En:Scottish Rite
Scottish Rite
Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
Some authorities call this the Ancient and Accepted Rite, but as the Latin Constitutions of the Order designate it as the Antiquus Scoticus Ritus Acceptus, or the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, that title has now been very generally adopted as the correct name of the Rite.
Although one of the youngest of the Masonic Rites, having been established not earlier than the year 1801, it is at this day most popular and the most extensively diffused. Supreme Councils or governing Bodies of the Rite are to be found in almost every civilized country of the world, and in many of them it is the only Masonic Obedience. The history of its organization is briefly this: In 1758, a Body was organized at Paris called the Council of Emperors of the East and West. This Council organized a Rite called the Rite of Perfection, which consisted of twenty-five Degrees, the highest of which was Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.
In 1761, this Council granted a Patent or Deputation to Stephen Morin, authorizing him to propagate the Rite in the Western Continent, whither he was about to repair. In the same year, Morin arrived at the City of Santo Domingo, where he commenced the dissemination of the Rite, and appointed many Inspectors, both for the West Indies and for the United States. Among others, he conferred the Degrees on Moses M. Hayes, with a power of appoint ing others when necessary. Hayes accordingly appointed Isaac Da Costa Deputy Inspector-General for South Carolina, who in 1783 introduced the Rite into that State by the establishment of a Grand Lodge of Perfection in Charleston. Other Inspectors were subsequently appointed, and in 1801 a Supreme Council lvas opened in Charleston by John Mitchell and Frederick Dalcho.
There is abundant evidence in the Archives of the Supreme Council that up to that time the twenty-five Degrees of the Rite of Perfeetion were alone recognized. But suddenly, vith the organization of the Supreme Council, there arose a new Rite, fabricated by the adoption of eight more of the continental advanced Degrees, so as to make the Thirty-third and not the Twenty-fifth Degree the summit of the Rite.
The Rite consists of thirty-three Degrees, which are divided into six sections, each section being under an appropriate Jurisdiction, and are as follows:
I. SYMBOLIC LODGE
- 1. Entered Apprentice
- 2. Fellow Craft
- 3. Master Mason
These are sometimes called the Blue or Symbolic Degrees. They are not conferred by the Scottish Rite in England, Scotland, Ireland, or in the United States because the Supreme Councils refrain from exercising jurisdiction through respect to the older authority in those countries of the York and American Rite.
II. LODGE OF PERFECTION
- 4. Secret Master
- 5. Perfect Master
- 6. Intimate Seeretary
- 7. Provost and Judge
- 8. Intendant of the Building
- 9. Elu, or Elected Knight, of the Nine
- 10. Illustrious Elect, or Elu, of the Fifteen
- 11. Sublime Knight Elect, or Elu, of the Twelve
- 12. Grand Master Architect
- 13. Knight of the Ninth Areh, or Royal Arch of Solomon
- 14. Grand Elect, Perfeet and Sublime Mason or
III. CHAPTER OF ROSE CROIX
- 15. Knight of the East
- 16. Prince of Jerusalem
- 17. Knight of the East and West
- 18. Prince Rose Croix
IV. COUNCIL OF KADOSH
- 19. Grand Pontiff
- 20. Grand Master of Symbolic Lodges
- 21. Noachite, or Prussian Knight
- 22. Knight of the Royal Ax, or Prince of
- 23. Chief of the Tabernacle
- 24. Prince of the Tabernacle
- 25. Knight of the Brazen Serpent
- 26. Prince of Mercy
- 27. Knight Commander of the Temple
- 28. Knight of the Sun, or Prince Adept
- 29. Grand Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew
- 30. Knight Kadosh
V. CONSISTORY OF SUBLIME PRINCES OR MASTERS, OF THE ROYAL SECRET
- 31. Inspector Inquisitor Commander
- 32. Sublime Princo of the Royal Secrets
VI. SUPREME COUNCIL
- 33. Sovereign Grand Inspector-General
The classification of the above Degrees is as they are arranged in the Southern Jurisdiction. In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction the Consistory grades begin at Grand Pontiff, the nineteenth, and include the thirty-second, Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, and the Council of Princes of Jerusalem governs the fifteenth and sixteenth grades Several of the titles of the Degrees vary in their use by the Supreme Councils but the above table covers most of these variations. The Southern Jurisdiction for example omits the word Grand from the names of the twelfth, fourteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-ninth grades, and also uses Elu instead of the other designations, omits Commander from the thirty-first, and specifies Master in the thirty-second.
A full account of the Rite is in Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry but numerous details under individual headings are in the present work (see Educational Foundalions).
Videos
Scottish Rite - Part 1 <videoflash>yrUoD_1YIbM</videoflash>
Scottish Rite - Part 2
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