Religious Fanaticism
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The immediate result of this revelation was the foundation of a small new sect which was called the Perfectionist or Pauline Church.
Its first adherents were Noyes's own family : his mother, his brother and sisters, with their various husbands and wives.
This small group gathered at Putney, Vermont, and John Humphrey devoted the greater part of his time and money to writing and printing books and pamphlets in which his views were set forth.
By degrees others were attracted by his writings, and isolated Perfectionists appeared in various places, though none of them were very successful in persuading their neighbours that they were without sin.
The most sincere of the new converts were George and Mary Cragin, who came into the faith through many trials, and whose pitiful love story is told by Hepworth Dixon in ' Spiritual
Wives'.
George adored Mary his wife to such an extent that he feared it was idolatry ; and Mary felt it was her duty to become the spiritual wife of one of the Perfectionist preachers whose real wife was distasteful to him.
The tangle which the four of them got into would be familiar enough, were it not for the complication of motives which their inability to sin introduced ; and it seems that they were only rescued from it by the personal intervention of Noyes himself.
He may have been crazy, as people said ; but he had plenty of common sense ; and after they came under his wing the course of the Cragins seems to have run smooth.
Whether it was this episode, or some other impulse
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connected with his own life, or merely the effect of pure reason, illuminated from Heaven, a new doctrine appeared among the Perfectionists not long after this time (1845), namely, the doctrine of 'complex marriage'.
It was the period of the Fourier Phalanxes, and Noyes, who was of an enquiring turn of mind, was watching them closely.
He saw them fail, one after another, and wondered what was the cause.
He was convinced that communism was the Apostolic design for society, and refused to attribute their disasters to this cause ; and at last, after studying the Scriptures with this problem in view, he grew convinced that their root trouble was the exclusiveness involved in the ordinary conception of sexual love and marriage.
' The new commandment is that we love one another, and that not by pairs, but en masse.
Weare required to love one another fervently ; the fashion of the world forbids a man and a woman who are otherwise appropriated to love one another fervently, but if they obey Christ they must do this.'
It seemed perfectly obvious and clear.
From this premise Noyes built up a remarkable superstructure, and he made no secret of it, but described it in the plainest terms.
' Love is not a sin,' he said.
' Susceptibility to love is not burnt out by one honeymoon or satisfied with one love.
On the contrary, the more you do the more you can.
It is the law of Nature.'
No one could misunderstand this, it would seem ; and when he presently announced that his people at Putney were putting it into practice, a great scandal arose.
Noyes and his followers were chased away from
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the place, with threats of tarring and feathering, and were forced to settle elsewhere.
John Humphrey moved to Oneida, New York, in 1847, and the whole group had followed him by 1849, and settled together into a community which for many years attracted attention and excited curiosity far and wide.
The Oneida Community published an immense amount of literature, including annual reports, weekly and bi-weekly newspapers, books, pamphlets and short articles.
'There was no obscurity as to their beliefs or their way of living, and nothing whatever in the nature of a hidden doctrine.
Nor, except for the main basis of their family life, was there any scandal attaching to the place.
The members of the Community lived in peace with each other.
They neither quarrelled nor left, and they professed themselves happy and contented.
They prospered, in the worldly sense, and made a great deal of money, and there seems to have been no question of disobedience or disloyalty among them.
From 1847, when the Community began, until 1881, when at Noyes's own suggestion their peculiar system of marriage was abandoned, no trouble of any kind seems to have arisen from within, and no flaw to have appeared in the working out of their theories.
The secret of their success, of course, lay in the personality of John Humphrey, their leader.
He managed the temporal and the spiritual and the domestic affairs of his large family with an iron hand, and at the same time he used so much good sense and so much tact in detail, that the crookedest paths became straight,
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and the wildest contradictions credible under his rule.
But to those who did not fall under his sway it remains exceedingly difficult, to say the least, to believe that he was acting on the right lines, or that the system he upheld was anything but the wildest nonsense.
It is worth while to examine the philosophy of John Humphrey Noyes in some detail, for it presents some quite unusual features, and abounds in instructive parallels.
And moreover the Community in which the philosophy was put into practice was so amusing, and at the same time so prosperous, that it affords the one pleasant picture in the whole course of our story, and seems to make a kind of gleam of brightness amid the sordid tragedies of abnormal religious experiments.
After the purely theological belief in the dual sex of the Almighty, which Noyes shared with the Shakers and the Swedenborgians, and the purely historical belief that the Second Coming had already arrived, the cardinal point in the Perfectionist faith was the possibility of personal sinlessness.
This belief, in itself very old, has tended to reappear in persecuted and fanatical sects all through the ages, as for example among the Euchites of the fifth and sixth centuries, and the Cathari or Eastern Manicheans of the twelfth and thirteenth.
The Inner Circle of initiates of these last were actually called 'Perfecti', and similar claims were made at Munster during the wild year when the Anabaptists believed it to be the New Jerusalem.
