Princes, Priests and Potentates

I have been asked many times from people outside of the fraternity what "degree" of mason am I? "The third" I usually reply. "Oh...you're not even that high. My grandfather was a 32nd" they usually reply. Typically less-informed and dressup masons usually say or think the same way i.e "I'm a 32nd(or 33rd) degree mason ergo I am higher than you"

That is a popular misconception that anyone who has been properly initiated into freemasonry will note how wrong it is. The title (and the attached picture) aptly come to mind and also brings memories of the apron charge every mason has heard before.

There is no degree, no honor in freemasonry  higher than being a master mason. At that degree you have earned the full rights and benefits of a mason, you have shown proficiency in all previous degrees, you have show that you properly understand the foundation and essence of our craft and our fraternity.

By staying as an active master mason, you are entitled to certain unalienable rights that are extended to you till (and even after) death. These rights I would not bother dissecting, but they are the basis and reason why one no longer works as an apprentice and attains that sublime degree of master mason.

Now, back to where I was, the misconception. You see, brothers tend to get lost in their years sojourning as travellers. I have seen too many who feel they can pull rank not only because of the positions they attain as master masons, but the fact that they are in these different "higher houses" and have positions in them give them some impetus of authority or superiority over the craft lodge brothers.

Let them get suspended by their Worshipful or Grand Masters and watch how their masonic edifices crash and tumble to the ground. Whereas a 33rd degree mason who is expelled from the Scottish rite has nothing to heal through except a bruised ego.

This misconception about high degrees is further popularized and spread by some wrong charts/images of the structure of freemasonry. It shows a large square and compass followed by the representation of the Entered Appentice at the bottom of the square and ends with Shriners (or 33rds & KT's) at the top of the compass i.e the screw.

I think that's a very wrong representation. If I had to represent the structure of freemasonry, it'd be a T-structure. You truly do go higher from 1st to 2nd to 3rd, but everything else is on a level along with that 3rd level. Whether you move left or right through each rite (Scottish Rite or York Rite) you get further into albeit deeper and more detailed into each rite...but at the end of it all, you're still on the level as a master mason.