Camp Gagnon - Civil War OCCULTIST Who Rewrote Freemasons Rituals

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Who was Albert Pike, and why is he important in the secret society movement? Today, we take a closer look at the fascinating life of one of history’s most mysterious figures. We’ll explore who Albert Pike was—his journey learning ancient languages to decode ancient law, joining the Freemasons, creating Masonic rituals, the satanic rumors surrounding him, and other intriguing topics…Welcome to CAMP! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsors: BlueChew and Morgan & Morgan👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Christos Talking (You Can Skip)0:46 Albert Pike’s Journey to New Mexico4:11 Learning Ancient Languages to Decode Ancient Law6:13 Defending Native Americans In Court7:58 Joining The Freemasons + Entering Civil War12:00 The Government Tricks Pike19:44 Creating The Masonic Rituals28:07 Satanic Rumors of Albert Pike + Predicting WW331:52 Freemasons Build a Statue of Albert Pike35:12 Protests Lead to Destruction of Albert Pikes Statue39:08 Legacy of Albert Pike41:00 Who Should We Dive Into Next?

Washington, D.C. in the 1870s, a giant of a man is Roman streets. He's six-two, his hair is like a prophet, beard like a wizard. He looks like you should be living in the mountain somewhere, but from inside his home, he's quietly rewriting the playbook for America's most powerful secrets aside. Freemasons across the globe follow his words like gospel. And 150 years later, his name still sparks conspiracy theories about world domination and satanic rituals.

It is none other than Albert. hype. And his real story is stranger than the myths. He lived five different lives. Explorer, lawyer, Confederate general, poet, and mystic philosopher, each title more dramatic than the last. So how did a poor kid from Boston end up becoming a Confederate general and then writing the laws and rituals of Scottish right freemasonry? And why do conspiracy theorists swear that he predicted World Wars decades before it happened. Well, we're going to find out all of that and more today. So this is the story of Albert Pike,

and trust me, the truth is stranger than the conspiracies. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up, people, and welcome to camp. My name is Mark Gagdon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world from all time, ever. Now, yes, I have to say camp like that.

I feel like at this point it's become too much of an inside joke where at a certain point I'm not going to say camp, I'm just going to go like, eh.

Anyway, I'm also joined by my dear friend Christos Papadapados, and now we've got a lot of comments about Christos's persistent yapping,

which I'm trying my best to cut out and edit from the episodes, but it's just been tough. So anyway, Christos has the comments been getting to? Walmart's overwhelming.

I imagine it has been very frustrating. So I'm sorry to hear that you've been going through all that. Anyway, guys, we don't have time to dilly dally because today we're talking about the controversial. And, I mean, interesting, maybe, say the least, Albert Pike. I mean, Albert's life is, I mean, needless to say,

it's pretty fascinating, you know, I mean, Confederate General, accepted into Harvard at 16 years old, genius, and then became like, you know, Freemason legend. I mean, the dude has done it all. in a way. I mean, just the guy's a walking contradiction, needless to say. So, where does it all begin? I'm glad you asked. December 29th, 1809, Boston, Massachusetts. This guy, Pike, was basically, like, you know, broke boy genius, you know? He got a photographic memory, can absorb entire books just in, like a sitting,

just by just reading them once. So, at 16 years old, he passes Harvard's entrance exam, which, I mean, is insane for today, and it's equally as insane back then. But when the college asked for tuition money for the first two years, he basically goes, I got nothing. And he walks away. After leaving Harvard behind, Pike kind of scraped by as a school teacher, like a small Massachusetts town. But for someone with his kind of a brain, like these small town, you know, little teaching jobs, definitely were not going to cut it.

So what does a restless 22-year-old do in 1839 when formal education fails him? He goes west. But this isn't some, like, romantic frontier adventure. Everything goes wrong from basically the first moment he walks that direction. So Pike joins this trading expedition in Taos, New Mexico, figuring that, you know, he'll make his fortune in the wilderness. But the group barely gets out of Missouri when Pike's horse bolts during a snowstorm taking all of his supplies with it. Now he's got, you know, 500 miles of brutal desert and mountainous terrain between him and Taos with basically nothing. And most people would turn around, but Albert Pied.

