Morals and Dogma

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

... ist der Titel seines berühmtesten Werkes, das General Albert Pike, der damalige Großkommandeur der Südlichen Jurisdiktion des Alten und Angenommenen Schottischen Ritus (A.A.S.R.), 1872 veröffentlichte.

Ein ebenso berühmtes, wie faktisch unlesbares Werk, welches früher in den U.S.A. zwar an alle Mitglieder des A.A.S.R. bei der Aufnahme übergeben, jedoch zu 99,9% wohl nur kurz durchblättert bzw. überhaupt ungelesen ins Regal gestellt wurde (worauf der zumeist erstklassige Erhaltungszustand antiquarischer Exemplare schließen läßt). Ein Lexikonband an Größe und Dicke, mit hunderten Seiten Glossar und Anmerkungen, in welchem (mit Ausnahme des 33°, dessen Arkanum als höchster Grad des Ritus er offenbar wahren wollte) alle philosophisch-gedanklichen und viele rituelle Hintergründe der einzelnen Grade dargelegt werden, teilweise unter kühnen Analogieschlüssen zu so ziemlich allen esoterischen und exoterischen Gedanken, die jemals jemand irgendwo auf dem Planeten Erde über Gott und die Welt gehegt haben mag. Ebenso (anfänglich) faszinierend, wie (auf die Dauer) ermüdend zu lesen ...

Für Freimauererfresser, insbesondere der katholischen Sorte, war Pike der Gegenpapst, der Führer der Satanisten ... was auch immer: jedenfalls ein Böser der Extraklasse. Wer sein bunt durchwirktes Leben betrachtet, wird eklatante Schwächen (Eitelkeit, Starrköpfigkeit, Phantasterei, Sprunghaftigkeit etc.) des Mannes kaum leugnen können. Und doch: inmitten einer aufstrebenden, raffgierigen Gesellschaft von bildungsfernen Neureichen (und exakt das war die führende Schicht in den U.S.A. jener Tage, und ist es bis heute unverändert geblieben, hélàs ...) mit bloß geheucheltem Tugendgehabe sticht er markant heraus: ein Polyhistor, weltläufig in Ansichten und Bildung. Mit klar konturierten ethischen Ansichten, die keiner Konvention und Schablone gehorchen.

Damit man mich nicht falsch versteht: nicht allzu viel von dem, was Pike vertritt, entspricht auch meinen Ansichten! Aber daß (und die Art, wie) er's vertritt macht den Unterschied zu den vielen, die sich aus humanitärer Konventionalität in die Freimaurerei als rettendem Hafen flüchten, nachdem ihr Kinderglaube in der harten Realität des Studiums und Berufslebens Schiffbruch erlitten hat.

Was also läßt sich über Albert Pikes Gedankenwelt in Kürze sagen? Vielleicht ein paar Gedanken, die von der Website Albert Pike's Philosophy zitiert werden sollen:

