This word has two technical meanings in Freemasonry.
1. We speak of a candidate as being advanced when he has passed from a lower to a higher degree; as we say that a candidate is qualified for advancement from the Entered Apprentice Degree to that of a Fellow Craft when he has made that “suitable proficiency in the former which, by the regulations of the Order, entitle him to receive the initiation into and the instructions of the latter.” When the Apprentice has thus been promoted to the Second Degree, he is said to have advanced in Freemasonry.
2. However, this use of the term is by no means universal, and the word is peculiarly applied to the initiation of a candidate into the Mark Degree, which is the fourth in the modification of the American Rite.
The Master Mason is thus said to be “advanced to the honorary degree of a Mark Master,” to indicate either that he has now been promoted one step beyond the degrees of Ancient Craft Freemasonry on his way to the Royal Arch, or to express the fact that he has been elevated from the common class of Fellow Crafts to that higher and more select one which, according to the traditions of Freemasonry, constituted, at the First Temple, the class of Mark Masters (see Mark Master).