Posted by on October 29, 2012

Professor Paul Ivey, Associate Professor and Division Chair of Art History at the University of Arizona, offered two talks this past Spring and Summer in Halcyon. At the International Gathering he spoke on “Dune Spirit:  Harmony and Dissonance, Music and Art at Halcyon,” and at the 113th Convention he delivered a lecture entitled “Accepting Change:  Socialism, the Temple Home Association, and World War I.”  His new book, Radiance from Halcyon, A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science, is in press at the University of Minnesota, with publication tentatively set for April 2013. He is planning a book signing celebration in Halcyon in early May.
Dr. Paul Ivey

Good morning everyone and thanks for having me speak again.  My book Radiance from Halcyon, a Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science is in press at the University of Minnesota and should be out by the middle of April next year!  In contemplating the focus on “Acceptance” at this 113th convention of the Temple, it occurred to me that members of the Halcyon community have always accepted that the only true constant was constant change. In particular, early members were caught up in accepting and obeying the laws designated by the Masters for the growth of humanity, trying to apply them through attention to the Higher Self, but they sometimes had to accept that the time was not right for their full implementation on the physical plane. In the most concrete example, for thirteen years, Halcyon intentionally attempted to create economic conditions of equality for all who lived here, as part of its mission to establish a community based on the most advanced social science through founding the Temple Home Association. After their experiences and attempts at organizing the exoteric branch of the Temple work, called the League of Brotherhoods, formed between 1898-1902, the group 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 religious and scientific progress yet to come.

One of the most important emphases of the early Temple movement was also characteristic of the broader theosophical field: to demonstrate that the brotherhood or kinship of humanity was a natural and practical, as well as a spiritual position. It was a matter of urgency. Founder Dr. William Dower believed that humankind’s survival, as well as progress, rested on our ability to create a peaceful world of kinship. He committed much of the early Temple movement’s energy to establish what he viewed as the necessary foundation of all other Temple work, the equalizing and harmonizing of the dualities of wealth and poverty, men and women, the ideal with the real. By 1899, the Temple’s new exoteric groups, called locally the lodges of the Brotherhood of Man, proposed to “enlarge the ideas of the people in general in regard to philosophy, ethics and right government, and to bring about in them a realization that no divorce exists between right ethics, right philosophy and right politics. In reality all true advance on the physical plane is dependent on right political action.”[i] This was particularly pertinent in the run up to the election season of 1900. 

 The group’s broad support of the Socialist agenda fit their understanding of Theosophy.  Most of the lectures at the Lodge meetings, held at Hiawatha Hall in Syracuse, argued for the power of the people in overcoming party politics. Invariably, the lectures had a reformist political agenda, and openly criticized the present political system. Many of the lectures, given complete weekly coverage in the local Syracuse newspaper, called for the creation of a platform and party that could influence the presidential election in 1900. They called for universal suffrage, a collective commonwealth through a national system, cooperative businesses, limiting the money supply, and evolution over devolution.[ii]

The larger political and economic arenas of the last decade of the nineteenth century were ripe for social change, or at least discussions about methods for accomplishing change. The publication of Bellamy’s Looking Backward in 1888, the great depression of 1893, and growing labor strength and unrest “suggested the need for practical solutions here and now.”[iii] On the political front, a variety of reformists were organizing for social and political change, among them the proponents of the Social Gospel, Bellamyite nationalists, Single Taxers, Silverites, Marxian, Christian and non-partisan socialists, as well as producer and consumer co-operativists. According to one scholar, the “final decades of the 19th century were a time of spiritual unrest; a time when attempts were made to correlate emergent industrialism with moral and political thinking. Socialism of a non-violent and non-revolutionary sort, a mixture of State Socialism and the Biblical Golden Rule, had ‘arrived’ on the American reformist scene.”[iv] No matter what specific solutions were offered, and these varied widely, the utopian values of the reformers became familiar: cooperation over competition, nationalization under an “invisible government,” and a classless society governed by the Golden Rule, under the reign of “truly just social laws.”[v] Certainly, the broad sweep of reforms all had a similar mantram: people over plutocrats.

