The Hidden Prophet: The Life of Dr. John Ballou Newbrough

THE HIDDEN PROPHET The Life of Dr.John Ballou Newbrough Susan B. Martinez, Ph.D.  Dedicated to Frances and Andrew who stood by him and in memory of the four faithists who died in January 1885 and are buried in the mountains northeast of Shalam  --- CONTENTS -- ** Introduction ** Prologue Chapter 1 Buckeye Chapter 2 Yellow Money Chapter 3 Scarlet, Black and White Chapter 4 The Embassadors Chapter 5 The Book Chapter 6 Sheaves from Shalam Epilogue Appendices Endnotes & Bibliography "Pious men are greater than the angels" � Hebrew saying *** Were a star quenched on high For ages would it light, Still traveling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men. -Longfellow The story of Newbrough's life, from wonder child to prophet, from farmer's son to modern pathfinder... the light he left behind, is here given to shine on our mortal sight, to travel down from the ages in a blaze of glory. *** "An unseen power is behind all" - JBN (Known) writings by Dr. John Ballou Newbrough, M.D., D.D.S.: 1850s (ca.) Articles in the press, NY & California, advocating for the Chinaman 1855 The Lady of the West, or, The Gold-seekers / a novel. Cincinnati, 544 pgs. Micropublished in "Western Americana; Frontier History of the Trans- Mississippi West, 1550-1900." New Haven, CT: Research Publications, Inc., 1975. Eberstadt no. II-876. Wagner-Camp, The Plains and the Rockies, No. 248. contact: California State Library, Sacramento, California History Room. 1859 Woman's Wish, Man's Will! by A. Buckeye (pseudonym) / book of poems 1865 A Catechism on Human Teeth; reprinted in 1869, 1871; and now (2008) reprinted by The Oahspe Association Inc. through the efforts of Leslee Alexander. 1867 The Fall of Fort Sumter / a novel 1872-3 "Nitrous Oxide Gas: A Reported Death from Its Use," American Journal of Dental Science, vol. VI, 55-63. 1873 title? � JB's paper on fraud in office, "triers" and "constitutional jurors" 1874 Spiritalis, Spirits Interviewed, New York. 1883 Letter to The Banner of Light, Boston spiritual publication. Jan 21, 1883 (See Appendix B) May be read at www.sacred-texts.com/oaj 1883 � 5 Bates Letters, correspondence with Andrew Bates, reprinted in Kosmon Communities Newsletter, 1999 & 2000. 1884 The Gospels of Oahspe (Editor) 1885 Kosmon Almanac,(for Kosmon 37) The New Calendar; Based on the Movements of Our Solar Phalanx. Also, an Account of Shalam, the First Community of this Kind in All the World etc. Las Cruces, New Mexico 1886 "Government and Laws of the Fraternities of Faithists" "Gratiyus" 1889 The Castaway / a monthly journal, New Orleans; many articles by JB 1889 "Glory and Shame of America: Foreshadowing the Dawn of a New Era, New Religion, and New Government" / unpublished? 1891 Preface to the Second Edition of Oahspe GLOSSARY (special terms used in this book) ADC after-death communication, message from beyond the veil AK Anno Kosmon, counting years forward from 1848 which is the beginning of the Kosmon Era. amanuensis scribe, one who takes dictation or copies a manuscript; applied here to the person who receives automatic writing from the spirit world ante-script a prophetic device seen in parts of Oahspe (as in Jehovih's Kingdom on Earth); revelations that are written as though in the past, though they have not yet happened. apport seemingly material objects brought to bear (usually in the s�ance room) apparently out of thin air. BK Before Kosmon, counting years back from 1848, which is the beginning of the Kosmon Era. control as in spirit control, this is the angel or discarnate personality that communicates directly with the medium or mortal en rapport; and, at times, "directs traffic" among other spirits seeking a hearing. corpor referring to physical being/bodies/substance and all that is in the seen world (as opposed to the unseen world of Es). druj, drujas spirit-world inhabitants of the lowest order, wandering spirits of darkness; earthbound angels with no desire to progress (to higher resurrection). druk the mortal equivalent of druj; non-spiritual, without the light of heaven [e.a.] "emphasis added" by author within quotes by means of italics es all that is in the nonphysical world, the unseen of both atmospherea and etherea (as opposed to corpor); the spirit realm (as opposed to the corporeal). faithist Jehovihans, worshipers of the Creator only, originally the chosen people; in modern times, also: followers of the Oahspe bible, those who practice its tenets. fetals spirits who dwell with mortals and live by sucking the substance of others; unprogressed spirits who exist as sucklings on mortal infants. God a high-raised angel who has dominion over a heavenly kingdom; above the office of Lord, but below Etherean chiefs; sovereign over the earth and her heavens; not the same as the Eternal Creator, but an Elder Brother of mortals, having once walked the earth. grade mortals and excarnates are graded 1 to 99, according to their spiritual development. Entirely selfless is grade 99; entirely for self is grade 1. Above grade 50, one is eligible for the higher regions of the afterlife. Guatama ancient name for America; lit: four tribes united in one, or Meeting of the Nations. JB John Ballou Newbrough's nickname among friends kosmon this new era of universal fellowship begun in 1848; each era lasts approximately 3,000 years. Kosmon is known as the time of all knowledge in possession of man; the time when man will reach perfection on earth and its heavens. loo'is angels of generation; advanced angels who bring mortals together in marriage to augment spiritual characteristics in the offspring. O Is sometimes used to stand for Oahspe, after quotes; faithists sometimes write "O" to stand for Oahspe. Note: all Oahspe page references in this book are from Green Oahspe, based on the 1882 edition. OBE out-of-body-experience; exteriorizing from self, similar to traveling clairvoyance ode cosmic unit of 11 years; its multiples (22, 33, 66, 99, etc.) are also significant; coincides with "sunspot cycle." Three odes in a "spell" (33 years), which period is regarded as one generation (of mortals). Pan the submerged continent of the Pacific Ocean; the Motherland of man; aka Wagga; origin of the worldwide stories of the Flood. PK psychokinesis, i.e. the movement of inanimate objects apparently of themselves, though understood as a mediumistic power. psi as in psyche or psychology; from the Greek letter psi, it is shorthand for any and all psychic phenomena. Quickening a