In all these cases, however, extreme asceticism, or extreme licentiousness marked the professors of sinlessness.
They either
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avoided the-world, and so left the possibility of sin behind them, or they claimed that nothing was wrong if they did it.
The followers of Noyes, however, adopted neither of these positions.
It is true that they constructed a world of their own, in which special laws prevailed, and that they adopted a highly peculiar system of sex morality.
But they were neither ascetic nor licentious, but on the contrary strictly practical and severely disciplined.
Their belief may have been, perhaps, the descendant of the old faiths; but their interpretation of it was peculiar to themselves.
Communism of goods was another of the main features of the Perfectionist school, and this, as we have seen, was a very common method of interpreting the Scriptures.
As in his sinlessness, so in his Communism, however, Noyes introduced an original note.
There must be communism not only in goods, but also in affections.
The separate husband or wife, and the individual family were the negation of the doctrine in his eyes; and accordingly they were cast out.
Group marriage is said to have existed among some of the earliest known tribes of men, and occasional minor instances of it come from time to time before the courts ; but as a religious system it seems to have no parallel, and to be the unique product of Oneida.
In the year a.p. 97, indeed, Bishop Clement, one of the personal disciples of the Apostles, became jealous of his wife, and on being reproved for this fault he brought her to the assembly and offered her to anyone
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who wanted her.
His idea was said to have been that the flesh must be abused ; but this doctrine, which was ascetic in intention (at any rate as far as the Bishop himself was concerned) was very soon perverted, as can be imagined, and lost its original force.
The idea of abusing the flesh was in any case foreign to the Perfectionists.
Their aims were definitely practical, and the inspiration of their attempt to control and subjugate the passions was more directly due to sociological than to religious convictions.
Noyes held that excessive child-bearing was a curse which should be lifted from woman as she reached the true Church, and he devised and made strong propaganda for methods by which it might be avoided.
He did not believe, like Simon Magnus the Gnostic, that the procreation of children was the work of Satan ; he did not, like the Khylisti, call babies 'little sins', nor exalt celibacy.
On the contrary he arranged very carefully for the reproduction of his community, and selected the men and women who were to play their parts in the affair.
But what he did require, and apparently obtain, was the subordination of their passions to his orders, and a general acceptance of the idea that partners should at once be changed when symptoms of violent or ' selfish ' affection began to appear.
There was one other belief which the Perfectionists translated into practical terms, and that was the belief that all diseases are of diabolical origin.
This, of course, was by no means the exclusive discovery of John Humphrey Noyes.
The Shakers thought the same,
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and so did the Christian Scientists, who were in a few years to gather about Mrs. Eddy.
It is one of the oldest beliefs of mankind, dating far beyond the Christian era; and the Gnostics of the first and second centuries only carried on a tradition which was already firmly established.
John Humphrey, however, treated this subject, as he did the others, in an original way. He did not trust in exorcism, nor in magic ; he did not try to enlist angels on his side, nor even rely upon the unaided powers of the mind.
His plan was described by himself in 1863, and his own words will make it clear.
'It is a common custom here for every one who may be attacked with any disorder to apply this remedy, by sending for a committee of six or eight persons in whose faith and spiritual judgment he has confidence to come and criticize him.
The result, when administered sincerely, is almost universally to throw the patient into a sweat, or to bring on a reaction of his life against disease, breaking it up, and restoring him soon to usual health.
We have seen this result produced without any other agency except the use of ice in perhaps twenty cases of sore throat within a few weeks,
We have seen it take effect at an advanced stage of chronic disease, and raise a person up apparently from death's door.
It seems a somewhat heroic method of treatment when a person is suffering in body to apply a castigation of the character through the spiritual or moral part ; but this is precisely the thing needed to cleanse and purify the system from disease.
We have tried it and found it to
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be invaluable.
To all who have faith in Christ as a physician we can commend this prescription.
If you are sick, seek for some one to tell you your faults, to find out your weakest spot in character or conduct ; let them put their finger on the very sore that you would best like to keep hid. Depend upon it, shere is the avenue through which disease gets access to you.
And if the sincerity which points this out and opens it to the light hurts, and is mortifying for the time being, it is only a sign that the remedy is applied at the right place, and is taking effect.'
There is a mixture of shrewdness and innocence about this medicine which typifies the whole outlook of Oneida.
Noyes and his followers did not pause to criticize their own thinking, or attempt to test it against anything more universal than their immediate observation.
They acted in absolute good faith, and published their conclusions in all earnestness; for they were quite sure that they were right.
The men and women who accepted this mass of queer doctrine lived together in one large dwelling under the autocratic rule of their prophet.
They led a very easy and pleasant life, and devoted much intelligence to making themselves comfortable.
The work was distributed evenly, and not too arduously among them, and all the latest labour-saving appliances were installed.
There was a library which was greatly used, and a good school for the children, who, when they were old enough were sent on (both boys and girls) to Yale and Cornell and other colleges.
