Our Faithists History: The Brotherhood of Light

Our Faithists History The Brotherhood of Light Sister Joan Greer Brotherhood of Light Spirit Question Box Universal Faithists of Kosmon inc. Po Box 703 Inyokern Ca. USA, 93527 760-753-5390 universalfaithistsofkosmon.org  FAITHIST BROTHERHOOD OF LIGHT The Faithist Brotherhood of Light was all but forgotten. Their written records had been in an old trunk that was part of the Archives of the Essenes of Kosmon, in Montrose, Colorado. Unerstanding the importance of these records, Ray Schlipmann took the trunk with him when the Essenes closed their doors, and he went to Four Winds, Georgia. There Virginia Howard had carefully put their 'Minutes' books away, and only showed them on rare occasions. She had shown them to LesLee Alexander many years ago, and one day when LesLee and I were talking she mentioned seeing the Minutes books. This was interesting information, a Faithist Group af- ter Shalam, that no one remembered. The next time my husband and I traveled to Four Winds, I asked Virginia about these records. She smiled, and then without saying a word went inside and left us sitting on the porch of the two story stone building she called home. My husband, Ken, and I sat there wondering if my question had not been well received, but we decided to wait awhile and see if Virginia would return. In a few minutes she emerged from the house carrying a rectangular black ledger-like book, and handed it to me without saying a word. Upon opening the book we discovered it contained the records of the Brotherhood of Light, written like Secretary Minutes, most of the entries dated and signed by someone named Mary Elliott. I read a few entries, and found names of adults and children. I asked Virginia if I could have a copy of these records, and she said yes. We copied them there that afternoon on Virginia's photocopier, and took them with us. Virginia said there was another book and,\ she would have them copied and send me the pages if I wanted to read them. There on the first page was a very familiar name, H.S. Tanner, M.D. You will find a short biography of him following this paper. We know Tanner left Shalam in 1888, and so far we do not know where he was until this entry in 1901, placing him in Denver, active with the Faithists there. A number of Lodges had been started by Newbrough in major cities in the United States, but it seems unlikely Newbrough was involved with the Lodge in Denver because the organiza- tional meeting occurred after Newbrough passed on. However, we know from letters that several active Faithists did travel extensively, and Tanner was one of them. It is possible that Tanner is responsible for this group organizing. It would seem that with the Brotherhood of Light the volunteers who had been at Shalam had found the group input and participation that had not been present with Howland at Shalam. It should also be noted that the Lodges established by Newbrough were now supporting the Broth- erhood of Light, as the volunteers who began arriving within weeks of Incorporation had been members of these Lodges. The Lodges were continuing to gather children who were now being sent to the Brotherhood of Light instead of Shalam. There were a number of children at Shalam many gathered from New Orleans. After Newbrough passed on Howland had undertaken a huge dairy operation. Howland had been funding Shalam from his inheritance through the Howland Family Trust. When Hettie Howland Green, administrator of the Howland family funds told An- drew Howland either he give up on Shalam or loose his share of the family income, Howland decided to sell Shalam. With the sale of Shalam, all but three of the children living at Shalam were placed in orphanages in Texas and Colorado, and one African-American boy was taken by the group supporting the work of George Washington Carver who is remembered for his work to find ways to use peanuts as an inexpensive food for the poor. The three children the Howlands added to their family were girls who were special friends of Justine. These three girls traveled with the Howlands to Long Beach, California, probably attended the gathering of Faithists at Cuddle Doone children's home in La Cresenta, California, and returned with them to Shalam, and then moved with the family to El Paso, Texas, when Shalam was again sold.. A child of one of the girls still lives in El Paso, and has been in contact with LesLee Alexander who has the Shalam Colony Museum in the Las Cruces area. From the old letters we have, it seems that when Faithists left Shalam many of them went to cities where there were Faithist Lodges. The entry concerning Tanner on the first page tells us that he, along with George Rose, and L. W. Van Dyke are the founding members of the Faithist Brotherhood of Light, and the membership list confirms that many of the members had been at Shalam or Levitica, a Faithist village built after Newbrough passed on. The last formal entry in the Minutes books is in San Diego County, California, in December, 1934. and mentions Wing Anderson and a Faithist organization he is