Morals and Dogma by 33* Jewish Freemason Albert Pike
ORIGINAL MASONIC DEGREE MANUAL WRITTEN BY THE LEADER OF WORLDWIDE MASONRY
This is a copy of “The Manual on Freemasonry” written by Albert Pike, the only man to ever be the Head of Washington D.C. Masonry, American Masonry, and Worldwide Masonry, simultaneously. This is a very long and detailed book, so to save you some time and the headache of reading this, we have sifted through the filler and have extracted some of the more relevant quotes for you below. The most blatant quote regarding the secret of Jewish Freemasonry is the reference to Lucifer on page 321:
MORALS AND DOGMA PAGE 321
This book is not terribly hard to find anymore but from our research, the copies printed after 1947 may not contain the Lucifer reference on page 321. This is why original texts are always preferrable. We offer two ways of downloading this book for free, so save your $100-$600 (these are ebay asking prices in 2013) and get it for nothing while you can. This is the internal Masonic Lodge manual of all Jewish Freemasons who currently manage all governments, finance institutions, corporations, and of course the Vatican. Together, they comprise the worldwide "mysterious force" which needs you to believe in “The Lord“ of their Bibles, a deception we now realize is Satan.
Download the entire Morals and Dogma pdf ebook file which you can read offline with Adobe Acrobat by right-clicking the link below, then selecting “save target as...” When prompted, save it onto your computer's hard drive:
Morals and Dogma pdf by Albert Pike 33*, Head of Worldwide Freemasonry (45.6 mb complete book)
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A passage from the real ending of the Bible that reveals the meaning of the eagle (pictured on the cover of Morals and Dogma), taken from IV Esdras, Cha - Morals and Dogma, page 12, verses 7-13:
“7: And I said: Lord Dominatour, if I have found grace before thine eyes, and if I am justified before thee above many, and if in deed my prayer be ascended before thy face, 8: strengthen me, and show unto me thy servant the interpretation, and distinction of this horrible vision, that thou mayest comfort my soul most fully. 9: For thou hast counted me worthy to show unto me the latter times. And he said to me: 10: This is the interpretation of this vision. 11: The eagle whch thou saw coming up from the sea, this is the kingdom which was seen in a vision to Daniel thy brother. 12: But it was not interpreted to him, therefore I do now interpret it to thee. 13: Behold the days come, and there shall rise a kingdom upon the earth, and the fear shall be more terrible than of all the kingdoms that were before it.”
- Esdras documents his communications with the Devil, the “Lord Dominatour," the "god” of the Bible, who explains to him allegorically how the worldwide kingdom of Jewish Freemasonry will take over the world in the latter days, using an eagle as a symbol. Most biblical "scholars" cannot properly interpret what the eagle stands for because the meaning cannot be found in modern Bibles which have deleted the ending.
*sources: 4 Esdras 12:10-13 scan (click here to open up page 2197 of 3028 of our scans of the original Douai-Rheims which contain the above verses). Click below to read the full ending of the bible in Old English, Latin or Spanish.
“The Teachers, even of Christianity, are, in general, the most ignorant of the true meaning of that which they teach. There is no book of which so little is known as the Bible. To most who read it, it is as incomprehensible as the Sohar. So Masonry jealously conceals its secrets, and intentionally leads conceited interpreters astray.” - Morals & Dogma, - Morals and Dogma, page 105
“The Eagle has the living Symbol of the Egyptian God Mendes or Menthra, whom Sesostris-Ramses made one with Amun-Re, the God of Thebes and Upper Egypt, and the representative of the Sun, the word RE meaning Sun or King.” - Morals & Dogma, - Morals and Dogma, page 291
“Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion.” - Morals and Dogma, page 213
“…prayer is an essential part of our ceremonies.” - Morals and Dogma, page 6
“Not one man in ten thousand knows anything about the proofs of his faith.” - Morals and Dogma, page 165
“…even Jesuitry were taught under the mask of Masonry.” - Morals and Dogma, page 326
“The initiated are certain to attain the company of the Gods.” - Morals and Dogma, page 373
“LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!” - Morals and Dogma, page 320-1
“This agent, partially revealed by the blind guesses of the disciples of Mesmer, is preceisely what the Adepts of the middle ages called the elementary matter of the great work. The Gnostics held that it composed the igneous body of the Holy Spirit; and it was adored in the secret rites of the Sabbat or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or the hermaphroditic goat of Mendes.” - Morals and Dogma, page 734
“There is a race of children of the Light.” - Morals and Dogma, page 268
“It is the Dead that govern. The Living only obey.” - Morals and Dogma, page 315
“The ignorant, and those half-wise in reality, but over-wise in their own conceit, may assail our symbols with sarcasms; but they are nevertheless ingenious veils that cover the Truth…” - Morals and Dogma, page 331
“The veil of secrecy was impenetrable, sealed by oaths and penalties the most tremendous and appalling.” - Morals and Dogma, page 359
“Among the sacred books of the Christians are two works which the infallible church does not pretend to understand, and never attempts to explain, - the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse; two cabalistic clavicules, reserved, no doubt, in Heaven, for the exposition of the Magian kings; closed with Seven seals for all faithful believers; and perfectly clear to the unbeliever initiated in the occult sciences.” - Morals and Dogma, page 731
“The Kabalah is the key of the occult sciences; and the Gnostics were born of the Kabalists.” - Morals and Dogma, page 625-6
“To the Mason, God is our Father in Heaven …He is our Father; and we are all brethren.” - Morals and Dogma, page 227
“The Initiates ought to understand this, and, lest the profane should overhear, Masonry never says too much.” - Morals and Dogma, page 732
Below are additional extractions of relevant quotes from Morals and Dogma
I-III. THE FIRST THREE DEGREES..
“Though Masonry neither usurps the place of, nor apes religion, prayer is an essential part of our ceremonies. It is the aspiration of the soul toward the Absolute and Infinite Intelligence, which is the One Supreme Diety, most feebly and misunderstandingly characterized as an “ARCHITECT.”” - Morals and Dogma, page 6
“So, likewise, we pray. Will is a force. Thought is a force. Prayer is a force. Why should it not be of the law of God, that prayer, like Faith and Love, should have its effects?” - Morals and Dogma, page 6
“The Holy Bible, Square, and Compasses, are not only styled the Great Lights in Masonry, but they are technically called the Furniture of the Lodge; and, as you have seen, it is held that there is no Lodge without them. This has sometimes been made a pretext for excluding Jews from our Lodges, because they cannot regard the New Testament as a holy book. The Bible is an indespensable part of the furniture of a Christian Lodge, only because it is the sacred book of the Christian religion. The Hebrew Pentateuch in a Hebrew Lodge, and the Koran in a Mohammedan one, belong on the Altar; and one of these, and the Square and Compass, properly understood, are the Great Lights by which a Mason must walk and work.” - Morals and Dogma, page 11
“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” - Morals and Dogma, page 12
“The Master of Light and Life, the Sun and the Moon, are symbolized in every Lodge by the Master and Wardens: and this makes it the duty of the Master to dispense light to the Brethren, by himself, and through the Wardens, who are his ministers.
”Thy sun,” says ISAIAH to Jerusalem, “shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever.” - Morals and Dogma, page13
“The Sun is the ancient symbol of the life-giving and generative power of the Deity.” - Morals and Dogma, page 13
“Thy sun,” says ISAIAH to Jerusalem, “shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever.” Such is the type of a free people.” - Morals and Dogma, page 13
“The pavement, alternately black and white, symbolizes, whether so intended or not, the Good and Evil Principles of the Egyptian and Persian creed. 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.” - Morals and Dogma, page14
“Our French Brethren place this letter YOD in the centre of the Blazing Star. And in the old Lectures, our ancient English Brethren said, “The Blazing Star or Glory in the centre refers us to that grand luminary, the Sun, which enlightens the earth, and by its genial influence dispenses blessings to manking.”
PRUDENCE. The word Prudentia means, in its original and fullest signification, Foresight; and, accordingly, the Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-seeing Eye, which to the Egyptian Initiates was the emblem of Osiris, the Creator. With the YOD in the centre, it has the kabalistic meaning of the Divine Energy, manifested as Light, creating the Universe.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 15-16
“But the great commandment of Masonry is this: “A new commandment give I unto you: that ye love one another! He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, remaineth still in the darkness.””
”Such are the moral duties of a Mason. But it is also the duty of Masonry to assist in elevating the moral and intellectual level of society; in coining knowledge, bringing ideas into circulation, and causing the mind of youth to grow; and in putting, gradually, by the teachings of axioms and the promulgation of positive laws, the human race in harmony with its destinies. To this duty and work the Initiate is apprenticed...There are noble and mysterious triumphs, which no eye sees, which no renown rewards, which no flourish of trumpets salutes.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 18-19
“Few minds comprehend the Divine tongue.” - Morals and Dogma, page 19
“Truth conquers slowly. There is a wondrous vitality in Error. Truth, indeed, for the most part, shoots over the heads of the masses; or if an error is prostrated for a moment, it is up again in a moment, as vigorous as ever.” - Morals and Dogma, page 20
“The Sword is also, in the Bible, an emblem of SPEECH, or of the utterance of thought. Thus, in that vision or apocalypse of the sublime exile of Patmos, a protest in the name of the ideal, overwhelming the real world, a tremendous satire uttered in the name of Religion and Liberty, and with its fiery reverberations smiting the throne of the Caesars, a sharp two-edged sword comes out of the mouth of the Semblance of the Son of Man, encircled by the seven golden candlesticks, and holding in his right hand seven stars. “The Lord,” says Isaiah, “hath made my mouth like a sharp sword.” “I have slain them,” says Hosea, “by the words of my mouth.” “The word of God,” says the writer of the apostolic letter to the Hebrews, “is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.” “The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” says Paul, writing to the Christians at Ephesus. “I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth,” it is said in the Apocalypse, to the angel of the church at Pergamos.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 53-54
“SEVEN was the peculiarly sacred number…Zecharaiah saw a golden candlestick, with seven lamps and seven pipes to the lamps, and an olive-tree on each side. “Since he says, “the seven eyes of the Lord shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.” John, in the Apocalypse, writes seven epistles to the seven churches. In the seven epistles there are twelve promises. What is said of the churches in praise or blame, is completed in the number three.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 58-59
“TWELVE is the number of the lines of equal length that form a cube. It is the number of the months, the tribes, and the apostles; of the oxen under the Brazen Sea, of the stones on the breast-plate of the high priest.” - Morals and Dogma, page 61
“Huge bankruptcies, that startle a country like the earthquakes, and are more fatal, fraudulent assignments, engulfment of the savings of the poor, expansions and collapses of the currency, the crash of banks, the depreciation of Government securities, prey on the savings of self-denial, and trouble with their depredations the first nourishment of infancy and the last sands of life, and fill with inmates the churchyards and lunatic asylums. But the sharper and speculator thrives and fattens. If his country is fighting by a levy en masse for her very existence, he aids her by depreciating her paper, so that he may accumulate fabulous amounts with little outlay. If his neighbor is distressed, he buys his property for a song. If he administers upon an estate, it turns out insolvent, and the orphans are paupers. If his bank explodes, he is found to have taken care of himself in time. Society worships its paper-and-credit kings, as the old Hindus and Egyptians worshipped their worthless idols, and often the most obsequiously when in actual solid wealth they are the veriest paupers. No wonder men think there ought to be another world, in which the injustices of this may be atoned for, when they see the friends of ruined families begging the wealthy sharpers to give alms to prevent the orphaned victims from starving, until they may find ways of supporting themselves.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 68-69
“Pythagoras, the great divulger of the philosophy of numbers, visited all the sanctuaries of the world. He went into Judea, where he procured himself to be circumcised, that he might be admitted to the secrets of the Kabalah, which the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel, not without some reservations, communicated to him. Then, not without some difficulty, he succeeded in being admitted to the Egyptian initiation, upon the recommendation of King Amasis. The power of his genius supplied the deficiencies of the imperfect communications of the Hierophants, and he himself became a Master and a Revealer. Pythagoras defined God: a Living and Absolute Verity clothed with Light.” - Morals and Dogma, page 96
“The Holy Kabalah, or tradition of the children of Seth, was carried from Chaldaea by Abraham, taught to the Egyptian priesthood by Joseph, recovered and purified by Moses, concealed under symbols in the Bible, revealed by the Saviour to Saint John, and contained, entire, under hieratic figures analogous to those of all antiquity, in the Apocalypse of that Apostle.” - Morals and Dogma, page 97
“The perception of the Light is the dawn of the Eternal Life, in Being. The Word of God, which creates the Light, seems to be uttered by every Intelligence that can take cognizance of Forms and will look. “Let the Light BE! The Light, in fact, exists in its condition of splendor, for those eyes alone that gaze at it; and the Soul, amorous of the spectacle of the beauties of the Universe, and applying its attention to that luminous writing of the Infinite Book, which is called “The Visible,” seems to utter, as God did on the dawn of the first day, that sublime and creative word, “BE! LIGHT!” - Morals and Dogma, page 100-101
“Humanity has never really had but one religion and one worshi - Morals and Dogma, page This universal light has had its uncertain mirages, its deceitful reflections, and its shadows; but always, after the nights of Error, we see it reappear, one and pure like the Sun.” - Morals and Dogma, page 102
“The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god, but the negation of God. The Devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry. For the Initiates, this is not a Person, but a Force, created for good, but which may serve for evil. It is the instrument of Liberty or Free Will. They represent this Force, which presides over the physical generation, under the mythologic and horned form of the GOD PAN; thence came the he-goat of the Sabbbat, brother of the Ancient Serpent, and the Light-bearer or Phosphor, of which the poets have made the false Lucifer of the legend.” - Morals and Dogma, page 102
“Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, a great Kabalist, but of doubtful orthodoxy, wrote: “The people will always mock at things easy to be understood; it must needs have impostures.”
“A Spirit,” he said, “that loves wisdom and contemplates the Truth close a hand, is forced to disguise it, to induce the multitudes to accept it….. Fictions are necessary to the people, and the Truth becomes deadly to those who are not strong enough to contemplate it in all its brilliance…The truth must be kept secret, and the masses need a teaching proportioned to their imperfect reason.”” - Morals and Dogma, page 103
“Moral disorders produce physical ugliness, and in some sort realize those frightful faces which tradition assigns to the demons. The first Druids were the true children of the Magi, and their initiation came from Egypt and Chaldaea, that is to say, from the pure sources of the primitive Kabalah. They adored the Trinity under the names of Isis or Hesus, the Supreme Harmony; of Belen or Bel, which in Assyrian means Lord, a name corresponding to that of ADONAI; and of Camul or Camael, a name that in the Kabalah personifies the Divine Justice.” - Morals and Dogma, page 103
“So Creation is ascribed to the FATHER, Redemption or Reformation to the SON, and Sanctification or Transformation to the HOLY SPIRIT, answering unto the mathematical laws of Action, Reaction, and Equilibrium. IAHAVEH is also, in effect, the Genesis or Formation of dogma, by the elementary signification of the four letters of the Sacred Tetragram; ADONAI is the realization of this dogma in the Human Form, in the Visible LORD, who is the Son of God or the perfect Man; and AGLA (formed of the initials of the four words Ath Gebur Laulaim Adonai) expresses the synthesis of the whole dogma and the totality of the Kabalistic science, clearly indicating by the hieroglyphics of which this admirable name is formed the Triple Secret of the Great Work.
Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanation and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 104-5
“The Teachers, even of Christianity, are, in general, the most ignorant of the true meaning of that which they teach. There is no book of which so little is know as the Bible. To most who read it, it is as incomprehensible as the Sohar. So Masonry jealously conceals its secrets, and intentionally leads conceited interpreters astray.” - Morals and Dogma, page 105
“To the Circle inclosing the central point, and itself traced between two parallel lines, a figure purely Kabalistic, these persons have added the superimposed Bible, and even reared on that the ladder with three or nine rounds, and then given a vapid interpretation of the who, so profoundly absurd as actually to excite admiration.” - Morals and Dogma, page 105
IV. SECRET MASTER.
“If you have been disappointed in the first three Degrees, as you have received them…and the symbols are imperfectly explained…they have come to us from an age when symbols were used, not to reveal but to conceal; when the commonest learning was confined to a select few…They are but the entrance to the great Masonic Temple, the triple columns of the portico.” - Morals and Dogma, page 106
“A few rudimentary lessons in architecture, a few universally admitted maxims of morality, a few unimportant traditions, whose real meaning is unknown or misunderstood, will no longer satisfy the earnest inquirer after Masonic truth. Let whoso is content with these, seek to climb no higher.” - Morals and Dogma, page 107
“Secrecy is indispensable in a Mason of whatever Degree. It is the first and almost the only lesson taught to the Entered Apprentice.” - Morals and Dogma, page 109
“there the crimes which we laud as virtues, are crimes still, and he whom we have made a God is the most contemptible of mankind; if, indeed, we do not feel, perhaps, that we are ourselves still more contemptible.” - Morals and Dogma, page 110
“Be faithful to your friends; for true friendship is of a nature not only to survive through all the vicissitudes of life, but to continue through an endless duration; not only to stand the shock of conflicting opinions, and the roar of a revolution that shakes the world, but to last when the heavens are no more, and to spring fresh from the ruins of the universe.” - Morals and Dogma, page 112
V. PERFECT MASTER.
“Be careful, then, that thou receive no wages, here or elsewhere, that are not thy due! For if thou dost, thou wrongest some one, by taking that which in God’s chancery belongs to him; and whether that which thou takest thus be wealth, or rank, or influence, or reputation or affection, thou wilt surely be held to make full satisfaction.” - Morals and Dogma, page 118
VI. INTIMATE SECRETARY.
“Masons must be kind and affectionate one to another. Frequenting the same temples, kneeling at the same altars, they should feel that respect and that kindness for each other, which their common relation and common approach to one God should inspire. There needs to be much more of the spirit of the ancient fellowship among us; more tenderness for each other’s faults, more forgiveness, more solicitude for each other’s improvement and good fortune; somewhat of brotherly feeling, that it be not shame to use the word “brother.” - Morals and Dogma, page 122
“Such are the lessons of this Degree. You have vowed t make them the rule, the law, and the guide of your life and conduct. If you do so, you will be entitled, because fitted, to advance in Masonry. If you do not, you have already gone too far.” - Morals and Dogma, page 125
VII. PROVOST AND JUDGE.
“Especially it condemns those wrongs of which the doer induces another to partake. He may repent: he may, after agonizing struggles, regain the path of virtue: his spirit may reachieve its purity through much anguish, after many strifes; but the weaker fellow-creature whom he led astray, whom he made a sharer in his guilt, but whom he cannot make a sharer in his repentance and amendment, whose downward course (the first step of which he taught) he cannot check, but is compelled to witness,--what forgiveness of sins can avail him there? There is his perpetual, his inevitable punishment, which no repentance can alleviate, and no mercy can remit.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 129-130. - The explanation of the consequences of promoting heresy, the gates of hell.
VIII. INTENDANT OF THE BUILDING.
“The Degrees of this Rite are not for those who are content with the mere work and ceremonies, and do not seek to explore the mines of wisdom that lie buried beneath the surface. You still advance toward the Light, toward that star, blazing in the distance, which is an emblem of the Divine Truth, given by God to the first men, and preserved amid all the vicissitudes of ages in the traditions and teachings of Masonry.” - Morals and Dogma, page 136
“Here, as in all the Degrees, you meet with the emblems and the names of Diety, the true knowledge of whose character and attributes it has ever been a chief object of Masonry to perpetuate. To appreciate His infinite greatness and goodness, to rely implicitly upon His Providence, to revere and venerate Him as the Supreme Architect, Creator, and Legislator of the universe, is the first of Masonic duties.” - Morals and Dogma, page 137
“A Masonic Lodge should resemble a bee-hive, in which all the members work together with ardor for the common good. Masonry is not made for cold souls and narrow minds, that do not comprehend its lofty mission and sublime apostolate.” - Morals and Dogma, page 138
“These Degrees are also intended to teach more than morals. The symbols and ceremonies of Masonry have more than one meaning. They rather conceal than disclose the Truth. They hint it only, at least; and their varied meanings are only to be discovered by reflection and study.” - Morals and Dogma, page 148
IX. ELECT OF THE NINE.
“How ungratefully he slinks away, who dies, and does nothing to reflect a glory to Heaven? How barren a tree he is, who lives, and spreads, and cumbers the ground, yet leaves not one seed, not one good work to generate another after him! All cannot leave alike; yet all may leave something, answering their proportions and their kinds. Those are dead and withered grains of corn, out of which there will not one ear spring. He will hardly find the way to Heaven, who desires to go thither alone.” - Morals and Dogma, page 152 – uses guilt to motivate Masons to promote heresy.
“Forget not, therefore, to what you have devoted to yourself in this Degree: defend weakness against strength, the friendless against the great, the oppressed against the oppressor! Be ever vigilant and watchful of the interests and honor of your country! And may the Grand Architect of the Universe give you that strength and wisdom which shall enable you well and faithfully to perform these high duties!” - Morals and Dogma, page 159
X. ILLUSTRIOUS ELECT OF THE FIFTEEN.
“THIS Degree is devoted to the same objects as those of the Elu of Nine…and whenever in your presence a Chapter of this Degree is opened, you will be most solemnly reminded of your vows here taken at the altar.” - Morals and Dogma, page 160
“Masonry is not a religion.” - Morals and Dogma, page 161
“This Degree is chiefly devoted to TOLERATION; and it inculcates in the strongest manner that great leading idea of the Ancient Art, that a belief in the one True God, and a moral and virtuous life, constitute the only religious requisites needed to enable a man to be a Mason.” - Morals and Dogma, page 164
“Few believe in any religion because they have examined the evidences of its authenticity, and made up a formal judgment, upon weighing the testimony. Not one man in ten thousand knows anything about the proofs of his faith.” - Morals and Dogma, page 165
“The sincere Moslem has as much right to persecute us, as we to persecute him; and therefore Masonry wisely requires no more than a belief in One Great All-Powerful Deity, the Father and Preserver of the Universe.” - Morals and Dogma, page 166
“Merely to tolerate, to bear with an opposing opinion, is to assume it to be heretical; and assert the right to persecute, if we would; and claim our toleration of it as a merit. The Mason’s creed goes farther than that. No man, it holds, has any right in any way to interfere with the religious belief of another.” - Morals and Dogma, page 167 – of course this works well for Luciferians (p.321) when not even one in ten thousand (p.165) understand what the truth is.
“To that great Judge, Masonry refers the matter; and opening wide its portals, it invites to enter there and live in peace and harmony, the Protestant, the Catholics, the Jew, the Moslem; every man who will lead a truly virtuous and moral life, love his brethren, minister to the sick and distressed, and believe in the ONE, All-Powerful, All-Wise, everywhere-Present GOD, Architect, Creator, and Preserver of all things, by whose universal law of Harmony ever rolls on this universe, the great, vast, infinite circle of successive Death and Life: --to who INEFFABLE NAME let all true Masons pay profoundest homange! For whose thousand blessings poured upon us, let us feel the sincerest gratitude, now, henceforth, and forever!” - Morals and Dogma, page 167
XI. SUBLIME ELECT OF THE TWELVE; or PRINCE AMETH.
“There are works yet left for Masonry to accomplish, greater than the twelve labors of Hercules; to advance ever resolutely and steadily; to enlighten the minds of the people, to reconstruct society, to reform the laws, and to improve the public morals. The eternity in front of it is as infinite as the one behind. And Masonry cannot cease to labor in the cause of social progress, without ceasing to be true to itself, without ceasing to be Masonry.” - Morals and Dogma, page 187-188
XII. GRAND MASTER ARCHITECT. [Master Architect.]
“There are many things in us of which we are not distinctly conscious. To waken that slumbering consciousness into life, and so to lead the soul up to the Light, is one office of every great ministration to human nature, whether its vehicle be the pen, the pencil, or the tongue.” - Morals and Dogma, page 189 – Masonic work is to use speech and written works to advance the heresies, the crimes against God.
“Believe that there is a God; that He is our father; that He has a paternal interest in our welfare and improvement; that He has given us powers, by means of which we may escape from sin and ruin; that He has destined us to a future life of endless progress toward perfection and a knowledge of Himself—believe this, as every Mason should, and you can live calmly, endure patiently, labor resolutely, deny yourselves cheerfully, hope steadfastly, and be conquerors in the great struggle of life.” - Morals and Dogma, page 195
“The religious faith thus taught by Masonry is indispensable to the attainment of the great ends of life; and must therefore have been designed to be a part of it. We are made for this faith; and there must be something, somewhere, for us to believe in. We cannot grow healthfully, nor live happily, without it. It is therefore true.” - Morals and Dogma, page 196
“And yet the mind and soul of man have a value which nothing else has. They are worth a care which nothing else is worth; and to the single, solitary individual, they out to possess an interest which nothing else possesses... Men do not feel the worth of their own souls. They are proud of their mental powers; but the intrinsic, inner, infinite worth of their own minds they do not perceive.” - Morals and Dogma, page 200
“My Brother, in the hope that you have listened to and understood the Instruction and Lecture of this Degree, and that you feel the dignity of your own nature and the vast capacities of your own soul for good or evil, I proceed briefly to communicate to you the remaining instruction of this Degree.
The Hebrew word, in the old Hebrew and Samaritan character, suspended in the East, over the five columns, is ADONAI, one of the names of God, usually translated Lord; and which the Hebrews, in reading, always substitute for the True Name, which is for them ineffable.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 201-202
“The Morning Star, rising in the East, Jupiter, called by the Hebrews Tsadoc or Tsydyk, Just, is an emblem to us of the ever-approaching dawn of perfection and Masonic light.” - Morals and Dogma, page 202
“Chochmah, the divine intellectual power to generate thought, and Binah, the divine intellectual capacity to produce it—the two latter, usually translated Wisdom and Understanding, being the active and the passive, the positive and the negative, which we do not yet endeavor to explain to you. They are the columns Jachin and Boaz, that stand at the entrace to the Masonic Temple.” - Morals and Dogma, page 202
“There is, after all, a “divine right” to govern; and it is vested in the ablest, wisest, best, of every nation. “Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding: I am power: by me kings do reign, and princes decree justice; by me princes rule, and nobles, even all the magistrates of the earth.
For the present, my Brother, let this suffice. We welcome you among us, to this peaceful retreat of virtue, to a participation in our privileges, to a share in our joys and our sorrows.” - Morals and Dogma, page 203 – This is why Protestants believe the government is ordained by their Lord to exists and why they are led to blindly follow their masters into war, etc. In stark contrast, old Catholicism viewed the government as a wicked force.
XIII. ROYAL ARCH OF SOLOMON.
“It is certain that the word which the Hebrews are not now permitted to pronounce was in common use by Abraham, Lot, Isaac, Jacob, Laban, Rebecca, and even among tribes foreign to the Hebrews, before the time of Moses; and that it recurs a hundred times in the lyrical effusions of David and other Hebrew poets.
We know that for many centuries the Hebrews have been forbidden to pronounce the Sacred Name; that wherever it occurs, they have for ages read the word Adonai instead…” - Morals and Dogma, page 204
“These superstitious notions in regard to the efficacy of the Word, and the prohibition against pronouncing it, could, being errors, have formed no part of the pure primitive religion, or of the esoteric doctrine taught by Moses, and the full knowledge of which was confined to the Initiates; unless the whole was but an ingenious invention for the concealment of some other Name or truth, the interpretation and meaning whereof was made known only to the select few. If so, the common notions in regard to the Word grew up in the minds of the people, like other errors and fables among all the ancient nations, out of original truths and symbols and allegories misunderstood. So it has always been that allegories, intended as vehicles of truth, to be understood by the sages, have become or bred errors, by being literally accepted.” - Morals and Dogma, page 205 - The burning bush/talking, commanding fire Lord that is today universally accepted as the god of this world, usurping Jesum Christum Dominum Nosturm.
“Among all the ancient nations there was one faith and one idea of Deity for the enlightened, intelligent, and educated, and another for the common people. To this rule the Hebrews were no exception. Yehovah, to the mass of the people, was like the gods of the nations around them, except that he was the peculiar God, first of the family of Abraham, of that of Isaac, and that of Jacob, and afterward the National God; and, as they believed, more powerful than the other gods of the same nature worshipped by their neighbors—“Who among the Baalim is like unto thee, O Yehovah?” – expressed their whole creed.
The Deity of the early Hebrews talked to Adam and Eve in the garden of delight, as he walked in it in the cool of the day; he conversed with Kayin; he sat and ate with Abraham in his tent; that patriarch required a visible token, before he would believe in his positive promise; he permitted Abraham to expostulate with him, and to induce him to change his first determination in regard to Sodom; he wrestled with Jacob; he showed Moses his person, though not his face; he dictated the minutest police regulations and the dimensions of the tabernacle and its furniture, to the Israelites; he insisted on and delighted in sacrifices and burnt-offerings; he was angry, jealous, and revengeful, as well as wavering and irresolute; he allowed Moses to reason him out of his fixed resolution utterly to destroy his people; he commanded the performance of the most shocking and hideous acts of cruelty and barbarity. He hardened the heart of Pharaoh; he repented of the evil that he had said he would do unto the people of Nineveh; and he did it not, to the disgust and anger of Jonah.
Such were the popular notions of the Deity; and either the priests had none better, or took little trouble to correct these notions; or the popular intellect was not enough enlarged to enable them to entertain any higher conceptions of the Almighty.
But such were not the ideas of the intellectual and enlightened few among the Hebrews. It is certain that they possessed a knowledge of the true nature and attributes of God; as the same class of men did among the other nations—Zoroaster, Menu, Confucius, Socrates, and Plato. But their doctrines on this subject were esoteric; they did not communicate them to the people at large, but only to a favored few; and as they were communicated in Egypt and India, in Persia and Phoenicia, in Greece and Samothrace in the greater mysteries, to the Initiates.
The communication of this knowledge and other secrets, some of which are perhaps lost, constituted, under other names, what we now call Masonry, or Free or Frank-Masonry. That knowledge was, in one sense, the Lost Word, which was made known to the Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Masons.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 206-8
“As MOLOCH or MALEK he was but an omnipotent monarch, a tremendous and irresponsible Will; as ADONAI, only an arbitrary LORD and Master; as AL Shadai, potent and a DESTROYER.
To communicate true and correct ideas in respect of the Deity was one chief object of the mysteries. In them, Khurum the King, and Khurum the Master, obtained their knowledge of him and his attributes; and in them that knowledge was taught to Moses an Pythagoras.