Pike just starts to walk. I mean, think about that, 1831, no GPS, roads, safety, police, like just you in the wilderness alone, your horse just took off with all of your shit. So, Pike, just the clothes on his back and whatever food he can scrounge up, gets caught in the blizzards that, you know, basically will freeze horses solid and, you know, runs out of water in the desert and is dodging hostile Native Americans that are trying to kill him and he gets lost a bunch of times, but he keeps on going. And when Pike finally reaches New Mexico after weeks of hell, he's not really the same person who left Massachusetts.

I mean, like this soft college, like Bostonian Harvard boy is gone. And now he's this like tough, determined force of nature who's seen what hardship and virtually looking at death actually is like. And you'd think that, you know, after this Pike would head home, after that whole ordeal. Instead, he joins another expedition. This time, a trapping venture into the Lano Estacado of West Texas. This is some of the most unforgiving territory in all of North America, and Pike spends months out there learning that beaver trapping sucks. When that expedition fails too, he travels 1,300 miles to Fort Smith, Arkansas.

And then 650 of those miles were on foot through territory that most people wouldn't go through with an army. Today or even back then. And that journey, again, changes him. lands in Arkansas territory and immediately starts building influence. He becomes a school teacher, but that is just a stepping stone to, you know, climbing the ladder. Within months, he's writing for the Arkansas Advocate newspaper under a pen name. This pen name is Casca. His articles are funny and, you know, sharp and controversial, exactly what a frontier territory newspaper needs. It's the right amount of cerebral but kind of like, you know, like bar conversation that gets the

people fired up. So the paper's owner is so impressed that he offers Pike a job. And by 1834, Albert Pike owns the whole operation and he's using it to shape politics across Arkansas. And this isn't just some like small town organization anymore. Pike turns the Arkansas advocate into a political weapon, pushing the Whig Party positions in a state torn between different versions of America's future. Now, Pike's not just running editorials either. He's investigating corruption and scandals and most of all getting a bunch of people super pissed off at him. His writing style is pretty brutal. Like he would tear down political opponents by using classical references and sarcasm that kind of like show off that he's smarter than them. And people

either just loved him because they were like, yo, this guy's going at these rich people or they hate him. But I promise you nobody is ignoring him. So when Pike stumbles into the world of law, everything just kind of clicks. During the day, he's still running the newspaper, but on the side, He's just tearing through legal texts. And he doesn't stop. In American law, he dives all the way back into the roots. He picks up Sanskrit so he can read the original Hindu legal codes in the original format. And then, of course, he picks up biblical law.

So what does he do? He learns Hebrew. And then he digs into Roman legal tradition. What does he do? He learns Greek and Latin. And piece by piece, Pike is building his own law school curriculum. And honestly, it's the kind of education that most law schools could only dream of. and the type of students that, you know, every law school wants.

So when Pike finally sets up shop as a lawyer in 1834, he's not your typical frontier attorney. He's bringing a mix you almost never see, like, sharp memory, deep, like classical fundamentals and the grit of someone that comes from, you know, living on the edges of civilization. And on top of all that, he's just fearless. I mean, he's going toe to toe with literally anyone. Like, if you want it, Pike's got it for you.

But it's Pike's specialty that really sets them apart. While other lawyers are fighting over like land disputes and like criminal cases, Pike becomes the guy, Native American tribes call when they're battling the federal government. Yeah. So like the Creek Nation, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, they all hire Albert Pike because he somehow understands their legal positions better than anyone else. And in 1852, he took the Creek Nation's case all the way to the Supreme Court and he wins. Not just like a small win, either. The court awards the Creek Nation massive settlements,

though as usual, the federal government only pays a fraction of it. But still, Pikes' reputation explodes. Suddenly, he's the guy nobody wants to face in a Native American law case, obviously. And then in addition to that, just any legal case at all, I mean, the guy's a beast. So like the tribal nations trust him. The government officials hate him, and other lawyers are left wondering how the hell he pulls it all off. So this moment is Albert Pike's first real controversy. People weren't sure. Is he genuinely fighting for Native American rights, or is he just really good at extracting guilt money from a federal government that knows it's been screwing over the natives for decades? And this question follows Pike everywhere, and it becomes massive during the Civil War, which we'll get to. But there's

