Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science

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237 Today there are more than fifty small homes in the hundredacre township of Halcyon, many of them still owned by the Temple. Temple services and community gatherings are regular, the noon healing service is held in the temple every day, and the organization has active groups in Germany , the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and Canada. Many who live in Halcyon are still members of the Temple; others are simply proud Halcyonites , with little interest in Theosophy. Most who live in Halcyon work in the surrounding communities; they are teachers, contractors, social workers , administrators, doctors, artists, musicians, clerks, and students, among other professions. The Temple holds regular study meetings and services, the annual weeklong convention in August, and, in recent years, international gatherings that bring together theosophists from the Temple’s international following, particularly a growing Russian contingent. Attempts at ecumenicism have been somewhat successful. Members of all theosophical groups have visited the Temple, especially those associated with the Roerichs’ Agni Yoga. The membership of the Temple is approximately 250. The teachings of the Temple have been translated into German, Russian , and French, and some into Italian, and currently Spanish-speaking members are translating them. The line of succession in the leadership has proceededasfollows:FranciaLaDue(BlueStar)until1922,WilliamDower (Red Star) until 1937, Pearl Dower (Gold Star) until 1968, Harold Forgostein (Violet Star) until 1990, and Eleanor Shumway (Green Star) up to the present day. In Halcyon, the agriculture the group relied upon in the early years is still significant, as much of the community’s property is rich farmland that will be completely organic in 2013. In a sense recalling the Master’s plan for the White City, but on a much smaller scale, Halcyon is a core village of conclusion 11Conclusion_Layout 1 2/12/2013 05:36 Page 237 small houses with gardens, surrounded by the farms the Master envisioned. Nonetheless, early in its history Halcyon was a community of people who were “attempting to establish a new social pattern based upon a vision of the ideal society,” who had “withdrawn themselves from the community at large to embody that vision in experimental form,” as historian Robert V. Hine defines a utopian group.1 The Temple members have remained continuously part of the larger community, Halcyon fairs and sales are legendary , and the subject of Halcyon continues to be an important part of local history and lore.2 Directly abutting Halcyon is property occupied by a new cohousing group that in many ways echoes the earlier notions of community expressed by Halcyon’s founders; the property was donated to the group by Gudrun Lendrop Grell, a friend of many in Halcyon, although not a Temple member. Grell, who arrived after most of the Dunites had left, was a onetime resident of Hill House, above Halcyon, and friend of Ella Young. A Danish actress, author, farmer, and philanthropist, she was a follower of Anthroposophy founder Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic farming techniques. Gudrun and her husband, John, started one of the first organic farming businesses in the area in the 1950s, growing New Zealand spinach and carrots .Latershetendedavocadotrees.Shebuiltapassivesolarhousedesigned by Polly Cooper, founder of the San Luis Sustainability Group and an architect who specializes in passive solar design. Grell gave five acres of her property to the cohousing group, with the understanding that their houses had to be 75 percent solar heated and passively cooled. The resulting Tierra Nueva Cohousing Project consists of twenty-seven living units, a large common house surrounded by gardens, and a workshop space. The community , which opened in April 1999, took its inspiration from the cohousing movement founded in Denmark. The cohousing project’s principles include “self-determination through consensus; shared space and facilities ; private homes; concern for the environment, and financial and social responsibility.”3 WhileitisclearthatDowerandLaDuewantedtochallengethepolitical status quo, they saw Halcyon most importantly as a spiritual center where theosophical concepts of kinship could be demonstrated. What emerged in Halcyon was a shared religious discourse that engaged with the imaginative and the intuitive in an overarching mythic structure that posited an ideal that the community tried to make real. Theosophy was a means of 238 conclusion 11Conclusion_Layout 1 2/12/2013 05:36 Page 238 conclusion 239 thinkingthroughcommonalitiesanddifferencesbetweenreligiousthinking and scientific thinking, and was a form of metaphysical religion that informed healing practices at the sanatorium. The Temple did not teach dualism, but duality. Where dualism divides, duality unifies or distinguishes in order to bring...