Albert Pike, Lucifer and WWIII

Who is this Albert Pike? 

Albert Pike was a famous American Masonic writer of the 19th century. A philosopher, one could call him. He was also leader of The Scottish Rite of Masonry for a very long time and tweaked the levels to the 32 that the Scottish Rite has now, among many other things. Check Wikipedia if you'd like to know more.

Over and over again, one quote is stated as proof positive as to the evil and devil worship of Pike and therefore all of Masonry. It comes from his great work "Morals and Dogma" which he is most well known for writing. Here is the quote:


“Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable, blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish souls? Doubt it not!”

So, that's pretty self explanatory if dubious at best, so what about the rest of the paragraph? It never seemed to be printed easily anywhere which raised an immediate red flag. Here is the full quote:


The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth Degree, the Apothesis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, for traditions are full of sensual or selfish Souls ? Doubt it not! Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo, also, were inspired. The Apocalypse, indeed, is a book as obscure as the Sohar. It is written hieroglyphically with numbers and images; and the Apostle often appeals to the intelligence of the Initiated. “Let him who hath knowledge, understand! let him who understands, calculate !” he often says, after an allegory or the mention of a number. Saint John, the favorite Apostle, and the Depositary of all the Secrets of the Saviour, therefore did not write to be understood by the multitude.


Now, the entire meaning of the quote has changed. Check out what it really means after the break.

In the first sentence A. Pike directly says that mason-candidates of the 19th degree (to whom this chapter is addressed) must aspire to God alone despite the works of Lucifer. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Now having the context before my eyes I saw clearly why  the name of Lucifer appears in all capitals in the next sentence – because the name itself puzzles A.Pike. He knows that ‘Lucifer’ means ‘Light-bearer’ in Latin and he is simply surprised why this sort of name is used for the Spirit of Darkness. He assumes that his reader knows Latin and understands the question. This naming of Satan as a ‘Light-bearer’ is indeed weird, but it was not invented by A.Pike. It was used by the Church for centuries since its first appearance in Vulgate, the Latin Bible. The next sentence says that Lucifer’s light can blind (seduce) the weak ones, which is again a fairly common idea. ‘Doubt it not!’ is making the statement yet stronger – yes, says A.Pike, indeed his false light can distract those who are sensual and selfish. His allusion to Lucifer is only natural in this place because he is talking here about the book of Revelation. Further A.Pike goes on with in his eclectic semi-mystical style mixing in one bowl the Apocalypse (i.e. the book of Revelation,) apostles, Philo, Plato and God knows what else.

So the main meaning of the famous quote is a simple and natural question: why the spirit of darkness is called Lucifer = Light bearer? This question is hard for us to understand because we assume that the name ‘Lucifer’ is only one of the names of Satan.  I don’t know Latin, but I studied Dutch, so I know that in Dutch ‘een lucifer’ means only ‘a match’. This inspired me to start looking at the etymology and eventually I found that ‘Lucifer’ in Latin means a ‘Light-bearer’ (lux = ‘light’, fero = ‘to bring’). But indeed why? Now that I understood Pike’s question, I wanted to know the answer.

The answer came through  the Catholic Encyclopedia on-line, which I assume to be the ultimate source on the topic. It says that the word ‘lucifer’ was often used to mean Venus – the star that shines in the morning. It is used a few times in Vulgate to indicate “the light of the morning” (Job 11:17), “the signs of the zodiac” (Job 38:32), “the aurora” (Psalm 109:3), and even Jesus Christ himself (2 Peter 1:19; Apocalypse 22:16 ). The only reason why we use it as a devil’s name is an allegoric story retold in Isaiah 14:12 about one of the Babylonian kings falling from his throne as the morning star is falling from the sky. This passage was used by some interpreters as a Biblical proof of the popular legend of a fallen angel, which originated from other sources. St. Jerome, who translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, apparently used the word ‘lucifer’ just as another word for ‘star’ or ‘light’ in a number of  completely unrelated places. St. Jerome had no idea that one of these passages would give rise to another name of the Devil! The story of a fallen angel is sitting so deeply in our minds, that most of us do not realize that the Biblical evidence to support it is so shaky.

So the answer to Pike’s question is simple: the name ‘Lucifer’ = ‘Light Bearer’ is a result of misunderstanding, of misinterpretation mixed with somewhat unimaginative translation.

Conclusion: the story of a fallen angel with a strange name, made so famous through a number of well-known artistic and poetic masterpieces, is based on misunderstanding. There is no direct Biblical evidence to support this story – the only passage on which it was based was originally meant to indicate something else.

Next: WWIII and Pikes famous letter