The
advance of “Christian Socialism”[1]
was also part of the Mount-Temples’s spirituality. They “loved heartily” their “dear friends”
and fellow leaders in “Christian Socialism,” such as “Charles Kingsley” and
“Tom Hughes,”[2] who first met Mr. Mount-Temple at the first
Broadlands Conference in 1874. However,
Mr. Mount-Temple outshone them all in the battle for socialism: “[I]n the early days of Christian Socialism,
. . . [the] movement [was] so vehemently and widely denounced, [but Mr.
Mount-Temple] was from the first an advocate and liberal supporter, and, from
his social and public position, risked more than all the rest of [its leaders]
put together.”[3] Attacks on freedom and the spread of
socialism under the guise of Christianity were important parts of the Cowper-Temples’s
religion.
When
the Cowper-Temples declared that they received alleged truths from “all sects”
and “schools of thought,”[4]
their “all” was no exaggeration—as strong continuationists because of their
belief in the Quaker doctrine of the Divine Seed, they happily received the
allegedly inspired teachings of the most twisted cultists and vilest fanatics,
as they exalted, listening to, and obeyed their heart’s voice (cf. Jeremiah
17:9).[5] They warmly held the “belief in the revival
of the prophetic gifts which Christ had bestowed on his apostles for all men
with a living faith.”[6] The couple consequently rejoiced in the
demonically-manipulated perfectionist and cult leader Edward Irving and his
Apostle, Henry Drummond. Irving founded
of the Catholic Apostolic Church,[7]
predicted the end of the world in 1868, affirmed that Christ had adopted man’s
fallen nature, claimed that the gift of tongues and other first century
miraculous gifts had been restored among his followers, and vigorously
maintained other heresies, which Drummond faithfully supported and
promulgated. Mrs. Mount-Temple narrated:
Mr. Henry Drummond . . . [was] a very special
influence which affected [Mr. Mount-Temple’s] religious views[.] . . . At
Albury, Mr. Drummond and Lady Harriet, the Duchess of Northumberland (then Lady
Lovaine), and Lady Gage, the other daughter, were all very kind to us, and hoped perhaps that we should
join the Apostolic Church, of which Mr. Drummond was an Apostle.
It was all very interesting and hope-giving, and opened
a new region to us. All we heard of the
birth and development of this Church was thrilling. . . . Haldane Stewart had
instituted . . . a system of prayer . . . for a special outpouring of the
Spirit. He and other devout friends
assembled at Albury, and there was, they believed, such a miraculous answer,
that it was to them as a second Pentecost.
Some began to speak under spiritual influences, and through these
persons, endued, they believed, with the prophetic gift, a most beautiful
Church system was organized, not, they said, by their own will or wisdom, but
by the Spirit of God.
They believed the Lord was soon to return [that is, in
1868], and that a new body of apostles and faithful disciples were called out
to receive Him. They called this the Elias
ministry. . . . They believed apostles were appointed supernaturally to rule
the Church universal. Prophets were
inspired to teach and evangelists sent forth with power [now that these offices
had been restored in their religious organization; before that time] the prophetic gift was
unknown, and the apostolic universal ministry had been lost. . . . [T]his [was
a] really splendid ideal of a Church. . . . [It greatly influenced] my
husband’s religious development.
The kindled hope of the Lord’s speedy approach, the
calling out of Apostles, and of an elect body to meet Him, greatly quickened
our spiritual life. We attended their
beautiful services, we listenened to [their] eloquent and fervent appeals[.] .
. .
We hung on Mr. Drummond’s words for hours, while he
described to us this wonderful ideal[.] . . . He was indeed one of the last men
. . . whom one could suspect of any fanaticism or spiritual aberration.[8] . . . Imagine such a man an Apostle . . . bringing in
the Kingdom of God. . . . This was the new world in which we found ourselves,
and very kindling and entrancing it was!
