ARRINGT.791

Ray Shute and the A.M.D.

by Keith Arrington, FPS
Presented to the Society of Blue Friars, February 22, 1991

"A new era in Masonry will begin with
1931." This was the prophetic slogan
occurring repeatedly in the Orphan' s
Friend and Masonic Journal of North
Carolina at the beginning of that year, a
forecast which came to reality when the
North Carolina Lodge of Research, the
very first such body in the United States,
was chartered at Monroe on January 24,
1931. This was quickly followed by the
chartering of the American Lodge of Re-
search in New York on May 31st and an
Oregon research Lodge in September.

This event occurred less than a year
after the founding, also at Monroe, of the
York Cross of Honor. The founder, in
each case, was J. Ray Shute, Jr., an
energetic, enthusiastic extrovert York
Rite Mason in his late twenties.

In rapid succession, during the next few
years, Brother Shute was instrumental in
or involved in the creation of the Allied
Masonic Degrees, the Thrice Illustrious
Masters, the Grand College of Rites, the
Society of Blue Friars (all in 1932), the
Holy Royal Arch Knight Templar Priests
in 1933 and other groups and orders
including the rebirth of the Rosicrucians,
now known as the Society of the
Rosicrucians in the United States, also in
1932.

Ray Shute had the help of others, to be
sure. Initially, he enlisted and utilized the
assistance of local and area York Riters.
Later he had the enthusiastic and
talented support of his ever-widening
circle of Masonic acquaintances. How-
ever, by and large, he was the moving
force, the creative talent in most of this
activity.

The early thirties was not an auspicious
time to attempt to launch new Masonic
or other voluntary organizations. A
scant decade previously, the career of
Matthew McBain Thompson as a pur-
veyor of Masonic degrees had been ter-
minated in federal court, where he was
convicted of mail fraud.

In May of 1930, The Builder magazine,
probably the finest Masonic journal ever
published, ended its sixteen year exist-
ence, a victim of the Depression, which
was causing existing Masonic bodies to
have problems in retaining members and
in collecting dues. New petitions were
scarce. No one was looking for new ways
to spend money.

In addition to this, there was a wide-
spread feeling among Masons that the
body of Masonry needed fewer, not
more, appendages to demand time,
money and attention from its members.
J . Hugo Tatsch wrote in December of
1931: "The tendency in the Craft today
is to frown upon side orders, side degrees
and obsolete Masonic rites. " He went on
to say, "The longer I am in the Craft, the
more I think of the basic three degrees
and less of the appendages. Were I ever
able to be a Masonic dictator in a new
land, where Masonry was unknown, I'd
prohibit everything but the basic three
degrees, with the possible exception of
the Royal Arch. These are the founda-
tion stones of the Craft; all the other
degrees are accretions and only serve to
divide interest. I would also forbid a
Mason to organize anything which
makes Masonic membership a prereq-
uisite. Of course, it is hopeless to do
anything like that, but if Masonry ever
succumbs, it will be because of the side
issues which have crept in. They are the
things which divide and split us apart.
What a strong and influential organiza-
tion we could be if all the fees and the
dues now being paid into Masonic and
pseudo-Masonic bodies could be
grouped under the control of one organi-
zation! Then we'd be somebody. We can
take a few lessons from the Roman
Catholic Church in that respect. There
is one church, and one voice speaks for
Catholicism of the world.

"Personally, I have been seriously con-
sidering dropping out of some more Ma-
sonic bodies, in addition to those which
I have dropped already. Right now it is
policy, because of my work, to maintain
consistent contacts; but if I were in
another line of work, I'd drop out of all
but the Blue Lodge in a hurry. "

At another time, Tatsch cautioned Ray
Shute: "Don't start too many new socie-
ties. You will keep us broke paying
dues." Still another friend commented
in a letter in 1934: "The time is not now
propitious for the organization of any
other dues paying organizations. "

Considering Hugo Tatsch's future re-
cord of activities with Ray Shute and
others in establishing and promoting ad-
ditional Masonic aberrations and in re-
calling his profession at that time, his
statements are remarkable. Formerly as-
sociated with the Iowa Masonic Library,
Tatsch had gone to work for the Massa-
chusetts Library, at least on a part time
basis, and was at the time of this letter
vice president of Macoy Publishing and
Masonic Supply Company in New York.

