The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is a system of thirty-three degrees, of which a Master Mason in the United States can go on to receive the 4th to the 32nd, with the 33rd conferred as an honour. Each degree is a short moral drama with its own setting, characters, lesson and regalia. The pages in this section introduce the Rite and then walk through its degrees one by one, with illustrations of the apron, collar, jewel and gloves of each degree from page 4 onwards.
How this section is organised
- Pages 1 to 3, introduction: who can join and how the degrees are received (with four short videos), the origins of the Scottish Rite, and A Bridge to Light, the book on which the degree pages are based.
- Lodge of Perfection, 4° to 14°: the “Ineffable Degrees”, which continue the story of Hiram and the building of King Solomon’s Temple and teach the foundations of duty, honesty, justice and charity.
- Chapter of Rose Croix, 15° to 18°: degrees set around the rebuilding of the Temple after the Babylonian exile and culminating in the 18°, Knight Rose Croix.
- Council of Kadosh, 19° to 30°: the philosophical and chivalric degrees, which explore religion, tolerance and freedom and end with the 30°, Knight Kadosh.
- Consistory, 31° and 32°: the Inspector Inquisitor and the Master of the Royal Secret, which review and draw together the lessons of all the earlier degrees.
- Honours: the Knight Commander of the Court of Honour (KCCH), the 33rd degree and the offices and distinctions associated with it.
Which version of the degrees?
The names, colours and regalia on these pages follow the Supreme Council of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, founded at Charleston in 1801 and the oldest Supreme Council in the world. Its degrees are based on the rituals of Albert Pike, as revised in the Revised Standard Pike Ritual and explained in Rex Hutchens’ A Bridge to Light. Most Supreme Councils outside the United States, including those of England and Wales and of Australia, use broadly the same list of degree names. The Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States is the main exception: it rewrote many of its degrees in 2004 and 2006, and each degree page notes where its name or story differs.
One point is worth making at the outset. The numbers do not mean rank. Freemasonry has no degree higher than that of Master Mason, and the Scottish Rite’s degrees are best seen as further chapters of instruction. As Hutchens observes, the titles they carry, such as Prince, Knight or Master, are meant to bring with them the duties of the role rather than a claim to be better than anyone else.
These pages describe each degree’s lessons, symbols and regalia and the outline of its legend. Anything a degree reserves for its members, such as its words, signs and obligations, is deliberately left out. Choose a page below to begin.