Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science

Chapter 2: The Emergence of the Temple Movement in Syracuse

In March 1898, Dower made his bid for the leadership of American Theosophy. He wrote to the members of the Syracuse group and told them that the various theosophical organizations vying for power after Judge’s death had forgotten the “real work” of preparing an instrument to be used by the Lodge of Masters to restore to humanity its lost spiritual heritage. These organizations were “as creed bound as the Christian churches and other religious sects.” Dower argued that while they were “thus torn apart and antagonistic, the real work of the movement, more far reaching than the interest of any petty organization,” remained unaccomplished, and he openly criticized Tingley’s proposed school at Point Loma.1 He then claimed that after the “chaos” of lack in spiritual leadership, the Masters Hilarion, Morya, and Koot Hoomi contacted a group of members 35 2 the emergence of the temple movement in syracuse At the last quarter of every century one or more persons appear in the world as the agents of the Masters, and a greater or less amount of occult knowledge is given out. —Helena Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy, 1889 The Theosophical Society has now split up into many fragments. . . . To The Temple has fallen the lot of spreading the truth amongst the great masses . . . to get together a band of people, however small, who can sink their personalities and become vehicles for the transmission of this Lodge force. One such person becomes a radiating center of light, influencing and inspiring all of the people he contacts . . . [becoming] an instrument through which the spiritual force may radiate. —Ernest Harrison, Artisan, 1908 02chap2_Layout 1 2/12/2013 05:54 Page 35 at Syracuse and called the Temple into being in late 1898. He told the members that he and member Francia LaDue were named “Co-Agents of the Lodge” in the work, which he viewed as “a direct continuation of the work of the Great Lodge started through H. P. Blavatsky.”2 One reason the group chose Hilarion (or, in their context, he chose them) might have been that, by tradition, the Master Hilarion was the patron of concrete knowledge , scientific investigations, and technology, all of which preoccupied Dower and other physicians and scientists who joined the movement, as these areas became primary to their notions of theosophical inquiry. In LaDue, known to her followers as Blue Star, Dower found the connection to the Lodge that he and many other theosophists sought. While she never attained the public stature of some other female theosophical leaders, such as Besant and Tingley, her visions and channeling abilities set her apart from those leaders.3 Francia LaDue was born Frances Amanda Beach in Chicago on January 19, 1849, and she moved with her family to Syracuse around 1853. Dower and LaDue grew up in the same neighborhood there, though she was more than a decade his senior. She graduated from high school in 1864 and was married around 1865, but this marriage quickly failed; she remarried later, to Mr. LaDue. Little is known of her personal life except that she was, for a brief time, a practicing nurse. LaDue met Dower in Syracuse in 1894, when she joined the Syracuse lodge and served as postmistress of the stamp club for sending out pamphlets and other branch communications. She introduced him to her notebooks filled with “wonderfulinnerexperiences,”andDowerbecameinterestedinhelpingher clarify and interpret them. He thought that her visions revealed a “ripened soul ready to be called to a great work” and recognized her gift stemming from her heightened female sensitivity. She was admitted by Tingley as a probationer in the EST in October 1897, at Dower’s request. Later Dower called her “a natural psychic and an earnest student of life” who was “vouchsafed a vision of a remarkable character.”4 From the very beginning, the Temple emphasized Judge’s ideas about the importance of direct communication with the Lodge of Masters. Creating rapport with a Master was not widely discussed in theosophical literature , and Judge once complained that the Theosophical Society was “perfectly agnostic and neutral” concerning the “existence, powers, function , and methods” of the Masters in whom many theosophists who followed Judge believed.5 36 Emergence of the Temple Movement 02chap2_Layout 1 2/12/2013 05:54 Page 36 Dower and LaDue’s new group focused on the earlier widespread spiritualist notion that the spiritually receptive and intuitive constitution of women...