Krata Repoa

Title of a book published in Berlin in 1782 claiming to be an "initiation into the ancient mysteries of the priests of Egypt." The authors were C. F. Köppen (1734-ca. 1797) and J. W. B. von Hymmen (1725-1786). Köppen was a German official and one of the founders of the Order of African Architects.

The Krata Repoa is of a Masonic ritual nature and is divided into seven grades. The grade of Postophoris (a name used by Apuleius to signify a priest of Isis) corresponds to the apprentice or keeper of the sacred threshold. Second comes the degree of Neokaros, in which are found many ordeals and temptations. The third grade is the state of death—of judgment and passage of the soul. The candidate is restored to light in the following degree, that of the battle of the shadows. In the fifth grade, a drama of vengeance is enacted. The sixth is that of the astronomer before the gate of the gods. In the final grade, the whole scheme of initiation is expounded. It was believed that these degrees corresponded to the actual procedure of a secret society, and it may be that in some measure they did, since one of their authors was a prominent member of the African Architects. However, although there seem to be elements of real tradition in the work, most of it is probably invention.

Sources:

Waite, Arthur E. A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry. London: William Rider & Son, 1921. Rev. ed. 1923. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1970.