mackey

Dr. Albert G. Mackey

Albert Gallatin Mackey was a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and a graduate of the Medical College there. He was a member of St. Andrews Lodge No. 10 in that city, afterwards affiliating with Solomon's Lodge No. 1. He served as Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of South Carolina from 1843 to 1866. He was active in York Rite and Scottish Rite Masonry. He was past Grand Warden of the Grand Encampment Knights Templar. He was crowned Sovereign Grand Inspector General and for years was Secretary General of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of the Southern Jurisdiction.

Albert Gallatin Mackey's outstanding scholarship has had a most profound effect upon Freemasonry. He is justly regarded as among the great, if not the greatest of all, Masonic authorities. To his research is due many of the more important developments of Masonic law, jurisprudence, and symbolism. His work and services as a historian are unsurpassed.

The Albert Gallatin Mackey Medal is the highest honor within the power of the Grand Master to confer upon an individual. It is to be given only for distinguished service to country or Freemasonry, without regard to state, nation or individual Grand Lodge to which the recipient may belong.

The face of the medal bears a likeness of the great South Carolina Mason, Albert Gallatin Mackey; the obverse, the Seal of the Grand Lodge.

(Grand Lodge of Ancient Free Masons of South Carolina Website)

Dr. Mackey was one of the greatest writers in Freemasonry. He has written Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Masonry. Many anti-Masons say that his works are very pro-pagan:

Some critics of Freemasonry claim the recommended readings for some of the degrees of Freemasonry are "pagan." Pagan, as they are using the term, simply means pre-Christian. The study of man's moral and intellectual history allows the achievement of Freemasonry's major purpose, the enhancement of an individual's moral and intellectual development. Such a study has to start with the concepts of man and God as held by early cultures and evidenced in their mythologies. The ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as earlier peoples, had much of importance to say on many topics, including religion. The idea that a physician must act in the best interests of his patient comes from the pagan Hypocrites, and the concept that a government cannot break into your house and take what it wants on a whim comes from the pagan Aristotle. None of us would want to live in a world without these ideas…

In order to properly interpret Mackey and Pike on paganism, one must understand that they entered the masonic fraternity in the 1840s, when masonic literature was at its height and both walked unsuspectingly into the circle of magism, paganism and occultism before they were properly seasoned in the history of the Craft. Those things that were indisputably Masonic, such as the Gothic Constitutions minutes of early lodges in the pre-Grand Lodge era, they ignored, but chose to follow irresponsible writers who were teaching doctrines neither then nor since approved or adopted by any Grand Lodge.

It is only fair to say that Mackey, in later years, made a retraction of his former paganistic doctrines. But that received nothing like the wide-spread publicity which had been accorded his former notions and certainly did not bar the sale and circulation of his books containing the repudiated material. It is improbable that Truth can ever keep up with Error, for there will always be those individuals who will prefer to quote Mackey as being an authoritarian source for Freemasons, failing to mention that this material was later retracted. Without the writings of Pike and Mackey, anti-masonic authors are left with little material of notoriety to formulate their startling allegations.

(Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon website)