Every Mason has said 'so mote it be' a thousand times. Very few have looked up what mote actually means, or where the phrase comes from.
The phrase "so mote it be" is one of the most familiar in Masonic ritual. Every Mason has said it. Most have never paused to ask what mote actually means, or why Freemasons still use a word that no one else in the English-speaking world has spoken for four hundred years.
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The Word Itself
Mote is an old English subjunctive form of the verb may. So mote it be is, in plain modern English, so may it be. It is not a piece of Masonic invention. It is a piece of medieval English that survived in our ritual the way a fly survives in amber.
The phrase appears in the Regius Manuscript of around 1390, the oldest known document referencing the Craft, at the close of a prayer. By the time speculative Masonry organized itself in 1717, the phrase was already four centuries old in Masonic use. For the document, see what the 1717 Masonic Constitutions really said about education and are the Ancient Charges really ancient.
Why It Is Not Just Amen
Amen affirms what has been said. So mote it be hopes for what is asked. The subjunctive is doing real work. When a Brother closes a prayer with so mote it be, he is not stamping the prayer as approved. He is asking that the prayer come true. The grammar is humbler than amen, and arguably more honest.
What the Phrase Tells You About Masonry
The survival of mote in our ritual is a clue about what kind of organization Freemasonry is. We did not modernize the language for clarity. We kept the older form because the older form does something the modern one does not. This is the same instinct that preserves Hele, conceal, and never reveal, which is treated in what does hele, conceal, and never reveal actually mean.
Ritual is a conservatory. It keeps things alive that the surrounding culture would otherwise let die.
By W.Bro. Stephen McGarvie (originally published in masoniccourses.com)
