Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

1076 Pages·2008·5.13 MB·English

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,
AND
PUBLISHED BY ITS AUTHORITY.
————
LELAG, LENG
ANNO TENEBRARVM MMVIII
First published Charleston, South Carolina, 1871; many
reprints. This electronic edition was produced by
Unspeakable Press, Leng, and mani(n)fested
in the year 2008 of the common
error.
This work is in the public domain. However, the present edition,
being founded on previous Internet postings of page images
and text, is not to be included in any commercial
release.
P U B L I S H E R ’ S I N T R O D U C T I O N .
“MORALS AND DOGMA” comprises the extended Lectures for the degrees
of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite under the Supreme Council of
the Southern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA (as well as the Craft degrees of
Freemasonry which are not worked by the Scottish Rite, it rather being
a precondition of admittance that one is a Master Mason in good
standing under a recognised Grand Lodge), as prepared in 1871 by
Albert Pike, then its Grand Commander.
These “lectures” amplify on the legendary settings of the Degree
rituals, discuss the duties associated with the degrees, and generally
take the contents of the rituals as texts for extended sermons. A
substantial part of this material had been assembled by 1857, when
Pike’s first revision of the Degrees 4°-32° (later titled Magnum Opus)
was completed and privately printed. The extended political rants and
jeremiads on the corruption of the age peppered through the lectures,
though, were probably written after, and influenced by, the U.S. civil
war, in which Pike fought on the losing side, and on the early years of
the ensuing “reconstruction”
As hinted in the Preface, significant parts of this work are not
original. However none of Pike’s borrowings are cited properly, and
most are not cited at all. The preparation of a critical text identifying
sources would be a major work of Masonic scholarship, which possibly
someone with a far greater dedication to the Scottish Rite than the
present editor (whose sole connection therewith is that he once had the
4°-16° irregularly conferred on him by name) might one day undertake
(or perhaps already has). The major source is believed to be the works
of the prolific French writer on Magic, Eliphaz Levi (Alphonse Louis
Constant), none of which had at the time been published in English
translation.
While the contents of these lectures frequently goes off at
something of a tangent from the rituals to which they are attached,
familiarity with those rituals was nevertheless presupposed on the part
of the reader. In addition to the reprint of Pike’s Magnum Opus,
versions of these degrees can be studied in volumes titled Ordo ab
iv PUBLISHER’S INTRODUCTION
Chao, The Francken Manuscript, Scotch [sic] Rite Masonry Illustrated
by J. Blanchard, and elsewhere.
Morals and Dogma was originally published without an Index. In
1909, T.W. Hugo, a senior member of the Southern Jurisdiction Scottish
rite, published a “Digest-Index” to this work; originally a 218 page book
in its own right, this was bound up with some, but not all, print
editions of Moral and Dogma issued from 1919 onwards, and is included
in the present edition. While, in order to avoid having to re-number
this Index, layout and pagination of the print edition of the main text
has been followed (based on page images of a printing copyright-dated
1905, posted at archive.org), no attempt has been made to reproduce
layout, style or pagination of any print edition of the Index itself.
Characters in the “Samaritan” script (along with a few other
symbols) are set in the Kadosh Samaritan face created by Shawn Eyer
(http://www.orindalodge.org/kadoshsamaritan.php).
While the present editor does not endorse the ludicrous conspiracy
theories deriving from the “Leo Taxil” hoax and still promoted by the
lunatic fringe of the anti-Masonic movement which make Pike the head
of an international movement bent on establishing a Satanic world-
order, neither should it be assumed that he agrees with everything, or
indeed anything, said in these lectures. In particular it strikes him as
ironic that Pike can proclaim “LIBERTY, EQUALITY and FRATERNITY” in
capital letters as grand Masonic principles while apparently endorsing
slavery and doctrines of “racial superiority.” However, apart from this
introduction, the text is being presented “as found” rather than making
an unreadable mess of the whole thing by defacing it with footnotes and
scholia.
P R E F A C E .
——
THE following work has been prepared by authority of the Su-
preme Counil of the Thirty-third Degree, for the Southern
Jurisdiction of the United States, by the Grand Commander,
and is now published by its direction. It contains the
Lectures of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in that jursi-
diction, and is specially intended to be read and studied by the
Brethren of that obedience, in connection with the Rituals of the
Degrees. It is hoped and expected that each will furnish himself
with a copy, and make himself familiar with it; for which pur-
pose, as the cost of the work consists entirely in the printing and
binding, it will be furnished at a price as moderate as possible.
No individual will receive pecuniary profit from it, except the
agents for its sale.