prophetic term designating the spontaneous arousal of (half of) humanity in the kosmon era, to the truths of the spirit world. Also refers to Jehovih's touch and Everpresence, the first quickening of corpor into life (Creation). red star a cosmic name for planet earth, as seen from above, from Etherea (the higher realms of heaven). resurrection wholly involving spirit bodies (not earth bodies), and used in Oahspe to designate the increasingly enlightened planes of existence, going up, up, up, away from the earth: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd resurrections; being at the same time internal spiritual states. Saphah book in the midst of Oahspe's Interlude, containing ancient rites and ceremonies, degrees, philology, etc. sargis applies equally to mortals and angels; indicating the (learned) ability to, respectively, behold or fashion visible bodies, physiques. A mortal sargis can see angels; an angelic sargis is capable of appearing to mortals who can see the invisible creations; "materialization." seventh As seen on page one of Oahspe, this new era of enlightenment for man era which is the balance of spiritual with corporeal knowledge; the end of savior/idol worship on earth and its heavens; the establishment of Shalam Jehovih's kingdom on earth. See Chapter 6; the utopian Children's Land as attempted by 19th century faithists (1884-1901). su'is clairvoyant, seer, able to perceive the unseen; su- itself indicating "spirit" Survival belief that man's spirit survives the grave; the term came into use Hypothesis in the 19th century with the rebirth of Spiritualism Tae the highest expression of man, sometimes referring symbolically to JBN. Uz has various meanings; used sometimes to represent the non-spiritual communities of man; the world's people, "Babylon"; also signifies the vanishment of things seen and fourth degree of corpor, the seen world. See Book of Knowledge 37/2.22. Uzzian a nonfaithist person vortexya the (magnetic) forcefield of the earth; force of the vortex which is the unseen planetary envelope. xenoglossy the mediumistic ability to speak in languages unknown to oneself  10 Introduction In the lapse of time I provide seers and prophets, through whom I can reveal to mortals the things of heaven. - The Lord's Fourth Book 1:22 "Was he a prophet?" a faithist recently wrote to an Oahspe Message Board online, "Or did Newbrough make a conscious effort to write a holy book, his style? Can't wait to dig deeper." � Yes, what do we really know about this seer, this adept � Dr. Newbrough? He spoke several languages: fluent in Latin, Greek, Spanish, German, and possibly French. He was a physician and dentist, an "inveterate traveler"; he authored a number of books, lectured on both sides of the Atlantic, was a humanitarian and social reformer, political critic, psychic researcher; specialist in Comparative Religion; and from the testimony of those who knew him, a man of exceptional moral character, "the most honest and fearless of men." "He was greatly loved by those who espoused the Work" � Nelson Standart A man without wiles � though the world be incredulous of such a being. Nevertheless, "If he thought persons vulgarly curious, he would freeze them with his bearing." His manner was quiet and polished; the only time Frances (his second wife) saw him angry, the single time, was when a man called him a liar. "Let us learn to live well, and without money" - Newbrough "He possessed a generous spirit, placing small value on the accumulation of money, giving to those who were in need freely, doing well whatever he did and planning on a large scale." - Jim Dennon. Tall and imposing at 6'4", he moved slowly; his presence was commanding, his figure perfectly proportioned -- "thoroughly distingu� in appearance from crown to heel," according to one journalist. At Shalam Colony (Chap. 6), the local Mexicans called him El Dios Gigante. Frankly, John was extremely handsome � a "saintly face." Well educated, dignified, and cultured, he was capable � without trying � of wielding a powerful influence over persons with whom he came in contact; even his enemies were charmed by the man. His hazel eyes were clear and compelling, his forehead broad, his features pleasantly chiseled. His voice was deep, gentle, almost mesmeric. He laughed softly and had no airs  11 about him. Yet this unassuming man "possessed the most remarkable powers in the direction of inspiration and clairvoyance." He was "a religious leader and mystic of international renown,"1 making it his practice to "sit" alone: meaning, he took his mediumistic training alone, not in the circle, as was customary in his day. "In this condition he was controlled by the angel world," according to his publicist in England, James Burns, who regarded the production of Oahspe by Newbrough as "the magnum opus of mediumship." And My record shall be the standard for mortals and angels for thousands of years to come. Other books and other words will be written and spoken, and they shall pass..... � Oahspe JB's supernal powers were impressive enough --- automatic writing, traveling clairvoyance, clairaudience, mind-reading, controlled painting, hyperpraxia (supernatural strength), trance-visions, reading sealed papers, PK (he "moved objects with his mental power"2). As an adept, he did not ask spirit about himself, but "how he can do more good for other people." An adept, according to Newbrough asks where there is some one sick, that he can go and heal him; some one destitute, who has nothing to eat... How he can further purify himself...And the spirits come and sit down by him and talk with him face to face... This he follows up from day to day; but when a person is named as being sick or destitute he goes at once...and fulfills his part.3 His prophets have his [Lord's] good grace; they can hear his voice and interpret him. - The Lord's First Book 3:9 JB was remarkably su'is. One time while he was in New Orleans and his wife and daughter were back in New Mexico, he wrote � "You cut the baby's hair today. I'm glad." That baby was Edith/Justine/Jone � her long, tangly hair had become a nuisance and she had been begging her mother to cut it. JB, we know, frequently slipped into the Alpha or meditative state, often prophetically, "seeing" scenes of the future in an altered states of consciousness. Dr. Newbrough, as Jim Dennon observed had wonderful visions; his spirit could leave his body and travel in the spirit world. He was shown the destruction of cities and foretold the dreadful time that is coming.  