5.
Metaphysics in the Southland

In the 1860s and 1870s, when the cosmopolitan north was excited about Adventists, Spiritualists, and heretics, southern California was still a collection of small towns and villages. A minor building boom occurred after 1869 when people began to anticipate a southern extension of the transcontinental railroad, but no extension was actually built at that time. The real beginnings of southern California as we know it came after 1880; from 1882, building and land speculation began in earnest, and after the Santa Fe railroad was completed there was an enormous real estate boom (1886–87). Over one hundred towns were platted in Los Angeles County alone, and the railroads extensively promoted the region for settlement. After 1888, when the balloon had deflated, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, led by Harrison Gray Otis of the Los Angeles Times , took on the task of promoting the region.^[1] Using descriptions of California such as that written by the famous journalist Charles Nordhoff in 1873, entrepreneurs published pamphlets extolling the rich land, fine climate, and irrigation possibilities. Sometimes their claims were rather extravagant. One promoter, writing in California as It Is (1882), described how some regarded the region as the original Eden:

We have a tradition which points, indeed, to the vicinity of Los Angeles, the City of the Angels, as the site of the very Paradise, and the graves are actually shown of Adam and Eve, father and mother of man, and (through some error, doubtless, since it is disputed that he died) of the serpent also.^[2]

Whether they believed the propaganda or not, thousands came to southern California to become businessmen or farmers or to improve their health. Health and wealth, it was said, were the grand attractions of the region.

Among the early settlers were some religious groups. A colony of

German settlers, strongly Presbyterian, founded Anaheim. Mormons settled in San Bernardino. Presbyterians and Methodists joined together to form the Indiana Colony, which settled Pasadena as a temperance town. Perhaps most influential were the large number of Methodists who made their homes in Long Beach. Originally laid out as Willmore City in 1882, Long Beach was publicized (via a familiar railroad device, the excursion train) as a beautiful place for settlement and a temperance area as well. In 1884 investors, including some leading Methodists, built there a hotel, summer camp, and Chautauqua. Long Beach was for many years the Methodists' campmeeting site, until they moved to Huntington Beach in 1906. Meanwhile many summer campers decided to settle and buy homes there, ensuring a strong Protestant influence in the area.^[3]

The Methodists also exerted a strong influence through the first major university in the south, the University of Southern California. Planned principally by Judge Robert Maclay Widney and the Rev. John R. Tansey, the school opened its doors in 1880. Built on land donated by a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Jew (Orzo Childs, John Downey, and Isaias Hellman), it became a celebrated example of interfaith cooperation. Most importantly, it became a symbol for Anglo-Protestants of their mission to the whole community. They saw the university as playing the role in the south that Berkeley's College of California played in the north: a center of religious influence to help make southern California in the image of familiar white Protestant communities.^[4]

Not all those who came were committed to traditional Protestantism, of course. A considerable portion of the immigrants of Protestant background—especially those who were wealthy—came to California because of their poor health. They patronized the hotels and resorts that sprang up from Santa Barbara to San Diego, then gradually settled down and bought homes. Like the Forty-Niners in the north, many came only for a visit but stayed the rest of their lives. The propaganda for health was as energetic as the promotion of agriculture.^[5] Even many who were not so wealthy could, if they could work a little, afford to come to California for health, pleasure, and residence. Especially after 1896, when agricultural prices rose in the Midwest, many former farmers had the financial means to move west. The well-to-do then chose the new beach towns like Hermosa Beach (1902) and Venice (1905), while the middle classes spread throughout Los Angeles.

Overall, the migrations gradually produced a population in Los Angeles that was significantly weighted toward traditional Anglo-Protestantism. A considerable proportion of immigrants were from midwestern states where the evangelical tradition was strong—Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Indiana—while another large segment came from New York. Unlike the gold rush migrants, these newcomers were families and, occasionally, groups of families who came for permanent settlement. Most of them hoped to reestablish in southern California the kind of traditional community that was rapidly vanishing from their home states under pressures of urbanization and industrialization. Gregory H. Singleton has shown, in his superb Religion in the City of Angels , that in many ways they did manage to replicate the structures and patterns of the Protestant-dominated towns and small cities of the mid nineteenth century.^[6]

