Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry ByAlbertPike, Wisdom Ancient
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MORALS and DOGMA by ALBERT PIKE
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry , prepared for the
Supreme Council of the Thirty Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States:
Charleston, 1871.
LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange
and mysterious name to give to the
Spirit of Darknesss! Lucifer, the Son
of the Morning! Is it he who
bears the Light, and with its
splendors intolerable blinds feeble,
sensual or selfish Souls ? Doubt it
not!
MORALS and DOGMA by ALBERT PIKE
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
TITLES OF DEGREES
1º - Apprentice
2º - Fellow-craft
3º - Master
4º - Secret Master
5º - Perfect Master
6º - Intimate Secretary
7º - Provost and Judge
8º - Intendant of the Building
9º - Elu of the Nine
10º - Elu of the Fifteen
11º - Elu of the Twelve
12º - Master Architect
13º - Royal Arch of Solomon
14º - Perfect Elu
15º - Knight of the East
16º - Prince of Jerusalem
17º - Knight of the East and West
18º - Knight Rose Croix
19º - Pontiff
20º - Master of the Symbolic Lodge
21º - Noachite or Prussian Knight
22º - Knight of the Royal Axe or Prince of Libanus
23º - Chief of the Tabernacle
24º - Prince of the Tabernacle
25º - Knight of the Brazen Serpent
26º - Prince of Mercy
27º - Knight Commander of the Temple
28º - Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept ( Part 1 )
28º - Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept ( Part 2 )
28º - Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept ( Part 3 )
28º - Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept ( Part 4 )
30º - Knight Kadosh
31º - Inspector Inquistor
32º - Master of the Royal Secret
MORALS and DOGMA by ALBERT PIKE
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry , prepared for the
Supreme Council of the Thirty Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States:
Charleston, 1871.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Albert Pike, born December 29, 1809, was the oldest of six children
born to Benjamin and Sarah Andrews Pike. Pike was raised in a
Christian home and attended an Episcopal church. Pike passed the
entrance examination at Harvard College when he was 15 years old,
but could not attend because he had no funds. After traveling as far
west as Santa Fe, Pike settled in Arkansas, where he worked as
editor of a newspaper before being admitted to the bar. In Arkansas,
he met Mary Ann Hamilton, and married her on November 28, 1834.
To this union were born 11 children.
He was 41 years old when he applied for admission in the Western
Star Lodge No. 2 in Little Rock, Ark., in 1850. Active in the Grand
Lodge of Arkansas, Pike took the 10 degrees of the York Rite from
1850 to 1853. He received the 29 degrees of the Scottish Rite in
March 1853 from Albert Gallatin Mackey in Charleston, S.C. The
Scottish Rite had been introduced in the United States in 1783.
Charleston was the location of the first Supreme Council, which
governed the Scottish Rite in the United States, until a Northern Supreme Council was
established in New York City in 1813. The boundary between the Southern and Northern
Jurisdictions, still recognized today, was firmly established in 1828. Mackey invited Pike to join
the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction in 1858 in Charleston, and he became the
Grand Commander of the Supreme Council the following year. Pike held that office until his
death, while supporting himself in various occupations such as editor of the Memphis Daily
Appeal from February 1867 to September 1868, as well as his law practice. Pike later opened
a law office in Washington, D.C., and argued a number of cases before the U.S. Supreme
Court. However, Pike was impoverished by the Civil War and remained so much of his life,
often borrowing money for basic living expenses from the Supreme Council before the council
voted him an annuity in 1879 of $1,200 a year for the remainder of his life. He died on April 2,
1892, in Washington, D.C.
Realizing that a revision of the ritual was necessary if Scottish Rite Freemasonry were to
survive, Mackey encouraged Pike to revise the ritual to produce a standard ritual for use in all
states in the Southern Jurisdiction. Revision began in 1855, and after some changes, the
Supreme Council endorsed Pike's revision in 1861. Minor changes were made in two degrees
in 1873 after the York Rite bodies in Missouri objected that the 29th and 30th degrees revealed
secrets of the York Rite.
