Our Lights
Loose thoughts about our Masonic triads
The other day I sat down with my trusty copy of Morals and Dogma. Not the really nice annotated version that I love to study, but a copy of the old style version, the version found throughout the Southern Jurisdiction of Scottish Rite. I prefer using it when gathering quotes for The Daily Pike.
It is an interesting copy, well preserved from 1950, and according to the names in the front cover, I’m the 4th Mason to have possessed it. It’s first owner was the then Sovereign Grand Inspector General for the Orient of Washington. So, it’s gone from an SGIG to a Grand Master. Hopefully its illustrious journey will continue through the hands of Masons long after I’m dead.
I found an excellent quote.
I typed it into The Daily Pike’s space over in Chat.
And then I got a little carried away with my own commentary upon that quote.
I feel that I got carried away, but I also feel that what I wrote is important and valuable.
So, I thought about addressing the subject here, in a nice clean essay. Taking the concepts and cleaning up the words. Presenting them with more explanation, and better style.
But then I felt otherwise.
I decided that while the words I wrote in The Daily Pike were very quickly banged out, without even any sort of review, just a stream of consciousness, they were perfect as is. Given the subject.
I present them here to you today, as written, along with the quote from Brother Pike that inspired them.
I hope that you find much worthy of contemplation within them, and that you find that contemplation valuable.
Brother Pike’s words are in bold mine are in italics.
"Now the Egyptians arranged their deities in Triads - the Father or the Spirit or Active Principle or Generative Power; the Mother, or Matter, or the Passive Principle, or the Conceptive Power; and the Son, Issue or Product, the Universe, proceeding from the two principles. These were Osiris, Isis, and Horus. In the same way, Plato gives us Thought the Father; Primitive Matter; the Mother; and Kosmos the World, the Son, the Universe animated by a soul. Triads of the same kind are found in the Kabalah." -Albert Pike
The Lesser Lights of Masonry: The Sun - Father; The Moon - Mother; The Master of the Lodge - Child.
These lights illustrate for us the very act of creation. The way in which our world and our universe is continually unfolding each and every day. This is truly profound.
Consider the Greater Lights of Masonry. The Square - Earth, Matter; The Compasses - Spirit, Thought; The Volume of Sacred Law - the guidebook to the divine creation.
These lights show us, after we truly understand the Lesser Lights, how we create our own reality. Through our spirit and our thoughts acting on physical matter.
This is the lesson taught by the movement of the Compasses relative to the Square as we go through the Three Degrees of Masonry. That our minds must control matter and thereby create our reality, lest matter, the profane, direct our course, undirected in actually, bouncing without control, a cork in the ocean.
All of Freemasonry's teachings are Veiled. It says that right in the very definition of our Craft. Yet so often that is overlooked.
The Compasses do not change their position relative to the Square "in order to teach us that Masonry is a progressive science and taught by Degrees only." Such is patently absurd, and should be easily recognized by any Mason as a veil.
Freemasonry is a profound Art. It is the Royal Art. To contemplate its symbols and not understand that they communicate the most profound truths to man is to do nothing but cheat ourselves of the wisdom of the ages.
The Daily Pike is published, almost daily here:
For something completely different, and really cool, consider this from Brother Jason Amick:
Don't forget there does exist some replicas of some of the wonderful pieces on display at the Albert Pike Memorial Temple, I have seen them. You can have your own for a donation to the Albert Pike Building Fund. For the Pike bust or Double Headed Eagle get with Mitch Hensley or see us at the Spring Reunion for more info. For a Monument, come see us at JACINTO LODGE, No. 216 of Jacksonville, AR and donate to their building fund. Sizes, color, and quality vary. If we run out you can still buy them and we can get them to you as soon as possible.
Details are here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15DT1XbULZ/
Brother Pike was an avid occultist but his idea for Masonry was to make it available to everybody. So he watered down some of the teachings and worked only on the simbolic part of the Order and emphasizing more on the fraternal and charitable aspect.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being fraternal or being charitable. But that is something that comes naturally when walking the path of the Initiates or the Adepts. When I say initiates I don't mean the process for becoming a member of an organization, I'm talking about the person who walks the "Middle Path".
Example: Manly P Hall.
Brother Pike left us a great work and within his work are clues about the deepest occult knowledge of the Order but to reach it we have to stop looking at the symbol and look at the operative part, the Craft.
Brother, I very much look forward to things slowing down after the move so I can attend Lodge with you again soon. I have had a few curiosities related to this line of thought that I would very much enjoy your take on. I appreciate the light that you and Brother Pike have shed on this matter, and look forward to catching up as time permits.