Wherefore nothing forbids you to consider the whole legend of this Degree, like that of the Master’s, an allegory, representing the perpetuation of the knowledge of the True God in the sanctuaries of initiation. By the subterranean vaults you may understand the places of initiation, which in the ancient ceremonies were generally under ground. The Temple of Solomon presented a symbolic image of the Universe; and resembled, in its arrangements and furniture all the temples of the ancient nations that practiced the mysteries.” - Morals and Dogma, page 208
“The Lion that guarded the Ark and held in his mouth the key wherewith to open it, figuratively represents Solomon, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, who preserved and communicated the key to the true knowledge of God, of His laws, and of the profound mysteries of the moral and physical Universe.” - Morals and Dogma, page 210
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“There are profounder meanings concealed in the symbols of this Degree, connected with the philosophical system of the Hebrew Kabalists, which you will learn hereafter, if you should be so fortunate as to advance. They are unfolded in the higher Degrees. The lion [which also means the altar] still holds in his mouth the key of the enigma of the sphinx.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 210-211 – LION = ALTAR in APOCALYPSE (LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH)
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“Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion.” - Morals and Dogma, page 213
“Masonry and its kindred Orders teach men to love each other, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick, and bury the friendless dead.” - Morals and Dogma, page 214
XIV. GRAND ELECT, PERFECT, AND SUBLIME MASON. [Perfect Elu.]
“Much of the Masonic secret manifests itself, without speech revealing it, to him who even partially comprehends all the Degrees in proportion as he receives them; and particularly to those who advance to the highest Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. That Rite raises a corner of the veil, even in the Degree of Apprentice; for it there declares that Masonry is a worship.” - Morals and Dogma, page 219
“Masonry, around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem, the Brahmin, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and unite in prayer to the one God who is above all the Baalim, must needs leave it to each of its Initiates to look for the foundation of his faith and hope to the written scriptures of his own religion.” - Morals and Dogma, page 226
“To the Mason, God is our Father in Heaven, to be Whose especial children is the sufficient reward of the peacemakers, to see Whose face the highest hope of the pure in heart; Who is ever at hand to strengthen His true worshippers; to Whom our most fervent love is due, our most humble and patient submission; Whose most acceptable worship is a pure and pitying heart and a beneficent life; in Whose constant presence we live and act, to Whose merciful disposal we are resigned by that death which, we hope and believe, is but the entrance to a better life; and Whose wise decrees forbid a man to lap his soul in an elyseum of mere indolent ccontent…He is our Father; and we are all brethren. This much lies open to the most ignorant and busy, as fully as to those who have most leisure and are most learned. This needs no Priest to teach it, and no authority to indorse it…” - Morals and Dogma, page 227
XV. KNIGHT OF THE EAST OR OF THE SWORD.
“THIS Degree, like all others in Masonry, is symbolical. Based upon historical truth and authentic tradition, it is still an allegory.” - Morals and Dogma, page 237
“Masonry teaches that God is a Paternal Being, and has an interest in his creatures, such as is expressed in the title Father; an interest unknown to all the systems of Paganism, untaught in all the theories of philosophy; an interest not only in the glorious beings of other spheres, the Sons of Light, the dwellers in Heavenly worlds, but in us, poor, ignorant, and unworthy; that He has pity for the erring, pardon for the guilty, love for the pure, knowledge for the humble, and promises of immortal life for those who trust in and obey Him.” - Morals and Dogma, page 239
“Through the eternal ages the light of God’s beneficence shall shine hereafter, disclosing all, consummating all, rewarding all that deserve reward. Then we shall see, what now we can only believe. The cloud will be lifted up, the gate of mystery be passed, and the full light shine forever; the light of which that of the Lodge is a symbol. Then that which caused us trial shall yield us triumph; and that which made our heart ache shall fill us with gladness; and we shall then feel that there, as here, the only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve; which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.” - Morals and Dogma, page 240
XVI. PRINCE OF JERUSALEM.
“We no longer expect to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. To us it has become but a symbol. To us the whole world is God’s Temple, as is every upright heart. To establish all over the world the New Law and Reign of Love, Peace, Charity, and Toleration, is to build that Temple, most acceptable to God, in erecting which Masonry is now engaged. No longer needing to repair to Jerusalem to worship, nor to offer up sacrifices and shed blood in propitiate the Deity, man may make the woods and mountains his Churches and Temples, and worship God with a devout gratitude, and with works of charity and beneficence to his fellow-men. Wherever the humble and contrite heart silently offers up its adoration, under the overarching trees, in the open, level meadows, on the hill-side, in the glen, or in the city’s swarming streets; there is God’s House and the New Jerusalem.” - Morals and Dogma, page 241
“Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor; execute the judgment of Truth and Peace in your gates; and love no false oath; for all these I hate, saith the Lord.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 241-2
XVII. KNIGHT OF THE EAST AND WEST.
“The Gnostics derived their leading doctrines and ideas from Plato and Philo, the Zend-avesta and the Kabalah, and the Sacred books of India and Egypt; and thus introduced into the bosom of Christianity the cosmological and theosophical speculations, which had formed the larger portion of the ancient religions of the Orient, joined to those of the Egyptian, Greek, and Jewish doctrines, which the Neo-Platonists had equally adopted in the Occident.” - Morals and Dogma, page 248
“Again we see the symbolism of Masonry, and the search of the Candidate for light. “Let me of narrow minds withdraw,” he says, “with closed ears. We transmit the divine mysteries to those who have received the sacred initiation, to those who practise true piety, and who are not enslaved by the empty trappings of words or the preconceived opinions of the pagans.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 250-1
“Moshah and Aharun his brother, the whole series of High-Priests, the Council of the 70 Elders, Salomoh and the entire succession of Prophets, were in possession of a higher science; and of that science Masonry is, at least, the lineal descendant. It was familiarly known as THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORD.” - Morals and Dogma, page 253
“The Magi of Babylon were expounders of figurative writings, interpreters of nature, and of dreams, -- astronomers and divines; and from their influences arose among the Jews, after their rescue from captivity, a number of sects, and a new exposition, the mystical interpretation, with all its wild fancies and infinite caprices. The Aions of the Gnostics, the Ideas of Plato, the Angels of the Jews, and the Demons of the Greeks, all correspond to the Ferouers of Zoraster.” - Morals and Dogma, page 256
“Thus John, who was often consulted by Herod, and to whom that monarch showed great deference, and was often governed by his advice; whose doctrine prevailed very extensively among the people and the publicans, taught some creed older than Christianity. That is plain: and it is equally plain, that the very large body of the Jews that adopted his doctrines, were neither Pharisees nor Sadducees, but the humble, common people. They must, therefore, have been Essenes. It is plain, too, that Christ applied for baptism as a sacred rite, well known and long practiced. It was becoming to him, he said, to fulfill all righteousness.
In the 18th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read thus: “And a certain Jew, named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and, being fervent in spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John; and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue; whom, when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.
Translating this from the symbolic and figurative language into the true ordinary sense of the Greek text, it reads thus: “And a certain Jew, named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, and of extensive learning, came to Ephesus. He had learned in the mysteries the true doctrine in regard to God; and, being a zealous enthusiast, he spoke and taught diligently the truths in regard to the Deity, having received no other baptism than that of John.” He knew nothing in regard to Christianity; for he had resided in Alexandria, and had just then come to Ephesus; being, probably, a disciple of Philo, and a Therapeut.
“That, in all times,” says St. Augustine, “is the Christian religion, which to know and follow is the most sure and certain health, called according to that name, but not according to the thing itself, of which it is the name; for the thing itself, which is now called the Christian religion, really was know to the Ancients, nor was wanting at any time from the beginning of the human race, until the time when Christ came in the flesh; from whence the true religion, which had previously existed, began to be called Christian; and this in our days is the Christian religion, not as having been wanting in former times, but as having, in later times, received this name.” The disciples were first called “Christians, at Antioch, when Barnabas and Paul began to preach there.
The Wandering or Itinerant Jews or Exorcists, who assumed to employ the Sacred Name in exorcising evil spirits, were no doubt Therapeutae or Essenes.
“And it came to pass,” we read in the 19th chapter of the Acts, verses 1 to 4, “that wile Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper parts of Asia Minor, came to Ephesus; and finding certain disciples, he said to them, ‘Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye became Believers?’ And they said unto him, ‘We have not so much as heard that there is any Holy Ghost.’ And he said to them, ‘In what, then, were you baptized?’ And they said ‘In John’s Baptism.’ Then said Paul, ‘John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentence, saying to the people that they should believe in Him who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus Christ.’ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
This faith, taught by John, and so nearly Christianity, could have been nothing but the doctrine of the Essenes; and there can be no doubt that John belonged to that sect. The place where he preached, his macerations and frugal diet, the doctrines he taught, all prove it conclusively. There was no other sect to which he could have belonged; certainly none so numerous as his, except the Essenes.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 261-3 ***This is how Judeo-Masonry usurped the baptism rite and destroyed Catholicism; they were guided by the Light to create a similar faith “and so nearly Christianity.”
“According to Paul, Christ was to come again. He was to put an end to all other Principles and Powers, and finally to Death, and then be Himself once more merged in God; who should then be all in all.” - Morals and Dogma, page 263 – So this is the final object from the past unto completion, to have the entire world anticipating the Jewish Messiah. Notice how this statement also separates Jesus Christ and God which is in a nutshell, is the gates of hell.
“The writings of the Essenes were full of mysticism, parables, enigmas, and allegories. They believed in the esoteric and exoteric meanings of the Scriptures; and, as we have already said, they had a warrant for that in the Scriptures themselves. They found it in the Old Testament, as the Gnostics found it in the New. The Christian writers, and even Christ himself, recognized it as a truth, that all Scripture had an inner and an outer meaning. Thus we find it said as follows, in one of the Gospels:
“Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but unto men that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing, they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand…. And the disciples came and said unto him, ‘Why speakest Thou the truth in parables?’ He answered and said unto them, ‘ Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given.’” - Morals and Dogma, pages 265-6
“Origen and St. Gregory held that the Gospels were not to be taken in their literal sense; and Athanasius admonishes us that “Should we understand sacred writ according to the letter, we should fall into the most enormous blasphemies.” - Morals and Dogma, page 266
“The sources of our knowledge of the Kabalistic doctrines, are the books of Jezirah and Sohar, the former drawn up in the second century, and the latter a little later; but containing materials much older than themselves. In their most characteristic elements, they go back to the time of the exile. In them, as in the teachings of Zoroaster, everything that exists emanated from a source of infinite LIGHT.” - Morals and Dogma, page 266
“Wisdom was called NOUS and LOGOS, INTELLECT or the WORD. Intelligence, source of the oil of anointing, responds to the Holy Ghost of the Christian Faith.” - Morals and Dogma, page 267
“There is a race of children of the Light.” - Morals and Dogma, page 268
“God was the Light of Light, Divine Fire, the Abstract Intellectuality, the Root or Germ of the Universe. Simon Magus, founder of the Gnostic faith, and many of the early Judaizing Christians, admitted that the manifestations of the Supreme Being, as FATHER, or JEHOVAH, SON or CHRIST, and HOLY SPIRIT, were only so many different modes of Existence, or Forces of the same God. To others they were, as were the multitude of Subordinate Intelligences, real and distinct beings.” - Morals and Dogma, page 270
“The Eagle has the living Symbol of the Egyptian God Mendes or Menthra, whom Sesostris-Ramses made one with Amun-Re, the God of Thebes and Upper Egypt, and the representative of the Sun, the word RE meaning Sun or King.” - Morals and Dogma, page 291
“Jesus of Nazareth, the “Son of man,”is the expounder of the new Law of Love.” - Morals and Dogma, page 309
XIX. GRAND PONTIFF.
“The true Mason labors for the benefit of those who are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of his race.” - Morals and Dogma, page 312
“Mahomet announced to the Arabian idolaters the new creed, “There is but one God, and Mahomet, like Moses and Christ, is His apostle.” - Morals and Dogma, page 313
“It is the Dead that govern. The Living only obey.” - Morals and Dogma, page 315
“Thus we obey the dead; and thus shall the living, when we are dead, for weal or WOE, obey us.” - Morals and Dogma, page 316
“It is the ambition of a true and genuine Mason. Knowing the slow processes by which the Deity brings about great results, he does not expect to reap as well as sow, in a single lifetime.” - Morals and Dogma, page 316
“The Apoocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and prophetic Summary of all the occult figures, divides its images into three Septenaries, after each of which there is silence in Heaven. There are Seven Seals to be opened, that its to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome, Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty.
The Apocalypse is, to those who recieve the nineteenth Degree, the Apotheosis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. (true Catholicism) LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!” - Morals and Dogma, pages 320-1
“The Apocalypse, indeed, is a book as obscure as the Sohar.
It is written hieroglyphically with numbers and images; and the Apostle often appeals to the intelligence of the Initiated. “Let him who hath knowledge, understand! let him who understands, calculate!” he often says, after an allegory or the mention of a number. Saint John, the favorite Apostle, and the Depositary of all the Secrets of the Saviour, therefore did not write to be understood by the multitude.” - Morals and Dogma, page 321
“The Sephar Yezirah, the Sohar, and the Apocalypse are the completest embodiments of Occultism. They contain more meanings than words; their expressions are figurative as poetry and exact as numbers. The Apocalypse sums up, completes, and surpasses all the Science of Abraham and of Solomon. The visions of Ezekiel, by the river Chebar, and of the new Symbolic Temple, are equally mysterious expressions, veiled by figures of the enigmatic dogmas of the Kabalah, and their symbols are as little understood by the Commentators, as those of Free Masonry.” - Morals and Dogma, page 321
“It is WISDOM that, in the Kabalistic Books of the Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, is the Creative Agent of God.” - Morals and Dogma, page 323
XX. GRAND MASTER OF ALL SYMBOLIC LODGES.
“You have become an instructor. Masonry long wandered in error. Instead of improving, it degenerated from its primitive simplicity, and retrograded toward a system, distorted by stupidity and ignorance, which, unable to construct a beautiful machine, made a complicated one.” - Morals and Dogma, page 325
“…even Jesuitry were taught under the mask of Masonry.” - Morals and Dogma, page 326
“The ignorant, and those half-wise in reality, but over-wise in their own conceit, may assail our symbols with sarcasms; but they are nevertheless ingenious veils that cover the Truth, respected by all who know the means by which the heart of man is reached and his feelings enlisted.” - Morals and Dogma, page 331
“The Duties of the Class of Instructors, that is, the Masons of the Degrees from the 4th to the 8th, inclusive, are, particularly, to perfect the younger Masons in the words, signs and tokens and other work of the Degrees they have received; to explain to them the meaning of the different emblems, and to expound the moral instruction which they convey. And upon their report of proficiency alone can their pupils be allowed to advance and receive an increase of wages.” - Morals and Dogma, page 331
XXI. NOACHITE, OR PRUSSIAN KNIGHT.
“You are especially charged in this Degree to be modest and humble, and not vain-glorious nor filled with self-conceit. Be not wiser in your own opinion than the Deity, nor find fault with His works, nor endeavor to improve upon what He has done.” - Morals and Dogma, page 334
“The evil is wide-spread and universal. No man, no woman, no household, is sacred or safe from this new Inquisition.” - Morals and Dogma, page 334
“And, finally, the Mason should be humble and modest toward the Grand Architect of the Universe, and not impugn His Wisdom…” - Morals and Dogma, page 338
XXII. KNIGHT OF THE ROYAL AXE or PRINCE OF LIBANUS.
“The faith in an Invisible, Unnameable, Directing Deity, present everywhere in all that we see, and work, and suffer, is the essence of all faith whatsoever.” - Morals and Dogma, page 340
“Let him who toils complain not, nor feel humiliated! Let him look up, and see his fellow-workmen there, in God’s Eternity; they alone surviving there.” - Morals and Dogma, page 343
“And if we can succeed in making some small nook of God’s creation a little more fruitful and cheerful, a little better and more worthy of Him, - or in making some one or two human hearts a little wiser, and more manful and hopeful and happy, we shall have done work, worthy of Masons, and acceptable to our Father in Heaven.” - Morals and Dogma, page 351
XXIII. CHIEF OF THE TABERNACLE.
“And it is therefore not surprising that, in time, initiation came to be considered as necessary as baptism afterward was to the Christians; and that not to have been admitted to the Mysteries was held a dishonor.” - Morals and Dogma, page 353
“The rites of initiation became progressively more complicated. Signs and tokens were invented by which the Children of Light could with facility make themselves known to each other. Different Degrees were invented, as the number of Initiates enlarged, in order that there might be in the inner apartment of the Temple a favored few, to whom alone the more valuable secrets were entrusted, and who could wield effectually the influence and power of the Order.” - Morals and Dogma, page 359
“The uninitiated were deemed Profane, unworthy of public employment or private confidence, sometimes proscribed as Atheists, and certain of everlasting punishment beyond the grave.