The Temple group called for action. They looked to visionaries, such as Bellamy, in their demand for “the downfall of capitalistic usurpation of the universal law of supply and demand, the extirpation of social and political evil, and the true coming of the Christ in power and glory.”[vi] Bellamy’s protagonist Julian West echoed what many saw in their cities, where “riches debauched one class with idleness of mind and body, while poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork, bad food, and pestilent homes.”[vii]

Many early members viewed capitalism as then practiced as antagonistic to the realization of brotherhood.  Early member Edgar Conrow saw Capitalism as a disease that needed to be surgically removed, and sited the conditions of the miners in Pennsylvania, writing in the Artisan that they lived in “hovels in which a respectable farmer would not put a pig. . . Those coal mines were never intended to be owned by any one set of men, and for another lot of men to be compelled to work at digging out that coal and receive a pittance in return for it. . . . Every man should be entitled to the product of his own labor, and this disease that has gotten into the great human body must be gotten out somehow.”[viii]  When the United Mine Workers in the anthracite coalfields in Pennsylvania called a general strike in 1902, Dower was quick to comment in the Artisan:  “The imagination is thrilled, as it senses the possibilities in the great evolutionary event that has recently occurred in the life of humanity:  in the fact that the patient, plodding, long-suffering entity, known as Labor in contradistinction to Capital, has at last come to a consciousness of itself and realizes that it is an organic being with possibilities of power undreamed of before. . . And this is not the end, but simply the first streak of dawn in the morning of a new day for the children of the Earth.”[ix]  In support of the coal miners, H. A. Gibson, President of the League of Brotherhoods, called for a “prompt, vigorous and universal strike for governmental proprietorship of coal.”[x]

At a meeting at the lodge held after Dower attended a planning meeting with famous socialist Eugene Debs in New York City, he reiterated the mistrust many felt in the two great political parties:

We are standing at a critical point in the history of our country. We must go forward in the path of true progress for the universal welfare, or we must go backward for the next century towards disorder and degradation. This is the law of evolution. We have gone astray from the plans of our forefathers who founded our nation, for we are not living a true life. The problem of the distribution of the necessities of life has grown with the growth of our great cities, and of our monopolies, trusts and syndicates. The many are being sacrificed, and they are being down trodden under the heels of those who serve the money power.[xi]

Subsequently, the socialist-inspired National Social and Political Conferences were held in Buffalo in 1899 and Detroit in 1901, and were attended by several Temple officers and members. These conferences brought together hundreds of reformers from varying social and political viewpoints and agendas in order to consolidate and create a Social Reform Union, but the platform created “failed utterly to bind together the divergent strands of reform thinking.” [xii]

Temple members were decidedly committed to the ideas generated at the conferences, as they believed they had the support of the Masters that would produce real results. Inspired by the Buffalo Conference, Dower put his faith in what he understood to be Hilarion’s directive that if they organized the exoteric work, progress would occur.  By the Temple’s convention of 1901, however, public reform meetings under the auspices of the League of Brotherhoods were reported by only four out of over twenty squares. The organization that seemed so pertinent before the election was losing momentum, but the political ideals of the group, and their commitment to Socialism, continued unabated. After the election of 1900, Dower and the Temple leadership modified their call for a new political party.[xiii]

Meanwhile, an attractive but often difficult resolution was presented as the “cooperative commonwealth,” first heralded by early Marxist Laurence Gronlund, and then by famous novelist Bellamy, that was preached far and wide by socialist clubs, emerging academic associations, and even by important Christian Socialists, enamored by its ideals of equality and unity.[xiv]  In general, however, socialists were unable to form adequate organizations to unify Socialism’s various idealistic, materialistic, and evolutionary strands.

Important to the consolidation of the movement was the belief that the kingdom of heaven could be realized on earth with the creation of a socialist state. This was Gronlund’s position, as he wrote in his book The Co-operative Commonwealth, stating that Americans were ready for a great change. His book was the first popular account of Karl Marx’s theories, without the troubling aspects of class struggle. He believed that evolution over revolution was the way for Americans because of their democratically engendered optimism, and faith in religion and science.[xv] Theosophists were major supporters of this idea of equality.  Worldwide, theosophists joined in the discussion, particularly with inspiration from theosophical leader Annie Besant, who early in her career preached Fabian Socialism to the growing numbers of members of the international Theosophical Society.  As theosophical lecturer and writer Burcham Harding put it in 1896, “Theosophic teaching does not rate men as so many cattle, to be bought at the lowest possible cost in accordance with the law of supply and demand. Every man is every man’s brother.”[xvi] In its ideal, Socialism should strengthen the natural kinship of human beings, weakened by capitalist civilization. The Temple would return man to his ideal state of kinship, with communal property ownership the basis of a new social order.

