Man only – rash, refined, presumptuous man,
Starts from his rank, and mars creation’s plan.

George Canning 1770-1827

One of the best things about Freemasonry is the opportunities it gives us to be sensitive to other people – putting them at the centre so to speak, after having (yes, you’ve guessed it) spent some time there ourselves. So I hesitate to once again approach this question of rank in Freemasonry, because I know how much some Brethren seek rank as a reward for their masonic progress, not perhaps perceiving that it may appeal only to their ego and vanity. A brother who was mildly opposed to my point of view wrote to me. "I cannot tell you" he said (but he did anyway) "what a source of pleasure it is when yet another promotion in this or that order comes slipping through my letter-box", and for my tongue-in-cheek quotation from W S Gilbert,

For every one who feels inclined
Some post we undertake to find
Congenial with his frame of mind
And all shall equal be,

he chastised me by solemnly intoning "Equality, Brother Rees, is a mathematical principle". Hmmm . . . . .
    Let’s analyse what rank is and why we need it. Any well-run organisation of course needs people dedicated to this or that task in its governing, which is why we have active ranks, administrative ranks, in Grand Lodge. "Past Grand" ranks by contrast are a reward for achievement, and if we splash these around too much, they cease to have any meaning W S Gilbert again:

When everyone is somebodee
Then no-one’s anybody!

But even in the case of administrative ranks we need to be careful and see them for what they are, a part of the organisational plan, but not necessarily a mark of moral or spiritual advance.
    The preoccupation with procedure, precedence and therefore rank simply doesn’t work. It appears arcane to the newcomer, and may obscure what we are about. I have known many men who became Freemasons but dropped off when they felt stifled by the whole business of rank. We have the right words, names, ritual and ceremony, but we may need to stop and ask ourselves which star we are following.
    May I be your conscience? When you have that promotion, what will you do with it? Will your inner building be advanced by it? Can you feel yourself placing one stone on the other in some purposeful way? Take great care that obtaining rank is not a milestone on your journey in search of yet another change of regalia, of more self-aggrandisement. As Robert Graves says, "In the end, we will be beaten by our own craven, covetous selves" and as Freemasons we simply do not want to go there. Not when we have a bright morning star to which to lift our eyes, a better, brighter horizon.
    Our Grand Secretary gave us a clue to this in the interview he gave in Freemasonry Today, issue 11:

"I have to say that if we could start the Craft again, I would not have a multiplicity of provincial and grand ranks. It is quite right that an organisation should reward those who work hard. But there are days when I feel this is ridiculous: spending hours and hours deciding whether someone should be a Past Grand This or a Past Grand That . . . in the University Lodge in Madras we all picked up exactly the same apron with the lodge’s emblem on it, and it was light blue all the way through the lodge. That does remove the rather petty differences which people are too keen to point out. Ranks are not important. Not when there is so much else in Freemasonry which really is."

And here’s the really hard part. You may not like this. If a Brother needs rank to feel good, he really doesn’t belong in Freemasonry. It’s not for him. He should join the armed services or the police. We need, not arrogance, but humility, something to remind us what work there is still to be done on our own rough ashlar. And we need the help of our Brethren around us to achieve that important work. Rank will only get in the way.
    jrees@aol.com