involved with, verifying the oral tradition that a group of Faithists were meeting regularly in the Los Angeles area in the 1930s. The Minutes go on to tell us that after the group is officially organized their Communal Home is founded in March 1901 in Denver and Dedicated 6 weeks later. Things are moving rap- idly, and just two months later on May 9th, Frank and Mary Elliott arrive by train from the San Francisco area with five infants, gathered by the Lodge in that area. This is the same Frank Elli- ott mentioned as being a visitor at Shalam in 1888. With the arrival of the Elliotts and the 5 young children, the communal home they had Dedicated was too small, and so the group moved to a larger piece of property having a larger house. It is noted in the Minutes that Brother and Sister Elliott took the Holy Covenant on May 24, and the children were Dedicated two days later. George Patterson arrived the middle of August with his young daughter, George taking the Holy Covenant of Membership a month later, and Harriet was Dedicated 2 days after that. Faithists continued to arrive every few weeks, all taking the Covenant of Membership and their children being Dedicated. Tanner withdrew as the membership grew, and returned a few months later with two new members. By this time it had become necessary for the Community to move again to provide more space. Six weeks later around the first of June, Sister Wheeler, left for Los Angeles, to receive six infants gathered by the Los Angeles Lodge. In less than a week, Sister Welesley and her son arrived having taken the Star and Dawn Degrees in their Lodge in Detroit. It is obvious from their records the Brotherhood of Light used the same Degrees, Rites and Ceremonies used at Shalam. Brother Caryl gave his 40 acre farm in Kirkland, a rural area now part of Denver, to the group. It had a much larger house with more bedrooms, and large open downstairs rooms for meetings. The Minutes tell of the extensive planting of berries, and fruit and nut trees, as well as flowering plants and shade trees. The Minutes at this time have entries about their spiritual work. They met weekly to worship and ask questions of spirit. They used four Altars, one in each of the Cardinal directions, with East the location of the Trance Medium. Apparently many of the group were individuals that the Angels could speak through, for the entries indicate that different people acted as East, and thus were the Trance Medium at that worship service. Sometimes the Secretary wrote a summary of what the Trance Speaker said. Questions an individual or the group asked were placed in an Arc on the Altar, and then in Trance, the answers were given. Af- ter a few years the group was told that from that time forth, they were not to ask questions of spirit, that they should seek the answers themselves for it was time for them to learn to make their own decisions.  Many of the entries told of the children and the adults, their work and their comings and goings, and give an idea of their spiritual activities. A sudden unseasonable snow storm caught the group out in the fields. They hurried to the house, but six of the very young children passed on due to exposure. The group decided to move South, and property was almost immediately purchased in Arboles, Colorado, near Du- rango. They moved as quickly as they could. Brother Caryl married one of the Faithist Sisters, and when the group moved to Arboles, the Caryls remained in the home Brother Caryl had given for Faithist work. This home became an active center in the Denver area, but unfortunately they kept no records of the activities there. The Caryls visited the Home in Arboles, and the Denver group housed and supported the two sisters who came from Arboles several times to gather infants for the Children's Home. It is noted in the Minutes that Franklin P. White and his wife gave the sisters their apartment to use while in Denver on their Embassy, Embassy being the name they called the trips to Denver to gather infants. You may recall White was at Levitica, and was married there. White probably was the person who typed the Faithist Brotherhood of Light papers, and the Bates Papers which are letters from Newbrough to the Bates Family in Boston. Unfortunately the infants they gathered were conceived in poverty, and many of them died in the first few months of their lives. The Brotherhood faced legal charges about the num- ber of children who died, but they were cleared of any neglect. Shortly after these charges were dismissed it was suddenly announced in their Minutes that the group was moving to California by wagons. I have assumed that the Faithist Brotherhood of Light joined the group in La Cre- senta called Cuddle Doone, because Mary Elliott had gone to the Los Angeles area, and was told to ''submit'' herself to the Chief of that group. Shortly after this we find the Faithist Brotherhood packing up and moving to California. The La Cresenta group was started by and composed mostly of people who had been at Shalam. After Howland evicted all the volunteers at Shalam, including Nelly Jones and