Singleton argues that in fact Los Angeles was largely controlled by what he calls the "voluntaristic" Protestants (he includes Episcopalians among these) for forty years, from 1880 to 1920. Certainly the nature of the immigration and the evidence from Protestant churches and other institutions supports that argument. Although the promotional emphasis changed during this period from a focus on agriculture and transportation (targeted at farmers and businessmen) to an emphasis on an exotic landscape with attractive, familiar houses (targeted at retirees and those seeking a leisurely life), similar groups, ethnically and geographically, responded: midwesterners and some easterners with marketable skills or some financial means, mostly middle-aged white Anglos. Increasingly, they came not so much to farm as to enjoy the newly created suburban lifestyle and invest in the expanding economy. After the Spanish-American War in 1898, Hawaii and the Philippines provided additional markets and an important raison d'être for Los Angeles as a shipping point. Meanwhile the new entrepreneurs and investors, from the middle class upward, thrived on the prosperity of the region. It was these people, as Singleton has shown, who supported churches and interdenominational activities such as the Y.M.C.A. and the W.C.T.U. while they gained control over the Chamber of Commerce and eventually most city offices.^[7]

Yet, despite the control exercised by the Protestant leaders, the immigration to Southern California was enormously diverse. By 1920 the region's population had grown to 530 percent of the 1890

figure (in the same period the population of the United States rose by 140 percent).^[8] Large numbers of East Asians, especially Japanese, and blacks arrived after the turn of the century, while Mexicans always constituted a good proportion of the region's population. The white Protestants generally neglected or discriminated against these groups, considering them targets for missions but seldom interacting with them. Most importantly, few members of these minority ethnic groups reached the higher echelons of power in the community; their effects, if any, on the white Protestant lifestyle were indirect.

Even if we discount the influence of Anglo-Protestants among the ethnic minorities, however, it is debatable how complete their domination was even among the whites, some of whom did not quite fit into the culture of traditional Protestantism. They came from states where Protestant liberalism was strong; if the proportion of southerners had been greater we would expect fewer liberals. In other ways, too, they had been exposed to religious ferment: for example, even conservative Protestants in the Northeast had been disturbed by the holiness movement. Thus even while traditionalists maintained institutional and political control throughout most of the first two decades of the new century, there was fragmentation within the Anglo-Protestant tradition and the population it served. On the conservative side there was the holiness movement, which in California had certain peculiarities that we will consider in a later chapter; on the other side there were liberal and eclectic movements—Theosophy, New Thought, and Christian Science—that had abandoned much of traditional Christian doctrine and were making their presence felt in southern California from about 1890.

Singleton virtually ignores both the conservative and the liberal defectors, and as a result his picture of voluntaristic domination of Los Angeles is somewhat distorted.^[9] The defectors were certainly minorities, who had their roots elsewhere in the nation and carried little political weight in California. But they are important to an understanding of the development of southern California Protestantism, for they illustrate some of the factors that made the region distinctive and ultimately affected Protestants in both north and south. In this chapter, then, we will examine the liberal movements in the larger context of the social development of the region.

Theosophy, New Thought, and Christian Science have sometimes been grouped together under the heading of "metaphysical reli-

gions"—that is, religions that focus on broad philosophical principles describing the nature of the universe. One could argue about the appropriateness of the label, but I will use it here for convenience. The smallest of these movements was Theosophy. The first Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1875 by Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–91), a recent Russian immigrant; Henry S. Olcott (1832–1907); and William Q. Judge (1851–96). Blavatsky and Olcott originally met at a Spiritualist gathering—an indication of their religious tendencies from the first. Their new organization was dedicated both to occult research, aiming at the discovery of secret knowledge about the universe, the Divine, and the Self; and to the brotherhood of man that could emerge from this knowledge. Blavatsky, in her writings Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), claimed to reveal the inner truth behind all the world's religions and philosophies. She had been taught, she said, by members of a select brotherhood of advanced human beings who made their home in the Himalayas, but the teachings were the same truth that had been taught by all the world's great masters. According to this teaching, pure impersonal Being was the source of all existing beings; human beings moved through many reincarnations in gaining spiritual advancement; and ultimately all beings are united in the One.

