Handwritten booklet of the degree “Sublime Philosopher”

This week’s object is a handwritten booklet from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century containing the ritual of the degree “Sublime Philosopher”, designated as the 36th degree. Written in French, the text represents a typical manuscrit de hauts grades — a manuscript ritual of the so-called “high degrees” of Freemasonry. The cover bearing the inscription “36e Grade de Sublime Philosophe” indicates that it belongs to the system of philosophical and esoteric degrees that spread throughout France during the second half of the eighteenth century.

The content of the ritual differs sharply from the familiar later “administrative” Freemasonry of the nineteenth century. Here, the initiate is directly described as a “Cabalist,” while the goal of the degree is defined as the attainment of “universal science” (science universelle). The ritual includes descriptions of gestures, passwords, touches, and symbolic movements, while the ceremony itself is structured around the idea of inner transformation and gradual ascent toward hidden knowledge. In one of the catechisms, when asked “Who are you?”, the initiate answers: “A Cabalist.”

Such degrees emerged during the late Enlightenment, when European Freemasonry had not yet been strictly unified and instead formed a complex landscape of intersecting traditions. Alongside ordinary lodges appeared numerous systems of “high degrees” (hauts grades), combining Masonic symbolism with alchemy, Christian mysticism, Kabbalah, chivalric legends, and Rosicrucian ideas. In France, this milieu became known collectively as écossisme — “Scottish Masonry.” It was within this environment that degrees such as “Sublime Philosophe,” “Chevalier du Soleil,” “Philosophe Inconnu,” and many others emerged. Their rituals often employed the language of Hermeticism and presented initiation as a path toward recovering a lost “ancient science” or “primordial wisdom.”

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the number of such systems began to grow rapidly. Some rites contained 25 degrees, others 33, 36, 81, 90, or even 95. The same titles could appear in different systems under different numbers. In this period, French Freemasonry resembled a kind of “marketplace of rituals,” where new philosophical, chivalric, and Hermetic degrees were constantly being created. Only in the nineteenth century did gradual standardization begin. After the Napoleonic era, and especially following the spread of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (AASR/REAA), the system of 33 degrees became dominant, while many older Hermetic rituals either disappeared or survived only as marginal esoteric traditions.

For this reason, manuscripts such as this are especially valuable: they preserve a transitional moment when Freemasonry still maintained close ties to Hermeticism, alchemy, and the idea of “universal science.” These texts reveal the intellectual environment of the late eighteenth century from which, simultaneously, the occult orders of the nineteenth century, Rosicrucian revivals, Martinism, and parts of modern European esoteric culture would later emerge.