Archive, Volume 1

Albert Pike and
the Morning Star

John J. Robinson, M.M.

Albert Pike was a lawyer, a poet, a prolific writer, a general in the army of the Confederate States of America, and a Freemason. He was a voracious reader, especially interested in the religions and philosophical systems of ancient cultures, which he saw as having shaped the thinking and codes of morality of people around the world. As a general, he commanded neither white not black troops, but American Indians. He studied and respected their religious beliefs, But no matter how deeply he probed into other religions, nothing Pike learned ever shook his own faith as a devout Trinitarian Christian. He did not favor stronger central control, as is evidenced by his willingness to risk his life and fortune in a war that started, not over the issue of slavery, but over the political concept of States' Rights. In hindsight Pike may be judged to have been wrong politically, but at least he was willing to die for what he believed.

Fundamentalist antimasons love to condemn all Freemasonry based on the writing and philosophy of Albert Pike. They never say that Pike's works were written only for the Southern Jurisdiction of Scottish Rite Masonry, which was the limit of Pike's Masonic authority. He was the Sovereign Grand Commander of that Masonic body from 1859 until his death in 1891.

The Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite in America covers thirty-five southern and western states. It has about 500,000 members, or about twenty per-cent of the total Masonic membership in the United States. That means that about eighty percent of American Masons have little or no knowledge of the work of General Pike. I have found that most Masons have not even heard of him. These men are mystified by attacks on Masonry that cite Pike's writings, since they have no idea what the antagonist is talking about.

Pike's passion-perhaps obsession-was that all men should seek know-ledge, or "light." From that light came information and understanding. Some funda-mentalists, however, assert that all "light" comes from Jesus, and that any other source of light is anti-Christian, even though the rest of the world continues to use expression like, "We've got to bring this to light," or, "Can anyone here shed some light on this matter?" That's what the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain had in mind when it adopted a lighthouse as its trademark, with the slogan, "Give the people light and they will find their way."
"Light," in the sense that it is used by Pike, means education. Education is one of those things that most of us think is universally approved, but the anti-masons take Masonry to task for such emphasis on it, taking the stand that too much secular education can be damaging to a good Christian. They often fall back on the belief of their predecessors of generations ago, who believed that edu-ca-tion requires no written work other than Holy Scriptures.

Yet that Scripture itself admonishes Christians to seek knowledge and totally sup--ports the Masonic dedication to charity. Christian Masons can take comfort from the second epistle of Peter 1:5-7: "And beside this, giving all diligence, and to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kind--ness; and to brotherly kindness charity." A good summary of Masonic belief.

Very few people are aware that in the lecture accompanying the Second Degree in the symbolic lodge, all Masons are encouraged to continue their edu-ca-tion, to gain knowledge in the liberal arts, defined in the older context of that term as grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, astronomy, and geometry. The Masons emphasize the benefits of continuing education, even to the extent that many Masonic charities provide scholarships for deserving students on a non-denominational basis. Pike was in complete harmony with that approach, but was somewhat different in that his own fascination was heavily weighted toward the history of religion, the subject of most of his writings.

Pike was convinced that he had benefited greatly from his lifelong studies of other religions and philosophies, because what he had learned gave him a broader understanding of all humankind. Many of the ancient religions he had studied were gone from the earth, but he was convinced that they had made con-tri-butions to later thought and moral systems. He had a good point. There are those who would deny that Muhammad learned anything from the Jews and Christians he met on his trading missions, or that Moses learned anything while grow-ing up at the Egyptian court, but reason indicates the opposite.

It must also be acknowledged that not everyone believes that familiarity with other religions and cultures is beneficial; exposure to alien ideas and cus-toms may be thought to contaminate the student's religious and political beliefs. That's why the Catholic Church created the Index of books not be read by Catholics, and why some fundamentalists have sought the legal exclusion from class--rooms and libraries of books that teach morality on a non-religious basis, or even scientific knowledge that seems at odds with Scripture.

In his conviction that wisdom would be gained by learning what others believed, and why they behaved as they did, Albert Pike poured his prodigious know-ledge into written works so that he could share that information. For similar studies today, uni-versities offer master's and doctoral degrees in the comparative study of world religious and in the history of religion. Pike would have approved. His plan was to educate all Scottish Rite Masons in his Southern Juris-diction by impart-ing that comparative knowledge as an essential aspect of Scottish Rite training.

The course of education Pike laid out was in twenty-nine parts, to fit the Scottish Rite system of the 4th through the 32nd degrees. Rather than being taught in pedantic lectures, the information is imparted primarily in ceremonial dramas, usually more effective in helping the student to retain what he has learned. The major difference between the Pike-inspired course of instruction and that employed in a theological seminary is that the Scottish Rite does not iden-tify any religion as the One True Faith. It teaches to inform, not to prove the error of all faiths except that of the lecturer. Some of the work does arrive at con-clusions, such as the condemnation of tyranny (from either a religious or secular source), and the charge to seek the light of knowledge, rather than yield to the ignor-ance that permits some men to dominate the unknowing. So Pike's primary les-son calls to mind the old IBM slogan that used to appear in every work place: the simple advice, "THINK!" That very concept is offensive to many a funda-men-talist evangelist, who will happily do all the thinking his followers will ever need.

Some of the antimasonic critics cite the degree work, but more find their raw material for Masonic condemnation in Pike's writings, especially his pon-der-ous Morals and Dogma, an 861 page volume that many Masons own, but few have read. It not only is tedious reading, but also is full of Pike's own per-cep-tions of Masonry, with which many Masons agree, and other statements that no Mason will ever believe. He was so wrapped up in his knowledge of ancient faiths and philo-sophic systems that he tended to make the background of Ma-sory far more com-plex and esoteric than it was ever meant to be. In some of his chap-ters, if the words Mason and Masonry were removed, it is reason-able to believe that many a Mason reading it would not recognize his own fraternity.

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This excerpt is from Heredom, the transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society

Scottish Rite Research Society
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