CHAPTER XLIV.
THE BROCTON COMMUNITY.[ToC]
We are forbidden to class this Association with the Spiritualist Communities, by a positive disclaimer on the part of its founders: as the reader will see further on. Otherwise we should have said that the Brocton Community is the last of the series which commenced at Mountain Cove. Thomas L. Harris, the leader at Brocton, was also one of the two leaders at Mountain Cove, and as Swedenborgianism, his present faith, is certainly a species of Spiritualism, not altogether unrelated to the more popular kind which he held in the times of Mountain Cove, we can not be far wrong in counting the Brocton Community as one of the sequelæ of Fourierism, and in the true line of succession from Brook Farm.
After the bad failure of non-religious Socialism in the Owen experiments, and the worse failure of semi-religious Socialism in the Fourier experiments, a lesson seems to have been learned, and a tendency has come on, to lay the foundations of socialistic architecture in some kind of Spiritualism, equivalent to religion. This tendency commenced, as we have seen, among the Brook Farmers, who promulgated Swedenborgianism almost as zealously as they did Fourierism. The same tendency is seen in the history of the Owens, father and son. Thus, it is evident that the entire Spiritualistic platform has been pushed forward by a large part of its constituency, as a hopeful basis of future Socialisms. And the Brocton Community seems to be the final product and representative of this tendency to union between Spiritualism and Socialism.
As Mr. Harris and Mr. Oliphant, the two conspicuous men at Brocton, are both Englishmen, we might almost class that Community with the exotics, which do not properly come into our history. But the close connection of Brocton with the Spiritualistic movement, and the general interest it has excited in this country, on the whole entitle it to a place in the records of American Socialisms. The following account is compiled from a brilliant report in the New York Sun of April 30, 1869, written by Oliver Dyer:
History and Description of the Brocton Community.
"Nine miles beyond Dunkirk, on the southerly shore of Lake Erie, in the village of Brocton, New York, is a Community which, in some respects, and especially as to the central idea around which the members gather, is probably without a parallel in the annals of mankind.
"The founder of this Community is the Rev. Thomas Lake Harris, an Englishman by birth, but whose parents came to this country when he was three years old. He was for several years a noted preacher of the Universalist denomination in New York. Subsequently he went to England, where he had a noticeable career as a preacher of strange doctrines. Between five and six years ago he returned to this country, and settled in Amenia, Duchess County, where he prospered as a banker and agriculturist, until in October, 1867, he (as he claims), in obedience to the direct leadings of God's spirit, took up his abode at his present residence in Chautauqua County, on the southerly shore of Lake Erie, and founded the Brocton Community.
"The tract of land owned and occupied by the Community, comprises a little over sixteen hundred acres, and is about two and a-half miles long, by one mile in breadth. One-half of this tract was purchased by Mr. Harris with his own money; the residue was purchased with the money of his associates and at their request is held by him in trust for the Community. The main building on the premises (for there are several residences) is a low, two-story edifice straggling over much ground.
"A deep valley runs through the estate, and along the bed of the valley winds a copious creek, on the northerly bank of which, at a well-selected site, stands a saw-mill, [the inevitable!] which seems to have constant use for all its teeth.
"The land for the most part lies warm to the sun, and its quality and position are such that it does not require under-draining, which is a great advantage. It is bountifully supplied with wood and water and is variegated in surface and in soil.
"About eighty acres are in grapes, of several varieties, among which are the Concord, Isabella, Salem, Iona, Rogers's Hybrid and others. They expect much from their grapes. The intention is to strive for quality rather than quantity, and to run principally to table fruit of an excellence which will command the highest prices.
"It is the intention of the Community to go extensively into the dairy business, and considerable progress has already been made in that direction. Other industrial matters are also being driven ahead with skill and vigor; but a large portion of the estate has yet to be brought under cultivation, and there is a deal of hard work to be done to make the 1,600 acres presentable, and to secure comfortable homes for the workers.
