Territory. Albert Pike was born December 29, 1809, child of Ben and Sarah Pike, and spent his childhood in Byfield and Newburyport, Massachusetts. He attended school at Newburyport and Framingham until he was 15. In August 1825, at the age of 16 he was accepted at Harvard University, because of a dispute over tuition fees he did not attend . He would receive an Honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard in 1859, in recognition of his prose as a poet. In 1831, Pike left Massachusetts to journey west, joining
providing the answers. For nearly seven centuries, from the conquest of Alexander the Great to the establishment of Christianity as the state religion by the Roman Emperor Constantine, the ancient world sought these answers in the mystery-religions, independent groups worshipping in new and experimental ways. Ancient religious tradition had failed to fulfill the needs of this evolving and expanding society and these mystery-religions were a cultural expression of that need. Christianity grew into the