These comments and much ofthe back-
ground of this paper have come from the
correspondehce received by Ray Shute
from a wide circle of friends and acquain-
tanances over the period from 1930
through 1938. This large collection of
letters, including a few carbons of
Shute's own letters was given by him in
1950 to his friend and co-worker Earl B.
Delzell, who was then Grand Secretary
of the Grand Lodge of Iowa. This corre-
spondence is now in the Iowa Masonic
Library at Cedar Rapids, where it has
lain virtually untouched until the past
few months.

It was through this correspondence that
Ray Shute was introduced to and be-
came fast friends with other like minds.
In the early days of the North Carolina
Lodge of Research, Shute received much
correspondence as a result of news stories
about the Lodge appearing in the Or-
phan's Friend and other publications. In
addition to enlarging the membership of
the Lodge, these letters brought contacts
with potential co-workers and authors of
articles for Nocalore, the Lodge publica-
tion, and ultimately for the transactions
of the later bodies.

Developing friendships and alliances
were chronicled in the letters. Formal,
sedate, proper letters gave way gradually
to more open, personal, confidential and
good naturedly friendly communica-
tions as time went on.

These men shared their Masonry, their
thoughts, their experiences, their hard-
ships and their dreams. Hugo Tatsch
confided that he had left his first wife
because she nagged too much. And now
he reported: "This one is a bad nagger,
too. " John Black Vrooman, then editor
of the Kansas Masonic Digest at Wichita,
revealed that he, his wife and small child-
ren were living on just $5 a week. Tatsch,
although working during the summer
months at the Massachusetts Masonic
Library, was owed a full year's back
salary by Macoy. Several of the corre-
spondents, including these two, asked
Shute if he couldn't find them a job in
North Carolina.

A dream shared by several of the corre-
spondents was the possibility of resur-
recting The Builder magazine and the
National Masonic Research Society or of
creating a new national Masonic Ma-
gazine to equal or better it.

Perhaps the most imaginative day-
dream was that of Dr. William Moseley
Brown and Ray Shute. These two
seemed deadly serious about this most
ambitious plan which would establish
their own combination church, college
and fraternity all in one neat package.
They appeared to be assured that they
could, for a small fee or, hopefully gratis,
be ordained by a Bishop of what they
referred to as "the Greek Church. " The
Bishop who they thought could do this
for them was apparently a relative of a
Masonic friend and Brother.

Brown, who was President of Atlantic
University at Virginia Beach, VA, and
Shute even suggested in their letters
some of the rather unorthodox courses
which would be offered by the college.
One of these may have been "Custard's
theory of the universe and the world of
human knowledge. " Brown, at one
time, wrote: "If I dared do so from the
economic standpoint, I should turn loose
many of my present ' irons in the fire' and
start teaching" the above mentioned
theories .

At that time Brown had named Shute
to the Board of something called the Ed-
ucational Research Associates. Brown
wrote: "I shall write up the minutes of a
Board meeting as of February 21, listing
you among those present. " This
"ERA," as he referred to it, may have
been the skeleton of the proposed college.
A Mr. and Mrs. Custard, not otherwise
identified, were also on the board.
Brown wrote to Shute: "If, in your
thinking, you can work out any scheme,
which would make the charts and other
discoveries of Mr. and Mrs. Custard
available for the college, which we must
have in our program, please do so by all
odds. "

Another phantom board meeting was
mentioned in this same letter. Brown
wrote: "Parsell wrote me that he would
like a Litt. D. degree and Plummer an
LL.D. If you do not object, we shall
record a meeting of the A.U. Board of
Trustees and grant these degrees. I shall
date this meeting February 21, also."
The "A.U. " referred to must have been
Atlantic University. Brown was Presi-
dent of this University from 1929
through 1932. I have not been able, in
admittedly limited resources, to find the
University listed among colleges of that
date. Is it possible that the University
had ceased to exist and that Dr. Brown
was using the name as a front for the
proposed college?