All persons were initiated into the lesser Mysteries; but few attained the greater, in which the true spirit of them, and most of their secret doctrines were hidden. The veil of secrecy was impenetrable, sealed by oaths and penalties the most tremendous and appalling.” - Morals and Dogma, page 359
“The ceremonies were performed at dead of night, generally in apartments under-ground, but sometimes in the center of a vast pyramid, with every appliance that could alarm and excite the candidate. Innumerable ceremonies, wild and romantic, dreadful and appalling, had by degrees been added to the few expressive symbols of primitive observances, under which there were instances in which the terrified aspirant actually expired with fear.
The pyramids were probably used for the purposes of initiation, as were caverns, pagodas, and labyrinths; for the ceremonies required many apartments and cells, long passages and wells.” - Morals and Dogma, page 359
“The inhabitants of India originally practiced the Patriarchal religion. Even the later worship of Vishnu was cheerful and social…” - Morals and Dogma, page 360
“The Indian Mysteries were celebrated in subterranean caverns and grottos hewn in the solid rock; and the Initiates adored the Deity, symbolized by the solar fire. The candidate, long wandering in darkness, truly wanted Light, and the worship taught him was the worship of God, the Source of Light.” - Morals and Dogma, page 361
“The candidate, thus taught the first great primitive truth, was called upon to make a formal declaration, that he would be tractable and obedient to his superiors; that he would keep his body pure; govern his tongue, and observe a passive obedience in receiving the doctrines and traditions of the Order; and the firmest secrecy in maintaining inviolable its hidden and abstruse mysteries. Then he was sprinkled with water (whence our baptism); certain words, now unknown, were whispered in his ear; and he was divested of his shoes, and made to go three times around the cavern. Hence our three circuits; hence we were neither barefoot nor shot: and the words were the Pass-words of that Indian Degree.” - Morals and Dogma, page 362
“From Egypt, the Mysteries went to Phoenicia, and were celebrated at Tyre. Osiris changed his name, and became Adoni or Dionusos, still the representative of the Sun…” - Morals and Dogma, page 363
“It is to Hermes, who lived at that period, that we must attribute the concealment or veiling [velation] of the Indian worship, which Moses unveiled or revealed, changing nothing of the laws of Hermes, except the plurality of his mystic Gods.” - Morals and Dogma, page 364
“Among the sciences taught by Hermes, there were secrets which he communicated to the Initiates only upon condition that they should bind themselves, by a terrible oath, never to divulge them, except to those who, after long trial, should be found worthy to succeed them. The Kings even prohibited the revelation of them on pain of death. This secret was styled the Sacerdotal Art, and included alchemy, astrology, magism [magic], the science of spirites, etc. He gave them the key to the Hieroglyphics of all these secret sciences, which were regarded as sacred, and kept concealed in the most secret places of the Temple.
The great secrecy observed by the initiated Priests, for many years, and the lofty sciences which they professed, caused them to be honored and respected throughout all Egypt, which was regarded by other nations as the college, the sanctuary, of the sciences and arts. The mystery which surrounded them strongly excited curiosity.” - Morals and Dogma, page 365
“Pythagoras, ever thirsty for learning, consented even to be circumcised, in order to become one of the Initiates: and the occult sciences were revealed to him in the innermost part of the sanctuary.
The Initiates in a particular science, having been instructed by fables, enigmas, allegories, and hieroglyphics, wrote mysteriously whenever in their works they touched the subject of the Mysteries, and continued to conceal science under a veil of fictions.” - Morals and Dogma, page 365
“(Pythagoras) He taught the immortality of the soul, the Omnipotence of God, and the necessity of personal holiness to qualify a man for admission into the Society of the Gods.” - Morals and Dogma, page 366
“Our Lodges are said to be due East and West, because the Master represents the rising Sun, and of course must be in the East. The pyramids, too, were built precisely by the four cardinal points. And our expression, that our Lodges extend upward to the Heavens, comes from the Persian and Druidic custom of having to their Temples no roofs but the sky.
Plato developed and spiritualized the philosophy of Pythagoras. Even Eusebius the Christian admits, that he reached to the vestibule of Truth, and stood upon its threshold.
The Druidical ceremonies undoubtedly came from India; and the Druids were originally Buddhists. The word Druidh, like the word Magi, signifies wise or learned men; and they were at once philosophers, magistrates, and divines.
There was a surprising uniformity in the Temples, Priests, doctrines, and worship of the Persian Magi and British Druids. The Gods of Britian were the same as the Cabiri of Samothrace. Osiris and Isis appeared in their Mysteries…” - Morals and Dogma, pages 366-7
“The grand periods for initiation into the Druidical Mysteries were quarterly; at the equinoxes and solstices. In the remote times when they originated, these were the times corresponding with the 13th of February, 1st of May, 19th of August, and 1st of November. The time of annual celebration was May-Eve, and the ceremonial preparations commenced at midnight, on the 29th of April. When the initiations were over, on May-Eve, fires were kindled on all the cairns and cromlechs in the island, which burned all night to introduce the sports of May-day. The festival was in honor of the Sun. The initiations were performed at midnight; and there were three Degrees.” - Morals and Dogma, page 367
“The Goths had three great festivals; the most magnificent of which commenced at the winter Solstice, and was celebrated in honor of Thor, the Prince of the Power of the Air. That being the longest night in the year, and the one after which the Sun comes Northward, it was commemorative of the Creation; and they termed it mother-night, as the one in which the creation of the world and light from the primitive darkness took place. This was the Yule, Juul, or Yeol feast, which afterward became Christmas. At this feast the initiations were celebrated. Thor was the Sun, the Egyptian Osiris and Kneph, the Phoenician Bel or Baal. The initiations were had in huge intricate caverns, terminating, as all the Mithriac caverns did, in a spacious vault, where the candidate was brought to light.
Joseph was undoubtedly initiated. After he had interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, that Monarch made him his Prime Minister, let him ride in his second chariot, while they proclaimed before him, ABRECH! And set him over the land of Egypt.” - Morals and Dogma, page 368
“When his Brethren came to Egypt the second time, the Egyptians of his court could not eat with them, as that would have been abomination, through they ate with Joseph; who was therefore regarded not as a foreigner, but as one of themselves: and when he sent and brought his brethren back, and charged them with taking his cup, he said, “Know ye not that a man like me pracitses divination?” thus assuming the Egyptian of high rank initiated into the Mysteries, and as such conversant with the occult sciences.
So also must Moses have been initiated: for he was not only brought up in the court of the King, as the adopted son of the King’s daughter, until he was forty years of age; but he was instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians, and married afterward the daughter of Yethru, a Priest of An likewise.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 368-9
“Such, my Brother, is the doctrine of the first Degree of the Mysteries, or that of Chief of the Tabernacle, to which you have now been admitted, and the moral lesson of which is, devotion to the service of God, and disinterested zeal and constant endeavor for the welfare of men. You have here received only hints of the true objects and purposes of the Mysteries. Hereafter, if you are permitted to advance, you will arrive at a more complete understanding of them and of the sublime doctrines which they teach. Be content, therefore, with that which you have seen and heard, and await patiently the advent of the greater light.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 369-370
XXIV. PRINCE OF THE TABERNACLE.
“The Gods themselves,” it was said, “disclose their intentions to the wise, but to fools their teaching is unintelligible;” and the King of the Delphic Oracle was said not to declare, nor on the other hand to conceal; but emphatically to “intimate or signify.” - Morals and Dogma, page 371
“Initiation was a school, in which were taught the truths of primitive revelation, the existence and attributes of one God, the immortality of the Soul, rewards and punishments in a future life, the phenomena of Nature, the arts, the sciences, morality, legislation, philosophy, and philanthropy, and what we now style psychology and metaphysics, with animal magnetism, and the other occult sciences.” - Morals and Dogma, page 372
“Zoroaster and Confucius drew their doctrines from the Mysteries.” - Morals and Dogma, page 373
“Socrates said, in the Phaedo of Plato: “It well appears that those who established the Mysteries, or secret assemblies of the initiated, were no contemptible personages, but men of great genius, who in the early ages strove to teach us, under enigmas, that he who shall go to the invisible regions without being purified, will be precipitated into the abyss; while he who arrives there, purged of the stains of this world, and accomplished in virtue, will be admitted to the dwelling-place of the Deity…The initiated are certain to attain the company of the Gods.” - Morals and Dogma, page 373
“The priesthood possessed one third of Egypt.” - Morals and Dogma, page 374
“It is certain that up to the time of Cicero, the Mysteries still retained much of their original character of sanctity and purity. And at a latter day, as we know, Nero, after committing a horrible crime, did not dare, even in Greece, to aid in the celebration of the Mysteries; nor at a still later day was Constantine, the Christian Emperor, allowed to do so, after his murder of his relatives.” - Morals and Dogma, page 374
“But the Hebrews received the Mysteries from the Egyptians; and of course were familiar with their legend, -- known as it was to those Egyptian Initiates, Joseph and Moses. It was the fable (or rather the truth clothed in allegory and figures) of OSIRIS, the Sun, Source of Light and Principle of Good, and TYPHON, the Principle of Darkness and Evil.” - Morals and Dogma, page 375
“The word Typhon, like Eve, signifies a serpent, and life. By its form the serpent symbolizes life, which circulates through all nature.” - Morals and Dogma, page 376
“Herodotus says, speaking of the reasons why animals were deified in Egypt: “If I were to explain these reasons, I should be led to the disclosure of those holy matters which I particularly wish to avoid, and which, but from necessity, I should not have discussed at all.” - Morals and Dogma, page 380
“In the shades of the sanctuaries, these delights and horrors were exhibited as spectacles, and the Initiates witnessed religious dramas, under the name of initiation and mysteries. Curiosity was excited by secrecy, by the difficulty experienced in obtaining admission, and by the tests to be undergone.” - Morals and Dogma, page 383
“The very word mystery, according to Demetrius Phalereus, was a metaphorical expression that denoted the secret awe which darkness and gloom inspired. The night was almost always the time fixed for their celebration; and they were ordinarily termed nocturnal ceremonies. Initiations into the Mysteries of Samothrace took place at nightl as did those of Isis, of which Apuleius speaks. Euripedes makes Bacchus say, that his Mysteries were celebrated at night, because there is in night something august and imposing.
Nothing excites men’s curiosity so much as Mystery, concealing things which they desire to know; and nothing so much increases curiosity as obstacles that interpose to prevent them from indulging in the gratification of their desires.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 383-384
“In this spirit of mystery they professed to imitate the Deity, who hides Himself from our senses, and conceals from us the springs by which He moves the Universe. They admitted that they concealed the highest truths under the veil of allegory, the more to excite the curiosity of men, and to urge them to investigation. The secrecy in which they buried their Mysteries, had that end. Those to whom they were confided, bound themselves, by the most fearful oats, never to reveal them. They were not allowed even to speak of these important secrets with any others than the initiated; and the penalty of death was pronounced against any one indiscreet enough to reveal them, or found in the Temple without being an Initiate; and any one who had betrayed those secrets, was avoided by all, as excommunicated.” - Morals and Dogma, page 384
“The attraction of Secrecy was enhanced by the difficulty of obtaining admission. Obstacles and suspense redoubled curiosity. Those who aspired to the initiation of the Sun and in the Mysteries of Mithras in Persia, underwent many trials. They commenced by easy tests and arrived by degrees at those that were most cruel, in which the life of the candidate was often endangered. Gregory Nazianzen terms them tortures and mystic punishments. No one can be initiated, says Suidas, until after he has proven, by the most terrible trials, that he possesses a virtuous soul, exempt from the sway of every passion, and as it were impassible. There were twelve principal tests; and some make the number larger.” - Morals and Dogma, page 385
“A year afterward, he was warned to prepare for initiation into the Mysteries of “the Great God, Supreme Parent of all the other Gods, the invincible OSIRIS.” - Morals and Dogma, page 389
“We see this truth glimmering in the doctrine, taught in the Mysteries, that though slight and ordinary offences could be expiated by penance, repentance, acts of beneficence, and prayers, grave crimes were mortal sins, beyond the reach of all such remedies. Eleusis closed her gates against Nero; and the Pagan Priests told Constantine that among all their modes of expiation there was none so potent as could wash from his soul the dark spots left by the murder of his wife, and his multiplied perjuries and assassinations.” - Morals and Dogma, page 397
“Not only the Egyptians, says Diodorus Siculus, but every other people that consecrate this symbol (the Phallus), deem that they thereby do honor to the Active Force of the universal generation of all living things.” - Morals and Dogma, page 402
“In the Mysteries of Isis, the candidate first passed through the dark valley of the shadow of death; then into a place representing the elements or sublunary world, where the two principles clash and contend; and was finally admitted to a luminous region, where the sun, with his most brilliant light, put to rout the shades of night. Then he himself put on the costume of the Sun-God, or the Visible Source f Etherial Light, in whose Mysteries he was initiated; and passed from the empire of darkness to that of light. After having set his feet on the threshold of the palace of Pluto, he ascended to the Empyrean, to the bosom of the Eternal Principle of Light of the Universe, from which all souls and intelligences emanate.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 403-4
“Ezekiel speaks of the festivals of Adonis under the name of those of Thammuz, an Assyrian Deity, whom every year the women mourned, seated at the doors of their dwellings. These Mysteries, like the others, were celebrated in the Spring, at the Vernal Equinox, when he was restored to life; at which time, when they were instituted, the Sun (ADON, Lord, or Master) was in the Sign Taurus, the domicile of Venus. He was represented with horns, and the hymn of Orpheus in his honor styles him “the two-horned God;” as in Argos Bakchos was represented with the feet of a bull.” - Morals and Dogma, page 419
“The sacred gates of the Temple, where the ceremonies of initiation were performed, were opened but once in each year, and no stranger was ever allowed to enter it. Night threw her veil over these august Myteries, which could be revealed to no one. There the sufferings of Bakchos were represented, who, like Osiris, died, descended to hell and rose to life again; and raw flesh was distributed to the Initiates, which each ate, in memory of the death of the Deity, torn in pieces by the Titans.” - Morals and Dogma, page 421 (The heretical Lord Jesus)
“They (The Persians) abominated images, and made the Sun and Fire emblems of the Deity. The Jews borrowed this from them, and represented God as appearing to Abraham in a flame of fire, and to Moses as a fire at Horeb and on Sinai.” - Morals and Dogma, page 424
“Zoroaster, like Moses, claimed to have conversed face to face, as man with man, with the Deity; and to have received from Him a system of pure worship, to be communicated only to the virtuous, and those who would devote themselves to the study of Philosophy. His fame spread over the world, and pupils came to him from every country. Even Pythagoras was his scholar.
After his novitiate, the candidate entered the cavern of initiation, and was received on the point of a sword presented to his naked left breast, by which he was slightly wounded.” - Morals and Dogma, page 424-5
“Then all the incidents of his initiation were explained to him: he was taught that these ceremonies brought him nearer the Deity; and that he should adore the consecrated Fire, the gift of that Deity and His visible residence.” - Morals and Dogma, page 425
XXV. KNIGHT OF THE BRAZEN SERPENT.
“Through these gates souls were supposed to descend to earth and re-ascend to Heaven. One, Macrobius says, in his dream of Scipio, was styled the Gate of Men; and the other, the Gate of the Gods.” - Morals and Dogma, page 438 – Masons assume they will enter the “Gate of the Gods” and avoid torments in Hell.
