What are the SECRETS of the 33° Masons? Autocomplete Interview, a 33 Degree Freemason confesses

I am a 33rd degree Freemason and this is an auto complete interview [Music] my name is Maynard Edwards I am a 33rd degree Scottish rate Freemason and there are a lot of questions about Freemasonry and a lot of mystery surrounding the idea that someone is a 33rd degree Mason so we've gone to Google and we have gotten 10 questions from autocomplete and I'm going to try to answer these 10 questions all having to do with Freemasonry and being a 33rd degree Freemason what is a 33rd degree Mason okay what is a 33rd degree Mason so

when you become a Freemason and you join a local Lodge in your community you will be getting three degrees the Entered Apprentice degree the fellowcraft degree and the Master Mason degree after you get those three degrees there are other organizations that you can join called appendant bodies there are pendant organizations one of those organizations is the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and so when you hear someone say that their 32nd degree Mason or a 33rd degree Mason that means that they have joined the Scottish Rite the Scottish Rite has more degrees and it goes up to

generally 32 but if you work really hard and you are a member for a number of years and you are so honored you can receive the 33rd degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry so each degree is not like a rank it's not like the 14th degree Mason can boss around the third degree Masons or that the 33rd degree Masons can boss everybody around that's not how it works the degree is a title it's not a rank so it doesn't confer any any power or anything like that it just means that you have received a certain set

of lessons within the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry so that's what a 33rd degree Mason is it's a member of the Scottish Rite who has attained the 33rd degree does a 33rd degree Masons wear a special ring yes if they want to I am not a ring guy so I don't wear a 33rd degree ring nor did I wear a 14th degree ring when I was entitled to wear one of those I'm just not a ring guy a lot of Masons will wear a Master Mason ring and that basically just has the square Encompass on it

it might have some other Masonic symbols on it as well once you become a member of the Scottish Rite and you receive your 14th degree you get to wear a 14th degree ring which is a simple gold band with a little triangle and a Hebrew letter yud in the middle of it and then that's for an initial of God it's one of the initials of Yahweh basically and that is the 14th degree ring that you're entitled to wear once you become a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason you're entitled to wear a very special ring and

I don't wear one and it's just a personal choice but a lot of 33 degree three Scottish Rite Masons do wear one it's a very special ring it is an honor to be able to wear it and it's but it's also a personal choice and I I don't wear any rings just not a ring person so let's go to the next question do you have to drink blood to pee a 33rd degree Mason do you have to drink blood to be a 33rd degree Mason all right I'm gonna put this out there right now you

do not have to drink blood no one asks you to spit on the cross you do not have to renounce Jesus I'm a Christian I've always been a Christian I will continue to be a Christian you do not have to uh I I saw something online somebody said you had to have human sacrifice or kidnap a baby and it's all these crazy things whatever that nonsense is that you have heard or read in a movie or a TV show or a novel it's all nonsense there is nothing at about being a 33rd degree Mason that

has anything to do with any of that there is no renouncing of my faith they don't suddenly reveal that Lucifer is God or anything of the sort it's all ridiculous it's all nonsense so no there is no drinking of blood or anything else how do you become a 33rd degree Mason that is a great question once you have gotten your 32nd degree if you were a very active member of the fraternity or you're very active in your community you may be elected by your brothers to receive What's called the 32nd degree kcch kcch stands for

Knight commander of the court of honor after you're a kcch what happens is that again of all the all the kcch Masons that are eligible there some are elected to receive the 33rd degree and it's a real honor because not everyone gets this it is definitely not an automatic and and it you do have to sort of set yourself apart by the things that you do on behalf of the fraternity or perhaps in your community so if you show up and and you work really hard as a status right Mason you may well be honored

as a kcch and then if you continue to work you may be later honored as a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason but it's not something that everyone gets it is very special and it is indeed an honor and when I got the call that I was going to receive my 33rd degree uh to I was very very humbled and I continued to be humbled to be in the company of so many other good men and that's that's really the most remarkable part of being a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason is that I am now in

the company of these remarkable people and they're truly some of the best and brightest men I have ever known on our autocomplete interview who are famous 33rd degree Masons oh god um okay I'm going to draw a blank on a few here but the one that immediately jumps to mind is President Truman President Truman was a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason Burl Ives the Famous folk singer Roy Rogers Gene Autry I'm just naming singers um Arnold Palmer is a 33rd degree Scottish Ray Mason so there are Bunches of famous Scottish Schrade Masons throughout history 33rd

degree Scottish Rite Masons throughout history and uh you know to name them all would be impossible but you know if you do a Google search Google carefully because sometimes they list people as being 33rd degree Scottish Ray Masons and they really aren't how many oh I know this question how many 33rd degree Scottish Rite Masons are there not many not many I I you know there's probably 150 000 maybe 200 000 members of the fraternity in the United States of America and of that 200 000 maybe one out of ten so there might be a