Games and musical
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gatherings were encouraged, and croquet was an especial favourite..
On the shores of Oneida lake, twelve miles away, there was a summer house, where the members went for fishing and boating and bathing, and they were called upon to face none of the austerities and self-denials of the other community experiments, and did not even disturb themselves to observe the Sabbath in any special way.
They had excellent meals and varied their routine widely, sometimes having three and sometimes eight meals a day.
The women, who were in all respects on an equality with the men, wore a special costume consisting of long trousers covered by short tunics, and cut off their hair.
Goldwin Smith, who visited the place in 1874 records his opinion that it was highly unbecoming, but the pictures which have been preserved do not bear this out.
They admired their own method of dressing, but were not bigoted about it, and maintained that they were open to new lights, ' the last thing not yet having been done in the way of hats and boots'.
In spite of all the pleasantness and variety of their lives, however, the members were under a strict discipline, and their inner thoughts, even more than their outward actions, were subject to the authority of their ruler.
They were expected to give a full and free account of themselves, and to seek permission before entering into any of the special alliances which it was their religious duty to contract, and all proposals were made, somewhat formally, in the presence of a third party.
Noyes held that it was best, as a rule, for affinities to spring up TIO
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between men and women of different ages, and he paired off his people, the younger men with the older women, and vice versa.
When it was desired that the unions should lead to the birth of children this rule was not always observed ; but Noyes was careful to separate the couple again, before too long a time had passed, lest the insidious evil of exclusive affection should find its way in.
In the same way, although the mothers were allowed to care for their own infants, they were not allowed to have sole charge, and if they showed too great a devotion they were gently led to other ways.
The temper of the whole group, even when in health, was kept in periodic order by the institution of Criticism, an exercise which Noyes greatly admired.
This ceremony consisted in the public discussion of the character of one of the community, who volunteered for the post, and who was obliged to sit in silence while the others dealt faithfully with all his faults and failings.
No better idea of the working of this remarkable institution can be given than by quoting an account, left by an eye-witness, which is all the more interesting in that it reveals, by the way, the general tone and temper of the place.
'On Sunday afternoon, by the kindness of a young man who had offered himself for criticism, I was permitted to be present.
Fifteen persons besides myself, about half women, and about half young people under thirty, were seated in a room, mostly on benches placed against a wall.
Among them was Mr. Noyes himself, who sat in a large rocking chair.
The young man to be Ill
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criticized, whom I will call Charles, sat inconspicuously in the midst of the company.
When the doors were closed he was asked by the leader (not Mr. Noyes) whether he desired to say anything.
Retaining his seat he said he had suffered for some time past from certain intellectual difficultiés and doubts—a leaning especially towards Positivism, and a lack of faith ; being drawn away from God; a tendency to think religion of small moment.
But that he had combated the evil spirit within him, and he hoped he had gained somewhat ; and so on.
Hereupon a man being called upon to speak, remarked that he thought Charles had been somewhat hardened by too great good fortune, that his success in certain enterprises had somewhat spoiled him ; that he was somewhat wise in his own esteem ; not given to consult with others, or to seek to take advice.
One or two other men gave examples to show these faults.
Another concurred.in the general testimony, but added that he thought Charles had lately made efforts to correct some of his faults, though there was still much room for improvement.
A young woman next remarked that Charles was haughty and supercilious, and thought himself better than others; that he spoke needlessly curt to those with whom he had to speak.
Another young woman added that Charles was a respecter of persons ; that he showed his liking for certain individuals too plainly by calling them pet names before people ; that he seemed to forget that such things were disagreeable and wrong.
Lie ee RE ECan ON TSS) OF ONEIDA Another woman said that Charles was often careless in his language.
Also that he did not always conduct himself at table, especially before visitors, with careful politeness and good manners.
A man concurred in this, remarking that he had heard Charles condemn a beefsteak as tough, and make other unnecessary remarks about the food while he was eating.
Another said that Charles, though industrious and faithful in all temporalities, and a very able man, was not religious at all. A man remarked that Charles was, as others had said, somewhat spoiled by his own success, but that it was a mistake for him to be so, for he was certain that Charles's success came mainly from the wisdom and care with which the society had surrounded him with good advisers who had guided him ; and that Charles ought therefore to be humble, instead of proud and haughty, as one who ought to look outside of himself for the real sources of his success.
Finally two or three remarked that he had been in a certain transaction insincere toward another young man, saying one thing to his face and another to others ; and in this one or two women concurred.
Amid all this very plain speaking, which I have here considerably condensed, Charles sat speechless, looking before him ; but as the accusations multiplied his face grew paler, and drops of perspiration began to stand on his forehead.
The remarks I have reported took up about half an hour ; and now, each one in the circle having spoken, Mr. Noyes summed up.
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He said that Charles had some serious faults ; that he had watched him with some care, and that he thought the young man was earnestly trying to cure himself.
