Volume 65, No. 03
May- June 2018
History of the Rite
- pg 7
Interesting Facts
2018 Class
Shirts on sale
pg 2
pg 5
pg 10
2 Seattle Scottish Rite
Scottish Rite Communicator
Scottish Rite
Valley of Seattle
www.seattle-scottishrite.org
SCOTTISH RITE OFFICERS Ill. Ronald A. Seale, 33° Sovereign Grand Commander Ill. Alvin W. Jorgensen, 33° S:.G:.I:.G:, Orient of Washington Ill. Sat Tashiro, 33° Personal Rep. of S:.G:.I:.G:. pr@seattle-scottishrite.org Daniel Southerland, 32° General Secretary Communicator Editor secretary@seattle-scottishrite.org Ill. Brian Thomas, 33° Treasurer Tom Lamb, 32° KCCH Almoner PRESIDING OFFICERS Thomas Lamb 33° Master of Kadosh, Consistory Todd Pike 32° Commander, Council of Kadosh Ian Hyde 32° KCCH Wise Master, Chapter of Rose Croix Bob Guild, 32° Venerable Master, Lodge of Perfection Seattle Scottish Rite Center 1207 N 152nd St. Seattle, WA 98133-6213 206 324-3330 voice 206 324-3332 fax
The Communicator (USPS 485-660) is published by the Valley of Seattle, A&A Scottish Rite, 1207 N 152nd St., Seattle, WA 98133-6213, for the benefit of its members, bimonthly and is mailed as a non-profit publication to all members of the Valley of Seattle and to specified other interested parties. $2.00 per member is assessed for the publication of The Communicator. Periodicals postage paid at Seattle, Washington and at additional mailing offices. The material contained within this publication is intended for the education and enjoyment of the members of the Masonic Fraternity and all material published becomes the property of Seattle Valley of Scottish Rite. Postmaster: Send address changes to — The Communicator at 1207 N 152nd St., Seattle, WA 98133-6213.
Masons have always had great influence on the U.S. Supreme Court. From the inception of the Supreme Court in 1789 through 1940, there never were less than three Masonic justices during term, except on two occasions. Beginning with Mason President F. D. Roosevelt’s terms, through the first three years of President Richard Nixon’s term, Masons dominated the Court in a ratio of five to four beginning in 1941 to seven to two in 1946. Of the 56 signers of the “Declaration of Independence” 8 were Freemasons. Of the 55 members of the Constitutional Convention, 9 were Masons. 14 U.S. Presidents were Masons: George Washington, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft, Warren Harding, F. D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford.
Seattle Scottish Rite 3
News from the Personal Representative T
he longer days and Daylight Savings time is synonymous with spring and the coming summer months. We are in the midst of our valley activities. Our Class of 2018 will soon have completed three of the terminal degrees, 4°, 14° and 180 and also have seen the 5°, 9°, 10° and 13° degrees, with the 13° and 18° to be performed on 5 May. The remaining degrees will continue after our summer hiatus. The 30° degree will occur in September with the 19° degree. It is our plan to finish the year with the 29° degree and the 32° degree in November.
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e will be hosting the Cap and Ring Ceremony in early December for the class of 2018.
ur April stated meeting was highlighted by the performance of the 9th and 10th degree by members of the Lodge of Perfection. It was the first time that the Seattle Valley performed the degrees in a number of years, and it was performed in an excellent manner.
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e also want to inform the Scottish Rite members that our May 15 stated meeting will be a special event, where we will have a double header. The dinner speaker will be Ms. Kim Wyman, Secretary of State of Washington State, followed by a message from our Grand Master, MW Warren Schoeben as we approach the Grand Lodge communications in June.
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rother Tom Lamb, 33°, will be having a DVD Discussion Group meeting on Wednesday, 9 May, at 7 PM on the subject of Knights Templar. Brother Bob Guild will be the facilitator. All Master Masons are invited to attend.
e are encouraging members who have been inactive to resume their labors with the Valley. At this special time in our Valley, we have been and continue to bring events and fellowship which will be attractive to all. Body leaders will be contacting the classes of the past three years to generate their interest and to participate in these many activities of the Seattle Valley. Towards this end we will be making the Knights of St. Andrew an important body as we step forth in the new initiatives.
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Degree Passport, instead of the degree cards, is now available in the office. It has been tailored for the Seattle Valley. They have been issued to the new class, and are available for members of previous classes, or members who wish to have one. All who wish them are urged to attend our stated meetings or degrees to receive one. They will be stamped at the conclusion of every degree by the body leader, or the PR or the General Secretary.
