Description

If you're familiar with early forms of the Scottish Rite's rituals, you're likely aware that in many of the degrees the principal officer was often called puissant, an antiquated word meaning "greatly influential" or "powerful." Perhaps the first time I encountered it was when I was in college. There's a line in Shakespeare's play Henry V, in which the question is asked, "Trail'st thou the puissant pike?" Although the original meaning of the phrase is "Do you carry a powerful spear?" I've since reinterpreted it in a Masonic fashion: "Are you following the powerful Pike?" My answer, of course, would be a resounding YES! As Scottish Rite Masons we indeed follow Albert Pike's lead. Admirers of Pike's Masonic work recognize him for his unmatched devotion as "that master genius of Masonry," according to Joseph Fort Newton in The Builder (January 1914), who "found the Scottish Rite in a log cabin, and left it in a temple." For many years Pike was principally known only as the author/compiler of Morals and Dogma, or as the author of the rituals of the Supreme Council, 33°, SJ. Few knew about his Book of the Words or that he was the editor of the 10-volume Bulletin of the Supreme Council, and fewer still realized that he was the author of literally hundreds of other works, catalogued in Ray Baker Harris's Bibliography of the Writings of Albert Pike (1957). Almost 30 years ago, after I obtained Harris's Bibliography, I became intrigued by its final entry: an unpublished manuscript entitled, "The Symbolism of the Blue Degrees of Freemasonry." On the manuscript's spine was the word Esoterika, curiously spelled with a k. Written in 1888, there were only two manuscript copies in existence: one in the archives of the House of the Temple, the other was sent by Pike to London. From its description I knew I had to read it. So, about 25 years ago, I traveled from my home in McAllen, Texas, to DC to meet with Ill. Reynold J. "Dick" Matthews, 33°, then Grand Archivist. Ill. Matthews had agreed to let me read the manuscript-provided I do so sitting in a chair next to him in his office.