How many degrees in Scottish masonry

Thirty-three degrees make up the full system, numbered sequentially from the First Degree to the Thirty-third 1. These are organized into distinct administrative divisions, beginning with the three symbolic or Craft degrees—Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason—and extending through thirty advanced grades 1.

Although the three symbolic degrees form the numerical base of the system, Supreme Councils in Scotland, England, Ireland, and the United States do not confer them 1. Out of respect for the older authority of the Craft Grand Lodges in those countries, the Scottish Rite refrains from exercising jurisdiction over the First, Second, and Third degrees, receiving candidates only after they are already Master Masons 1.

The thirty-three-degree structure was established in 1801 with the formation of the first Supreme Council at Charleston, South Carolina 1. Before this development, the governance of these advanced grades was based on the twenty-five-degree system of the Rite of Perfection, which had been organized at Paris in 1758 and brought to the Western Hemisphere under a authority given to Stephen Morin in 1761 1. The creation of the Supreme Council expanded the hierarchy by adopting eight additional continental degrees, establishing the Thirty-third Degree as the summit of the Rite 1.

Above the symbolic degrees, the grades are grouped into bodies that govern specific ranges of the system: the Lodge of Perfection (Fourth to Fourteenth Degrees), the Chapter of Rose Croix (Fifteenth to Eighteenth Degrees), the Council of Kadosh (Nineteenth to Thirtieth Degrees), the Consistory (Thirty-first and Thirty-second Degrees), and the Supreme Council (Thirty-third Degree) 1.