Increasingly the group looked forward to the creation of a new settlement in the western United States in which they could demonstrate their theosophical and social goals. Important theosophists weighed in on the issue of creating socialist settlements, but the largest theosophical group in the world challenged its practicality. By the eleventh congress of the Theosophical Society held in Chicago, 1897, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that Besant publically balked at the pragmatism of Deb’s socialist ideals, saying that “the contemplated experiment of Socialism . . . will fail. . . . Our London experiment has degenerated into a mere stock-jobbing scheme.” To Besant, Socialism was “the ideal state, but can never be achieved while man is so selfish. All socialistic colonies have failed for the same grasping selfishness of man. Not until man is educated up to a higher spiritual plane can Socialism be made a success.” Theosophy, which included the principle of Socialism, would lift humankind to this “higher plane.” Besant’s words were truly prescient, but it took nearly two decades for Temple members to realize it.

Dower and the Temple movement believed that they could accomplish this “higher plane” if they were diligent, and followed the directives of the Master.  Spiritual leader Blue Star argued that Socialism was a means to an end: to work towards the true cooperative commonwealth within which the Masters “live and have their being.” She told readers of the Artisan, “as long as the doctrines of Socialism agree with the laws of Occultism, the Temple teachings endorse Socialism, but no farther. When it comes to eliminating the religious or higher aspect of life from the social and political life, those teachings are immovably opposed to it.”[xvii]

In late 1900, the League of Brotherhoods announced their new major goal. The group would “[form] a settlement which must eventually become a city,” located in either California, Washington or Colorado, where the laws of the state would offer no constrictions and

Where the principles of direct legislation, municipal ownership of land and public utilities and equal rights for all, regardless of sex, color or creed, may be carried out in its government. . . . In the building of this new city it is proposed to restore to man a more just division of the fruits of his labor. . . . if then there exists a city on this continent in true harmony with the divine plan–for there is such a plan–it will be a model for other communities. Nature in every phase of life is ceaselessly striving for the perfect type that has always existed; the catching of reflections of this ideal plan has always furnished the spiritual dynamic for true reformers; without this progress would be impossible.[xviii]

By 1903, with the settlement at Halcyon beginning to take hold, the Temple Home Association was officially founded as a cooperative venture in property and mixed agriculture and quickly supplanted the League of Brotherhoods as the official exoteric work of the Temple movement.  A letter went out to the membership encouraging them to form a commonwealth of “brotherhood” and equality. They were obliged to “take advantage of modern business methods,” and form a company that would own the land, and all business enterprises. It would lease the land back to members, on which they could build their own 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 enough to make them “desirable comrades.”[xix] This early proviso already 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 a wedge, which from the beginning of the organization allowed for 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.[xx]

Temple members believed that the Association would externalize the great spiritual truths of “unity, solidarity, brotherhood, co-operation, interdependence” as spiritual law.[xxi]  All the land of the Temple would “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 [also] be owned by the people—the community—and where Capital and Labor may meet on equal terms.”[xxii]  Members, who raised food crops and poultry, also tried their hands at producing herbs and flower seeds, with many after 1909 working in the art pottery studio.  The town attracted comment by nationally visible socialist leaders, such as Thomas E. Will, who wrote to Dower:  “If a body of high-minded and at the same time practical people can maintain themselves in a community on an ethical plane somewhat higher than that of the capitalist world, and make of it a propaganda center—a city upon a hill, so to speak—it will make for itself a place in history.”[xxiii] 

Each membership in the Association cost one hundred dollars, and included a half-acre of land and a vote in the Association. Profits from businesses started through official departments were shared with the members, and members could use their half-acre as they chose, including starting their own businesses—creating a hybrid between capitalism and socialism. By 1905 there were at least five departments: construction and printing, farming, poultry, and medical, with the medical department represented by Dr. Dower’s new Halcyon Sanatorium the most successful.

