24th° Degree – Prince of the Tabernacle

The Prince of the Tabernacle is the second of the Scottish Rite’s Mystery degrees, and it takes the candidate from the Lesser Mysteries of the 23rd degree to the threshold of the Greater Mysteries. Where the previous degree stayed within the religion of ancient Israel, this one widens its view to the great civilisations of the ancient world, from Egypt and Persia to India and Phoenicia. Its central themes are the unity of God, the immortality of the soul and the power of faith.

The degree at a glance

• Number and title: 24th degree, Prince of the Tabernacle, the title used in the Southern Jurisdiction (S.J.) and most other Supreme Councils.
• Body: the Council of Kadosh in the S.J. In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction (N.M.J.) the 24th degree is a different Consistory degree, “Brother of Tolerance” (also listed as Brother of the Forest), in which a Native American petitions to join a colonial lodge, teaching that Freemasonry is a universal brotherhood.
• Setting: the Tabernacle in the camp of Israel, as in the 23rd degree, but used as a stage for the mysteries of many nations.
• History: Mackey notes that the degree appears to be peculiar to the Scottish Rite. In the old rituals it illustrated the instructions for building the Tabernacle in Exodus 25, and its body, called a Hierarchy, was led by a Most Powerful Chief Prince representing Moses, with Wardens representing Aaron, Bezaleel and Aholiab. The American rituals of his day kept the main idea but greatly enlarged it into an initiation into the mysteries of the Mosaic Tabernacle.

The lesson

The ceremony uses two settings. The first, called the Vestibule, is furnished like a Master Mason’s lodge, except that a Hebrew letter with the same meaning takes the place of the familiar letter G. The second repeats the Tabernacle of the 23rd degree, with the addition of a five-pointed star bearing the Greek letters Alpha and Omega.

In outline, the candidate enters dressed simply in a white tunic and is guided by an officer representing Caleb, the outsider who was absorbed into the tribe of Judah and praised in the Bible for following the Lord wholeheartedly. Hutchens reads Caleb as a reminder that Masonry welcomes good men of every origin. Three groups of lights stand for reason, liberty and faith, and the candidate is told that initiation is meant to develop in him the qualities that are divine. He then passes through symbolic tests of fire, water, earth and air, the four elements of the ancients, each carrying a moral lesson: to take on only the responsibilities one is fit for, to seek purity of heart through repentance, and to be generous and liberal as the earth and the air are generous to all.

Entering the Tabernacle in darkness and silence, a reminder of death, the candidate hears the mourning for gods whose deaths and returns to life were celebrated in the ancient mysteries: Osiris in Egypt, Kama in India, Mithras in Persia, Attis in Phrygia and Tammuz in Phoenicia. Their deaths stand for the temporary victory of darkness over light. The lesson drawn from the mourning for Osiris is that science and logic, on their own, cannot prove even that the soul exists, still less that it is immortal; it is faith that gives that conviction.

From this the degree draws three conclusions. There is one true God, pure intellect and being, the soul of the universe, unchanging, just and wise, whose punishments are simply the working out of cause and effect. The soul is immortal and part of the universal soul. And every human being lives with a constant struggle between the divine will planted in him and the weakness of the flesh, a struggle that mirrors the balance of the whole universe. The five-pointed star with Alpha and Omega, symbol of the divine in man, gathers all three together.

Duties of the degree

A Bridge to Light sums up the duty of a Prince of the Tabernacle in a single charge:

• to labour unceasingly for the glory of God, the honour of one’s country and the happiness of one’s brethren.

The lessons of the degree are the power of faith in God and His promises, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of one true God who is pure, absolute intellect and existence.

Symbols and regalia

The order is a broad watered scarlet ribbon worn from right to left. On the front is embroidered in gold a winged globe, with a scarab beneath it and a brilliant butterfly below that, all three ancient symbols of immortality. A girdle of light-green morocco leather, fringed and edged with gold, carries two jewels: the silver censer of the 23rd degree and the jewel of this degree.

The apron is white lambskin, lined with scarlet and bordered with light green. In the middle is painted a golden Arab tent, and on the light-blue flap is a violet myrtle tree, another emblem of immortality.

The jewel is the Phoenician letter Aleph, the letter A, hanging from a short collar of narrow, watered violet ribbon. Hutchens explains it as another form of the five-pointed star, which seen from any angle suggests the letter A, and as the initial of Adonai, “Lord”, one of the principal names of God. Red gloves complete the regalia shown here.

Other important symbols Hutchens lists for the degree are the five-pointed star and the figure of Caleb. The star, with a single point upward, stands for the divine; its five points also recall the five senses and the head and limbs of the human body.

Reflections

Pike’s lecture for this degree is a long survey of the Greater Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Persia, India and beyond. Its conclusion about their purpose is gentle and humane:

“The object of all the Mysteries was to inspire men with piety, and to console them in the miseries of life.”

Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 24° Prince of the Tabernacle

He also explains how the ancients understood initiation itself, as a symbolic death and purification:

“Initiation was considered to be a mystical death; a descent into the infernal regions, where every pollution, and the stains and imperfections of a corrupt and evil life were purged away by fire and water…”

Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 24° Prince of the Tabernacle

Pike notes that, according to an ancient dialogue attributed to Plato, the hope of immortality comforts only those who have lived well, and frightens everyone else. Rex Hutchens turns that thought into the degree’s question for reflection: is the doctrine of the immortality of the soul a consolation to you, a source of fear and despair, or merely a superstition?

Please view the video on the left, for a more detailed explanation of the 24th° Degree.