another side to Pike that is developing during these Arkansas years, his fascination with ancient mysteries and esoteric traditions. Yes. Pike's not just reading law books in his spare time. He's also digging into comparative religion and ancient philosophy and mystic traditions. So in 1850, Pike joins the Freemasons and it opens up an entirely new world for him. Here's this fraternal organization that claims to preserve the ancient wisdom of civilizations before it and even uses the symbols and the rituals that Pike recognizes from his studies. But Pike quickly realizes that American Freemasonry is a mess. You have different lodges that do different rituals that do, you know, different teachings with different organization structures. There's no coherent philosophy. There's no real understanding of what the symbols actually mean. And so Pike sees an opportunity to create something sort of unprecedented in America at that time. But first, he has to survive the Civil War. So by 1861, the Civil War erupts and Pike faces an impossible choice.

He's spent 20 years building relationships with his Native American tribes and representing them against the federal government and their languages and their customs. But now the Confederacy wants him to flip all those relationships completely and convince the same tribes to fight for the South. The Confederacy offers Pike the position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs with one mission, get sovereign nations to join a rebellion they have absolutely zero staken. It's like an impossible. The natives don't want.

Like, what are they, they're going to fight for the South? For what? It's not like they have any interest in, you know, slave holding or states' rights or any of that. They're just like, bro, this is insane. So it's an essentially like an impossible mission. And Pike is the only man in America with the credentials to even attempt it. And Pike says yes. Why does he do this?

Well, that part is sort of disputed. You got to understand. Pike owns slaves. He believes in states' rights. rights and he's genuinely angry about federal treatment in Arkansas. But there's also this kind of practical calculation. Pike knows that if the war comes to Indian territory, the tribes will get destroyed between, you know, the Union and the Confederate forces. And they need to pick aside. So here's a guy that owns slaves, but also wants to kind of protect these Native Americans. For what reason? Is it to

get more money from them? Is it because he actually likes them? Who knows? But you can see how Pike is sort of, you know, already creating confusion and contradiction in his own life. But he isn't just recruiting Native Americans with vague promises of like a Confederate win. He offers something unheard of, their own state. So he tells them, if the Confederacy wins, they'll have full representation in Congress and a government of their own. I mean, just think about how radical that promises. In 1861, no Native American has ever served in Congress,

no tribe has ever been offered statehood, and Pike is coming to them promising, to completely rewrite the relationship between Native Americans and the American government. And the tribal leaders believe him because Pike has spent the last 20 years of his life proving that he understands their interests and knows ultimately what they want.

So now the recruitment process begins. Pike travels thousands of miles across Native American Indian territory, meeting with chiefs and negotiating treaties and explaining the goals of the Confederate War and what it's all really about. And he's not just offering like a military alliance, he's negotiating agreements that respect the tribes

while also getting the Confederate support. So within months, Pike has negotiated treaties with the Creek, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, Seminole, Cherokee, Osage, Seneca, Shawnee, and a bunch of other smaller tribes. He's assembled thousands of Native American soldiers who are fighting not just for the Confederacy, but for their own political future. The Confederate government actually promotes Pike

to Brigadier General and gives him command of the entire district of Indian Territory. But here's where it gets crazy. You see, because Pike realizes that he himself has been fooled. The Confederate government promised supplies and equipment and pay for his troops. What they actually provided was nothing. Pike soldiers are fighting with outdated weapons, wearing their own clothes, going months without any money. And even worse, Confederate commanders want to use Native American troops as cannon fodder in battles, basically completely ignoring everything that Pike, you know, knows about their fighting style or, you know, their practices, or even just like human decency.

He's like, look, I'm down to like sell these guys a war, but you're not just going to feed them into the meat rider. Like, that's crazy. So from this, Pike then sends increasingly angry letters to Confederate leadership, demanding that they honor their promises to the tribe, but the government gives him nothing. Meanwhile, his troops are getting demoralized watching the Confederacy break promise after promise, and the real breaking point comes at the Battle of P. Ridge in March 1862.

Confederate General Earl Van Dorn orders Pike to bring his Native American troops to support a major offensive in Arkansas. Pike says no. He argues against them, and his soldiers, you know, in his defense, aren't trained for these conventional battlefield tactics and throwing them into a standard European-style battle

is basically just asking for a disaster, not only for the natives, but also for this, you know, offensive that they're supporting. But Van Dorn overrules him. And the battle becomes exactly like Albert Pied. Pike predicted. The Confederate attack falls apart. Pike's troops get scattered across the battlefield, and some Native American soldiers revert to traditional warfare practices like scalping their enemy. It's culturally normal for them, but it looks horrific to some of the soldiers on both the sides.

