Once you´ve been raised to the sublime
degree of a M.M., you´re very likely to be wondering: “now, what?”. All the more so if you are a “masonry addict”, as I like calling myself, due to the volume of
information I have always tried to take in, and/or if you take part of Masonry
in a country where the Ancient and Accepted Rite is more widely spread.
My intention in this short article
is not to talk anyone into or out of doing anything! It is much more the case
of sharing my thoughts, experiences and mistakes since I´ve been made a M.M.!
Even to the “non-masonic world” in a
country like Brazil, the concept of 33 degrees is something that most people
who know just very few things about freemasonry are already aware of. So much
so, that it is not rare to bump into someone, who knowingly I am a mason, will
ask me: “what is your degree”? (perhaps better than being asked about my “pedigree”)
Such a question goes to show that
both to the Masonic and non Masonic world in a country like Brazil “degrees”
are regarded as something rather important, and distinguishing when compared to
other masons… I couldn´t disagree more… and I´ll tell you why…
When I was first made a M.M. in less
than a month I was already in one of the English side degrees (Mark), as well as
the Brazilian Ancient and Accepted trying to climb the ladder straight up to
the 33rd!
It did not take too long to realise
I was wasting my time with the number of things I was doing, and perhaps that
volume of (side) degrees would only inflate someone´s ego, and lead to nights out with
friends or excuses to be away from home! As none of the above appealed
to me I soon dropped a few of these commitments and decided to understand more
deeply how this system works!
Of course, there are people who
might say I am only saying this because I haven´t got a certain degree in the
Ancient and Accepted or if I had got into this or that side degree I would
actually love it and so on… It might be true, but I doubt it…
Talking to London Grand Ranks and
senior masons, with over 40 years of Craft, most of them would say: “do as the
ritual says: Freemasonry is formed by three craft degrees plus the Royal Arch
and that´s it!” I am currently a proud active member of Mark and RAM as well,
and I have no intentions of dropping them… but certainly these plus the R.A. are
more than enough (at least for me).
In London, because Royal Arch, or
Chapter is always attached to your Craft Lodge, we actually try to “inform” a
newly made M.M. that he will be more than welcome into our chapter in our next
meeting or so… for one reason or another more senior PMs in our District seem
to prefer to leave that “hanging in the air”…
With time and the right guidance I
am sure every new M.M. will find his way around and choose the right “next step”
to be taken!
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