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Pike's "Morals and Dogma..."
What follows are my comments on a previously written commentary on Albert Pikes Morals and Dogma
I personally have not read but a few chapters of M&D, but upon request of a friend, I agreed to read the commentary, and give my thoughts. I,by no means,claim to understand or interpret Pikes words as he meant, I am simply explaining how I perceive them at this time.
I have not commented on all the passages. With some, I didn't feel I needed to, while others I currently dont have enough knowledge on to comment intelligently. I would prefer the reader focus on what Ive commented upon, rather than what I have not.
With that, I bid you good readings..
An Explanation of Selected Texts and Experts Within chapters 30-32 (not yet complete) of Morals and Dogma.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry , prepared for the Supreme Council of the Thirty Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States: Charleston, 1871.
A quick Introduction to the topics and concepts you will encounter over the course of the following pages
Some pics of Albert Pike, 33rd Degree Mason, and author who is hailed on the Scottish Rite Freemasonry website as being the greatest thing ever to happen to the secret society. This man was a genius of his time who spoke 16 languages and was a Masonic ambassador to Europe.
1) Morals and Dogma is the name of the book that is being dissected in the following pages.. well, so far, just the last 3 chapters. It was written by Albert Pike in 1871, and includes 32 chapters total. Each chapter signifies and explains a degree of Freemasonry.
2) Many members of Freemasonry have no idea that these degrees exist, and those who do, for some reason seem to be inhibited from making mention of the later degrees. Otherwise, Freemasonry is regarded as a benign Christian boys club, and nothing more than that. The true nature only being revealed in these later degrees.
Everyone knows they exist. 4th-32nd degree masons dont really talk about that stuff in blue lodge cuz it's irrelevant there, but they'll talk to you about it if you ask, or suggest that you look into it..
Also- they aren't higher degrees in Freemasonry per se- they are separate from Blue Lodge, after you become a 3rd degree Master Mason, you can go York Rite, Scottish Rite, or both.but the top office of Scottish Rite has no jurisdiction over Blue Lodge, meaning here in Massachusetts, the Grand Lodge oversees all the Lodges in MA. The highest Scottish Rite Lodge has no power over the Grand Lodge. That throws out the whole hierarchy as described here.
3) Morals and Dogma gives out this extreme information exposing so many mysterious secrets because it was originally commissioned for the sole purpose of being given out to masons who entered their 32nd degree supposedly, a final chapter exists which is given out to the members who achieve the final 33rd degree (which, after having revealed SO DAMN much already, kind of scares me as to whats left to keep hidden)
Morals & Dogma was given out at the 14th degree, but I think they stopped doing that in the 70s..
4) When someone enters the 33rd degree of Freemasonry, they become known as an Illuminized Freemason a mason who is exposed to ALL of the mysteries hidden within the society so whenever you hear talk about the Illuminati (which the author actually refers to several times in these chapters), THATs the inner group of people theyre talking about.
Maybe, but probably not.
5) The Illuminati is a society whos beginnings were said to have hailed from the mind of a man known as Adam Weisthaupf (who himself was instructed and guided by a sect of Kaballists) in 1776. It was a sect composed of those most enlightened individuals who thought it time to change the social and political order of the world who used Masonry as their tool to achieve their heights of power (as the elites of the world at the time were largely masons themselves). Their strategy for achieving this plan was through the concepts sharpened by the days philosophers like Emmanuel Kant, Francis Bacon, and principally Georg Hegel. This involved, among many other things, using their power and authority to push the world into a states of chaos in order to implement their own predetermined order. This particular strategy was made famous in Hegels problem-reaction-solution thesis.
6) Most every historian will agree that this society existed, but will disagree that they survived into the 19th century. A belief that Pike dispels in these chapters.
7) You may have wondered how a Scottish Rite Freemasonry web site could have possibly have offered this book online for anyone to download it... I have anyhow. I think its because, over the years, there have been many copies that had belonged to high ranking masons who died, and made it into the hands of the general public Ive encountered many quotes taken from the book in the past, so the access to the information was there. As that info was out there, they just went ahead and allowed people to get it from their website (although, Ive noticed that a lot of sentences were STILL sloppily censored and occasionally end abruptly).
