Page 23 - Montana Freemason Magazine March 2014

Montana Freemason March 2014 Volume 90 Number 1

Theosophy is a humbug, Levi, Boehme, and adopted as the official work of the Southern
Swedenbourg, unintelligible, Blavatsky delusional, Jurisdiction.” Brown, p.457
astrology is barren, speculating on numbers and
their combinations in the KABBALAH is barren, “By 1874, Pike had written three treatises of over six
freemasonry has no supernatural secrets, and there is thousand manuscript pages based on an investigation
no spiritualism or magic/occult in masonry. of the Zend Avesta and the Vedic hymns... The
undertaking had been a “labor of love,” but it had
How did we get here?! Quoting Pike from 1872 in also been a fatiguing one. Moreover, he had been
Morals & Dogma won’t save us, this time. The fact is, engaged in making meticulous corrections to the
Pike essentially completed his last key scholarly tasks Scottish ritual at the same time. This exacting work
in 1874, and for the next dozen years spent the majority had sapped his enthusiasm apparently, for on the
of it traveling extensively – so much so that few men completion of his Irano-Aryan Theosophy in 1874, he
today travel as much or often, and his at a time when confessed to Vinnie Ream that for seventeen years he
it meant discomfort, idle hours, more had constantly labored, in his leisure time,
discomfort, poor weather (both hot under some self-imposed task. The last
and cold) and perennial sickness. was now finished and he thought he would
In conjunction with his traveling, set himself no other. He was content with
Albert Pike contributed an enormous what he knew of the Veda and Zend Avesta,
amount of time and energy in his “believing that I have learned what the Gods
capacity of administrator for of the Zarathusra were.”” If Pike can state in
the Scottish Rite. To ignore the 1889 that he knows the Vedas, and that there
metamorphosis of Pike post is nothing mystical in them, it is after having
Morals & Dogma, and the written thousands of pages upon them while
evolution of his thought, is to be studying them. Brown, p.460
academically stupid. And yet,
that is exactly what has been “The preparation of his manuscripts on
the case following Pike’s the Aryan religion was the last project of such
death. These extracts above magnitude that Pike attempted. In fact the year 1874
from Pike – a lecture in 1875, and letters written in marks the end of his serious scholarship not only for
1887 and 1889 - give us an insight into how Pike’s life as the Scottish Rite but also for himself. “I am inclined
a living man has been ignored, in order to concentrate to rest now,” he confessed to Vinnie Ream that year,
solely on a book first published in 1872. “and to read no longer as a toil or to accumulate
knowledge, but for recreation.” He had heard it
What follows below is a chronology of Pike’s life said that Cato had begun to learn Greek at the age
post-Morals & Dogma that substantiates Pike’s own of eighty. He was content to admire Cato’s example
later quotes given above. It is a selection of life events without desiring to follow it. “After many years of
culled from two books, and shows Pike completing diligent labor in compiling and writing books for an
more in “old age” than most Masons complete in a ancient association, in the hope of benefiting men
lifetime. We get to watch the progression of Pike from thereby, and having consumed the last two years in
providing scholarship and jurisprudential advice writing commentaries on the Ancient books of our
from a pulpit back east, to administrating his Scottish Aryan race,” he desired, he said on another occasion
Rite empire and finding the joy of traveling out west in 1874, “to imitate one who having plied the oars until
and meeting the “man on the street.” he is weary, lets the blades swing idly in the water, and
floats down the stream in the shadow of the trees.”
[2] 1872-1874: The End of Scholarship Brown, p.460

Brown says of Pike, who died in April 1891, that In 1876, Pike wrote: “I am quite content to see the
circa 1874, “... Pike took less and less interest in his law Rite advance slowly, if I can see advance surely. It was
practice and increasingly devoted himself, as he had *nothing*, in 1859. It is something, now, at anyrate
for two or three years before the move, to his duties as [sic].” Pike then began to muse not upon the condition
Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite and to writing of the rituals and teachings of the Scottish Rite as
and research for that order and his own satisfaction.” much as he had before (although he maintained an
Brown, p.457 interest in them and revising them), but the condition
of the Lodges and his administration of the Supreme
“He [Pike] had completed the rituals, liturgies, Council. Carter, p. 113
and ceremonies of the Scottish Rite in the years 1863
through 68, and by 1870 they had all been printed Page 23