The Degree Rituals The Supreme Council, 33 ... - Scottish Rite, NMJ

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80 The Degree Rituals The attempted synthesis of the Van Rensselaer and Pike rituals was not easily accomplished and would contribute to future difficulties in acceptance of the ritual. The fact that the 1904 ritual continued substantially intact for a century, that no revisions at all were made in the ritual from the 1930’s until the 21st century, and its absence from the agenda of the Committee on Rituals during all that period did not signify a vote of confidence. Quite the contrary, it was evidence of disuse and disinterest as was amply demonstrated by the infrequency of its presentation across the Jurisdiction. All of this came as no surprise to McIlyar Lichliter, who spared few words in his 1946 criticism of the 30° ritual. He found its evolution haphazard, without a logical or orderly pattern. As a result, its staging was awkward its action tiresome, its message confused. Aside from obvious shortcomings of inordinate length and archaic, obscure language, it was anticlimactic, both internally and in comparison with the highly dramatic allegories of the Consistorial degrees that preceded it. In essence, it was a ritualistic dinosaur, a survivor of the didactic style that had been characteristic of Masonic ritual in an earlier age. His solution was that the ritual would have to be entirely reconstructed and rewritten. In 2004, the Committee on Ritualistic Matters finally took the long overdue step of confronting the ritual of the 30°. The committee quickly arrived at the same conclusion Lichliter had reached nearly 60 years earlier. Attempts to salvage the ritual by rewrite ended in frustration. The ritual simply did not express a meaningful lesson for Scottish Rite Masons of the 21st century. Hence, the decision was made to recommend withdrawal of the ritual and its replacement by a highly modified version of what then was the ritual of the 31°. The replacement ritual, taken from the 31°, itself presented problems. Although its current form was comparatively recent by ritualistic standards, dating only from 1949, the script ran to some 45 pages. Use in the dialogue of such archaic English words as “wot” (know) and “yclept” (named), and the legal term “thwert-ut-nay” (general denial) required that a glossary be appended to the ritual. That, of course, did nothing for the audience, for many of whom the experience was almost like a journey to Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
The Degree Rituals The 31° Ritual of 1949 consisted of the usual ceremonial opening and prologue, followed by a dramatization of a civil trial in 14th century England. The primary author of the trial scene had been Ill. Harold Whittaker Connell, 33°, a member of the Valley of Milwaukee and a consultant to the Committee on Rituals. A lawyer by profession, Connell devoted two years to researching and recreating a medieval English trial. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the fruits of his labors. The trial scene was approved as part of the 31° tentative ritual in 1938, a year after Connell’s untimely death. The Scottish Rite degree system thereby acquired a third ritual, in addition to the 7° and the 21°, that used a dramatized trial scene in an historical setting to portray a similar lesson, justice. The 2004 committee recognized the merits in the work. The trial scene was easy to stage and could be entertaining as well as instructive. However, there would have to be extensive editing of the dialogue into more contemporary English and condensation of the ritual to the essence of the trial scene. The vocabulary and grammar of the dialogue was “modernized,” but the substance and sequence, as well as the cast, of the scene were left intact. Significant shortening of the ritual was accomplished by elimination of the ceremonial opening, as mandated by the policy adopted by the Supreme Council in 1995, and by deleting the opening portion of the trial scene, in which the judges identified themselves with famous lawgivers of history, an exercise that contributed nothing to the dramatic action. Finally, the former title of the 31°, “Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander,” was abbreviated by dropping the last two words and replaced the meaningless title of the 30°, “Grand Elect Knight Kadosh or Knight of the White and Black Eagle.” These changes and transfer of the modified ritual from the 31° were approved by the Supreme Council as the 30° Ritual of 2004, “Grand Inspector.” 81
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