O.T.O. Synopsis of Degrees

All additions in square brackets to this table are by the Frater T.S., based on correlating (a) various published documents of O.T.O. and (b) degree lists of the Antient & Primitive Rite and the Rites of Memphis and Mizraim.

In the table, the degrees from 4° to 33° of Memphis refer to the Reduced Rite (Antient and Primitive) of 33 degrees; the 95° to 97° to the full rite of 97 degrees, the top two of which are administrative for the ruling council and chief of the rite. In the 97 degree rite, the first 33 parallel AASR and the rest are frankly a mess and have varied wildly between different juridictions and over the history of the rite (one modern Memphis working has 99 degrees, with the 96° being national heads, the 99° the world Chief of the rite and the 97° and 98° some kind of intermediate trans-national chiefs).

Minerval is a probationary degree with no real Masonic equivalent.

XI° O.T.O. is a “technical” degree outside the general scheme of the Order and has no connection or correspondence with any degree of any known Masonic rite, unless one is willing to credit the wilder flights of fancy of anti-Masonic propaganda.

It should be noted that while this table lists an XII° for the O.H.O., it does not appear that Crowley himself ever used this number when signing as Outer Head from 1923 on, and it may have been dropped in a later revision of the degree scheme.

In 1917 Reuss issued » his own elaboration of the O.T.O. degree system « which ignored all of Crowley's innovations including the 0°, XI° and a separate XII° for the Outer Head, instead describing a system of nine operative degrees I° to IX°, with the III° identified with Craft Masonry and the IV° to VI° with 4° to 33° AASR.  The VII° and VIII° were subdivided into 3 and 4 respectively. Current practice in the O.T.O. as manifested under the Caliphacy adopts Reuss' threefold division of the VII°, but only has two sub-degrees to VIII°.

Footnotes:

[1] There is no degree with this title in the Mizraim degree list I consulted.

[2] The version of the Mizraim degree list I consulted has 46° as Rose-Croix; 44° is “Architecture of the Sovereign Commanders of the Temple.” However there was wide variation between workings of the precise arrangement of degrees in the full rites of Memphis and Mizraim, so 44° may be correct here.

[3] In Crowley's Liber LII (1919), and the earlier “Manifesto of MMM” (1912), “Knight of the Red Eagle” is identified with membership of the “Senate of Knight Hermetic Philosophers,” an intermediate degree between V° and VI° from which, according to Liber CXCIV, the Electoral College of the Order is drawn. In the Antient & Primitive Rite, the degrees from 12° to 20° are collectively known as the Senate of Hermetic Philosophers (this series is further subdivided into two; the “Hermetic” degrees from 12° to 17° form the Senate proper, the 18° to 20° are Templar degrees and collectively known as the Consistory). In English workings – and it was from John Yarker's English Memphis-Mizraim body that Reuss and colleagues obtained their A & P charter – the 12° is called “Knight of the Red Eagle” and the 17° is “Hermetic Philosopher.” In How's Freemason's Manual, a 19th-century work whose author appears very positive towards the Antient and Primitive Rite (far less so towards the full 90+ degrees of Memphis-Mizraim) it is said that this degree is concerned with further explanation of the Hermetic cipher I.N.R.I., previously expounded in the Rose-Croix degree. The 18° of A&P is called “Knight Kadosch” , the 19° “Royal Master” and the 20° “Grand Intendant.”   The 39th degree of Mizraim is called Knight of the Red Eagle; however O.T.O. Senate may also be identified with the 47° to 64° of Mizraim as the degrees between Rose-Croix and Knight Kadosch.