Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #879454 in Books
• Published on: 1919
• Binding: Hardcover
• 218 pages

Customer Reviews

a fine work
This book is well known to Masons, especially Scottish Rite Masons, since Brother Pike was the driving force behind developing the Scottish Rite, if that accolade can be pinned to one person. As a Scottish Rite Mason, I bought a 1929 hardback edition partly for its historic and sentimental value, and I don't regret it. Be cautioned, however, that this is no easy read. In addition to being a very large book, it is written in a style that today looks archaic and cumbersome. But the great wealth of Masonic information here easily overshadows that caveat, especially if you plan to use it as a reference rather than to sit down and plow through it cover-to-cover. It is highly recommended as a gift to a new 32nd degree Mason or anyone else who seeks an understanding of what the Scottish Rite has to offer.

There's a mystery here
I first looked Albert Pike up on the Internet, because my friend, Andrew, told me that as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, he was the most evil American. Many sources claim that Pike espoused slavery in 1857 while practicing law in Arkansas. And it's easy to find references to him all over the Internet saying that he worshipped Lucifer and had demonic intentions of bringing the world under the totalitarian control of the Illuminati in an apocalyptic Third World War; that he could even see far enough ahead to help engineer the modern conflict between the West and Islam and so on and so forth.

He's born and raised in Boston, considered a Founding Father. And prior to the Civil War he was firmly against secession, but he nonetheless joined the Confederate Army and was put in charge of working with the Indians, because he got on with them so well. And then he did a terrible job as a General and was even arrested on counts of insubordination and treason. And he's the only Confederate soldier who has a statue in Washington. Hmmm...

Well there's just no way the author of this book sought the downfall of Christianity or Islam or Buddhism or any other religion. And there's no way he regarded other races and peoples as inferior... you don't write 850 pages quoting extensively and respectfully from the best writings of the Western and Eastern and African traditions if you think they are in some way inferior to your own. And he didn't believe in slavery. I could quote 1000 passages (without exaggeration) which are irreconcilable with a belief in any of this, but let me pull out a few here... Hmmm... Lessee...

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"Christianity taught the doctrine of Fraternity; but repudiated that of political Equality... Masonry was the first apostle of Equality. In the monastery there is Fraternity and Equality, but no Liberty. Masonry added that also, and claimed for man a three-fold heritage, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity... Man has a natural empire over all institutions. This seems a simple truth... But once it was a great new Truth... Once revealed, it imposed new duties on men. Man owed it to himself to be free. He owed it to his country to seek to give her freedom, or to maintain her in that possession. It made Tyranny and Usurpation the enemies of the Human Race. It created a general outlawry of Despots and Depotisms, temporal and spiritual... Patriotism had, henceforth, a new and wider meaning. Free Government, Free Thought, Free Conscience, Free Speech! All these came to be inalienable rights, which those who had parted with them or been robbed of them, or whose ancestors had lost them, had the right summarily to retake."

"He has already lived too long who has survived the ruin of his country; and he who can enjoy life after such an event deserves not to have lived at all. Nor does he any more deserve to live who looks contentedly upon abuses that disgrace and cruelties that dishonor, and scenes of misery and destitution and brutalization that disfigure his country."

"We do not undervalue the importance of any Truth. We utter no word that can be deemed irreverent by any one of any faith. We do not tell the Moslem that it is only important for him to believe that there is but one God and wholly unessential whether Mahomet was his prophet... And as little do we tell the sincere Christian that Jesus of Nazereth was a man like us, or His history but the unreal revival of an older legend. To do either is beyond our jurisdiction. Masonry, of no one age, belongs to all time; of no one religion, it finds its great truths in all."

"Thus Masonry disbelieves no truth and teaches unbelief in no creed... It draws no sword to compel others to adopt its belief."

"And be Charitable as God is, toward the unfaith, the errors, the follies, and the faults of men: for all make one great brotherhood."

"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 law, because our conscience is not satisfied nor at ease if we have not relieved the suffering, the distressed and the destitute."

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I mean, c'mon guys. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I say that he was either sent by the Union Army, or himself decided to infiltrate the Confederate Army, and try to contribute to its defeat. And for the sake of the stability of the Union, he consented to live on in ignominy.

Stark Reality
In the media and in the classroom, society heralds Masonry as the saviour of freedom and the protector of the weak. While the history books claim that Masonry started with the templars, research proves otherwise.

Thomas Paine:
"The Entered Apprentice knows but little more of Masonry than the use of signs and tokens, and certain steps and words by which Masons can recognize each other without being discovered by a person who is not a Mason. The Fellow Craft is not much better instructed in Masonry, than the Entered Apprentice. It is only in the Master Mason's Lodge, that whatever knowledge remains of the origin of Masonry is preserved and concealed"

Free Masonry is a society built upon lies. The origin and foundation tell the story. Such an organization built upon deception and manipulation which holds substantial power in this world does not bode well. The Masons are not defenders of the weak but the rulers of the weak.

To confront the so-called patriotism of Pike: Pike was a founding member of the Klan. The Klan was so evil that the founder, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, ordered the members to disband. Pike's continued popularity in Washington reveals a darker and largely unknown side to US history.

Albert Pike: I took my obligation to White men, not to Negroes. When I have to accept Negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it.
(History and Evolution of Freemasonry, page 329)