From the book
Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry
R. Swinburne Clymer · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMaster Mason is a formal Craft rank and, in the stronger interpretive sense, a person who has realized the knowledge and moral achievement represented by mastery.
- In Ancient Mystic Oriental MasonryThe rite is said to admit Master Masons who meet its religious and ethical conditions.
- In this editionThe expression is retained as a title.
- A place to readM.3: … “Rite is Universal, and is open to every Master Mason who believes in the Fatherhood of” …
Meaning
Master Mason is a formal Craft rank and, in the stronger interpretive sense, a person who has realized the knowledge and moral achievement represented by mastery.
Use in the book
The rite is said to admit Master Masons who meet its religious and ethical conditions. Yet the account of the third degree expressly warns the newly obligated candidate against assuming that he has become a master in the full sense. The loss of the Word opens a further search. Clymer’s offer of higher initiation depends on this gap between acknowledged rank and unfulfilled inward attainment.
Places to read
- Mystic Masonry · Block 3… “Rite is Universal, and is open to every Master Mason who believes in the Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of all Men. The other qualification necessary of the Neophyte” …
- Mystic Masonry · Block 21… “we have found the "Lost Word" which the Master Mason Degree teaches us was lost. There is no longer any guess work in this, but it is a fact as any” …
- Mystic Masonry · Block 48… “statement that undoubtedly he now imagines himself a Master Mason. He is informed not only that such is not the case, but that there is no certainty that he ever will” …
- Mystic Masonry · Block 53… “now propounded to every ' obligated,' or so-called Master Mason, is — is the present, the generation in which that which was lost shall be found? and each must answer for” …
- Mystic Masonry · Block 73… “to enable any person to recognize in the Master Mason Hiram, the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Mithras of the Persians, the Bacchus of the Greeks, the Atys of the Phrygians,” …
In this edition
The expression is retained as a title. Perfect Master is treated under Perfect Man because the emphasis there falls on realized perfection.
Reading the argument
The title can authorize admission while still falling short of the book’s ideal. This double use is central to the argument for Mystic Masonry: the author addresses existing members as qualified seekers, then argues that their deeper work remains unfinished.
Master Mason
“Master Mason” — 12 occurrences in 11 text blocks: I.8; D.6–7; M.3, 21, 44, 48, 53, 73; F.20; S.67.
Master Mason Degree
“Master Mason Degree” — 1 occurrence in 1 text block: M.21.