Blavatsky died in 1891 and was succeeded by Annie Besant, who headed the Society until her own death in 1933. There was also a split in the movement: William Judge left in 1895 to form an independent group, the Theosophical Society of America. A woman named Kathryn Tingley became in effect the prophetess for Judge's organization. Tingley, the "Purple Mother," headed a grand new venture in California: the Point Loma Theosophical Community, founded in 1897 near San Diego. The community stressed the principle of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity as well as the study of Oriental wisdom and occult and psychical knowledge. The other faction of Theosophists, followers of Besant, later had their representatives in California also. Led by Albert Powell Warrington, a group settled in 1911 in Krotona, now the center of Hollywood. Later they moved to the Ojai Valley, where Annie Besant came to live with the famous Krishnamurti, whom she had "discovered" in India and displayed as the Messiah of this era (a title that Krishnamurti later rejected).^[10] A smaller faction from Syracuse, New York, started a colony and sanitorium near Pismo Beach in 1903.

The Theosophists were few in number: the Point Loma community at its height in 1910 had about five hundred residents, including at least 150 to 200 children; we have no estimates of the number of followers who did not reside at the community. The other factions seem to have numbered some fifty to two hundred committed members. Nevertheless their influence was far larger than their numbers would suggest. Point Loma became known for its educational enterprises, taking in immigrants, especially children from the Caribbean islands, as well as educating the offspring of the middle-class Theosophists themselves. They emphasized the fine arts, especially music and theater, and many residents from the San Diego area attended the community's presentations. The Greek Theater, the only original structure still standing, was the site of many cultural events and religious pageants well publicized throughout the region. Even when Theosophists received negative attention from the press—as they did consistently from the Los Angeles Times —the papers helped to attract interest in their philosophy and activities. Especially after Tingley won a libel suit against the Times in 1903, her group received more positive notice. Southern Californians, therefore, were likely to have been touched by Theosophical influences even though few of them joined the available groups. Theosophy's belief in the spiritual unity of mankind and the oneness of all beings and all religious wisdom, and its humanitarianism combined with mystical thought, became part of the popular religious currency of the region.^[11]

A second important movement, New Thought, was less cohesive and less inclined toward the occult. It grew originally from the practical methods devised by the Maine healer Phineas Quimby (1802–66) for curing diseases by the power of the mind. Quimby, after experimenting with mesmerism, had come to believe that disease was caused primarily by erroneous belief. By changing their own inner attitudes and ways of thinking, people could cure themselves. One of Quimby's patients, Warren Felt Evans (1814–1889), developed this practice into an entire system of thought. In numerous works, beginning with The Mental Cure (1869), he expounded a philosophy grounded on unity with the One, which he usually called the Christ Principle Within; unity with that Principle or divine spark in the self brought healing and continued personal power. In particular, Evans developed the idea of the power of suggestion—either from a doctor or healer, or from the patient himself ("autosuggestion"). By the use of conscious "affirmations," as they were called, the patient could induce himself to think positively and thus contribute greatly to his im-

provement. A person troubled by constant worry might repeat to himself, "I am one with the Infinite Spirit," or "I am at peace with myself." Eventually this practice of "positive thinking" came to be used not only for physical and mental health but also as a method of achieving success in business, society, and romance.

Through study groups, beginning with the Metaphysical Club in Boston (founded 1895), congresses and interlocking organizations such as the International Metaphysical League, and most importantly through popular literature, New Thought ideas spread throughout the country. The movement itself was not tightly organized. New Thought groups were not so much churches as study groups and disseminators of information. Members read and distributed literature and discussed it among themselves, usually at Sunday evening meetings; privately, they practiced meditations and affirmations for their own spiritual growth and self-improvement. One could belong to a traditional church and simultaneously become deeply involved in New Thought. Some might join a New Thought church—the Unity School of Christianity headquartered in Kansas City, the Church of Divine Science in Denver and San Francisco, or the Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles (from 1917)—but it was never necessary to give up any other religious practice in order to become part of the New Thought movement.

