Harris, THOMAS LAKE

Harris, THOMAS LAKE, founder of the 'Brotherhood of the New Life,' was born at Fenny Stratford, in Buckinghamshire, 15th May 1823, accompanied his father to America, and had in turn been a Universalist pastor, and founded an 'Independent Christian Society,' when in 1850 he was drawn into the spiritualistic movement. He lectured in Great Britain in 1858, and on his return to America reorganised his society as the 'Brotherhood of the New Life.' Property was not held in common, and farming and industrial occupations were engaged in by his followers, numbering at one time about 2000 in America and Great Britain, amongst them Lady Oliphant and her son Laurence Oliphant. Harris was again in Europe in 1866. Latterly he settled in California. His community had no written creed or form of government. Harris acted as the inspired head of the brotherhood, his system combining the doctrines of Swedenborg and of Fourier, while maintaining the authority of the Scriptures and the sacredness of the marriage tie. He also taught that God is two-in-one, infinite in fatherhood and motherhood, and that all who become angels find their counterpart in sex, and are two-in-one to all eternity. Harris has published many works in prose and poetry, amongst which are Wisdom of Angels (1856); Arcana of Christianity (1857); Modern Spiritualism (1860), &c. The influence of the teaching of Harris may be traced in Laurence Oliphant's Sympneumata (1885) and his Scientific Religion (1888); as also in Pulsford's Morgenröthe (1881). See William Oxley's Modern Messiahs and Wonder-workers (1889).