MASONIC RITUAL THREE SYMBOLIC DEGREES SCOTTISH RITE DETROIT FREEMASONS VINTAGE For Sale

Up for sale is the Revised Authorized Version of the "Ritual of the Three Symbolic Degrees of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasons" — an 80-page booklet in a blue paper wrapper, published under the jurisdiction of the National Supreme Council, A. & A. S. R. of F. M., for the United States of America in Territories and Dependencies, National Offices, 5040 Joy Road, Detroit, Michigan 48204, and issued under Ill. Dr. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick, 33°, Most Powerful Sovereign Grand Commander.

The front cover carries the double-headed eagle of the Scottish Rite — wings displayed, a triangle on the breast, a sword held horizontally, a ribbon beneath. Inside is the complete working of the three craft degrees: the call to order, the roll of officers, the opening and closing of the lodge, the reception and trials of the candidate, the Oath of Allegiance, and the lectures — every officer's spoken part set out with the stage directions between them. The ceremonies use the continental names for the degrees — the Apprentice, the Companion, the Master — and close with the brethren joined in a chain of union pronouncing "Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!"

This copy was a working officer's book. The first page is inscribed "Property of Ill. ——" — the style Illustrious marking its owner as a 33° member — and he used the blank half of several pages as a notebook: a treasury figure of $235.05 written in the margin of page 33, beside the printed passage on the Treasurer's report and the grand charity; a payment entered on page 35 as "3-11-71 · Charity · 2.75"; a cross in ink against the Oath of Allegiance on page 24. Consistent with a man who held office in his lodge and kept his accounts in the book he carried to meetings.

Dating

The booklet carries no printed date, but two pieces of evidence bracket it. The cover prints the ZIP code 48204, and ZIP codes were not introduced until July 1, 1963. The owner's dated note on page 35 reads 3-11-71. So this copy was printed between 1963 and early 1971 and was in use by March of 1971.

The officers, as printed

The inside back cover lists the National Supreme Council officers: Ill. Dr. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick, 33°, Most Powerful Sovereign Grand Commander (Detroit); Ill. John H. Burns, 33°, Deputy (Detroit); Ill. Rev. H. B. Womack, 33°, Lieut. Grand Commander (Brooklyn); Ill. J. Henry Bonney, 33°, Grand Secretary General (Detroit); Ill. Arthur Anderson, 33°, Grand Treasurer General (Detroit); Ill. Willis Tolliver, 33°, Grand Chancellor (Tampa); Ill. George W. Brown, 33°, Grand Master of Ceremonies (Cleveland); and Ill. James Bruce, 33°, Grand Standard Bearer (Bronx). Detroit, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Cleveland and Tampa — a body with reach along the Great Migration routes.

Below them, the Most Powerful Sovereign Grand Commanders of the National Supreme Council: Dr. Peter W. Ray, 1864–1889; J. B. Allen, 1889–1897; D. F. Seville, 1897–1911; H. M. Rennick, 1911–1920; Dr. W. H. Benderson, 1920–1948; Prof. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick, 1948 to the present.

Historical context

What a ritual book is. Masonic ceremony is oral, and it is learned rather than read out. A ritual like this one is the working script behind it — every officer's part, with the stage directions between them. Unlike the catechisms a candidate carried in his coat, ritual books were controlled property, issued to officers and expected to be accounted for. That is exactly why this copy is inscribed "Property of" on its first page. Comparatively few ever left the fraternity's hands, and fewer still survive with their provenance written in them.

The 1864 New York origin. The National Supreme Council traces its founding to New York City on November 30, 1864. Its own printed history names Baron Auguste Hugo de Bulow — a Sovereign Grand Inspector General and active member of the Supreme Council of France — as the man who organised a Supreme Council of the State of New York, later restyled as a Supreme Council of Sovereign Grand Inspectors General of the 33rd degree for the United States. It records the Supreme Council's incorporation in Washington, D.C. on October 17, 1898, and its re-incorporation on October 14, 1948. The National Supreme Council still gives 5040 Joy Road as its address today.

Dr. Peter W. Ray, whom this booklet names as the first Most Powerful Sovereign Grand Commander (1864–1889), was a real figure of nineteenth-century Black New York: a physician and pharmacist who graduated from Castleton Medical College in Vermont around 1850 and built a practice in Brooklyn, remembered as a political activist and, in the Black Gotham Archive's phrase, an "ardent freemason."

