Full history page

From the Mysteries of ancient Egypt to the contemporary initiatic chain, a continuous lineage of symbolic, ritual, and spiritual transmission that has crossed two centuries, several oceans, and two world wars without losing the Light.

Tradition is not invented. It is received, guarded, and transmitted. He who breaks the chain is left out; he who keeps it, outside or inside the world, remains in the Light.

The two original paths

The Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim was not born from a single foundational act but from the conscious fusion, in 1881, of two distinct initiatic currents that had worked separately throughout the 19th century: the Rite of Mizraim, of Kabbalistic-Hermetic inspiration and Venetian-Neapolitan format, and the Rite of Memphis, of Egyptian-Hermetic inspiration and Franco-Marseille format. Both have roots in something yet older: the system of Egyptian Masonry codified by Cagliostro at the end of the 18th century and, behind him, the claim of continuity with the priestly Mysteries of Ancient Egypt.

What the modern Rite offers as a degree system (90° of Mizraim and 95° of Memphis, integrated in a single ladder) is not a gratuitous 19th-century invention: it is the initiatic reading that symbolic Masonry made, at the moment of the awakening of Egyptology, of a heritage which revealed itself to the modern eye for the first time since Alexandria.

The two cities, the two names

Memphis — located south of the Nile River on the western bank, some twenty-four kilometers from today's Cairo — was the ancient capital of Lower Egypt, the place where the Lesser Mysteries of Isis and Serapis and the Greater Mysteries of Osiris were practiced. It was associated with the pyramids, temples, and necropolis: such association would not have been possible without the context of a center of religion, philosophy, science, culture, economy, education, and the arts. The name of the Rite that guards the Memphis heritage does not originate from an isolated symbol, but from the entire city.

Misraim is the Hebrew and Aramaic name used in the Bible to refer to the land of Egypt. Its etymology comes from a Semitic root meaning country or land, to which the dual suffix -ayim is added — perhaps referring to the two Egypts: Upper and Lower Egypt. The duality embedded in the very name speaks, in its writing, of the pairs of opposed and reconciled forces that the work of the Initiate integrates.

The Rite that unites both traditions — Memphis (the city of Mysteries) and Misraim (the dual land) — is, by its very name, a synthesis: of the concrete symbol and the entire territory, of cult and country, of the hieroglyph and the Hebrew word, of Hellenized Egypt and Biblical Egypt.

Egypt, Napoleon and Isis Lodge

From a controversial historical point of view, Freemasonry made its first appearance in Egypt in 1789 through the French armies of Napoleon, among which there were Masons. It was also in Egypt where, according to tradition, Napoleon himself was initiated into Masonry — a fact nuanced by academic history but which the Rite preserves as a sign of that moment. The circumstances of contact between French Occident and the land of the Pharaohs called for a Masonic rite adapted to the zone's particularities, making Masonic principles accessible to all. Hence would emerge the Rite of Memphis, with its first Lodge constituted in Cairo under the name Isis — adopted by the mysterious rites of the priesthood of the goddess, a central figure and deity of Egyptian mythology.

Isis Lodge prospered under its first Master, General Jean-Baptiste Kléber, until he was assassinated in Cairo in 1800. After his death, one of the Rite's most active members, the Egyptian Samuel Honnis, guardian of the archives, carried the prepared Rite to France between 1814 and 1815, where it was constituted as The Disciples of Memphis. Its founders on French soil were Samuel Honnis, Gabriel-Mathieu Marconis de Nègre — father of the Marconis who would take up the work —, Baron de Dumas, Marquis de La Roque, and Hippolyte Labrunie. The work fell dormant in 1816, but its archives were preserved intact.

