Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry: First Three Degrees

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The onward march of the human race requires that the heights around it should blaze with noble and enduring lessons of courage. The original printing had 861 pages of text, while a 218-page Digest-Index was added by Trevanion W.

It became the sacred and potent sign or character of the Magi, the PENTALPHA, and is the significant emblem of Liberty and Freedom, blazing with a steady radiance amid the weltering elements of good and evil of Revolutions, and promising serene skies and fertile seasons to the nations, after the storms of change and tumult. To reconcile the moral law, human responsibility, free-will, with the absolute power of God; and the existence of evil with His absolute wisdom, and goodness, and mercy,—these are the great enigmas of the Sphynx. The nations are not bodies-politic alone, but also souls-politic; and woe to that people which, seeking the material only, forgets that it has a soul. There are noble and mysterious triumphs, which no eye sees, which no renown rewards, which no flourish of trumpets salutes.While Albert Pike’s assumptions, interpretations, and biases have rendered an imperfect compendium of esoteric spiritual and political thought, it remains a must-read for any Mason seeking to fully understand the intellectual tradition of our Craft. Yet the Compass is also used in plane trigonometry, as in erecting perpendiculars; and, therefore, you are reminded that, although in this Degree both points of the Compass are under the Square, and you are now dealing only with the moral and political meaning of the symbols, and not with their philosophical and spiritual meanings, still the divine ever mingles with the human; with the earthly the spiritual intermixes; and there is something spiritual in the commonest duties of life. The Bible is an indispensable part of the furniture of a Christian Lodge, only because it is the sacred book of the Christian religion. A people may endure military usurpation, and subjugated States kneel to States and wear the yoke, while under the stress of necessity; but when the necessity disappears, if the people is fit to be free, the submerged country will float to the surface and reappear, and Tyranny be adjudged by History to have murdered its victims. It is the warfare of Michael and Satan, of the Gods and Titans, of Balder and Lok; between light and shadow, which is darkness; Day and Night; Freedom and Despotism; Religious Liberty and the Arbitrary Dogmas of a Church that thinks for its votaries, and whose Pontiff claims to be infallible, and the decretals of its Councils to constitute a gospel.

Aquinas argues that both religion and piety are natural virtues as a part of justice, which generate obligations to God as well as our parents and counties because they are the principles of our "being and government.Dear brothers, I'm reading Stavish's "The Path of Freemasonry" and the book suggests to read Morals and Dogma by Pike. The pavement, alternately black and white, symbolizes, whether so intended or not, the Good and Evil Principles of the Egyptian and Persian creed. The advice given and provided to the Freemason who is willing to employ it is as relevant today as it was when first written. The thirty-two degrees described throughout the text in Morals and Dogma represent an entire sequence of moral and intellectual development within Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Freemasonry, named for its historic origins in sixteenth-century Scotland.

Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. The doctrines of the Bible are often clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical essentials of the doctrine. The Temple contained many emblems of the seasons-the sun, the moon, the planets, the constellations Ursa Major and Minor, the zodiac, the elements, and the other parts of the world. These ancient myths include the Egyptian Osiris story, the Greek Dionysos or Bacchus legend, the Greek Demeter and Persephone (or the equivalent Roman Ceres and Proserpina) myth, the Greek Apollo or Sun God myth, the Roman Mithraic mysteries, and many others drawn from the national spiritual traditions of Persia, Syria, Chaldea, Judaea, India, and China.The immovable jewels are the ROUGH ASHLAR, the PERFECT ASHLAR or CUBICAL STONE, or, in some Rituals, the DOUBLE CUBE, and the TRACING-BOARD, or TRESTLE-BOARD. The people that would be Free and Independent, must possess Sagacity, Forethought, Foresight, and careful Circumspection, all which are included in the meaning of the word Prudence. The perfect Ashlar, or cubical stone, symbol of perfection, is the STATE, the rulers deriving their powers from the consent of the governed; the constitution and laws speaking the will of the people; the government harmonious, symmetrical, efficient,—its powers properly distributed and duly adjusted in equilibrium.