Born with two, then three degrees, Freemasonry developed many more based on legends connecting its origins with the European aristocracy and the Knights Templar.
by Massimo Introvigne
Article 5 of 8. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, and article 4.
Modern Freemasonry was born in 1717 with two degrees only, Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft, to which Master Mason was added in 1724. Today, however, we hear of thirty-three or even more Masonic degrees. Where do they come from?
The origin of the “high degrees” of Freemasonry is related to its introduction and spread in France. A Scottish knight, André Michel de Ramsay (1686–1743), played a prominent role in the story. He was disciple and later secretary of the Archbishop of Cambrai François de Salignac de la Mothe, “Fénélon” (1651–1715). He was even considered his spiritual heir after his death. Later, he embraced the Quietist spirituality of Jeanne-Marie Guyon (1648–1717), whose secretary he also became. His “Discours” was originally delivered in Paris in 1736. It was scheduled to be repeated in a slightly different version at a large meeting of the lodges of France announced for March 24, 1737, but later banned by the authorities.
The aim of Ramsay’s “Discours” was to propagandize Freemasonry among French nobles. He wanted to dispel the impression that it was a reality born among simple artisans and masons by substituting a legendary chivalric origin for the historical emergence from a guild. According to Ramsay, knights of the highest European nobility infiltrated the Masonic guilds since the time of the Crusades to pursue their esoteric interests there away from prying eyes. For many centuries, Freemasonry would thus have been more of a chivalric reality than a corporate one.
The legend was consciously created by Ramsay without any historical support. An entire system of “high degrees” with chivalric symbolism was elaborated, while the three original degrees, called “blue Freemasonry,” remained at the basis of the system. In Germany, Ramsay’s “Discours” was read with great interest and linked to the speculations, widespread in the 18th century, about a secret continuation of the Knights Templar after their suppression in 1312. The “knights” whose identity Ramsay had not specified were thus identified with the clandestine Knights Templar, further enriching the legend, and giving rise to a large number of competing systems of “high degrees.’
The myth connecting the origins of Freemasonry to the suppressed Order of Knights Templar was developed in 1756, by Karl Gotthelf von Hund und Grotkau, better known as the Baron von Hund (1722–1776). He was a nobleman from Altenburg, near Leipzig, who created an eight-degree Masonic system known as the Strict Observance. Hund’s eight degrees were Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, Master Mason, Scottish Master, Squire Novice, Knight Templar, and Professed Knight.
Not all European Freemasons, however, were enthusiastic about the new knightly and Templar legends. Those more attached to rationalism feared that the “high degrees” were vehicles for the prevalence of elements more inclined to esotericism and occultism. Supporters of the “high degrees” defeated the rationalists on a French scale at the Convent of Gaul, held in Lyon in 1778, where Jean-Baptiste Willermoz (1730–1824) played a key role, and on a European scale at the Convent of Wilhelmsbad in 1782.
The references to Willermoz and the Convent of Wilhelmsbad are useful to dwell also on the creation of a new system of Masonic high degrees, the Order of Knights Beneficent of the Holy City, better known as the Rectified Scottish Rite, not to be confused with the later U.S.-born Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Willermoz’s rite consisted of the Lodges of St. John (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, Master Mason), the Lodges of St. Andrew (with the fourth degree, Scotch Master), the Inner Order (with the fifth and sixth degrees, Squire Novice and Knight Beneficent of the Holy City), and the Secret Classes (with the eighth and ninth degrees, Professed Knight and Grand Professed Knight).
Willermoz, a Lyon cloth merchant by trade, founded his Masonic-esoteric system inspired by the occult doctrines of Jacques Martinez de Pasqually (1727–1774). The latter, reportedly descended from a Spanish Jewish family familiar with the Kabbalah, also organized his own Masonic system of high degrees, the Ordre des Chevaliers Maçons Élus Coëns de l’Univers (Order of Knight-Masons Elect Priests of the Universe). The Élus Coëns taught a series of theurgical practices inspired by the Kabbalah, whose doctrine was set forth in Martinez’s seminal work, the “Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings.” On the other hand, Willermoz’s system affirmed its compatibility with Roman Catholicism.
While never detaching itself from Martinez’s doctrines, Willermoz’s order became the center of European “spiritualist” Freemasonry and its struggle against the “rationalist” strand of the Masonic world. I introduced in 1990 a terminology distinguishing between the rationalist “cold current” and the spiritualist “hot current,” which other scholars have adopted since.
A few years after the Convent of Wilhelmsbad, the rationalist “cold current” that had been defeated there took its revenge with the French Revolution, among whose protagonists were prominent Freemasons of this orientation. During the Revolution, Masons of the more esoteric “hot current” were instead persecuted, including Willermoz, although he was eventually rehabilitated and co-opted as General Councilor of the Department of Rhône by Napoleon (1769–1821)
On the international level, Freemasonry arrived in the United States—a country that will later acquire great Masonic importance—accompanied by the “high degrees.” And it was precisely in the United States, in Charleston in 1801, that the best-known version of the 33-degree system, known as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, was founded in 1801. It later spread throughout the world thanks to the work of a controversial but influential figure, Albert Pike (1809–1891). Unbelievable legends spread about Pike, falsely portraying him as a Satanist, but he was indeed a figure who played a prominent role in the history of Masonic rites even beyond the United States.
