Day 79 out of 100 to Learn Masonic Ritual and we are starting our second run through the Raising Ceremony. This is still the Learning phase so you aren’t expected to be word perfect, we are just getting familiarity with the Ritual at the moment, so that when it comes to revising and rehearsing ahead of the ceremony you have a good grounding in it. So, today…
Learning Masonic Ritual, Day 79 of 100: Third Degree Ceremony (First Part)
Today we are covering the quite a chunk, going from Opening in the First Degree, through to (but not including today!) the Third Degree Obligation. This was spread over four days on our first run through:
- Day 62: Opening in the First two degrees (pages 42-49) and questions to Candidate (156-158)
- Day 63: Pledges and Entrusting (pages 158-159)
- Day 64: Opening in Third Degree (pages 50-54) and perambulations (pages 161-169)
- Day 65: Ritual up to the Obligation (pages 170-176)
(The page numbers are based on my edition of Emulation Ritual.) No doubt you are already more confident with some of these parts, probably the first two Openings and the questions to the candidate. The questions because you learnt the answers when you were the candidate, and again when you were Senior Deacon, and in the process you learnt the questions, if not word perfect!
The rest of the Ritual leading up to the Obligation also follows the formats laid down in the previous Degree ceremonies. Although there are obvious differences, these shouldn’t come as a major surprise. We are covering a load of Ritual today so bear in mind that you aren’t expected to be word perfect at it yet. The main purpose of this is to really get to grips with the structure and layout of the Ritual, and the subject of each paragraph and sentence, even if you can’t remember exactly what words are used to make those sentences.