En: Giles F. Yates's Scottish Rite Rituals
Giles F. Yates's Scottish Rite Rituals
Source: Arturo de Hoyos
The Ineffable Lodge of Perfection, established by Henry A. Francken in Albany in 1767, ceased Masonic labors in 1774. It was revived in 1820 as Delta Lodge of Perfection, which was moved to Schenectady. In 1822 Giles Fonda Yates was recorded as being its Sublime Grand Warden, and the following year he served as Sublime Grand Master. John Barker, an agent of the Supreme Council at Charleston, conferred on him the 16°–32° in 1824, and in 1825 Barker conferred upon him the 33°. From 1825–27 Yates was a member of the Supreme Council at Charleston (Southern Jurisdiction), and Delta Lodge of Perfection owed its allegiance to the Southern Jurisdiction. In 1828 they transferred his membership to the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction after the territorial division between the two American Supreme Councils was established.
Bro. Yates revised the rituals of the Lodge of Perfection between 1823–27, making substantial improvements and refinements. Although these revisions were made while he was a member of the Supreme Council at Charleston, they became the basis for the later revisions undertaken by the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. Yates served as Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, NMJ in 1851, and following an illness, he died prematurely in 1859.
In 1866, after studying the rituals of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, Albert Pike noted, “I add, on the subject of Rituals … Boston has none now of value, except those improved by Ill∴ Bro∴ Yates.” Sadly, publications of the Supreme Council, NMJ have yet to adequately acknowledge the impact of Yates’s ritual revisions, and have mistakenly given the credit to Killian Henry Van Rensselaer, who served as Acting Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, NMJ in 1860, and actual Grand Commander from 1861–67.
Although Ill∴ Bro∴ Van Rensselear did contribute substantially to the Northern Masonc Jurisdiction’s ritual revisions, his work was built upon Yates’s foundation, which provided the form of the openings, closings, the sequence of ritual procedures, and many of the unique phrases still present today. A portion of Bro∴ Yates’s ca. 1823–27 revision was also exposed during the Morgan affair. Among the interesting things in his rituals, Yates's revisions introduced the Enochian alphabet of Joannes Augustinus Pantheus, _Voarchadumia contra alchimiam: ars distincta ab archimia & sophia_ (Venice: Giovanni Tacuino, 1530). The Yates rituals appear in my book _Light on Masonry: The History and Rituals of America's Most Important Masonic Exposé_ (2008), pp. 727-52.