"There are about sixty adult members of the Community, besides a number of children. Among the rest are five orthodox clergymen; several representatives from Japan; several American ladies of high social position and exquisite culture, etc.
"But the members who attract the most attention, at least of the newspaper world, are Lady Oliphant and her son, Lawrence Oliphant, who are understood to be exiles from high places in the aristocracy of England.
"All these work together on terms of entire equality, and all are very harmonious in religion, notwithstanding their previous diversity of position and faith.
"This is a very religious Community. Swedenborg furnishes the original doctrinal and philosophical basis of its faith, to which Mr. Harris, as he conceives, has been led by Providence to add other and vital matters, which were unknown until they were revealed through him. They reverence the Scriptures as the very word of God.
"The fundamental religious belief of the Community may be summed up in the dogma, that there is one God and only one, and that he is the Lord Jesus Christ. The religion of the Community is intensely practical, and may be stated as, faith in Christ, and a life in accordance with his commandments.
"And here comes in the question, What is a life in accordance with Christ's commandments? Mr. Harris and his fellow believers hold that when a man is 'born of the Spirit,' he is inevitably drawn into communal relations with his brethren, in accordance with the declaration that 'the disciples were of one heart and one mind, and had all things in common.'
"This doctrine of Communism has been held by myriads, and repeated attempts have been made, but made in vain, to embody it in actual life. It is natural, therefore, to distrust any new attempt in the same direction. Mr. Harris is aware of this general distrust, and of the reasons for it; but he claims that he has something which places his attempt beyond the vicissitudes of chance, and bases it upon immutable certainty; that hitherto there has been no palpable criterion whereby the existence of God could be tested, no tangible test whereby the indication of his will could be determined; but that such criterion and test have now been vouchsafed, and that on such criterion and test to him communicated, his Community is founded.
"The pivot on which this movement turns, the foundation on which it rests, the grand secret of the whole matter, is known in the Community as 'open respiration,' also as 'divine respiration;' and the starting point of the theory is, that God created man in his own image and likeness, and breathed into him the breath of life. That the breathing into man of the breath of life was the sensible point of contact between the divine and human, between God and man. That man in his holy state was, so to speak, directly connected with God, by means of what might be likened to a spiritual respiratory umbilical chord, which ran from God to man's inmost or celestial nature, and constantly suffused him with airs from heaven, whereby his spiritual respiration or life was supported, and his entire nature, physical as well as spiritual, kept in a state of godlike purity and innocence, without, however, any infringement of man's freedom.
"That after the fall of man this spiritual respiratory connection between God and man was severed, and the spiritual intercourse between the Creator and the creature brought to an end, and hence spiritual death. That the great point is to have this respiratory connection with God restored. That Mr. Harris and those who are co-operating with him have had it restored, and are in the constant enjoyment thereof. That it is by this divine respiration, and by no other means, that a human being can get irrefragable, tangible, satisfactory evidence that God is God, and that man has or can have conjunction with God. This divine respiration retains all that is of the natural respiration as its base and fulcrum, and builds upon and employs it for its service.
"In the new respiration, God gives an atmosphere that is as sensitive to moral quality as the physical respiration is to natural quality; and this higher breath, whose essence is virtue, builds up the bodies of the virtuous, wars against disease, expels the virus of hereditary maladies, renews health from its foundations, and stands in the body as a sentinel against every plague. When this spiritual respiration descends and takes possession of the frame, there is thenceforth a guiding power, a positive inspiration, which selects the recipient's calling, which trains him for it, which leads him to favorable localities, and which co-ordinates affairs on a large scale. It will deal with groups as with individuals; it will re-distribute mankind; it will re-organize the village, the town, the workshop, the manufactory, the agricultural district, the pastoral region, gathering human atoms from their degradation, and crystallizing them in resplendent unities.
