# Ordo ab chao: order out of chaos and the Scottish Rite

The Scottish Rite slogan that means order out of chaos: how the 33rd-degree system emerged from a crowded field of rival high-degree rites, how the phrase became attached to the Charleston Supreme Council and Pike-era ritual, and how later conspiracy writers turned it into a claim about hidden control.

*This story parallel: Secret societies and influential orders*
*This story parallel: Hermes Trismegistus and the Hermetic tradition*
*This story part of: Freemasonry in Britain, America, and the colonies*
*This story part of: State, law, and coercion*
*The pillars of modern power part of this story*
*Religion and ideology parallel this story*

## c. 1778 — The Rectified Scottish Rite and the high-degree ferment

The 18th century produced many competing systems of higher degrees, including the chivalric Rite of Strict Observance and its reform as the Rectified Scottish Rite in 1778. This ferment of rites fed material into the later Scottish Rite and York Rite.

## 31 May 1801 — Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite founded

The first Supreme Council of the thirty-third degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was established at Charleston in 1801. It became the mother council from which most other Scottish Rite bodies derive their authority.

## c. 1801 — The thirty-three degrees of the Scottish Rite

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite organizes a sequence of degrees from the fourth through the thirty-third that build on the three Craft degrees. The system drew on earlier French high-degree rites and was consolidated into thirty-three grades around 1801.

## c. 1855 to c. 1861 — Albert Pike revises the Scottish Rite rituals

Albert Pike, a leader of the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction, rewrote and expanded the rite's degree rituals into their modern elaborate form. His revisions drew heavily on comparative mythology and world religions.

## 1871 — Albert Pike publishes Morals and Dogma

Albert Pike reorganized the Scottish Rite in the American South and published Morals and Dogma in 1871, a lengthy commentary on its degrees. His writings shaped the rite for generations.