Skip to main content

From the Archives

Greetings!
 
    All of the work i thought i lost, I rediscovered from my wordpress site. This is from chapter one of Morals and Dogma when I first began this journey way back in February of 2013. I was trying to “find my voice” as a writer at that point, and I was not certain how the masonic circles were going to receive my efforts on offering this study.
 
 I encountered a lot of support from YOU, the readers, and a lot of animosity from those I attended lodge with at that time. 
 
  But I pressed on, anyway, because I truly believed then and continue to believe now that Pike’s words can and do change peoples minds for the better which also changes societyfor the better.
 
   This is Christmas weekend, 2017. Please enjoy this entry. Have a safe Christmas!  
 
   You can find the earlier chapters of our study at masonicme.wordpress.com
 
 
      

Lets continue with the last of page two and into page three through 5!

It is because Force is ill regulated, that revolutions prove fail-tires. 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 crystal.

p. 3

[paragraph continues] They have the brute force of the HAMMER, but their blows help on the great cause, when struck within the lines traced by the RULE held by wisdom and discretion.

Yet it is this very Force of the people, this Titanic power of the giants, that builds the fortifications of tyrants, and is embodied in their armies. Hence the possibility of such tyrannies as those of which it has been said, that “Rome smells worse under Vitellius than under Sulla. Under Claudius and under Domitian there is a deformity of baseness corresponding to the ugliness of the tyranny. The foulness of the slaves is a direct result of the atrocious baseness of the despot. A miasma exhales from these crouching consciences that reflect the master; the public authorities are unclean, hearts are collapsed, consciences shrunken, souls puny. This is so under Caracalla, it is so under Commodus, it is so under Heliogabalus, while from the Roman senate, under Cæsar, there comes only the rank odor peculiar to the eagle’s eyrie.”

It is the force of the people that sustains all these despotisms, the basest as well as the best. That force acts through armies; and these oftener enslave than liberate. Despotism there applies the RULE. Force is the MACE of steel at the saddle-bow of the knight or of the bishop in armor. Passive obedience by force supports thrones and oligarchies, Spanish kings, and Venetian senates. Might, in an army wielded by tyranny, is the enormous sum total of utter weakness; and so Humanity wages war against Humanity, in despite of Humanity. So a people willingly submits to despot-ism, and its workmen submit to be despised, and its soldiers to be whipped; therefore it is that battles lost by a nation are often progress attained. Less glory is more liberty. When the drum is silent, reason sometimes speaks.

Tyrants use the force of the people to chain and subjugate–that is, enyoke the people. Then they plough with them as men do with oxen yoked. Thus the spirit of liberty and innovation is reduced by bayonets, and principles are struck dumb by cannon-shot; while the monks mingle with the troopers, and the Church militant and jubilant, Catholic or Puritan, sings Te Deums for victories over rebellion.

The military power, not subordinate to the civil power, again the HAMMER or MACE of FORCE, independent of the RULE, is an armed tyranny, born full-grown, as Athenè sprung from the brain of Zeus. It spawns a dynasty, and begins with Cæsar to rot into

p. 4

[paragraph continues] Vitellius and Commodus. At the present day it inclines to begin where formerly dynasties ended.

Constantly the people put forth immense strength, only to end in immense weakness. The force of the people is exhausted in indefinitely prolonging things long since dead; in governing mankind by embalming old dead tyrannies of Faith; restoring dilapidated dogmas; regilding faded, worm-eaten shrines; whitening and rouging ancient and barren superstitions; saving society by multiplying parasites; perpetuating superannuated institutions; enforcing the worship of symbols as the actual means of salvation; and tying the dead corpse of the Past, mouth to mouth, with the living Present. Therefore it is that it is one of the fatalities of Humanity to be condemned to eternal struggles with phantoms, with superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, the formulas of error, and the pleas of tyranny. Despotisms, seen in the past, become respectable, as the mountain, bristling with volcanic rock, rugged and horrid, seen through the haze of distance is blue and smooth and beautiful. The sight of a single dungeon of tyranny is worth more, to dispel illusions, and create a holy hatred of despotism, and to direct FORCE aright, than the most eloquent volumes. The French should have preserved the Bastile as a perpetual lesson; Italy should not destroy the dungeons of the Inquisition. The Force of the people maintained the Power that built its gloomy cells, and placed the living in their granite sepulchres.

The FORCE of the people cannot, by its unrestrained and fitful action, maintain and continue in action and existence a free Government once created. That Force must be limited, restrained, conveyed by distribution into different channels, and by roundabout courses, to outlets, whence it is to issue as the law, action, and decision of the State; as the wise old Egyptian kings conveyed in different canals, by sub-division, the swelling waters of the Nile, and compelled them to fertilize and not devastate the land. There must be the jus et norma, the law and Rule, or Gauge, of constitution and law, within which the public force must act. Make a breach in either, and the great steam-hammer, with its swift and ponderous blows, crushes all the machinery to atoms, and, at last, wrenching itself away, lies inert and dead amid the ruin it has wrought.

The FORCE of the people, or the popular will, in action and

p. 5

exerted, symbolized by the GAVEL, regulated and guided by and acting within the limits of LAW and ORDER, symbolized by the TWENTY-FOUR-INCH RULE, has for its fruit LIBERTY, EQUALITY, and FRATERNITY,–liberty regulated by law; equality of rights in the eye of the law; brotherhood with its duties and obligations as well as its benefits.

