The Masonic Ritual Revealed

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Rosebery Wrote:Yes OK BUT Scottish Rite is an appendant body to Freemasonry it isn't Freemasonry.

That is ; to Grand Lodge of England ?, but to what degree is it generally accepted as a part of freemasonic strucure, assuming that many masons who join the Scottish Rite view it as a part of freemasonry, only excessible to those who are allready freemasons?

I'll have a try! First you have to get something clear, that which people blithely refer to as the "Scottish Rite" is actually the Ancient and Accepted Scotish Rite of Freemasonry (aka A&ASR), this may seem like nit-picking but it needs to be understood as here in England there is no such beast, here we have the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry (A&AR). The Degrees are actually different although the numbering is the same. Appendant Bodies (or Degrees) are things you can choose to join (or not) once you have become a Master Mason (3rd Degree) The Grand Master of Freemasons has to be a Master Mason and does not need to have joined any Appendant Degrees. In the same way the other Appendant Bodies which have been helpully grouped together (in the US) as the York Rite also have no such structure here although we still have them. In common with the US the degrees from the 4th onwards are not actually carried out in a Craft Lodge as it is part of another body. This is where the whole annoyance with people saying that a 33rd Degree Masonic is more important than a 3rd degree Mason comes from, when I attend meetings of Grand Lodge it has nothing to do with my extra Degrees such as Royal Arch it is because I'm a Past Master of a Lodge.

Something to bear in mind is that despite the supposed numerical supremecy of some extra Degrees a Grand Lodge can stop its members from joining extra Degrees (something that has happened in the past) but a Supreme Council can have no effect on a Grand Lodge.