Historical filiation

1784 — Lyon

Cagliostro and High Egyptian Masonry

Giuseppe Balsamo — known as the Count of Cagliostro, born in Parma — had been initiated in Germany into three Masonic rites known as Strict Observance, Metal Plate, and Exact Observance; these provided the materials that enabled him to institute his High Egyptian Masonry, naming himself Grand Copt or Grand Master. A significant part of his doctrine also came from a manuscript he obtained in England. The Mother Lodge of his Rite was established in Lyon under the distinctive title The Triumphant Wisdom: a Masonry admitting all educated men of good conduct and subject to the laws of their country, excluding only principles contrary to morality. Cagliostro then took his Rite to Poland, Germany, and France, where he gained many followers and lodges in these kingdoms’ main cities. Later he went to Rome, where an inquisitor arrested him on charges of heresy, magic, and frenzy, condemning him to death; Pope Pius VI commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. In 1797, when the French approached Rome, inquisitors feared revenge from his followers and found him dead in Castel Sant’Angelo. His symbolic grammar — the seal of the Triangle, invocations to Helios and Mercury, the language of the Ancient Mysteries — would become the common substrate from which both Misraim and Memphis would draw.

1788 — Venice · Naples

Appearance of the Rite of Mizraim

In Venice and later in Naples, records show the work of lodges practicing the "Rite of the Egyptian Philalethes" and "Mizraim", with an ascending hierarchy that would culminate, in its modern form, at 90°. Its orientation is markedly Kabbalistic, Hermetic, and Judeo-Christian.

1814 — Paris

The Bédarride brothers bring Mizraim to France

Marc, Joseph, and Michel Bédarride introduce the Rite of Mizraim into France. The obedience is administratively structured into four series — Symbolic, Philosophical, Mystical, and Kabbalistic — over the canonical 90°. Paris becomes the capital of the Rite of Mizraim in Europe.

1838 — Paris · Brussels

Jacques-Étienne Marconis de Nègre revives the Rite

Son of Gabriel-Mathieu Marconis, Marconis de Nègre revives the Rite of Memphis with the founding of the Osiris lodge in Paris and the reactivation of The Disciples of Memphis in Brussels, which comes under the obedience of the Grand Orient of France. At the first assembly of the Supreme Power of the Order, Marconis installs the three administrative structures that give the Rite its definitive architecture: the Sanctuary of Memphis, the Mystical Temple, and the Sovereign Grand Council. He codifies the hierarchy up to 95°, writes the Hierophantes — its doctrinal book — and, in 1839, publishes the regulations and constitution of the Osiris lodge with its 54 founding members. This work inspires the rite sustained today by the Sovereign Sanctuary. The doctrinal fusion of the Rite gathers elements from the Hermetic Rite of Avignon, the Primitive Rite of Narbonne, and the Rite of the African Architects of Bordeaux, joined to the gnostic body of Egyptian origin brought by Honnis.

1843-1864 — Transatlantic expansion

The Rite is established in four continents

Following pressure from the Grand Orient of France, which closes the halls of the Rite in 1841, the Order's structures begin functioning in North America, Argentina, Turkey, and Romania from 1843. In 1845 lodges are founded in Alexandria (Al Ahram), Ismailia, Port Said, Suez, and Cairo; in 1848 the lights of the Rite reemerge in France; in 1864 the Grand Orient of Italy gives a provisional guarantee that creates the Grand Orient of Egypt for the high degrees and the National Grand Lodge of Egypt for the three blue degrees. This Masonic authority is internationally recognized and consolidates the permanent presence of the Rite on Egyptian soil.

1862 — Paris

Recognition of the Rite of Memphis by the Grand Orient of France

After decades of negotiations, the Grand Orient of France recognizes the Rite of Memphis as a regular Masonic rite. Marconis cedes to the Grand Orient administrative control of the symbolic degrees (1°-3°); the Rite retains jurisdiction over the philosophical degrees.