So after the Union wins, Northern newspapers are exploding with stories about the, you know, the Confederacy and how they were unleashing savages. Like the whole thing is just a shit show. And Pike is the scapegoat. He's a Confederate general whose troops committed atrocities and basically war crimes, even though the Confederate government set up the whole disaster by ignoring Pike in the first place, then it gets even worse. Confederate leaders start blaming Pike for the entire defeat, claiming his troops panic and because of the panic, they caused a retreat. So now Pike is being thrown under the bus by the same government that promised statehood to these Native American tribes and also promised Pike that he would have a bunch of resources, which he didn't have,

all to avoid responsibility for a strategic disaster that Pike himself warned them about. So in response, he fires off letters accusing Confederate leadership of fraud and betrayal. He demands that they honor their treaties with the tribes or, you know, release him from the commission. He threatens to expose the whole mess to the public unless the Confederacy starts doing what they promise, yada, yada, yada, from this, the Confederate government arrested Pike for treason in November of 1862. The charges are eventually dropped when Pike's political connections kind of step in, but the message is clear. It's like, hey, shut up or we'll just put you in jail forever. Then in 1863, Pike does something unheard of for a Confederate general. He resigns his

commission and walks away from the war entirely. He basically writes this resignation letter condemning Confederate treatment of the Native Americans and then just disappears. He goes into the Arkansas mountains and just is gone. He ends up in this remote cabin in a place called Greasy Cove, living essentially like a hermit. And for months, nobody knows where he is or what he's doing. And there's rumors that start spreading that Pike, you know, lost his mind, or he's gone senile, or he's practicing dark magic,

or that he's trying to get revenge on the Confederacy. I mean, everyone's talking. And the truth is, in both ways, more simple and more significant. He's just writing. And specifically he's working on a manuscript that will make him famous in completely different circles outside of political philosophy or, you know, war or anything like that. This is a massive philosophical work on Masonic symbolism and like ancient religious traditions. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I got to tell you a story. Imagine you're sitting in your house. It's cold outside. It's a little snowy.

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practice, his political influence, and really like his reputation throughout all of Arkansas, but also freed him from the expectations and sort of the conventions that he had become tied to. So Pike no longer has to be this respectable Southern lawyer or this Confederate loyalist. And he can become kind of what he's always been or what he's always wanted to be was, you know, this scholar mystic that pursued ancient wisdom. So Pike, like we said, had joined the Freemasons back in 1850. But now he approaches Masonic work with the intensity of a man who's law. everything else and found what he thinks is his new calling. So the timing is perfect. American Freemasonry, as we've already established, is a mess. I mean, it's in chaos. You know,

there's different jurisdictions and there's no standard philosophy, no unified system. So Pike sees an opportunity to create something unprecedented in American history. Pike had been elected sovereign grand commander of the Scottish rights southern jurisdiction in 1859. Basically, that's like the top Masonic position in the American South. Scottish right is just a specific, you know, sect or subset of Freemasonry. So most men treat this as an honorary role, you know, showing up for ceremonies, he giving speeches. But Pike takes it on as like his life mission. And what he does next kind of revolutionizes Freemasonry. He completely rewrites these Scottish right degrees, basically transforming them from simple fraternal ceremonies into elaborate philosophical journeys. And he's

not just changing a few words here and there. He's creating an entirely new ritualistic play, basically, that draws on everything that he's studied over 20 years. He pulls from Egyptian mysteries and, you know, Kabbalah and Christian mysticism and Hindu philosophy and, you know, hermeticism and Greek mysteries, Islamic, like everything. And he's creating Masonic degrees that can take years to complete with each level revealing deeper philosophical insights. So, at one point, you know, in American Freemasonry, you could argue like, yeah, this is just like a fraternity, you know, it's just like, you know, a bunch of dudes that are well connected and smart that all want to like hang out and share secrets and, you know, do it in like this closed