New Thought had none of the elaborateness of Theosophy—no Oriental literature, no Greek pageants or Purple Mothers. Its first focus was health, physical and mental. As Ralph Waldo Trine put it in his popular book on the subject, In Tune With the Infinite —which sold two million copies shortly after its publication in 1897—people could have "Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty" from this new system of thought and practice. What Trine and other New Thoughters had in common with Theosophy was their emphasis on spiritual unity, on discovering the oneness of the self with the Divine. Trine wrote:

In the degree . . . that you come into a vital realization of your oneness with the Infinite Spirit of Life, whence all life in individual form has come and is continually coming, and in the degree that . . . you open yourself to its divine inflow, do you set into operation forces that will sooner or later bring even the physical body into a state of abounding health and strength.^[12]

In realizing Oneness, the individual was acting in accordance with the inner law of the universe. One had to discipline one's mind to

banish fears, overcome negative feelings like anger and sorrow, and in general maintain a calm, quiet attitude. Once achieved, that state of mind would stabilize and guide an individual in all the vicissitudes of life. This practical emphasis had a much broader appeal than Theosophy's quest for the inner, esoteric secrets, especially among the many health seekers in southern California, yet the two movements were akin in their metaphysical foundations. The Divine Self within and oneness with the Infinite Spirit were variations on the same theme: an invisible principle was the source of all knowledge and well-being, and one could grasp that principle with one's mind.

The most prominent of the three new movements, the one that produced the most powerful organization, was the Church of Christ, Scientist, often called Christian Science. The church was formally chartered in 1879 under the leadership of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), its founder and ultimate living authority. Eddy, like Warren Evans, had been helped in her illnesses by the healing skills of Phineas Quimby. When Quimby died in 1866 Eddy struggled through a difficult period, then developed and wrote down a philosophy of health and healing. Her ideas were based partly on Quimby's, though Eddy was more explicitly Christian in orientation; she and her followers denied her work was derivative.^[13] In 1875 she published the great crystallization of her work, Science and Health , the basic Christian Science textbook that Eddy revised frequently until her death. Within the movement it ranked beside the Bible as a king of scripture, for it was the key through which the Bible itself could be understood.

Eddy gathered students around her from 1868 on, eventually establishing her headquarters in Boston in 1882. She taught a truth that she claimed would lead to perfect health, having been revealed in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Jesus had shown the way to realizing one's perfect spiritual character as a human being. Most of us, Eddy said, are misled into thinking that we are material, when in fact we are immortal and perfect. When one truly realizes this fact—a recognition involving a radical transformation in one's thoughts and attitudes—one can achieve wholeness and health.

Health, in Eddy's view, was the sign of a proper relation to God. God was the Divine Principle, Infinite Mind, and Infinite Love—often named in this impersonal way, but sometimes also as Father-Mother God. God could be thought of as personal if one did not think of personality as involving corporeality or any other kind of

limitation. The aim of Christian Science practice was to enter into a full relationship with this God. Eddy held that one did not actually unite with God; there was a distinction between creature and creator, spiritual man (who indeed was pure spirit) and Infinite Spirit. Rather, one could come to apprehend reality as God sees it—to see the universe as good and know one's own perfect being as God created it. Because Christian Science was based on the deepest laws of the universe, its practice led straight to God. Any other science was crass materialism, based on wrong belief in the existence of the material world; one had to give up that belief to begin the process of perfection that would lead to health. This process was also true Christianity, for Jesus exemplified human wholeness and perfect apprehension of the divine.

As Eddy spread her message, she maintained control over the movement. Unlike New Thought, which developed many independent organizations, the Church of Christ, Scientist remained one. At first Scientists' meetings allowed time for personal testimonies, but Eddy soon prohibited them. The churches' leaders were "readers," not preachers, who read prescribed selections from the Bible and Science and Health without injecting their own interpretations. Those who wished to become healers or "practitioners," as they were called, studied only Eddy's writings. She believed it was dangerous to entrust the teaching of her discoveries to people still infected with the errors of "mortal mind," that is, ordinary ways of thinking; it was important that each new student connect to a pure source.

Reading and study, the primary practices of Christian Science, led to a mental discipline that cleared the mind of error. The healer, having attained this clarity, could see the client's illness and the false beliefs that gave rise to it, and instruct the client how to rethink his way to health. The aim, for oneself or another, was to think only pure, positive thoughts focused on the perfect spiritual reality. One should not talk about disease, or even name it, because that gave it reality in one's mind. One had to learn to see the world as God saw it, and to see disease, evil, and all material things as illusions. That was the Christian Science equivalent of regeneration, a spiritual rebirth. One could and should also use prayer in this process, but not in the traditional sense of requesting God to give things. Prayer should be silent communion with God, contemplation of his omnipresence and love, and resolution to conform one's will to the divine. This inner work was necessary on the path to perfection.^[14]

