The Origins of the Rite of Memphis-Misraim

Ordinary Masonic literature often merely repeats the same legends, which are contradicted by historical research.

According to the official legend of the Rite, promoted by Robert Ambelain in the 1960s, the Rite of Misraim dates back to a Lodge founded by Cagliostro in Venice in 1788, composed of Socinians (a Protestant anti-Trinitarian sect particularly present in Poland at the time). However, several historical clues show that such an origin is highly improbable.

Robert Ambelain and Joseph Balsamo

Robert Ambelain (left) – Cagliostro (right)

First of all, it is unlikely that Cagliostro had the opportunity to found a Lodge in Venice in 1788. That was the end of his career—he was desperate and hunted by the Inquisition. Remember, he had been imprisoned during the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, released in 1786, and expelled from France. He took refuge in England, then Switzerland, and later moved from city to city in Italy, where he was eventually arrested by the Papal authorities in 1789.

Secondly, there is no trace of such a Lodge outside Ambelain’s writings. While this argument alone isn’t conclusive—a very secretive group might leave no traces—the creators of Misraim themselves made no mention of such origins. We know that the founders of Rites loved to boast prestigious genealogies. Had they been able to claim such a lineage, they certainly would have done so.

The reality is much more prosaic. Contemporary authors of the time (specifically Ragon and Bègue-Clavel) reveal that Misraim’s origins date no earlier than 1805.

The Origins of the Rite of Misraim

The story begins in Italy. A group of Freemasons—members or veterans of Bonaparte’s Army of Italy—including the three Bédarride brothers, requested a charter from the Supreme Council of France for the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which had just been founded in Paris in 1804. Their request was denied due to the poor reputation of some group members. Disappointed, these Freemasons decided to create their own Rite: the Rite of Misraim. It initially included 77 degrees before expanding to 90.

Returning to France, the founders of Misraim established the L’Arc-en-Ciel Lodge in Paris, which became the Mother Lodge of the Rite. Between 1815 and 1820, they drafted the rituals for Misraim’s three symbolic degrees, which were essentially plagiarized from the Guide des Maçons Écossais, the earliest known form of the symbolic degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, likely published around 1814. Why would they have copied these rituals if they had an authentic tradition from a supposed Lodge founded in Venice in 1788?

The Order of the United Rites of Memphis and Misraim

The origins of the Rite of Memphis are also steeped in legend, fabricated by its creator, Jacques-Étienne Marconis de Nègre. The Rite of Memphis allegedly draws from the most ancient initiatory traditions, transmitted to Europe by Ormus—a mythical Egyptian priest converted to Christianity by Saint Mark, thus merging ancient Egyptian wisdom with Christianity.

According to the legend, the Rite was introduced to France in 1814 by a Cairo native named Samuel Honis, who founded a Lodge in Montauban the following year with Gabriel-Mathieu Marconis (Jacques-Étienne's father) and a few other Brethren. This Lodge, Les Disciples de Memphis, was supposedly founded on April 30, 1815, only to go dormant on April 7, 1816. The archives were entrusted to Gabriel-Mathieu Marconis, who was appointed Grand Hierophant on January 31, 1816. Naturally, it was left to his son Jacques-Étienne to revive the Rite in 1838!
But, once again, history contradicts legend.

The only verifiable fact from this story is the creation (not revival) of the Rite of Memphis in 1838. Apart from Gabriel-Mathieu and Jacques-Étienne (and Ormus, borrowed from the legend of the Golden Rosicrucians of the Ancient System—a German paramaçonic order that existed between 1777 and 1786), none of the other figures mentioned have ever been identified and seem to have sprung from Jacques-Étienne’s fertile imagination. As for the alleged Lodge Les Disciples de Memphis in Montauban, it is completely unknown and most likely never existed.

An even more decisive argument: Jacques-Étienne’s Masonic career makes no sense if the legend were true. If Les Disciples de Memphis existed in 1815, why wasn’t Jacques-Étienne (then 20 years old) initiated there? Why did he wait until 1833 to be initiated into Freemasonry through Misraim? Why, having been expelled from Misraim, did he re-enter under a false name, only to be expelled again, if he supposedly held the power to revive Memphis? Why did the first ritual for Memphis symbolic Lodges, published by him in 1839, plagiarize Misraim’s 1815-1820 ritual if he had the complete archives of Les Disciples de Memphis?

The Creation of the Memphis-Misraim Rite

It must be acknowledged that the Rites of Misraim and Memphis were respectively created in 1805 and 1838, with no direct origins beyond the will of their founders.

But what about the Rite of Memphis-Misraim, supposedly the fusion of the two previous Rites?
Once again, its origins are shrouded in legend, masking the complex reality.

It is generally accepted that Misraim and Memphis merged in 1881 under the leadership of Garibaldi, the famed architect of Italian unification, who became their worldwide Grand Hierophant.
In reality, things were more complicated.
Misraim, largely anti-royalist and nostalgic for Napoleon, struggled during the Bourbon Restoration. Banned in 1823, it briefly reawakened during the July Monarchy, before falling dormant again around 1850. Only a few Lodges continued its practice in France and in a rather obscure branch in Italy.

Memphis, too, was in decline—its members' anti-royalist sentiments causing similar issues.
In 1862, Marconis de Nègre put the Rite to sleep, after granting charters to the Grand Orient of France and reducing the number of degrees to 33.
However, Memphis continued operating in the USA, the UK, Egypt, Italy, Spain, and Romania.

At the initiative of John Yarker, Grand Master of Memphis in England, and his representative in Italy, Giambattista Pessina (who also presided over an obscure Reformed Rite of Misraim), the American, English, Italian, Spanish, and Romanian branches of Memphis (not Misraim) united in 1881, offering Garibaldi the title of Grand Hierophant. Garibaldi died the following year and played no active role in the union.

The Legend of the Garibaldi Fusion

So, where did the idea originate that Misraim and Memphis were united under Garibaldi?
It came from Giambattista Pessina, who seemingly took it upon himself to add Misraim into the story, issuing a charter to Romania for the Rites of Memphis and Misraim. The idea caught on and found followers.

Egyptian Freemasonry then took a significant turn.
While Misraim and Memphis had always been spiritual and esoteric Rites, they maintained strong ties with society and politics and were sometimes seen as revolutionary.
There was no trace of what we would call "occultism" until the mid-19th century.

The rise of occultism began with John Yarker, who was close to Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society and the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. He succeeded Garibaldi as Grand Hierophant, and later, the title passed to the highly controversial Theodor Reuss, also founder of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an occult initiatory order heavily influenced by Aleister Crowley, who held high office within it.

It was Theodor Reuss who, in 1908, granted Papus (Dr. Gérard Encausse)—the most iconic figure of French occultism at the end of the 19th century—charters to organize the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis in France, in the 33-degree version developed by Yarker.
Papus and his associates opted instead for a 99-degree version, renaming it the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim, a name it retains to this day.

With Papus, the Rites of Misraim and Memphis—at least nominally united—returned to their homeland, but in a form very different from what their original founders had imagined.