A Brief History leading up to the writing of Morals and Dogma.
(these follow 4 pages were taken from David Allen Riveras book Final Warning: The Exposure of the New World Order)
Guiseppe Mazzini
On November 18 1830, Adam Weisthaupf died at the age of 82. In 1834, the Italian patriot and revolutionary leader by the name of Guiseppe Mazzini was appointed leader of the Illuminati. While attending Genoa University, Mazzini became a 33rd degree Mason, and joined a secret organization known as the Carbonari (whos stated goal in 1818 read: Our final aim is that of Voltaire and of the French Revolution- the complete annihilation of Catholicism, and ultimately all Christianity.) where he became committed to the cause of Italian unity. In 1831, he was exiled to France, where he founded the Young Societies movement, which included Giovane Italia (Young Italy) and Young England, etc... This group united those who wanted to achieve unification through force. Mazzini moved to england in 1837, then returned to Italy in 1848 to lead the revolution against the Austrians. Abain he was exiled. In the 1850s, he led more revolutiotionary activities, and through his actions, Italy became united in 1861, as a single kingdom, rather than the republic envisioned by Mazzini.
From 1814-48, the group known as the Haute Vente Romaine led the activities of most of Europes secret societies. In April 1836, the head of the Haute Vente, whose pseudonym was Nubis, wrote to Beppo; Mazzini behaves too much like a conspirator of melodrama to suit the obscure role we resign ourselves to play until our triumph. Mazzini likes to talk about a great many things, about bimself above all. He never ceases writing that he is overthrowing thrones and altars, that he fertilizes the peoples, that he is the prophet of humanitarianism...
In 1860, Mazzini had formed an organization called the Oblonica, a name derived from the Latin obelus which means; I beckon with a spit (dagger). Within this group, he established an inner circle called the Mafia.
About 1000 AD, after the Normans had driven the Arabs out of Sicily, they established a feudal system. Overseers to guard each feudi were chosen from known criminals. Skirmishes between the Barons were fought by these criminals. Although feudal privileges were abolished in 1812, these overseers retained control of the land through leasing arrangements. It was this band of criminals that Mazzini bave the name Mafia, which was an acronym for Mazzini, Aurorizza, Furti, Incendi, and Avvelengmenti.
Albert Pike
In 1859, Albert Pike (1809-1891), a lawyer and leader of the U.S Scottish Rite Masonry (who was called the greatest Freemason of the nineteenth century), who was fascinated with the idea of a one world government, was chosen to coordinate Illuminati activities in the United States. He said they needed to create a political party that would keep the world fighting until they could bring peace. Pike said it would be done with tongue and pen, with all our open and secret influences, with the purse, and if need be, with the sword..
Pike was born on December 29, 1809, in Boston, went to Harvard, then later served as a Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army. He was appointed by the Confederacy to be the Indian Commissioner in order to create an army of native-american warriors. He became Governor of the Indian territory, and succeeded in creating ian army consisting of Chickasaws, Comanches, Creeks, Cherokees, Miamis, Osages, Kansas, and Choctaws. He became known to them as the faithful pale-face friend and protector. The savagery of their attackes caused Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, to disband the Indian army. After the Civil Was, Pike was found guilty of treason and jailed, only to be pardoned by Andrew Johnson on April 22, 1866, who met with him the next day at the White House. On June 20, 1867, Scottish Rite officials conferred upon Johnson, the 4th-32nd degrees, and he later went to Boston to dedicate a Masonic temple. The only monument to a Confederate general in Washington D.C. was erected in Pikes honour, and can be found between the Department of Labor building and the Municipal building.
Pike was a genius, able to read and write in 16 languages. A 33rd degree Mason, he was one of the founding fathers, and head of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. In 1869, he was a top leader in the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan. In 1871, he wrote the 861 page Masonic handbook known as the Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry.