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embership drives our valley forward. We will be planning events in the coming months for those who may be interested in the Scottish Rite. We are also inviting potential members to attend our stated meeting dinners as our guests to become acquainted with our members and to learn about our Valley. Members are urged to act as quasi-ambassadors at their respective blue lodges, and to inform the lodge that class of 2019 is being formed. Membership packets are available in the office.
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ur two Scottish Rite clubs, sponsored by the Valley of Seattle, continue to have their meetings in the coming weeks. The West Seattle Scottish Rite Club (WSSRC) had its first official meeting at Southgate Masonic Center in Burien in February. Further information on future meetings can be obtained by contacting Brother Richard Syson at nosys@comcast. net. The next meeting is scheduled for 9 AM at Southgate Masonic Center in Burien on 26 May..The second is the meeting of the Eastside Scottish Rite Club (ESRC) at Issaquah Masonic Center (ESMC), located in Issaquah. Their meetings are held on those months with five Wednesdays, with the meeting on that date. The upcoming meeting will be 30 May at 730 PM. Please contact Dean Markley, secretary of the ESRC, wdeanm@gmail.com for additional information.
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ll Scottish Rite members of the Seattle Valley receive the Communicator, but may miss the fellowship with their fellow members within the valley and find the difficult-travel-miles to-and-from our Shoreline building a major problem. For these members, you are invited to attend one of the clubs in your area. Your attendance at the club meetings is tantamount to attending our stated meetings.
F
raternally,
Sat Tashiro 33° Personal Representative of the S.G.I.G.
4 Seattle Scottish Rite
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am so excited to see we are building our great fraternity here at the Seattle Scottish Rite. Great things are happening and this is evident with our 2018 class of 17 new Brothers. We have completed the 4-14 degrees and they are all ready for the next step. The Rose Croix degrees will be conferred on May 5th so we hope to see you all there. If the degree teams do as good as the prior they will be an event to see. Our Teams did an excellent job on the Lodge of Perfection degrees, well done. Remember it is not to early to start bringing in new Brothers to show them what Scottish Rite has to offer. We are already looking toward our next class for 2019 and believe it will be even bigger than this year.
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s you all know we will be going dark in June but that does not mean we are gone. The center will be open and you are welcome to come by and see us for what ever you need. You may want to drop us a call first just to make sure someone is not on vacation.
T
he biannual Scottish Rite work shops happened last month. We were lucky to be able to help host the event here in the Seattle area. Was quite well attended and with so many of our Brothers attending we all came away with some great new ideas to move us even further into the future. Thank you to all who attended. Was great to meet so many brothers from all over.
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ur May meeting we will be hosting the Grand Master MWB Warren Shoeben, MWGM and his Lady Mary Jo. We look forward to hosting our Grand Master every year so this should be a special night as he will certainly give us some wise council along with great fellowship. The evening is also a double feature as we are also hosting Kim Wyman, Washington’s Secretary of State. She will speak to us at dinner about matters of the state. We hope you all can make it for this special evening and welcome our visitors. Please make sure you RSVP for dinner at least two days before.
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ast but certainly not least our new Degree Passport Books are here. So come in and get yours today and get ready to obtain stamps for each degree you see conferred. For this who have been attending you have already received 5 stamps. These Passport Books are for all members of Seattle Valley at no cost. The only hitch is you need to come in to the center to obtain one as we wont mail any out. We have a schedule of degrees over the next four years and will be performing them all so hurry as you don’t want to miss out on the great adventure We have done three already and are looking forward to many more.
Fraternally, Dan Southerland, 32° General Secretary
Seattle Scottish Rite 5
Welcome our Class of 2018 17 new Brothers join Scottish Rite
Our new Brothers along with the cast made the day one to remember
6 Seattle Scottish Rite
early lIFE SPEECH & LANGUAGE
Making a Difference 2018 Beer Fest success encourages growth for 2019! Beer Fest, on April 14th, in support of Early Life Speech & Language, was a BIG success! This year, more sponsors than ever signed on, additional and new breweries joined the party, new auction items were added, and the extra excitement of root beer floats drew in the crowds! The guests came from local neighborhoods and businesses, parents and families of the children served by Early Life Speech & Language, Masons, and more. We are setting some lofty goals for 2019 and will need your help! There will be special pre-sale tickets for Masons only. It is our goal to have Masons sell at least 50 tickets before the event to your brethren. The date of the event will be set soon and as soon as that happens, we will create the tickets so that you can start selling and surpass that goal in plenty of time before the 2019 Beer Fest. Stay tuned to learn more about the Beer Fest tickets made special for Masons to encourage more Masons to attend next year!