The farming department was in charge of cultivating over 100 acres of land, with additional land for orchards, out of the 300 acres owned by the group in 1908, with 140 members.[xxiv]  The poultry department had 2000 hens by the middle of 1906, and growth was steady enough that a general store with post office was opened in 1908 and still functions today, though the Temple Home Association abandoned cooperative economics by the middle teens to become a land holding corporation.[xxv]

What is most interesting to our topic of accepting change, several methods of cooperation were attempted over the years, and nearly all of them found wanting.  In 1911, full explanations of the various systems attempted were outlined in summary for the membership: “Only a few people were residents and a partial communistic system was put into operation. Under this plan the workers were given their living expenses of board and lodging and a cash allowance of ten dollars a month.” The group showed a deficit, and the plan was unsatisfactory to workers. After three years, the department system was inaugurated. Workers were grouped in different departments, each department “working out its own destiny” with the Association still responsible for the financial burden. The system lasted for one year and was declared “unsatisfactory by all concerned.” They still showed a deficit, but not as great as under the earlier system. In 1909, a new system of renting land, buildings, and equipment to groups was put into operation. It proved the most successful because those renting were in charge of all expenses and this minimized the frictions and misunderstandings between groups, individuals, and the Association. The net gain was small, only sixty-one dollars, but it was, as they put it, “on the right side.”

Troubles were on the horizon. In early 1910, The Clarion told its readers that the Association was compelled to bring suit in the superior court of the county against four ex-members who refused to pay rent or vacate, and were demanding wages for the past year’s work, in spite of agreeing to the profit-sharing scheme. This was conspiracy, and other members were supportive. Winning the suit was a great moral and legal victory. However, the directors’ idealism was sorely shaken.[xxvi] With these difficulties, the lower tendencies in human nature seemed to be triumphing over the higher.

Even with the solidity of the THA made legally plain, there were worries in the ranks, as some members wanted to retire their certificates for cash, and there wasn’t any. John and Agnes Varian, even though stalwart core members, considered retiring their membership in the THA, thinking that Dower was too autocratic, and that the Association needed reorganization. The Master reminded John Varian of his position in the novitiate of the priesthood, and Blue Star begged them to retain their membership, which they did.[xxvii]

In 1913, another suit was brought against the directors and found to be without merit. But the rumors being spread had consequences. No institution could make progress against such “malicious persecution” in the community where they were doing business, especially when it had to use its scant resources to defend itself.[xxviii]

At the August convention in 1913, members were informed that though they had been enthusiastic advocates of Socialism, the leadership had not sufficiently considered the “natural racial and temperamental characteristics of the average man.” Now the directors realized that “personal ambition, love of power and self-aggrandizement,” trumped “the finer qualities which tend toward self-sacrifice and humility” and therefore, the original idea was “weakened and finally lost.”[xxix] They hoped the membership would not resort to legal action; rather, they should create a plan to pool their holdings.

              The original Temple founders came across the United States to California. Gone were the niceties of city living. Practical, necessary work often preoccupied the leaders, and was undoubtedly a source of irritation, given their grand plans to build the new White City mandated by the Masters. Sanatorium cook Annie Altamirano remembered that Dower would sometimes be out in the barn milking the cows by lantern light, because those assigned to the task had not done it. She recalled that, “the cooperative was a great source of friction and never worked. Those who owned land and were real farmers tore their hair out by the roots and screamed in agony at being told how to run their businesses by people who were long on talking but short on doing. Many left the Temple with great bitterness.” Hermann Volz, however, remembered that farmers knew Francia LaDue and visited her often for advice on farming. He reasoned that her knowledge must have come “thru the Masters.”[xxx] As a young man working at the sanatorium, Bob Stenquist remembered that the Master’s messages of the period expressed disappointment at the way things had been going: “I remember thinking they sounded more like a disappointed Dr. Dower than a disappointed Master. Also, if it really was the Master, He sure didn’t have much practical knowledge of human nature or economics. For someone who was supposed to be all-knowing it didn’t add up to instigate such a disastrous policy. But then, what does a 14-year-old kid know?”[xxxi]