This is brought up a lot, but never any details about his actual involvement in the KKK I've read that at its beginning, it wasn't the organization we know it as, and as it became the KKK that we know of today, Pike had nothing to do with it
Because of Mazzinis revolutionary activities in Europe, the Illuminati had to again go underground. Pike established Supreme Councils in Charleston, South Carolina, Rome, Italy (led by Mazzini), London, England (led by Lord Henry Palmerston), and Berlin, Germany (led by Otto von Bismark), themselves all 33rd degree masons. He set up 23 subordinate councils in strategic places throughout the world, including 5 Grand central Directories in Washington, DC (North America), Montevideo (South America), Naples (Europe), Calcutta (Asia) and Mauritius (Africa), which were used to gather information. All of these branches have been the secret headquarters for the Illuminatis activities ever since.
OK
Unholy Correspondences
History books have ignored them, but many forms of documentation, letters, and correspondences exist to this day detail very revealing aspects of our neglected past.
In a letter dated January 22, 1870, Mazzini wrote to Pike:
We must allow all of the federations to continue just as they are, with their systems, their central authorities and diverse modes of correspondence between the high grades of the same rite, organized as they are at present, but we must create a super rite, which will remain unknown, to which we will call those Masons of high degree whom we shall select. With regard to our brothers in Masonry, these men must be pledged to the strictest secrecy. Through this supreme rite, we will govern all Freemasonry which will become the one international Center, the more powerful because its direction will be unknown.
In another letter, dated August 15 1871, Pike wrote to Mazzini:
We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, the origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the pure light through the universal manifestation which will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.
On July 14, 1889, Pike issued this statement to the 24 Supreme Councils of the World who were meeting in Paris:
That which we must say to the crowd is; We worship a God, but it is the God one adores without superstition.
To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General (33rd Degree Masons), we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and the 30th degrees; The Masonic religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine.
If Lucifer were not God, would Adonay (or Adonai, Hebrew for the word Lord which refers to Jehovah, the God of Israel, which they avoid using) whose deeds prove his cruelty, perfidy, and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science, would Adonay and his priests calumniate him? Yes, Lucifer is God, and unfortunately Adonay is also God. For the eternal law is that there is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness, no white without black, for the absolute can only exist as two Gods; darkness being necessary to light to serve as its foil as the pedestal is necessary to the statue, and the brake to the locomotive...
... thus, the doctrine of Satanism is a heresy; and the true and pure philosophic religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonay, but Lucifer, God of Light and God of Good, is struggling for humanity against Adonay, the God of darkness and evil.
--Instructions to the 23 Supreme Councils of the World, July 14, 1889. Recorded by A.C. De La Rive in La Femme et l'Enfant dans la FrancMaconnerie Universelle on page 588,
I don't know exactly what to make of this, for a few reasons...first, I have no idea if this is even a real quote, and if it is, has it been altered? People will do scandelous things to back up an argument- ala Michael Moore & F911.
But beyond that, the last sentence seems to be a regular Christian belief, but he's switched the names/titles, which is merely semantics, saying that the God of Light is struggling against the God of Darkness.
I've recently read about a mistranslation that occured in the Bible, where Venus/Morning Star/Lucifer all allude to the planet Venus, and the one place in the Bible using the word Lucifer was in reference to King so and so (I forget his name) & there's also a place in the Bible where Jesus refers to himself as the "Morning Star"..which again, is synonamous with Lucifer/Venus as 'Bringer of Light".
Chapter XXX: THE KNIGHT KADOSH.
Knights Templar
This 1st excerpt describes the connection (that to this day isnt even readily acknowledged) to the Knights Templar
An hundred years ago it had become known that the masons were the
Templars under a veil, and therefore the Degree was proscribed, and,
ceasing to be worked, became a mere brief and formal ceremony, under
another name.
An Answer to Ignorant Religious Dogma
This one confronts the question of why the Catholic Church has always been so opposed to Freemasonry.