"This primary doctrine has for its accompaniment a special theory of love and marriage, which is this: In heaven the basis of social order is marital order, and so it must be in this world. There, all the senses are completed and included in the sense of chastity; that sense of chastity is there the body for the soul of conjugal desire; there, the corporeal element of passion is excluded from the nuptial senses: there, the utterly pure alone are permitted to enter into the divine state involved in nuptial union; and so it must be here below. The 'sense of chastity' is the touchstone of conjugal fitness, and is bestowed in this wise:
"When the Divine breaths have so pervaded the nervous structures that the higher attributes of sensation begin to waken from their immemorial torpor, and to react against disease, a sixth sense is as evident as hearing is to the ear, or sight to vision. It is distributed through the entire frame. So exquisitely does it pervade the hands that the slightest touch declares who are chaste and who are unchaste. And this sixth sense is the sense of chastity. It comes from God, who is the infinite chastity.
"Within this sense of chastity nuptial love has its dwelling-place. So utterly hostile is it by nature to what the world understands by desire and passion, that the waftings of an atmosphere bearing these elements in its bosom affect it with loathing. This sense of chastity literally clothes every nerve. A living, sensitive garment, without spot or seam, it invests the frame of the universal sensations, and gives instant warning of the approach of impurity even in thought.
"In true nuptial love, which is born of love to God, the nuptial pair, from the inmost oneness of the divine being, are embosomed each in each, as loveliness in loveliness, innocence in innocence, blessedness in blessedness. In possessing each other they possess the Lord, who prepares the two to become one heart, one mind, one soul, one love, one wisdom, one felicity. There are ladies and gentlemen in the Community who claim to have attained this sense of chastity to such a degree that they instantly detect the presence of an impure person.
"It may surprise the reader to hear that what is called 'Spiritualism' finds no favor in this Community. All phases of the spirit-rapping business are abhorred.
"A cardinal principle of government, as to their own affairs in the Community, is unity of conviction. The Council of Direction consists of nineteen members; and if any one of them fails to perceive the propriety of a course or plan agreed upon by the other eighteen, it is accepted as an indication of Providence that the time for carrying out the course or plan has not yet come; and they patiently wait until the entire Council becomes 'of one heart and one mind' as to the matter proposed.
"They do not hunger for proselytes, nor seek public recognition. They know that the spirit is the great matter; and that an enterprise, as well as a human being, or a tree, must grow from the internal, vital principle, and not from external agglomerations. Whosoever, therefore, applies for admission to their circle is subject to crucial spiritual tests and a revealing probation. Unconditional surrender to God's will, absolute chastity not only in act but in spirit, complete self-abnegation, a full acceptance of Christ as the only and true God, are fundamental conditions even to a probationship.
"Painting, sculpture, music and all the accomplishments are to have fitting development. There is no Quakerism or Puritanism in them. Man (including woman) is to be developed liberally, thoroughly, grandly, but all in the name of the Lord, and with an eye single to God's glory. Science, art, literature, languages, mechanics, philosophy, whatever will help to give back to man his lost mastership of the universe, is to be subordinated for that purpose.
"Their domestic affairs, including cooking and washing, are carried on much as in the outside world. They live in many mansions, and have no unitary household. But they are alive to all the teachings of science and sociology on these topics, and intend to make machinery and organization do as much of the drudgery of the Community as possible.
"They have no peculiar costume or customs. They eat, drink, dress, converse and worship God just like cultivated Christians elsewhere. They have no regular preaching at present, nor literary entertainments, but all these are to come in due season. They intend, as their numbers increase, and as the organization solidifies, to inaugurate whatever institutions may be necessary to promote their intellectual and spiritual welfare, and also to establish such industries and manufactures on the domain, as sound, economical discretion, vivified and guided by the new respiration, shall dictate.
