My Freemasonry | Freemason Information and Discussion Forum
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Degrees were conferred, and I'm now a Companion and Sir Knight! I have to say, doing all the degrees (sans Super Excellent Master) in less than twelve hours was pretty overwhelming. I'm going to have to spend some time studying the degrees to really have a good grasp on everything I was presented with. But, I did enjoy them, and am looking forward to figuring out... well, everything. Like I said, I was definitely overwhelmed.
On a side note, Texas confers the Super Excellent Masters Degree every couple of years and not at each festival that pops up. The SEM degree takes a lot of participation by the degree team itself by shear numbers, and is usually done in full wardrobe and stage sets. There was a SEM degree hosted last year at the Dallas Scottish Rite Cathedral so I would look for another one with in the next 2-3 years.
No Companion's degrees are finished until they have received the final of the Cryptic Orders, the Super Excellent Master. I really enjoyed the degree (as did my wife), the degree is "open" and a great chance to share your fraternity with your loved ones... No worries, the obligation is of course preformed Strictly Tiled!
Buy the rituals and read them. I was kind of disappointed with my York Rite degrees, due to how rushed they were, until I started reading the rituals and realized the sheer amount of information contained within them. Now that I've read through the rituals, I have gained a genuine love for the York Rite, and I can't wait to get to the next Festival to see them again.