environment where they can drink and not talk to their wives. But Pike is now building this system for genuine spiritual and intellectual development in the way that he sees fit. So the scope of what Pike is creating is insane. The Scottish right has 33 degrees and Pike rewrites basically all of them. Each degree already has its own symbolism and its own teaching, its own rituals, but Pike is the one who wrote the detailed instructions for the ceremonial props and stage settings and the costume and the dialogue. He's essentially creating 33 different like plays, each one designed to teach a different specific philosophical lesson. But Pike doesn't stop with, you know, rewriting these rituals. In 1871, he publishes morals and dogmas of the

the ancient and accepted Scottish right of Freemasonry. It's a long title for a book, sure. But it's also a long book. It's an 861 page, I mean, just like stack, you know, meant to basically tie together philosophy and religion and myth and symbolism from every corner of human history. And it's dense and complicated and like almost like deliberately obscure. But it's also like brilliant, like to the people that actually know what's going on.

It's like partially a manual, partially like an encyclopedia. partially like a roadmap for understanding, like this specific type of freemasonry. And it's in short known as Morals and Dogma. And it basically becomes the defining text of American Freemasonry. But it doesn't read like anything else written in America at the time. He's not just explaining these ancient symbols. He's tying them into the philosophy and the world religions and esoteric traditions that most Americans specifically in like the 1800s don't even understand or don't even know that they existed.

all to argue that Freemasonry holds the universal truths that sit at the core of all religious teaching. Again, this is not just one guy putting together like his musings about the world and putting it out there. This becomes basically essential reading for anyone involved in esoteric literature or Freemasonry in America. But the book also stirs a lot of controversy. You see, Pike talks about spiritual ideas and language that sounds almost heretical to, you know, traditional Christians. You know, he writes about like the light and ancient wisdom in ways that seem to put human knowledge kind of above like the faith of, you know, religious people. And the thing that people really love to point out is that he frames Lucifer not as Satan, but in the original Latin sense of the light bear, a symbol of enlightenment and, you know, the pursuit of knowledge, which, you know, Pike represents as humanity's highest callings. If you don't know, I mean, Lucifer literally comes from the idea of, you know, the light bear, like, premier.

Methius in a way, like bringing, you know, technology and fire to humanity. And so in a lot of like Gnostic sort of esoteric tradition, they don't see Lucifer and Satan is the same thing. They see Lucifer is like good. And then it got wrapped up into this evil character much later by Christians. Regardless, sidebar. You see, Pike's philosophy is complicated. But his core message is super radical for 1871.

And, you know, people are getting pissed off. And he's, you know, specifically alienating a lot of the American Christians. And his thesis is kind of boiled down into just this. You know, real religion isn't about dogma and churches and following every single rule. It's about personal growth through knowledge and wisdom. That's basically it. True spirituality, he says, comes from studying ancient traditions, understanding symbols, and basically just like pursuing truth.

And that idea is what made him an enemy amongst the traditional Christians, who obviously see, you know, free masonry as basically just like Satanism with some steps, you know. So by the 1870s, Pike has become something absolutely unique in American history. He's a Confederate philosopher mystic with institutional power in a way, right? Like he's this grand commander. He controls Masonic rituals for hundreds of thousands of, you know, powerful American men, including politicians, judges, like businessmen, military people. and the ceremony is that he's doing, he's creating how they actually think

and how they're perceiving their own morality and their own religion and their own place in the universe. So that's a lot of power for one guy to have. He eventually moves into the Scottish Rite Temple in Washington, D.C., and lives kind of like this scholarly priest. He has this personal library that's got like 7,000 books and all these different languages, a bunch of which he can read,

you know, German, Latin, Greek, you know, French, all sorts of stuff. And visitors to the temple described Pike as like kind of intimidating but also charming and kind of fascinating. He's like massive and he can quote ancient philosophy from memory

and he speaks multiple languages and it seems like he's read every book ever. And his daily routine is pretty simple, right? He would wake up, start reading immediately, write extensively, receive visitors that are seeking like philosophical guidance and then go back to reading

and do that until he just fell asleep. And this is the pike who becomes ultimately a legend. He's not just a Masonic leader anymore. He's become America's like unofficial priest of esoteric knowledge. And his influence goes beyond Freemasonry, right? His philosophical approach brings in a cultist and theosophists and spiritualists and anyone that is, you know, interested in like alternative approaches to, you know, religious truth, which at this point at the end of the 1800s is a very, very large chunk of the American public.

that are sort of disenfranchised with organized religion and they want to find a less structured way to pursue spirituality. So his writings are studied by people who've never been inside a Masonic lodge, but they like that he's making sense and sort of synthesizing, you know, all the world's wisdom and kind of traditions. But here's where Pike's story gets even more interesting. Because this is when the myths take over the man. So you have Pike's genuine mysteriousness, right?