"By means of the new respiration they think that, in the lapse of time, mankind will become regenerate, and society be reconstructed, and physical disease banished from the earth, and a millennial reign inaugurated under the domination of Divine order. They especially expect great things in the East; that the doctrine of the Lord, as set forth by Swedenborg and Mr. Harris, and re-inforced by the new respiration, will by and by sweep over Asia, where the people are already beginning to be tossed on the waves of spiritual unrest, and are longing for a higher religious development."
After this luminous introduction, Mr. Dana, the editor of the Sun, followed with the article ensuing:
"WILL IT SUCCEED?
"The account which we published yesterday, from the accomplished pen of Mr. Oliver Dyer, of the new Community in Chautauqua County, which Mr. Harris, Mr. Oliphant and their associates are engaged in founding, will, we think, excite attention everywhere. Considered as a religious movement alone, the enterprise merits a candid and even sympathetic attention. Its fundamental ideas are such as must promote thought and inquiry wherever they are promulgated. That they are all true, as a matter of theological doctrine, we certainly are not prepared to affirm; but that they challenge a respectful interest in the minds of all sincere inquirers after spiritual truth, can not be disputed. But it is not as a new form of Christianity, with new dogmas and new pretensions, that we have to deal with the system proclaimed at Brocton. What especially engages our observation is the social aspect of the undertaking. Is it founded upon notions that promise any considerable advance upon the present form of society? Does it contain within itself the elements of success?
"As respects the first question, we are free to answer that the scheme of the Brocton philosophers is too little developed, too immature in their own minds, to allow of any dogmatic judgment respecting it. The religious phase of the Community, and the enthusiasm which belongs to it, have not yet crystallized in relations of industry, art, education and external life, sufficiently to show the precise end at which it will aim. Indeed it would seem that its founders have avoided rather than cultivated those speculations on the organization of society to which most social innovators give the first place in their thoughts. Starting from man's highest spiritual nature alone, they prefer to leave every practical problem to be solved as it rises, not by scientific theory or business shrewdness, but by the help of that supernatural inspiration which forms a vital point in their theology. But on the other hand, they are pledged to democratic equality, to perfect respect for the dignity of labor, and to brotherly justice in the distribution alike of the advantages of life and the earnings of the common toil. We may conclude, then, that despite the Communism which seems to lie at the foundation of their design, with its annihilation of individual property, and its tendency to annihilate individual character also, all persons who can adopt the religion of this Community will find a happier life within its precincts than they can look for elsewhere. But that it will initiate a new stage in the world's social progress, or exercise any perceptible influence upon the general condition of mankind, is not to be expected.
"As to the probability of its lasting, that seems to us to be strong. Communities based upon peculiar religious views, have generally succeeded. The Shakers and the Oneida Community are conspicuous illustrations of this fact; while the failure of the various attempts made by the disciples of Fourier, Owen and others, who have not had the support of religious fanaticism, proves that without this great force the most brilliant social theories are of little avail. Have the Brocton people enough of it to carry them safely through? Or is their religion of too transcendental a character to form a sure and tenacious cement for their social structure? These questions only time can positively answer; but we incline to the belief that they are likely to live and prosper, to become numerous and wealthy, and to play a much more influential part in the world than either of the bodies of religious Socialists that have preceded them."
The reader will perhaps expect us to say something from our stand-point, in answer to Mr. Dana's question, "Will it succeed?" and as the name of the Oneida Community is called in connection with the Shakers and the Broctonians, it seems proper that we should do what we can to help on a fair comparison of these competing Socialisms.
In the first place, many of the cardinal principles reported in Mr. Dyer's account, command our highest respect and sympathy. Religion as the basis, inspiration as the guide, Providence as the insurer, reverence for the Bible, Communism of property, unanimity in action, abstinence from proselytism, self-improvement instead of preaching and publicity, liberality of culture in science, art, literature, language, mechanics, philosophy, and whatever will help to give back man his lost mastership of the universe, these and many other of the fundamentals at Brocton we recognize as old acquaintances and very dear friends. With this acknowledgment premised, we will be free to point out some things which we regard as unpromising weaknesses in the constitution of the new Socialism.