1844-1882 — Montevideo · Naples

Giuseppe Garibaldi: unification Memphis + Misraim

Giuseppe Garibaldi is initiated into Masonry in August 1844 in Montevideo, in the lodge Les Amis de la Patrie, heir to Uruguay’s oldest Masonic center founded in 1827. He affiliates with the Rite of Misraim through the American Sovereign Sanctuary of Memphis from 1865 and the British Sovereign Sanctuary from 1872. In 1876 he receives the 95° and 96° degrees of the Rite of Memphis with the title Grand Master of Honor Ad Vitam of the Sovereign Sanctuary of Egypt. His charisma and leadership make him a symbol of Masonic unity. He proclaims in 1881 the unification of the Rites of Memphis and Mizraim under sole obedience: the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraïm. Garibaldi passes into immortality on June 2, 1882, receiving Masonic and non-Masonic honors worldwide. This date is the birth certificate of the Rite as we work it today.

1902 — Manchester

John Yarker, Anglo-Saxon guardian

The English Mason John Yarker receives the power of Grand Hierophant 97° for the Anglo-Saxon world. Yarker systematizes the rituals in English, publishes them, and sends them to Theodor Reuss in Germany, ensuring the chain's continuity when Italy and France enter political turmoil. On September 24, 1902, he issues a charter to Reuss to establish a Grand Orient and Sovereign Sanctuary for Germany as Vice-Grand Hierophant 96°.

1913 — Berlin · Munich

Theodor Reuss and the meeting with the O.T.O.

Upon Yarker’s death, Reuss assumes the Hierophantate 97° (Papus, who was also a natural candidate, declines) and guards the Rite in the German language. He articulates it with the Ordo Templi Orientis which he himself had founded with Karl Kellner. This conjunction, now historical, explains why the O.T.O. and Memphis-Mizraim share — in their continental European lines — a common root and a fraternal closeness to this day.

1919 — Lyon

Jean Bricaud restores the Rite in France

Bricaud — gnostic, martinist, and patriarch of the Universal Gnostic Church — receives from Reuss the dignity of Grand Hierophant for the Latin domain and reorganizes the Rite in France, headquartered in Lyon. With him, Memphis-Misraïm again becomes an active Masonic obedience in its original language.

1934 — Lyon

Constant Chevillon, Grand Hierophant martyr

Upon Bricaud’s death, Constant Chevillon inherits the dignity of Grand Hierophant. His task is brutally interrupted: on March 25, 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France, Chevillon is assassinated by the Milice française. His sacrifice makes the Rite’s continuity an act of spiritual resistance.

1960 — Paris

Robert Ambelain reestablishes the full hierarchy

Ambelain — hermetic writer, martinist, author of seminal works on Kabbalah, alchemy, and Egyptian rite — assumes the dignity of Worldwide Grand Hierophant. He reestablishes the 95° hierarchy in its modern operative form, publishes the Cérémonies et Rituels de la Maçonnerie Symbolique, and reopens the Rite to Latin American Masonry.

1985 — Paris

Gérard Kloppel, legitimate succession

Ambelain designates Gérard Kloppel as Worldwide Grand Hierophant. Under Kloppel, the Rite expands to more than twenty countries, and the international jurisdiction is consolidated with operational headquarters in France and regional representation on each continent.

21st Century — Mexico

The chain reaches Mexico

Through regular obediences of the Ambelain-Kloppel line, the Rite is established in Mexico and constitutes its national Sovereign Sanctuary. The Symbolic Grand Orient of Mexico today groups the symbolic lodges and triangles, around the Sovereign Sanctuary, under the guidance of the current Worldwide Grand Hierophant.

The hierarchy of the 95°

The Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim integrates the 95° of Memphis (Marconis) and the 90° of Mizraim (Bédarride) into a single initiatic ladder. The degrees are grouped into series and bodies, which in turn form the administrative “chambers” of the Rite.

The nomenclature may vary slightly between regular obediences (some lines end the hierarchy at 95°, others at 97° or 99°). The International Sovereign Sanctuary, within its jurisdiction, operates the full hierarchy up to the 99°, exercised by the Worldwide Grand Hierophant.

Egyptian symbolism

Unlike the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite — which privileges Old Testament and chivalric symbolism — and the York Rite — which privileges the Jerusalem line —, the Rite of Memphis-Mizraim takes its signs, myths, and keys from the Egyptian pantheon and the Hermetic cosmogony that accompanied it in Late Antiquity.

