From the booklet – “PENETRATING THE VEIL”
– by David C. Bradley–Grand Master–1989-1990
This month’s issue is titled –
“PENETRATING THE VEIL:
THE TWO DEGREE SYSTEM.”
(As the presentations in this website are available to all readers, items involving the Second and Third Degrees will be excluded.)
THE TWO DEGREE SYSTEM
Prior to 1760 no official ritual documents existed. Most of what is known about the ritual has come from fragments of information contained in lodge minutes or in clues found in old MS Constitutions. At first the evidence points to a simple ceremony of admission into full membership in the mason trade. But a tantalizing possibility of the existence is presented in the Harleian MS, which is reputed to be the sixteenth century. 14 Later documents such as The Edinburgh Register House MS, 1696, and the Sloane MS 3323 1659, both refer to the existence of two ceremonies. 15 The first recorded reference to passing and raising is in the Graham MS, 1726, which reads “… being entered passed and raised and Conformed by 3 several lodges…”. The evidence of development is drawn mainly from documents of Scottish origin. There are, however, English texts dated between 1714 band 1730 which in many cases, repeat what is found in the Scottish documents.
14 World of Freemasonry, p. 5
15 Freemason’s Guide and Compendium, p. 231
R.W. Bro. Robert South