The parallels between Christian Science and New Thought are clear, as one might expect, given their common derivation from Quimby's mental healing practice. Both emphasized changing the mind and attitudes in order to heal disease; both believed in the possibility of human perfection in approaching the divine. Both believed in a law beyond the material laws of nature, a spiritual law and order governing the physical, mental, and spiritual life. Both emphasized reading, focused study, and certain kinds of meditation to erase old attitudes and create new, positive ones. The two movements differed in certain respects. New Thought's loose conglomeration of groups and its many writers, teachers, and versions of doctrine contrast strongly with Mrs. Eddy's tight control of Christian Science. New Thought drew eclectically on many sources, while Christian Science was tied to the Bible and the revelation of Jesus. Further, Mrs. Eddy insisted on a clear distinction between the human and divine, whereas many New Thought writers ignored or blurred the distinction. Still, their overall orientations and many of their practical methods were similar.

Both movements enjoyed great success in California, first in the southern portion but soon in the north as well. Christian Scientists came to California with the great waves of migration to the Los Angeles area in the late 1880s; so did New Thought followers. One student of Mrs. Eddy's wrote home in 1886, referring to the New Thought people, that "Babel is already in California. . . . we, as Christian Scientists, are denounced for having our jacket too straight [sic ]."^[15] The first known Christian Science church in California was founded at Riverside in 1887 by a practitioner named Emma S. Davis. It grew from ten members in 1890 to two hundred in 1901, and a similar mushrooming soon occurred in other southern cities. Los Angeles proper had its first church by 1893; in 1910–11 the Los Angeles directory listed over one hundred Christian Science practitioners (most of them women). At the time there were only about 350 nurses in the city. Obviously Christian Science had become a major alternative resource for health seekers. In 1890 California had the third-largest Christian Science membership of any state, nearly onetenth of the total for the entire nation.^[16] Moreover, the members tended to be middle class or wealthier and contributed generously to the churches. By 1912 the striking modern architecture of many new Christian Science churches was attracting considerable attention.^[17]

If Christian Scientists were the orderly, disciplined group among

the new metaphysical religions, we may imagine that New Thought, with its loosely defined membership and wide-ranging literature, attracted many more at least to its periphery. We know that New Thoughters of the Unity School of Christianity were strong enough to build a church in Los Angeles in 1893, suggesting that they may have been on an equal footing with the Scientists, who also had one church (the size of each is unknown). Gail Thain Parker has estimated for New England that New Thought groups had at least as many followers as Christian Science, while probably twice as many more read New Thought literature while remaining members of a traditional church.^[18] That estimate is probably conservative, but even so we can use it to reconstruct the probable size of the metaphysical movements.

On the basis of census figures and what we know of the sizes of buildings the Christian Scientists were erecting, it seems likely that the city of Los Angeles had twelve to fifteen hundred Scientists in 1906. Unity School people, usually meeting under the auspices of a "Home of Truth," had three centers in the city by 1909. No estimates are available for other New Thought groups, but following Parker we can estimate that all together, including Unity, they may have equaled the Scientists' total. Theosophists were fewer; those connected with the Judge-Tingley group and those belonging to Besant's organization probably totaled no more than three hundred in Los Angeles. A safe assumption, therefore, is that all the metaphysical movements together had some three thousand members. Following again Parker's estimates, we would assume that at least three thousand were reading in the metaphysical literature while remaining members of a traditional church. The consequences for traditional religion are apparent. At that time membership in the Anglo-Protestant churches was about twenty-five thousand; a competing set of movements at least three thousand strong, with another three thousand potential defectors in the churches themselves, could hardly be ignored. Moreover, the new movements were growing in reputation as well as in numbers. In 1893 Christian Science attracted considerable attention at the much-talked-about World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In 1915, at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, an entire day was given over to New Thought.^[19]

The new metaphysical religions were shocking to the traditional churches not only because they were growing rapidly, but also because of their teachings. First, Christian Science, New Thought, and

Theosophy were all suggesting a different way of thinking and speaking about God: "he" was the Divine, the Infinite Principle, not a personal Father or Judge (although Christian Science retained the idea of fatherhood). Second, although Christian Science and New Thought claimed to keep Jesus at the center of faith, none of the movements accepted the basic theology of orthodox Christianity: that Jesus had died in atonement for human sins. None, in fact, believed strongly in sin; they admitted only temporary imperfections.