I was carried away by it[.] . . . It deeply moved
William, but he did not feel called to leave the place and the duties to which
he was attached. . . . [W]hat remained to us of the teaching and blessing of
this time [was,] [f]irst of all, the revival of spiritual life [that is, the
Higher Life]; then, a much wider view of
the Church . . . includ[ing] all who have been baptized . . . comprising
therefore the members of the Roman and Greek Churches, and all Nonconformists
[as well as] Quakers [as] the descendants of those within the covenant of
baptism. . . . [S]pecial truth [was] confided to . . . the Unitarians . . .
[while] the Friends [received the] . . . special truth . . . [of] the Inner
Light . . . the Wesleyans [of] . . . perfection, etc. All one body . . . [Drummond] taught us also
the meaning of Symbols, and of Ritual . . . [t]he members of the Apostolic
Church hold that the Lord is truly present in Holy Communion[.] . . . So it
was, that without joining the Apostolic Church, William always felt much
indebted to the teaching we received [from them] at Albury[.][9]
Thus, from
Irving’s Catholic Apostolic cult, the Cowper-Temples were encouraged in
ecumenicalism, continuationism, post-conversion Spirit baptism with miraculous
results, the Inner Light, the Real Presence, perfectionism, and the Higher
Life, all of which flourished at their Broadlands Conferences and at the
Keswick Conventions which developed from them.
Spiritualism
was at the root of the Higher Life beliefs of Mr. and Mrs. Mount-Temple.[10] Mrs. Cowper-Temple explained that, having
first heard of spiritualism in 1857 and becoming fully initiated by 1861, she
led her husband also to embrace the occult,[11]
so that Mr. Mount-Temple “gathered all the good he could from spiritualism, and
was helped . . . leading us to a higher life.”[12] The couple attended a vast number of séances,[13]
seeing there great marvels performed by, as they thought, the dead who had been
conjured up. They learned, contrary to 1
Corinthians 15, that the true resurrection is not that of the body, but the
rising into the realm of the spirits—the Higher Life.[14] They not only were spiritualists themselves,
but sought—successfully—to lead others into their fellowship with devils,[15]
as they were “always ready to introduce” their friends, such as Hannah W.
Smith, “to influential people among the spiritualists.”[16] They greatly advanced the careers of
self-professed “Christian spiritualist” ministers such as H. R. Haweis.[17] They “studied the . . . writings of
Swedenborg,”[18] “the
great spiritualist of the eighteenth century,”[19]
and Swedenborg’s writings and friends were continued influences at Broadlands
and its Conferences.[20] Indeed, spiritualism was promoted at the
Broadlands Conferences, where it fit well with the doctrine of the erotic
spiritual Baptism: “Each meeting
included discussions on the uses of Spiritualism, the role of entrancement, the
role of prayer, and the mission of God in the world.”[21] The Mount Temples’s longing for restored
miracles and a Higher Life was satisfied by the spirits with whom they became
familiar through séances.[22] For example, they conversed with the spirit
of Frederick Lamb, a Viscount, who told Mr. Mount-Temple where he could find
assorted letters and speeches and commanded that they be published.[23] Lord Palmerston, who had been dead for 13
months, similarly told Mr. Mount-Temple where important memoranda could be
found.[24] They worked with mediums who “engaged in
extensive automatic writing . . . and . . . often left [their] body to traverse
the spheres,” while also working wonderful cures [of sickness].”[25] At various séances, and in the company of
other spiritualists, including those they had proselyted into spiritualism, the
Mount-Temples experienced the supernatural signs and wonders that they had been
seeking:
[Prophetic] message[s] . . . [were given through
using] a ouija board[.] . . . [A] wonderous demonstration [took place] of a
table dancing in tune with music played on a piano apparently by invisible
hands [for a while until they] heard departing footsteps and the [spirit’s]
farewell, “Dear earthly friends, good night.” . . . [T]able rapping and
spiritual music . . . table tilting and levitation . . . psychical responses sent
through clairvoyant visions or spirit writing moving [one’s] fingers when . . .
in a state of trance [were experienced]. . . .
[G]uests pressing their fingers lightly to the tops of two tables, [Mr.