Seattle Scottish Rite 7
History of the Rite The Origins of the Scottish Rite Image: Copy of the Grand Constitutions of 1786 from the Archives of the Supreme Council, 33°, S.J., U.S.A., in the handwriting of Rev. Frederick Dalcho, ca. 1801–02 Like so much early Masonic history, the origins of the Scottish Rite are hidden in mist. There’s evidence that by the early 1730s in England there were “Scotch Masons” or “Scots Master Masons,” a step after the Master Mason Degree (and apparently unrelated to Scotland). By 1742 in Berlin there was talk of “higher or so-called Scottish Masonry.” In 1743 the Grand Lodge of France adopted a regulation limiting the privileges of “Scots Masters” in lodges. It’s clear from these few mentions that something was going on behind the scenes with “Scottish Masonry,” but we’re not quite sure what. These developments were happening at the same time the Royal Arch was gestating before its birth in 1754. It’s even possible that the Royal Arch and Scottish Masonry came from the same sources. We just don’t know. What we do know is that the high degrees found fertile ground when they were introduced to French Masonry. In 1745, two years after restricting Scotch Masons, the Grand Lodge of France gave them special privileges, and more privileges and authority followed in 1747 and 1755. In contrast, the Royal Arch appears in lodge minutes in America in 1753 and England in 1758 with little official notice. By 1766 we know that an elaborate sequence of High Degree or “Scottish” Masonry is being worked in France. There’s much activity prior to 1766 that we’ll cover later, but we want to take a look now at that sequence of High Degrees.
Emperors and Knights in France Competition is the force that drives the world’s economies, and it also seems to have driven Scottish Masonry in France, which became part of jockeying for power within the Grand Lodge of France. The Council of the Knights of the East, Sovereign Prince Masons, was organized in 1756, and included in its government middle-class Masons who had been excluded in previous High Degree ventures. It is not known how many degrees the Knights worked, but they seem to have faded out around 1768–1779. Coming on the heels of the Knights of the East in 1758 was the Sovereign Council of Emperors of the East and of the West, Sublime Scottish Mother Lodge. The Emperors attracted the upper class and nobility and competed with the knights in the number of degrees they offered. (Just from a marketing point of view the newer group bested the older: “Emperors” are more powerful than “Knights,” and “East and West” is twice an extensive as only “East.”)
8 Seattle Scottish Rite
The Invention of Stephen Morin I In August 1761 Stephen Morin received a patent from the Grand Lodge of France “authorizing and empowering him to establish perfect and sublime Masonry in all parts of the world, etc., etc.” Morin was a wine merchant from Bordeaux and set up business in Santo Domingo in what is now the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Morin is little remembered for his wine business, but his Masonic activities have gained him lasting fame. It took Morin about 15 months to make it from France to Santo Domingo, arriving in January 1763, because his ship was captured by the English and he was taken to England. While we know that he arrived with a patent of authority over the High Degrees, we don’t know how many or which High Degrees he controlled! What we do know is that he met a Dutch merchant, Henry Andrew Francken, and made him a Deputy Inspector General sometime between 1763 and 1767. Francken in turn traveled to Albany, New York, and created there a Lodge of Perfection (4°–14°) in 1767. In addition to creating the Albany Lodge of Perfection, Francken at least four times copied all of his degrees into books: 1771, 1783, and two undated versions. The “Francken Manuscripts” contain the earliest English versions of 21 degrees from 4°, “Secret Master,” to 25°, “The Royal Secret or Knights of St. Andrews—the faithful guardians of the Sacred Treasure,” a 25-degree system with the first three degrees conferred in Blue Lodges. This should establish conclusively that Morin worked a system of 25 degrees, right? Well, only if the degrees that Morin gave to Francken are the same ones that he received in France! There is growing evidence that Morin took whatever high degrees he had received in France and refashioned them into the Order of the Royal Secret, creating additional degrees as needed. The governing document, the “Constitutions of 1762,” has been discovered by Masonic scholar Alain Bernheim to be a slightly modified version of the constitution of the Grand Lodge of France. Morin apparently acted to create a new Masonic body with himself as the only “Grand Inspector.”
