Sex Cult Winery Investigation 3-10-09

Thomas Lake Harris (the person)

Early life

Harris was born at Fenny Stratford in Buckinghamshire, England. His parents were Calvinistic Baptists, and very poor. They settled at Utica, New York, when Harris was five years old. When he was about twenty Harris became a Universalist preacher, and then a Swedenborgian. He became associated about 1847 with a spiritualist of questionable character named Davis. After Davis had been publicly exposed, Harris established a congregation in New York.

Preaching

About 1850 Harris professed to receive inspirations, and published some long poems. He had the gift of improvisation in a very high degree. About 1859 he preached in London, and is described as a man with low, black eyebrows, black beard, and sallow countenance. He was an effective speaker, and his poetry was admired by many; Alfred Austin in his book The Poetry of the Period even devoted a chapter to Harris. Harris was able to compose verse in his head and dictate it in essentially finished form. This talent supported his claim that he was in mental contact with spirit entities such as "The Lily Queen." It also led to the leadership of a small religious cult to whose members received Harris's regular revelations from the Beyond.

Commune

Harris founded in 1861 a commune, or utopian religious community at Wassaic, New York, and opened a bank and a mill, which he superintended. There he was joined by about sixty converts, including five orthodox clergymen, some twenty Japanese from Satsuma Province, some American ladies of position, and most prominently by Laurence Oliphant with his wife and mother. The community — the Brotherhood of the New Life — decided to settle at the village of Brocton, New York on the shore of Lake Erie.

In Brocton, Harris established a winemaking industry. In reply to the objections of teetotallers, Harris said that the wine prepared by himself was filled with the divine breath so that all noxious influences were neutralized. Harris also built a tavern and strongly advocated the use of tobacco. He exacted complete surrender from his disciples, even the surrender of moral judgment. He taught that God was bisexual, and apparently, though not in reality, that the rule of society should be one of married celibacy. He professed to teach his community a change in the mode of respiration which was to be the visible sign of possession by Christ and the seal of immortality.

Later Years

Harris took part of the community to Santa Rosa, California, where he created the Fountain Grove community in about 1875. For a time in 1876 Harris discontinued public activities, but issued, to a secret circle, books of verse dwelling mainly on sexual questions. In 1891 he announced that his body had been renewed, and that he had discovered the secret of the resuscitation of humanity. He also made a third marriage, and visited England intending to remain there. However, Harris was called back by a fire which destroyed large stocks of his wine, and remained in New York till 1903, when he visited Glasgow. His followers believed that he had attained the secret of immortal life on earth, and after his death on the 23rd of March 1906 declared that he was only sleeping. It was three months before it was acknowledged publicly that he was really dead. He was succeeded by Nagasawa Kanaye, who led the sect until his death in 1934.

In 1860 a fellow named Thomas Lake Harris formed an organization called the Brotherhood of the New Life. He got a good deal on the Fountaingrove land and built a mansion for himself, two separate huge living quarters for the men and women of his cult, and the enormous winery. Although his wine was internationally known and drank, the New Life was the real backbone and underbelly of the winery and Fountaingrove area.

Harris’ cult, like most cults, had strange tenets and rules. The Brotherhood believed in turning over all material wealth to Harris, who assumed his supreme divinity. Emphasis was also placed on deep breathing and refraining for sex until finding the chosen celestial mate. How one decided what that meant exactly, I’m not sure. Harris also apparently wrote really lousy poetry and sent it out to people all over the world.

But the Brotherhood couldn’t last forever. A traveling writer started a community flare-up with an alleged expose of Fountaingrove, “revealing” that Harris had been sleeping with all the women in his cult. No one knows if it was true or if the traveling writer just wanted an ego boost and found it in spreading gossip. Nevertheless, Thomas Lake Harris was basically forced into leaving town, and he left the winery to his Japanese assistant, Kanawe Nagasawa, who ran it quite successfully until his death in 1934.

Since a large fire burned half the winery in 1991, a fence has been surrounding the grounds, but there’s almost always holes to climb through. Mostly teenagers go there to get loaded, and I wish more people would take a serious interest in the winery and its zany past. Imagine if a cult moved to Santa Rosa today! There would be mayhem! But in 1875 it was okay. Why? What made people so tolerant? The fact that Thomas Lake Harris was making the killer wine? Who knows.