The Ancients Grand Lodge considered Masonry to consist of the three Craft Lodge degrees and the Holy Royal Arch. I agree. Joseph Campbell, in The Power of Myth said of Masonry that it "...is a scholarly attempt to reconstruct an order of initiation that would result in a spiritual revelation. The founding fathers who were Masons studied what they could of Egyptian lore..."
  I view Masonry as the spiritual descendant of the ancient mystery schools, reaching as far back for its roots as the mystery school of Osiris in Abydos in old Egypt of thousands of years ago. Like Masonry, the mystery schools structured their degrees to prepare you for the great initiation into the concept of immortality of the soul and the loss of the fear of death. Like Masonry, the candidate is a participant, not an onlooker. Our Entered Apprentice degree is concerned with the purification of the body through the injunction to "Know Thyself" and to lead you from the unreal to the real. The Fellowcraft Degree is to encourage discipline of the mind and to lead you from darkness to light and virtue. Taken together, they point a path which allows you to surmount the distractions of the senses and the baser passions so you can regard yourself and the world with clear and compassionate eyes.
  In the Masonic revival of 1717, as shown by the Constitutions of 1723, there were only the Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft degrees. The revised Constitutions of 1738 reflected the addition of the Master Mason's degree, with the familiar Hiramic legend and the loss of the Master's Word. In the Royal
Arch, the Lost Word is recovered. While it is certainly the capstone which completes the Third Degree, they are two distinct degrees whose teachings complement each other. Originally conferred in the Antient Craft Lodges, as a 4th degree, it was later placed under a Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons. While the Moderns contended that the Royal Arch was not "pure ancient masonry," and the Antients the reverse, it was finally recognized in a mealy mouth sort of way when the two Grand Lodges merged in 1813 as follows: "Masonry consists of three degrees and no more...the EA, FC and MM [including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch]." No matter what way you cut it, the Antients prevailed, and their egalitarianism was adopted here in the American workings of the Craft
  Lodges as being more consistent with the spirit of America.
  The Hiramic legend which each of us enacts in the Second Section of the Third Degree is to metaphorically represent the death of our animal nature and our rebirth as a human incarnation – and to lead us from mortality to immortality. We suffer a spiritual death in order to have a spiritual rebirth. According to Campbell, that represents the virgin birth, when the spirit of compassion opens in you so you see all human creatures as fellow beings. In the Hindu culture, that
represents the opening of the heart cakra [pronounced sha-kra], signifying the birth of compassion, and raising you above the base instincts to eat, procreate and strive for power over others. In the Cabalistic representation of the Tree of Life, it represents Tipareth, or Beauty, the third pillar of the Tree, and corresponding to the third Masonic Pillar, Beauty. It is the beginning of the human condition. The significance [among others] of the Holy Royal Arch, in its ritual surrounding the rebuilding of the temple, is the importance of your starting from the revelation of the Master Mason degree and continue by building your own spiritual temple of the soul – only then will you become a true Master Mason. As Hiram Abif tried to tell the Ruffians who demanded the secrets of a Master Mason – "Wait with patience until the [spiritual] temple is completed, and, if found worthy, you will receive them as I have".
  The Holy Royal Arch completes the teachings of the Third degree – but the Third Degree is the heart and soul of the Craft teachings, containing the Hiramic legend – the great initiation into the concept of immortality of the soul and placing your feet on the path to regeneration of the soul.

Fraternally and fondly – John D. Nelson, PM