Pike is best known for his major work,
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry,
published in 1871. Morals and Dogma should not be confused
with Pike's revision of the Scottish Rite ritual. They are separate works. Walter Lee Brown
writes that Pike "intended it [
Morals and Dogma
] to be a supplement to that great 'connected
system of moral, religious and philosophical instruction' that he had developed in his revision
of the Scottish ritual."
Morals and Dogma
was traditionally given to the candidate upon his receipt of the 14th degree
of the Scottish Rite. This practice was stopped in 1974.
Morals and Dogma
has not been given
to candidates since 1974.
A Bridge to Light,
by Rex R. Hutchens, is provided to candidates
today. Hutchens laments that
Morals and Dogma
is read by so few Masons.
A Bridge to Light
was written to be "a bridge between the ceremonies of the degrees and their lectures in
Morals
and Dogma."
M
MORALS and DOGMA by ALBERT PIKE
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry , prepared for the
Supreme Council of the Thirty Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States:
Charleston, 1871.
1º - Apprentice
THE TWELVE-INCH RULE AND THE COMMON GAVEL.
FORCE, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of
gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the
dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil and bruise itself. It is destruction and
ruin. It is the volcano, the earthquake, the cyclone;-not growth and progress. It is
Polyphemus blinded, striking at random, and falling headlong among the sharp rocks by
the impetus of his own blows.
The blind Force of the people is a Force that must be economized, and also managed,
as the blind Force of steam, lifting the ponderous iron arms and turning the large wheels,
is made to bore and rifle the cannon and to weave the most delicate lace. It must be
regulated by Intellect. Intellect is to the people and the people's Force, what the slender
needle of the compass is to the ship--its soul, always counselling the huge mass of wood
and iron, and always pointing to the north. To attack the citadels built up on all sides
against the human race by superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices, the Force must
have a brain and a law. Then its deeds of daring produce permanent results, and there is
real progress. Then there are sublime conquests. Thought is a force, and philosophy
should be an energy, finding its aim and its effects in the amelioration of mankind. The
two great motors are Truth and Love. When all these Forces are combined, and guided
by the Intellect, and regulated by the RULE of Right, and Justice, and of combined and
systematic movement and effort, the great revolution prepared for by the ages will begin
to march. The POWER of the Deity Himself is in equilibrium with His WISDOM. Hence
the only results are HARMONY.
It is because Force is ill regulated, that revolutions prove failures. Therefore it is that so
often insurrections, coming from those high mountains that domineer over the moral
horizon, Justice, Wisdom, Reason, Right, built of the purest snow of the ideal after a long
fall from rock to rock, after having reflected the sky in their transparency, and been
swollen by a hundred affluents, in the majestic path of triumph, suddenly lose themselves
in quagmires, like a California river in the sands.
The onward march of the human race requires that the heights around it should blaze
with noble and enduring lessons of courage. Deeds of daring dazzle history, and form
one class of the guiding lights of man. They are the stars and coruscations from that
great sea of electricity, the Force inherent in the people. To strive, to brave all risks, to
perish, to persevere, to be true to one's self, to grapple body to body with destiny, to
surprise defeat by the little terror it inspires, now to confront unrighteous power, now to
defy intoxicated triumph--these are the examples that the nations need and the light that
electrifies them.
There are immense Forces in the great caverns of evil beneath society; in the hideous
degradation, squalor, wretchedness and destitution, vices and crimes that reek and
simmer in the darkness in that populace below the people, of great cities. There
disinterestedness vanishes, every one howls, searches, gropes, and gnaws for himself.
Ideas are ignored, and of progress there is no thought. This populace has two mothers,
both of them stepmothers--Ignorance and Misery. Want is their only guide--for the
appetite alone they crave satisfaction. Yet even these may be employed. The lowly sand
we trample upon, cast into the furnace, melted, purified by fire, may become resplendent
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