“David sings: “Blow the trumpet in the New Moon; in the time appointed; on our solemn feast-day; for this is a statute unto Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. This he ordained to Joseph, for a testimony, when he came out of the land of Egypt.” - Morals and Dogma, page 451
“The division of the first Decan of the Virgin, Aben Ezra says, represents a beautiful Virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an infant. In an Arabian MS. In the Royal Library at Paris, is a picture of the Twelve Signs. That of Virgo is a young girl with an infant by her side. Virgo was Isis; and her representation, carrying a child (Horus) in her arms, exhibited in her temple, was accompanied by this inscription: “I AM ALL THAT IS, THAT WAS, AND THAT SHALL Be; and the fruit which I brought forth is the Sun.”
Nine months after the Sun enters Virgo, he reaches the Twins. When Scorpio begins to rise, Orion sets: when Scorpio comes to the meridian, Leo begins to set, Typhon reigns, Osiris is slain, and Isis (the Virgin) his sister and wife, follows him to the tomb, weeping.
The Virgin and Bootes, setting heliacally at the Autumnal Equinox, delivered the world to the wintry constellations, and introduced into it the genius of Evil, represented by Ophiucus, the Serpent.
At the moment of the Winster Solstaice, the Virgin rose heliacally (with the Sun), having the Sun (Horus) in her bosom.” - Morals and Dogma, page 455 – the genius of Evil is this biblical subversion of the story of Our Lady, the Mother of God. In the bible, she is just a “hand-maid”, of the line of David, and her son is not God, is instead the son of the Lord, the talking fire of the initiated Moses.
“Sanchoniathon says that the earliest Phoenicians adored the Sun, whom they deemed sole Lord of the Heavens; and honored him under the name of BEEL-SAMIN, signifying King of Heaven. They raised columns to the elements, fire, and air or wind, and worshipped them; and Sabaeism, or the worship of the Starts, flourished everywhere in Babylonia.” - Morals and Dogma, page 457
“The Magi, like a multitude of ancient nations, worshipped fire, above all the other elements and powers of nature. In India, the Ganges and the Indus were worshipped, and the Sun was the Great Divinity.” - Morals and Dogma, page 459
“The figure of the pyramid and that of the obelisk, resembling the shape of a flame, caused these monuments to be consecrated to the Sun and to Fire. And Timaeus of Locria says: “The equilateral triangle enters into the composition of the pyramid, which has four equal faces and equal angles, and which in this is like fire, the most subtle and mobile of the elements.” They and the obelisks were erected in honor of the Sun, termed in an inscription upon one of the latter, translated by the Egyptian Hermapion, and to be found in Ammianus Marcellinus, “Apollo the strong, Son of God. He who made the world, true Lord of the diadems, who possesses Egypt and fills it with His glory.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 459-60
“There is no more striking proof of the universal adoration paid the stars and constellations, than the arrangement of the Hebrew camp in the Desert, and the allegory in regard to the twelve Tribes of Israel, ascribed in the Hebrew legends to Jacob.” - Morals and Dogma, page 460
“There is an astonishing coincidence between the characteristics assigned by Jacob to his sons, and those of the signs of the Zodiac, or the planets that have their domicile in those signs.” - Morals and Dogma, page 461
“The Lion (Leo) is the device of Judah; and Jacob compares him to that animal, whose constellation in the Heavens is the domicile of the Sun; the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; by whose grip, when that of apprentice and that of fellow-craft,-- of Aquarius at the Winter Solstice and of Cancer at the Vernal Equinox, -- had not succeeded in raising him, Khurum was lifted out of the grave.” - Morals and Dogma, page 461
“There were twelve tribes of Ishmael and twelve disciples of the Hebrew Reformer. The New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse has twelve gates.” - Morals and Dogma, page 462
“In China, astrology taught the mode of governing the State and families. In Arabia it was deemed the mother of the sciences; and old libraries are full of Arabic books on this pretended science. It flourished at Rome. Constantine had his horoscope drawn by the astrologer Valens. It was a science in the middle ages, and even to this day is neither forgotten nor unpractised. Catherine de Medici was fond of it. Louis XIV consulted his horoscope, and the learned Casini commenced his career as an astrologer.” - Morals and Dogma, page 463
“This division is found on the Indian sphere, the Persian, and that Barbaric one which Aben Ezra describes. Each genius of the Decans had a name and special characteristics. They concur and aid in the effects produced by the Sun, Moon, and other planets charged with the administration of the world: and the doctrine in regard to them, secret and august as it was held, was considered of the gravest importance; and its principles, Firmicus says, were not entrusted by the ancients, inspired as they were by the Deity, to any but the Initiates, and to them only with great reserve, and a kind of fear, and when cautiously enveloped with an obscure veil, that they might not come to be known by the profane.” - Morals and Dogma, page 470
“In the hieroglyphic characters, a snake was the letter T or DJ. It occurs many times on the Rosetta stone. The horned serpent was the hieroglyphic for a God.” - Morals and Dogma, page 495
“Among the Egyptians, it was a symbol of Divine Wisdom, when extended at length; and, with its tail in its mouth, of Eternity.
In the ritual of Zoroaster, the Serpent was a symbol of the Universe. In China, the ring between two Serpents was the symbol of the world governed by the power and wisdom of the Creator. The Bacchanals carried serpents in their hands or round their heads.” - Morals and Dogma, page 496
“The snake was the guardian of the Athenian Acropolis. NAKHUSTAN, the brazen serpent of the wilderness, became naturalized among the Hebrews as a token of healing power. “Be ye,” said Christ, (-us : the Biblical, heretical Christ who is of David) “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” - Morals and Dogma, page 497
“The dragon and serpent are the 5th and 6th signs of the Chinese Zodiac; and the Hindus and Chinese believe that, at every eclipse, the sun or moon is seized by a huge serpent or dragon, the serpent Asootec of the Hundus, which enfolds the globe and the constellation Draco; to which also refers “the War in Heaven, when Michael and his Angels fought against the dragon.”” - Morals and Dogma, pages 500-1
“The British God HU was called “The Dragon—Ruler of the World,” and his car was drawn by serpents. His ministers were styled adders. A Druid in a poem of Taliessin says, “I am a Druid, I am an Architect, I am a Prophet, I am a Serpent (Gnadi).” - Morals and Dogma, page 502
“The Blazing Star in our Lodges, we have already said, represents Sirius, Anubis, or Mercury, Guardian and Guide of Souls.” - Morals and Dogma, page 506
“…the Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-Seeing Eye, which to the Ancients was the Sun.” - Morals and Dogma, page 506
“The original revelation died out of men’s memories; they worshipped the Creature instead of the Creator; and holding all earthly things as connected by external links of harmony and sympathy with the heavenly bodies, they united in one view astronomy, astrology, and religion. Long wandering thus in error, they at length ceased to look upon the Stars and external nature as Gods; and by directing their attention to the microcosm or narrower world of self, they again became acquainted with the True Ruler and Guide of the Universe, and used the old fables and superstitions as symbols and allegories, by which to convey and under which to hide the great truths which had faded out of most men’s remembrance.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 508-9
“The Prophet Amos explicitly asserts that the Israelites, in the desert, worshipped, not Jehovah, but Molech, or a Star-God, equivalent to Saturn.” - Morals and Dogma, page 509
“The Seven Spirits which stand before the throne, spoken of by several Jewish writers, and generally presumed to have been immediately derived from the Persian Amshaspands, were ultimately the seven planetary intelligences, the original model of the seven-branched golden candlestick exhibited to Moses on God’s mountain.” - Morals and Dogma, page 510
“The primitive man recognized the Divine Presence under a variety of appearances, without losing his faith in this unity and Supremacy. The invisible God, manifested and on one of His many sides visible, did not cease to be God to him. He recognized Him in the evening breeze of Eden, in the whirlwind of Sinai, in the Stone of Beth-El; and identified Him with the fire or thunder or the immovable rock adored in Ancient Arabia. To him the image of the Deity was reflected in all that was pre-eminent in excellence. He saw Jehovah, like Osiris and Bel, in the Sun as well as in the Stars, which were His children, His eyes, “which run through the whole world, and watch over the Sacred Soil of Palestine, from the year’s commencement to its close.” He was the sacred fire of Mount Sinai, of the burning bush, of the Persians, those Puritans of Paganism.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 513-4
“The Valentinians termed initiation LIGHT. The Initiate, says Psellus, becomes an Epopt, when admitted to see the DIVINE LIGHTS.” - Morals and Dogma, page 521
XXVI. PRINCE OF MERCY, OR SCOTTISH TRINITARIAN.
“Qu.: What is the first great Truth of the Sacred Mysteries?
Ans.: No man hath seen God at any time.”
- Morals and Dogma, page 533 – This is nonsense, Our Lord Jesus Christ is God. The Masonic tactic is to un-Deify Christ by making him a subordinate of Lucifer, the Lord. This is the heresy that condemns the meek.
“And thus, in the bread we eat, and in the wine we drink to-night, may enter into and form part of us the identical particles of matter that once formed parts of the material bodies called Moses, Confucius, Plato, Socrates, or Jesus of Nazareth. In the truest sense, we eat and drink the bodies of the dead; and cannot say that there is a single atom of our blood or body, the ownership of which some other soul might not dispute with us.” - Morals and Dogma, page 539
“To our Jewish Brethren, this supper is symbolical of the Passover: to the Christian Mason, of that eaten by Christ (-us, the heretical Christ of David and of the scribes) and His Disciples, when, celebrating the Passover, He broke bread and gave it to them, saying, “Take! Eat! This is My body:” and giving them the cup, He said, “Drink ye all of it! For this is My blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins:” thus symbolizing the perfect harmony and union between Himself and the faithful; and His death upon the cross for the salvation of man.” - Morals and Dogma, page 540 – This is the Heretical Lutheran Mass, the Novus Ordo, Vatican II creation which celebrates the dinner party of the Pagan’s Jesus, as opposed to the pre-1962 rite which re-enacts the Holy Sacrifice of God.
“In the early days of Christianity, there was an initiation like those of the Pagans. Persons were admitted on special conditions only. To arrive at a complete knowledge of the doctrine, they had to pass three degrees of instruction. The Initiates were consequently divided into three classes; the first, Auditors, the second, Cathechumens, and the third, the Faithful. The Auditors were a sort of novices, who were prepared by certain ceremonies and certain instruction to receive the dogmas of Christianity. A portion of these dogmas was made known to the Catechuments: who after particular purifications, received baptism, or the initiation of the theogenesis (divine generation); but in the grand mysteries of that religion, the incarnation, nativity, passion, and ressurection of Christ, none were initiated but the Faithful. These doctrines, and the celebration of the Holy Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, were kept with profound secrecy. These Mysteries were divided into two parts: the first styled the Mass of the Catechumens; the second, the Mass of the Faithful. The celebration of the Mysteries of Mithras was also styled a mass; and the ceremonies used were the same. There were found all the sacraments of the Catholic Church, even the breath of confirmation. The Priest of Mithras promised the Initiates deliverance from sin, by means of confession and baptism, and a future life of happiness or misery. He celebrated the oblation of bread, image of the resurrection. The baptism of newly-born children, extreme unction, confession of sins, --all belonged to the Mithriac rites. The candidate was purified by a species of baptism, a mark was impressed upon his forehead, he offered bread and water, pronouncing certain mysterious words.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 541-2
“They all claimed to possess a secret doctrine, coming to them directly from Jesus Christ, different from that of the Gospels and Epistles, and superior to those communications, which in their eyes, were merely exoteric. This secret doctrine they did not communicate to every one; and among the extensive sect of the Basilideans hardly one in a thousand knew it, as we learn form Irenaeus. We know the name of only the highest class of their Initiates. They were styled Elect or Elus, and Strangers to the World. They had at least three Degrees—the Material, the Intellectual, and the Spiritual; and the lesser and greater Mysteries; and the number of those who attained the highest Degree was quite small.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 542-3
“In the Hiearchiae, attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, the first Bishop of Athens, the tradition of the sacrament is said to have been divided into three Degrees, or grades, purification, initiation, and accomplishment or perfection; and it mentions also, as part of the ceremony, the bringing to sight.” - Morals and Dogma, page 543
“Ostiarii, or doorkeepers, kept guard, and gave notice of the time of prayer and church-assemblies; and also by private signal, in times of persecution, gave notice to those within, to enable them to avoid danger. The Mysteries were open to the Fideles or Faithful only; and no spectators were allowed at the communion.” - Morals and Dogma, page 544
“Whenever the early Christians happened to be in company with strangers, more properly termed the Profane, they never spoke of their sacraments, but indicated to one another what they meant, by means of symbols and secret watchwords, disguisedly, an as by direct communication of mind with mind, and by enigmas.
Origen, born A.D. 134 or 135, answering Celsus, who had objected that the Christians had a concealed doctrine said: “Inasmuch as the essential and important doctrines and principles of Christianity are openly taught, it is foolish to object that there are other things that are recondite; for this is common to Christian discipline with that of those philosophers in whose teaching some things were exoteric and some esoteric: and it is enough to say that it was so with some of the disciples of Pythagoras.:
The formula which the primitive church pronounced at the moment of celebrating its Mysteries, was this: “Depart, ye Profane! Let the Catechumens, and those who have not been admitted or initiated, go forth.”
Archelaus, Bishop of Cascara in Mesopotamia, who, in the year 278, conducted a controversy with the Manichaeans, said: “These Mysteries the church now communicates to him who has passed through the introductory Degree. They are not explained to the Gentiles at all; nor are they taught openly in the hearing of Catechumens; but much that is spoken is in disguised terms, that the Faithful, who possess the knowledge, may be still more informed, and those who are not acquainted with it, may suffer no disadvantage.”
Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, was born in the year 315, and died in 386. In his Catechesis he says: “The Lord spake in parables to His hearers in general; but to His disciples He explained in private the parables and allegories which He spoke in public. The splendor of glory is for those who are early enlightened: obscurity and darkness are the portion of the unbelievers and ignorant. Just so the church discovers its Mysteries to those who have advanced beyond the class of Catechumens: we employ obscure terms with others.”
St. Basil, the Great Bishop of Caesarea born in the year 326, and dying in the year 376, says: “We receive the dogmas transmitted to us by writing, and those which have descended to us from the Apostles, beneath the mystery of oral tradition: for several things have been handed to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dogmas, should lose a due respect for them. . . . This is what the uninitiated are not permitted to contemplate; and how should it ever be proper to write and circulate among the people an account of them?”
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople, A.D. 379, says: “You have heard as much of the Mystery as we are allowed to speak openly in the ears of all; the rest will be communicated to you in private; and that you must retain within yourself. . . . . Our Mysteries are not to be made known to strangers.”
St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, who was born in 340, and died in 393, says in his work De Mysteriis: “All the Mystery should be kept concealed, guarded by faithful silence, lest it should be inconsiderately divulged to the ears of the Profane. . . . . It is not given to all to contemplate the depths of our Mysteries. . . . .that they may not be seen by those who ought not to behold them; nor received by those who cannot preserve them.” And in another work: “He sins against God, who divulges to the unworthy the Mysteries confided to him. The danger is not merely in violating truth, but in telling truth, if he allow himself to give hints of them to those from whom they ought to be concealed…..Beware of casting pearls before swine!….Every Mystery ought to be kept secret: and, as it were, to be covered over by silence, lest it should rashly be divulged to the ears of the Profane. Take heed that you do not incautiously reveal the Mysteries!”