couple thousand but it's it's not many um it's it's a it is an honor that is bestowed um not infrequently it's basically bestowed every two years but only a handful of guys get that honor every two years so it is um it's it's not many I don't have an exact number no I'd say maybe a couple thousand out of the 200 000 Scottish Rite masons in the United States can I pay to become a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason the answer is no you can't just write a check and say I want my 33rd degree

and believe it or not we do get people that will call into the house of the temple and they will say Hey listen I'm I'm wealthy I really want this um so how much do I need to donate in order to be given my 33rd degree and the answer is you can do that and when you do something like that it's pretty much a guarantee you will never get your 33rd degree use not something that can be bought no matter what you just can't why is a 33rd why is 33 a Mason number that is

an excellent question and it's such a good question that I don't really have a good answer and I'll tell you why no one really knows why 33 is such a big deal number in masonry it is the number of degrees but why it is the number of degrees is sort of one of those things that's lost to time there are a few theories the one theory is that when the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite was first established they met in Charleston South Carolina and the latitude of Charleston South Carolina latitude or longitude one or

the other is 33 degrees and that that had some significance the other idea is that it could be some hidden Christian symbolism because Christ was 33 when he was crucified so there's a theory that perhaps that is why 33 became a significant number there are people who have said well it's you know the last degree at which you know once you go from 32 to 33 degrees ice turns from Ice to water it melts it's a it's a degree of change so there's there's lots of theories as to what it means but the leading answer

as to why we have 33 is because 32 was not enough and 34 was too many as a deeply unsatisfying answer I get it that isn't and that is a terrible terrible answer but it's kind of like why do we have 26 letters in the alphabet well that's because that's how many there are we didn't need 27 and we needed more than 25 so it's kind of just like that's how many we ended up with just because and in terms of Scottish Rite degrees that's how many we ended up with just because and there's no

real hidden meaning behind it now people have been looking for a hidden meaning and people have been hoping that there's some answer to it because that answer it's terrible that's a terrible answer but it seems to be the answer I wish there was a better answer than just because but that is the answer there's 33 is a Mason number and is important to Masons and there's 33 degrees because that's just how many there are next question what is the 33rd degree Mason symbol this is a good question too and it's something I haven't mentioned yet

when you become a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason technically your title is Inspector General honorary meaning you're an honorary member an honorary Inspector General of the Supreme Council so with that there is a particular symbol and it's a red cross with with two crossbars and it is on the front of our Scottish Rite caps and when we're in when we're in meetings we wear these uh White Caps um once you become a 33rd degree and they're they're similar to the prayer caps that would have been worn by knights in a bygone era so they would

wear a cap when they pray and this is sort of an emulation of that that is the 33rd degree symbol um there's not another special symbol really other than if you're talking about the the 33rd degree double-headed Eagle which you can see on the Scottish Rite Channel and things like that what Masonic degree comes after the 33rd none we actually call it the 33rd and last degree now I know there are people on the internet and I think Alex Jones is one of the guys and I want to name drop any more people but there

are a lot of people on the internet who say that no there's 99 degrees or there's 180 degrees there's 360 degrees and 33rd is at the beginning and all the no that is untrue that's absolute nonsense there are 33 degrees it is the 33rd and last degree of the ancient and accepted Scottish Rite there is nothing Beyond 33rd degree there is one little asterisk to that if you are a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason and again you have gone above and beyond and you're just you know done so many things for the fraternity that you

have to be set apart you don't get another degree there's no other degree so it's still the 33rd and last degree but you can become what is called a Grand Cross and there's only about a hundred grand crosses in the entire world so it's very very high honor it's bestowed almost never I know a couple because of you know I work at the house of the temple in Washington which is Scottish Rite headquarters so art de Hoyas as a grand cross member Brent Morris is a grand cross member so I know a few by virtue

where I work but a lot of people will go their whole lives and not meet a Scottish rate Grand Cross because it's it's it's that rare literally fewer than a hundred in the entire fraternity so um it's it's a very big honor but it's not a degree so the 33rd degree is the last degree again whatever you've heard on the Internet besides that is wrong whatever you've read in a book or in a movie about there's a you know 360 degrees or 99 degrees none of that is true the 33rd is the last degree when

it comes to Scottish Rite Freemasonry I'm Maynard Edwards I am a 33rd degree Scottish rate Freemason I'm the host on this channel I hope you will subscribe if you've got a comment or a question please drop it below we're always happy to answer polite questions about Freemasonry thank you for watching and uh thank you for your auto complete and we'll see you soon