Perhaps the first point to make is that in nineteenth-century America philosophy was regarded, under the influence of Herbert Spencer, as the unification of knowledge. Moreover the metaphysical method of the first half of the nineteenth century, when Pike's ideas were formative, was to endeavor to explain everything in a "speculative, metaphysical way by a spiritual, logical principle." But it so happened that all antiquity had been making a like search for the One but for a different sort of One. The earlier Greek philosophers sought a single element to which the whole universe might be reduced. The Ionian philosophers sought to find such elements in air or fire or water or, as one of them put it, "a primordial slime." Oriental thinkers had usually sought an absolute word which was to be the key of all things. Others among the ancients had sought an absolute principle. With vast labor Pike brings together all that ancient and Oriental peoples thought and wrote and all that mystics have since thought and written with the ideas of the Orient and of antiquity as a basis and upon this foundation he sets forth to work out a system of his own.
Pike starts with a triad. This is suggested by the ancient conception of the number three as the symbol of completion or perfection. The singular, the dual and the plural, the odd and even added, was thought of as a complete system of numbers. Hence the number three was perfection in its simplest form; it was the type or the symbol of perfection. He finds a triad everywhere in ancient thought and in every system of the occult and in every mystic philosophy. He finds it also in all Masonic symbolism and from end to end in our lectures. Accordingly he seeks to show that in its essentials this triad is at all times and in all its forms the same triad. Wisdom, strength, beauty; intelligence, force, harmony; reason, will, action; morals, law, social order; faith, hope, charity; equality, liberty, fraternity--all these he shows are the same triad in various forms. There is a fruitful passive principle which is energized and made productive by an active, creative principle and there is a product. As he shows, Osiris, Isis and Horus symbolize this with the Egyptians and he traces the same reduction of the universe to these fundamental through every type of ancient mystery and all mystic speculation. In Morals and Dogma he makes all manner of application of this idea to politics, to morals and to religion. He carries it into every type of human spiritual activity and gives the most copious and learned illustrations.
But this of itself would be barren and would end in pluralism. Accordingly he conceives that these three things are emanations, or better, are manifestations of the Absolute. This idea again he subjects to the test of application to all that has been thought and written by mystics down to his time. We find a unity in the Absolute. But how do we unify the manifold, the infinite manifestations of the Absolute in our experience ? Is there here some one principle? Pike says there is and that this unifying principle is equilibrium or balance. The result of the action of creative, active energy and productive, passive receptivity is in the end a harmony, a balance, an equilibrium. He then applies this idea of equilibrium to every field of thought. One example will suffice.
"It is the Secret of the Universal Equilibrium:-- "Of that Equilibrium in the Deity, between the Infinite Divine Wisdom and the Infinite Divine Power, from which result the Stability of the Universe, the unchangeableness of the Divine Law, and the Principles of Truth, Justice, and Right which are a part of it; . . .
"Of that Equilibrium also, between the Infinite Divine Justice and the Infinite Divine Mercy, the result of which is the Infinite Divine Equity, and the M oral Harmony or Beauty of the Universe. By it the endurance of created and imperfect natures in the presence of a Perfect Deity is made possible; 
"Of that Equilibrium between Necessity and Liberty, between the action of the Divine Omnipotence and the Free-will of man, by which vices and base actions, and ungenerous thoughts and words are crimes and wrongs, justly punished by the law of cause and consequence, though nothing in the Universe can happen or be done contrary to the will of God; and without which co-existence of Liberty and Necessity, of Freewill in the creature and Omnipotence in the Creator, there could be no religion, nor any law of right and wrong, or merit and demerit, nor any justice in human punishments or penal laws. 
"Of that Equilibrium between Good and Evil, and Light and Darkness in the world, which assures us that all is the work of the Infinite Wisdom and of an Infinite Love; and that there is no rebellious demon of Evil, or Principle of Darkness co-existent and in eternal controversy with God, or the Principle of Light and of Good: by attaining to the knowledge of which equilibrium we can, through Faith, see that the existence of Evil, sin, Suffering, and Sorrow in the world, is consistent with the Infinite Goodness as well as with the Infinite Wisdom of the Almighty. 
"Sympathy and Antipathy, Attraction and Repulsion, each a Force of nature, are contraries, in the souls of men and in the universe of spheres and worlds; and from the action and opposition of each against the other, result Harmony, and that movement which is the Life of the Universe and the Soul alike...
"Of that Equilibrium between Authority and Individual Action which constitutes Free Government, by settling on immutable foundations Liberty with Obedience to Law, Equality with Subjection to Authority, and Fraternity with Subordination to the wisest and the Best: and of that Equilibrium between the Active Energy of the Will of the Present, expressed by the Vote of the People, and the Passive Stability and Permanence of the Will of the Past, expressed in constitutions of government, written or unwritten, and in the laws and customs, gray with age and sanctified by time, as precedents and authority;
"And, finally, of that Equilibrium, possible in ourselves, and which Masonry incessantly labors to accomplish in its Initiates, and demands of its Adepts and Princes (else unworthy of their titles), between the Spiritual and Divine and the Material and Human in man; between the Intellect, Reason, and Moral Sense on one side, and the Appetites and Passions on the other, from which result the Harmony and Beauty of a well-regulated life."
Well, we have got our idea of equilibrium and the profane will say: What of it ? Pike would answer that this universal unifying principle is the light of which all men in all ages have been in search, the light which we seek as Masons. Hence we get our answers to the fundamental problems of Masonic philosophy. 
1. What is the end of Masonry? What is the purpose for which it exists? Pike would answer: the immediate end is the pursuit of light. But light means here attainment of the fundamental principle of the universe and bringing of ourselves into the harmony, the ultimate unity which alone is real. Hence the ultimate end is to lead us to the Absolute--interpreted by our individual creed if we like but recognized as the final unity into which all things merge and with which in the end all things must accord. You will see here at once a purely philosophical version of what, with Oliver, was purely religious.
2. What is the relation of Masonry to other human institutions and particularly to the state and to religion? He would answer it seeks to interpret them to us, to make them more vital for us, to make them more efficacious for their purposes by showing the ultimate reality of which they are manifestations. It teaches us that there is but one Absolute and that everything short of that Absolute is relative; is but a manifestation, so that creeds and dogmas, political or religious, are but interpretations. It teaches us to make our own interpretation for ourselves. It teaches us to save ourselves by finding for ourselves the ultimate principle by which we shall come to the real. In other words, it is the universal institution of which other spiritual, moral and social institutions are local and temporary phases.
3. How does Masonry seek to reach these ends? He would say by a system of allegories and of symbols handed down from antiquity which we are to study and upon which we are to reflect until they reveal the light to each of us individually. Masonry preserves these symbols and acts out these allegories for us. But the responsibility of reaching the real through them is upon each of us. Each of us has the duty of using this wonderful heritage from antiquity for himself. Masonry in Pike's view does not offer us predigested food. It offers us a wholesome fare which we must digest for ourselves. But what a feast! It is nothing less than the whole history of human search for reality. And through it he conceives, through mastery of it, we shall master the universe.

Manichäismus, dualistische Gedanken ... also doch ein Satanist ... ach, ich höre schon die Vorwürfe, die jetzt erklingen werden. Und es ermüdet mich, darauf (vorgängig) einzugehen.

Drehen wir's um: danken wir Gott, daß es Männer wie Pike gegeben hat (und, hoffentlich, noch gibt und geben wird)! Denn selbst in ihren Irrtümern überragen sie noch den Rasenflor der zurechtgestutzt kleinen Geister ... die bestenfalls (und, zugegeben, unverzichtbar) dafür taugen, daß Größere darauf spielerisch ihre Bälle schießen können ...

Heute vor 125 Jahren ist solch ein Größerer, hochbetagt nach 32 Jahren als Großkommandeur der Südlichen Jurisdiktion des A.A.S.R., am 2. April 1891 gestorben.