Brother Albert Pike
A question
Many today judge the actions of historical figures by modern standards. Personally I believe that it is an error to not judge people in history by the standards of their time and place, but I know that others disagree.
Our Brother, Albert Pike is one such person. He fought, in the American Civil War, on the side of the South.
But he was also an extremely important, and undeniably influential Freemason. The Scottish Rite, as we know it, certainly wouldn’t exist without his efforts, and his books both on the Rite, and on Craft Masonry are still published and hold pride of place on many Mason’s bookshelves.
Undeniably though, there are Masons who take issue with our Brother.
I heard it suggested recently that some Masons are now trying to downplay Pike, and his Masonic works, because of things he did outside of Freemasonry that are now deemed widely unacceptable in our society.
Of course, as with Masonry itself, there is much misinformation circulating about our Brother, untrue claims about nefarious things that he did. He was not a perfect man, none of us are, but not all claims against him stand up to the light of truth.
Until I heard it expressed the other night, I’d never thought that some Masons, do seek to downplay Pike now, in order to somehow distance Freemasonry from him. As a way of attempting to improve or protect the public image of our Craft.
I wonder, if this is true?
I also wonder, given that our Craft, here in the United States has done other things historically in order to improve the public image of our Craft (I’m thinking back to the time when anti-Masonry was a significant force in politics) if any of these sanitizing efforts have ever actually worked?
I think not. I think that efforts to sanitize our history, to purge figures from it who may not meet the standards of today does nothing to improve the image of Freemasonry, and makes Freemasonry poorer for Masons by stripping away our history.
But, I am certainly curious about what everyone else thinks…
On a completely unrelated topic, I have to tip my hat to the Knights Templar.
I became a Knight a few years ago, when I was serving as Grand Master. And shortly after that, I received my first copy of the Knights Templar magazine.
And it was bad. Really bad. And I seem to remember complaining here about just how bad it was.
Well, I received the latest edition today. And what a turnaround has been made! That magazine has gone from really bad, to really good, in a very short period of time. My sincere congratulations to everyone who has worked to turn it around!
A Fremason in Clarksburg Virginia was a prominent Attorney in County offices. He passed away after attending to his daughter who as I recall had a case of Scarlet Fever.
The Clarksburg Masonic Lodge brothers took care of the Widow and Orphan of that Attorney (housing and food). The orphan boy never became a Mason, but went to work as an Apprentice at his Uncle's Flour Mill.
When a seat opened at West Point US Military Academy, that boy went on a train to fill that open seat a week after that year's school session started. That boy would later be known to become Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (not revered by all, but a faithful "son" of the State of Virginia)!
I had not read any of Pike's work until very recently, and I have to thank the discussion right here on Emeth at our weekly Rummer and Grapes zoom sessions. I was recommended to read his Esoterika, so I bought a kindle version off Amazon (holy cow, $33 dollars?!?!?!?!).
Wow, right off the bat, he's asking some very important questions that I assume 99% of masons never think for themselves. I know I never did. I'm only on page 89, so less than 20% of the book, but so far I am impressed. I'm looking forward to his answers to the questions he's posed.
So, the entire issue of distancing ourselves from him as a person should have zero bearing on his masonic contributions - akin to tossing the baby out with the bath water.
I see that I will be able to mine more than a few rich veins of material for the lodge as educational pieces. Hopefully it will spark some brothers to delve more. I don't expect all, I know there are some brothers that are only patiently tolerating the educational portions of my meetings, having spent years where nothing masonic was discussed. But there are a few, mostly the younger (in masonic years) brothers that want to contribute as well, which is encouraging.