He spoke in general praise of his ability, his good character, and of certain temptations he had resisted in the course of his life.
He thought he saw signs that Charles was making a real and earnest attempt to conquer his faults ; and as one evidence of this he remarked that Charles had lately come to him to consult him upon a dificult case in which he had had a severe struggle, but had in the end succeeded in doing right.
'In the course of what we call stirpiculture,' said Noyes, ' Charles as you know, is in the situation of one who Is by and by to become a father.
Under these circumstances, he has fallen under the too common temptation of selfish love, and a desire to wait upon and cultivate an exclusive intimacy with the woman who is to bear a child through him.
This is an insidious temptation, very apt to attack people under such circumstances ; but it must nevertheless be struggled against.'
Charles, he went on to say, had come to him for advice in this case, and he (Noyes) had at first refused to tell him anything, but had asked him what he thought he ought to do.
That after some conversation Charles had determined, and he had agreed with him, that he ought to isolate himself entirely from the woman, and let another man take his place at her side, and this Charles had accordingly done, with a most praiseworthy spirit of selfsacrifice.
Charles indeed had still further taken up his ¢ross, as he had noticed with pleasure, by going to
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sleep with the smaller children, to take charge of them during the night.
Taking all this in view, he thought Charles was in a fair way to become a better man, and had manifested a sincere desire to improve, and to rid himself of all his selfish faults.
Thereupon the meeting was dismissed.
Under such rules and discipline the Community at Oneida lived and flourished from 1847 to 1879, and set up branch establishments at Wallingford and at Putney
(from whence they had come). During all this time they excited the greatest curiosity, and received innumerable visitors from all over the world, as many as five hundred coming to see them in a single month.
Although their beliefs and practices were well understood, no active opposition made its appearance.
Many indeed condemned their system ; no one save themselves defended it; but they were liked by their neighbours, and their increasing prosperity made them widely esteemed.
This prosperity came, in the first instance, from the making of traps.
'The Earth', Noyes said, 'is lying under a curse of Vermin, and the Saints must make war and destroy'. The trap business brought in an immediate return, and the Community then set up a fruit canning factory, which, though it commanded no such exalted sanction, was an equally great commercial success.
In 1873, however, in spite of the prosperity and the general harmlessness of the community, the Presbyterian
Synod of Central New York took the field against them, and a clerical persecution on a large scale was begun, which led, in 1879, to the holding of a special Conven-
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tion on the subject of Oneida at Syracuse.
A campaign of this kind, once set on foot, gathers momentum without difficulty, and John Humphrey watched its progress with anxiety.
Had the time now come, he wondered, to remove the rock of offence, namely complex marriage, and so secure to his people an undisturbed future ? He realized that he was an old man; he knew that the young people whom he had educated in the world outside were less tolerant of his authority, and less certain of his inspiration than their fathers and mothers; and, after much heart-searching he decided to bow to the storm.
'I propose,' he announced in August, 1879, 'that we give up the practice of Complex Marriage, not as renouncing belief in the principle and prospective finality of that institution, but in deference to the public sentiment which is evidently rising against it.'
This proposal was accepted by the whole Community six days later, not without heart-burning and distress, but in the same perfect good faith as had characterized them throughout.
'Those who had been legally married when they entered the Community resumed their original state ; those who were still legally unmarried nearly all selected permanent partners, and less than six of the whole number (at that time nearly two hundred) preferred a celibate life.
The break up of the single family into separate families did not at first alter the way of life of the Community, but Noyes and his assistants realized that it would be likely to introduce difficulties before long.
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In 1881 therefore they decided to alter their form of common property, and became a regular Joint Stock
Company, allotting the shares to the members in proportions agreed upon among them.
Each adult member, without regard to sex or usefulness, received $100 in shares for every year they had been members, and in addition shares representing half the money they had originally brought in to the common stock.
The children were guaranteed education, and $200 when they reached the age of sixteen ; and the old people could, if they preferred, accept annuities of $200 a year instead of their proportion of shares.
This division of the property was agreed to by all the members, and was carried out without the slightest trouble, and the Company (of which Noyes continued to be the Director until his death) prospered and did well.
After a time, as Noyes had foreseen, the separate families scattered, though for many years they continued to come back to Oneida for their holidays, and kept in friendly touch with each other.
But with the cessation of Complex Marriage the real experiment ended.
When Noyes died his son succeeded to the management of the Company, with a regular Board of Directors, and although in 1907 it still had some communistic features, unlike those of ordinary commercial concerns, all traces of its religious character seemed to have left it, and as a sect it was completely at an end.
GAP era Rete sila)
THE BROTHERHOOD
OH elit E NEW TEE HE story of the Community founded by Thomas Lake Harris, and of the strange religion invented and practised by him, is sadly different from the pleasant, if erratic, picture of Oneida.
Everything connected with Harris is dark and mysterious, wrapped in a sort of esoteric symbolism, and enveloping a secret central doctrine which grows more and more repulsive the closer one approaches to understanding it.
