Super Excellent Master

Super Excellent Master is an honorary degree; it is not one of the two principal Cryptic degrees and is not required for advancement through the Rite. Many Councils confer it as an optional honor, and it is counted among the most affecting ceremonies in the York Rite: its setting is the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, the catastrophe whose loss the Capitular and Cryptic degrees frame and repair.

History

The degree is another American development. It emerged in the United States during the nineteenth century, as the organized Council system and its neighboring bodies accumulated degrees dramatizing the whole arc of the Temple story: building, completion, destruction, captivity, and restoration. As it spread, Councils adopted it as an honorary ceremony to be conferred on companions of proven standing, rather than as a required step of the Cryptic system.

Its historical content is drawn from the scriptural accounts of the Judahite exile, the destruction of the city and Temple and the carrying away of the people to Babylon. In the York Rite’s larger narrative it supplies the “loss” side of the story at its fullest scale: what the Royal Arch later recovers, the captivity first mourned.

In the York Rite

Super Excellent Master stands alongside Royal Master and Select Master in many Councils of Cryptic Masons, though its honorary status distinguishes it from the principal degrees. The complete list of York Rite degree histories is on the degree histories page.