- Ancient and Primitive Rite
The Ancient and Primitive Rite is a Quasi-Masonic higher-degree Rite.
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 toFrance fromEgypt by Samuel Honis in 1815 and also spread toItaly . In 1856 the Rite was established in theUSA ,Romania ,Australia andSwitzerland by Jacques Etienne Marconis de Negre. During the Civil War, the Rite in theUSA lost so many members that it fell into a decline from which it never recovered. The Rite did, however, continue to be practiced inEurope and was chartered for the jurisdiction of Chile in the 1920s where it is still practiced and where it survived until recent times.Current penetration
The Rite has experienced somewhat of a renaissance recentlyFact|date=September 2008, and is now being practiced once again in
United States of America ,France ,Belgium ,Chile ,Brazil ,Ecuador ,Lebanon ,Bolivia ,Peru ,Paraguay ,England ,Italy ,Mexico ,Monaco ,Venezuela ,Slovenia ,Serbia ,Romania ,Argentina and theDominican Republic .Notable members
Famous people who have been members of the Rite include
Kenneth McKenzie ,John Yarker ,Salvatore Zola , David McLellan and several members of theRomania n royal family prior to the suppression ofFreemasonry as a whole by theCommunists in that country. The mysticism and rituals of people such as theComte de Cagliostro ,Martinez Pasqually andLouis Claude de Saint-Martin have influenced this Rite ofFreemasonry .Degrees
The Rite confers 92 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 toScottish Rite andYork Rite , which were the official ritual of the Grand Lodge of Egypt. The degree rituals of the Rite are chivalric in nature withkabbalistic ,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 ritual s as possible.References
* Prescott, Andrew. " [http://freemasonry.dept.shef.ac.uk/pdf/bradlaugh.pdf The Cause of Humanity: Charles Bradlaugh and Freemasonry] "
*
Boris Nicolaevsky , “Secret Societies and the First International,” in "The Revolutionary Internationals", 1864-1943, ed. Milored M. Drachkovitch (Stanford, 1966), 36-56.External links
* [http://www.sovereignsanctuary.org The Ancient and Primitive Rite]
* [http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/kneph/aprm.html from the Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon] , an outline of the history and principles of the rite as written by John Yarker.
* [http://www.memphis-misraim-international.org/ International Masonic Order of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraïm]
*(HTTP://WWW.REGULARGRANDLODGE.IT RITE OF MEMPHIS
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