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Albert Pike: More harm than good?

Is Albert Pike more harm than good?

  • Good

    Votes: 11 44.0%
  • Harmful

    Votes: 6 24.0%
  • Some good, some bad.

    Votes: 8 32.0%

  • Total voters
    25
  • Poll closed .

rebis

Premium Member
Can we all please get back to the original topic?...which is actually interesting.

What do we think about the works and contributions of Albert Pike towards the fraternity?

Did he elevate us as masons or did he do more damage than good?

It would be helpful if you are somewhat familiar with his work in order for your response to carry value.


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BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Pike is well-read and respected by Masons. Masons feel the need to "explain" Pike to the public, to downplay his actual authority, and even to, in detail, illlustrate that his work does not determine Masonic beliefs.

I'd say that Pike is a mixed bag, and blaming "ignorance" on the part of the public is silly. The poor workman blames the tools. The poor rhetor blames the audience.
 

jvarnell

Premium Member
Pike is well-read and respected by Masons. Masons feel the need to "explain" Pike to the public, to downplay his actual authority, and even to, in detail, illlustrate that his work does not determine Masonic beliefs.

I'd say that Pike is a mixed bag, and blaming "ignorance" on the part of the public is silly. The poor workman blames the tools. The poor rhetor blames the audience.
This was the best explanation of the thread.
 

Dpranch11

Registered User
Want to start an argument ?....State an opinion or worse the truth and see how many hit dogs will bark.
 

brother josh

Registered User
Do you know when pike made that statement who knows maybe his views on African Americans in freemasonry change as he got old (i don't know if it did I'm just raising a question) but maybe freemasonry help to change his rascial views the bad part about this is pike himself is not alive to really give us the right answer on HIS views old age and the thought of ones own death tend to shed light and knowledge


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tldubb

Premium Member
I look at it look at it like this. ..I'm a Prince Hall Mason. Pike, does not even come to the level of Worshipful Bro. Prince Hall, he is a non factor on the PHA branch of Freemasonry. . Not a positive or negative on the growth of Prince Hall masonry. We still survived against all odds. .so the question is more harm than good? How about zero nothing!

Bro. Todd L. Wilson, Junior Deacon
Clar

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cacarter

Premium Member
Tldubb, a question since I don't know much of anything about the workings of Prince Hall masonry. Does PHA Scottish Rite use Morals & Dogma in their teachings?
 

brother josh

Registered User
Do you know when pike made that statement who knows maybe his views on African Americans in freemasonry change as he got old (i don't know if it did I'm just raising a question) but maybe freemasonry help to change his rascial views the bad part about this is pike himself is not alive to really give us the right answer on HIS views old age and the thought of ones own death tend to shed light and knowledge


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jjjjjggggg

Premium Member
I mean no disrespect to my Christian/Jewish brothers, but I personally have some issues with several of the verses found in the bible. The bible takes some stances in topics that I don't agree with. However, I do find some inspiration found within its pages, on par with other religious and philosophical texts, all of whose writers have their own colorful backgrounds. It's the same with pike and his morals and dogma.

As my uncle, a pentacostal preacher, once told me... eat the meat and spit out the bones.


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BryanMaloney

Premium Member
I tracked down the full letter in which Pike made his racist comment. It's strange letter:

ALEXANDRIA, Va., 13th September, 1875.

