History of American Socialisms Part 47

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 G.o.d, 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 chast.i.ty 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 G.o.d's will, absolute chast.i.ty not only in act but in spirit, complete self-abnegation, a full acceptance of Christ as the only and true G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.sociates 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.sociations; 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 a.s.sociation 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 compet.i.tion 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 a.s.sociation, 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 pa.s.sages 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 chast.i.ty; 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 princ.i.p.ality. Close a.s.sociation is a worse place than ordinary society for working out the delicate problems of the negative theory of chast.i.ty.

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 princ.i.p.al 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 h.e.l.l-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 a.s.sociations.

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 a.s.sociation, or enable them to get their living by amateur farming.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE SHAKERS.

We should hardly do justice to the Shakers if we should leave them undistinguished among the obscure exotics. Their influence on American Socialisms has been so great as to set them entirely apart from the other antique religious Communities. Macdonald makes more of them than of any other single Community, devoting nearly a hundred pages to their history and peculiarities. Most of his material relating to them, however, may be found in their own current publications; and need not be reproduced here. But there is one doc.u.ment in his collection giving an "inside view" of their social and religious life, which we are inclined to publish for special reasons. It is, in the first place, a picture of their daily routine, as faithful as could be expected from one who appears to have been neither a friend nor an enemy to them; and its representations in this respect are verified substantially by various Shaker publications. But it is specially interesting to us as a disclosure of the historical secret which connects Shakerism with "modern Spiritualism." Elder Evans, the conspicuous man of the Shakers, in his late autobiography alludes to this secret in the following terms:

"In 1837 to 1844, there was an influx from the spirit world, confirming the faith of many disciples, who had lived among believers for years, and extending throughout all the eighteen [Shaker] societies, making media by the dozen, whose various exercises, not to be suppressed even in their public meetings, rendered it imperatively necessary to close them all to the world during a period of seven years, in consequence of the then unprepared state of the world, to which the whole of the manifestations, and the meetings too, would have been as unadulterated foolishness, or as inexplicable mysteries.

"The spirits then declared, again and again, that, when they had done their work among the inhabitants of Zion, they would do a work in the world, of such magnitude, that not a place nor a hamlet upon earth should remain unvisited by them.

"After their mission among us was finished, we supposed that the manifestations would immediately begin in the outside world; but we were much disappointed; for we had to wait four years before the work began, as it finally did, at Rochester, New York. But the rapidity of its course throughout the nations of the earth (as also the social standing and intellectual importance of the converts), has far exceeded the predictions."

--_Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1869.

The narrative we are about to present relates to the period of closed doors here mentioned, and to some of the "manifestations" which had to be withdrawn from public view, lest they should be regarded as "unadulterated foolishness." It is perhaps the only testimony the world has in regard to the events which, according to Evans, were the real beginnings of modern Spiritualism.

Macdonald does not give the name of the writer, but says that he was an "intimate and esteemed friend, who went among the Shakers partly to escape worldly troubles, and partly through curiosity; and that his story is evidently clear-headed and sincere."

_Four Months Among the Shakers._

"Circ.u.mstances that need not be rehea.r.s.ed, induced me to visit the Shaker Society at Watervliet, in the winter of 1842-3. Soon after my arrival, I was conducted to the Elder whose business it was to deal with inquirers. He was a good-looking old man, with a fine open countenance, and a well-formed head, as I could see from its being bald. I found him very intelligent, and soon made known to him my business, which was to learn something about the Shakers and their conditions of receiving members. On my observing that I had seen favorable accounts of their society in the writings of Mr. Owen, Miss Martineau, and other travelers in the United States, he replied, that 'those who wished to know the Shakers, must live with them;' and this remark proved to be true. He propounded to me at considerable length their faith, 'the daily cross' they were obliged to take up against the devil and the flesh, and the supreme virtue of a life of celibacy.

When he had concluded I asked if those who wished to join the society were expected to acknowledge a belief in all the articles of their faith? To which he replied, 'that they were not, for many persons came there to join them, who had never heard their gospel preached; but they were always received, and an opportunity given them of accepting or rejecting it.' He then informed me of the conditions under which they received candidates: 'All new comers have one week's trial, to see how they like; and after that, if they wish to continue they must take up the daily cross, and commence the work of regeneration and salvation, following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and Mother Ann.' My first cross, he informed me, would be to confess all the wicked acts I had ever committed. I asked him if he gave absolution like a Catholic priest. He replied, 'that G.o.d forgave sins and not they; but it was necessary in beginning the work of salvation, to unburden the mind of all its past sins.' I thought this confession (demanded of strangers) was a piece of good policy on their part; for it enabled the Elder who received the confession, to form a tolerable opinion of the individual to be admitted. I agreed however before confession to make a week's trial of the place, and was accordingly invited to supper; after which I was shown to the sleeping room specially set apart for new members. I was not left here more than an hour when a small bell rang, and one of the brothers entered the room and invited me to go to the family meeting; where I saw for the first time their mode of worshiping G.o.d in the dance. I thought it was an exciting exercise, and I should have been more pleased if they had had instrumental, instead of vocal music.

"At first my meals were brought to me in my room, but after a few days I was invited to commence the work of regeneration and prepare for confession, that I might a.s.sociate with the rest of the brothers. On making known my readiness to confess, I was taken to the private confession-room, and there recounted a brief history of my past life. This appeared rather to please the Elder, and he observed that I 'had not been very wicked.' I replied, 'No, I had not abounded in acts of crime and debauchery.' But the old man, to make sure I was not deceiving him, tried to frighten me, by telling me of individuals who had not made a full confession of their wickedness, and who could find no peace or pleasure until they came back and revealed all.

He a.s.sured me moreover that no wicked person could continue there long without being found out. I was curious to know how such persons would be detected; so he took me to the window and pointed out the places where 'Mother Ann' had stationed four angels to watch over her children; and 'these angels,' he said, 'always communicated any wickedness done there, or the presence of any wicked person among them.' 'But,' he continued, 'you can not understand these things; neither can you believe them, for you have not yet got faith enough.' I replied: 'I can not see the angels!' 'No,' said he, 'I can not see them with the eye of sense; but I can see them with the eye of faith. You must labor for faith: and when any thing troubles you that you can not understand or believe, come to me, and do not express doubts to any of the brethren.' The Elder then put on my eyes a pair of spiritual golden spectacles, to make me see spiritual things. I instinctively put up my hands to feel them, which made the old gentleman half laugh, and he said, 'Oh, you can not feel them; they will not incommode you, but will help you to see spiritual things.'

"After this I was permitted to eat with the family and invited to attend their love-meetings. I was informed that I had perfect liberty to leave the village whenever I chose to do so; but that I was to receive no pay for my services if I were to leave; I should be provided for, the same as if I were one of the oldest members, with food, clothing and lodgings, according to their rules.