• Khepri-Ra-Atum, three figures of the Sun — the sun born at dawn, the sun reigning at noon, the sun hiding at dusk — are a metaphor for the birth, fullness, and descent of the Initiate in his daily work.
• Osiris, dead, dismembered, and resurrected is the mythic matrix for the symbolism of the middle chamber in the Master degree and, in higher degrees, for the whole theology of reintegration.
• Isis, veiled, guards the secret and represents wisdom inaccessible to the Profane. Her unveiling is the asymptotic horizon of the Initiate.
• Horus and the Wedjat eye are the keys to spiritual discernment, to the vision that penetrates the veil of the apparent world.
• Thoth, scribe of the gods, identified by the Greeks with Hermes Trismegistus, is the patron of study and the intellectual labor of the Initiate.
• Ma'at, the feather of truth and justice, is what is weighed on the Scales of Judgment: the Initiate, at journey’s end, must be able to show a heart as light as the feather.
• Anubis and the sycamore, guardians of the threshold between worlds, are watchmen of the Initiate in each step from one degree to another.
• The luminous Delta with the central Yod — visible on the Temple pediment and in the Sanctuary’s seal — is the geometric condensation of the whole doctrine: the One Principle manifested as Creative Trinity.

Difference with other Rites

Compared to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (AASR), Memphis-Mizraim adds — without replacing — an Egyptian-Hermetic-Kabbalistic axis. The Mason of the AASR will recognize in our rituals the same symbolic structure of the Temple, the same North and South columns, the same ladder of degrees; but will also find the invocations to the netjeru, the signs of the Heliopolitan calendar, the sacred geometry of Tat pillars, and passages from the Book of the Dead integrated into the ceremonial.

Compared to the York Rite, we retain the centrality of symbolic work on the Temple and the Middle Chamber, but add the entire cosmological and operative dimension of the philosophical degrees. The York Rite advances toward chivalric and medieval Christian summits; we advance toward ancient Egyptian peaks, toward the Temple of Karnak and the river that has its source in Eden.

In contrast with other traditions called "Egyptian" but foreign to the documented chain, we stand out by a verifiable filiation and a jurisdictional regularity supported by patents and continuous transmission ritualists. An initiatic order is distinguished from a club of enthusiasts by one thing: the possibility to show, without scandal, its chain of origin.

Other close Hermetic paths

Throughout its history, the Sovereign Sanctuary has maintained fraternal relations with neighboring Hermetic and esoteric traditions that partly share its roots:

• The Martinist Order (Pasqually, Saint-Martin, Papus), whose theurgy and "cardiac path" complement the Masonic work of the Rite.
• The Gnostic Church (Doinel, Bricaud, Chevillon, Ambelain), which guards the sacramental Christian-esoteric dimension.
• The Ordo Templi Orientis (Kellner, Reuss, Crowley), with whom we share the line of Reuss and the confluence of the first degrees.
• The continental Hermetic-Gnostic Rose-Croix orders.

Over some of these paths, in Mexico, the Sovereign Sanctuary itself operates, through its derived orders.

Egyptian Masonry is not a romantic eccentricity of the 19th century. It is the initiatic reading that, in the century of the awakening of Egyptology, Tradition made of a heritage which then revealed itself to the modern gaze for the first time since Alexandria. Tradition of the Rite · Ambelain Line

If you wish to delve deeper into the spelling of the Rite’s name and why we write "Memphis-Mizraim," we invite you to read the etymological note.

The three lineages of the Grand Hierophant

The current Worldwide Grand Hierophant 99°, M∴S∴H∴ Mishel Arreola, receives his dignity through the convergence — unique in the Spanish-speaking world — of three living lineages of the contemporary Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim. No analogous Spanish-speaking obedience simultaneously combines the three branches converging here.