Moreover the prophet himself, as he stands revealed in the light of his words and actions, is not a shrewd and honest fellow, like John Humphrey Noyes, but a greedy and dangerous sensualist, self-deluded, no doubt, but arrogant, harsh and revengeful.
Harris was born in England, and taken to America by his parents in 1828, when he was five years old.
From the age of nine he was obliged to support and educate himself, which he did with such success that by the time he was twenty-one he was a minister of the Fourth Universalist Church in New York City.
Four years later he separated himself from that body, and became a preacher of an Independent Congregation, where his eloquence attracted wide celebrity.
He was not only moving and impassioned in the pulpit, but
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LIFE also strikingly handsome, and, although there is no direct evidence upon the point, it is more than probable that the young man found himself the centre of an admiring and adoring group.
'This was the moment when 'The Great Harmonia' was making its appearance, and Harris was profoundly impressed with some of the obscure doctrine enshrined within it. He began to write mystical and spiritualistic books and poems, and in 1851 he joined with J. L. Scott in a religious enterprise of a most peculiar nature.
By means of 'rappings' it was revealed to these two men that one of their friends, Ira. S. Hitchcock by name, had discovered the site of the Garden of Eden at Mountain
Cove, Virginia.
According to the revelation, no human foot had trodden this ground since the days of Adam' and Eve; the subsequent convulsions of nature had many times changed and altered the neighbouring country, but this sacred spot had remained untouched ; and in the near future, after they had built the * City of Refuge ' there, these same convulsions were to be gone through backwards, and the earth was to return to its original state, everything except the Garden of Eden being destroyed.
It was thus evident that only those who took shelter at Mountain Cove would escape the destruction accompanying the end of the world, and accordingly Scott, Harris, Hitchcock, and over a hundred followers set off for Virginia and established a community there.
Scott and Harris were both of them divinely inspired leaders of this movement.
All the worldly goods of
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their adherents were made over to them (in trust, as they expressed it, for the Lord), and every command they issued had to be obeyed.
Unfortunately, however, all did not go smoothly between the two prophets, and their inspired wishes clashed.
In consequence of their disagreement revolts arose among their followers, some adhering to one and some to another, and the holy mountain became a scene of discord.
The details of the disaster have not been preserved, but one band of fifty-three people withdrew, and then another followed suit, and finally the sacred spot was deserted.
The Serpent scored his victory once more, and the ' dark cloud of magnetic death' descended upon what was to have been the everlasting city.
Harris retired from the Garden of Eden (presumably with his share of the possessions which he was holding for the Lord), and became a leader of what was known as 'Christian Spiritualism'.
He wrote a number of books whose meaning it is impossible to disentangle, in spite of the alluring terms in which his publishers announced them.
'These lyrics', they wrote, ' with their introduction, are intended to declare some methods and processes whereby the Divine One-Twain Creator transposes the natural bodies of all such as receive and embody the Redemption-Life of the SaviourSaviouress, from the separate sex-lines of the third dimension of con-dissolving nature, to those of the reunited twain-one sex of the fourth dimension of eternal Arch-Nature, whereby Sin is abolished in the flesh, and its wages, Death, abolished in and for the
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LIFE body.'* Whether this announcement caused the book to sell widely or to remain neglected it is impossible to tell ; but the chances seem to be in favour of neglect.
Harris travelled widely while he was writing these books, and working out the philosophy which he was later to put into practice.
He spent several years in England, where he preached a sort of Swedenborgianism, and several in the Orient, where he learnt a strange vocabulary, and certain other things which mingled with his Swedenborgianism most harmoniously.
He attracted, too, a number of scattered adherents, including some in Japan, and began to be recognized as the supreme prophet of a new and secret doctrine.
After moving about from one place to another, and making at least one attempt at community life, he finally settled at Brocton, Salem on Erie, N.Y., where he opened the famous community of the Brotherhood of the New Life.
It is very difficult to give a coherent account of the beliefs which Harris taught, not because there is any lack of statements concerning them, but because these statements are one and all unintelligible.
Harris published dozens of books, pamphlets, poems and sermons, some of them of great length ; but these do nothing but confuse the issue.
They abound in esoteric language, in mystification and obscurity ; and even the grammar is so 'inspired' that momentary gleams of meaning become lost in its mazes.
A good many other people besides Harris himself have given accounts of the 1 The Marriage of Heaven and Earth; Triumph of Life, by abe bas
Harris.
C. W. Pearce and Co., 139, Regent Street, Glasgow.
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doctrines, however, and some attempt at restating them must here be made.
The belief was based, as so many others have been, upon the dual sex of the Almighty.
From this basis it went on to maintain that man also, being created in the image of God, was a bi-sexual creature ; not, indeed, in this life, but in the fuller life towards which he must ever be striving.
The necessary half needed to complete the full human being was called a Counterpart, who might possibly be met with on earth, and must certainly be searched for, but who would inevitably be met in Heaven if missed below.