James Watson, they married and had a son, James. Because of Jim Dennon's research I was able to contact James and his son, Ian. We corresponded briefly, the family asked for information on Nellie, which we gladly sent, for Nellie was well loved for her tender caring disposition and devotion to the work with children. More information on Nellie and others at Cuddle Doone may be found at the Rio Grande Historical Society (RGHS) posted there by Ian. We learned from Ian Watson that his father never joined the group at Cuddle Doone, that his mother, Nellie, had divorced James and married George Sullivan. The Sullivans had drawn together a number of people as workers at Cuddle Doone who had been at Shalam or Levitica.. The Sullivans adopted at least 12 children, and raised them all, but none of them continued on with helping children. Ian took his parents to the Rio Grande Historical Society at New Mexico State University where they deposited some precious documents, including wonderful photo- graphs of people living in tents which I have assumed were probably the Brotherhood of Light. There is one wonderful photograph showing a very large group of people, among them Andrew and Frances Howland. The Howlands were living in Long Beach at that time, which was a few hours by train from La Cresxenta.. Shortly after the picture was taken the Howland family re- turned to Shalam because the sale of the property had failed. The Shalam property was eventu- ally sold at a great loss to Howland. The Howland family now moved to El Paso, where Justine and the other girls were married a few years later. Justine remained in El Paso until Wing Anderson bought the unbound copies and the printer's plates for the 1891 Edition of OAHSPE. At that time Justine took her family to Los Angeles, where the older son worked for Anderson publishing OAHSPE and a number of Anderson's books on prophecy. We do not know the source of the money Anderson used to make this purchase from Justine. We do know that at this same time, the Faithist Brotherhood of Light property in San Diego County was purchased by the City of San Diego as water shed for a reservoir being built nearby. Because Wing Anderson's group in Los Angeles is mentioned as the last entry in the Minutes Book it is easy to assume that the proceeds from the sale of the land was donated to Anderson's group which became the Esse- nes of Kosmon.. After the move to California there are no further entries until we find them buying prop- erty in San Diego County, where they were known as the Kosmon Children's Home. Mary Elli- ott is again making the few entries. She has adopted a boy, who only lives a short time. From Records in the Alpine Historical Society, we learn that the group was well liked in the area, and continued to take in children. The Alpine Historical Society has photographs and some history of the Kosmon Home We are researching the Faithist family of Victor Head who lived there. Pho- tographs in the Head family photo album indicate that Mrs. Head had been a member of the spiritual community in Point Loma, California, before her marriage. After their marriage the Heads came to live at the Kosmon Home. They had four children, the youngest named Victor. It is Victor's photo album that has all the photographs of the Kosmon Home. An elderly woman whose family owned the property adjoining the Kosmon Home told us she had known Mary Elli- ott and had played with the children who had lived at the Kosmon Home when they were all growing up. She said the Head family lived together in one of the large houses on the property. Victor married and the local old timers say that his daughter, Edith, became an Oscar winning costume designer in Hollywood, although Edith's Hollywood biography is quite different. We were told that Edith kept in touch with the Faithist Brotherhood of Light and some of the local people. Mary and one man were allowed to stay on the property until they passed on. At that time the City demolished the buildings. Some wonderful photographs of the property when it was in operation may be seen on the web site of the Alpine Historical Society. We hope to obtain copies of these photographs for our Archives. We also learned that Victor wrote articles about the Kosmon Home which are in the Archives there. We hope to obtain copies of these articles for our Archives also. One of the really interesting things about the Brotherhood of Light is that at the same time the Colorado Brotherhood of Light was forming in Denver, another group in Texas named The Brotherhood of Light, was Incorporated. When the Colorado Brotherhood moved to Los Angeles, the Texas Brotherhood also moved to Los Angeles. This was discovered quite by acci- dent when brochures of the Texas group, after it had moved to California, were found in the books and papers given by Faithists to Universal Faithists of Kosmon for our Archives. The Texas-California group has reincarnation as one of its basic tenants. The reincarnation group still has its Home Office in Los Angeles, and a telephone call to the Archivist left us both amazed. Within months