This letter contained a lengthy discus-
sion of the college-church-fraternity day-
dream. "I talked with Tatsch at some
length about the ecclesiastical aspect of
the Plummer group. " It was at this time
that there was considerable correspon-
dence with Charles W. Plummer, Henry
V.A. Parsell and Harold Van Buren
Voorhis about the Rosicrucians. Brown
continued: "I found that Plummer and
his group revived some phase of the Old
Catholic Church and thus got to be rec-
ognized as ministers by the State of New
York. I understand that Dr. Bond has
done the same sort of thing. This verges
on the same kind of thing which you and
I have been discussing. If we carry these
plans through to completion, we must be
careful to keep them above suspicion. I
told Tatsch quite frankly that I was wait-
ing for an opportunity to go into a re-
ligious group, which was not charac-
terized by the shackles, which most of the
present churches have. While I did not
let him suspect in any way what you and
I have been planning, I told him that I
was ready to organize a group of my own
if the right group did not come along and
offer me an opportunity to join it very
soon. He is a good prospect for our
church-college-fraternity when the
proper time comes to invite him to come

Dr. Brown had been a professor of lan-
guage, biology and psychology at Wash-
ington and Lee University from 1913 to
1929. His linguistic talents, like those of
several of the others associated with
Shute in researching ancient and forgot-
ten Masonic rituals, often proved of
value when those rituals were in another
language.

Ray Shute, himself, could translate
from the Arabic language. Born John
Raymond Shute, Jr., in Monroe, North
Carolina, in 1904, he adopted the
shorter style of J. Ray Shute II as an
adult. He attended Trinity College, Dur-
ham, NC, after graduating from Geor-
gia Military Academy. During his school
years he became intensely interested in
studying the mysteries and religions of
the world, ancient and modern. He be-
came a Mason at the age of 22 and served
his Lodge as Master just three years
later. Joining all of the York Rite bodies,
he eventually headed all of the local as
well as the state bodies. Even before en-
tering upon his career of founding Ma-
sonic organizations, he had established a
name for himself as a Masonic author
with a long series of articles published in
the Orphan's Friend and elsewhere.

A trip to Europe in the summer of 1934
by these two Masonic scholars gained for
them authority to confer in America the
degrees of several of the foreign bodies
which had intrigued them.

Brown first broached the subject in a
letter of June 5, 1934. "I have about
made up my mind to try to go to England
and Switzerland this summer. I do not
know how we can finance the trip, but for
many reasons, I have decided to make a
try at the matter. I had suggested the
possibility in my last letter to Waite. Now
I am writing him more definitely. My
reasons for wishing to go are the follow-
ing: (l) I can never receive the entree,
which I shall now have, if I wait until my
term as Grand Master of Virginia,
Sovereign Grand Master of A.M.D. and
Great Prior of O. S. T. expires; (2) I do not
believe we should take any more chances
on getting Waite's work and the 'light'
which he has in mind passing on to you
and me, together with such others as we
may select; (3) I have succeeded in get-
ting the Great Priory of Helvetia to give
me the letters patent, for which I wrote
some time ago at your suggestion, but I
am informed by the Great Prior and the
Great Secretary of the Great Priory of
Helvetia, that I cannot receive these
grades and the letters patent unless I
come to Geneva for them. This last rea-
son is, to my mind, a very cogent one. I
am of the opinion that you and I should
work out a plan for giving these grades
of the Rectified Scottish Rite (the name
of which I intend to change so as to avoid
conflict with the A. & A.S.R.) only to
some very leading Masonic spirits in this
country.

"I believe we have made a great con-
quest in getting the consent of the Great
Priory of Helvetia to give us the orders
in this country. Now, I wish to ask, can
you go? " Then Brown suggests the
possibility of getting several brothers to
donate $40 or $50 each to defray the
expense of getting the Swiss rite, who
would be worthy of receiving the high
honor involved and who would help in
getting the directorate started.

With the help of Clarence West of
Washington, DC, sponsors were found
and Brown and Shute made the trip in
July, August and early September 1934.
Shute came home early, while Brown
remained in England for some more
degrees.

At a meeting held in Raleigh on Sep-
tember 21, four of the sponsors were
given the degrees and an organization
was set up. It was reported that the trip
had cost $1500 of which $800 was still
owed to Brothers Bahnson, Shute and
West for advances.