He's living in a temple and he's studying these ancient books and he's writing philosophy, and it makes him, I mean, perfect for conspiracy theories. So the first major theory about Pike actually emerges while he's still alive, courtesy of a French writer named Leo Taxil. In the 1890s, Taxil published a series of books claiming to expose Masonic secrets, including allegations that Pike leads a secret satanic conspiracy within Freemasonry. You see, Taxil claims that Pike worships Lucifer and plots to overthrow Christianity. humanity around the world. Now, the books are bestsellers across Europe and America, and Taxil includes

detailed revelations about Masonic ceremonies, complete with dialogues that were supposedly spoken by Pike himself. But this is not without controversy in its own right. You see, a lot of people accused Taxil of basically making it all up. In 1897, he held a press conference where he more or less admitted that the entire thing was a hoax designed to embarrass the Catholic Church. which had been promoting his exposures as proof of Masonic evil. You see, Texel wanted to prove how easily people would believe in fabricated stories and how he could show that institutions wanted to just pump things that had an alignment with their agenda. So he writes all this stuff about Albert Pike to embarrass the church because the church would promote it.

So he does this and he kind of apologizes for his deception. but in some ways the damage is done. You see, the hoax stories spread faster than his confession, and they become the foundation for a lot of anti-Masonic conspiracy theories that are still around today. And people who never hear about Taxel's admission keep circulating these claims about Pike as if they're 100% objective historical fact. And the pattern repeats through the 20th century. In the 1920s, a writer named Edith Starr Miller publishes a writing known as

occult theocracy, which includes a ton of wild claims about Pike's involvement in, you know, tons of like different world conspiracies. Miller cites, Taxil's already at this point debunked hoax as evidence, but presents it as legitimate historical research. Then in the 1950s, William Guy Carr wrote a book called Ponds in the Game, which includes the most famous Pike conspiracy of all. And this is claim that Pike wrote a letter in 1871 predicting three world wars. According to Carr, Pike outlined detailed plans for World War I, World War II, and a future World War III that would destroy both Christianity and Islam. The problem is that the letter doesn't exist. The British Museum, which Carr claims held the letter, has confirmed that they never had such documents. The letter also contains terminology

that wasn't really invented until decades after Pike's death, phrases like World War I, for example, or fascism, or, you know, Zionism. Like, you know, Carr admits in his own footnote that the British Museum told him that they didn't have the letter either. Now, again, because Albert Pike had such a, you know, mystical aura around him, so many people wanted to attach different prophecies and ideas to him, almost all of which were seemingly false. Again, who's to say, maybe the, you know,

Freemasons of the late 1800s were doing satanic, you know, rituals wouldn't blow my mind, but again, there's no evidence for it other than, you know, just a bunch of dudes in a room wearing robes kind of studying ancient texts. But Albert Pike becomes such a revered figure in American Freemasonry that by 1890, his followers wanted to honor him with something unprecedented, a public statue in Washington, D.C. But here's a problem. Pike was a Confederate general. and union veterans are still very much alive and very much opposed to honoring rebels in the nation's capital. So the Freemasons come up with a workaround.

They petition Congress for permission to erect a statue, but they promised to depict Pike as a civilian Freemason, not a military officer. The statue will show him in Masonic regalia with civilian clothing surrounded by Masonic symbols, with inscriptions, celebrating his contributions to philosophy and literature, rather than that whole you know, confederate's, you know, slavery, civil war thing.

The lobbying campaign is intense. Masonic leaders from across the country are going to Washington, D.C., making their case that Pike deserves honor for his intellectual achievements and not the military service. They emphasize Pike's role in developing American Masonic philosophy and also his contributions to comparative religious scholarship. But the Union veterans fight back hard. The Grand Army of the Republic, the main or the main or. organization of Union veterans, contacts congressmen and tells them that it would be a disgrace to

honor any Confederate general in the nation's capital. Regardless of what else they did, if you rode for the Confederacy, you can't be in the nation's capital. The union then organized letter writing campaigns and threatened political consequences for any congressman who supported the statute. The fight basically turns into a proxy war over like civil war memory and like reconciliation and who's allowed to be honored. Like, should America honor these complicated figures that fought for the Confederacy that were generals in the Confederacy,

but also left long-lasting intellectual legacies? Can you separate the Confederate General from other things that they've done or does service in the Confederacy automatically erase any claim to public honor? No matter what else you do. You're a Confederate General. You also cure cancer.

