Day 66 out of 100 to Learn Masonic Ritual and that means it’s exactly five weeks until your Installation! Of course you don’t need to know the Degree ceremonies ahead of your Installation, but we are taking the opportunity to get familiar with the these ceremonies now so you aren’t under pressure later.
Yesterday we finished the day with the Candidate brought to in front of the Master’s pedestal ready for…
Learning Masonic Ritual, Day 66 of 100: Third Degree Obligation
The Third Degree Obligation is the longest of the three Obligations spanning two and a half pages (pages 176-178 in my book of Emulation Ritual). There are similarities to the others, but also some differences too. At the moment we’ll just concentrate on the outline, and drill down into the more specific words at a later date.
No point spending too much time focusing on individual words if you can’t remember the structure of the piece. Let’s break it down into paragraphs:
- Similar to the start of the other Obligations, and includes the promise that the secrets imparted will not be disclosed to anyone who isn’t a Master Mason.
- This is a further pledge to uphold the principles and obey signs and summonses.
- Uphold the points of fellowship, personally I find this is a hard paragraph as it doesn’t have any parts that are familiar to the other Obligations. And it’s quite long too!
- Maintaining the principles of a Master Mason, and again this is a paragraph that isn’t similar to other Obligations.
- We finish the Third Degree Obligation back in familiar territory, though bear in mind the differences because of the Degree.
Have a couple of read throughs and get used to the format, as mentioned before we’ll be coming back to it again to get the words locked in.