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who was born in 347, and died in 430, says in one of his discourses: “Having dismissed the Catechumens, we have retained you only to be our hearers; because, besides those things which belong to all Christians in common, we are now to discourse to you of sublime Mysteries, which none are qualified to hear, but those who, by the Master’s favor, are made partakers of them. . . . . To have taught them openly, would have been to betray them.” ” - Morals and Dogma, page 544-6s
“Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, was born in 354, and died in 417. He says: “I wish to speak openly: but I dare not, on account of those who are not initiated. I shall therefore avail myself to disguised terms, discoursing in a shadowy manner. . . . . Where the holy Mysteries are celebrated, we drive away all uninitiated persons, and then close the doors.” He mentions the acclamations of the initiated; “which,” he says, “I here pass over in silence; for it is forbidden to disclose such things to the Profane.” - palladius, in his life of Chrysostom, records, as a great outrage, that, a tumult having been excited against him by his enemies, they forced their way into the penetralia, where the uninitiated beheld what was not proper for them to see; and Chrysostom mentions the same circumstance in his epistle to Pope Innocent.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, who was made Bishop in 412, and died in 444, says in his 7th Book against Julian: “These Mysteries are so profound and so exalted, that they can be comprehended by those only who are enlightened. I shall not, therefore, attempt to speak of what is so admirable in them, lest by discovering them to the uninitiated, I should offend against the injunction not to give what is holy to the impure, nor cast pearls before such as cannot estimate their worth. . . . . I should say much more, if I were not afraid of being heard by those who are uninitiated: because men are apt to deride what they do not understand. And the ignorant, not being aware of the weakness of their minds, condemn what they ought most to venerate.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 546-7
“Minucius Felix, an eminent lawyer of Rome, who lived in 212, and wrote a defence of Christianity, says: “Many of them [the Christians] know each other by tokens and signs (notis et insignibus), and they form a friendship for each other, almost before they become acquainted.” - Morals and Dogma, page 547
“The first three of the Persian Amshaspands were BAHMAN, the Lord of LIGHT; Ardibehest, the Lord of FIRE; and Shariver, the Lord of SPLENDOR. These at once lead us back to the Kabala.” - Morals and Dogma, page 549
“The mass of the Jews, they held, recognized not the angel, by whom, in all the Theophanies of the Old Testament, God revealed Himself; they knew not the Demiurge in his true relation to the hidden Supreme God, who never reveals Himself in the sensible world. They confounded the type and the archetype, the symbol and the idea. They rose no higher than the Demiurge; they took him to be the Supreme God Himself. But the spiritual men among them, on the contrary, clearly perceived, or at least divined, the ideas veiled under Judaism; they rose beyond the Demiurge, to a knowledge of the Supreme God; and are therefore properly His worshippers.” - Morals and Dogma, page 558 – the difference between knowing Lucifer and falling for the Lord/talking fire god heresy that condemns the meek.
“This is the real idea of the Ancient Nations: GOD, the Almighty Father, and Source of All; His THOUGHT, conceiving the whole Universe, and willing its creation: His WORD, uttering that THOUGHT, and thus beoming the Creator or Demiourgos, in whom was Life and Light, and that Light the Life of the Universe.” - Morals and Dogma, page 575
God, the unknown FATHER [Pater Agnostos], known to us only by His Attributes; the ABSOLUTE I AM:..The THOUGHT of God [Ennoia], and the WORD [Logos], Manifestation and expression of the Thought; . . . . Behold THE TRUE MASONIC TRINITY; the UNIVERSAL SOUL, the THOUGHT in the Soul, the WORD, or Thought expressed; the THREE IN ONE, of a Trinitarian Ecossais.” - Morals and Dogma, page 575
XXVII. KNIGHT COMMANDER OF THE TEMPLE.
“To the performance of duties and of acts of heroism like these, you have devoted yourself, my Brother, by becoming a Knight Commander of the Temple…Welcome to the bosom of this Order!” - Morals and Dogma, page 580
XXVIII. KNIGHT OF THE SUN, OR PRINCE ADEPT.
“Perhaps you have supposed that we, like many who have written on these subjects, have intended to represent this worship to you as the most ancient and original worship of the first men that lived. To undeceive you, if such was your conclusion, we have caused the Personifications of the Great Luminary of Heaven, under the names by which he was known to the most ancient nations, to proclaim the old primitive truths that were known to the Fathers of our race, before men came to worship the visible manifestations of the Supreme Power and Magnificence and the Supposed Attributes of the Universal Deity in the Elements and in the glittering armies that Night regularly marshals and arrays upon the blue field of the firmament.” - Morals and Dogma, page 584
“The word Bal or Baal, like the word Adon, signifies Lord and Master. He was also the Supreme Deity of the Moabites, Amonites, and Carthaginians, and of the Sabeasns in general; the Gauls worshipped the Sun under the name of Belin or Belinus; and Bela is found among the Celtic Deities upon the ancient monuments.” - Morals and Dogma, page 591
“To all Masons, the North has immemorially been the place of darkness; and of the great lights of the Lodge, none is in the North.” - Morals and Dogma, page 592
“What wonder that astronomy became to them the most important of sciences; that those who learned it became rulers; and that vast edifices, the Pyramids, the tower or temple of Bel, and other like erections everywhere in the East, were builded for astronomical purposes?” - Morals and Dogma, page 597
“To the mass of Hebrews, as well as to other nations, seem to have come fragments only of the primitive revelation: nor do they seem, until after their captivity among the Persians, to have concerned themselves about metaphysical speculations in regard to the Divine Nature and essence; although it is evident, from the Psalms of David, that a select body among them preserved a knowledge, in regard to the Deity, which was wholly unknown to the mass of the people; and those chosen few were made the medium of transition for certain truths, to later ages.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 616-7
“Herodotus says that the Ancient Pelasgi built no temples and worshipped no idols, and had a sacred name of Deity, which it was not permissible to pronounce.
The Clarian Oracle, which was of unknown antiquity, being asked which of the Deities was named I(AlphaOmega), answered in these remarkable words: “The Initiated are bound to conceal the mysterious secrets. Learn, then, that I(AlphaOmega) is the Great God Supreme, that ruleth over all.”
The Jews consider the True Name of God to be irrecoverably lost by disuse, and regard its pronunciation as one of the Mysteries that will be revealed at the coming of their Messiah. And they attribute its loss to the illegality of applying the Masoretic points to so sacred a Name, by which a knowledge of the proper vowels is forgotten. It is even said, in the Gemara of Abodah Zara, that God permitted a celebrated Hebrew Scholar to be burned by a Roman Emperor, because he had been heard to pronounce the Sacred Name with points.
The Jews feared that the Heathen would get possession of the Name: and therefore, in their copies of the Scriptures, they wrote it in the Samaritan character, instead of the Hebrew or Chaldaic, that the adversary might not make an improper use of it: for they believed it capable of working miracles: and held that the wonders in Egypt were performed by Moses, in virtue of this name being engraved on his rod: and that any person who knew the true pronunciation would be able to do as much as he did.
Josephus says it was unknown until God communicated it to Moses in the wilderness: and that it was lost through the wickedness of man.
The followers of Mahomet have a tradition that there is a secret name of the Deity which possesses wonderful properties; and that the only method of becoming acquainted with it, is by being initiated into the Mysteries of the Ism Abla….
The old Germans adored God with profound reverence, without daring to name Him, or to worship Him in Temples.
The Druids expressed the name of Deity by the letters O.I.W.” - Morals and Dogma, page 621-2
“Vishnu is to judge the world at the last day. It is to be consumed by fire: The Sun and Moon are to lose their light; the Stars to fall; and a New Heaven and Earth to be created.” - Morals and Dogma, page 623
“The Egyptians held that the soul was immortal; and that Osiris was to judge the world.” - Morals and Dogma, page 623
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“Masonry, when properly expounded, is at once the interpretation of the great book of nature, the recital of physical and astronomical phenomena, the purest philosophy, and the place of deposit, where, as in a Treasury, are kept in safety all the great truths of the primitive revelation, that form the basis of all religions.” - Morals and Dogma, page 625
“The Kabalistic doctrine was long the religion of the Sage and the Savant; because, like Freemasonry, it incessantly tends toward spiritual perfection, and the fusion of the creeds and Nationalities of Mankind. In the eyes of the Kabalist, all men are his brothers; and their relative ignorance is, to him, but a reason for instructing them. There were illustrious Kabalists among the Egyptians and Greeks, whose doctrines the Orthodox Church has accepted; and among the Arabs were many, whose wisdom was not slighted by the Mediaeval Church.
The Sages proudly wore the name of Kabalists. The Kabalah embodied a noble philosophy, pure, not mysterious, but symbolic. It taught the doctrine of the Unity of God, the art of knowing and explaining the essence and operations of the Supreme Being, of spiritual powers and natural forces, and of determining their action by symbolic figures; by the arrangement of the alphabet, the combinations of numbers, the inversion of letters in writing and the concealed meanings which they claimed to discover therein. The Kabalah is the key of the occult sciences; and the Gnostics were born of the Kabalists.” - Morals and Dogma, page 625-6
“He (Pythagoras) refused the title of Sage, which means one who knows: He invented, and applied to himself that of Philosopher, signifying one who is fond of or studies things secret and occult. The astronomy which he mysteriously taught, was astrology: his science of numbers was based on Kabalistical principles.” - Morals and Dogma, page 626
“LECTURE OF THE KABALISTS.
Qu.: Why did you seek to be received a Knight of the Kabalah?
Ans.: To know, by means of numbers, the admirable harmony which there is between nature and religion
Qu.: How were you announced?
Ans.: By twelve raps.
Qu.: What is a Kabalist?
Ans.: A man who has learned, by tradition, the Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art.
Qu.: What do you mean by the number 7?
Ans.: The seven sacraments . . . The seven planets.
Qu.: What is the most occult number?
Ans.: 5, because it is inclosed in the center of the series.
Qu.: What is the profoundest meaning of the figure 3?
Ans.: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit*. From the action of these three results the triangle within the square; and from the seven angles, the decade or perfect number.” – *The Masonic Trinity
- Morals and Dogma, pages 626-9 - Abbreviated
“The unit is the symbol of identity, equality, existence, conservation, and general harmony; the Central Fire, the Point within the Circle.” - Morals and Dogma, page 629
“The triple triangle, a figure of five lines uniting in five points, was among the Pythangoreans an emblem of Health.
It is the Pentalpha of Pythagoras, or Pentangle of Solomon; has five lines and five angles; and is, among Masons, the outline or origin of the five-pointed Star, and an emblem of Fellowship.” - Morals and Dogma, page 634
“The hieroglyphical senary (the double equilateral triangle) is the symbol of Deity.” - Morals and Dogma, page 634
“The number 10, or the Denary…was, among the Sages, a sign of concord, love, and peace. To Masons it is a sign of union and good faith; because it is expressed by joining two hands, or the Master’s grip, when the number of fingers gives 10: and it was represented by the Tetractys of Pythagoras.” - Morals and Dogma, page 638
“The cadidate, after passing through the first part of the ceremony, imagines himself a Master; and is surprised to be informed that as yet he is not, and that it is uncertain whether he ever will be. He is told of a difficult and dangerous path yet to be traveled, and is advised that upon that journey it depends whether he will become a Master.” - Morals and Dogma, page 640
“As Entered Apprentices and Fellow-Crafts, Masons are taught to imitate the laudable example of those Masons who labored at the building of King Solomon’s Temple; and to plant firmly and deep in their hearts those foundation-stones of principle, truth, justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, and charity, on which to erect that Christian character which all the storms of misfortune and all the powers and temptations of Hell shall not prevail against; those feelings and noble affections which are the most proper homage that can be paid to the Grand Architect and Great Father of the Universe, and which make the heart a living temple builded to Him: when the unruly passions are made to submit to rule and measurement, and their excesses are struck off with the gavel of self-restraint; and when every action and every principle is accurately corrected and adjusted by the square of wisdom, the level of humility, and the plumb of justice.” – the process of training Luciferians to be upstanding and honorable. - Morals and Dogma, page 641
“The three pillars that support the Lodge are symbols of a Christian’s HOPE in a future state of happiness; FAITH in the promises and the divine character and mission of the Redeemer; and CHARITABLE JUDGMENT of other men.” - Morals and Dogma, page 641
“As the world grows in its development, it necessarily outgrows its ancient ideas of God, which were only temporary and provisional. A man who has a higher conception of God than those about him, and who denies that their conception is God, is very likely to be called an Atheist by men who are really far less believers in a God than he. Thus the Christians, who said the Heathen idols were no Gods, were accounted Atheists by the People, and accordingly put to death; and Jesus of Nazareth was crucified as an unbelieving blasphemer, by the Jews.” - Morals and Dogma, page 643
“The Egyptians consecrated the Phallus in the Mysteries of Osiris and Isis, as we learn from Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus; and the latter assures us that these emblems were not consecrated by the Egyptians alone, but by every people. They certainly were so among the Persians and Assyrians; and they were regarded everywhere as symbolic of the generative and productive powers of all animated beings.” - Morals and Dogma, page 656
“The people of Java, of the Moluccas, of the Gold Coast, the Hottentots, the people of Teneriffe and Madagascar, and the Savage Tribes of America, all worship and strive to avert the anger and propitiate the good-will of the Evil Spirit.” - Morals and Dogma, page 661
“Whether the stars were animated beings, was a question that Christian antiquity did not decide. Many of the Christian doctors believed they were. Saint Augustin hesitates, Saint Jerome doubts, if Solomon did not assign souls to the Stars. Saint Ambrose does not doubt they have souls; and Pamphilus says that many of the Church believe they are reasonable beings, while many think otherwise, but that neither one nor the other opinion is heretical.” - Morals and Dogma, page 671-2
“The simpler, and probably the older, notion, treated the one only God as the Author of all things. “I form the light,” says Jehovah, “and create darkness; I cause prosperity and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.” “All mankind,” says Maximus Tyrius, “are agreed that there exists one only Universal King and Father, and that the many gods are His Children.” - Morals and Dogma, page 687
“The Deity of the Old Testatment is everywhere represented as the direct author of Evil, commissioning evil and lying spirits to men, hardening the heart of Pharaoh, and visiting the iniquity of the individual sinner on the whole people. The rude conception of sternness predominating over mercy in the Deity, can alone account for the human sacrifices, purposed, if not executed, by Abraham and Jephthah.” - Morals and Dogma, page 687
“In the God of Moses, it is jealousy of the infringement of the autocratic power, the check to political treason; and even the penalties denounced for worshipping other gods often seem dictated rather by a jealous regard for His own greatness in Deity, than by the immorality and degraded nature of the worship itself.” - Morals and Dogma, page 688
“The True Word of a Mason is to be found in the concealed and profound meaning of the Ineffable Name of Deity, communicated by God to Moses; and which meaning was long lost by the very precautions taken to conceal it. The true pronunciation of that name was in truth a secret, in which, however, was involved the far more profound secret of its meaning. In that meaning is included all the truth that can be known by us, in regard to the nature of God.” - Morals and Dogma, page 697
“It was a common practise with the Talmudists to conceal secret meanings and sounds of words by transposing the letters.” - Morals and Dogma, page 699
“Diodorus says that the name given by Moses to God was I(Alpha Omega)… Hence the frequent expression: “I am the First, and I am the Last; and besides Me there is no other God. I am (Alpha) and (Omega), the First and the Last. I am (Alpha) and (Omega), the Beginning and the Ending, which IS, and WAS, and IS to come: the Omnipotent.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 700-1 – The God of Moses is the Apocalyptic anti-Christ.
“Yet there is disorder in the world, that seems to impugn the justice and goodness of God.” - Morals and Dogma, page 705
“The title of Saint has commonly been claimed for those whose boast it has been to despise philosophy; yet faith will stumble and sentiment mislead, unless knowledge be present…” - Morals and Dogma, page 710
“Darkness and gloom lie upon the paths of men. They stumble at difficulties, are ensnared by temptations, and perplexed by trouble. They are anxious, and troubled, and fearful. Pain and affliction and sorrow often gather around the steps of their earthly pilgrimage. All this is written indelibly upon the tablets of the human heart. It is not to be erased; but Masonry sees and reads it in a new light. It does not expect these ills and trials and sufferings to be removed from life; but that the great truth will at some time be believed by all men, that they are the means, selected by infinite wisdom, to purify the heart, and to invigorate the soul whose inheritance is immortality, and the world its school.
