Tag: cult

Content below is from #186 of the Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast

RECOMMENDATION SEGMENT

• This week I recommend you watch Love Has Won.
  • It is currently on HBO Max. It is a limited series with only 3 episodes (all of which are currently streaming).
  • Here is the wikipedia explanation of the organization Love Has Won… not a summary of the doc
    • Love Has Won is an American new religious movement which was led by Amy Carlson, referred to within the group as “Mother God”, who described herself, among other things, as the creator of the universe. The group has been described as a cult by many, including ex-members and media outlets
  • And here is how I pitched it to my buddies who also enjoy cult documentaries:
    • “a cult. Lady thinks she is GOD. and recruits ppl to join her in a cabin where they peddle fake medicine and do drugs all day. That’s all I’ll say without ruining anything”

• I must thank my sister Cas for suggesting I watch this series. I binged it in one night!
• I just watched this 3 part series last night and it ties in PERFECTLy to this week’s main event
  • There are a good amount of similarities between this 21st-century cult Love Has Won and this week’s main event… which is based on a cult from the 18th century
  • They might be over 200 years apart, but a cult is a cult I suppose LOL

NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT

• This week is about the Harmonist Rappites, or The Harmony Society
  • A cult founded in the 1700’s in Germany and settled in a town very close to my house.
  • I have some paintings on the blog of their leader and while I may not agree with the man’s lifestyle choices… I DAMN SURE love his look.
  • this dude pulls off a BALLER 18th century santa vibe and I’m digging it

• Johann Georg Rapp was born in 1757
  • In the 1780s he and his adopted son Frederick founded The Harmony Society in Württemburg, Germany.
  • The society was made up of Anabaptist Christians who weren’t accepted by other Lutheran churches.
    • Anabaptist just means they were Christians who believed that baptism as a baby doesn’t count…
      • It gets super complicated, but there are all sorts of anabaptist sects out there from the Amish to church my wife belongs to
      • The term “Anabaptist” literally means “re-baptizer.” Their opponents gave them this name when they began administering adult baptism to one another, believing that their baptism as infants was not an authentic form of baptism.
  • So in 1803 they packed up and immigrated from Germany to Butler Pennsylvania
    • … a hop and a skip away from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania… so like, really close to where I live.
    • I’ve been to this place a couple of times and I was surprised to learn about its history.
• The Harmonist Rappites hoped to find religious freedom in their new home of Butler PA.
  • They bought 3,000 acres of land and started a colony. They called it Harmony.
  • They regarded the Christian Bible as the one and only authority over humanity.
    • Meaning, they didn’t give a hoot about what their local government had to say… which typically leads to conflict.
• It was February 15th of 1805 that Harmony Pennsylvania became official. The articles of association were signed officially recognizing The Harmony Society in the US.
  • This official document decreed that The Harmony Society members (the Harmonist Rappites) would pool their money together to make about $23,000 for the society to maintain livestock, tools, land, and other essential goods.
• Here’s where it starts to get culty…
  • The members of The Harmony Society were expected to give away all their possessions to the society…
    • A typical trait of cults: Give all your worldly posessions (especially money) to the movement. What do you as individuals need money for when the second coming is gonna happen any day now?
  • They pledged to promote The Harmony Society and all its interests (AKA the leader Johann Rapp’s interests).
  • And they had to agree to not be paid for any of their work…
    • THAT’S CULT STUFF RIGHT THERE
    • Fully submit and dedicate your entire life to this movement… or we won’t accept you as one of us
  • To the Harmonist Rappites credit, they DID take care of their own.
    • As long as a member lived (even into old age, long after they could work) they would be cared for
    • AND, here’s the biggest un-culty thing, if a member left the society, they would receive all their money back that they paid into it (without interest.
    • EVEN if a member didn’t contribute anything (because some joined while poor) they would still be given a small amount of money when they left
    • That sounds nice, but when you consider the fact that they all were expected to work for ZERO pay… it just comes off as FAIR at-best
• So what was life like as a Harmonist Rappite?
  • Well the founder Johann Georg Rapp was the head honcho
    • In true culty manner, he went as Father Rapp
      • Nothing says Cult Leader like having your followers address you as FATHER
    • Johann was the #1 guy for anything spiritual. The rest of the Harmonists went to him for advice on everyday stuff, confession, and general council (therapy sort-of).
  • Daddy Rapp’s adopted son Frederick was the Society’s financial dude
    • Anything pertaining to money, business, commercial traide, etc. went through Frederick and only Frederick…
      • This is another Cult quality. One dude who is VERY close to the leader handles all the money
  • Every member of The Harmony Society was supposed to believe every word Daddy Johann Rapp said.
    • If he or Frederick said anything pertaining to their spiritual or material lives (AKA virtually any facet of their lives) every member was expected to believe and obey those words completely
  • And Daddy Rapp didn’t have some simple word on spirituality… no, the dude had LOTS of decrees, big ones
    • The biggest being one being that the Second Coming of Christ would happen during his lifetime.
      • This is perhaps one of the biggest cult cliches: The world will end within our lifetimes because we are super important and ONLY this group will be the chosen ones!
        • This sort of decree appeals to people’s desire to be special… that’s why people fall for it and have fallen for it for as long as history has existed… this week’s recommendation segment about the Love Has Won cult has similar tones and that stuff went down in the 2010s and 2020s
    • Just a brief summary of what the Second Coming is:
      • The Second Coming is the Christian and Islamic belief that Jesus will return to Earth after his ascension to heaven. The idea is based on messianic prophecies and is part of most Christian eschatologies. Other faiths have various interpretations of it
      • Those various interpretations almost always involve Jesus’s second coming co-insiding with the end of the world.
      • Every generation of people has always had a large portion of the population who thought the world would end during their lifetime… LOL
      • From what my memory can piece together from my Bible School days, Jesus returns and has a bare-knuckle fight with the antichrist. All souls either ascend to heaven or stay on earth to suffer for an eternity… keep in mind, I’m no Biblical scholar LOL
  • Daddy Rapp basically said “hey, Christ is going to come back and when he does, he is going to pick only the most righteous of us to follow him to heaven so we gotta be SUPER boring during our time here on Earth.”
    • His followers had to give up every sinful thing there is to follow Daddy Rapp’s strict religious doctrine. No Tobacco, no sex* (we will get to the asterix soon LOL)… basically no fun/sinful stuff. You know, all the stuff that makes life worth living IMO
  • And here is a sentence from the VCU’s Library website that isn’t super clear:

“They believed that the harmony of male and female elements in humanity would be re-established by their efforts.”

• Let me tell you what I think that means…
  • They didn’t have sex. They practiced celibacy right… but they hoped that by living a SUPER “righteous” lifestyle, that somehow god would bestow their Society with peace and some way to procreate…
    • AND here is where I think old Daddy Rapp and his son Frederick were slinging on the side.
    • Now hear me out, I’m not basing this off nothing. another cliche cult thing is for the leader(s) to sexually take advantage of their followers.
    • I think Johann Georg Rapp told all his followers to not have sex… while he himself was banging ALL of the women himself… I mean, how else did they have kids to keep the society going?
• Another way they kept their numbers up was recruitment.
  • Daddy Rapp would let new members in on a trial basis and usually after a year he would let them become full-fledge members of his super boring sexless, tobaccoless, and funless society.
  • But while there were a bunch of Anabaptist joining their ranks (particularly a bunch of people from Germany).
    • other groups of Anabaptist from Germany turned out to be the Amish… Like I said early, its complicated… there are THOUSANDS of different kinds of Christians… its such an old religion
  • But while new people were coming in to the society, there were a bunch of members who found the lifestyle too difficult to follow and would leave.
  • It was in 1807 when the whole Celibacy stuff was being touted by Daddy Rapp. He didn’t make it a requirement, but it was HEAVILY suggested that no one get married/have kids
    • One of Daddy Rapp’s sons Johannes got married in 1807 and there wouldn’t be another marriage in the town of Harmony Pennsylvania until over a decade later in 1817… how depressing.
    • Even when people did get married, they had VERY little kids.

