The Rhetoric and Death of U.S. Freemasonry In this essay I argue ...

Death of Freemasonry 23
it should be said Burke's thinking here is very much in sympathy with the mysteries; if
he is not an occultist proper, Burke certainly thought like one). For both Burke and
Pike, the precondition of drama is mystery or uncertainty about others and the
unknown. 52
Consequently, for Pike the secrets of Freemasonry were functionally
fundamental to the fraternity's philosophical teachings; curiosity in this respect is not
merely intellectual, but performative.
Finally, Pike's belief that the structure of the Mysteries informing Masonic
degree work inspired "respect" is in keeping with Burke's observation that "once a
believer is brought to accept mysteries, he will be better minded to take orders without
question from those persons whom he considers authoritative." 53 Such is the relation
between teacher and pupil, preacher and parishioner, Master Mason and Apprentice--
and as Burke would have it, God and Satan. Like Pike, Burke suggests that "mystery is
inescapable" because "symbol-systems are necessarily inadequate for the ab intra
description of the non-symbolic." 54
Pike, however, failed to reckon with the point that
Burke's dialectical thinking on the drama of mystery quickly led him to, a point that a
number of Masons throughout history have had difficulty estimating: inasmuch as
mystery can command respect and curiosity, it will also--and necessarily so--inspire
distrust and a fear of subjection. Mystery inspires fantasies of conspiracy that only
intensify scrutiny when coupled with the ideal of publicity.
The Perils of Publicity, or, Dumbing Down the Mystery
The conflict between secrecy and democracy would appear to be a
recurrent phenomenon in our national history. Indeed, since the
flowering of the modern secret society in the eighteenth century,