It has been copyrighted, to prevent its republication elsewhere,
and the copyright, like those of all the other works prepared for
the Supreme Council, has been assigned to Trustees for that Body.
Whatever profits may accrue from it will be devoted to purposes
of charity.
The Brethren of the Rite in the United States and Canada will
be afforded the opportunity to purchase it, nor is it forbidden that
other Masons shall; but they will not be solicited to do so.
In preparing this work, the Grand Commander has been about
equally Author and Compiler; since he has extracted quite
half its contents from the works of the best writers and most phi-
losophic or eloquent thinkers. Perhaps it would have been bet-
ter and more acceptable, if he had extracted more and written
less.
Still, perhaps half of it is his own; and, in incorporating here
vi PREFACE
the thoughts and words of others, he has continually changed
and added to the language, often intermingling, in the same sen-
tences, his own words with theirs. It not being intended for the
world at large, he has felt at liberty to make, from all accessible
sources, a Compendium of the Morals and Dogma of the Rite, to
re-mould sentences, change and add to words and phrases, com-
bine them with his own, and use them as if they were his own,
to be dealt with at his pleasure and so availed of as to make the
whole most valuable for the purposes intended. He claims, there-
fore, little of the merit of authorship, and has not cared to dis-
tinguish his own from that which he has taken from other sources,
being quite willing that every portion of the book, in turn, may
be regarded as borrowed from some older and better writer.
The teachings of these Readings are not sacramental, so far
as they go beyond the realm of Morality into those of other domains
of Thought and Truth. The Ancient and Accepts Scottish Rite
uses the word “Dogma” in its true sense, of doctrine, or teaching;
and is not dogmatic in the odious sense of that term. Every one
is entirely free to reject and dissent from whatsoever herein may
seem to him to be untrue or unsound. It is only required of him
that he shall weigh what is taught, and give it fair hearing and
unprejudiced treatment. Of course, the ancient theosophic and
philosophic speculations are not embodied as part of the doctrines
of the rite; but because it is of interest and profit to know what
the Ancient Intellect thought upon these subjects, and because
nothing so conclusively proves the radical difference between our
human and the animal nature, as the capacity of the human
mind to entertain such speculations in regard to itself and the
Deity. But as to these opinions themselves, we may say, in the
words of the learned Canonist, Ludovicus Gomez: “Opiniones
secundum varietatem temporum senescant et intermoriantur,
aliæque diversæ vel prioribus contrariæ renascantur et deinde
pubescant.”
C O N T E N T S
PAGE
PUBLISHER’S INTRODUCTION iii
PREFACE v
LODGE OF PERFECTION
1. Apprentice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Fellow-Craft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3. Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4. Secret Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5. Perfect Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6. Intimate Secretary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7. Provost and Judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
8. Indendant of the Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
9. Elect of the Nine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
10. Illustrious Elect of the Fifteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
11. Sublime Elect of the Twelve, or Prince Ameth . . . . 176
12. Grand Master Architect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
13. Royal Arch of Solomon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
14. Grand Elect, Prefect and Sublime Mason . . . . . . . 218

CHAPTER OF ROSE CROIX
15. Knight of the East, or of the Sword . . . . . . . . . . . 237
16. Prince of Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
17. Knight of the East and West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
18. Knight Rose Croix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

COUNCIL OF KADOSH
19. Grand Pontiff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
20. Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges . . . . . . . . . . 325
21. Noachite, or Prussian Knight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
22. Knight of the Royal Axe, or Prince of Libanus . . . . 340
viii CONTENTS
PAGE
23. Chief of the Tabernacle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
24. Prince of the Tabernacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
25. Knight of the Brazen Serpent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
26. Prince of Mercy, or Scottish Trinitarian . . . . . . . . 524
27. Knight Commander of the Temple. . . . . . . . . . . . 578
28. Knight of the Sun, or Prince Adept . . . . . . . . . . . 581
29. Grand Scottish Knight of St. Andrew . . . . . . . . . . 801
30. Knight Kadosh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814

CONSISTORY
31. Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander . . . . . . . . 825
32. Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret . . . . . . . . . . . 839
ANALYTICAL INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 863