This doctrine, which is, of course, at least as old as Plato, has always had an attraction for mankind.
Whatever may be the intricacies and the complexities of mundane love, the possibility of an ideal union, amounting almost to identity between lovers, has shimmered before the eyes of mankind for long ages, and has inspired ecstacies, transports and disappointments without number.
In the Brotherhood of the New Life, however, little heed was paid to disappointments.
'The true counterpart could be approached through the false, and each person in whom you detected any noble and lovable quality was able, to that extent, to put you in touch with the real creature.
Thus it was the duty of a true believer to love, and approach as close as possible to any and every other human being (if of the opposite sex), so as to be united to that part of their own counterpart which was mirrored within ; and the more often the
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NEW LIFE experiment was repeated (with a different partner) the more thorough the approximation would become.
John Humphrey Noyes, who watched the Brocton experiment with great interest, remarked that this aspect of its teaching involved 'the delicate problems of the negative theory of chastity'; and indeed it did.
Its implications can be readily understood, and reed not be more explicitly stated.
Certainly they were not clearly set forth by Harris, nor easily apprehended by his followers.
For the doctrine of Counterparts, and the practice of union with partial counterparts, was the very innermost core of the sect.
It was not revealed except to the most fully initiate, and to them only after years of preparation.
Small and fugitive glimpses were allowed to be seen through the mass of verbiage and mystery ; hints and dark sayings, just sufficient to keep hope and curiosity alive, were meted out to the disciples, and occasionally, as the spirit moved the prophet, one or other of the female disciples would be taken behind the veil.
But on the whole the Community at Brocton seems to have lived in ignorance of the exact terms of their high mission, and to have come only gradually to understand it.
They knew from the first that ' Father', as they called Harris, had himself a female counterpart in Heaven.
Her name was 'Lily Queen', and she, speaking through Harris, was destined to give the new revelations to the world, There was some confusion of thought here, as they undoubtedly sought to approach Harris's counterpart rather than their own in the first instance.
But
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confusion of thought was a trifling difficulty in the Brotherhood of the New Life.
Lily Queen, in any case, was the source of ' Father's' inspiration ; and it was an honour even to know her name.
The belief in a female inspiration is perhaps as old as the idea of counterparts.
In the Christian era it appears in the preachings of Simon Magnus, the first Gnostic preacher, who was himself adored as a god in Samaria in the first century.
His ' Thought', which was the source of his divinity, had been imprisoned for ages in one female body after another, that of Helen of Troy having been one.
In the year 117 a disciple of his, Valentinus, revived the notion, maintaining that God had a wife, Sige (Silence), whose children, Intellect and Truth gave birth to the Word and Life, the Word being male, and Life female.
At this point the doctrine of Valentinus swung off into an elaborate mythology of xons, leading to the Demiurge or Creator, and its resemblance to the teachings of Harris is only in its obscurity, and its suggestion that there are material men who must perish, and spiritual men who must be saved, and psychic men who may either perish or be saved according to the help they receive.
According to Harris one of the most important ways of getting help towards salvation was through the respiratory organs.
He taught a system of ' internal respiration' which resembled that of Swedenborg, and which all his disciples professed to be able to achieve.
Man, said Harris, had no real life in himself ; it was only a divine 'inflowing', and by ' arch-natural '
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LIFE breathing this inflowing could be enormously accelerated, and the whole substance of the body changed.
Indeed towards the end Harris maintained that by this form of breathing old age and death itself could be defeated, and he claimed in his own person to have escaped all the disabilities natural to his years.
It is not necessary to try and give a reasonable description of the process, even if such a feat could be achieved.
The description given by one of the practitioners, though it cannot be called reasonable, will be enough to explain the whole business.
"Internal Respiration may be briefly described thus,' he wrote.'
'It is breathing not only into the spirit, but also into the body, of the atmosphere of Heaven, the Divine Proceeding, or, as the Christian Church somewhat quaintly terms it, the Holy Ghost.
It has therefore no relationship with the respiratory formulas of Occultism ; whether as taught secretly to the initiates of the Western and Eastern schools, the Rosicrucian and Theosophic Orders, or as partially revealed to the uninitiated as the Science of Breath.
It is entirely on a different and a higher plane.
These formulas of Occultism are in the Kabalistic world of Assiau, the plane of material action ; possibly, with a high adept, ascending to the world Yerzrran, the angelic plane of formation, but scarcely beyond.
Internal Respiration, on the other hand, commences in the world of AtTzuLiTH, 1 Internal Respiration, or the Plenary Gift of the Holy Spirit, by Respiro. E. W. Allen, 4, Ave Maria Lane, London, MDCCCXCVI.
Price 2/-.
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the Archetypical plane of pure Deity; descending thence through the world Brian, the archangelic and creative plane ; till, passing through Yerrzirau, it 1s ultimated in Assan.
