BOOK REVIEWS

by Charles S. Guthne, FPS

Hutchens, Rex R. Pillars of Wisdom:
The Writings of Albert Pike. Washing-
ton: Supreme Council 33 , 1995.
xvii + 365 pp. Illustrations, Bibliography,
Hard-bound.

Pillars of Wisdom attempts to inter-
pret Albert Pike's Scottish Rite rituals,
Morals and Dogma, and other Scottish
Rite writings against a nineteenth-cen-
tury historical, intellectual, and socio-
logical background. It shows Pike's
work as dominated by a Unity Concept,
and that the main purpose of his writmg
the presentatioll of this Concept. Morals
and Dogma is an attempt to bring the
ideas of many cultures to support the
concept, which is defined as "a spark of
insight in man which gives him the abil-
ity to sense, if not understand, the pre-
sence of a Supreme Artificer of the Uni-
v erse." Further, "The premise of Scot-
tish Rite Ritual and Morals and Dogma
is that the knowledge of the ancients has
vvellded its way to modern Freemasonry
along many diverse paths ...." There
are four division of the book: Back-
grounds, Foundations, Contributors
from the Past, and Ancient Mystic
Themes. Each of these is divided into
chapters, each of which considers a par-
ticular facet of the general divisions.

Backgrounds

Hutchens begins with the idea that
Pike, as a nineteenth-centuly man,
must be read ". . in the social, re-
ligious, and political context of the time.

Foundations and Ancient
Mystical Themes

In preparation for his writing, Pike
read deeply in the sacred texts and
philosophies of most of the world's cul-
tures as they were understood at the
time He used symbolism, mythology,
concepts of Deity, and the Ancient Mys-
tries.

Pike drew these ideas from the aryans,
Persians, Egyptians, ancient Greeks,
Essenes, Hebrews, Christians,
Gnostice, and Knights Templar. The
Heavens (astronomy and astrology, my-
thology, Alchemy, the Druids, the
Rosicrucians, and the Cabalah all
entered into Pike's research. In writing,
his aim was to show many moral beliefs
common to most of them. Pike uses the
word religion in two different senses.
I he first of these is that of the "primi-
tive" religion, vvhich he views as the
combination of nearly universal moral
concepts. The other sense of religion is
that it is a description of the various
bodies of doctrine of world's faiths.

Brother Hutchens has shown a great
deal of research and understanding of
Pike and his sources. The book is well-
researched, well-written and edited. It
has attractive type of an eye-friendly
size.

This reviewer is in full agreement with
C. Fred Kleinknecht's statement that it
is meant as an introduction to Pike's
writing, perhaps inciting its readers' in-
terest enough to read Pike's work for
himself.

This book is one that should be in all
general and personal Masonic libraries.





Bullock, Stephen C. Revolutionary
Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the
Transformation of the American Social
Order, 1730-1840. Chapel Hill: IJniver-
sity of North Carolina, 1996 xxviii, 240
pp.. Illus., notes, index. $49 95, hard
cover.

The thesis of Revolutionary Brother-
hood is "that Masonry has played an
important role in shaping the momen-
tous changes that first introduced and
then transformed the eighteenth- cen-
tury enlightenment in America, and
helped create the nineteenth-century
culture of democracy, individualism,
and sentimentalism. " As a result of the
Antimasonic movement ( 1826-1840),
Masonry became an orginization that
could command respect--but seldom
reverence.

To support this thesis, Bullock has
found and made sense of a great
amount of material from sermons and
addresses, lodge and grand lodge histo-
ries, and standard histories of the
fraternity as a whole. He thus has ana-
lyzed Masonic self- perceptions, techni-
cal understanding, and the ideas of Ma-
sonic scholars of the past.

The book is divided into four parts
treating Colonial Masonry, The Revol-
lutiorlary 'Transformation, Republican
Masonry, and Masonry and
Democracy. It shows that by the time of
the Revolution, "Ancient" Freema-
sonry appealing to upper income classes, be-
came the background of most American
lodges. This opened the way for
Freemasory in the colonies to become
a haven for the upwardly mobile, rather
than a place for the elite

The Revolution served further to
break down class distinctions in the new
republic; and in Masonry, to increas
membership, and to secure autonomous
state grand lodges Masonry grew
rapidly, and exemplifed the ideals of
the nation as a whole. It became iden-
tified with virtue, learnillg, and re-
ligion. It secured, through the initation
of Prince Hall, a presence among black
people that endures vigorously to the
present time.

Discussion of sectaran religion or
politics in the lodges has never been
permitted. Nevertheless, the lodges
provided a place of personal contact for
those in politics. It thus helped rein-
force the advantages of the upwardly
mobile

In some sections of the United States,
non-Masons became jealous of the
prominence of Masons in government
and churches This, coupled with a sus-
picion of what Masons did in their
lodges, aroused among the masses a
morbid suspicion. This culminated in
1826 in a book by a renegade Mason,
William Morgan, purportillg to expose
the Masonic ritual Morgan was
kidnapped, supposedly by Masons, and
was never seen again, leading to Ma-
sons' being accused of his murder. The
hysteria from this resulted in the forma-
tion of the Antimasonic political party.

Bullock is of the opinion that this epi-
sode reshaped American Masonly to fit
the new egalitarian social order, of
which President Andrew Johnson be-
carme a prime example in the 1860s.
Thus American Freemasory eventu-
ally became what it is today, an organi-
zation appealing to the widest possible
spectrum of the population. American
society likewise has been influencd by
the attitudes and examples of promi-
nent Masons