In one of his letters, Hugo Tatsch ob-
served: "These must be some reason
why the whole gang of us have been
brought together. " What motivated
these men to research these remote Ma-
sonic degrees? Each may have had a
desire to contribute something to Ma-
sonry. They were intrigued with the un-
known and the little known. The pro-
spect of new discoveries provided them
with a challenge. Very probably, during
these Depression years, the young men
needed an outlet for pent-up energies
and unoccupied time.

Kennon "Web" Parham, hard work-
ing secretary of the A . M . D. explained in
letters to new and prospective members
the aims and purposes of the several or-
ganizations: "The degrees over which
we assume control were not under any
central authority in the United States
and we thought it well to assume control
over them for several purposes, that they
might be preserved in their original state
19
and that we might prevent their being
exploited in new organizations for the
conferring of degrees.

"The Grand Council of Allied Ma-
sonic Degrees was formed primarily to
take under its control various and sundry
degrees that have been used in the name
of Masonry and which have been run-
ning around loose without any per-
manent head and to make these degrees
available for those who were interested
in them from the standpoint of study or
otherwise. It also has the further purpose
of forming a body that could be used as
an honorarium for the man who has
given his time and interest to the Royal
Arch in a marked degree.

"The Grand College of Rites is to the
various and sundry rites which have
been worked from time to time in the
name of Masonry what the Allied Ma-
sonic Degrees is to the detached degrees
and grades. The Grand College of Rites
is taking control over these various rites
which are not now operated in this
country for the purpose of controlling
them and making them available for the
Masonic student. "

" Web " Parham, a public accountant,
contributed more to the success of these
ventures than may have been acknow-
ledged. In addition to sending out reams
of letters and attending to the affairs of
the several bodies, he was often in the
nature of a big brother or advisor to
Shute, offering his gentle counsel and, if
necessary, his remonstrances to keep the
more easy going Shute attentive to
proper business practices and cautious
about not attempting too much too fast.

By the late thirties, Ray Shute seemed
to have lost some of his intense interest
in Freemasonry. A November 1938 letter
fromJ. Edward Allen, a close friend and
long-time associate, reveals that Shute
had offered to sell his collection of Ars
Quatuor Coronatorum. Allen re-
sponded: "Of course, I would like to
have the books. But I seriously advise
you NOT to dispose of them precipi-
tately. Doubtless you feel that ere long
you will be PAST this and PAST that
and the possession of the A.Q.C. will be
a non-essential thing to talk about, and
so forth. But history moves in cycles, and
you have a lot of things to do yet in
Freemasonry. Don't burn any bridges
behind you at this stage of the game. "

Perhaps, after nearly a decade of
furious Masonic creativity, Ray Shute
felt inclined to direct his considerable
energies, talents and his time to other
challenges. Active in his community,
church and business, he served in the
State Senate and, later, as Mayor of
Monroe.

Whatever his motivation, he did con-
tinue active in Masonry up until the year
1950. In that year, theJoseph Montfort
Medal, which is awarded to distin-
guished members of the Craft by the
Grand Lodge of North Carolina, was
presented to him by the Grand Master,
who said: "In my humble opinion no
Freemason within the last quarter of a
century at least has contributed so much
to historical progress in this jurisdiction
of ours as you have done. You have
brought to us the honor of having the
first Masonic Lodge of Research in the
Western Hemisphere. It is a thing North
Carolina should be proud of."

On December 31 of that same year,
1950, Ray Shute demitted from the
Lodge of Research. His final decision to
take this drastic action may well have
been precipitated by the "dismember-
ing, " in North Carolina parlance, of one
of his close friends and confidants. Per-
haps he took the demit by way of protest
against this, which he may have felt was
unfair and unjustified; perhaps he did it
out of loyalty and his unwillingness to
remain a part of the organization which
now had disowned a talented, productive
and faithful servant.

Ray Shute was out of Masonry until
March 6, 1986, a little over thirty-five
years, when he re-affiliated with Monroe
Lodge No. 244, his mother Lodge. His
friend and Brother had been re-instated
inJanuary of 1970 and then had died in
1978, eight years before Shute decided to
re-enter the fraternity. Ray Shute passed
to the Grand Lodge above on November
27, 1988, at the age of 84, always a
master craftsman, once again a Master
Mason .