So, here Pike is laying out the consequences of ill regulated FORCE.

He lists all sorts of ventures that seem good, that any one of us would champion, he speaks of the moral horizon surrounded by higher ideas that get stuck in quagmire when FORCE is ill regulated.
Maybe another way to view this is to count how many times in our own lives we mis-manage our time, our desires, and our ideas and watch what may have been a productive day or a grand idea wither away to nothingness and we spend our later days wishing for time to come back so that we might fulfill a dream that slipped by. And all too often we no longer have the spark or energy to fulfill the dreams that our youth dreamed up.

The next paragraph is a powerful one!

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.

These are the people who inspire us all! These acts do not have to make the news or cause parades, but many of these acts are played out everyday when a teacher inspires a child to persevere in a weak subject, or a stranger finds a lost wallet or purse and finds the owner wishing for no reward except to have felt honored for doing the right thing. Then there are the policemen and firemen and soldiers who literally risk it all personally, so that a nation may have it all collectively. Pike seems to be saying that a nation is propelled forward by a people who inspire one another. Who uplift one another and who care for one another. There are silent heroes all around us! Chances are, YOU have been an inspiration and an example as well! We must keep doing the good and proper works as to make society better even in our small ways.

But, just as quickly as Pike writes this inspiring paragraph, we are catapulted back into reality!

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.

.

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.

Pike is commenting on a sort of hell that lives around us. He uses the line “simmers in the darkness” here, and I find this line profound as we can see in our minds eye the literal darkness in a big city where the robber or murderer awaits, rats crawl, and steam rises from the manhole
cover. But also in freemasonry; we see the darkness in an allegorical sense. In freemasonry, we see darkness as ignorance. The whole part of this paragraph seems to change if we substitute the word IGNORANCE for DARKNESS. Suddenly we can literally comprehend the great evil of ignorance or darkness in a society and within ourselves. He visits and names ignorance in just a second, but I thought it interesting to explore ignorance at this point because of how closely the negatives are named here in this paragraph.

In this same paragraph he points out “ideas are ignored, and of progress there is no thought.”

The status quo! Oh how safe! We often times choose the safety net of “how things are” because how we want things to be takes too much effort. Or if we demand a change suddenly we are cast in the spotlight and we worry about failing. So we stay put never thinking of progressing.

Now Pike speaks directly of ignorance

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 crystal

I can’t help but chuckle a little when he calls the mothers of the populace living in Darkness not JUST their mothers, but makes a point to call them STEP mothers.

These stepmothers he names “ignorance and misery” . Pike says “want is their only guide”.

But there IS redemption here. Pike writes that even these may be employed or used.

“The lowly sand we trample upon, cast into the furnace, melted, purified by fire, may become resplendent crystal”

So, our ignorance, our darkness, when cast into the LIGHT the fire of knowledge, becomes beautiful! We redeem ourselves by learning what “the right thing” is. Then we DO what is right and we rise above the darkness and add beauty to our society one by one.

Pike ends these pages speaking of the rule of law. And he comments on the symbolism of the gavel and the 24 inch rule. I am purposely not going to add to these symbolisms because as Freemasons, these symbols often mean something more personal to each of us than I can add. And Pike explains this very well, and I accept and agree.

Besides, I’ve done enough preaching for tonight!

We will stop here for now. Please take some time and read this pages this week and determine what they mean to you. I’d like to read some of your ideas as well.

To me, Pikes works here read something like poetry. His use of words and allegory are downright mesmerizing and uplifting and also exposes a lot of human nature.

Also exposes parts of us all that we must work to perfect.

Thanks for reading everyone! I appreciate your time and hope I’ve made your time here worthwhile.

Peace to you all!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma and Lucifer?

Natural Law, the Law of Attraction and Freemasonry

    Greetings and welcome back to our study of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma as we continue chapter 31.     This time, we will join Pike as he explains natural law and the laws of attraction and how it pertains to freemasonry.     Thank you for joining in, now LET’S READ PIKE!   Everywhere in the world there is a natural law, that is, a constant mode of action, which seems to belong to the nature of things, to the constitution of the Universe. This fact is universal. In different departments we call this mode of action by different names, as the law of Matter, the law of Mind, the law of Morals, and the like. We mean by this, a certain mode of action which belongs to the material, mental, or moral forces, the mode in p. 828 which commonly they are found to act, and in which it is their ideal to act always. The ideal laws of matter we know only from the fact that they are always obeyed. To us the actual obedience is the only evidence of the ideal rule; for in respect to the

The Ancients and Astrology

Greetings Everyone, and welcome back to our weekly study and opinion of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma. We are continuing om with chapter 25 where Pike is writing about the ancients astrological beliefs. This section is more decriptive and not necessicarily giving me much room for much opinion. Pike is schooling us regarding what exactly was and not really leaving much to decipher. So, I will “get out of the way” as it is, and copy and paste just Pike’s text here for the next 4-5 paragraphs. Before I do so, let me relay some news from Universal Freemason. First, I am currently working on an app for your phones that will alert you when these lessons are posted, also there will be some very useful items for masons. Stay tuned regarding this development. Also, TODAY I will be casting the resin glow in the dark square and compasses and also some glow in the dark pentagrams. They will be up on eBay tonight, but if you are interested in purchasing either, or have suggestions or comments or q