Masonry propagates no creed except its own most simple and Sublime One; that universal religion, taught by Nature and by Reason. Its Lodges are neither Jewish, Moslem, nor Christian Temples. It reiterates the precepts of morality of all religions. It venerates the character and commends the teachings of the great and good of all ages and of all countries. It extracts the good and not the evil, the truth, and not the error, from all creeds; and acknowledges that there is much which is good and true in all.” - Morals and Dogma, page 718
“To make the Good a consequence, of anything whatever, is to annihilate it. It is the first, or it is nothing. When we ask an honest man why, despite his urgent necessities, he has respected the sanctity of a deposit, he answers, because it was his duty. Asked why it was his duty, he answers, because it was right, was just, was good. Beyond that there is no answer to be made, but there is also no question to be asked. No one permits a duty to be imposed on him without giving himself a reason for it; but when it is admitted that the duty is commanded by justice, the mind is satisfied; for it has arrived at a principle beyond which there is nothing to seek, justice being its own principle. The primary truths include their own reason; and justice, the essential distinction between good and evil, is the first truth of morality.” - Morals and Dogma, page 722
“Upon entering the Order, the Initiate binds to himself every Mason in the world. Once enrolled among the children of Light, every Mason on earth becomes his brother, and owes him the duties, the kindnesses, and the sympathies of a brother. On every one he may call for assistance in need, protection against danger, sympathy in sorrow, attention in sickness, and decent burial after death. There is not a Mason in the world who is not bound to go to his relief, when he is in danger, if there be a greater probability of saving his life than of losing his own. No Mason can wrong him to the value of anything, knowingly, himself, nor suffer it to be done by others, if it be in his power to prevent it. No Mason can speak evil of him, to his face or behind his back. Every Mason must keep his lawful secrets, and aid him in his business, defend his character when unjustly assailed, and protect, counsel, and assist his widow and his orphans. What so many thousands owe to him, he owes to each of them. He has solemnly bound himself to be ever ready to discharge this sacred debt.” - Morals and Dogma, page 726
“The Kabalistic book of the Apocalypse is represented as closed with Seven Seals. In it we find the Seven genii of the Ancient Mythologies; and the doctrine concealed under its emblems is the pure Kabala, already lost by the Pharisees at the advent of the Saviour. The pictures that follow in this wondrous epic are so many pantacles, of which the numbers 3, 4. 7. and 12 are the keys.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 727-8
“The occult philosophy seems to have been the nurse or the godmother of all religions, the secret lever of all the intellectual forces, the key of all divine obscurities, and the absolute Queen of Society, in the ages when it was exclusively reserved for the education of the Priests and Kings.” - Morals and Dogma, page 729
“At the bottom of magic, nevertheless, was science, as at the bottom of Christianity there was love; and in the Evangelic Symbols we see the incarnate WORD adored in its infancy by three magi whom a star guides (the ternary and the sign of the microcosm), and receiving from them gold, frankeincense, and myrrh; another mysterious ternary, under the emblem whereof are allegorically contained the highest secrets of the Kabala.” - Morals and Dogma, page 730
“Among the sacred books of the Christians are two works which the infallible church does not pretend to understand, and never attempts to explain, - the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse; two cabalistic clavicules, reserved, no doubt, in Heaven, for the exposition of the Magian kings; closed with Seven seals for all faithful believers; and perfectly clear to the unbeliever initiated in the occult sciences.
For Christians, and in their opinion, the scientific and magical clavicules of Solomon are lost. Nevertheless, it is certain that, in the domain of intelligence governed by the WORD, nothing that is written is lost. Only those things which men cease to understand no longer exist for them, at least as WORD; then they enter into the domain of enigmas and mystery.
The mysterious founder of the Christian Church was saluted in His cradle by the three Magi, that is to say by the hieratic ambassadors from the three parts of the know world, and from the three analogical worlds of the occult philosophy.” - Morals and Dogma, page 731 - the Kabalistic heretical Jesus.
“To this epoch of ardent abstractions and impassioned logomachies belongs the philosophical reign of Julia, an illuminatus and Initiate of the first order, who believed in the unity of God and the universal Dogma of the Trinity, and regretted the loss of nothing of the old world but its magnificent symbols and too graceful images. He was no Pagan, but a Gnostic, infected with the allegories of Grecian polytheism, and whose misfortune it was to find the name of Jesus Christ less sonorous than that of Orpheus.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 731-2
“Love is one of the mythological images of the grand secret and the grand agent, because it expresses at once an action and a passion, a void and a plenitude, an arrow and a wound. The Initiates ought to understand this, and, lest the profane should overhear, Masonry never says too much.” - Morals and Dogma, page 732
“This agent, partially revealed by the blind guesses of the disciples of Mesmer, is preceisely what the Adepts of the middle ages called the elementary matter of the great work. The Gnostics held that it composed the igneous body of the Holy Spirit; and it was adored in the secret rites of the Sabbat or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or the hermaphroditic goat of Mendes.” - Morals and Dogma, page 734 - This is specifically why the Catholic baptism rite change from Holy Ghost to Holy Spirit is the tragic mark of the beast, a curse.
“There is a Life-Principle of the world, a universal agent, wherein are two natures and a double current, of love and wrath. This ambient fluid penetrates everything. It is a ray detached from the glory of the Sun, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the central attraction. It is the body of the Holy Spirit, the univesal Agent, the Serpent devouring his own tail. With this electro-magnetic ether, this vital and luminous caloric, the ancients and the alchemists were familiar. Of this agent, that phase of modern ignorance termed physical science talks incoherently, knowing naught of it save its effects; and theology might apply to it all its pretended definitions of spirit. Quiescent, it is appreciable by no human sense; disturbed or in movement, none can explain its mode of action; and to term it a “fluid,” and speak of its “currents,” is but to veil a profound ignorance under a cloud of words.
Force attracts force, life attracts life, health attracts health. It is a law of nature.” - Morals and Dogma, page 734 - This is the indellible mark on the character spoken about in the Canons on baptism from Trent. The Holy Ghost is required for initiation into Catholicsm. The Holy Spirit is the initiation into working for and believing in the Kabalist anti-Christ spoken of in the Gnostic gospels and especially Apocalypse.
“We each have some dominant defect, by which the enemy can grasp us. In some it is vanity, in others indolence, in most egotism. Let a cunning and evil spirit possess himself of this, and you are lost. Then you become, not foolish, nor an idiot, but positively a lunatic, the slave of an impulse from without. You have an instinctive horror for everything that could restore you to reason, and will not even listen to representations that contravene your insanity.” - Morals and Dogma, page 735 - The ex-wife diagnosis, the physical qualities of one baptised with the mark.
“NECESSITY, LIBERTY, and REASON! Behold the great and Supreme Triangle of the Kabalists!
FATALITY, WILL, and POWER! Such is the magical ternary which, in human things, corresponds with the Divine Triangle.” - Morals and Dogma, page 738
“Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines; and may in time come to understand the Hermetic philosophers, the Alchemists, all the Anti-papal Thinkers of the Middle Ages, and Emanuel Swedenborg.” - Morals and Dogma, page 741
“The theological idea, or rather non-idea, of the Deity, is not shared or appreciated by the unlearned. To them, God will always be The Father Who is in Heaven, a Monarch on His Throne, a Being with human feelings and human sympathies, angry at their misdeeds, lenient if they repent, accessible to their supplications. It is the Humanity, far more than the Divinity, of Christ, that makes the mass of Christians worship Him, far more than they do the Father.
”The Light of the Substance of The Infinite,” is the Kabalistic expression. Christ was, according to Saint John, “the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world”; and “that Light was the life of men.” “The Light shone in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” - Morals and Dogma, page 743 - The biblical - fatal error explanation of Christ being the Son of the “Monarch,” when in reality HE is GOD.
“All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah and return to it: everything scientific and grand in the religious dreams of all the illuminati, Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Saint Martin, and others, is borrowed from the Kabalah; all the Masonic associations owe it to their Secrets and their Symbols.” - Morals and Dogma, page 744
“The Bible, with all the allegories it contains, expresses, in an incomplete and veiled manner only, the religious science of the Hebrews. The doctrine of Moses and the Prophets, identical at bottom with that of the ancient Egyptians, also had its outward meaning and its veils. The Hebrew books were written only to recall to memory the traditions; and they were written in Symbols unintelligible to the Profane. The Pentateuch and the prophetic poems were merely elementary books of doctrine, morals, or liturgy; and the true secret and traditional philosophy was only written afterward, under veils still less transparent. Thus was a second Bible born, unknown to, or rather uncomprehended by, the Christians; a collection, they say, of monstrous absurdities; a monument, the adept says, wherein is everything that the genius of philosophy and that of religion have ever formed or imagined of the sublime; a treasure surrounded by thorns; a diamond concealed in a rough dark stone.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 744-5
“The Absolute Deity, with the Kabalists, has no name. The terms applied to Him are (AOR PASOT), the Most Simple [or Pure] Light, “called (AYEN SOPH), or INFINITE, before any Emanation. For then there was no space or vacant place, but all was infinite Light.”” - Morals and Dogma, page 745
“Woe unto him who makes God to be like unto any mode or attribute whatever, even were it to one of His own; and still more if he make Him like unto the Sons of Men, whose elements are earthly, and so are consumed and perish!” - Morals and Dogma, page 752
“The human mind has never struggled harder to understand and explain to itself the process of creation, and of Divine manifestation, and at the same time to conceal its thoughts from all but the initiated, than in the Kabalah. Hence, much of it seems at first like jargon.” - Morals and Dogma, page 758
“The two columns, Boaz and Jachin, explain in the Kabalah all the mysteries of natural, political, and religious antagonism.
Woman is man's creation; and universal creation is the female of the First Principle.” - Morals and Dogma, page 772
“Creation is the habitation of the Creator-Word. To create, the Generative Power and Productive Capacity must unite, the Binary become Unity again by the conjunction. The WORD is the First-BEGOTTEN, not the first created Son of God.
SANCTA SANCTIS, we repeat again; the Holy things to the Holy, and to him who is so, the mysteries of the Kabalah will be holy. Seek and ye shall find, say the Scriptures: knock and it shall be opened unto you. If you desire to find and to gain admission to the Sanctuary, we have said enough to show you the way. If you do not, it is useless for us to say more, as it has been useless to say so much.
The Hermetic philosophers also drew their doctrines from the Kabalah; and more particularly from the Treatise Beth Alohim or Domus Dei, known as the Pneumatica Kabalistica, of Rabbi Abraham Cohen Irira, and the Treatise De Revolutionibus Animarum of Rabbi Jitz-chak Lorja.
This philosophy was concealed by the Alchemists under their Symbols, and in the jargon of a rude Chemistry, - a jargon incomprehensible and absurd except to the Initiates; but the key to which is within your reach; and the philosophy, it may be, worth studying. The labors of the human intellect are always interesting and instructive.” - Morals and Dogma, page 772
“Like all the Mysteries of Magism, the Secrets of “the Great Work” have a threefold signification: they are religious, philosophical, and natural.” “
- Morals and Dogma, page 773
“The Ancients adored the Sun, under the form of a black Stone, called Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. The faithful are promised, in the Apocalypse, a white Stone.” - Morals and Dogma, page 775
“There is but a single important operation in the work; this consists in Sublimation, which is nothing else, according to Geber than the elevation of dry matter, by means of fire, with adhesion to its proper vessel.
He who desires to attain to the understanding of the Grand Word and the possession of the Great Secret, ought carefully to read the Hermetic philosophers, and will undoubtedly attain initiation, as others have done; but he must take, for the key of their allegories, the single dogma of Hermes, contained in his table of Emerald, and follow, to class his acquisitions of knowledge and direct the operation, the order indicated in the Kabalistic alphabet of the Tarot.” - Morals and Dogma, page 777
“Hieroglyphically to express this law of prudence, they gave their Mercury, personified in Egypt as Hermanubis, a dog's head; and to their Sulphur, represented by the Baphomet of the Temple. that goat's head which brought into such disrepute the occult Mediaeval associations.” - Morals and Dogma, page 779
“The Ritual of the Degree of Kabalistic and Hermetic Rose has these passages:
”The true Philosophy, known and practised by Solomon, is the basis on which Masonry is founded.
”Our Ancient Masons have concealed from us the most important point of this Divine Art, under hieroglyphical characters, which are but enigmas and parables, to all the Senseless, the Wicked, and the Ambitious.
He will be supremely fortunate, who shall, by arduous laabor, discover this sacred place of deposite, wherein all naked the sublime Truth is hidden; for he may be assured that he has found the True Light, the True Felicity, the True Heavenly Good. Then may it truly be said that he is one of the True Elect; for it is the only real and most Sublime Sciencce of all those to which a mortal can aspire; his days will be prolonged, and his soul freed of all vices and corruption; into which” (it is added, to mislead, as if from fear too much would be disclosed), “the human race is often led by indigence.”” - Morals and Dogma, page 785
“Few are capable of engaging in this great work. Only the true Free-Masons may of right aspire to it; and even of them, very few are worthy to attain it, because most of them are ignorant of the Clavicules and their contents, and of the Pantacle of Solomon, which teaches how to labor at the great work.” - Morals and Dogma, page 788-9
“If you would read them with pleasure and understandingly, you must first understand them allegorically in their entirety and then descend from allegories to realities by way of the correspondences or analogies indicated in the single dogma:
”What is above is like what is below; and what is below is like what is above.”” - Morals and Dogma, page 790
“This instrument, complete as the world, and accurate as the mathematics themselves, is designated by the Sages under the emblem of the Pentagram or Star with five points, the absolute sign of human intelligence.” - Morals and Dogma, page 790
“As all the great Mysteries of God and the Universe are thus hidden in the Ternary, it everywhere appears in Masonry and in the Hermetic Philosophy under its mask of Alchemy. It even appears where Masons do not suspect it; to teach the doctrine of the equilibrium of Contraries, and the resultant Harmony.
The double triangle of Solomon is explained by Saint John in a remarkable manner: There are, he says, three witnesses in Heaven, - the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and three witnesses on earth, - the breath, water, and blood. He thus agrees with the Masters of the Hermetic Philosophy, who give to their Sulphur the name of Ether, to their Mercury the name of philosophical water, to their Salt that of blood of the dragon, or menstruum of the earth. The blood, or Salt, corresponds by opposition with the Father; and the breath, with the Holy Spirit. But the things of High Symbolism can be well understood only by the true children of Science.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 791-2
“If you would understand the true secrets of Alchemy, you must study the works of the Masters with patience and assiduity. Every word is often an enigma; and to him who reads in haste, the whole will seem absurd. Even when they seem to teach that the Great Work is the purification of the Soul, and so to deal only with morals, they most conceal their meaning, and deceive all but the Initiates.” - Morals and Dogma, page 792
XXIX. GRAND SCOTTISH KNIGHT OF ST. ANDREW.
“Every cross of Knighthood is a symbol of the nine qualities of a Knight of St. Andrew of Scotland; for every order of chivalry required of its votaries the same virtues and the same excellencies.
Humility, Patience, and Self-denial are the three essential qualities of a Knight of St. Andrew of Scotland. The Cross, sanctified by the blood of the holy ones who have died upon it; the Cross, which Jesus of Nazareth bore, fainting, along the streets of Jerusalem and up to Calvary, upon which He cried, “Not My will, O Father! but Thine be done,” is an unmistakable and eloquent symbol of these three virtues. He suffered upon it, because He consorted with and taught the poor and lowly, and found His disciples among the fisherman of Galilee and the despised publicans. His life was one of Humility, Patience, and Self-denial.