Temple recorded,] “the large table danced in time to a country dance & the
little table rose & being suspended in the air the feet be[in]g about 1
foot from the ground & it rapped against the edge of a sofa . . . it also
heaved as if at the top of a wave & tilted to the side.” . . . [Séances were
discussed where] fresh eggs, fruit, and flowers would descend from the ceiling
. . . [although some were] amazed with the triviality of the manifestations.[26] . . . [S]pirits moving about the room [caused] ferns
[to] shake[.] . . . [A medium] elongating his body by some six to eight inches
in a trance [was also] summoning luminous forms visible to guests. . . .
[O]bjects materiali[zed] without the aid of a medium[.] . . . [Many] messages
from the dead [were delivered.][27]
While the
Mount-Temples led many to adopt spiritualism, some of their converts came to
suspect the true source of the manifestations.
For example, one who had been converted to spiritualism by the
Mount-Temples and attended numerous séances with them wrote to Mrs. Mount-Temple
in April 1868:
Could anything more perfectly answer the description
of a “familiar or household spirit” [Leviticus 19:31; 20:6, 27, etc.]—than that
thing—if a true thing—that came . . . and answered the question—“Have you any
News?[”]—“I haven’t got any”? Think of
it! [If the Testament is true,] I have no doubt that it is your duty at once to
abstain from all these things . . . [and] to receive what you have seen of them [the spirits] as an
awful sign of the now active presence of the Fiend among us.[28]
The
manifestations, this more discerning convert recognized, were “beneath the
dignity of an intelligent God”—therefore, “have done with ‘Mediums.’”[29] However, the Mount-Temples, despite being
confronted with the plain warnings of Scripture, did not take heed to this
advice. Mr. Mount-Temple continued to be
so enchanted with spiritualism that he was even nursed by a medium in his last
illness.[30] He never decided to reject them as Satanic,
for they were among “the great cloud of witnesses encircling the world.”[31] Besides, “the presence of unseen heavenly
ones added to the deep gladness that was felt”[32]
at the Broadlands Conventions, so the spirits of the dead must have been good
because they made people feel the happiness of the Higher Life. Likewise, Mrs. Mount-Temple, even to the end
of her life, was never freed from the influence of mediums.[33] After all, as she had learned from them,
“Spiritualism [was] . . . the handmaid of Christianity.”[34] Mrs. Mount-Temple even exercised supernatural
powers herself; for example, one day
when a man was suffering from a sickness, she threw a lady into a trance so
that the cure for the disease could be obtained by prophecy, and then brought
the lady out of the trace—“another bit of witchery.”[35] In the 1870s, when the Higher Life meetings
at Broadlands were founded and Mr. and Mrs. Mount-Temple were promoting Robert
and Hannah Whitall Smith, as well as cultists like Laurence Oliphant, the
“Cowper-Temples . . . met the best-known mediums of this decade,” bringing “the
greatest of the English mediums, with whom they had been attending séances . .
. to Broadlands . . . [b]y 1874,”[36]
the very year Mr. Mount-Temple asked the spirits during a séance for permission
to become a medium himself to further his spiritual growth.[37] Thus, in 1874 Mr. Mount-Temple, seeking the
Higher Life, both asked for permission to become a medium and thrust the
Pearsall Smiths into the limelight in that fateful Higher Life Conference on
their property. Indeed, the Mount-Temples
were “one of the earliest” to explore “spiritualism” in England.[38] Broadlands truly was a very spiritual
place—mediums validated that “all manners of ghosts [were] about the house,”[39]
since “[c]ontact with ghosts helped shape both Lady and Lord Mount Temple’s
futures and day-to-day living.”[40] The day after the 1874 Broadlands Conference
that germinated the Keswick theology, Mrs. Cowper-Temple had reached such a
spiritual height in her Higher Life that she attended a séance to see if more
of the spirit of a dead man, John King, would materialize than in the last attempt
to contact him—previously, only his head had materialized, and Mrs.
Cowper-Temple was hoping for more in her post-Conference séance.[41] Truly, Mr. and Mrs. Cowper-Temple lived a
supernatural and spiritual life, and the spirits that gathered there contributed
to the supernatural and spiritual Higher Life that so many led at
Broadlands. Such was the place, and such
were the promoters, of the Broadlands Conference for the promotion of the
Higher Life that hatched the Keswick system.
This entire study can be accessed here.