The Brocton Community is evidently very religious, and so far may be regarded as strong in the first element of success. Its religion, however, is Swedenborgianism, revised and adapted to the age, but not essentially changed; and we have seen that the experiments in Socialism which Swedenborgians have heretofore made, have not been successful. The Yellow Spring Community in Owen's time, and the Leraysville Phalanx in the Fourier epoch, were avowedly Swedenborgian Associations; but they failed as speedily and utterly as their contemporaries. Notwithstanding the claim of a wonderful affinity between Swedenborgianism and Fourierism which the Harbinger used to make, it seems probable that the afflatus of pure Swedenborgianism is not favorable to Communism or to close Association of any kind. Swedenborg in his personal character was not a Socialist or an organizer in any way, but a very solitary speculator; and the heavens he set before the world were only sublimated embodiments of the ordinary principle of private property, in wives and in every thing else.
When we say that the Brocton Community is Swedenborgian, we do not forget that Mr. Harris professes to have made important additions to the Teutonic revelations. But we see that the fundamental doctrines reported by Mr. Dyer are essentially the same as those we have found in Swedenborg's works. Even the pivotal discovery of "internal respiration" is not original with Mr. Harris. Swedenborg had it in theory and in personal experience. He ascribes the purity of the Adamic church to this condition, and its degeneracy and destruction, to the loss of it. Thus he says:
"It was shown me, that [at the time of the degeneracy of the Adamites] the internal respiration, which proceeded from the navel toward the interior region of the breast, retired toward the region of the back and toward the abdomen, thus outward and downward. Immediately before the flood scarce any internal respiration existed. At last it was annihilated in the breast, and its subjects were choked or suffocated. In those who survived, external respiration was opened. With the cessation of internal respiration, immediate intercourse with angels and the instant and instinctive perception of truth and falsehood, were lost."
And Mr. White, the latest biographer of Swedenborg, says of him:
"The possession by him of the power of easy transition of sense and consciousness from the lower to the upper world, arose, it would appear, from some peculiarities in his physical organization. The suspension of respiration under deep thought, common to all men, was preternaturally developed in him; and in his diary he makes a variety of observations on his case; as for instance he says:
"'My respiration has been so formed by the Lord, as to enable me to breathe inwardly for a long time without the aid of the external air, my respiration being directed within, and my outward senses, as well as actions, still continuing in their vigor, which is only possible with persons who have been so formed by the Lord. I have also been instructed that my breathing was so directed, without my being aware of it, in order to enable me to be with spirits, and to speak with them.'
"Again, he tells us that there are many species of respirations inducing divers introductions to the spirits and angels with whom the lungs conspire; and goes on to say, that he was at first habituated to insensible breathing in his infancy, when at morning and evening prayers, and occasionally afterward when exploring the concordance between the heart, lungs and brain, and particularly when writing his physiological works; that for a number of years, beginning with his childhood, he was introduced to internal respiration mainly by intense speculations in which breathing stops, for otherwise intense thought is impossible. When heaven was open to him, and he spoke with spirits, sometimes for nearly an hour he scarcely breathed at all. The same phenomena occurred when he was going to sleep, and he thinks that his preparation went forward during repose. So various was his breathing, so obedient did it become, that he thereby obtained the range of the higher world, and access to all its spheres."