12 *** "The overshadowing typed the manuscript through his hands." - Eloists Is it not remarkable that "the most extensive example of automatic writing on record"4 produced "the least known bible in the world"?! To Nelson Standart (See below), Oahspe was "the greatest book that has ever been given to the world,"5 providing us "the secret of the past [and] a guide to the present"; answering also (if I may expand), to the dead ends in our sciences: psychology, cosmogony, climatology, ethnology, archeology, astronomy, zoology....... Wing Anderson's summary of "this extraordinary book" points the reader to its detailed teachings regarding the Creator and His relation to Man and the Universe; the history of the earth and its heavens for the past 24,000 years; the principles of cosmogony... revolutionary conception of physics; the nature of the angelic worlds and their relation to the earth; the origin of man and his path upwards...; the principles of enlightened morality; the lost keys to all the different religions...the civilization which will supercede that in which we are at present living... Its blurb has also appeared thus: Oahspe is a 900-page spiritualist book, a cosmic bible including comprehensive depictions of the spirit realms and perhaps the most definitive work on Angelology ever produced, setting forth a new Genesis (without Evolution), a completely fresh Cosmology, and a remarkable sequence of the prophets (lawgivers) and sacred tribes (faithists) to rival any history of its kind in the world. Its constant theme is the link between mortality and immortality, penetrating to the heart of man's mysterious kinship with Infinity. After its first printing in 1882, reviews declared: Prof. A. Heinman: "All religions in the world are comprehended in OAHSPE." Prof. T.A.M. Ward: "OAHSPE is the book of the age, and marks a new era in the transitory progression of man." Prof. H. Paysse: "This is the book � OAHSPE � which was prophesied of old would come." For most reviewers, the importance of Oahspe seemed so vast as to defy description; its main points may be said to encompass: spiritology, Creatology (the important difference  13 between Creator and God); grades of man (1-99) based on selfishness vs. unselfishness; knowledge of drujan (demonic) influence in our lives; a new science; inspiration; records of the race; doings of the Gods; but most of all � a new/old religion based on practice only: Behold, I have separated the wheat from the chaff; I have divided the sheep from the goats.... [T]hose that serve Me in the practice [e.a.] of My kingdom... shall become the chief people in all the world... The day of preaching and professions is at an end. I will have practice only! �O JB himself never ceased to teach this doctrine � practice only! the untainted gem of Good Works! Looking around, JB could not help but remark that even the spiritualists "have not built one orphan asylum, or old ladies' home... nor any very good or great educational institutions." He sought "good works, charitable, or educational. I believe all other organizations will come to naught."6 "An Army of Peace": Writing under a heading of "Creeds, Creeds, Creeds,"7 he declared that a man has to do it [his beliefs, etc.] by behavior.... Works rather than spoken words come from the All Highest."8 [On the matter of well-meaning progressive "societies," good intentions, and wannabes who are] "very liberal in advice...good speeches...hold[ing] meetings...passing resolutions...votes of thanks to one another...high opinions as to what ought to be done... [they are] a bundle of straw....It might be better though if they would raise a thousand children a year in a colony ... an army of peace...Maybe they will learn by and by.... Man begins to see that a new religion is needed in the world. Not a preaching religion, but a practicing religion....recogniz[ing] the word of God better in the good works done unto others.... and turn[ing] away from the [mere] words that come out of a man's mouth.... Give me your works! Let me see what you are doing to help the helpless.... get down out of that pulpit. *** Good books are often built; they are added to over the years with each successive edition. � Kenneth Heuer Dr. John Ballou Newbrough, through whose hands Oahspe quietly came into the world in 1881, left no memoirs or autobiography, although as poet, novelist, editor, political theorist, and travel-writer, he left behind a facsimile of his own beliefs, experiences, and character.  14 It has not been easy to reconstruct the life of J.B. Newbrough. The present biography is neither infallible nor by any means complete. I'm sure there are letters and other pertinent papers buried in dusty archives across the country; there are documents, photographs, private correspondence, etc. that faithists (and others) have been reluctant to release; there is material the author has been unable to access.9 With the limited sources at hand, there was perforce much reading between the lines. I can only hope that this book will flush out future researchers and more willing contributions, input from other faithists, filling in the missing links in JB's extraordinary life and career. This edition, moreover, shies away from extended discussion of potentially fractious issues : JB's attitude toward women, for one; influence of his personality on the contents of Oahspe, for another; squabbling differences between the 1882 and 1891 editions of Oahspe; calendar issues, and suchlike; attacks against faithists and Oahspe; details of Shalam Colony history and subsequent faithist lodges. For me, these are all off-topic; one-pointedly have I restricted myself to a JB bio. Punto y aparte. "There is properly no history; only biography" � Ralph Waldo Emerson It has always amazed me that Newbrough's life is so poorly documented. The absence of a biography covering the life and times of Dr. Newbrough represents one of the most glaring lacunae in the body of modern spiritualism in general and faithism in particular. On a par with the greatest seers of all time, Dr. Newbrough surpassed the best of them by becoming the human instrument, the chosen scrivener, of the incomparable Oahspe Bible; he was, as Jim Dennon saw fit to say, "perhaps the most marvelous instrument in the hands of the Almighty for the transmission of spiritual intelligence the world has yet known." The story of JB's ten year preparation for the task at hand; his clairvoyant youth and the peculiar powers