Third, all three movements focused on individual improvement, whether in health, success, or spiritual quest. Only Theosophists had much interest in social issues, and that was limited primarily to educating children. They had briefly supported the political movement of (Bellamy) Nationalist Clubs in the 1890s, but that alliance had soon died. None of the metaphysical movements otherwise was strongly oriented toward politics or social reform. All three believed in the gradual progress of the individual on a spiritual plane, leading to greater powers and deeper connection with the divine. Ultimately, they believed, perfection was possible, either by realizing the divine within oneself or, in Christian Science, by realizing one's perfect being as it exists in the mind of God. The true destiny of human beings was spiritual and divine, turning away from the material. Mrs. Eddy went farther than the others in actually denying the reality of matter; while Malinda Cramer of Divine Science claimed to have had a revelation showing the fundamental principle of creation, the emergence of matter from spirit.^[20] But in all cases the metaphysicians valued the inner life over any interaction with the material world. They were regarded as mystics, and in many ways were just that. This was unnerving to Protestants, who were grounded in the reality of both matter and spirit.

Fourth and finally, the practices of the metaphysical movements turned inward, toward mental reality. They practiced study, meditation, affirmations, focused concentration. These became much more important than the traditional Christian way of relating to the divine, namely through prayer addressed to a personal God. Thought and study eliminated the address, the pleas or complaints, the surrender, sympathy, agony, and bliss associated with intense prayer. In that way the metaphysical movements replaced emotional experience with mental comprehension or, more accurately, intellectual-spiritual apprehension providing clarity and a sense of wholeness, harmony, or oneness at a level above ordinary human re-

ligious emotions. This too was strange and uncomfortable to most Anglo-Protestants.

Yet there are some strains here that sound familiar in light of our previous examination of trends in northern California. When the metaphysical movements speak of an inner spiritual law, more powerful than material facts, that governs the universe, we may be reminded of Thomas Starr King's lecture "Substance and Show." The rational, mental approach to religion recalls Laurentine Hamilton's rationalism, while the tendency to deny or ignore evil and the expectation of gradually rising to perfection recall his vision of the life after death. Despite these similarities, there were no direct ties between the organized southern California movements and that earlier northern branch of the tradition. But all traced their roots ultimately to the same or related sources: Unitarianism, Transcendentalism (both Theosophists and New Thoughters recognized Ralph Waldo Emerson as one of their forerunners), Spiritualism. Mrs. Eddy denied any precursors, but through Quimby she was related to the same tradition; and her thought has been recognized as having certain similarities to Emerson's.^[21] The liberal movements in the north and the metaphysical movements in the south were variations on a mythology recurrently influential in California: a mythology of spiritual unity, of true reality existing in the inmost recesses of one's being, of deep knowledge gained through inward perception, of progress toward spiritual perfection.

But it is not at all obvious why southern Californians should respond to the same family of religions as northerners had. We have shown how the reception and development of that popular tradition was conditioned by the situation in northern California: the independent self-image promoted by the gold rush; the pride northern Californians took in being open and tolerant; the unsettled character of the region for nearly two decades; the lack of stable family and institutional life; the need for unity and the rejection of factionalist politics and religion; the avoidance of emotional expressiveness because of the specific experience of the gold rush generation and the instability of society in general. Southern California was different; it was settled by families and an older population more than by young adventurers, by people with financial means or skills more than by risk-takers. If Singleton's portrayal is correct, these people had a strong commitment to traditional Protestantism and its doctrines, rather than the rebelliousness and independence of the young nor-

therners; for Singleton insists that the settlers of Los Angeles were attempting to preserve the Protestantism of their home towns (presumably the traditions dominant between 1840 and 1880, when they were growing up and establishing families), not to experiment with new fads in doctrine or practice. But that picture leaves us with no explanation for the metaphysical movements at all.