• Since all the Harmonist Rappites couldn’t distract themselves with any fun/sinful stuff… they burried themselves in their work
  • These people kicked ass at working hard and under Frederick Rapp’s commercial guidance they went from a subsistence farming community to a diverse manufacturing society in no time.
• By 1811 their numbers had hit 800.
  • they were in the farming business as well as many other various trades
  • They weren’t trying to turn a profit, but with nothing else fun to do, they did just that. Their finances improved and the town was flourishing. It had an inn, tannery, warehouses, brewery, a bunch of mills, stables, barns, church, school, extra housing, a “labyrinth” (lol), and a bunch of different workshops to support all the different trades they were involved in.
    • Sounds like a nice place to live actually.
    • They even expanded to have vineyards and crops.
    • They produced yarn and cloth goods
  • By 1814 their numbers were around 700
    • The town had about 130 buildings which included processing plants.
    • Word spread that these goofy looking Harmonist Rappites made good quality stuff. Their woolens, textiles, wine, and whisky were known for being exceptionally high quality.
      • I bash them for having no fun, but if they were cranking out beer, wine, and whisky… who knows!
• From VCU’s Library website :

Several factors led to the Harmonists’ decision to leave Butler County. Because the area’s climate was not suitable, they had difficulties growing grapes for wine. In addition, as westward migration brought new settlers to the county, making it less isolated, the Harmonists began having troubles with neighbors who were not part of the Society. Butler County’s growing population and rising land prices made it difficult for the Society to expand, causing the group’s leaders to look for more land elsewhere. Once land had been located that offered a better climate and room to expand, the group began plans to move. In 1814 the Harmonites sold their first settlement to Abraham Ziegler, a Mennonite, for $100,000 and moved west to make a new life for themselves in the Indiana Territory.

After selling all their holdings they moved to a new location on the Wabash River in Indiana. Here again they built a prosperous community, New Harmony (now a National Historic Landmark), only to sell it to Robert Owen, a social reformer from New Lanark, Scotland, and his financial partner, William Maclure, in 1825. The Harmonists next returned to Pennsylvania and built their final home at Economy (now called Old Economy and recognized as a National Historic Landmark), in Ambridge on the Ohio River.

• Daddy Rapp was the founder of The Harmony Society and he is what kept the group together. Everyone came to him for practically everything.
  • This society had gone from Germany, to Butler PA, to Indiana, and finally to Ambridge PA (a town even closer to where I live). That sort of uprooting over and over again would destroy most groups, but because Johann Georg Rapp was there, they stuck together…
  • Until he died.
  • After Daddy Rapp dies in 1847 a bunch of members left the cult.
    • They were understandably pissed that their leader’s prophecy that the Second Coming would occur during his life time did NOT happen. Disappointment and disillusionment started to fracture the group.
  • But a number of members remained… LOL. They couldn’t face the fact that their cult leader had lied to them. Instead of face their delusions, they doubled down!
  • The Harmony Society grew their profitable business community. Their new leaders Romelius L. Baker and Jacob Henrici turned out to be two driven businessmen.
• With their sights aimed more at profits instead of spirituality, the group also started to close itself off to new members. Recruitment was a thing of the past.
  • And while strict rules such as celibacy were fading within the group, a century of very low childbirths and lack of recruitment dwindled the Harmony Society’s numbers.
• The Harmony Society reached its peak of financial power and prosperity in the year 1866.
  • But it was a quick decline after that. With such a large number of their members being old and those senior members increasing trying to cash in on the whole “we’ll take care of you for your entire life” policy… the group was hurting.

• From VCU’s Library website :

The surviving buildings of the first settlement in Harmony, with their sturdy, simple brick dwellings, the Great House with its arched wine cellar, and the imposing cemetery and original town plan are today a National Historic Landmark named the Harmony Historic District.

The land and financial assets of the Harmony Society were sold off by the few remaining members under the leadership of John Duss and his wife, Susanna, by the year 1906.

Today, many of the Society’s remaining buildings are preserved; all three of their settlements in the United States have been declared National Historic Landmark Districts by the National Park Service.

CREDIT:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_Society
• https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/religious/the-harmony-society-a-utopian-community/
• https://www.archives.gov/nhprc/projects/catalog/harmony-society#:~:text=The%20Harmony%20Society%20was%20a,Indiana%3B%20and%20Economy%2C%20Pennsylvania.