that led up to the amanuensis in 1881; his methods of discipline and self-purification; his humanitarian works which were legion; his thoughts and frustrations (especially seen in the Bates Letters/see Chap. 5) � all bring to the fore the makings of a prophet in modern garment. If there is such a thing. Was he a prophet? - The age in which we live has not produced "a prophet" and is not destined to do so. Rather, it is the age for man to think for himself.10 The Eloists, a faithist brotherhood, certainly dismiss the idea of JB as a "prophet": The production of  15 Oahspe was placed in his hands NOT "because he was a high-raised prophet or saint, but because he was a very talented and highly-developed medium in the right place at the opportune moment." Fine, but are we forgetting that Newbrough was as close to a prophet, as close to enlightened, as the age could produce? Mouthpiece of the gods, visionary of a new world, fearless truth-sayer � this is as good as it gets. What's more, I imagine Dr. Newbrough was at least grade 90. "He was very unselfish, self-sacrificing" � Nelson Standart What more do we want? I marvel also at the lavish fund of information (and gracious help from compeers) that most biographers of great men have had at their disposal. Not so with Newbrough. Oahspe readers since his time, it seems, have been so preoccupied with keeping the bible itself in print, that a proper biography of the amanuensis himself seemed an afterthought, a luxury too extravagant for the poor, disorganized, non-affiliative faithists of the 20th and 21st centuries. But such a beautiful and remarkable life as JB lived must be told, though one struggles against rebuff of various kinds. I must say, it is thanks to Dr. Glenn Kendall and the FSHF (Faithist Society for Humane Fellowship) that we have a start! If not for Brotha Glenn, and his deep kinship with Jehovih, you would not be holding this book. *** "JB" Newbrough came of age in the time known as the Victorian era, obsessed as it was with bourgeois respectability; yet, it was also an age of adventure � circumscribing the globe, occupying its wilderness, a time of discovery, challenge, invention. The era was rife with progress and "pressing on" --- The Industrial Revolution, new scientific frontiers, religious reform, general restlessness, the emergence of poetry, the Railway Age, the contest over slavery, the growth of cities, the death of aristocracy and monarchism (which nonetheless survived in the leisure class)....the fading of a picturesque world, of charm... Paint these scenes with stagecoach and steamboat, horseflesh and handbills, burgoo and bustles, governesses and gaslight, laudanum and land office, daguerreotype and dime novels ... the 19th century ---- "this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century" � Thoreau.  16 Of the War Between the States: With no less than 630,000 lives taken by that devastating conflict, s�ance rooms were chock full of grieving relatives and converts - tens of thousands - to the new spiritualism. AK 1: More than a dozen years before, on March 31, 1848 (the faithist Holy Veil Day), the sensation of the Rochester Rappings burst on the scene, catapulting the spirit world � and the Fox sisters � to international fame and everlasting notoriety. The Great Age of Spiritualism, whose birth in 1848 corresponds to the opening of the Kosmon Era and circumscription of the globe,11 seemed to mark America as the land of destiny, where the final frontier � the human psyche, the soul part � would be penetrated and mastered. It was the beginning of the New Age, and in its birth year, John himself was coming of age. (Chap. 2) Bold, spontaneous, contagious was this new spiritual craze that too the Victorian Age by storm, proclaiming immortality of the soul and livingness in the World Beyond. From 1848 on, the Lifting of the Veil (between two worlds) occasioned the most dynamic grass roots movement known to man. It drew into itself many disparate strands of belief: Swedenborgians, mesmerists, latitudinarians, deists, Fourierists (socialists), magnetic workers, poets and artists, educators and laborers, theosophists, transcendentalists, Universalists, faith-healers --- all coming together under this great new renaissance of spirit. The newly manifested powers of spirit and nine-day-wonder of the s�ance room attracted the likes of: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Cullen Bryant, Mary Baker Eddy, Thomas Edison, William James, Mary and Abraham Lincoln, Garibaldi and Mazzini, England's prime ministers Melbourne, Gladstone and Balfour, Horace Greeley, James Russell Lowell, Madame Curie, William Lloyd Garrison, Victor Hugo, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Emily Bronte, William Thackery, Robert Schuman, William Butler Yeats, George Bancroft, Lewis Carroll, Napolean III and Queen Victoria, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Ruskin, Tolstoy and Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Cornelius Vanderbilt, etc. The real pioneers, though, the founding fathers of this new faith, were personalities of little fame or fortune, but of incomparable courage and perseverance. Up against the wall, characters like D.D. Home, Judge Edmonds (Chap. 3), Professors Hare and Mapes, and  17 others put their respectability on the line for sake of the young science of spirit and the brilliant "phenomena" that roared through the second half of the 19th century with as much fervor as the Underground Railroad had roared through the 30s, 40s, and 50s. It leapt across the Atlantic; and now it was fashionable! JBN, Dr. Henry Slade, Col. Henry Steele Olcott, Emma Hardinge, Rev. Stainton Moses, Alfred Russel Wallace, the Davenport Brothers, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Hayden, Robert Dale Owen, Dr. William Crookes, .... each and all and scores of others even less known were founding fathers and mothers of that blossoming, controversial groundswell. Newbrough's daughter Jone would later (1945) speak of it � While it may cause a raising of eyebrows now to learn that Newbrough became interested in spiritualism, it is only because people today do not realize the tremendous sweep over the whole civilized world spiritualism made during the middle of the last century. In Italy, Germany, France, England, the foremost scientific men not only engaged in investigating it, they openly endorsed it. So in investigating spiritualism, Newbrough was not only swept along with the masses of ordinary folk, he