Knight Kadosh

The Knight Kadosh is a Freemasonic degree or ceremony of initiation performed by a number of Supreme Councils of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

"[8][10] The degree received a substantial re-write in the 1850s when Albert Pike was Grand Commander of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States.

[11] A different form of the Knight Kadosh degree, using a ritual not authored by Pike, was for many years performed in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States, headquartered at Lexington, Massachusetts.

Pike's book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, first published in 1871, mentions hostility to the papal tiara by the historical Knights Templar when discussing the Kadosh degree.

[17] Masonic author Frank Conway, in a book reviewing both the history and current practice of rituals for both the NMJ and SJ, written in 2017, describes the Knight Kadosh degree as involving "three skulls, one with a crown, one with a Pope's tiara, and one wrapped in laurel leaves.

Candidate stabbing three skulls, including one with a tiara, as depicted in a script describing Scottish Rite ritual, 1905