It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.
Albert PikeTo you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General (33rd Degree Masons), we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th degrees: 'The Masonic religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine.'
Albert PikeDoubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany the stages of man's onward progress. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason.
Albert PikeLet us drink together, fellows, as we did in days of yore. And still enjoy the golden hours that Fortune has in store; The absent friends remembered be, in all thatโs sung or said, And Love immortal consecrate the memory of the dead.
Albert PikeWe avoid sensuousness, only by resorting to simple negation. We come at last to define spirit by saying that it is not matter.
Albert PikeDeath is the inseparable antecedent of life; the seed dies in order to produce the plant, and earth itself is rent asunder and dies at the birth of Dionusos. Hence the significancy of the phallus, or of its inoffensive substitute, the obelisk, rising as an emblem of resurrection by the tomb of buried Deity at Lerna or at Sais.
Albert Pike