Learning by Degrees,

JIM TRESNER, 33°, G.C.
Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute
Editor of the Oklahoma Mason

" Well", said the young man, "I don't know anything about Masonry, really, but I know my granddad was a 32° Mason".  

We hear that a lot. Men and women who do not know anything of the structure of Masonry, nor the meanings of its Degrees, will still remember that their father or grandfather had - and was proud of having - the 32°. At the same time, they do not know what a Degree is or the significance of the number 32. 

A Degree is a play, a type of didactic theatre which became popular in the Middle Age in Europe. It was primarily used to teach stories from the Bible to a populace which could not read. A nearly universal use of theatre, this type of play is found in ancient China, India, and Egypt as well as in Greece and Rome. You see it in the shadow puppets of Ceylon as well as in the storyteller's stalls of Baghdad. 

In Masonry, the person receives a Degree-sometimes by observing it as it is performed, sometimes by participating in the action himself. When a man has received the three Degrees of the Blue Lodge, he is a Master Mason. When he has received the 4° through the 32° in the Scottish Rite, he is called a 32° Mason, or a Master of the Royal Secret. 

But why do we have a Degree system at all, and is a 32° Mason a "higher level" Mason than one who stops at the Master Mason Degree? As with so many things, it depends on what we mean. 

In one very real sense, there is no Degree higher than the Third Degree, the Master Mason Degree. When you have that Degree, you are a full-fledged Mason-and you will never be "more of a Mason" than you are the night you receive the Third Degree. But, on the other hand, Masons who have taken the so-called "Higher Degrees" have had an opportunity to watch more Degree work from more Masonic traditions. In addition, they have had the opportunity to talk with others about the different symbols and allegories presented in these plays. The Master Mason Degree has been compared to the high school diploma in Masonry. It has often been said that the Scottish Rite is the "college" or "university" course in Freemasonry. Being a 32° Mason doesn't mean that you are somehow more of a Brother than a member who holds the 3°. It does mean that you have had the opportunity to learn much more. The 32° Mason may not be "better," but he is, generally, more knowledgeable about Masonry. 

What do the Degrees teach and how do they teach it? First of all (and this isn't just splitting hairs), the Degrees do not teach - they give the person the chance to learn. The difference is important. Except at a very surface level, the Degrees do not attempt to teach specific lessons. Instead, they give parallel examples from earlier cultures, they raise questions, they challenge us to think. Freemasonry, in each of its branches, is a journey of self-discovery and self-development. Its purpose is to help us become more fully ourselves. We have all known people who were self-confident without being arrogant, who were generous without being condescending, who were willing to learn from us and willing to share their information with us, who understand love and honor and compassion and duty and joy, and who live out that understanding from day to day. Masonry tells us that is the natural and normal condition of man. Freemasonry tries to help us develop ourselves into that kind of person.

How does it "teach"? Primarily by symbol and allegory, because those are the most effective teaching tools known. You remember from your own school days that you learned better when the teacher made it possible for you to figure things out on your own than when she or he gave you a list of facts to memorize. An allegory is a story in which another story is "hidden," not to make it secret, but to make it a more effective learning tool. 

Take the story of the three little pigs, for example. The story seems to be about three pigs who build their houses from different materials, only one of which stands up against the attack of the wolf. But we are not intended to leave it there. Instead we are supposed to think about it. Why do the pigs build from different materials? What does it really mean that the first pig builds its house of straw (cabbages, in the original)? What does a house symbolize? Obviously, protection against the elements and danger as well as the assurance of comfort and security. 

Perhaps building a house of straw means taking the easy way out of things, just doing the minimum required. Maybe the story tells us that when real trouble comes to us, a life built that way just won't work. While the allegories which form the Degrees of the Scottish Rite are richer and more complex than that-the process is the same. 

This process of learning, of self-development, is not always comfortable. We confront beliefs and attitudes in the symbols of the Degrees which are negative, and we have to ask ourselves if those negative elements are in our own lives, too. We watch the characters in the 21° believe false rumor and nearly do terrible injustice because of that. Seeing this, we have to ask ourselves if we have been willing to believe and pass on scandal (or even worse, to pass it on without even believing it, just because it made a good story). We see people dispense justice too quickly and without all the facts, and we have to ask ourselves if we always get the facts in making decisions or if we react on the basis of prejudice or ignorance. 

But even when the lesson are uncomfortable, they are important. We are given the chance to warn ourselves about the future and inventory our actions in the present. The images are a powerful and potent today as they have been for 200 years. We learn by Degrees. 

And so, the young man's pride in his grandfather's 32° is justified and reasonable. Yours should be as well. As a 32° Scottish Rite Mason, a Master of the Royal Secret, you have made the commitment to self-development. You have decided that man does not live by bread alone, but that such things as honor and integrity are as necessary for survival as is food. You have decided that it is cowardly to live without values and more than cowardly to try to avoid the consequences of your own actions. 

You have accepted the duty to help make the lives of others better and happier. You have shouldered the burden and the glory of Scottish Rite Freemasonry.

You are a 32° Mason!