Thomas Lake Harris was born at Fenny Stratford, England in 1823, and moved to Utica, New York when he was a boy. He became a Universalist minister at age 20. When Andrew Jackson Davis published The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Relations, and a Voice to Mankind in 1847, Harris became one of his followers. Harris left the Universalist church and went on a lecture tour to spread his newly acquired knowledge. Although Harris was taken by Davis’ spiritual revelations, he did not agree with Davis’ more liberal views on marriage. They parted ways.
Harris became pastor of the First Independent Christian Society of New York, and then joined the Apostolic Circle in Auburn, NY, under J. L. Scott in 1851. Scott was a Baptist minister and trance medium who believed he spoke to St. John. Encouraged by Mrs. Benedict, the groups’ official medium, that St. John wanted to speak through him, Harris moved to Auburn. He became co-editor of the journal Disclosures from the Interior and Superior Care of Mortals.
Scott’s followers sold all their possessions and founded the Mountain Cove Community. Harris did not join them. When dissent threatened the community’s survival, Scott turned to Harris for help. Harris averted a crisis for a while, working as a medium, but the group broke apart. Harris left to preach Spiritualism at Dodworth Hall in New York City.
In 1853, Harris began to dictate poetry while in a trance state. His first composition, An Epic of the Starry Heavens, was 6,000 lines delivered in 21 sittings from November 24 to December 8, 1853. His second poem was A Lyric of the Golden Age, a 5,000-word poem. Harris hoped his trance poems would make him a leader of the Spiritualist movement, but that did not happen. He turned back to Christianity and published Song of Satan, in which communicating spirits were portrayed as demons.
In 1859, Harris left his congregation in New York on a mission to England. He preached “mystic” Christianity in London and several cities. In his first sermon, he warned the audience about “the danger of Spiritualists giving themselves up to production of physical phenomena and allowing their minds to be held captive by the teachings of the low forms of Spiritualism.”
It appears that Harris was a victim to the “low forms” he warned against. He attracted the attention of Laurence Oliphant, a writer and politician. Oliphant was diplomat, private secretary to Lord Elgin, and special correspondent of The Times in Crimea, and member of Parliament. When Harris began his Brotherhood of the New Life community in Wassaic, NY in 1861, he instructed Oliphant to give up his position and work as a laborer there. Oliphant complied.
In 1863, the group purchased a mill in Amenia, NY and then moved to Brockton in the shores of Lake Erie, using Oliphant’s money. Harris allowed Oliphant to leave the community but controlled his actions. When Oliphant met his future wife in 1872, Harris didn’t allow them to have contact for three years. Mrs. Oliphant eventually left the community penniless and alone. It wasn’t until his mother died that Oliphant left Harris’ sphere of influence. He charged Harris with fraud and recovered much of his fortune, but still believed Harris was a genuine psychic.
Harris’ followers were very devoted, but by the 1870s his teaching were far removed from Spiritualism. He announced in 1891 that he’d found the elixir of life to renew his youth. When Harris died in 1906, it was three months before his followers accepted his death.
Additional Reading:
Cuthbert, Arthur A (1908) The Life and World Work of Thomas Lake Harris, Written from Direct Personal Knowledge. Glasgow, Scotland
Harris, Thomas Lake. (1891) Brotherhood of the New Life: Its Fact, Law, Method, and Purpose. Fountain Grove Press, Fountain Grove, CA.
Schneider, Herbert Wallace (1942) A Prophet and a Pilgrim, Being the Incredible History of Thomas Lake Harris and Laurence Oliphant: Their Sexual Mysticisms and Utopian Communities. Columbia University Press, NY.