From this it follows (the italics are mine) that whereas the respiratory formulas of Occultism can be mastered by long practice combined with a determined will, Internal Respiration is a Divine
Gift.'
Counterparts and internal respiration were the two great mysteries to which the community at Brocton was devoted, but there were also some practical aspects of the life which are worth consideration.
'The first of these was a sort of Communism, different indeed from that of the Owen or Fourier schools, though stoutly defended by the believers as being the same.
In Harris's form of Communism all those who joined the Brotherhood made over to him without reserve all their worldly possessions.
When this plan was criticized and questioned by the unfriendly the members boldly affirmed that they had done no such thing, though in fact, they had ; and they eased their consciences by the subterfuge that they had made over their goods to the Lord, and to 'Father' only as His deputy.
But the result, as far as the laws of the United States were concerned, was exactly the same ; and when trouble came it was in the courts that it had to be adjusted, and it was there that the true state of affairs was finally revealed.
Communism of goods, so adjusted, was accompanied by community of labour ; and here too ' Father ' ruled supreme.
He was the owner of a considerable tract
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LIFE of land and a large business of grape growing, as well as several other enterprises which were carried on there.
The members of the Community were required to work in these concerns, and to perform also all the necessary duties of the household ; and it was ' Father's ' custom to put new disciples on periods of severe probation, keeping them to strictly manual labour for as much as three or four years before he would allow them to penetrate any of the inner mysteries of the cult.
The theory on which he said he based this probation was that work should take the place of mystical reveries, and that a preparation of this severe kind was in itself enough to prove the reality of the subsequent revelations.
But it was noticeable that his own tests, and his own preparations were all over before the theory was evolved, and that his only personal contribution to the common toil was the writing of mystical books and the practical instruction of initiates into the secrets of counterparts.
Thomas Lake Harris was, at the time of his Brocton experiment, a most impressive and remarkable figure.
His face was strikingly handsome, with deep-set, glowing eyes and a long white beard.
His voice, which was a lovely one, was capable of extraordinary changes, as was his whole expression.
He looked a prophet, and he adopted all the mannerisms most calculated to impress and overawe his companions, wrapping his movements in a cloud of secrecy, and making himself very difficult of access even to the faithful.
He indulged in cryptic sayings, and in occasional, impassioned letters, and fascinated men and women by his obscure force.
The
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most remarkable tribute to his power, and the most singular part of his history lies in his association with Laurence Oliphant which we must now describe.
Laurence Oliphant belonged to a well-known Scottish family, and was born in Ceylon in 1829, where his father was Chief Justice of the island.
He was a brilliant and fascinating young man, whose love of adventure led him to all the troubled places of Europe to carry on unofficial missions and political journalism at the height of every crisis.
He was in Southern Russia just before the Crimea, and then went on to join the British armies ; he was in China with Lord Elgin in 1857, and then went to America to examine the conditions in the South before the Civil War.
In 1860 he was in Italy trying to help Cavour and Garibaldi, and a year later he was nearly killed in Japan, when he was acting as Secretary to the British Legation there.
On his way home he met and travelled with the Prince of Wales' party, and in 1863 he rushed to Poland to take part in an insurrection there.
The next year he was again in the thick of trouble, in Schleswig Holstein ; and wherever he went he contrived to write and send home brilliant and exciting articles, which were published sometimes by 'The Times', and sometimes in the 'Quarterly Reviews'.
In 1864 he came back to London and plunged into society, where his connections, his brilliant talk and his fascinating personality made him an immediate favourite.
The young man, indeed, seemed to have the whole of the great world at his feet, and nothing but his own waywardness gave any doubt
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LIFE that he would have a brilliant and distinguished career, either as a diplomat or as an author according to his choice.
The circumstances, and even the date when this favourite of fortune met the obscure American prophet are unknown ; but somewhere before 1860 they did meet, and the extraordinary influence of Harris began to show itself.
Harris, indeed, was a preacher of new doctrines, known only to a handful of cranks, possessed of neither wealth nor influence.
He lived at the other side of the world, and had no connexion with the young man's previous life ; yet after not more than half a dozen interviews he assumed complete control of Laurence Oliphant, and thenceforth for nearly fifteen years he dictated every action of his life.
He must have been in London in 1864, when Laurence returned there, for it was at this time that Laurence gave the first indications that he had abandoned his free will.
The prophet's first orders were that he should continue where he was, and accordingly Laurence stood for, and was elected to, Parliament in 1865. Great things were expected of him.
He was a good speaker, not at all shy or backward, and he had a knowledge of European politics which few men of twice his age could rival.
He was extremely anxious to do well and hoped for a prosperous Parliamentary career.
But his master, who had by then returned to America, had different designs.
Orders came across the Atlantic that Laurence was not to speak in the House, and accordingly, to the surprise of everyone, the young man remained perfectly mute, and did not even make his maiden speech.
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Two years went by thus ; and then in 1867 Laurence was called to Brocton and throwing over all his English life and his English friends he joined his master.
