The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is a rite within the broader context of Freemasonry. It is the most widely practiced Rite in the world.Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry In some parts of the world, and in the Droit Humain, it is a concordant body and oversees all degrees from the 1st to 33rd degrees, while in other areas it is deemed an appendant body with a Supreme Council that oversees the 4th to 33rd degrees.
It is most commonly referred to as the Scottish Rite. Sometimes, as in England and Australia, it is called the Rose Croix, though this is just one of its degrees, and is not to be confused with other Masonic related Rosicrucian societies such as the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Its name may vary slightly in various jurisdictions and constitutions. For example, the English and Irish Constitutions omit the word Scottish.
Master Masons from other rites may, in some countries, join the Scottish Rite's upper degrees starting from the 4th degree due to its popularity. This Rite builds upon the ethical teachings and philosophy offered in the Craft (or Blue) Lodge through dramatic presentations of its individual degrees. The term "Blue Lodge" refers to the first three degrees of Masonry, regardless of the Rite being practiced. In the Scottish Rite system, the first three degrees are considered “Blue Lodge degrees” while the subsequent degrees are sometimes deemed “Red Lodge degrees”.
History
Scots Master Degree There are records of lodges conferring the degree of "Scots Master" or "Scotch Master" as early as 1733. A lodge at the Devil (Tavern), Temple Bar in London is the earliest such lodge on record. Other lodges include a lodge at Bath in 1735, and the French lodge, St. George de l'Observance No. 49 at Covent Garden in 1736. The references to these few occasions indicate that these were special meetings held for the purpose of performing unusual ceremonies, probably by visiting Freemasons. The Copiale cipher, dating from the 1740s to 1760s says, "The rank of a Scottish master is an entirely new invention..."
Myth of Jacobite origins French writers Jean-Marie Ragon (1781–1862) and Emmanuel Rebold, in their Masonic histories, first claimed that the high degrees were created and practiced in Lodge Canongate Kilwinning at Edinburgh, which is entirely false.Coil, Henry W. (1961) Article: "Stuart Masonry", pp. 634–637. Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia (rev. ed. 1996). Richmond, Va: Macoy Publ. Co. Inc.
Estienne Morin
A French trader, by the name of Estienne Morin, had been involved in high-degree Masonry in Bordeaux since 1744 and, in 1747, founded an "Écossais" lodge (Scottish Lodge) in the city of Le Cap Français, on the north coast of the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti. Over the next decade, high-degree Freemasonry was carried by French men to other cities in the Western hemisphere. The high-degree lodge at Bordeaux warranted or recognized seven Écossais lodges there.
In Paris in the year 1761, a patent was issued to Estienne Morin, dated 27 August, creating him "Grand Inspector for all parts of the New World". This Patent was signed by officials of the Grand Lodge at Paris and appears to have originally granted him power over the craft lodges only, and not over the high, or "Écossais", degree lodges. Later copies of this Patent appear to have been embellished, probably by Morin, to improve his position over the high-degree lodges in the West Indies.
Morin returned to the West Indies in 1762 or 1763, to Saint-Domingue. Based on his new Patent, he assumed powers to constitute lodges of all degrees, spreading the high degrees throughout the West Indies and North America. Morin stayed in Saint-Domingue until 1766, when he moved to Jamaica. At Kingston, Jamaica, in 1770, Morin created a "Grand Chapter" of his new Rite, the Grand Council of Jamaica. Morin died in 1771 and was buried in Kingston.
Rite of 25 Degrees Early writers long believed that a "Rite of Perfection" consisting of 25 degrees, itself the predecessor of the Scottish Rite, had been formed in Paris by a high-degree council calling itself "The Council of Emperors of the East and West". The title "Rite of Perfection" first appeared in the Preface to the "Grand Constitutions of 1786", the authority for which is now known to be faulty. The highest degree in this rite was the "Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret".
It is now generally accepted that this Rite of twenty-five degrees was compiled by Estienne Morin and is more properly called "The Rite of the Royal Secret", or "Morin's Rite".
However, it was known as "The Order of Prince of the Royal Secret" by the founders of the Scottish Rite, who mentioned it in their "Circular throughout the two Hemispheres" or "Manifesto", issued on December 4, 1802.de Hoyos, Arturo, Scottish Rite Ritual, Monitor and Guide 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Supreme Council, 33°, S.J., 2009), pp. 937, 938.
Henry Andrew Francken and his manuscripts Henry Andrew Francken, a naturalized French subject born as Hendrick Andriese Franken of Dutch origin, was most important in assisting Morin in spreading the degrees in the New World. Morin appointed him Deputy Grand Inspector General (DGIG) as one of his first acts after returning to the West Indies. Francken worked closely with Morin and, in 1771, produced a manuscript book giving the rituals for the 15th through the 25th degrees. Francken produced at least four such manuscripts. In addition to the 1771 manuscript, there is a second which can be dated to 1783; a third manuscript, of uncertain date, written in Francken's handwriting, with the rituals 4–25°, which was found in the archives of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Lancashire in Liverpool in approximately 1984; and a fourth, again of uncertain date, with rituals 4–24°, which was known to have been given by H. J. Whymper to the District Grand Lodge of the Punjab and rediscovered about 2010. Additionally, there is a French manuscript dating from 1790 to 1800 which contains the 25 degrees of the Order of the Royal Secret with additional detail, as well as three other Hauts Grades rituals; its literary structure suggests it is derived from a common source as the Francken Manuscripts.
