A Brief Overview of The Scottish Rite's Origins and Rituals by Arturo de Hoyos
A Brief Overview of The Scottish Rite's Origins and Rituals by Arturo de Hoyos
A Brief Overview of The Scottish Rite's Origins and Rituals by Arturo de Hoyos
About 1763 Morin introduced the Order of the Royal Secret to Kingston,
Jamaica, and the following year the high degrees were brought to North
American soil, when they were established in New Orleans, Louisiana. About
this time Morin also empowered an enthusiastic Dutch Mason, Henry Andrew
Francken, to establish Masonic bodies throughout the New World, including
the United States. Francken soon sailed to New York, and in 1767 he began to
confer its degrees in Albany. Fortunately, he also transcribed several
manuscript copies of the rituals of the Order of the Royal Secret, some of
which survive today.
The degrees administered and supervised by the Supreme Council were often
referred to as the “Ineffable and Sublime (or Superior) Degrees.” It is
interesting to note that these degrees were originally conferred only on Past
Masters, or virtual Past Masters, of Blue Lodges. Frederick Dalcho’s 4° Secret
Master ritual (dated 1801) noted, “The Blue Past Master or Candidate, must be
examined in the Antechamber (by the Master of Ceremonies) in his three first
degrees, and in the secrets of the Chair”; and the Circular throughout two
Hemispheres explained that Sublime Masons “communicate the secrets of the
Chair.
The Constitutions of 1786 allowed for one supreme council in each kingdom or
nation, and for two supreme councils in the United States. As a result, the
Supreme Council at Charleston created several supreme councils around the
world, including a Supreme Council for Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the
United States, which was established between 1813 and 1815, and reorganized
in 1867.7 In 1827 the territory of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction was fixed
as comprising the fifteen states north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the
Mississippi River. The Southern Jurisdiction occupies the remaining thirty–five
states and the American territories and dependencies. As the premiere Supreme
Council, it is sometimes referred to as the “Mother Council of the World.”
Endnotes
1. “Trinity College, Dublin, MS, 1711,” in The Early Masonic Catechisms, pp.
69–70.
2. Charles Cotton was made a Mason on December 22, 1724, later passed a
Fellow Craft (date unspecified), and on May 12, 1725, he and Papillon Ball
“Were regularly passed Masters.” R.F. Gould, “Philo-Musicæ et Architecturæ
Societas Apollini [A Review],” in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. 16 (1903),
pp. 112–28.
3. On Scots Masonry and the early high degrees, see J. Fairbairn Smith, “A
Commentary. D’Assigny’s Enquiry—Serious, Impartial” in Fifield
D’Assigny, A Serious and Impartial Enquiry into the Cause of the Present
Decay of Free-Masonry in the Kingdom of Ireland(Bloomington, Ill.: Masonic
Book Club, 1974); Alain Bernheim, “Did Early ‘High’ or Écossais Degrees
Originate in France?” Heredom, vol. 5 (1996), pp. 87–113.
4. The complete text of Le Parfait Maçon is translated in Harry Carr, The Early
French Exposures 1737–1751 (London: Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076,
1971), pp. 157–200.
5. For arguments favoring the view that Morin forged his authority, see Alain
Bernheim, “Une décoverte étonnante concernant les Constitutions de
1762,” Renaissance Traditionnelle, no. 59 (July 1984), pp. 161–97; A.C.F.
Jackson, “The Authorship of the 1762 Constitutions of the Ancient and
Accepted Rite,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. 79 (1984), pp. 176–91; A.C.F.
Jackson, Rose Croix: A History of the Ancient and Accepted Rite for England
and Wales, rev. & enl. ed. (London: Lewis Masonic, 1980, 1987), pp. 46–54.
For the opposite view see Jean-Pierre Lassalle, “From the Constitutions and
Regulations of 1762 to the Grand Constitutions of 1786,” Heredom, vol. 2
(1993), pp. 57–88.