Originally posted by davidg
He was a Confederate general in the civil war on the Confederate side so even though he was a brother we have to recognize he had an axe to
grind.
I'm not quite sure what you meant by this. My great-great grandfather was a Confederate officer, and I am a member of the Sons of Confederate
Veterans. What sort of "axe to grind" do you believe that Pike had? Pike says nothing in his book explicitly concerning the War Between The States
except on p. 298:
The roar and the shriekings of Civil War are all around us: the land is pandemonium: man is again a Savage. The great armies roll along their
hideous waves. and leave behind them smoking and depopulated deserts. The pillager is in every house, plucking even the morsel of bread of bread from
the lips of the starving child. Gray hairs are dabbled in blood, and innocent girlhood shrieks in vain to Lust for mercy. Laws, Courts, Constitutions,
Christianity, Mercy, Pity, disappear. God seems to have abdicated, and Moloch to reign in His stead; while Press and Pulpit alike exult at universal
murder, and urge the extermination of the Conquered, by the sword and the flaming torch; and to plunder and murder entitles the human beasts of prey
to the thanks of Christian Senates. ("Morals and Dogma", p. 298).
I do not see this as an axe to grind at all, but the simple record of what actually was occuring. Pike further writes:
Masonry is the great Peace Society of the world...War comes with its bloody hand into our very dwellings. It takes from ten thousand homes those
who lived there in peace and comfort, held by the tender ties of family and kindred. It drags them away, to die untended, of fever or exposure, in
infectious climes; or to be hacked, torn, and mangled in the fierce fight; to fall on the gory field, to rise no more, or to be borne away in awful
agony to noisome and horrid hospitals...There is a skeleton in every house, a vacant chair at every table...The country is demoralized. The national
mind is brought down, from the nobler interchange of kind offices with another people, to wrath and revenge, and base pride, and the habit of
measuring brute strength, in battle.
Pike himself had served as a Captain in the US Army in the Mexican War, and a Confederate General in the Civil War. Knowing well the horrors of war
firsthand, he continuously warns against them in his writings. Instead of being an axe to grind, it seems to me to be wise advice.
You'll notice the nasty comments on the York Rite. Unless I'm mistaken the York Rite was the more popular of the Concordant bodies in his
era, and it was only later (partly due to his influence) that the Scottish Rite grew in popularity.
When Pike, Mackey, and other writers of their era speak of "York Rite", they are referring to the Blue Lodge only. At that time, the Chapter,
Council, and Commandery were known as the American Rite. Pike himself belonged to all bodies, was a Past Master in his Lodge, had served as Grand High
Priest of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Arkansas, and was a founding member of the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar of the United
States. Pike's criticism of the York Rite was not the Rite itself, but what he perceived as inaccurate explanations of it. In his "Legenda", he
wrote that it is incorrect for some to suggest that he undervalued Blue Masonry because of what he wrote in M&D; in fact, says Pike, if he did
anything, it was actually that he
overvalued it. It was the commonplace lectures of those degrees that he found unworthy of the symbolism.
His writing style (as you have found I'm sure) is difficult by modern standards.
I suppose this just comes down to personal opinion, and I would certainly agree that Pike's writings require much more thought than modern "pop
history" books. But, at least to me, that's the whole point. And Pike is much less difficult than reading Kant or Hegel, both of which are required
for freshman college students taking philosophy.
It is flamboyant but at the same time (I found it) tedious. I found his rhetoric to be terrific but with no evidence of research or
footnotes or bibliographies I'd hardly consider it anything but his own personal philosophy.
Perhaps, but we should keep in mind what Morals and Dogma actually is. It wasn't meant to be just another Masonic book, with footnotes and a
bibliography. The 32 chapters are actually the Lectures for the degrees of the Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction. Likewise, the York Rite Lectures are
also lacking in footnotes and bibliographies.
Axe Man, everyone does seem to go after the bad news as opposed to the good. Its like everyone wants to see where the fire truck went. Long as
everything is running smooth nobody gives a hoot. I'm reading the book as well and like much of what Albert Pike has to say. Its been hard for me to
sit down and read the whole thing strait through though. I have read two are three other books since I started Morals and Dogma. 