Scottish Perfection Lodges A Loge de Parfaits d' Écosse was formed on 12 April 1764 at New Orleans, becoming the first high-degree lodge on the North American continent. Its life, however, was short, as the Treaty of Paris (1763) ceded New Orleans to Spain, and the Catholic Spanish crown had been historically hostile to Freemasonry. Documented Masonic activity ceased for a time. It did not return to New Orleans until the late 1790s, when French refugees from the revolution in Saint-Domingue settled in the city.
Francken traveled to New York in 1767 where he granted a Patent, dated 26 December 1767, for the formation of a Lodge of Perfection at Albany, which was called "Ineffable Lodge of Perfection". This marked the first time the Degrees of Perfection (the 4th through the 14th) were conferred in one of the Thirteen British colonies in North America. This Patent, and the early minutes of the Lodge, are extant and are in the archives of Supreme Council, Northern Jurisdiction. The minutes of Ineffable Lodge of Perfection reveal that it ceased activity on December 5, 1774. It was revived by Giles Fonda Yates about 1820 or 1821, and came under authority of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction until 1827. That year it was transferred to the Supreme Council, Northern Jurisdiction.
While in New York City, Francken also communicated the degrees to Moses Michael Hays, a Jewish businessman, and appointed him as a Deputy Inspector General. In 1781, Hays made eight Deputy Inspectors General, four of whom were later important in the establishment of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in South Carolina: Isaac Da Costa Sr., D.I.G. for South Carolina; Abraham Forst, D.I.G. for Virginia; Joseph M. Myers, D.I.G. for Maryland; Barend M. Spitzer, D.I.G. for Georgia.
Da Costa returned to Charleston, South Carolina, where he established the "Sublime Grand Lodge of Perfection" in February 1783. After Da Costa's death in November 1783, Hays appointed Myers as Da Costa's successor. Joined by Forst and Spitzer, Myers created additional high-degree bodies in Charleston.
Physician Hyman Isaac Long from the island of Jamaica, who settled in New York City, went to Charleston in 1796 to appoint eight French men; he had received his authority through Spitzer. These men had arrived as refugees from Saint-Domingue, where the slave revolution was underway that would establish Haiti as an independent republic in 1804. They organized a Consistory of the 25th Degree, or "Princes of the Royal Secret," which Masonic historian Brigadier ACF Jackson says became the first Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite. According to Fox, by 1801, the Charleston bodies were the only extant bodies of the Rite in North America.
Birth of the Scottish Rite, 1801 On May 24, 1801, John Mitchell appointed Frederick Dalcho a Deputy Inspector General of the Order of the Royal Secret. On May 31, Mitchell and Dalcho opened the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree for the United States of America at Shepheard's Tavern in Charleston, South Carolina. The council administered thirty-three degrees, including the twenty-five degrees of Étienne Morin's Order of the Royal Secret, and was the first Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree.
The council later recognized eleven men associated with its establishment in 1801 and 1802 as its founders, known as the "Eleven Gentlemen of Charleston": John Mitchell, Frederick Dalcho, Thomas Bartholomew Bowen, Abraham Alexander, Emanuel De La Motta, Isaac Auld, Israel de Lieben, Alexandre Francois Auguste de Grasse, Jean-Baptiste Marie Delahogue, Moses Clava Levy, and James Moultrie.
On August 5, 1813, Emanuel De La Motta, acting under the authority of the Charleston council, issued a proclamation and charter establishing the Supreme Council for the Northern District and Jurisdiction of the United States, with Daniel D. Tompkins as its first Sovereign Grand Commander. After an internal schism in 1860, the rival Northern councils reunited on May 15, 1867.
Albert Pike
Born in Boston, Massachusetts on December 29, 1809, Albert Pike is asserted within the Southern Jurisdiction as the man most responsible for the growth and success of the Scottish Rite from an obscure Masonic Rite in the mid-19th century to the international fraternity that it became. Pike received the 4th through the 32nd Degrees in March 1853 from Albert Mackey, in Charleston, South Carolina, and was appointed Deputy Inspector for Arkansas that same year.
In 1857 Pike completed his first revision of the 4°-32° ritual and printed 100 copies. This revision, which Mackey dubbed the "Magnum Opus", was never adopted by the Supreme Council. According to Arturo de Hoyos, 33°, the Scottish Rite's Grand Historian, the Magnum Opus became the basis for future ritual revisions.de Hoyos, Arturo, Scottish Rite Ritual, Monitor and Guide 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Supreme Council, 33°, S.J., 2009), p. 114.
In March 1858, Pike was elected a member of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, and in January 1859 he became its Grand Commander. The American Civil War interrupted his work on the Scottish Rite rituals. Around 1870, he, and the Supreme Council, moved to Washington, DC. In 1884 his revision of the rituals was complete.
Scottish Rite Grand Archivist and Grand Historian de Hoyosde Hoyos, Arturo, Scottish Rite Ritual, Monitor and Guide 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Supreme Council, 33°, S.J., 2009), p. 115. created the following chart of Pike's ritual revisions: DegreesWhen Revised1–3°18724–14°1861, 1870, 188315–16°1861, 1870, 188217–18°1861, 187019–30°1867, 1879, 188331–32°1867, 1879, 188333°1857, 1867, 1868, 1880 (manuscripts only)