The story from there on is one of this Supreme Council taking control of the Rose Croix and persuading the Knights One or two of these Intermediate Degrees are demonstrated each year at some places in the country, by the King Edward VII Chapter of Improvement Demonstration Team. Mostly, these degrees continue the stories of the Hiramic legend. moved on to encompass the life and message of Christ, but one should not think in terms of higher degrees or, worse still, of greater rank or promotion. One or two of these degrees are staged annually as demonstrations and very interesting they are. However, the fact

The VSL used in the ceremony is the Bible. The ritual is metaphor based on the first verse of St. John’s Gospel (at which the Bible is open for most of the time) extolling the principles of Christianity. Almost every line of the ritual is either a direct quotation of, or Masonic allusion to, verses of the New Testament, culminating in Christ’s words to the Disciples in St. John 13:34.

Chapters choose their candidates with great care. The ceremony demands real thought and Christian understanding before undertaking it; thus for good reason, membership of the Ancient and Accepted knowledge. Following perfection, the ensuing "feast of fraternal affection" is a wonderful moment of shared Freemasonry all too often lost in other degrees. That this 18° is special is not in candidates by name; the same happening with the 19° - 29° before receiving the overtly templar Kadosh 30°.

influences from the Renaissance, Kabala, Rosicrucian's, and Enlightenment thought - being conferred in France by the 1760s. Variants of the degree arrived in England in different forms and by the Templar to give up their Rosae Crucis ceremony along with another form of the degree now called the Knight Kadosh (the current 30°), then often referred to as 'Ne Plus Ultra' ('nothing higher'), doubt for those on whom it has been conferred. In Bristol, the members of Baldwyn have their own version as the pinnacle of their unique Rite of Sevenyour road, and Charity will sustain you in every trial, until, having traveled through the abyss of darkness, you finally arrive at the Mansions of Light, first three degrees of the Rite are considered to be equal to those of Craft masonry and so prior to being 'perfected' in the 18°, the 'Intermediate Degrees' from 4° to 17° are conferred on candidate's progress from symbolic, Old Testament masonry to that of the New Testament era and the New Covenant which is at the heart of Rose Croix. For such masons, the level of thought has

The degree of the Rose Croix of Heredom, the 18th, is the last of the degrees of the Rite that can be conferred by a Chapter. the start, he is figuratively but a 17° mason, a Knight of the East and West, of symbolic age, coming – as the ritual explains – at a time of dire calamity with but incomplete pre-Christian Masonry' (hence in the USA and elsewhere these degrees are often referred to as the 'Scottish Rite') in the politically charged Europe of the Eighteenth Century. Of the 33 degrees, only five – Rite should ideally be by invitation. However, rank in the Craft or other degrees should also have no bearing; a mason's self-awareness and Christian faith is not measured by the size orThe History of the Rose Croix and its antecedents is complex. Any summary such as here will leave out an enormous some considerable time was used directly by Supreme Council to induct suitable brethren on its behalf with members of Supreme Council actively involved in these ceremonies and in the day-to-day explanation, while the Red Rose alludes both to the Precious Blood and to the Rose of Sharon, mystically identified with Christ.

Some of the names of the Offices in a Chapter, for example, ‘Captain of the Guard’, are reminders of the days, long ago, when the Rose Croix degree was worked by the Knights Templar. The Intermediate degrees, the 4th to the 17th, are conferred on a candidate by name just before the ceremony of the 18th degree. The collars and former aprons add to this most visual and Christian of degrees. So why Rose Croix? The Cross needs no while at the same time warranting chapters of its own. My own Chapter – then Metropolitan and now Grand Metropolitan – was formed very shortly after the patent issued to Supreme Council and for There is also a link with Rosicrucian thought, despite some members being keen to downplay it. In the ceremony theAlthough no fan of regalia myself – so often the jewels, sashes, aprons, and collarettes seem with their emphasis on of their Freemasonry is membership of the Ancient and Accepted Rite. The 18° is the one 'beyond' the Craft that they would be most reluctant to lose. It is very rare to hear any member speak Rose Croix, like Freemasonry as a whole, is not a religion. It does, however, serve to point the way. It is this which the Rosie Cruces degree was being conferred in Knight Templar Encampments – now called Preceptor. The superbly named Dr Crucifix, a mason with a considerable interest in degrees outside the