The organisation's companion publication also names Patrick Reason among its early officers. Patrick Henry Reason (1816–1898) was one of the earliest African American engravers and lithographers in the United States. He cut the famous 1835 kneeling-supplicant abolitionist image, engraved the frontispiece for Henry Bibb's 1849 slave narrative, and designed Daniel Webster's coffin plate. Turned away by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, he helped found the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America and in 1858 wrote the Ruth degree, the first conferred on women, which became the Household of Ruth.

These are not filler names. They are men of substance in nineteenth-century Black New York, and the organisation places them at the founding of African American Scottish Rite Masonry.

The line down to Detroit. Why Detroit? Because the Great Migration moved hundreds of thousands of Black Americans north to the auto plants, and Black fraternal life moved with them. Under segregation, lodges were not merely social — they ran burial and insurance funds, extended credit, trained men in parliamentary procedure and public speaking, and formed the backbone of Black civic leadership. National offices on Joy Road, on Detroit's west side, is exactly where that history put them.

The lineage is contested. Several rival Supreme Councils claimed the same 1864 descent, and the claim is disputed. The Phylaxis Society, Prince Hall Masonry's own research body, lists the National Supreme Council among organisations it does not recognise, arguing the body was organised in 1897 rather than 1864 and citing a 1962 court case that found the founding claims unsubstantiated.

And this booklet sits inside that argument. Its list of Grand Commanders differs from the one printed in the organisation's own catechism, which begins with de Bulow in 1864 and gives Dr. Ray 1879–1892. Here, de Bulow does not appear and Ray is given 1864–1889. The catechism closes with a printed notice declaring its version "the more accurate history… all other versions of said history as hereinafter given will be corrected to conform herewith" — which suggests the roster printed in this ritual is the earlier form. For anyone following the disputed lineage, that makes this a useful primary document rather than a duplicate.

One structural note. The first three degrees belong to a Grand Lodge in ordinary American practice, not to the Scottish Rite, which works the 4th through 33rd. A Supreme Council publishing a working of the three symbolic degrees follows the continental European pattern, in which a Supreme Council also governs its own craft lodges. Not an error — a different tradition, and the French inheritance is visible throughout the text.

A genuine used booklet from a collection of items gathered over the years.

Specifications

• Title: Ritual of the Three Symbolic Degrees of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasons — Revised Authorized Version
• Issuing body: National Supreme Council, A. & A. S. R. of F. M., for the United States of America in Territories and Dependencies
• Publisher's address: National Offices, 5040 Joy Road, Detroit, Michigan 48204
• Issued under: Ill. Dr. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick, 33°, Most Powerful Sovereign Grand Commander
• Date: no printed date. c. 1963–1971 — the cover carries ZIP code 48204 (ZIP codes introduced July 1, 1963) and the owner's dated note on page 35 reads 3-11-71.
• Pages: 80 — all numbered pages present and in order
• Measurements: 5¾″ wide × 8½″ tall
• Binding: blue paper wrapper, perfect-bound (glued) along the spine

Condition

Sold as-is, and honestly described — please read this section and see the detailed photos.

• Front cover: the blue is strong and all printing is crisp and fully legible. Moderate soiling and smudging with staining and some darkening along the edges; corners lightly rounded. A previous owner's name, address and telephone number are written in blue ink across the top — this information has been covered with strips of white paper in the photographs, in line with 's policies on contact information.
• Back cover: generally clean, with light smudging and staining and a scatter of small darker specks.
• Spine: torn — approximately 1″ at the top and 2⅞″ at the bottom. The wrapper has come away from the text block. The glue of the original perfect binding has gone brittle with age, which is the normal failure of this binding method rather than the result of rough handling.
• Text block: in two detached groups. The first 9 leaves (pages 1–18) are loose from one another and from the spine. The remaining leaves (pages 19–80) are still attached to one another along the inner edge but have come away from the binding. All leaves are present and in order.
• Interior paper: clean and bright with light tanning at the edges and scattered light foxing (small tan age spots).
• Completeness: all 80 numbered pages are present and in order. The text begins at section II ("II. Ritual of the First Degree") on page 1. There is no title or copyright page — the printed wrapper serves that purpose — and an unnumbered preliminary leaf carrying section I appears to be absent.
• Owner's markings in blue ink: "Property of" and the owner's name at the top of the first page; a short numbered list on page 5; an X on page 24; "$235.05" on page 33; a date, a word and a price on page 35.
• No tears to the leaves, no losses, and the text is unaffected throughout — every page is fully readable.

SHIP WITHIN 4 BUSINESS DAYS OF PAYMENT.