The three chains pass through a common link — M∴S∴H∴ Fabio Sebastián Cruz, Sovereign Grand Hierophant of Uruguay — who between 2005 and 2013 received the three patents in historical order and afterwards consecrates Mishel Arreola for the Mexican territory.

Lineage I — Rosicrucian filiation Belgium 1934

Harvey Spencer Lewis ⸫ Armand Rombauts ⸫ Williams Cox ⸫ Fabio Sebastián Cruz ⸫ Mishel Arreola

Harvey Spencer Lewis

1883-1939 · United States

Imperator and founder of AMORC (Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, 1915) and architect of the 99° of the Ancient and Primitive Rite "channeled" at the 1934 Brussels Congress (FUDOSI). His consecration of Armand Rombauts that year opens the only filiation with initiatic authority for the 99° within this current, a direct root that — after nearly a century of transmissions — will reach the Sovereign Sanctuary of Mexico.

Armand Rombauts

1881-1947 · Belgium

Grand Master of the Sovereign Sanctuary of Belgium of Memphis-Misraïm, co-founder of the F.U.D.O.S.I. (1934), and direct recipient of the 99° conferred by Harvey Spencer Lewis. Guardian of the initiatic name Or-Zam-Phanar, his Belgian sovereignty is the historical bridge opening the filiation toward the Americas.

Williams Cox

Imperator OMAPRMM

Imperator of the Masonic Order of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim (OMAPRMM), direct heir of the 99° of the Belgium 1934 filiation (Lewis → Rombauts → Cox). On July 2, 2005, he conferred the 99° on Fabio Sebastián Cruz, opening the Hispanic American continental link of the lineage.

Fabio Sebastián Cruz

Sovereign Sanctuary of Uruguay

Sovereign Grand Hierophant 99°-100°, President of the Sovereign Sanctuary of Uruguay and Hispanic American axis of the Rite. He received the 99° from Williams Cox on July 2, 2005 — direct link to the Belgium 1934 filiation. His consecration of Mishel Arreola seals the Mexican convergence of the North American Rosicrucian lineage.

Lineage II — Voodoo-Gnostic filiation of La Couleuvre Noire

Lucien-François Jean-Maine ⸫ Hector-François Jean-Maine ⸫ Michael Bertiaux ⸫ Fabio Sebastián Cruz ⸫ Mishel Arreola

Lucien-François Jean-Maine

1869-1960 · Haiti

Haitian Gnostic patriarch, founder in 1922 of the voodoo-masonic order La Couleuvre Noire and historic head of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua. Consecrated bishop in Paris on August 15, 1899 by the double chain of Papus (Tau Synesius) and the Spanish Albigensian line, he synthesized in one initiatic body Egyptian Masonry, primitive Christian gnosis, and ancestral Haitian voodoo.

Hector-François Jean-Maine

1925-1984 · Haiti

Tau Ogdoade-Orfeo III, hereditary successor of his father at the head of La Couleuvre Noire, the O.T.O.A., and the Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis. Elevated to the patriarchate in Madrid on November 2, 1962, he was the first Grand Hierophant to transmit the Voudoun Rite to North America by consecrating Michael Paul Bertiaux as his visible successor in 1963-1966.

Michael Paul Bertiaux

b. 1935 · United States

Direct heir of the voodoo-gnostic legacy of Jean-Maine, initiated into the Ancient and Primitive Rite in Haiti (1964) and elevated to Grand Hierophant Conservator in 1975. From Chicago, he refounded the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua, the Monastery of the Seven Rays, and the Neopythagorean Gnostic Church. His monumental Voudon Gnostic Workbook (1988) is a mandatory reference in contemporary esotericism. Through his mediation — via Joel Duez (1994) and Pablo César Manquemilla (2013) — the Black Serpent reaches the Mexican Sanctuary.