was in the company of the greatest minds of the day. *********** "If a book have merit, what matters it as to who wrote it?" -JBN/ Banner letter, 1883 Who is this person anyway? - it will be asked, even before the book Oahspe is seen or read! How did he accomplish such a feat? Oahspe historian Jim Dennon poses the question � "What sort of a man was he who could write such wonderful things?" Such questions would be perfectly fine if they did not lead, as they so often do, to misrepresentations and ultimately to ad hominem judgments, even attacks. "Even today," wrote JB's daughter Jone, after Newbrough has been dead fifty-four years...even murderers who have committed atrocities...have never come in for the spleen, vituperation, malice, slander, rankling with scorn and hate, that have been heaped upon... Newbrough. When I think of this and then the kind of man Newbrough really was, I am reminded of another who went around doing good...before they nailed Him to a cross.12  18 "Perhaps," reflected J. O. Watkins, a Freemason who wrote of JB in 1946,13 "this is a case of a `prophet in his own country'.... I got the idea that perhaps you [addressing the Secretary of the Masonic Lodge in Las Cruces, NM] had not read this bible...." [Oahspe] The correspondent from the Las Cruces Masonic Lodge had referred to "the bible [that] Newbrough dreamed up." [e.a.] How much easier to discount the man than the book! After the advent of this new bible in 1882, spiritualists on both sides of the ocean felt that in order to accept the extraordinary book of Oahspe, the "subliminal capacity" of Dr. Newbrough must be examined; Katherine Stoes, in her little book on Shalam (the faithist colony started in New Mexico in 1884) mentions a request she received from the ASPR (American Society for Psychical Research) - outlining the data they wish to secure on Dr. Newbrough's life and experiences in the world of spiritualism....Reviewers of the time claimed this bible, if true, to be the greatest book ever written. If false, a cruel and stupendous hoax...and Newbrough a monstrous mountebank.... Dr. James Hyslop, secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research, studied Oahspe with growing wonder....He made several attempts to secure an intimate knowledge of the author, but his requests were never granted. Dr. Hyslop stresses it to be the duty of the family to preserve all the facts of Dr. Newbrough's life. When I myself contacted ASPR in 2003, the archivist replied, indicating the slim pickings in their files on Oahspe and its amanuensis. ...Our archive contains a 1909 letter from G.P. Wiksell to Dr. Hyslop stating that Justine, Dr. Newbrough's daughter, was interested in writing a biography of her father. There is a lengthy and detailed letter eight years later [e.a.] in 1917 from Dr. Hyslop to Newbrough's widow, emphasizing his great wish to write a biography and asking for her help. There is no reply. Also, there is a correspondence between Dr. Hyslop and Nelson K. Standart about a possible bio of Newbrough but there is no indication that this met with fruition...14 Not only did "the family" fail �for whatever reason - to preserve the facts of the doctor's life, but there is convincing evidence that Newbrough's daughter Jone burned both the original manuscript and some of her father's spirit paintings "in the backyard." (The cover story was that these materials had been crated in her El Paso basement for shipment  19 to ASPR, when a flash flood came down from Mount Franklin and destroyed them all. Ya, right). Though the family answered a few of Dr. Hyslop's letters and promised to cooperate with the ASPR investigation, they never did. James Hervey Hyslop (1854-1920) who deftly reorganized the ASPR after Dr. Richard Hodgson's death in 1905, would have loved to substantiate the Oahspe story, whose revelations from Beyond might silence the skeptics at last and confirm unequivocally the Survival Hypothesis; Hyslop could then sneer back at the pompous materialist who "gloats like a conqueror over his imagined triumphs." Considered "the greatest American propagandist of survival," Dr. Hyslop, along with Dr. Hereward Carrington ("the keenest fraud-hunter"), midwifed the first Journal of the ASPR in 1907. It was the same year that the Oahspe colony (Shalam) was finally closed and sold, after a 23-year effort against all odds to sow seeds for the Father's kingdom on earth. The Book upon which this new fraternity and later lodges were based had come, in 1881, through the instrumentality of Dr. Newbrough, clairvoyant and New York dentist. It was completed, after a year's worth of daily sittings �in the half hour before dawn � on December 15, 1881. Less than a month later, in January 1882, Sir William Barrett, who had been pressing for a systematic study of Spiritualism, called a conference in the offices of the British  20 National Association of Spiritualists. It was at this conference that the (British) Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was born. Three years later (1885), during a visit to the United States, Barrett was the impetus for the founding of the American SPR. Another three years later, in 1888, the 34-year-old Dr. Hyslop had been toying with his own "theory of hallucination" � (or rather, his skepticism) - wonderfully toppled when the remarkable medium, Mrs. Piper, conveyed to him veridical messages from his (deceased) father and other kin. It took no more than twelve sittings to convince the young professor: I have been talking with my [deceased] father, my brother, my uncles. Whatever supernormal powers we may be pleased to attribute to Mrs. Piper's secondary personalities, it would be difficult to ...believe [they] could have thus completely reconstituted the mental personality of my dead relatives. To admit this would involve me in too many improbabilities. I prefer to believe that I have been talking to my dead relatives in person; it is simpler.15 Yes, Occam's Razor. By this time, 1888 (which was, incidentally, the year of Maggie Fox's unfortunate "confession" which threatened to topple the Movement altogether - See Chap. 6), 3,000 copies of the Oahspe bible had been in circulation for more than five years, though its most devoted practitioners were out in virgin New Mexico struggling to start the "Children's Home." Dr. Hyslop, two decades on,16 would be sufficiently impressed with this new bible to pursue the matter of the Newbrough story over a span of eight years (1909-1917). The Book Newbrough brought forth was, and still is, after all, the longest and most recondite piece of automatic script on record, and quite probably the first such controlled writing to be produced on a typewriter. (Remington's "writing- machine" had recently been invented.) The faithist cannot help but discern the clear influence of Oahspe in Hyslop's heroic commitment to improving mental health through spiritualism.17 The Oahspe bible is a great monument to it, describing, especially in The Book of Inspiration, the ineluctable presence and imprint of the invisible world on mortal life and human psychology. It remains an everlasting testimony to Dr. Hyslop's final enlightenment that, in his will, he founded an Institute for the treatment of obsession through the instrumentality of mediums.  