The atmosphere into which he plunged in the little American community of thirty or forty people seems almost too fantastic for belief, and the account given in his ' Life' by his cousin, Mrs. Oliphant, by no means exaggerates the facts.
'Many mediums', she says, ' and possessed persons were brought to Harris, that he might cast out the devils by which they were afflicted.
Sometimes the '"'infernals", as they were called, were very active, and in that case the whole community had to watch to save those who were infested, because it was believed that the infernals were more active in sleep.
For this reason, in many instances persons were kept almost without sleep for months.
One woman in particular for weeks was allowed only to sleep from nine o'clock till twelve, all the rest of the twenty-four hours being spent in the hardest work.
In casting out or " holding against" the devils, it was the custom to concentrate the mind firmly on the principle of evil, till it seemed almost to form itself into a definite form, and then to pray with frantic fervour, '' Bind him, Lord !"" When the crisis was past, and the man or woman became open to spiritual influence, as betokened by deep sustained breathing, members used to sit up all night to " bind "' the infernals ; it being understood that those who were most open to spiritual influence of the highest kind were also most subject to the other.
. Harris arranged (his followers) in groups of three or four
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LIFE persons to assimilate ; but if the magnetism of one was found to be injurious to another, Harris was aware of it at once, and instantly separated them.
Any strong, merely natural affection was injurious.
In all such cases all ties of relationship were broken ruthlessly, and separations made between parents and children, husbands and wives, until '' the affection was no longer selfish, but changed into a great spiritual love for the race ; so that, instead of acting and reacting on one another, it could be poured out on all the world, or at least on those who were in a condition to receive this pure spiritual love, to the perfection of which the most perfect harmony was necessary, any bickering or jealousy immediately dispelling the influx and " breaking the sphere "'.'
While this mental struggle was going on, Laurence's body was equally hard worked.
'He was sent to sleep in a large loft, containing only empty orange boxes and one mattress.
. His earliest work was clearing out a large cattle shed or stable.
He often, he said, recalled in a sort of nightmare the gloomy, silent labour for days and days, wheeling barrows of dirt and rubbish in perfect loneliness, for he was not allowed to speak to anyone ; and even his food was conveyed to him by a silent messenger, to whom he might not speak a word.
Often after this rough work was ended and he came home dead-beat at nine o'clock he was sent out again to draw water for household purposes till eleven o'clock, till his fingers were almost frost-bitten '.
Lady Oliphant followed her son to this community
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in 1868, and was immediately set to work on her own probation, washing, cooking and cleaning for the household.
To complete the ordeal she and her son were too much devoted to each other to be allowed to have any intercourse, and they were obliged to live as strangers side by side.
In 1869 Laurence's probation was over ; and then, without a word of leavetaking from his mother, he was sent back to his normal life in London, and told to carry on as before.
He had made over all his money to Harris, and was now granted a small allowance, barely sufficient to live on, and ordered to send back to Brocton anything that he might make.
This he did, and for the next two years, that is to say while he was acting as the ' Times' correspondent in France during the war of 1870, every penny of his salary went back to Lake Erie to the upkeep of those who were fighting the devil upon its banks.
In the midst of this work, and just at the most inconvenient moment, there came a sudden call to return ; and Laurence threw up everything once more and hurried to America.
Presumably this call had been but a test, for he was allowed to return again almost at once, and settled in Paris, where his mother, her probation over, was also allowed to join him.
And for a little space they lived there happily together, Laurence still working for the 'Times', and still sending all his money to Harris.
In 1872 Laurence had to undergo another severe test.
He met and fell in love with a young lady, as beautiful, as well connected, as brilliant and as charming
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as himself, and she fell in love with him.
They wished to marry ; but before they could do so the permission of the distant ' Father ' on Lake Erie had to be obtained ; and it was very hard to get.
Harris had to be assured that the new interest would not wean the disciple from the true path, and that Alice herself would accept his rule.
He had to make sure that there would be no marriage settlements on either side ; that Alice's money would be freely made over to him, and that the whole of the relations between husband and wife would be under his control.
A series of the most remarkable letters therefore passed to and fro across the Atlantic, of which the following extract, from a letter written by Alice to Mr. Harris will show the purport.
"One only thing has been a terrible pang to me,' she writes, 'the giving over of my own judgment in questions of moral judgment to any human authority.
It is so absolutely new and incomprehensible an idea to me that any outer test should supplant, without risk to itself and me, the inner test of my actions that my conscience affords, that when . .. I decided to shut my eyes and leave the seeing to you I felt as though I were putting out the one clear light that had been given to me for my guidance .
. as though I had suddenly thrown my compass overboard and was left with my whole life exposed to the chances of a sea of uncertainty, and with the grim question asking itself over and over again in my heart, whether I were not doing wrong ?
I answered myself, at first more mechanically than with any conviction, that anyhow one thing in me was u3e