Thus it would seem that what Mr. Harris is attempting at Brocton is, to realize on a large scale the experience of Swedenborg, and reproduce the Adamic church. This "open respiration," however, must be an oracular influx not essentially different from that which guides the Shakers, the Ebenezers, and all the religious Communities. We have called it afflatus. It does not appear to be strong enough in the Brocton Community to dissolve old-fashioned familism; which we consider a bad sign, as our readers know. There is an inevitable competition between the family-spirit and the Community-spirit, which all the "internal respiration" that we have enjoyed, has never been able to harmonize in any other way than by thoroughly subordinating family interests, and making the Community the prime organization. And it is quite certain that this has been the experience of the Shakers and all the other successful Communities. Indeed this is the very revolution that is involved in real Christianity. The private family has been and is the unit of society in naturalism, i.e. in the pre-Christian, pagan state. But the Church, which is equivalent to the Association, or Community, or Phalanx, is clearly the unit of society in the Christian scheme.
The Brocton philosophy of love and marriage is manifestly Swedenborgian. In some passages it seems like actual Shakerism, but the prevailing sense is that of intensified conjugality, a la Swedenborg. Here again the Swedenborgian afflatus will be very unfavorable to success. Swedenborg wrote in the same vein as Mr. Harris talks, about chastity; but withal he kept mistresses at several times in his life; and he recommends mistress-keeping to those who "can not contain." Moreover he gives married men thirty-four reasons, many of them very trivial, for keeping concubines. Above all, his theory of marriage in heaven, involving the sentimentalism of predestined mating (which doubtless is retained entire in the Brocton philosophy), not only leads directly to contempt of ordinary marriage, as being an artificial system of blunders, but necessarily authorizes the "right of search" to find the true mate. The practical result of this theory is seen in the system of "free love," or experimenting for "affinities," which has prevailed among Spiritualists. It will require a very high power of "internal respiration" to steer the Brocton Community through these dangers, resulting from its affiliation with the Swedenborgian principality. Close Association is a worse place than ordinary society for working out the delicate problems of the negative theory of chastity.
The Broctonians are reported as reverencing the Bible, but this can only mean that they reverence it in Swedenborg's fashion. He rejected about half of it (including all of Paul's writings) as uninspired; and worshiped the rest as full of divinity, stuffed in every letter and dot with double and triple significance, of which significance he alone had the key.
Probably Mr. Harris's principal deviation from the Swedenborgian theology, is the introduction of his original faith of Universalism. Swedenborg lived and wrote before modern benevolence was developed so far as to require the elimination of future punishment; and with all his laxity on other points, he was more orthodox and uncompromising in regard to the eternity of hell-torments, and even as to their sulphuric nature, than any writer the world has ever seen before or since. Hence the Spiritualists, who generally belong to the Universalist school, either have to quarrel with Swedenborg openly, as Andrew Jackson Davis did, or modify his system on this point, as T.L. Harris has done.
We were surprised, as Mr. Dyer supposes his readers might be, to learn that the Brocton Communists abhor "all phases of the rapping business;" for we remember that Mr. Harris was counted among Spiritualists in old times, and we see that he is still in pursuit of the Adamic status and other attainments that were the objective points of the Mountain Cove Community.
As to externals, the Brocton Community, we fear, has got the land-mania, which ruined so many of the Owen and Fourier Associations. Sixteen hundred acres must be a dreary investment for a young and small Community. If our experience is worth any thing, and if we might offer our advice, we should say, Sell two-thirds of that domain and put the proceeds into a machine-shop. Agriculture, after all, is not a primary business. Machinery goes before it; always did and always will more and more. Plows and harrows, rakes and hoes, were the dynamics even of ancient farming; and the men that invented and made them were greater than farmers. The Oneida Community made its fortune by first sinking forty thousand dollars in training a set of young men as machinists. The business thus started has proved to be literally a high school in comparison with farming or almost any other business, not excepting that of academies and colleges. With that school always growing in strength and enthusiasm, we can make the tools for all other businesses, and the whole range of modern enterprise is open to us.
If the Brocton leaders have plenty of money at interest, we see no reason why they may not live pleasantly and do well in some form of loose co-operation. But with the weaknesses we have noticed, we doubt whether their "internal respiration" will harmonize them in close Association, or enable them to get their living by amateur farming.