21 However, before accepting the discarnate explanation of multiple personality, Dr. Hyslop (just like JB) "fought against it for ten years." In the end, several specific cases forced him to recognize the excarnate component. "It is high time for the medical world to wake up and learn something." �Hyslop. (More's the pity that 90 years later, they still slumber) Of course, in the standard history of these matters, the whole controversy was taken up with the question of - fraud. These founding fathers, though, attempted to approach the subject in a strictly objective manner. Most of them, in fact, started out as skeptics. JB Newbrough, before the advent of Oahspe through his hands, had been a "spiritualist" for 24 years (if not his entire life), but was still not convinced that apparitions actually came from excarnates. Dr. Hyslop started out in a skeptical frame of mind as well, until the Piper sittings - which "puzzled" him. Conviction followed puzzlement; impatience followed conviction: I regard the existence of discarnate spirits as scientifically proved and I no longer refer to the skeptic as having any right to speak on the subject. I... do not propose any longer to argue with him on the supposition that he knows anything about the subject. (Life After Death) Jim Dennon, doggedly researching, assiduously sorting, and faithfully recording some of the best accounts we have on the life of JBN, rendered the following words on the ASPR's (Hyslop's) attempt to obtain the Newbrough story: In 1909 at the request of the American Society for Psychical Research ... Nelson Standart recorded the information about the origin of Oahspe he received from [John] Lant. Dennon goes on to explain that Standart was the Chief of the Outer Council of Denver's Brotherhood of Light in the very early 1900s, while John A. Lant was also a member of the Outer Council and had been (in 1881) the first Oahspe printer and a friend of JB's. But to complete his report to Hyslop, Standart needed more information from insiders and so he wrote to Andrew Howland, co-founder of Shalam, Newbrough's main man and current husband of the widow Frances. Jim Dennon frames these unfortunate events in the following paragraph: Howland [in response to Standart's request] had Justine Newbrough [who was now his step-daughter, her mother having married Howland in 1893] write the  22 Society directly, promising her full cooperation. But instead, she deliberately burned her father's paintings... The half-truth cover story told to Percy Wiksell, K.D. Stoes and others was that the paintings and Oahspe manuscript had been crated in their El Paso home basement for shipment to the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City, when a flash flood came down from nearby Mount Franklin and destroyed them all, so they were burned as rubbish. But Jone Howlind (Justine Newbrough) said in 1960 she destroyed them by fire on purpose18 (which prevented the A.S.P.R. from examining the originals). Between 1909 and 1917 Mrs. Howland [Frances] and Justine Newbrough answered letters promising to cooperate with the A.S.P.R. investigation, but never did.... [And when] Dr. James Hyslop of the Society asked Nelson Standart to send all of the Lant proof sheets...Standart refused to let them out of his organization's archives. A few days after mailing the Lant information, he requested those notes back. But Hyslop was permitted to keep a photograph of Dr. Newbrough and [one] Lant proof sheet... If Nelson Standart, Andrew Howland, Frances Newbrough-Howland and Justine B. Newbrough had cooperated with him [Hyslop], the over-500 John Lant proof sheets [an earlier MS of Oahspe] and the original typewritten Oahspe manuscript would all be safe in the A.S.P.R. archives today.19 Nevertheless Jim Dennon, being the most energetic and steadfast Oahspe scholar of the 20th century, did indeed manage to resuscitate Standart's brief but vital Notes in 1963, obtained from a grand-nephew of Dr. Newbrough's!  23 A decade earlier, Jim Dennon was still a young man when, stationed in El Paso, Texas, in 1953, he happened to find a Blue Oahspe (Wing Anderson's edition) at the local library. Intrigued and entirely "alone with Oahspe," he kept the subject in mind, and arriving in Los Angeles some years later, to attend college, he found Wing Anderson and stayed in touch with him afterward. Jim's first fine paper was entitled "The Oahspe Story." Later on, in the 1980s, Jim, as the guiding light of the "Oahspe Research Group," consolidated a great deal of information for the student of Newbrough and the Kosmon revelations. No one comes close to the dedication, cogency and accuracy of Dennon's outstanding contribution. Considering that he had no access to the Bates letters (see Chap. 5) he did a great job. The present book draws substantially from Jim's heroic effort, Dr. Newbrough and Oahspe, published by the Faithist Journal and later submitted on April 5, 1984 to NMSU's Historical Collections. At the same time that Jim, a true-blue faithist, was gathering steam for the very difficult job of putting flesh on the skeleton of the Newbrough story, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico/Albuquerque embarked on a doctoral dissertation which would be titled "John Ballou Newbrough and the Oahspe Bible." Daniel Nathan Simundson, who had already gotten his MA at Vanderbilt University in 1966, submitted his very thorough, painstaking, full-length thesis in 1972, contributing substantially to the meager corpus of Newbrough biography. But alas, the work is colored with the outsider's skepticism. Even cynicism. Like Priestley and Wiley (see Appendix A: Errata) who also wrote about Newbrough but were not faithists, Simundson was perched on the outside