Dower was clear that living within Temple formalities often challenged those at Halcyon. In 1921, he wrote that to live in Halcyon, and have one’s vibrations raised, brought out the worst as well as the best in people. They were folks of “startling contrasts” with “apparently impossible faults and failures,” counterbalancing “the strength, splendid beauty and devotion of the very same comrades.” If any conceived of those at headquarters as saints, and thought of them as “emasculated little tin gods sitting on airy clouds of spiritual exaltation and breathing the high air of heaven,” they should “get us down to earth pronto.” While the group continued to believe in the fundamental philosophy of cooperation, Dower wrote a student in 1921 that they were now individualistic: “Each member who lives or resides here has his own home or must find work and support himself. In a number of cases we have some members living here who are self-supporting, that is, have a regular income.”[xxxii]

Dower later summarized his knowledge of cooperative efforts to a member of the Cooperative League of the USA:

They start out very well, there is much enthusiasm for a time, and then it wanes, and there are quarrels and dissensions, factions spring up, because of the selfishness and ambition in human nature, and the cooperative association is broken up. But of course the principle back of this effort is all right, if humanity could only be unselfish enough and spiritual enough to carry it out for the benefit of all others, and not just themselves. The day must come when we will have spiritual cooperation, and such a plan will succeed.[xxxiii]

As the THA was redefining its mission in the local arena, leaders of the Temple moved their attention to the international level, and the Artisan became a mouthpiece for peace, and for distinct political commentary that challenged some Temple members.

Many members hoped that the “great war” would lead to a Brotherhood of Nations in federation, or a “United States of the World,” that would allow all nations to “disarm without fear,” and rely on an international police force to maintain law and order. Since it was the matrix through which the new sixth race would be born, the United States represented the ideals of the new humanity, and this gave it “the right to strongly insist upon certain fundamental rights that will make war impossible in the future.”[xxxiv] The Artisan predicted that the United States would be drawn into the conflagration, and by April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany.

Twelve Temple members served in the war effort, including musician Henry Cowell, stationed at Camp Crane in Allentown as assistant regimental bandmaster. Two members died as a direct result of the war. A flag with twelve stars hung outside the headquarters cottage, two of the stars were gold.

After the armistices and capitulations, the December 1918 Artisan declared that “the great war now terminated has transmuted karmic actions of untold ages past, thus clearing the air for the New Order.” The war revealed one great truth, that no nation was sufficient unto itself, and that all were “bound together in one great interdependent whole.” This was the ideal of the Lodge, “One in the Many and the Many in the One. Thus will the Order of Heaven descend on earth.”[xxxv]

            To the Temple, the formation of the League of Nations was the moral and logical next step, insuring progress and preventing another war. The Artisan urged members to write to their senators to support the League. He asked members to study the Articles of the League, “as you would a sacred writing, for in the principles expressed it is the grandest and most wonderful document on human welfare every formulated by the Children of Men.”[xxxvi]

Not everyone in the inner circle agreed with Dower and Blue Star. John Varian was clearly against the League, as issues of Ireland’s self-determination began to be debated internationally. Varian wrote to Henry Cowell, “I talked last week on Democracy & Dr. thought I was whacking at him and maybe I was hinting a little any way there was a lively time in a quiet good natured way.”[xxxvii]

As John Varian was apt to agitate, Blue Star asked for a meeting with him and Agnes in November 1919. She told him that he was “mixing lines with Ireland and the Lodge.” If the Temple deliberately refused to put itself on record and “our people come under suspicion,” they would have failed in their duty to the Lodge. Blue Star believed that no one had the right “to bring the condemnation of the Government upon all our people who might have different views than ours chanced to be,” and predicted a great war if the League failed.[xxxviii] Varian continued to feel that Blue Star and Dower had it in for him “because of my attitude in THA and about centralization” and that Blue Star was “grumpy because she thinks we are not grateful to Dr.”[xxxix]

By nearly all accounts, it was Wilson’s desire to create a patriotic populace committed to the war effort, and a pro-war indoctrination policy, that led to the purposeful destruction of radical social and political organizations, and censorship of individuals with socialist ideals that had risen so dramatically in the early twentieth century. Leader and socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs was arrested in 1918 for his outspoken denunciation of America’s participation in the war, and other socialist leaders were also jailed.[xl] Disloyalty was punishable, and the American Protective League tried to crush any dangerous views held by the populace. This likely caused Blue Star to fear that Halcyon would “come under suspicion.” Ironically, the very ideals held up in the early THA were those challenged by the war President. Yet, the logic of the League of Nations seemed the next best step in the realization of universal kinship so dear to the Temple’s founders.

