American messiahs : false prophets of a damned nation / Adam Morris.

Title:

Author:

Morris, Adam, 1983-

ISBN:

9781631492136

1631492136

Edition:

First edition.

Publication Info:

New York :

Description:

413 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Subject(s):

Cults -- United States -- History.

Holds: Copies (not including on-order items):

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Call Number	Shelf Location	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Monument Library	Book	206 MORR	Nonfiction	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Mania surrounding messianic prophets has defined the national consciousness since the American Revolution. From Civil War veteran and virulent anticapitalist Cyrus Teed, to the dapper and overlooked civil rights pioneer Father Divine, to even the megalomaniacal Jim Jones, these figures have routinely been dismissed as dangerous and hysterical outliers.

After years of studying these emblematic figures, Adam Morris demonstrates that messiahs are not just a classic trope of our national culture; their visions are essential for understanding American history. As Morris demonstrates, these charismatic, if flawed, would-be prophets sought to expose and ameliorate deep social ills--such as income inequality, gender conformity, and racial injustice. Provocative and long overdue, this is the story of those who tried to point the way toward an impossible "American Dream": men and women who momentarily captured the imagination of a nation always searching for salvation.

Author Notes

Adam Morris is a writer and literary translator whose work has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the Believer, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, and elsewhere. He lives in San Francisco.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Scholar and journalist Morris examines the theological, ideological, and personal relationships among a series of American spiritual leaders over the course of two centuries in his captivating debut. He argues that these messianic figures-such as Civil War veteran and anticapitalist Cyrus Teed, civil rights pioneer Father Divine, and cult leader Jim Jones-compose a movement and shared a conscious rejection of the individualism engendered by "capitalism and exclusionary social hierarchies." Hoping to restore "primitive" religion to a modern age in need, these figures often emerged from reform movements and embraced communal living, celibacy, and new scientific theories. Though the book examines familiar figures such as 18th-century Shaker Ann Lee, many of these messiahs-including Cyrus Teed, Father Divine, charismatic Quaker Universal Friend (born Jemima Wilkinson), and 19th-century California spiritualist Thomas Lake Harris-will be new to a general audience. Morris's research is extensive, and his reconstruction of his subjects' complex personal histories is impressive. Readers hoping for salacious tales will find a few of those too, though in the main these leaders were troubled by the physiology of the brain, the difficulties of running communities, and the aspirations of underlings who might contest their claims to divinity. Morris's work is a fine examination of a series of Americans whose lives and missions shed light on the dominant institutions and values they sought to subvert. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Most cultural historians see mass delusion in the murder-suicide of the fanatics who perished with the Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana in 1978. Morris sees much more. In Jones, he discerns an American messiah whose social gospel traces back to Jemima Wilkinson and Ann Lee, whose messianic leadership inspired the Shaker movement. The Shakers disappeared, but Morris faults religious historians for not recognizing the repeated reemergence of kindred communities of messianic socialism. Readers learn, for instance, about the Poet, Thomas Luke Harris, leader of group seances among his Apostolic Brotherhood; about Dr. Cyrus Teed, known as Koresh to followers, who quivered at his apocalyptic jeremiads; about George Baker, an African American messiah who, as Father Divine, celebrated energized communion services that anticipated the civil rights movement. Though they will recognize linkages between Jones and his predecessors, readers may marvel that because those messiahs rejected capitalism and the traditional nuclear family, Morris actually regards Jones' followers as representative of a truer American Christianity than that found among conservative churchgoers. Astonishing sympathy for a lethal cult.--Bryce Christensen Copyright 2018 Booklist