looking in. Often his sophomoric judgments amount to little more than the materialist's pot shots at the Idealist. Faithist are idealists, believing in the perfectibility of man; they hold the dream, the vision, for the whole world; they are the mustard seed for the truth and justice that will, soon or late, sprout in the new garden of Kosmon. At the same time that Simundson found the faithist story a fascinating-enough subject for his Ph.D. thesis, he was critical of this new/old religion, deriding its aspirations, scoffing at its requirements ("incredible demands"), and orbiting comfortably in the  24 very Uzzian circuit that the spirit of faithism renounces. While Simundson is certainly entitled to his opinion as much as anyone else, the faithist cringes (and the non-faithist is often misled) by his biased analyses and barbed phrasing: JB, for example, was a "chronic reformer" (is this a disease?) who was "obsessed" with the rescue of orphans, and whose political fulminations were a "tedious barrage." While Simundson may, in truth, be close to the mark in appraising JB's (somewhat amateurish) fictional works (his novels) as written in a "concocted, clumsy style," he takes an exceedingly shallow approach to Newbrough's more serious endeavors. We may wonder indeed if Simundson had any understanding at all of Newbrough's inner quest, having branded him � "a theological gourmet [who] selected choice cuts from the smorgasbord of the world's religions garnished with doses of spiritualism." Aside from its cattiness, this, as we will see, is a deeply flawed and completely inappropriate critique. Finally, this writer gets caught in downright stupid arguments in order to deride both JB and Oahspe. A single example of his syllogistic idiocy: (a) because JB liked to travel, and (b) because the gods and goddesses in Oahspe are constantly traveling � therefore, this proves that (c) Oahspe was JB's own personal creation, and not divine revelation!20 That blue Oahspe which Jim Dennon found in the El Paso Public Library had been published by Wing Anderson. Twenty years earlier, in 1933, Wing had driven to El Paso, Texas, to meet Justine Newbrough (Jone), who at that time owned the copyright to Oahspe. She sold him the second edition (1891) printing plates for Oahspe along with 2700 unbound copies of the 1910 American edition. Two years later, in 1935, Wing released his first edition of Oahspe, with a dark blue cover. Over the years, he befriended Jone who had worked as a journalist, married a Mr. Williams, bore three children, divorced, changed her  25 name, and moved to southern California in 1938. That was the year that Wing's copyright ran out; and he did not renew, leaving the Book now in the public domain.21 Meanwhile Wing employed Jone's family in his book selling business, for he wrote a series of prophecy books during the war years largely based on Oahspe predictions. In 1944, Wing went on to establish a faithist community in North Salt Lake, Utah: the Essenes of Kosmon (after having started a similar group in California in 1932). It disbanded in 1957. Wing Anderson was a faithist for forty years; he had "found" Oahspe in 1930; and passed into spirit in 1970 at the age of 80. After 1935 he continued to put out editions of Oahspe, and managed to sell perhaps 50,000 of them. As Laura Horst has stated, faithists owe a debt of gratitude to Wing for keeping Oahspe in print in the mid-20th century: "During all the years from 1935 to 1960, the Oahspes published by Wing Anderson were the only ones published in the United States." Wing may also be credited with preserving photocopies of the 12 paintings of the prophets done by Newbrough (Chap. 6), as well as sharing them freely with other faithists, in addition to acquiring about 80 pages of the Lant proof sheets (Chap. 5), now known as The Book of Knowledge. Wing was also Archivist of the faithists for a time, Percy Wiksell having passed this trust on to Wing after holding it himself in the period following the dissolution of Shalam. Wing's archives were stored "in a casket, containing some of Newbrough's personal articles, various manuscripts, etc."22 But the story goes that Wing caught the "bonfire spirit" (as did Jone) and burnt much of his archives; having been stopped from destroying the Bates letters (see Chap. 5) only by another faithist. Nevertheless Wing warned all future comers that everything we know about Newbrough is "second-hand information .......hearsay." Every would-be biographer, advised Wing, should state this in his preface. In June, 1963, Wing wrote a few letters to Jim Dennon which (miraculously) were preserved : "...I have learned everything possible about Newbrough, Shalam, [etc.] ... I have three or four large steel cases filled with material gathered over thirty+ years from all over the world about Newbrough and faithist efforts. I call this material `ESSENE  26 ARCHIVES'. It would be a revelation to any sincere student of Oahspe. I am 73 years old, and do not think I will be around much longer. Who will continue the work only God knows. I do not. Cheerio, Wing Anderson." Are these promising archives all lost to us? No amount of asking has produced an answer. Though Jone and Wing did not lose contact entirely, the relationship became strained when Jone decided to end her association with all Oahspe people. Although she (in 1960, at age 76) made a point of stressing this when she consented to be interviewed/taped by Wing (for the last time) ------- seven years later she practically dictated Mrs. Wiley's book to her! (see below). It seems that the friendship between Newbrough's daughter Jone and Dr. Wing Anderson, despite its problems, lasted for decades. Interesting, because these are perhaps the two most controversial figures in modern faithist memory --- Wing, for both his accomplishments and his cantankerous ways, and Jone... well, let us take a little look at this Jone Howlind (aka Etisyai, Tisha, Edith, Justine) who I include here among Newbrough biographers for two reasons: (1) She authored an extensive and informative article about her father and the Children's Land for the New Mexico Historical Review, entitled "Shalam: Facts vs. Fiction" (1945).  27 (2) Jone was the "inspiration" and primary source of facts (and fiction) for Elnora W. Wiley's weird little book, Inside the Shalam Colony, much of which was fed to Wiley, in 1967, through letters from, and phone conversations with, Jone. Wiley recounts � She told me, "Don't write with footnotes and such junk. Tell a story , my story, warm and revealing... No one else can relate the story I share with you... "A `good read' is what we want to produce. I don't want a documentary, my dear, but a good story based on my memories."