The First Supreme Council: Charleston, 1801 However the 25-degree Order of the Royal Secret came into being, it proved popular. These French high degrees, unlike the English York Rite, were spread by traveling Inspectors who conferred them for a fee. It wasn’t necessary to wait for enough Masons in a town to receive the high degrees somewhere else and for them to apply for a charter; the itinerant Inspector could take care of everything as soon as he arrived. Eight bodies of the Royal Secret were formed in America before 1800, from New Orleans to Albany. The weakness of the Order proved to be the unchecked system of Inspectors General. Each Inspector General could confer the degrees on Master Masons, establish local bodies, and create new Inspectors—all for an appropriate fee. There were no guidelines on cost, no limitation on numbers, and no restriction on how many more Inspectors an Inspector could create. By 1800 there were over 80 Inspectors General, and the system was moving toward chaos. Then on May 31, 1801, the first Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree, the Mother Council of the World, declared its existence with a motto of “Ordo ab Chao” (Order from Chaos). It announced a new 33-degree system of high degrees that incorporated all 25 of the Order of the Royal Secret, and added eight more, including that of 33°, Sovereign Grand Inspector General. This new organization declared control of high-degree Masonry in America.
Seattle Scottish Rite 9
The new Supreme Council had a written constitution and a plan for organizing and managing the bodies under its control. The problem it faced was how to rein in the roving Inspectors General. The solution was shrewd and depended upon convincing the Inspectors to voluntarily yield allegiance to the Supreme Council. Any Inspector of the 25° would be given authority to confer up to the 32° (the extra seven degrees would make his product more attractive), if he turned in his old patent and agreed to follow the rules of the Supreme Council. This strategy was reasonably successful, and independent Inspectors General soon disappeared.
The Second American Supreme Council: New York, 1806 The Charleston Supreme Council had organized itself according to the “Grand Constitution of the Thirty-third Degree,” purportedly written by Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1786. The Constitution provided for one Supreme Council in each country, except that the United States of America could have up to two. (This is an odd provision for a document supposedly originating from Prussia in 1786!) The decision to create a second American Supreme Council was unexpectedly thrust upon the Supreme Council in Charleston. The second Supreme Council in the world was established in Santo Domingo in 1802, a fitting return to Stephen Morin’s home. This Supreme Council died with the slave revolt on the island, but one of its members, Antoine Bideaud, fled to New York. While there he came across five Frenchmen who were interested in the high degrees. For a fee of $46 in 1806 (about $565 in 2000), Bideaud conferred the degrees upon his customers and formed them into a “Consistory” of the 32°—all without the knowledge of the Charleston Supreme Council. The same year that Bideaud was creating his Consistory, Joseph Cerneau, a French jeweler, moved from Cuba to New York City. He had a patent from an Inspector of the Order of the Royal Secret that gave him limited powers in Cuba, but that didn’t stop him from setting up his own consistory in New York City. Cerneau operated without saying much about whether he had a 25-degree or 32-degree consistory. Emmanuel de la Motta, the Grand Treasurer from the Charleston Supreme Council, arrived in New York City in 1813, examined the two competing factions, and decided against Cerneau. De la Motta regularized Bideaud’s group and transformed them into the second Supreme Council for America, now known as the “Northern Masonic Jurisdiction” and consisting of 15 mid-western and northeastern states from Wisconsin and Illinois northeast to Maine. The original Supreme Council or “Southern Jurisdiction” is composed of the other 35 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. All regular Supreme Councils of the world today descend from the Mother Supreme Council of Charleston.
10 S e a t t l e S c o t t i s h R i t e
Messages Happy Birthday!
Congratulations from all your Scottish Rite Brethren to our members over 80 who have reached a very important birthday!
May
June
Harry Reynolds 5-28-23
Raymond Barclay 6-23-15
John Kraft 5-03-25
Donald Manion 6-08-20
Donald Bartholomew 5-26-26
Richard Margerum 6-17-20
Rudy Pastori 5-28-26
Douglas Edlich 6-18-23
Louis Sackett 5-16-27
John Swafford II. 6-18-24
John Cohn 5-29-27
Alfred Bartol Jr. 6-19-24
Leo Smyth 5-14-28
Robert Maag 6-01-25 Arthur Phelps 6-03-25 David Campbell 6-01-26 Seth Wilson 6-08-28
Polo shirts are in! New Lower Price $20.00
S e a t t l e S c o t t i s h R i t e 11
C a l e n d a r
MONTH
TIME
www.seattle-scottishrite.org
EVENT
May 5th: 9:00 am Excom Meeting May 5th: 10:00 am Rose Croix Degrees May 9th 7:00 pm Masonic DVD Discussion Group. “Knights Templar” May 15th 7:30 pm Stated Meeting, Dinner 6:30 Grand Master Visit / Sec. of State Kim Wyman June 13th 7:00 pm Masonic DVD Discussion Group. $5.00 to cover cost of refreshments. Remember: June, July & August we are dark So look for special events on our website, Facebook and Twitter * All events subject to change.
Jackets $40.00 New Lower Price
Follow us on Twitter! @SeaScottishRite
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry 1207 N 152nd St. Shoreline, WA 98133-6247
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