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