Do you get a statue? Can you be named at a college library or something? Congress eventually agrees to the Masonic proposal, but with a strict condition. The statue must depict Pike as a civilian. Must emphasize the Masonic part and the leadership and the intellectual part, not the military stuff, and must be placed on land specifically designated for that purpose, rather than in a prominent location like the National Mall.

So on October 23rd, 1901, this dedication ceremony occurs. Thousands of masons march in a celebratory parade. through downtown Washington. And the memorial shows Pike in these flowing civilian robes with allegorical figures of masonry holding a banner. The inscriptions are carefully chosen

to rewrite Pike's legacy. So like author, poet, scholar, soldier, philanthropist, jurist, orator, yada, yada, yada, yada. Notice the word soldier, for the record, buried kind of in the middle while, you know, author and poet are coming first. The statue literally presents

Pike as a man of, you know, learning who happened to serve in the military rather than a military figure who also wrote books. So for decades, the statue stood without a ton of controversy. You know, masons would hold ceremonies there and they would decorate with flowers, while the United Daughters of the Confederacy would also sometimes leave tributes on Pike's birthday. But starting in the 1990s, everything changes. The rise of the internet allows conspiracy theories about Pike to spread faster than ever. And then suddenly, people who have never heard of, you know, Albert Pike are,

learning about this letter that he wrote about three world wars and, you know, claims that he's a satanic cult leader. Then in 1992, followers of political activist Lyndon LaRouche began protesting at Pike's statue, claiming that he was the mastermind behind international banking conspiracies. They staged these dramatic demonstrations, sometimes draping the statue with like KKK robes to suggest that Pike was involved at the KKK. And the protests continue for years. and LaRouche supporters demand the statue is removed. And then in 1992, the DC Council voted to remove Pike statue, citing his Confederate service and, you know,

even echoing some of the conspiracy theories about ties to the KKK, which, again, we don't know if are true or not. I don't know if he was in the KKK. There doesn't seem to be any proof to, you know, make it the case or not. But because the statue sat on federal land, only Congress could actually make the call to remove it. And the controversy reignited in 2017 with the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. This is when activists zeroed in on Pike Statue, which just so happened to be the only outdoor memorial to a Confederate general in Washington, D.C.

So Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s congressional delegate, introduced a bunch of bills to remove the statue, arguing that, you know, his Confederate service and the racism and, you know, owning slaves is inappropriate for, you know, public honor in the nation's capital. Noron specifically cites claims about his involvement in founding the KKK, though once again, historians have debated these allegations as to whether or not there is credible evidence. You see, protesters began gathering regularly at the statue, especially after other Confederate monuments were removed across the South. And then in 2020, the George Floyd protests begin. And on Juneteenth, hundreds of protesters gather at Judiciary Square for what becomes one of the most dramatic moments of monument removal in a moment. American history. Protesters tied ropes to the 11-foot-bron statue and just pulled it down. But the protesters didn't stop there. They doused the fallen statue with lighter fluid and set it on fire. The statute of destruction marks a dramatic end to 119 years of controversy. For more than a century,

his memorial had stood as, you know, to the masons, you know, this testament of, you know, Masonic influence and to the union veterans as, you know, an insult that you would put a rebel leader in the, you know, Union capital, President Trump immediately condemned the statute of destruction and demanded that, you know, anyone that was involved be arrested. He tweets that the statute should be restored and threatened, you know, federal intervention if D.C. didn't prosecute the protesters. But the incident becomes another point in Trump's broader conflict with D.C. leadership. So for years, this statute remained in storage, while the controversy continued. And civil rights groups celebrated its removal as a victory against

