Council
of Kadosh, Degree Descriptions
The Degree
description below is reprinted with the permission of the
Scottish Rite Journal.
Twenty-Fourth Degree
Prince Of The Tabernacle
Jim Tresner, 33°, Grand
Cross
PO
Box 70, Guthrie, Oklahoma 73044–0070
Original oil painting by Robert H. White,
32°
Here we move more deeply into
the ancient mysteries, and that movement is reflected in the regalia.
The apron is white lambskin, lined in scarlet and bordered in light
green. The flap is light blue. On the flap, in violet, is a myrtle
tree, a symbol of immortality. An Arabic tent is painted in gold on the
body of the apron. As in the Twenty-third Degree, a belt is part of the
regalia. It is made of light green morocco leather edged with gold lace
and decorated at the bottom with gold fringe. From the belt hangs a
silver censer, as in the 23°. Also hanging from the belt is the
jewel of the 24°, the Phoenician letter Aleph in gold. Thus the
silver censer and the gold Aleph repeat the moon–sun
symbolism we have seen earlier.
The collar of the Degree is of
narrow, violet-colored ribbon. From it hangs a larger gold Aleph,
similar to the one which hangs from the belt. The cordon of the
24° is a broad, watered scarlet ribbon. Embroidered in gold on
the cordon are a winged globe, a scarab beetle, and a butterfly.
The majority of the symbols of
the regalia for this Degree speak of immortality. The winged globe
symbolizes leaving this life and moving to a higher plane of being. The
scarab is found everywhere in Egyptian art, especially in tomb
paintings. It was a symbol of the sun and, therefore, of life, and
carved scarabs were used as amulets against death, disease, and
misfortune. The butterfly is a symbol of rebirth and immortality
because a caterpillar, after weaving a cocoon, emerges from it as a
new, more glorious being. The light green of the belt and apron border
symbolizes spring with is reawakening to life. The Aleph, as the first
letter of the alphabet, symbolizes beginning and rebirth.
The Aleph also alludes to the
pentagram or five-pointed star. No matter how you turn a pentagram, you
can read the letter A. Also, A is the initial of Adonai, one of the
principal names of God (the Bible translates it as Lord). Since the
pentagram is also a symbol of man, the Aleph in this Degree can be
understood as symbolizing the interaction between Deity and humanity.
The lessons of this Degree can
seem obvious, but when we think about them deeply and consider their
implications, they rapidly become profound and can even be
uncomfortable.
Lesson one: There is power in
our faith in the Deity and His promises. Notice that we are not simply
saying there is power in the Deity. We are saying there is also power
in our faith, that there is power which resides in us.
Lesson two: The soul is
immortal. That is something which presumably, we, as Masons, believe.
But we often act as if we do not believe it. We may give more attention
to pleasure than to the strengthening and cultivation of the spirit.
That makes sense for someone who believes death is followed by
annihilation, but for someone who believes in the immortality of the
soul, it is like spending the entire year’s income in the
first three months of the year. Or, as Brother Mark Twain sardonically
observed, every man says he hopes he goes to Heaven, but few take the
trouble to learn to play a harp.
Lesson three: There is one,
true God, Who is absolute intellect and experience. The risk here is
that we tend to assume our visualization of God is so correct and
perfect that anyone who disagrees must be wrong. A belief in one God
should not make us intolerant of the beliefs of others. Rather, we
should be willing to see that they may simply have visualized a
different part of God’s vastness, for He is far too vast and
complex for any human mind to be able to say, “I understand
God, I know who He is, and, therefore, I know that you are
wrong.”
Indeed, an important teaching
of this Degree is the universality of faith. The great Truths have been
encoded into many myths and hidden in many allegories over time. Our
task is to understand those myths and allegories and to discover the
Truths beneath them. As Albert Pike wrote (Morals and Dogma, p. 434):
The human mind still
speculates upon the great mysteries of nature, and still finds its
ideas anticipated by the ancients, whose profoundest thoughts are to be
looked for, not in their philosophies, but in their symbols, by which
they endeavored to express the great ideas that vainly struggled for
utterance in words, as they viewed the great circle of phenomena, ---
Birth, Life, Death, or Decomposition, and New Life out of Death and
Rottenness, --- to them the greatest of mysteries.
The
Scottish Rite Journal - September 2001
Jim Tresner
is Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute and Editor of The
Oklahoma Mason. A frequent contributor to the Scottish Rite Journal and
its book review editor, Illustrious Brother Tresner is also a volunteer
writer for The Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason and a video script
consultant for the National Masonic Renewal Committee. He is the
Director of the Thirty-third Degree Conferral Team and Director of Work
at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as well as a
life member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, author of the
popular anecdotal biography Albert Pike, The Man Beyond the Monument,
and a member of the steering committee of the Masonic Information
Center. Ill. Tresner was awarded the Grand Cross, the Scottish Rite's
highest honor, during the Supreme Council's October 1997 Biennial
Session.
