What is Memphis Misraim?

The Rite of Memphis—also known in reduced or reorganized forms as the Ancient and Primitive Rite—is a high-degree Masonic system created in the early nineteenth century by Jean Étienne Marconis de Négre 12. Built upon the foundation of the three symbolic degrees of Craft Masonry 1, the system expanded to ninety-five degrees divided into three series 1, though other historical reorganizations structured it into ninety-six or ninety-seven degrees 1. According to its official journal, The Kneph, the Rite declared itself open to any Master Mason in good standing under a constitutional Grand Lodge who professed belief in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man 1.

In 1852, French civil authorities closed the lodges of the Rite 1. To restore its legitimacy, Marconis surrendered the system to the Grand Orient of France in 1862, solemnly divesting himself by oath of all authority over it 1. The Grand Orient absorbed the system to suppress the proliferation of competing rites, shelving its high degrees as curiosities and permitting only its symbolic lodges to operate under special rituals 1.

Despite his surrender, Marconis continued to illicitly confer degrees 1. Harry J. Seymour subsequently assumed leadership of the system in America, establishing a Sovereign Sanctuary in New York 1. When Seymour attempted to introduce the Rite into England, the Grand Orient of France issued warnings repudiating his authority, confirming that no charter had ever been granted to him to create lodges or make Masons 1. In Egypt, the Rite underwent separate reorganizations, eventually forming a Sovereign Grand Council of the Memphis Rite in 1876 following an accord with a Scottish Rite body in Naples 1.

Arthur Edward Waite severely criticized the Rite's ritual claims—such as those in its Knight of the Red Eagle degree—as elaborate historical fabrications 2. The Rite's lectures claimed origins in Tartary, India, Persia, and ancient Egypt, asserting that the Essenes and Dionysian Artificers had handed down its secrets unchanged 2.