ONE is apt to think that there must be some excuse
for the existence of the Scottish Rite, in view of the amount of
time and money spent upon it. Therefore I am not surprised that
the editor of THE AMERCAN FREEMASON, in his article in the
April number, gave that organization credit for being, at least
potentially, a system further elucidating and explaining the
degrees of Masonry. I am convinced that the editor gave it too
much credit. It would perhaps be correct to say that it was the
original aim of the body to do such work. But it is out of date.
Every intelligent man who has gone through its ceremonies admits
that it has no significance; that as a key to Masonic mysteries
it is negligible; that where the makers of a certain one or two
degrees appear to have had a glimmer of truth, that glimmer has
been dimmed, and for all practical purposes extinguished, by the
ritual-mongers. See the testimony of Albert Edward Waite in his
new book, The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, as the latest
piece of evidence. There was a great plenty of it
before.
It seems to me that the third degree, rightly
understood, asks a momentous question, and leaves it unanswered.
It is not strange that many attempts have been made to answer
it. It is not strange that as many as 1400 Masonic degrees have
been invented in the attempt to give an answer to this
question. Not one has succeeded, and each has been
practically abandoned as its failure has become evident. The
final conclusion is not that the question is unanswerable, but
that there is no one answer for all seekers. One Mason gets
his answer in the Christian religion, another even in
Mohammedanism, another even in agnosticism. If this matter
were rightly understood the universality and the tolerance of
Masonry would have a real and a definite meaning. Nor would we
hear any more nonsense to the effect that Masonry is a religion
- "religion enough for any man," is the common formula. Masonry
is the introduction to religion. It has to do with a certain
loss - a loss of real consequence. For the loss actually
represented is only a symbol. The question it asks is, how can
that which is lost be recovered and that is a question which for
some men must be answered by religion. It a man is of that sort,
Masonry leads to religion.
Masonry is tolerant and the
perfection of tolerance, and that without any effort. Masonry
does not have to aim to be tolerant: it can be nothing else. For
it leads up to a certain door and asks a certain question, which
door is the important door and which question is the
all-important question for every man - Jew, Gentile, Chinaman or
negro. And there it leaves each man to find the answer for
himself, and by the very fact that it itself gives no answer, it
intimates in the clearest possible way that the answer is not
the same to every man. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if the lesson
of Masonry is not that the way back to God is different for each
soul - that there are as many ways as there are souls; that
one should not put his trust in any fixed formula, in any
well-trodden path, in any set of guide-posts.
Now in the
eighteenth century, and especially in France - the age and the
land of systems - men were unwilling to leave Masonry in this
apparently incomplete state, and each man who had a solution to
the question of Masonry thought it the one solution for all the
world. Result: not fewer than 1400 Masonic degrees, each set
fondly believed by its concocter to be the one answer - the one
final chapter of Masonic philosophy.
These fall into
certain categories, the more important of which are degrees
founded respectively upon Ceremonial Magic, Philosophical
Alchemy, Christianity, the Kabbala, Gnosticism, Rosicrucianism,
Mysticism and Hermetical Science. It is very likely that these
several categories are not exclusive, and that some of them
shade off the one into another. It is not worth while to
inquire, for they are all out of date and out-worn. I do not
mean to say that Christianity is out-worn, but Christian degrees
never had any more excuse for existence than would have
Mohammedan degrees. To the Christian man Masonry propounds the
riddle of the universe, and if Christianity solves it to his
mind, it sends him to the church - to any variety of the
Christian church which satisfies his conscience. It propounds
the same riddle to the Mohammedan, and if Mohammedanism solves
it to his mind, it sends him to Mohammedanism, which has its
sects also. There is no excuse for Christian degrees, unless
they shed some new light on Christianity - unless there are not
enough of Christian sects - unless they teach a variety of
Christianity differing from that of any or all the sects -
unless some Christian soul must have some new way back to God
charted for him through Christianity.
At this very day in
some parts of the world Masons are trying to follow up Masonry
through Philosophical Alchemy, through Gnosticism, through all
the different categories of Masonic degrees already catalogued.
Such men have right to continue to struggle with the Rite of
Memphis, the Rite of Misraim, and what not. But what sense can
there be in a hodge podge of Masonic degrees of all categories
at once? That is what the Scottish Rite degrees are, and, in
this country, most absurd of all, the men who go through the
motions of studying and of practicing them are usually
professing Christians.
The truth is that the Scottish
Rite degrees in America have no other than an archaeological
interest. But men who never heard of Philosophic Alchemy or
Gnosticism or Hermeticism; men who could not define one of these
terms, profess to be disciples and students of Scottish Rite
philosophy. The truth is, of course, that the Scottish Rite
degrees have, in American hands, lost all semblance of
philosophy; that the peculiar doctrines which they once taught,
traces of which can be found in the rituals by a really
enlightened student, have been cut out and covered up until not
one initiate in ten thousand ever guesses what the degrees
originally meant, and would be shocked and alarmed if he did
guess.
