It is interesting to see that there is a growing interest in the Masonic history of France, also from American “regular” Freemasons. Arturo de Hoyos and Joseph Wäges are both members of the “Ancient Free & Accepted Masons of Texas” and both renowned authors on Masonic history. Productive too!
Even though this book is basically about the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the authors follow the Frenchman Étienne Morin (1717-1771), an adventurous type. Both in his working life and as a Freemason. Morin lived in France in the time that all kinds of ‘high degrees’ were developed. He appears to have had a big interest in them. He travelled around the globe, especially to the Caribbean. He arranged patents of both the Grand Lodge of France and the Grand Lodge of England to start lodges of ‘high degrees’ wherever he went, but needless to say this also brought him problems as the two Grand Lodges did not like to be played out against each other.
In any case, Morin was the one who started lodges, grand lodges even, but most famously, he was the one from whom the collector of Masonic rituals Henry Andrew Francken (Hendrick Andriese Franken) (1720-1795) got the rituals that would eventually grow into the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
Of course these rituals/degrees did not grow out of a vacuum and De Hoyos and Wäges look into the rituals that Morin must have known and/or used. After a history, they present translations of the following rituals:
- “Complete Corpus of Masonry, Adopted by the Respectable Grand Lodge of France (1774)” (three degrees);
- “The Regulator of the Mason (1801)”, the famous codification of the Grand Orient of France of the first three degrees Régulateur du Maçon;
- “The Regulator of the Knight Masons (1801)”. These are the following four “orders” (degrees) of the seven degree French system, Régulateur des Maçons Chevalier. This ‘high degree regulator’ has been hard to get, so this is a much needed publication;
- “Rit Écossais Rituals (1788)”, ‘blue’ Scottish Rite degrees;
- “Scottish Masons Guide”, also ‘blue’ Scottish Rite degrees.
The follow appendices with correspondence, lodge lists, etc.
The massive book is in A4 format and has over 440 pages.
Also see the other titles of the publishing house Westphalia Press.