. 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 war, and was needed to 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. It will be easy, as we read, to separate the false from the true, the audacious conjectures from the simple facts. "A power that ruled without antagonism and without concurrence, and consequently without control, proved fatal to the Sacerdotal Royalties; while the Republics, on the other hand, had perished by the conflict of liberties and franchises, which, in the absence of all duty hierarchically sanctioned and enforced, had soon become mere tyrannies, rivals one of the other.
New World Order Hints
This paragraph describes the agendas of the Masons (to produce a secret society which, having access to the great religious and social secrets) will produce rulers of the world, supposedly immune to corruption.
To find a stable medium between these two abysses, the idea of
the Christian Hierophants was to create a society devoted to abnegation
by solemn vows, protected by severe regulations; which should be
recruited by initiation, and which, sole depositary of the great religious and
social secrets, should make Kings and Pontiffs, without exposing it to the
corruptions of Power.
The Illuminati and the Kaballah
This one is really loaded In it, Pike admits not only that the Illuminati EXIST, but are directly linked (alongside dissident sects of Gnostic religions) to the same goals and ideas as the core of Masonry. He also exposes that the Kaballah is the doctrine at the core of the society and why the church was threatened by that concept.
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 Hierarchy, and threatened the entire
world with an immense revolution.
. 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 Hierarchy, and threatened the entire
world with an immense revolution.
What this says to me is that the church saw a group initiated in the doctrines of the Kaballah. The greatest threat to the legitimate power-the Church- is for the entire world to stop seeing the Church as God on Earth, which is what they claimed to represent -vicar of Christ. Kaballah is a system used to come into complete knowledge of God. The middleman is therefore cut out.
The immense revolution isnt a military one they fear, but a spiritual one, in which the masses no longer fear that their souls are in the hands of the Almighty Church
The History of the Templars
Im reading another book right now called the Hiram Key that also describes the origins of the Templars. It was written by 2 (kind of) low ranking masons who wanted to figure out the meanings of some of the initiation rites that they went through (since most every mason in the world really has no IDEA what is really at the source of their own society). Their discoveries really corroborate this origin of the Templars and what their goals were in the re-building of Solomons temple in Jerusalem. Its not mentioned here by Pike that the reason they were overcome with this goal was because the 9 Knights had stumbled across ancient scrolls during an excavation of the ruins of the temple The lost scrolls of Jesus, which speak of the man as, well just an enlightened man. And the Nasarean scrolls which outlined the prophecy of the rebuilding of the Temple, and the re-establish it as the centre of world power.
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 protectthe 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,
Frres Maons in the French, adopted by way of secret reference to the
Builders of the Second Temple, was corrupted in English into Free-
Masons, as Pythagore de Crotone was into Peter Gower of Groton in
England. Khairm or Khr-m, (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, the ; and the words
Bonai and Banaim yet appear in the Masonic Degrees, meaning Builder
and Builders.]
"The trowel of the Templars is quadruple, and the triangular plates of it are
arranged in the form of a cross, making the Kabalistic pantacle known by
the name of the Cross of the East. The Knight of the East, and the Knight
of the East and West, have in their titles secret allusions to the Templars
of whom they were at first the successors.
The Kaballah
This one talks about how the Kaballah (a product of the knowledge of the Levittic priests, (and a source of Jewish Mysticism). It is based on a Non-literal interpretation of the old testament (the Torah) and includes the Talmud and Zohar.
==================================================
There existed at that period in the East a Sect of Johannite Christians, who
claimed to be the only true Initiates into the real mysteries of the religion of
the Saviour. They pretended to know the real history of Yesus the
ANOINTED, and, adopting in part the Jewish traditions and the tales of the
Talmud, they held that the facts recounted in the Evangels are but
allegories, the key of which Saint John gives, in saying that the
world might be filled with the books that could be written upon the words
and deeds of Jesus Christ; words which, they thought, would be only a
ridiculous exaggeration, if he were not speaking of an allegory and a
legend, that might be varied and prolonged to infinity.
The Bible isnt meant to be taken literally, it's allegory..
