Committed to the Flames
The History and Rituals of a Secret Masonic Rite

Arturo de Hoyos and S. Brent Morris

Publisher: Lewis Masonic
Product code: L82931
ISBN: 9780853182931

Keynote

The full transcriptions of all the rituals prepared by Robert Benjamin Folger, with a detailed analysis of their place in Masonic history.

Description
In 1826, Robert Benjamin Folger, a recent graduate of medical school and a new Master Mason, filled a book with the enciphered Craft rituals of the Rectified Scottish Rite (Knights Beneficent of the Holy City or CBCS), a high-grade revision of the Rite of Strict Observance, well-known in Europe but unknown in the United States. His introduction directed that the rituals be “committed to the flames” upon his death. Fortunately for Masonic historians these instructions were not followed.

Folger went on to prepare at least two other books of rituals, including one of the earliest versions of the American Knight Templar rituals. A man of tremendous talents, strong passions, and curious contradictions, Folger was twice expelled from Masonry by the Grand Lodge of New York and participated in at least six clandestine Supreme Councils, but died a Master Mason in good standing.

This book gives full transcriptions of all of his rituals, an analysis of their place in Masonry, and biographies of Folger and his major contemporaries in his Masonic work.

Author Biography

Arturo de Hoyos, PM, 33°, is the Grand Archivist and Grand Historian of the Supreme Council, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction, USA. He is America’s foremost authority on the history and rituals of the Ancient & Accepted Rite (Rose Croix) and most other Masonic organizations, and is the author, editor, and translator of several books on Freemasonry, including The Scottish Rite Ritual Monitor and Guideand The Symbolism of the Blue Degrees of Freemasonry: Albert Pike’s “Esoterika. He co-authored with S. Brent Morris, the best-selling book Is It True What They Say about Freemasonry? with whom he also co-edited Freemasonry in Context: History, Ritual, Controversy. He also Deputy Grand Abbott of the Society of Blue Friars, the Grand Archivist of the Grand College of Rites, USA, and has edited its transactions since 1994. In 2001 he was a premier recipient of the Scottish Rite Research Society’s Albert Gallatin Mackey Award for Excellence in Masonic Scholarship and in 2007 he received the Mackey Award for Lifetime Achievement.

S. Brent Morris, PM, 33°, is Managing Editor of the Scottish Rite Journal of the Supreme Council, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction, USA, the largest-circulation Masonic magazine in the world. He has a BS, MA, and PhD in mathematics and an MS in computer science. He is the only American to be Worshipful Master (2008) of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, the premier lodge of research, one of the forty Fellows of the Philalethes Society, first editor of Heredom, the transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society, and Grand Abbot of the Society of Blue Friars. He is author or editor of eight books on Freemasonry including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry. He co-authored with Arturo de Hoyos Is It True What They Say about Freemasonry? with whom he also co-edited Freemasonry in Context: History, Ritual, Controversy. In 2001 he was a premier recipient of the Scottish Rite Research Society’s Albert Gallatin Mackey Award for Lifetime Achievement.