The Hospitallers and Templars took upon themselves vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. The Lamb, which became the device of the Seal of the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiery of the Temple of Solomon, conveyed the same lessons of humility and self-denial as the original device of the two Knights riding a single horse.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 801-2
“It is quite true that Government tends always to become a conspiracy against liberty; or, where votes give place, to fall habitually into such hands that little which is noble or chivalric is found among those who rule and lead the people. It is true that men, in this present age, become distinguished for other things, and may have name and fame, and flatterers and lacqueys, and oblation of flattery, who would, in a knightly age, have been despised for the want in them of all true gentility and courage; and that such men are as likely as any to be voted for by the multitude, who rarely love or discern or receive truth; who run after fortune, hating what is oppressed, and ready to worship the prosperous; who love accusation and hate apologies; and who are always glad to hear and ready to believe evil of those who care not for their favor and seek not their applause.” - Morals and Dogma, page 805
XXX. KNIGHT KADOSH.
“The best friends of Masonry in America were the Anti-Masons of 1826, and at the same time they were its worst enemies. Men are but the automata of Providence, and it uses the demagogue, the fanatic, and the knave, a common trinity in Republics, as its tools and instruments to effect that of which they do not dream, and which they imagine themselves commissioned to prevent.
The Anti-Masons, traitors and perjurors some, and some mere political knaves, purified Masonry by persecution, and so proved to be its benefactors; for that which is persectued, grows.” - Morals and Dogma, page 814
“Now, from the tomb in which after his murders he rotted, Clement the Fifth howls against the successors of his victims, in the Allocution of Pio Nono against the Free-Masons. The ghosts of the dead Templars haunt the Vatican and disturb the slumbers of the paralyzed Papacy, which dreading the dead, shrieks out its excommunications and impotent anathemas against the living. It is a declaration of was, and was needed o arouse apathy and inertness to action.
An enemy of the Templars shall tell us the secret of this Papal hostility against an Order that has existed for centuries in despite of its anathemas, and has its Sanctuaries and Asyla even in Rome.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 814-5
“”This idea presided at the foundation of the great religious orders, so often at war with the secular authorities, eccesiastical or civil. Its realization was also the dream of the dissident sects of Gnostics or Illuminati who pretended to connect their faith with the primitive tradition of the Christianity of Saint John. It at length became a menace for the Church and Society, when a rich and dissolute Order, initiated in the mysterious doctrines of the Kabalah, seemed disposed to turn against legitimate authority the conservative principle of Hierarch, and threatened the entire world with an immense revolution.
”The Templars, whose history is so imperfectly known, were those terrible conspirators. In 1118, nine Knights Crusaders in the East, among whom were Geoffroi de Saint-Omer and Hugues de Payens, consecrated themselves to religion, and took an oath between the hands of the Patriarch of Constantinople, a See always secretly or openly hostile to that of Rome from the time of Photius. The avowed object of the Templars was to protect the Christians who came to visit the Holy Places: their secret object was the re-building of the Temple of Solomon on the model prophesied by Ezekiel.
”This re-building, formally predicted by the Judaizing Mystics of the earlier ages, had become the secret dream of the Patriarchs of the Orient. The Temple of Solomon, re-built and consecrated to the Catholic worship would become, in effect, the Metropolis of the Universe; the East would prevail over the West, and the Patriarchs of Constantinople would possess themselves of the Papal power.
”The Templars, or Poor Fellow-Soldiery of the Holy House of the Temple intended to be re-built, took as their models, in the Bible, the Warrior-Masons of Zorobabel, who worked, holding the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. Therefore it was that the Sword and the Trowel were the insignia of the Templars, who subsequently, as will be seen, concealed themselves under the name of Brethren Masons. [This name, Freres Macons in the French, adopted by way of secret reference to the Builders of the Second Temple, was corrupted in English into Free-Masons, as Phythagore de Crotone was into Peter Gower of Groton in England. Khairum or Khur-um, )a name mis-rendered into Hiram) from an artificer in brass and other metals, became the Chief Builder of the Haikal Kadosh, the Holy House, of the Temple...and the words Bonai and Banaim yet appear in the Masonic Degrees, meaning Builder and Builders.]”” - Morals and Dogma, pages 815-6
“”Thus the Order of Knights of the Temple was at its very origin devoted to the cause of opposition to the tiara of Rome and the crowns of Kings, and the Apostoloate of Kabalistic Gnosticism was vested in its cheifs. For Saint John himself was the Father of the Gnostics, and the current translation of his polemic against the heretical of his Sect and the pagans who denied that Christ was the Wrod, is throughout a misrepresentation, or misunderstanding at least, of the whole Spirit of that Evangel.
”The tendencies and tenets of the Order were enveloped in profound mystery, and it externally professed the most perfect orthodoxy. The Chiefs alone knew the aim of the Order; the Subalterns followed them without distrust.
”To acquire influence and wealth, then to intrigue, and at need to fight, to establish the Johannite or Gnostic and Kabalistic dogma, were the object and means proposed to the initiated Brethren. The Papacy and the rival monarchies, they said to them, are sold and bought in these days, become corrupt, and to-morrow, perhaps, will destroy each other.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 816-7
“The Templars, like all other Secret Orders and Associations, had two doctrines, one concealed and reserved for the Masters, which was Johannism: the other public, which was the Roman Catholic. Thus they deceived the adversaries whom they sought to supplant. Hence Free-Masonry, vulgarly imagined to have begun with the Dionysian Architects or the German Stone-workers, adopted Saint John the Evangelist as one of its patrons, associating with him, in order not to arouse the suspicions of Rome, Saint John the Baptist, and thus coverty proclaiming itself the child of the Kabalah and Essenism together.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 817-8
“For the Johannism of the Adepts was the Kabalah of the earlier Gnostics, degenerating afterward into those heretical forms which Gnosticism developed...” - Morals and Dogma, page 818
“What the Chiefs of the Order really believed and taught, is indicated to the Adepts by the hints contained in the high Degrees of Free-Masonry, and by the symbols which only the Adepts understand.” - Morals and Dogma, page 819
“[The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands. Their true explication is reserved for the Adepts, the Princes of Masonry. The whole body of the Royal and Sacerdotal Art was hidden so carefully, centuries since, in the High Degrees, as that it is even yet impossible to solve many of the enigmas which they contain. It is well enough for the mass of those called Masons, to imagine that all is contained in the Blue Degrees; and whoso attempts to undeceive them will labor in vain, and without any true reward violate his obligations as an Adept. Masonry is the veritable Sphinx, buried to the head in the sands heaped round it by the ages.] - Morals and Dogma, page 819
“The Templars were unintelligent and therefore unsuccessful Jesuits.” - Morals and Dogma, page 819
“The Templars were gravely accused of spitting upon Christ and denying God at their receptions, of gross obscenities, conversations with female devils, and the worship of a monstrous idol.
”The end of the drama is well known, and how Jacques de Molai and his fellows perished in the flames. But before his execution, the Chief of the doomed Order organized and instituted what afterward came to be called the Occult, Hermetic, or Scottish Masonry.” - Morals and Dogma, page 820
“”The Successors of the Ancient Adepts Rose-Croix, abandoning by degrees the austere and hierarchical Science of their Ancestors an initiation, became a Mystic Sect, united with many of the Templars, the dogmas of the two intermingling, and believed themselves to be the sole depositaries of the secrets of the Gospel of St. John, seeing in its recitals an allegorical series of rites proper to complete the initiation.
”The Initiates, in fact, thought in the eighteenth century that their time had arrived, some to found a new Hierarchy, others to overturn all authority, and press down all the summits of the Social Order under under the level of Equality.
The mystical meanings of the Rose as a Symbol are to be looked for in the Kabalistic Commentaries on the Canticles.” - Morals and Dogma, page 821
“The Epic of Dante is Johannite and Gnostic, an audacious application, like that of the Apocalypse, of the figures and numbers of the Kabalah to the Christian dogmas, and a secret negation of every thing absolute in these dogmas.” - Morals and Dogma, page 822
“He escapes from that gulf of Hell over the gate of which the sentence of despair was writen, by reversing the positions of his head and feet, that is to say, by accepting the direct opposite of the Catholic dogma; and then he reascends to the light, by using the Devil himself as a monstrous ladder...His Hell is but a negative Purgatory. His Heaven is composed of a series of Kabalistic circles, divided by a cross, like the Pantacle of Ezekiel.” - Morals and Dogma, page 822
“The Templars compromitted the King; they saved him from the rage of the People, to exasperate that rage and bring on the catastrophe prepared for centuries; it was a scaffold that the vengeance of the Templars demanded. The secret movers of the French Revolution had sworn to overturn the Throne and the Altar upon the Tomb of Jacques de Molai. When Louis XVI was executed, half the work was done; and thenceforward the Army of the Temple was to direct all its efforts against the Pope.
Jacques de Molai and his companions were perhaps martyrs, but their avengers dishonored their memory. Royalty was regenerated on the scaffold of Louis XVI, the Church triumphed in the captivity of Pius VI, carried a prisoner to Valence, and dying of fatigue and sorrow, but the successors of the Ancient Knights of the Temple perished, overwhelmed in their fatal victory.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 823-4
XXXI. GRAND INSPECTOR INQUISITOR COMMANDER. [Inspector Inquisitor.]
“The Holy Bible will remind you of your obligation; and that as you judge here below, so you will be yourself judged hereafter, by One who has not to submit, like an earthly judge, to the sad necessity of inferring the motives, intentions, and purposes of men [of which all crime essentially consists] from the uncertain and often unsafe testimony of their acts and words; as men in thick darkness grope their way, with the hands outstretched before them: but before Whom every thought, feeling, impulse, and intention of every soul that now is, or ever was, or ever will be on earth, is, and ever will be through the whole infinite duration of eternity, present and visible.” - Morals and Dogma, page 825
“The peculiar and principal symbol of this Degree is the Tetractys of Pythagoras, suspended in the East, where ordinarily the sacred word or letter glitters, like it, representing the Deity. Its nine external points form the triangle, the chief symbol in Masonry, with many of the meanings of which you are familiar.” - Morals and Dogma, page 826
“The Hexagon itself faintly images to us a cube, not visible at the first glance, and therefore the fit emblem of that faith in things invisible, most essential to salvation.” - Morals and Dogma, page 827
“Remember also, my Brother, that you have other duties to perform than those of a judge. You are to inquire into and scrutinize carefully the work of the subordinate Bodies in Masonry. You are to see that recipients of the higher Degrees are not necessarily multiplied; that improper persons are carefully excluded from membership, and that in their life and conversation Masons bear testimony to the excellence of our doctrines and the incalculable value of the institution itself.” - Morals and Dogma, page 827
.”..it is time for you to set in order your own temple, or else you wear in vain the name and insignia of a Mason, while yet uninvested with the Masonic nature.” - Morals and Dogma, page 827
“The ancients said that the child was punished for the sins of its father. We say that this its deformity or disease is the consequence of its father's vices; but so far as concerns the question of justice or injustice, that is merely the change of a word.” - Morals and Dogma, page830
.”..we revolt against the law by which the crooked limbs and diseased organism of the child are the fruits of the father's vices; we even think that a God Omnipotent and Omniscient out to have permitted no pain, no poverty, no servitude; our ideal of justice is more lofty than the actualities of God.” - Morals and Dogma, page 832
XXXII. SUBLIME PRINCE OF THE ROYAL SECRET. [Master of Royal Secret.]
“The Occult Science of the Ancient Magi was concealed under the shadows of the Ancient Mysteries: it was imperfectly revealed or rather disfigured by the Gnostics: it is guessed at under the obscurities that cover the pretended crimes of the Templars; and it is found enveloped in enigmas that seem impenetrable, in the Rites of the Highest Masonry.
Magism was the Science of Abraham and Orpheus, of Confucius and Zoroaster. It was the dogmas of this Science that were engraven on the tables of stone by Hanoch and Trismegistus. Moses purified and re-veiled them, for that is the meaning of the word reveal. He covered them with a new veil, when he made of the Holy Kabalahh the exclusive heritage of the people of Israel, and the inviolable Secret of its priests.” - Morals and Dogma, page 839
“It was the remembrance of this scientific and religious Absolute, of this doctrine that is summed up in a word, of this Word, in fine, alternately lost and found again, that was transmitted to the Elect of all the Ancient Initiations: it was the same remembrance, preserved, or perhaps profaned in the celebrated Order of the Templars, that became for all the secret associations, of the Rose-Croix, of the Illuminati, and of the Hermetic Freemasons, the reason of their strange rites, of their signs more or less conventional, and, above all, of their mutual devotedness and of their power.” - Morals and Dogma, page 840
“The primary tradition of the single revelation has been preserved under the name of the “Kabalah,” by the Priesthood of Israel. The Kabalistic doctrine, which was also the dogma of the Magi and of Hermes, is contained in the Sepher Yetsairah, the Sohar, and the Talmud. According to that doctrine, the Absolute is the Being, in which The Word Is, the Word that is the utterance and expression of being and life.” - Morals and Dogma, page 841
“Magic is the science of the Ancient Magi: and the Christian religion, which has imposed silence on the lying oracles, and put an end to the prestiges of the false Gods, itself reveres those Magi who came from the East, guided by a Star, to adore the Saviour of the world in His cradle.
Tradition also gives these Magi the title of “Kings;” because initiation into Magism constitutes a genuine royalty; and because the grand art of the Magi is styled by all the Adepts “The Royal Art,” or the Holy Realm or Empire, Sanctum Regnum.
The Star which guided them is that same Blazing Star, the image whereof we find in all initiations. To the Alchemists it is the sign of the Quintessence; to the Magists, the Grand Arcanum; to the Kabalists, the Sacred Pentagram. The study of this Pentagram could not but lead the Magi to the knowledge of the New Name which was about to raise itself above all names, and cause all creatures capable of adoration to bend the knee.” - Morals and Dogma, pages 841-2
“The Columns of Seth, Enoch Solomon, and Hercules have symbolized in the Magian traditions this universal law of the Equilibrium; and the Science of the Equilibrium or balancing of Forces had led the Initiates to that of the universal gravitation around the centres of Life, Heat, and Light.” - Morals and Dogma, page 843
“The WORD is the First and Only-begotten of the Father; and the awe with which the Highest Mysteries were regarded has imposed silence in respect to the Nature of the Holy Spirit. The Word is Light, and the Life of Humanity.
It is for the Adepts to understand the meaning of the Symbols.” - Morals and Dogma, page 849
“Every Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, from the first to the thirty-second, teaches by its ceremonial as well as by its instruction, that the noblest purpose of life and the highest duty of a man are to strive incessantly and vigorously to win the mastery of everything, of that which in him is spiritual and divine, over that which is material and sensual; so that in him also, as in the Universe which God governs, Harmony and Beauty may be the result of a just equilibrium.” - Morals and Dogma, page 855
“Such, my Brother, is the TRUE WORD of a Master Mason; such the true ROYAL SECRET, which makes possible, and shall at length make real, the HOLY EMPIRE of true Masonic Brotherhood.
GLORIA DEI EST CELARE VERBUM. AMEN.” - Morals and Dogma, page 861
The secret of the 33rd Degree is not mentioned here, but it is more than likely that this is the secret:
“The Apoocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and prophetic Summary of all the occult figures, divides its images into three Septenaries, after each of which there is silence in Heaven. There are Seven Seals to be opened, that its to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome, Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty.
The Apocalypse is, to those who recieve the nineteenth Degree, the Apotheosis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. (true Catholicism) LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!” - Morals and Dogma, pages 320-1
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