Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science

Chapter 6: The Temple Home Association: A Cooperative Commonwealth

For thirteen years, Halcyon intentionally attempted to create economic conditions of equality for all who lived there, as part of its mission to establish a community based on the most advanced social science. After their experiences and attempts at organizing the League of Brotherhoods between 1899 and 1902, a group of Temple members started their own colony of Halcyon, not beholden to any larger national organization, in order to demonstrate the rules of scientific kinship and health necessary to establish a foundation for the religious and scientific progress yet to come. In early 1903, a letter went out to Temple members encouraging them to form a commonwealth of “brotherhood” and equality. They were advised to “take advantage of modern business methods” and form a company that would own the land and all business enterprises on the land. It would lease the land back to members, on which they could build houses that they would own. Interested people did not have to be Temple members; simply the fact that they believed in the kinship of humanity and were “willing to work to make that Brotherhood a reality in all that concerns their life” was 125 6 the temple home association A Cooperative Commonwealth The great economic mission of the Temple is to bring down the highest spiritual truths to a practical expression in the household, the city and nation, in the field, farm, workshop and schoolroom, where, freed from sordid commercialism, the ideal becomes the practical and the practical, the ideal. —William Dower, Artisan, 1909 All of the land belongs, all of the time, to all of the people. —Artisan, 1904 06chap6_Layout 1 2/12/2013 05:35 Page 125 enough to make them “desirable comrades.”1 This early proviso created the possibility of friction between members of the Temple who were also Temple Home Association (THA) members and those members of the THA who were not committed to Theosophy. This was another wedge that, from the beginning of the organization, allowed dissension to mount over leadership decisions between those “loyal” to Temple dictates and those simply living in Halcyon and doing business as members of the THA.2 Halcyon was a cooperative colony, a type defined by historian Robert Fogarty as one where the “predator habits developed in cities could be eliminated; where the bonds of family and marriage would be strengthened ; and where the conditions for moral growth would exist.”3 The original members of the colony shared aspects of charismatic perfectionism with groups such as the Oneidans, since they clearly believed that as a sanctified body, they were serving an immediate religious goal—that of preparing the place for the Avatar to reappear. The founders of Halcyon were also trying to be politically pragmatic—as they were impatient to demonstrate the viability of socialist principles as religious principles. The ideal was to plan a community “wherein all the land will be owned all of the time by all of the people; where all the means of production and distribution, tools, machinery, and natural resources, will be owned by the people—the community, and where Capital and Labor may meet on equal terms with no special privileges to either.” The THA would materialize the “great work” of the Temple to “bring Heaven down to earth or earth up to Heaven.”4 A circular issued in June 1903 announced the creation of a “mutual fraternal co-operative company.” It told Halcyon members that in their ranks were “a number of practical farmers” willing to cooperate and cultivate such lands “until the returns make possible the building of business places, and the establishing of other industries” that would provide employment for other classes of workers. Members should be patient until the farmers and laborers became successful, then a general call would go out for settlement. The leadership believed it was better for members to stay where their livelihoods were assured and simply invest in the land with what they could spare. The November 1903 Artisan announced an opening for “a practical farmer and gardener,” funded by the THA. It also noted a need for someone to do laundry work and suggested that “if a man and wife could be found who were able to undertake these different lines of work it might solve what is now a problem.”5 126 The Temple Home Association 06chap6_Layout 1 2/12/2013 05:35 Page 126 The articles of association and the...