Chapter XLIV: The Brocton Community

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 _sequelae_ 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.