MY DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER.-I can see as plainly as you that the negro question is going to make trouble. There are plenty of regular negro Masons and negro lodges in South America and the West Indies, and our folks only stave off the question by saying that negro Masons here are clandestine. Prince Hall Lodge was as regular a Lodge as any lodge created by competent authority, and had a perfect right (as other lodge in Europe did) to establish other lodges, making itself a mother Lodge. That's the way the Berlin lodges, Three Globes and Royal York, became Grand Lodges.
The Grand Orient of Hayti is as regular as any other. So is the Grand Orient of the Dominican Republic, which, I dare say, has negroes in it and negro lodges under it.
Again, if the negro lodges are not regular, they can easily get regularized. If our Grand Lodges won't recognize negro lodges, they have the right to go elsewhere. The Grand Lodge can't say to eight or more Masons, black or white, we will not give you a charter because you are negroes, or because you wish to work the Scottish Rite, and you shall not go elsewhere to get one: That latter part is bosh.
Hamburg recognizes the Grand Lodges. Yes, and so the German Grand Lodge Confederation is going to do, and so will the Grand Orient of France before long.
Of course, if negrophily continues to be the religion established by law of your State, there will be before long somewhere a beginning of recognition of negro lodges. Then the Royal Arch and Templar bodies of negroes must be taken in, and Masonry go down to their level. Will your plan work? I think not. I think there is no middle ground between rigid exclusion of negroes or recognition and affiliation with the whole mass.
If they are not Masons, how protect them as such or at all? If they are Masons, how deny them affiliation or have two supreme powers in one jurisdiction.
I am not inclined to meddle in the matter. I took my obligations to white men, not to negroes. When I have to accept negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it.
I am interested to keep the Ancient and Accepted Rite uncontaminated, in our country at least, by the leprosy of negro association. Our Supreme Council can defend its jurisdiction, and it is the law-maker. There can not be a lawful body of that Rite in our jurisdiction unless it is created by us.
I am not so sure that, what with immensity of numbers, want of a purpose worth laboring for, general indifference to obligations, pitiful charity and large expenses, fuss, feathers and fandango, big temples and large debts, Masonry is become a great helpless, inert mass that will some day, before long, topple over, and go under. If you wish it should, I think you can hasten the catastrophe by urging a protectorate of the negroes. Better let the thing drift. Apres nous le deluge.

Truly, yours,
ALBERT PIKE

What I see in this is that Pike is unhappily acknowledging that some GL or another will recognize the Prince Hall establishment at some time in the future. He sees it as inevitable. He also hates the idea. He makes it plain that accepting "negroes" will bring Masonry "down to their level". He states that "negro assocation" is "leprosy" and that "negro association" will cause Masonry to "topple, and go over".

The letter is from 1875, so he had roughly 20 years of life after that. While one MIGHT be able to pull up an unsubstantiated excuse the Pike MIGHT have changed his mind later, there's no evidence either way. Pike made his opinion of "negroes" quite clear and quite unmistakeable. The letter is quoted in Upton's "Negro Masonry..."
 

rebis

Premium Member
Bottom line.
Pike rewrote the 4th through the 32nd degrees of the Scottish Rite.

If he adds no value to masonry, then the Scottish Rite adds no value to masonry...and my friends and brothers, that is most certainly not the case.

The degrees of the Scottish Rite are superb, sublime and inestimable.





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jvarnell

Premium Member
Bottom line.
Pike rewrote the 4th through the 32nd degrees of the Scottish Rite.

If he adds no value to masonry, then the Scottish Rite adds no value to masonry...and my friends and brothers, that is most certainly not the case.

The degrees of the Scottish Rite are superb, sublime and inestimable.
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One thing I do see is that Pike did make me think more of the words used in his day. I reread some of his work and for 3 things I had to go to the Websters Dictionary of 1828 to really understand what was said. Does any one have that dictionary in a PDF or word document so I can make it searchable.

This is why I think Morals and Dogma doesn't mean anything to younger masons who have not had time for the meaning to sink in. The only harm is that most non-masons will read his stuff without information baking it up and the usage of word in his time.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
This is why I think Morals and Dogma doesn't mean anything to younger masons who have not had time for the meaning to sink in. The only harm is that most non-masons will read his stuff without information baking it up and the usage of word in his time.

Heh--kind of like trying to do exegesis with only a KJV. You've got to have context beyond the one volume. If you don't, you will get lost.
 
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