Choice Review

Morris, a freelance writer and translator, focuses on American religious movements with founders or leaders who claimed to be divine or were regarded by followers as somehow possessing a divine nature. Most had Utopian visions that, when implemented, would allow devotees to experience a heavenly existence on Earth. Morris directs attention primarily to Jemima Wilkinson (1752--1819), Shaker founder Ann Lee (1736--84), Andrew Jackson Davis (1826--1920), Thomas Lake Harris (1823--1906), Cyrus Teed (1839--1908) and the Koreshan Unity, Father Divine (1877--1965) and his Peace Mission, and Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones (1931--78). Drawing on a host of primary sources, Morris describes these figures and their associated movements in lush detail. However, a lack of analysis leaves readers yearning for more. Morris does not, for example, probe the social and cultural context in which each emerged to see if certain conditions make messianic religious movements plausible. Nor does he probe the nature of charismatic leadership and what transpires when a charismatic, purportedly divine founder dies. The title suggests there is something uniquely "American" about all this, but Morris does not examine that in depth. These shortcomings rule this book out as a scholarly resource, but lay readers may enjoy it. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers. --Charles H. Lippy, emeritus, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Library Journal Review

Independent scholar Morris considers the Puritans, who came to America to reestablish the "pure" Christianity of the early church based on ideals of mutual aid and equal acceptance, in this examination of the history of messianic movements. He details how eclectic leaders, their followers, and movements often appealed to the highest tenets of equality, racial justice, gender parity, and shared wealth. In an early example, he describes how Jemima Smith in 1776 claimed she had died and been reborn as the Public Universal Friend, founding an itinerant public ministry, dressed as a man, to establish the New Jerusalem. He continues to trace the lineage of messianic movements up to Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple massacre in 1978. America's long tolerance of religious cults almost disappeared after this tragedy when an anticult mentality developed. The book closes with a look at the current singularity movement, which melds messianic tropes with technology to claim that humans in union with artificial intelligence will become software and live forever. VERDICT Scholars of American religious history will appreciate this meticulously crafted account.-Judy Solberg, Sacramento, CA © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Foreword	p. xiii
Introduction: The Messianic Impulse in America	p. 1
1 Women in the Wilderness
1 The Person Formerly Known as Jemima Wilkinson	p. 13
2 The Universal Friends	p. 21
3 The All-Friend in the City of Brotherly Love	p. 33
4 New Jerusalem	p. 41
5 Mother Ann	p. 49
6 The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing	p. 55
7 The Era of Manifestations	p. 65
2 The Chosen Vessel
8 America's Best-Known Mystic	p. 71
9 The Poughkeepsie Seer	p. 76
10 The Fox Sisters	p. 84
11 The Apostolic Circle	p. 90
12 Poet in New York	p. 97
13 The Brotherhood of the New Life	p. 104
14 Salem-on-Erie	p. 108
15 California Idyll	p. 117
16 Paradise Lost	p. 124
3 The Great Cosmic Egg
17 A Messianic Meeting	p. 131
18 Koresh, Shepherd of God	p. 134
19 The New Age	p. 142
20 Dr. Teed's Benefactresses	p. 149
21 Teed Goes Mental	p. 156
22 The Koreshan Unity	p. 160
23 Messiah on the Move	p. 167
24 Another New Jerusalem	p. 176
25 A Test of Immortality	p. 184
4 The Glo-Rays of God
26 Divine Transformations	p. 197
27 The Messenger	p. 205
28 Trouble in Paradise	p. 213
29 The Harlem Kingdom	p. 227
30 Promised Lands	p. 237
31 Heaven Trembles	p. 247
32 Righteous Government	p. 253
33 Philadelphia	p. 260
5 Fall of the Sky God
34 Jim Jones	p. 269
35 Divine Aspirations	p. 280
36 The Minister Wanders	p. 287
37 California Mystics	p. 294
38 New Directions	p. 304
39 Going Communal	p. 311
40 Peoples Temple Hits the Road	p. 318
41 Backlash	p. 327
42 Jonestown	p. 343
Epilogue	p. 352
Acknowledgments	p. 361
Notes	p. 363
Bibliography	p. 383
Additional Sources	p. 391
Index	p. 395

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