We mentioned that the regions from which most immigrants came had more liberals in the Protestant churches than, for example, the South. The same regions were seeing the greatest increase in the metaphysical religions. In the north central region, from Ohio to Kansas and north to Wisconsin, which was the chief source of southern California's immigrants (in 1910 over 23 percent of all American-born Californians were from there), Christian Science was growing rapidly; Illinois led with fifty-four churches and about 5700 members. New Thought groups had established centers also: Divine Science in Chicago, Topeka (Kansas), and Waterloo (Iowa); Unity School of Christianity in Unity Village, Missouri. Some southern Californians were likely to have known of these movements before they arrived; a number were probably already members. Yet that does not fully explain the movements' successes in California. Even in Illinois, where it was strongest, Christian Science attracted less than one-half of 1 percent of the non-Catholic population, while in California a full 1 percent of that population became Scientists.^[22] Moreover, aside from actual membership, the metaphysical religions became part of the cultural ambience in California to a degree that they never did in the Midwest.

We must examine, therefore, the patterns of life that led stable, family-oriented, Protestant folk to beome interested in metaphysical religions. Our best clue comes from the fact that these religions were mushrooming just when the style of development and the style of promotional literature were changing in southern California. Previously, in the 1880s, developers had laid out towns around commercial centers (for example, Long Beach or Pasadena) and sold lots there, while also selling land for farms or ranches; promotions emphasized agriculture, transportation, and business. By the turn of the century we find builders creating landscaped developments like Palos Verdes Estates, the true suburban dream. Such developments were supposed to recapture the village in the midst of the city, but in fact they were not villages. They had no commercial centers, nor any sites

for communal activities except a small park for strolling and a children's playground. People who moved there were choosing their residence on some basis other than proximity to work, extended family, or church.^[23] From 1910 on, the automobile contributed to this change; but even before, Los Angeles residents moved frequently as more options became open to them. Eventually, the choice of residence was based primarily on aesthetic and social considerations: the style of the home, the beauty of the surroundings, the reputation of the neighborhood—the only limitation being one's pocketbook. The neighborhood's relation to traditional institutions like business or church mattered less and less.^[24] As a result, churches followed after settlement patterns rather than being an integral part of them.

This shifting relationship among institutions is a clue to a larger phenomenon. White immigrants until about 1915 were ethnically and geographically from the same groups, but there was a subtle difference between those who came to Los Angeles before (roughly) 1895 and those who came between (roughly) 1895 and 1915. The later arrivals were the next generation, with different values than their earlier relatives. Raised with the rising expectations of the Gilded Age, they had nevertheless experienced a great deal of turmoil, from the Civil War in their early youth to the rapidly changing social and economic conditions in their home states. Their search for peace, stability, and comfort rather than for better business opportunities was symbolized by the planned suburban home. They had watched their cities turn into collections of immigrant neighborhoods, full of people they believed to be unassimilable aliens. Even farmers had begun in the late 1880s and 1890s to suffer from the pressures of bureaucratic capitalism, culminating in the panic of 1893, the worst depression in twenty years. Many California immigrants had survived that era and, when recovery began in 1896, sold out to come west. They were, far more self-consciously than their predecessors, retirees. Instead of hoping to rebuild familiar communities and work well into their old age, according to the old American dream, they were following the new dream offered by the real estate promoters: to reap the benefits of leisure and make the money they needed in investment or speculation.

Yet if the newcomers hoped the transition would be easy, they were mistaken. The suburbs were not like idealized villages. The natural environment was strange; the landscape, weather patterns, and

vegetation were exotic and unfamiliar. Carey McWilliams observed that California seemed to Easterners a "paradoxical land with a tricky environment." One visitor from Cincinnati wrote:

There is a variety in the evenness of the weather, and a strange evenness in this variety, which throws an unreality around life. . . . All alike walk and work in a dream. For something beguiles, deludes, plays falsely with the senses. . . . There is no awareness of the passage of the day.^[25]

The climate was unusual, and all kinds of disturbances were attributed to it. Many Easterners believed that it would produce idleness and placidity, or "enervation," as it was called.^[26] Charles Nordhoff had warned that a man must "keep his Eastern habits of industry, and beware of the curse of California—idleness and unthrift—to which no doubt the mild climate predisposes men."^[27] Nathaniel West believed that the California lifestyle, with its tendency to encourage leisure, would eventually lead to riots and violence in the region because humans were incapable of dealing with such leisure.^[28] Whether the climate had an independent effect or not, we may guess that many of those arriving in the 1890s and after were eager to give up their "Eastern habits of industry" and enjoy a bit of idleness. If the climate was distracting, they were open to being distracted. At the same time their change in lifestyle and the change in environment produced a subtle sense of disorientation evident throughout the immigrant literature.^[29]