"The words and deeds of Jesus Christ, words which, they thought, would only be a ridiculous exaggeration, if he were not speaking of an allegory and a legend.."
Well said.
The New World Order and Strategy Lighting its Path
In this paragraph, Pike refers briefly to the eventual goal of the society. As it implements its order upon the eventual chaos of the world, and rule all.
"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. All that
will become the heritage of the Temple: the World will soon come to us for
its Sovereigns and Pontiffs. We shall constitute the equilibrium of the
Universe, and be rulers over the Masters of the World
So this is Pike saying what the leaders of the templars told the other templars..and they were pretty much right, monarchies & popehood WERE bought & sold those days.
The templars may very well have come to truly rule things if they didnt pretty much get shut down by Phillip the Fair-
To say they turned into the Masons, and now " constitute the equilibrium of the
Universe, and be rulers over the Masters of the World "
...is a bit of a stretch
The Necessary Illusion and the Truth
This next paragraph refers to the actual strategy the secret order has used to thrive. He describes the true and secret Kaballah-linked mystery aspect to it (Johannism), and the aspect released to the world at large (Its catholic based raison detre). It also refers to Essenism (an ancient Christian-Buddhist vegan sect that is rumoured to be the original choice philosophy of the Christ)
Damn! I think I finally found a religion thats just for me! A Christian/Buddhist vegan sect
..the original choice philosophy of The Christ! How can you diss that?
"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 covertly proclaiming itself the child of the Kabalah and Essenism together."
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 covertly proclaiming itself the child of the Kabalah and Essenism together."
I agree that the Templars operated under the authority of the Church, and they were outwardly Catholic, if this is what is meant by public doctrine, ok. And they held Kabbalistic/Gnostic
views (in theory of course, who can really prove exactly WHAT their secret beliefs were?) So if this is what is meant by their secret doctrine, ok.
As for John the Baptist being a link to the Essenes, possible, but using the Bible as a source, there's minimal evidence, but I'm
no pro.John the Evangelist as a link to the Kaballah- I have no idea...
I do know that both Johns are celebrated on or very near the days of the winter & summer Solstices..interesting, no?
On Symbols
He now refers to the power and importance of symbols if you look into masonry (and the icons that literally become pop culture all around us, you can definitely catch wind of just how bombarded with symbolism we are everyday). He also alludes to the fact that most do not understand the true nature or power of symbols in any way.
The symbols of the wise always become the idols of the ignorant multitude. 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.
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.
Quite true- most do not understand the true nature of symbols.And yes-the symbols of the wise always become idols of the ignorant multitude.
A symbol is an abstract way of expressing an idea, which is in itself intangiblea thought.
A thought is in fact an idea, an abstract way of expressing an essence, which is not only intangible, but perhaps unimaginable.
Anyway, a great example of what were talking about here is Jesus Himself. The story of his life, his actions, and his teachings, all provide most of, if not all the keys necessary for mankind to experience Heaven on Earth. Enlightenment.
But the true meaning of Jesus, Himself a symbol, is lost on the multitude of people who instead worship Him as an idol, and they learn not the essence He tried to convey.
As for
"...the Royal and Sacerdotal Art was hidden so carefully"
It's actually not impossible to solve the enigmas which they contain-
it just takes "ears to hear".. those who's minds and hearts are content to understand the surface meaning of something, will do just that.
Those whos hearts and minds feel a yearning toward something deeper will continue to seek until they find.
More on symbols
The doctrines of the Chiefs would, if
expounded to the masses, have seemed to them the babblings of folly.
The symbols of the wise are the idols of the vulgar, or else as
meaningless as the hieroglyphics of Egypt to the nomadic Arabs. There
must always be a common-place interpretation for the mass of Initiates, of
the symbols that are eloquent to the Adepts.
The Flaws in the Templars Plan
Pike describes the reasons and mistakes of the original 9 knights lead by Hugues de Pavens the brashness that lead to their eventual inquisition, torture and destruction of the majority of the order (by way of Pope Clement V and King Phillip), and which drove them underground. Theres evidence that exists that mentions that the reason they became so wealthy so quickly is because along side the ancient scrolls in Solomons temple, they also found his famed lost treasure.
