Mystical systems
Scottish Rite
Direct answer
Scottish Rite: The Scottish Rite is a system of Masonic degrees numbered from four to thirty-three, which a Master Mason may join to continue the lessons of the first three.
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At a glance
- Also called
- 33rd degree mason
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Freemasonry, Hiram Abiff, Knights Templar, Bavarian Illuminati
The Scottish Rite is a system of Masonic degrees numbered from four to thirty-three, which a Master Mason may join to continue the lessons of the first three.
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How many degrees are in the Scottish Rite?
Scottish Rite’s full name is the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. A man must already be a Master Mason in a regular lodge to enter. The Rite then confers a further series of degrees, each a short drama with a moral, drawing on the building of the Temple, on chivalry and on philosophy. The thirty-second is the highest a member works toward; the thirty-third is an honour granted by the governing council for service.
Two misunderstandings are common. The Rite is not from Scotland: its degrees grew up in France in the eighteenth century, where the word Scottish was attached to the so-called high degrees. And its numbers do not outrank the lodge. A holder of the thirty-third degree has no authority over Freemasonry as a whole, which is governed in each country or state by a grand lodge of the first three degrees.
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What sets Scottish Rite apart
What distinguishes the Rite from the lodge is theatre and number. Where the lodge has three degrees given to one candidate at a time, the Rite stages many, often before a seated class who watch one of their number go through the part. In several jurisdictions only a selection is performed in full and the rest are communicated by title. Its governing unit is a Supreme Council for each country or region, and the councils recognise one another without any single head.
- Full name: Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite
- Degrees conferred: the 4th to the 32nd, with the 33rd as an honour
- First Supreme Council: Charleston, South Carolina, 31 May 1801
- French precursor: a rite of twenty-five degrees, carried abroad under a 1761 patent
- Best known author: Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 1871
Often mistaken for something else: The York Rite is the other main path beyond the lodge in the United States, built of chapters, councils and commanderies; the Scottish Rite is one body with numbered degrees.
The story behind Scottish Rite
French lodges worked a growing number of high degrees from the 1740s, and a patent of 1761 charged Étienne Morin with carrying a rite of twenty-five degrees to the Americas. The first Supreme Council of thirty-three degrees was opened at Charleston, South Carolina, on 31 May 1801. Albert Pike led the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States from 1859 to 1891, rewrote its rituals and published Morals and Dogma in 1871. In the 1890s the French hoaxer Léo Taxil forged a Luciferian statement in Pike's name and confessed the fraud in 1897.
Why Scottish Rite matters
Most talk of high-ranking Masons refers to this Rite, so knowing how its degrees work removes much of the mystery from the phrase.
How to read Scottish Rite
The name covers the body itself, its degree dramas, and in the United States the charities and buildings it maintains.
Scottish Rite in practice: an example
A reader who sees 32° after a name in an old obituary can take it to mean a member of the Scottish Rite who had received its regular degrees.
Where readings of Scottish Rite go wrong
A higher number marks further lessons taken, not command; claims of a ruling inner circle of the 33rd degree have no documentary support.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- scottish rite meaning, scottish rite freemasonry, ancient and accepted scottish rite, 33rd degree mason, scottish rite degrees
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
How many degrees are in the Scottish Rite?
Thirty-three in the numbering. The first three belong to the ordinary lodge, the Rite confers the fourth to the thirty-second, and the thirty-third is an honorary degree given by invitation of the Supreme Council.
Is the Scottish Rite actually Scottish?
No. Its degrees developed in France in the eighteenth century and its first Supreme Council met in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1801. The name reflects a French fashion for calling the higher degrees Scottish.
What is a 33rd degree Mason?
A member of the Scottish Rite who has been given its final, honorary degree for service to the Rite or the community. It carries respect within that body but no power over other Masons or lodges.
