Morals and Dogma - 3: The Master

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 explanations 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. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it. So God Himself incapacitates many men, by color-blindness, to distinguish colors, and leads the masses away from the highest Truth, giving them the power to attain only so much of it as it is profitable to them to know. Every age has had a religion suited to its capacity.

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.

Morals and Dogma - 10: Illustrious Elect of the Fifteen

Man never had the right to usurp the unexercised prerogative of God, and condemn and punish another for his belief. Born in a Protestant land, we are of that faith. If we had opened our eyes to the light under the shadows of St. Peter's at Rome, we should have been devout Catholics; born in the Jewish quarter of Aleppo, we should have contemned Christ as an imposter; in Constantinople, we should have cried "Allah il Allah, God is great and Mahomet is his prophet!" Birth, place, and education give us our faith. Few believe in any religion because they have examined the evidences of its authenticity, and made up a formal judgment, upon weighing the testimony.

Morals and Dogma - 14: Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason

The doctrines of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical essentials of the doctrine. A perfectly pure faith, free from all extraneous admixtures, a system of noble theism and lofty morality, would find too little preparation for it in the common mind and heart, to admit of prompt reception by the masses of mankind; and Truth might not have reached us, if it had not borrowed the wings of Error.

Morals and Dogma - 28: Knight of the Sun, or Prince Adept

The Kabalah alone consecrates the alliance of the Universal Reason and the Divine Word; it establishes, by the counterpoises of two forces apparently opposite, the eternal balance of being; it alone reconciles Reason with Faith, Power with Liberty, Science with Mystery; it has the keys of the Present, the Past, and the Future.

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 hue 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.

One is filled with admiration, on penetrating into the Sanctuary of the Kabalah, at seeing a doctrine so logical, so simple, and at the same time so absolute. The necessary union of ideas and signs, the consecration of the most fundamental realities by the primitive characters; the Trinity of Words, Letters, and Numbers; a philosophy simple as the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Word; theorems more complete and luminous than those of Pythagoras; a theology summed up by counting on one's fingers; an Infinite which can be held in the hollow of an infant's hand; ten ciphers, and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a circle,--these are all the elements of the Kabalah. These are the elementary principles of the written Word, reflection of that spoken Word that created the world!

This is the doctrine of the Kabalah, with which you will no doubt seek to make yourself acquainted, as to the Creation.

Morals and Dogma - 30: Knight Kadosh

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 them. 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.

Originally posted by network dude
reply to post by Gary7MediaTerrorist

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My take on the Bible is that it is a great teacher. It has some factual information and some embellishments. Anything that man had a chance to put their hands on would be agenda driven. It's up to the individual to interpret it and decide what rings true to themselves. After all, only you are in control of your soul.

[edit on 18-5-2010 by network dude]

Originally posted by KSigMason
reply to post by vcwxvwligen

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The Scottish Rite doesn't represent all of Freemasonry, it has power over only itself. Plus, Pike is a revered person in Scottish Rite Freemasonry only. In the York Rite, he had no influence, but in fact, the Scottish Rite was started by York Rite Masons.

Actually nowadays they are given an abridged version of Morals & Dogma as it is a long read and many don't ever fully read it.

Originally posted by KSigMason
reply to post by vcwxvwligen

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The Scottish Rite doesn't represent all of Freemasonry, it has power over only itself. Plus, Pike is a revered person in Scottish Rite Freemasonry only. In the York Rite, he had no influence, but in fact, the Scottish Rite was started by York Rite Masons.

Actually nowadays they are given an abridged version of Morals & Dogma as it is a long read and many don't ever fully read it.

Originally posted by vcwxvwligen

Originally posted by KSigMason
reply to post by vcwxvwligen

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The Scottish Rite doesn't represent all of Freemasonry, it has power over only itself. Plus, Pike is a revered person in Scottish Rite Freemasonry only. In the York Rite, he had no influence, but in fact, the Scottish Rite was started by York Rite Masons.

Actually nowadays they are given an abridged version of Morals & Dogma as it is a long read and many don't ever fully read it.

It's the best-known and most widely-practiced form of Freemasonry today.

If you want to focus on the York Rite, one could argue that the Blue Lodge degrees are actually a smear campaign against the operative masons.

Yes, there's a running joke among Freemasons that Morals and Dogma is too long to read, which is denial, as far as I'm concerned.