[1] Pg. 9, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982. The Bible
teaches an economic system that values private property (Exodus 20:15), free
enterprise (Matthew 20:2), and economic freedom (Mt 20:15), rather than
socialism or communism in any form.
Scripture teaches that taxation on income should be below a flat 10%
rate—any higher rate is a curse and a form of slavery (1 Samuel 8:6-8, 15,
17-18). “Redistributing” wealth—the government taking from one person by force
through taxation to give to someone else it believes is more worthy—is ungodly (1
Samuel 8:14-15). Governments that redistribute wealth are stealing (Exodus
20:15), just like a robber who “redistributes” what a person owns. Such
practices are considered in Scripture to be pagan (1 Samuel 8:19-20),
tyrannical (1 Samuel 8:17-18), and oppressive (1 Samuel 12:3). Devaluing
currency—as the government does by creating inflation—is also stealing (Isaiah
1:22, 25). National debt is a curse (Deuteronomy 28:12, 44). Bribery—including
bribing certain classes of people to vote a certain way by promises of
government handouts—is a sin and “perverted judgment” (1 Samuel 8:3), for the
government is to be impartial and neither favor the rich or poor (Deuteronomy
16:19; Exodus 23:3; Proverbs 22:16). God commands individual believers and
churches to generously and selflessly help the needy and poor (2 Thessalonians
3:10; Galatians 6:10; Luke 6:35), and not to do so is sinful, but for the
government to employ force to extract money from people to give to either the
rich or poor is the sin of stealing, not charity or generosity. Such Biblical teachings make the idea of a
“Christian socialism” an oxymoron, similar to “Christian atheism” or “holy
sinning.”
[2] Pg.
106, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron
Mount-Temple],
Georgina Cowper-Temple. London: Printed for private circulation, 1890.
[3] Pgs.
151, 171, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple,
Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple.
London: Printed for private
circulation, 1890.
[4] Pgs.
173-174, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple,
Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple.
London: Printed for private
circulation, 1890.
[5] Pg.
161, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron
Mount-Temple],
Georgina Cowper-Temple. London: Printed for private circulation, 1890.
[6] Pgs. 8-9, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[7] Compare
the articles on Irving, Drummond, and the Catholic Apostolic Church in the Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals,
the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church, and the Cyclopedia of
Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. The Catholic Apostolic Henry Drummond
(1786-1860) should not be confused with the later Henry Drummond (1851-1897)
who worked with Moody.
[8] This
affirmation of Mrs. Mount-Temple illustrates her utter inability to recognize
fanaticism and spiritual aberration.
[9] Pgs.
103-105, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple,
Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple. London: Printed for private circulation, 1890.
[10] The
Mount-Temples’ interest in “somnambulism, believed to open a portal to the
spiritual world” (pg. 752, The
Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 4, Fahlbusch & Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), is also noteworthy (cf. pgs.
39-40, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple,
Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple.
London: Printed for private
circulation, 1890).
[11] Pgs.
107-108, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple,
Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple.
London: Printed for private
circulation, 1890. Mrs. Mount-Temple
recounts that Lord Palmerston “disapproved of my heretical views, and feared my
influence over William” (pg. 48, Memorials
[of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina
Cowper-Temple. London: Printed for private circulation, 1890).
[12] Pg.
108, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron
Mount-Temple],
Georgina Cowper-Temple. London: Printed for private circulation, 1890.
[13] For example,
a book where Mr. Cowper-Temple records material concerning his séances
indicates that he attended at least 31 between 1861 and February 23, 1864,
sitting with numerous prominent mediums;
see pgs. 9-10, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and
the Spiritualists: An Episode in
Broadlands History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982. They
continued for years to attend very many, and eventually gave up counting (pg.
18).
[14] “The
true resurrection day” is not the day with the Triune God raises the bodies of
the dead, but “the day of that great promotion from the world of matter to the
world of spirit and the unlocking of the senses of the soul” (pg. 188, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple. London:
Printed for private circulation, 1890).
