendency in the Masonic sense, need not be books of sermons, of pious exercises, or of prayers. Whatever inculcates pure, noble, and patriotic sentiments, or touches the heart with the beauty of virtue, and the excellence of an upright life, accords with the religion of Masonry, and is the Gospel of literature and art.”

From Page 219, in the lecture on the 14°, Perfect Elu:

“[Freemasonry] is the universal, eternal, immutable religion, such as God planted it in the heart of universal humanity. No creed has ever been long-lived that was not built on this foundation. It is the base, and they are the superstructure.”

And, very importantly, from the lecture of the 26°, Prince of Mercy:

“While all these faiths assert their claims to the exclusive possession of the Truth, Masonry inculcates its old doctrine, and no more: That God is ONE; that His THOUGHT uttered in His WORD, created the Universe, and preserves it by those Eternal Laws which are the expression of that Thought: That the Soul of Man, breathed into him by God, is immortal as His Thoughts are; that he is free to do evil or to choose good, responsible for his acts and punishable for his sins – that all evil and wrong and suffering are but temporary, the discords of one great Harmony – and that in His good time they will lead by infinite modulations to the great, harmonic final chord and cadence of Truth, Love, Peace, and Happiness, that will ring forever and ever under the Arches of heaven, among all the Stars and Worlds, and in all souls of men and Angels.”

To me it sounds like he is saying Freemasonry states the primal Truth from which religious denominations start their respective paths, and to which these same denominations inevitably return (if they are honest in their purposes). I can understand why sectarian authorities want to see Masonry as something akin to their own rites because that allows for direct comparison and a claim to one’s allegiance (i.e., one who is a member of lodge cannot also be a member of church), however misguided the thinking behind that is. However, Masonry presented by Pike as fundamental, moral Truth, free from man-made constraints, is too powerful a rival for them.

And they know it.

I also like to consider the etymology of the word religion: originally from the Latin religare, meaning to tie, fasten, bind, etc. What binds Freemasons together? Our obligations, the cabletow, the Mystic Tie....

“How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity....”

Freemasonry, which teaches the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of deity, encompasses Truth, and Truth is greater than sectarian priorities and other artificial innovations. One would be wise to remember this whenever confronted with the anti-Mason or other ignoramus who aims to detract from Freemasonry by arguing it is a mere religion or sect.