In conclusion, while the THA was the first instantiation of the socialist political ideals established in Syracuse through the League of Brotherhoods, and at first welcomed all who believed in true kinship, by 1920 the group became more insular in its desire to prepare a place for the Avatar, and that required devoted Temple members. The THA was one specific outgrowth of the work, and during the experiment, ideals of Socialism were discussed and digested by the membership. Many of the teachings of the Temple were preoccupied with the spirituality of socialist community arrangements. However, the reasons for the THA’s failure were multiple, and involved ideological, personal, and practical considerations. Clearly in these early formative years, the goal of high ideals, such as the building of a City for 10,000 inhabitants, still required the acceptance of human limitations that continually went hand in hand in those early years.  In facing the inevitability of change and sometimes the disappointments that change seemed to engender at the time, the members were reminded of the Master Hilarion’s words:  “. . . your relationships one to another must be stripped of all pretense, all self-seeking, all selfishness. The tests you will continue to meet are based on the Law of Brother/Sisterhood and involve the finer courtesies of life, the gentle services for youth and age, the ability to withhold rather than to give ridicule or criticism, to bear with and not to provoke, to entertain the Christ within your hearts in such a way that you become the absolute embodiment of Light and Love.”[xli] 

[i] “To the Temple and the Brotherhood of Man,” circular, March 10, 1898, 3. Temple Archives. See Paul Eli Ivey, “The Theosophical Temple Movement: Socialism, the Iroquois League, and the Politics of the Brotherhood of Man,” in eds. Arthur Versluis, Lee Irwin, and Melinda Phillips, Esotericism, Religion, and Politics (North American Academic Press, 2012), 215-234.
[ii] For examples see “One Broad Platform,” Syracuse Herald, March 13, 1899; “True Unity,” Syracuse Herald, March 23, 1899; “Wants a New Party,” Syracuse Herald, March 30, 1899; “Up to Date Government,” Syracuse Evening Telegram, April 6, 1899; “The Money Problem,” Syracuse Evening Telegram, April 13, 1899; “Impending Crisis,” Syracuse Evening Telegram, April 20, 1899.
[iii] Robert D. Fogarty, “American Communes, 1865-1914,” American Studies 9 (1975) 2, 148.
[iv] Kim McQuaid, “The Businessman as Reformer: Nelson O. Nelson and Late 19th Century Social Movements in America,” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 33 (1974) 4, 426. See Albert Fried, Socialism in America, From the Shakers to the Third International (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1970).
[v] Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 138.
[vi] Syracuse Herald, January 23, 1900.
[vii] Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward 2000-1887 (New York: New American Library, 1960), 152.
[viii] “League of Brotherhoods: Its Purpose and Work, including the Building of a City, “ pamphlet, October 16, 1900, 7-8.
[ix] Artisan 3 (1902) 6, 89-90.
[x] Artisan 3 (1902) 5, 77-78; Artisan 3 (1902) 6, 93-94; Artisan 3 (1903) 8, 124-125.
[xi] “Wants a New Party, Lodge of Brotherhood of Man Indorses Reform Movement,” Syracuse Herald, March 30, 1899.  On party reform alignments see James L. Sundquist. Dynamics of the Party System, Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States (Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institution, 1983).
[xii] Syracuse Evening Telegram, July 11, 1901. See W. D. P. Bliss, “Social Reform Union,” Arena 22 (1899) 2, 272. See “Special Number, The Buffalo Conference,” Direct Legislation Record 4 (1899) 3, 38; Eltweed Pomeroy, “The Buffalo Conference,” Direct Legislation Record 6 (1899) 3, 33-64; and J. H. Ferriss, “The Buffalo Conference,” Arena 22 (1899) 1, 71. See Dower’s comment on the conferences in Artisan 13 (1912) 4, 65 and Syracuse Evening Telegram, June 29, 1899. On the Detroit meeting see Eltweed Pomeroy, “The National Social and Political Conference,” Arena 25 (1901) 6, 588-592. On Socialism in the United States see Rose L. Martin, Fabian Freeway, High Road to Socialism in the U. S. A. 1884-1966 (Chicago: Heritage Foundation, 1966).
