Panel: American Art and Architecture: The Uses of Space in American Fraternalism
Paul Rich, Chair

Architecture and
Scottish Rite Masonry:
A Latin American Perspective

Guillermo De Los Reyes
University of Pennsylvania
University of the Americas-Puebla, Mexico


Of the several varieties of Freemasonry which our panel is discussing today, the one which often has the most imposing Masonic building in a city is the so-called Scottish Rite. That is true in Washington, in Indianapolis, and in fact here in San Diego. Corollary of this in my view, is that Scottish Rite Masonry is the most urban of all Masonic movements, both in Latin America and in the United States, and in the brief time available to us I hope to explain why that is.


Although Masonry, as I will explain, did extend itself into rural areas, it is also true that Masonry's growth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries parallels the growth of the modern city. A little historical background may be helpful. In England there is little hard evidence of lodges meeting during the seventeenth century. The lodge which made the famous antiquarian Elias Ashmole a Mason in 1646 is an example. In Scotland, documented lodges go back much earlier, at least to the end of the sixteenth century, but whether they are truly forebearers of the modern secret society is much debated. Isolated Masonic activity may have occurred in Latin America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it is in the nineteenth century and later that Masonic influence becomes significant.
It is wrong to speak about Masonry as if it were a single, monolithic entity. That is probably the biggest mistake made when historians and other scholars discuss it en passant. During the nineteenth century, when Freemasonry became widespread in both North and South America, there were, as there are now, a number of competing rites ‹ ritual systems consisting of a series of initiations. The Rites of Swedenborg, and Memphis, the Ancient and Primitive Rite, and the Rite of the Beneficent Knights of the Holy City are all examples. They share in common the notion of a succession of initiations, each based on the previous ones. There is in fact a Grand College of Rites which takes under control those rites that are no longer active, such as the Mizraim and Martinist, bodies which could be described irreverently as a sort of refrigerator for rites.
Only a few of these rites became large enough to build their own temples. But everyone who became a Mason took, as Dr. Rich has explained in his introduction, the first three degrees of entered apprentice, fellowcraft, and master mason. The alleged emotional stress produced by the third or master mason degree entered the language as the phrase "giving someone the third degree". Beyond those first three levels that were available in the symbolic or blue lodges, there were many options, including some organizations with a single initiatory degree and others such as the rites I have mentioned with a succession of degrees. Systems were created to bring order to the more than 1000 degrees created, and many of the "loose" degrees were captured by the various rites.
In fact, entire rites were incorporated into larger groupings, an example being the Cryptic Rite which now is an intermediary step between the Royal Arch and the Templar degrees in the York Rite. Each of these ritual systems, although part of the Masonic family, achieved a certain autonomy and even today he endowments and other properties are separartely held. Being a Mason does not make one eligible for the charities or retirement homes of the Eastern Star or Royal Arch, and the Scottish Rite hospìtals are not operated in the same way as the blue lodge hospitals.
In Latin America the situation was somewhat similar to North America with respect to the development of a number of diffrent kinds of Masonry. A Mexican authority explained that:
De todos los ritos, son considerados como los principales el Rito Escocés Antiguo y Aceptado y el Rito Inglés de York o Rito de Real Arco. Sin embargo, en algunos países han existido ritos nacionales que han demostrado gran actividad, como el Rito Moderno Francés, del que surgió la Revolución Francesa; el Rito del Celeste Imperio, que se practica en Turquía, el Rito Sueco, el Tien-Foe-Whe, de la China; el Benemérito Rito Nacional Mexicano, de gloriosa memoria en nuestro pais, y muchos más. En México, la gran mayoría de los masones están afiliados al Rito Escocés Antiguo y Aceptado, aunque también existen logias yorkinas, principalmente para personas de habla inglesa, así como otros cuerpos que pertenecen al Rito Nacional Mexicano, al Rito Primitivé de la Masonería universal, al del Derecho Humano ("Droit humain"), al de Adopción y a otros más.

Architecture and the rituals performed go together and vary from country to country. In Scandinavia, the rituals at least tangentially connected with Swedenborgian Masonry would be a part of any discussion of Masonic architecture. Although there are some traces there of the Scottish Rite, the architecture it has produced is little.
But in North and South America, the Scottish Rite has produced an enormous amount of architecture. Moreover, the growth and evolution of Scottish Rite Masonry with which we are concerned is urban Masonry. While the opportunity to acquire the more stratospheric and extravagant distinctions awarded by secret ritualistic societies (Grand Pontiff, Knight of the Brazen Serpent, Master of the Royal Secret, and so on, almost ad infinitum) are not mentioned as a urban amenity, it may be that the existence of fraternal orders should be included in the criteria for a hierarchical classification of urban places. Their activities support Carl Fischer's thesis that diversity achieved through subcultures is a psychologically vital to urbanization. An investigation of the varieties of ritualistic organizations in urban settings answers the call of Henri Lefebvre to investigate the city's "concealed daily life...its underground life".
In the case of Latin America, the preeminence of Scottish Rite Freemasonry complemented the rise of the cities, and the phenomenon provides at least a minor gloss on the place of urban ideology and urban primacy as forces in the Latin Amerian political culture. What I wish to do this morning is to offer some comments on the Scottish Rite in both North and South America, and I believe that both situations support the urban view of the Scottish Rite.
I wish to stress that when we consider Masonic architecture we are dealing with an international phenomenon. There is little doubt about Masonry having a major role in Latin American history. For example, the Venezuelan patriot Francisco de Miranda (1750? - 1816) became a Mason in 1796 and used London lodges to discuss plans for overthrowing Spain before going to Venezuela and organizing, in company with Simon Bolívar, the celebrated Protectora de las Virtudes Lodge:

A secret lodge modeled after the one Miranda had established in London was created to guide the independence movement. The degree to which the parent lodge and the subsequent American daughter lodges were Masonic in orientation is subject to speculation, but it is indisputable that the ideals and goals of European free masonry inspired many of the lodge members in the colonies. The lodge, with Miranda and Bolívar in it, quickly seized the initiative and took control of the independence movement in Caracas...

Meanwhile initiations and affiliations rapidly increased; whenever a [South] American was in London, he was overwhelmed by all the propaganda that the Lodge put forward. After listening to the American visitors, the Masons would support their goals, and always persuaded them to join to the Lodges so they could work together for Independence....The Creoles that were able to go to Europe - among them we can name Miranda, Bolívar, San Martín, Belgrano, Alvear, Mier, Narino and some other ‹ they noticed all of the political and cultural ideologies that were ongoing in Europe. When they returned to America, they brought those ideologies back with them. Those ideologies turned into actions and decisions that were aimed to accelerate the process of Independence.

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