Ancient and Primitive Rite
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The Ancient and Primitive Rite is a Masonic higher-degree Rite.
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[edit] History
The Rite began around 1805 amongst Napoleon's soldiers in Egypt who were Freemasons. It was based primarily on the degree work of the Philadelphes of Narbonne as well as several other Masonic Rites that were operating in France during this period. The Rite was then introduced to France from Egypt by Samuel Honis in 1815 and also spread to Italy. In 1856 the Rite was established in the USA, Romania, Australia and Switzerland by Jacques Etienne Marconis de Negre. During the Civil War, the Rite in the USA lost so many members that it fell into a decline from which it never recovered. The Rite did, however, continue to be practiced in Europe and was chartered for the jurisdiction of Chile in the 1920's where it is still practiced and where it survived until recent times.
[edit] Current Penetration
The Rite has experienced somewhat of a renaissance recently, and is now being practiced once again in United States of America, France, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Lebanon, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, England, Italy, Mexico, Monaco, Venezuela, Portugal, Argentina and the Dominican Republic.
[edit] Notable Members
Famous people who have been members of the Rite include Kenneth McKenzie, John Yarker, Salvatore Zola, David McLellan and several members of the Romanian royal family prior to the suppression of Freemasonry as a whole by the Communists in that country. The mysticism and rituals of people such as the Comte de Cagliostro, Martinez Pasqually and Louis Claude de Saint-Martin have influenced this Rite of Freemasonry.
[edit] Degrees
The Rite confers 91 degrees starting from the 4th degree and going to the 95th in four series. The Rite as it was originally practiced in Egypt also had symbolic lodge degrees which were unique, similarly to Scottish Rite and York Rite, which were the official ritual of the Grand Lodge of Egypt. The degree rituals of the Rite are chivalric in nature with kabbalistic, hermetic, biblical and mythological influences.
The Rite as it exists today operates in the same spirit as the Masonic Metropolitan College in Paris where the degrees of all high degree rites which were present at that time were available to master masons, so that they could make up their own mind as to their value. The Rite does this in order to preserve and use as much of the tradition of high degree masonic rituals as possible.
[edit] External links
- The Ancient and Primitive Rite
- from the Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon, an outline of the history and principles of the rite as written by John Yarker.