white supremacy, while, you know, Masonic organizations argued that his intellectual contribution deserved to, you know, basically trump his Confederate service. And then, of course, you know, anti-Mason people and other conspiracy folks on the internet were also happy because we got this free Mason guy out of Washington, D.C. And then comes like a twist. The National Park Service just announced that they are restoring and reinstalling Pike statue under Trump's recent executive orders about beautifying the nation's capital. So, where does this leave us? Albert Pike, what do we make of him, right? I mean, he's undeniably brilliant. He gets into Harvard at 16 years old. Self-taught genius can understand multiple languages, creates a philosophy that basically is influencing hundreds

of thousands of the most prominent and well-connected people in American history, but also you know, morally complicit with, you know, the Civil War and owning slavery that are obviously, you know, pretty indefensible. But then he also is defending Native Americans and their legal rights, but then also is in the Confederacy, but then leaves the Confederacy and says that, you know, what they're doing is wrong. It's difficult to really parse who this guy is, to be honest with you. But I will say it's, I don't think, you know, who he is is necessarily what a lot of the conspiracy theories that surround him are right again my philosophy generally when it comes to the freemasons is that it's less like satanic uh you know like child sacrifice probably more like really well connected people

with a ton of money and uh you know political agendas and influence all gathering together to share ideas and secrets specifically in a time uh you know back in the day when they had a lot of power and you could get you know politicians and military folks to actually sort of collaborate so was in the KKK again I don't know probably not but who knows he did I mean certainly reshape freemasonry and I don't think that part is really even you know I don't know if that part is even really disputable and the statute controversy is interesting because again you have a bunch of people that have different agendas you have you know racial activists that are like fuck this dude you have you know some anti you know anti free mason people that are like fuck this dude then you only have freemasons

that are like hey let's actually keep it up but again the freemasons don't really have political power in D.C. like they did back in the end of the 1800s. So, ladies and gentlemen, that is the life and story of Albert Pike. I mean, truly, I mean, crazy dude, lived an insane life. I mean, other than the, you know, Confederacy thing, pretty crazy, you know, like learning Hebrew, just like, learn, like, you know, Jewish law. Anyway, Christos, you ever heard this guy? I haven't, but he's a really highly requested.

person to do on our comments, so. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I had fun kind of getting into it and learn about it. I'm, I would like to know more about like, uh, like his personal views. Like being like a dude from Boston, I'm surprised that he was so racist. But he also was a lawyer for Native Americans. That's what I'm saying. Like, I'm so confused.

It's like what his goal was. Like, what did he actually believe? Like something had to happen there to cause the shift. What, like, he, like, he, like some guy ruined his parlay. It was like, dude, you know what? I'm a racist now. So yeah, I don't know.

I mean, Albert Pike, he's interesting because he's, like, basically a white supremacist, which is not ideal. But he's like a smart white supremacist. Like, he's a white supremacist that's like, dude, I don't, like, white people are superior, but also I will learn Sanskrit to understand Hindu law. I'm like, like, I still understand how he's squaring these things. where it's like what is the value in learning these things if you're a legit white supremacist?

I don't understand. Just proves that there's gaps in everybody's personality. I guess, right? I don't know. I mean, yeah, I mean, look at like the Nazis. They were like, dude, we're white supremacists. They're like, we're Aryan. And you're like, oh, do you like the Russians?

And they're like, dude, no, they're not Aryan. Like the blonde hair giant Russians, they're not Aryan. They're like, no. The Japanese, they're Aryan. Like, what? Anyway, I digress. I think people have, you know, racial philosophies where they think one is better than the other, and it's never consistent.

That's my one thing. If you're going to create a racialized philosophy, make it consistent, you know? Like, he's over here being like, dude, we got to, like, I'm a white supremacist, but also like I will fight for Native Americans. What is that? Just be consistent. You know what I mean? Being racist is one thing, but being a hypocrisy. Even worse. Anyway, I'm curious what you guys think. I mean, we've gotten a bunch of comments of people trying to dive into Albert Pike. I would love to know, is there anything I skipped over, anything I glanced over, or anything that I didn't include that I should have. Anything I got completely wrong, please drop a comment.

I read all of them, whether it's YouTube, Spotify, even if it's just a letter to get sent into the ocean that I find, I will find it. So I'd love to know what you think, but be nice about it because I'm still, you know, sensitive. I don't want to get my feelings hurt. Anyway, thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of Camp. Crestos, thank you for joining me. As always, I couldn't be possible without you making these cameras work and getting these episodes edited. Anyway, I will see you guys next week.

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