[xiii] Artisan 2 (1901) 2, 26-27; Artisan 2 (1902) 9, 136-137.
[xiv] See Louis Filler, “Edward Bellamy and the Spiritual Unrest,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 8 (1949) 3, 239-249; John Hope Franklin, “Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement,” New England Quarterly 11 (1938) 4, 739-772; Laurence Gronlund, The Co-Operative Commonwealth, An Exposition of Socialism, rev. ed. (Boston: Lee and Shephard, 1894); Mark Pittenger, American Socialist and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 44-46; Stanley Buder, Visionaries and Planners, The Garden City Movement and the Modern Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
[xv] See Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 65. See discussion in Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits, 227.
[xvi] “Ripe for the Occult,” The Washington Post, May 25, 1896, 10.  See Burcham Harding, Brotherhood, Nature’s Law (New York: Burcham Harding, 1897).
[xvii] Chicago Daily Tribune, June 27, 1897, 13. See also New York Times, June 27, 1897, 1. Artisan 6 (1906) 12, 204.
[xviii] “League of Brotherhoods: Its Purpose and Work including the Building of a City,” pamphlet, October 6, 1900, 10. Temple Archives. See also Master Hilarion, Interview no. 61, August 22, 1900. Temple Archives. Morya, by Luestra, to the Executive Council, April 2, 1902. Artisan 1 (1900) 7, 107-109.
[xix] “The Temple,” February 25, 1903.
[xx] “To All Temple Members,” 1903, exact date unknown.
[xxi] Temple Artisan 8 (1907) 2, 36.
[xxii] Temple Artisan 8 (1907) 2, 36.
[xxiii] Temple Artisan 6 (1905) 3, 46-47.
[xxiv] See William Alfred Hinds, American Communities and Co-operative Colonies, 2nd ed. (Chicago:  Charles H. Kerr and Company, 1908), 577-580.
[xxv] Temple Artisan 5 (September 1904), 51-4.
[xxvi] The Clarion, March 1910; The Clarion, February 1910. Artisan 10 (1910) 11, 206; Artisan 13 (1912) 1, 24.
[xxvii] Blue Star to John Varian, no date, probably 1909. Temple Archives.
[xxviii] Letter, “To the Members of the Temple Home Association,” June 21, 1913. Temple Archives.
[xxix] “To the Templars Who Are Members of the Temple Home Association,” August 5, 1913. Temple Archives.
[xxx] Artisan 7 (1907) 12, 230; Herman Volz, “Early Memories,” hand-written recollection, 1986, 1. See also Herman Volz, “Early Days of the Temple,” hand-written recollection, January 7, 1985, 2.
[xxxi] Bob Stenquist recollection, July 14, 1996.
[xxxii] Family Letter, April 15, 1921. Letters of Light, 213.
[xxxiii] Letters of Light, 111-112.
[xxxiv] Artisan 17 (1916) 2, 24-25; Artisan 17 (1917) 10, 147.
[xxxv] Artisan 19 (1918) 7, 84-85; Artisan 19 (1919) 8, 99.
[xxxvi] Artisan 19 (1919) 8, 100; Artisan 19 (1919) 9, 113; Artisan 20 (1919) 1, 10; Artisan 20 (1919) 4, 42. See also an article by William H. Taft, Artisan 20 (1919) 5, 59-61.
[xxxvii] John Varian to Henry Cowell, January 25, 1918, 3. Russell and Sigurd Varian Papers (SC0345). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.
[xxxviii] “Wilson Defines Stand on Ireland, Says the League Sets Up a Forum for All Claims of Self-determination,” New York Times, September 18, 1919. “Fail to Satisfy De Valera,” New York Times, September 18, 1919. After having requested a meeting with John and Agnes, she sent over a letter dated November 24, 1919, and one on December 1919. See also Artisan 20 (1919) 3, 29.
[xxxix] John Varian “Life Ledger,” entries July 14, 1921 and July 12, 1921. Russell and Sigurd Varian Papers (SC0345). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.
[xl] See discussion in Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent, 288-29.
[xli] Quoted in Eleanor Shumway, “Preconvention 2012,” https://templeofthepeople.dreamhosters.com/pre-convention-2012/


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