/ p. v-vi. The problem with this cozy Jone/Elnora collaboration is that today's researcher often has no way of sorting truth from half-truth, or embellishment from outright fabrication.23 Jone, it seems, had a hurt, an open wound, to placate...maybe she would rewrite history a bit to suit her dudgeon. As a small child living in Shalam (toward the end of the 19th century), Jone � then called Tisha � felt an affective/attentional lack in her bond to both father and mother. Newbrough, so often secluding himself, and so preoocupied with "the main chance," may not have spent that much time with his little daughter. Jone has Mrs. Wiley (page 65) recounting that the little red-haired girl "basked in the attention" of some of the other men colonists who "adored [the]...pretty child." As for her mother, Frances, she was overwhelmingly busy caring for the Shalam babies. Tisha "had not gotten much attention from her mother, for the little ones had taken it." And, au fond, Jone was deeply disturbed by the circumstances of her own birth --- illegitimate. She "never forgave" Newbrough for fathering her out of wedlock. And after Newbrough died, and Frances married Andrew Howland, a new set of resentments formed in Jone's psyche. "Do you wonder that I don't hate my own father?" � Jone/1960 Her heart was bleeding for her step-dad Andrew Howland who, having spent all his fortune on Shalam, ended up selling milk products door-to-door in Las Cruces. Jone claimed her beloved stepfather had been "mesmerized by Newbrough and that goddam book!" Yeah --- Oahspe. "Idiocy, plain idiocy," she howled over Andrew's devotion to the Father's kingdom on earth. And Oahspe? � It's "a lot of bunk � impractical!" "Damned, dumb, stupid faithists" � Jone Howlind/Tape, 1960  28 In her own life, it was not Oahspe that Jone would draw inspiration from, but occult fads such as Numerology, according to whose wizardry, the letter A somehow was "weak," so she changed her name from Joan Howland to Jone Howlind thus eliminating the offending "a"s in the spelling of her name. A neighbor from El Paso days would remember that Justine/Jone became hipped on numerology, had divorced Mr. Willians, and revamped her name to relieve all objectionable features from both causes, i.e., Justine was transformed into Jone (she told me afterward that she chose it for the pronunciation, not knowing that "Joan" bore the same sound), her maiden name became "Howlind"...[and] her children were likewise renamed under numerological auspices.24 Strangely vacillating between outright fury and affectionate respect toward Newbrough, Jone one time dumps on him and the next time defends his character and nobility to the fullest! (as she did in the 1945 NMHR article). Jim Dennon25 provides these telling comments on Jone � She said that the 1960 tape recording would be the last time she would talk to anyone about Dr. Newbrough or Oahspe, for she loathed Oahspeans or Faithists and called them "the scum of the earth." In order to be a friend of hers, one must drink, smoke or eat meat! And concerning the bonfire: ...she states that she built a very nice bonfire in their back yard [in El Paso] one day and enjoyed very much burning up all of those paintings. She didn't say it, but presumably the original Scholes [sic] typewriter manuscript of Oahspe was probably part of the same fire. JB's 8x16 painting emblematic of Christian religion (See Ch. 6) was part of the enjoyable auto de fe. "Oh, I burned that up, too. I never had such a good time." *** To the reader: a critique of other Newbrough biographers appears in Appendix A: Errata.  29 PROLOGUE Go now, hasten to the red star and provide a remedy. � Book of Sue 1870. 128 West 34th Street, New York City. In glory, 22 years up from the founding year of Kosmon (1848), a congress of angels descended from their high place and appeared at dawn in the bedchamber of the good doctor. He had been sleeping nicely when he felt a hand on his shoulder. A voice said, Wake up, doctor. Everything is all right. I only want to ask you a question, and we will go. Neither has it ever happened on the earth with any individual man, raised up by me or my Lords for a specific work; like Moses or Ka'yu or Sakaya or any other, that they knew of or boasted of any special angels over them; but all of them experienced the light, which was as a pillar of fire. [e.a.] � O JB rubbed his eyes and saw that the room was lit up with pillars of a soft light so pleasing to the eyes that it was indescribable. He saw a great number of beautiful spirits or angels, and though he did not have a good look at them, he thought he recognized three of them. They did not have wings. Some three years later, at the Eddy farm in Vermont to which  30 JB traveled to investigate spiritual manifestations of the first order, again a great number of beautiful spirits would appear in like manner: ...the room became to the clairvoyant suffused with a great light, as though a full moon had suddenly risen upon her vision...The walls of the apartment, as transparent as crystal, disclosed a multitude of spirits stretching upward and backward � a great host that no man could number...showering sparks of light more brilliant than diamonds. (Olcott, 219) The multitude of spirits stood in sharp contrast to the individual spirits that customarily visited mediums of the day. It was a parliament of angels that had appeared, a phalanx. And they covenanted themselves not to return again ... save they came in phalanxes.... -O JB sat up in bed, becoming more alert, and agreeing to listen, whereon the voice simply said � Would you like to perform a mission for Jehovih? "What is the mission, so that I may know whether to say yes or no?" The exact mission was not revealed, but the answer came back � Jehovih would like you to live spiritually for ten years, and at the end of that time we will come back and tell you what it is that we desire, for your body and mind are not sufficiently perceptible now. You must be pure. "What do you mean by living spiritually?" The voice replied that they wanted him to become vegetarian � no meat, fish, etc. � and to eat less and lose weight. --- One thing is very important: you m [... excerpt truncated; full document held on file, contact an admin for the complete text ...]