Templars were unintelligent and therefore unsuccessful Jesuits.
"Their watchword was, to become wealthy, in order to buy the world. They
became so, and in 1312 they possessed in Europe alone more than nine thousand seignories. Riches were the shoal on which they were wrecked. They became insolent, and unwisely showed their contempt for the religious and social institutions which they aimed to overthrow. Their ambition was fatal to them.
Rome, more intolerant of heresy than of vice and crime,
came to fear the Order, and fear is always cruel. It has always deemed
philosophical truth the most dangerous of heresies, and has never been at
a loss for a false accusation, by means of which to crush free thought.]
Pope Clement V. and King Philip le Bel gave the signal to Europe, and the
Templars, taken as it were in an immense net, were arrested, disarmed,
and cast into prison
I by no means doubt the fact that the Templars got greedy. Any organization that starts with 9 people and a purpose, and grows to thousands, will no doubt lose the ideals it began with.
Massive political & economic growth & power are often followed by corruption. And even if the original Templars were, I doubt the thousands of later Templars, were all steeped in Kabbalah & Gnostic philosophies, and even if those tenets were present in form, it was probably a lost practice, but I'm really just speculating here.
The Danger to the Church
This one describes why the Church and King couldnt reveal the real reasons why the order was to be killed (it would reveal the Egyptian based secrets to the citizenry)
"It was impossible to unfold to the people the conspiracy of the Templars
against the Thrones and the Tiara. It was impossible to expose to them
the doctrines of the Chiefs of the Order. [This would have been to initiate
the multitude into the secrets of the Masters, and to have uplifted the veil
of Isis. Recourse was therefore had to the charge of magic, and
denouncers and false witnesses were easily found. When the temporal
and spiritual tyrannies unite to crush a victim they never want for
serviceable instruments.
My studies have led me to believe that while accused of heresy, black magic and so on, the real reason was more along the lines of Philip the Fair asking them to help him pay a ransom on his kidnapped brother, and with the family already in a large amount of financial debt to the Templars, they refused to help. This angered Philip, obviously, and he organized a plan with a man who wished to become Pope.
Philip would help him achieve that goal, after which he (Pope Clement) agreed to persecute the Templars from Rome, seizing their property and holdings.
On the transition of the order from Templars to Freemasons
The Order disappeared at once. Its estates and wealth were confiscated, and
it seemed to have ceased to exist. Nevertheless it lived, under other names
and governed by unknown Chiefs, revealing itself only to those who, in
passing through a series of Degrees, had proven themselves worthy to be
entrusted with the dangerous Secret. The modern Orders that style
themselves Templars have assumed a name to which they have not the
shadow of a title.]
"The Successors of the Ancient Adepts Rose-Croix, abandoning by degrees
the austere and hierarchial Science of their Ancestors in 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 Illuminati and the Power at Their Disposal
He even makes a reference to the order of the illuminati, who in 1776 was created by Adam Weisthaupf using the foundations of Philosophers like Bacon, Hegel, and Kant would form their New World Order (we later find out that not only were the concepts of these philosophers used, but so were/ are those discovered and mastered by the ancient Egyptians) which is moving into its final stages today.
"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 to press down all the summits of the Social Order 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.
It seems to me no group is specifically referred to.
But the wording seems to allude to at least two different groups:
some to found a new Hierarchy, and others to overturn all authority, and to press down all the summits of the Social Order under the level of Equality.
Dantes Inferno
Here, Pike talks about the true nature and hidden meaning behind Dantes Inferno.
the work of DANTE, and yet no one, so far as we know, has pointed out its
especial character. The work of the great Ghihellin is a declaration of war
against the Papacy, by bold revelations of the Mysteries. 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.
His journey through the supernatural worlds is accomplished like the
initiation into the Mysteries of Eleusis and Thebes. He escapes from that
gulf of Hell over the gate of which the sentence of despair was written, 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 reascen | 