If one were really interested in Occultism he might
well study the Scottish Rite degrees as well as, but not more
than, the rest of the 1,400, or perhaps a selection of 300 or
400. When a scholar makes this broad study, his conclusions as
to the merit of the Scottish Rite will be those of Albert Edward
Waite. I quote from his book, "The Secret Tradition in
Freemasonry":
"The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is
inchoate and negligible as a system." - Vol. I, p.
127.
"The unreason of its practical grouping." -
Ibid.
It is only the Rose Croix degree of which he speaks
respectfully. This because he is himself a partisan of
Christian high degree Masonry. But he makes it pretty plain
that from his standpoint the Christian Rose Croix degree can
be found in much better form elsewhere than in the Scottish
Rite, and especially the Scottish Rite as re-written by Albert
Pike, who was not himself a Christian, and who labors in his
"Morals and Dogma" to prove that the Rose Croix degree is
not Christian.
It follows that if anyone wishes seriously
to study Christian high degree Masonry in any aspect, or in all
aspects, he must go further than the Scottish Rite.
How
is it to be accounted for that the Scottish Rite has come to be
regarded by nine American Masons out of ten as an integral part
of Masonry, and in fact the most important part - the real
Masonry to which the Lodge is only the vestibule - while all
other high degree rites are by them neglected and despised? It
is a marvelous thing that it may be accounted for to a certain
extent by one who understands the American
character.
Americans worship success. No true American
cares a rap how any rich man got his money - he wants only to be
sure that he has it, and a plenty of it. Forthwith he falls down
and worships.
Partly by accident, partly because of its
system of government, putting all power and the handling of
large funds in the hands of a very few, the Scottish Rite was
the one selected within our time to be pushed by some able and
selfish and ambitious men - notably Bros. Pike and Drummond.
Within our time, I say. For while the Rite can trace its origin
back to a group of Jews in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1801,
it never had any real existence in this country until within our
time. How it came to succeed so marvelously would take too long
to tell, and I am not sure I could tell if I were to try. I will
venture to say that Pike and Drummond were themselves astonished
at their own success.
But it is no mystery why it is so
highly regarded today. It is rich and successful! No American
Mason goes back of these two facts. No American Mason feels the
need of doing so. Witness the debonair way in which men who
never took the Scottish Rite degrees and never studied Scottish
Rite history vote in Grand Lodges relative to the "legitimacy"
of rival Scottish Rite bodies. It is nothing that from the
standpoint of Master Masons all are illegitimate together. But
those of us who have taken the trouble to unravel the tangled
skein have all found that in point of origins and of early
irregularities there is absolutely nothing to choose between the
various bodies. But the average Grand Lodge has no trouble in
deciding "which is the richest and most successful one" and
that is "the only legitimate body."
You and I would have
some respect for and some sympathy with a Mason who had made a
serious study of the high degrees. But to speak of the Scottish
Riters whom we know and of serious study in the same breath is
only a good joke. Ninety per cent of them suppose that the
Scottish Rite has always been a part of Masonry, and do not
believe us when we tell them that it is Masonic only in so far
as it has lately succeeded in attaching itself to
Masonry.
Moreover, if a Mason wished to study the "high"
degrees, it would be most irrational to join the Scottish Rite,
and stop there. In the first place it is not necessary to join
anything and to burden one's conscience with a heap of
obligations presented by men in whom he can have and ought to
have little confidence. In the second place the Scottish Rite is
only a part, and a small part, of the whole subject. And in the
third place the really significant part of the story is what
these degrees were originally, not what they have become after
being re-written half a dozen times, and modernized by
Albert Pike and his contemporaries. As it is, you and I know
more about it than 90 per cent of the Princes, and it is funny
to have them assume, as they always do, that we are not
entitled to have opinion concerning the Rite, because we
have not taken the degrees.
To sum up: Many degrees were
invented to give answer to the riddle of Masonry. All these
answers are obsolete. Today we realize that no answer is
possible - at least no one answer for all men. That it is not
the function of Masonry to solve, but to propound it, and to
stimulate each man to search for his own solution. Each
continuation of Masonry has been tried in turn, and has been
abandoned. They no longer have any message, and no interest to
any but a few students of occultism - studied not as a practical
science, but as a curious illustrations of the ways of the human
mind. The least important of these systems is the Scottish Rite,
because it was never a complete and harmonious system, but a
patchwork of unrelated fragments. In its modern form it is still
less significant and interesting.
As to the harm it does,
you, Brother Editor, have covered the ground partially. Let it
be added that it seeks to control the Lodges as well as Grand
Lodges. I have sat in Lodge and seen a combination of Riters
carry a vote against the interest of the Lodge and in interest
of the Scottish Rite. And there is also the money cost, the
amounts paid for things absolutely worthless. Genuine Masonry
suffers because of this waste, and the best purposes of the
fraternity are thereby kept back and
impoverished.
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