What is Royal Arch Masonry

The question has always been, what is Royal Arch Masonry and how does it relate to Craft Masonry? In the most simple terms, where Craft Masonry revolves around the story of the building of the Temple by King Solomon, the First Temple, Royal Arch Masonry centres on the story of the building of the Second Temple. But in reality, as you will have found even with the interrelationship of the Craft’s three Degrees, “simple” is never a word that can be used when describing any part of a Masonic system of systems.

A continuation and an expansion of Masonry

Being the only other Masonic Order with Recognition from the Grand Lodge of Western Australia, Royal Arch Freemasonry both continues on from Craft Masonry’s three degrees and expands upon them. Indeed, when publishing his original Constitutions of the Free-Masons (1734), (the foundation for all English Constitution Grand and particular Lodges), Br James Anderson A.M., Right Worshipful Fraternity of Accepted Free-Masons, details a history of “Free-Masons: collected from their general records, and their faithful traditions of many Ages”. In it he encompasses the story of the First man, through the building of the First and Second Temples at Jerusalem, and though to his present time (1734). A reading of it will highlight the complex relationship of the stories told within the Craft and the Royal Arch Chapter and the importance of further Masonic education.

Entrusted to expand your Masonic education

We are extremely lucky in Western Australian Freemasonry as each Royal Arch Chapter has been entrusted by The Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Western Australia, the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of Western Australia and the Grand Council of Most Excellent, Royal, Select and Super Excellent Masters of Western Australia to continue your Masonic journey and instruct you in the full history of Freemasonry up to the completion of the Second Temple. In order to do this it is first necessary that you progress by stages to the Degree of a Royal Arch Mason to gain your foundation in Royal Arch Masonry.

Mark Master Mason

Step back in time for your fourth regular step in Freemasonry as you return to the degree of Fellow Craft labouring in the quarry for the First Temple. Hone your skill as a craftsman to prove your worth, receive your mark and earn the wages of a Mark Master Mason as you help build the first Royal Arch.

Excellent Master

Time moves forward now and word has gone out that the Temple that fell is to be rebuilt. As a Mason in a distant country you now must travel, sojourn, to return to where this marvellous structure will be built. But while your Mark has enabled you to receive your due wages, none but right and proper men will be admitted on the new site and for this you will receive and carry forward credentials for your arrival as an Excellent Master Masons.

Royal Arch Mason

You have arrived at the site of the building of the Second Temple. Having proved your credentials, you and your Companion sojourners have been allocated a special task, one that will uncover a secret long hidden by time, a secret that will make you worthy to carry the title of Royal Arch Mason.

Diluvian Degrees

God has found the world a decadent and sinful place and has sent forth The Flood in his wrath. Fear not, however, for you have been spared his wrath and in this degree you will travel back to the time of the Great Deluge. Here you will join Commander Noah on his ark as a Royal Ark Mariner as he journeys forth to re-establish man- and animal-kind in accordance with God’s plan

As with the Worshipful Master in a Craft Lodge and the First Principle in a Royal Arch Chapter, as Commander Noah you will have been installed into that worthy position. And just as for those other leaders, there are secrets revealed to you which can only be shared with those who have been regularly installed into the highest position of their Order. Indeed, in this, your installation, you represent an auspicious character in Freemasonry, who was entrusted by God to carry the seed of mankind and the entire animal kingdom with him. A descendant of Enoch, what else was entrusted to him? What secret knowledge was entrusted to Enoch, passed down from father to son and carried from antediluvian times by Commander Noah into the new postdiluvian world?

Cryptic Degrees

It is said that there are many questions left unanswered in Craft Masonry’s Third Degree and that you will find many within the works of Royal Arch Masonry. Indeed, as a Select Master you will once again return to the building of the First Temple. Now nearing its completion, you set to work in building that which you discovered in your Royal Arch Degree. As a Royal Master you will receive the wisdom of the Principle Architect himself which will provide a new aspect to the story that unfolded in your Third Degree.

The First Temple is now complete and has been dedicate by King Solomon. For those that have not sat upon the Chair of King Solomon, this time period is that alluded to in the origin of the Grand and Royal sign you were taught in the Third Degree. As a member of his most skilful and devoted craftsmen, King Solomon institutes a new degree to commemorate the occasion and now makes you a Most Excellent Master.

Highlighting that the Cryptic Degrees bind the story of the First and Second Temples, you are now carried forward some 381 years and as a Super Excellent Master witness the fall of the First Temple, the abscondment of the sacred vessels and your community carried into captivity to distant lands. Thus you will have returned to that point in time some 70 years before the events of your Excellent Degree.

The pinnacle of pinnacles. Being installed as Thrice Illustrious Master, you are returned to the theme of the ark. But in this exalted position it is not the ark of Commander Noah for which you are entrusted but rather that most holiest of relics for which the First Temple was built, a relic housed within the Sanctum Sanctorum, that none but the high priest saw, but once a year. The Ark of the Covenant.

Red Cross of Babylon

Your assigned task in the Royal Arch Degree has been completed and now you must commence work to build the Second Temple. But the world is a changed place since the fall of the First Temple and there are tribes that are actively working to prevent the building of the Second. In this the Degree of Knight of the Red Cross of Babylon you will once again follow the path out of captivity and hear the story of how the leaders at the site secured the safety of all those who would rebuild the glorious monument to God as you progress as a Knight of the Sword, Knight of the East and then, Knight of the East and West to finally complete the vision of King David.

In the historical line laid out by the degrees undertaken in a Royal Arch Chapter, when you have been installed as Most Excellent Chief of the Red Cross of Babylon, you will have been given access to all the secrets that Royal Arch has to offer. Having reached these heights of Masonic education the question will be yours to answer, have I completed my journey … or have I prepared myself to sojourn in other fields.