"Decades before Charles Manson's followers spread terror in Los Angeles and Jim Jones orchestrated mass suicide in Guyana, a bearded mystic named Thomas Lake Harris preached salvation in the hills above Santa Rosa. He claimed to speak with spirits, rewrote the Bible and battled demons in trances. His followers gave him their money sometimes a great deal more. What began as a utopian experiment called Fountaingrove ended in scandal and headlines about spiritual harems and mind control."
"Born in 1823 in the village of Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire, England, Harris came to the United States when he was five years old. His solidly middle-class family settled in Utica, New York, where his father was a grocer and devout Calvinistic Baptist. His mother died when he was nine. Harris said he experienced an overflowing love of Christ at 15, when he attended a revival meeting."
Thomas Lake Harris led a nineteenth-century spiritualist movement that established a utopian community called Fountaingrove in the hills above Santa Rosa. He claimed mediumship, rewrote scripture, and entered trances in which he battled demons. Followers donated substantial funds and surrendered property. Early life included birth in Fenny Stratford in 1823, immigration to the United States at age five, a Unitarian ministry in New York, and a turn to Swedenborgian-influenced spiritualism. Harris spent years in Britain, founding the Brotherhood of the New Life, a community devoted to spiritual purity and manual labor. The community later collapsed amid scandal over sexual practices and allegations of mind control.
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