Freemasons, what do think?

Pike is Freemasonry.The rest is patter.The highest degrees know the scoop of their real beliefs.http://www.threeworldwars.com/albert-pike2.htm

I am a Freemason and have studied Pike a LOT; his writings directly, as well as the anti-mason interpretation and the masonic response.

All of the satanic claims against freemasonry stem from the passage I will quote below. Anti-masons mis-quote this frequently and twist it around, which is why I wrote the following information. Leo Taxil was the first to come up with the satanic interpretation (and the terms luciferian and baphomet) - he admitted he was lying and playing a joke on freemasonry but people still believe him. Pike did not give freemasonry a bad name, Taxil did.

this is the exact text, as written by pike, in his chapter on the 19th degree in Morals and Dogma; words within [brackets] are italicized by Pike.

"The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the 19th Degree, the Apotheosis 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, Son of the Morning! Is it [he] who bears the [Light], and with its speldors intolerable blinds the feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!"

This does not say that Freemasons believe Lucifer is God, but rather that Lucifer, in the name of a false light, tempts and blinds the feeble away from the true God (Jesus). His use of italics is to emphasize his sarcasm and amazement that people could name he Spirit of Darkness (Satan) Lucifer - which in Latin is Lux fere, or light bearer / bringer of light.

The Latin term has nothing to do with God/Satan, it is just a word that poets and then religious people have given a different significance to. Historically it refers to the planet Venus, which precedes the sun in the morning sky (Venus is called the morning star and the bringer of light, because an ancient times they thought it actually brought the sun into the sky...)

Albert Pike was a very learned and intelligent man, and something of a poet. When he wrote it was in a very elaborate style which tends to make ideas that are complex to begin with even harder to understand. There's a lot of fine ideas in his work, but his importance has been exaggerated- his importance was mostly in the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction, and even there he is more talked about than read.