Often the symbology is obscured by adornments, additions, changes and omissions. Sometimes whole Orders are instituted in these ways and specialize a particular religious, warlike, or social feature. They disappear again, while the symbols and the teachings of which they are a part, remain. The principles of Masonry are represented in the first three degrees, those of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason, and in the development of those degrees in the Holy Royal Arch. The principles there represented are fundamental, whether found in the York rite, the Scottish rite, or in any other masonic rite.
Some rites have degrees which are merely local, personal, social and inviting.
There are many side rites, side issues, side degrees, which gifted ritualists have brought into existence, but the principles of Masonry are few and survive the ages and their styles. Masonry is the trunk or physical connection from which different Orders are formed from time to time. Rosicrucianism in the Middle Ages and other movements of a later date were offshoots put out through members of the Masonic Order, to meet a need of the times without entangling Masonry itself. In many of the forms of the masonic work that seem trivial and childish are locked up great truths. The truths have to be presented in some symbol or by some work, because human beings need forms in which to see truths.