of the Colorado Brotherhood Incorporating, the Texas Brotherhood In- corporated; and within months of the Colorado Brotherhood moving to the Los Angeles area, the Texas Brotherhood had moved to Los Angeles. It was after learning of the two groups with such a similar history that it seemed appropriate for Faithists to call the Colorado group the Faithist Brotherhood of Light. Undoubtedly the confusion brought about because of the two groups hav- ing the same name is what caused the Faithists to decide to be know as the Kosmon Home in San Diego County. There is one thing that has not been mentioned which, in retrospect, should be considered by Faithists today. The Caryls did not move to Arboles because if they had done so, the rules of the community required that Sister Caryl renounce her relationship to her son. Her son refused to renounce his relationship to his mother, and so Brother and Sister Caryl and her son did not move to Arboles, and stayed on the property Brother Caryl had given to the Faithist Brotherhood of Light. Another rule the Brotherhood had was that anyone who joined the group must give eve- rything they owned to the Brotherhood. This rule changed after the move to Arboles, and several men who had visited the group but only stayed a short time, returned as full time residents after this rule was set aside. Fred Sutor, one of the original members of the Faithist Brotherhood left Arboles after the move had been completed. We are not told where he went, but we found a let- ter he had written to Kosmon Press in England some years later. His letter tells of his experi- ences as a worker in a community and later when he was in Los Angeles working in the Kosmon Children's Home. He was one of the many Faithists who had gathered in the Los Angeles area. Sutor's letter discusses communities he had been a member of comparing rigid rules with a more relaxed environment. Sutor's letter follows. ____________________________ KOSMON HOME From English Publication ''The Faithist'', 1915 The article on ''Founding the Colony' in our last issue has brought us an interesting letter from Bro. Fred Sutor* of Los Angeles, U.S.A. from which we give a few extracts. "Your article in the FAITHIST inspires one to give some of my experiences, having been a member of one Kosmon Home and of one Colony of Faithists. "In our Colony in Colorado, where we got as many as 15 to 20 adults and children together, we got along very nicely for a while. Living very extreme, all foods and clothing which came from animals, even butter and milk, were left out, to conform to the highest teachings. Every one had to take the holy covenant to become a member, in fact, we tried to live as near as possible to the covenant and teachings of the Kingdom on Earth as de- picted in OAHSPE. Time went on but--as in all other colonies and homes--trials, sickness and death of children came to us, the same as to other people. To go to extremes means you have to come back to common sense, which this colony experienced. After many changes and trials they sold out their place and moved with the remnants to South California, there to live a useful, sen- sible life on a farm, like other human beings, and are doing very nicely. All attempts to form a colony or Kosmon Home, are in the beginning, and we can learn from every attempt a good les- son. The Children's Fraternal Home in Los Angeles in which I was also an active member for some years, had such poverty and many trials to contend with, but being faithful to their duty and trust, they have come in to a substantial basis, are well provided for, and are comfortable, with 9 children and 3 adults. They never went to extremes, and used much common sense. In our ex- periments we have found that a few people can stay longer together than many. Two or three can work together for any length of time; if more, there will be constant change. We are not all con- stitutionally grown to bear and forbear and be at peace at all times. It is good to make plans and speak over matters, but at the present time the best results will come from two or three who gather together in Jehovih's name to do His Will and be guided by His organized angels, who will co-operated with such mortals and overrun by all kinds of spirits, good and bad, wise and foolish. Faithists must use good judgment, not philosophize too much, nor think you can do very much and change everything at once, nor go to extremes, but grow gradually to live wiser and better. And do not forget to ask for guidance of the Father, and Light will be given to you in all matters. To raise up children, even only one or two, in Jehovih's Name is better than a commu- nity of adults and easier to accomplish. Use the Name of Jehovih reverently, it is the password to the highest heavens." _______________________ *Fred Sutor joined the Faithist Brotherhood of Light in Denver, Colorado, in 1901 and left in 1902. From this article we know that when Fred left this group he probably joined a group in Denver, and then moved to the Los Angeles, California, area where he joined the Fraternal Home of Faithists,