Fabio Sebastián Cruz

Bertiaux Confluence 2013

Recipient of the voodoo-gnostic lineage by double influx: M∴S∴H∴ Joel Duez Vichery (1994) and M∴S∴H∴ Pablo César Manquemilla Vera (Santiago de Chile, April 21, 2013). He guards and transmits to the Mexican Sovereign Sanctuary the Voudoun Arcanum of La Couleuvre Noire, closing with M∴S∴H∴ Mishel Arreola the chain Haiti–Chicago–Santiago–Mexico City.

Lineage III — Regular European filiation Ambelain-Kloppel-Gaudart

Robert Ambelain ⸫ Gérard Kloppel ⸫ Joseph Castelli ⸫ Michel Gaudart de Soulages ⸫ Fabio Sebastián Cruz ⸫ Mishel Arreola

Robert Ambelain

1907-1997 · France · X° World Grand Master

Under the initiatic name "Aurifer", he reactivated the Order of the Élus Coëns in the middle of the Nazi occupation (1943) and later refounded the regular practice of Martinism, Cabalistic Rose+Croix, and the Gnostic Apostolic Church. X° World Grand Master of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim for a quarter of a century (1960-1985). Over forty volumes published. The transmission he effected to Gérard Kloppel on the night of December 31, 1984, inaugurates the contemporary chain.

Gérard Kloppel

1933-2008 · France · XI° Worldwide Grand Hierophant

Direct successor of Robert Ambelain, XI° Worldwide Grand Hierophant for 23 years "ad vitam". He issued a patent to M∴S∴H∴ Michel Gaudart de Soulages on September 28, 2007, and conferred the 99° degree in two consecutive sessions (June 29 and July 18, 2008), ensuring the Rite’s continuity in regular European Masonry a few months before his accidental death on October 5, 2008.

Joseph Castelli

† June 28, 2021 · France

Grand Master General of the Ordre des Rites Unis de Memphis & Misraïm (ORUMM), Grand Hierophant and President of the Supreme Council of Confederated Rites since August 11, 2008, by direct appointment of Gérard Kloppel. Ritualistic codifier of the Ambelain-Kloppel stream via his monumental Régulateur du Rite de Memphis-Misraïm (Volumes I and II), liturgical reference for all High Grades.

Michel Gaudart de Soulages

1948 (Pondicherry) – † Feb 26, 2025 (Paris) · XII° Worldwide Grand Hierophant

XII° Worldwide Grand Hierophant "ad vitam" of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim since January 9, 2009. Direct heir to the full patent conferred by Kloppel in 2007 and the 99° received in 2008. His consecration of Fabio Sebastián Cruz to degrees 66°-90°-95° in Santiago de Chile, November 2011, is the regular European seal which, via Cruz, reaches the Sovereign Sanctuary of Mexico. Knight of Heliopolis.

Fabio Sebastián Cruz

Ambelain-Kloppel-Gaudart Confluence 2011

In a personal audience in November 2011 in Santiago de Chile with the XII° Grand Hierophant Michel Gaudart de Soulages, he received the 66°-90° and 95° degrees of the regular European stream, thus adding to the Rosicrucian and Vodoun patrimony of the first two filiations the golden seal of the Ambelain-Kloppel Rite. This third influx is the one which, together with the other two, guards and transmits to Mishel Arreola the full initiatic integrity of the Mexican Sovereign Sanctuary.

The culminating link

M∴S∴H∴ Mishel Arreola i∴o∴ Althotas Alef

99° Worldwide Grand Hierophant · Sovereign Sanctuary of Mexico

In his person converge the three living lineages of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim: the North American Rosicrucian current of Harvey Spencer Lewis transmitted by the Belgium 1934 filiation (Lewis → Rombauts → Cox → Cruz); the Haitian voodoo-gnostic line of La Couleuvre Noire (Jean-Maine → Bertiaux → Duez/Manquemilla → Cruz); and the regular European line of the Ambelain-Kloppel-Gaudart de Soulages Rite, received by Cruz in Santiago de Chile in November 2011. The Sovereign Sanctuary of Mexico preserves, under his leadership, the initiatic integrity of the Arcanum Arcanorum in Spanish language.