[15] See, e. g., Letter 9 10, 13, pgs. 30-32, 36-37, The Letters of John Ruskin to Lord and Lady
Mount-Temple, ed. John L. Bradley, where one can find discussions of
learning things from ghosts and casual and familiar references to seeing,
asking questions of, and conversing with spirits of the dead that have been
raised up. See also pgs. 7-8, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[16] Pg. 18, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982. Compare
Mrs. Smith’s description of her visit to a spiritualist medium on pgs. 155-156
of A Religious Rebel: The Letters of “H. W. S,” ed. Logan
Pearsall Smith.
[17] Haweis
believed and taught: “Spiritualism
fitted very nicely on to Christianity; it seemed to be a legitimate
development, not a contradiction, not an antagonist. . . . Spiritualism had
rehabilitated the Bible. . . . They [spiritualistic phenomena] occur every day
in London as well as in the Acts of the Apostles” (pgs. 176-177, “Modern
Spiritualism Briefly Tested by Scripture,” The
Fundamentals 4:12, A. J. Pollock). When the Mount-Temples heard Haweis
preach, were impressed with his “ability and largeness of view,” and “thus Mr.
Haweis became our friend,” they stated, so that Mr. Mount-Temple “asked him to
revive” the “Church in Westminster” where Haweis was, by “William’s gift,” able
to preach spiritualism and other damnable heresies to “crowded services in the
restored Church” (pgs. 106, 182, Memorials [of William Francis
Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple. London:
Printed for private circulation, 1890) and was elevated to a place of
prominence in England.
[18] Pg.
108, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron
Mount-Temple],
Georgina Cowper-Temple. London: Printed for private circulation, 1890.
[19] Pg.
161, An Elusive Victorian: The Evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace,
Martin Fichman. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004; cf. pg. 128, Emanuel Swedenborg: His Life and
Writings, William White, 2nd. rev. ed. London:
Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., 1868.
[20] At
Broadlands the Mount Temples and their Conference guests “me[t] as one
brotherhood” with the “Swedenborgians” and other heretics (pg. 32, The Life that is Life Indeed: Reminiscences of the Broadlands Conferences,
Edna V. Jackson. London: James Nisbet & Co, 1910; cf. pgs. 78, 82). Of course, these facts do not mean that
everything taught by Swedenborg was followed to the least letter at Broadlands
by everyone (e. g., pg. 78, ibid).
[21] Pg.
51, Altered States: Sex, Nation, Drugs,
and Self-Transformation in Victorian Spiritualism, Marlene Tromp. Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press, 2006.
[22] Pg. 12, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[23] Pg. 10, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[24] Pg. 18, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[25] Pg. 23, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[26] The
triviality of spiritualistic marvels was indeed a very notable contrast with
Biblical miracles.
[27] Pgs. 12-24, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[28] Pgs. 19-20, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982. Italics in
original.
[29] Pg. 20, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[30] Pg. 24, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982. Mr.
Mount-Temple was born in 1811 and died in 1888 (pg. 179, Memorials [of William Francis Cowper-Temple, Baron Mount-Temple], Georgina Cowper-Temple. London:
Printed for private circulation, 1890).
[31] Pg. 21, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[32] Pg.
262, The Life that is Life Indeed: Reminiscences of the Broadlands Conferences,
Edna V. Jackson. London: James Nisbet & Co, 1910.
[33] Pgs. 22, 27, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[34] Pg. 16, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[35] Pgs. 23-24, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[36] Pg. 22, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[37] Pg.
53, Altered States: Sex, Nation, Drugs,
and Self-Transformation in Victorian Spiritualism, Marlene Tromp. Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press, 2006.
[38] Pg. 19, The Keswick
Story: The Authorized History of the
Keswick Convention, Polluck.
[39] Pgs. 25-26, Ruskin, Lady Mount-Temple and the
Spiritualists: An Episode in Broadlands
History. Van Akin Burd. London:
Brentham Press, 1982.
[40] Pg.
53, Altered States: Sex, Nation, Drugs,
and Self-Transformation in Victorian Spiritualism, Marlene Tromp. Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press, 2006.
[41] Pg. 113,
Christmas Story:
John Ruskin’s Venetian Letters of 1876-1877, John Ruskin, ed. Van Alan
Burd. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1990.