The search for stability and for points of orientation in a new life goes back to the 1880s, and it is clear that the traditional religious communities, the churches, did not provide all that the new immigrants needed. The earlier immigrants had formed, for example, the famous State Societies—organizations of immigrants from the various states of the union, beginning with the Pennsylvania State Society in 1882. These groups gathered at monthly meetings in public places such as cafeterias. Part of their purpose, as the All State Society of Long Beach put it, was to "keep alive the ties and friendships affiliated with the Home State."^[30] But they did not gather in small groups or in friendly home surroundings; instead they sought impersonal territory and large meetings to establish rather distant connections, much like a high school reunion. Such gatherings were enormously popular, especially the annual picnics and parades. Fifteen to twenty thousand people attended the two yearly Iowa picnics (one in Los Angeles, one in Long Beach). The State Societies' politi-

cal rallies, church socials, and Thanksgiving celebrations were great southern California social events.

What stands out most clearly in the descriptions of the State Societies is the combination of nostalgic reminiscences of life "back home" and extravagant eulogies of California. The prize-winning float at one Fourth of July parade was a portrayal of a Christmas scene back home complete with imitation snow—itself a poignant expression of disorientation. Another expression of longing for the familiar and over-praise of the new was the humorous 1886 "creed" of the Illinois Association:

WHEREAS we . . . having endured the tortures inseparably connected with life in a region of ice and snow, and having fled from our beloved state to this favored land; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that we deeply sympathize with our friends and former fellow citizens, . . .

RESOLVED, that we have the tallest mountains, the biggest trees, the crookedest railroads, the dryest rivers, the loveliest flowers, the smoothest ocean, the finest fruits, the mildest lives, the softest breezes, the purest air, the heaviest pumpkins, the best schools, the most numerous stars, the most bashful real estate agents, the brightest skies, and the most genial sunshine to be found anywhere . . . in North America. . . .

RESOLVED, that we heartily welcome other refugees from Illinois, and will do all in our power to make them realize that they are sojourning in a "City of the Angels" where their hearts will be irrigated by living waters flowing from the perennial fountains of health, happiness, and longevity.^[31]

The former citizens of Illinois glorified and parodied the myth of California as paradise at the same time that they were trying to strengthen themselves by numbers of familiar ties and friendly faces. Singleton suggests that the State Societies were evidence of strong commitment to traditional midwestern values.^[32] They were; but they also reflect people losing hold of those values and attempting to embrace a new land. Moreover, even the way they reaffirmed their common values was different from the way they had done it back in the Midwest. Picnics and parades were familiar enough, but the great anonymity of California gatherings was itself an innovation.

Another example of the search for an orientation was the romanticization of the Old California heritage. We mentioned that some of this had occurred among newcomers in the north during gold rush days and after. It developed more fully in the south, however, many

years after the disappearance of most of the Californios. After 1875, popular books about California Indians, the old Franciscan missions, and the Spanish and Mexican traditions began to appear. Around the turn of the century, architects borrowed or invented "Mediterranean" styles for California homes, while public buildings copied the missions with tiled roofs and fake adobe walls. The real-life Mexicans who lived nearby in the barrios were generally ignored if not despised, but "rodeos" and "fiestas" became popular entertainment for newcomers seeking some kind of cultural integrity. Each year at the local fiestas, Chamber of Commerce members donned sombreros and perched on horses as "caballeros," while they elected an Anglo maiden as queen of the Mexican celebration. The anomalies and the distortion are obvious.^[33] But clearly that extreme sort of romanticizing indicates that it was not easy for midwesterners to feel at home in California. Even if, as Singleton argues, those who arrived after 1880 were committed to replicating their lost society and culture, they also were acting out a need to connect with the new lifestyle and different culture of California.

The State Societies and Mexican fiestas continued to thrive for decades; moreover, traditional churches provided stability for a significant percentage of the population. One famous churchwoman, Clara Burdette (wife of Robert Burdette of Temple Baptist Church), wrote in the early 1900s that California was an "asylum for every new 'ology' in medicine or religion under the sun." Yet, she said, "earnest, sane men and women" kept working beneath all the restlessness. For her, God seemed to be giving the world "the 'new earth' if not the 'new heaven'" via the work of her church in Los Angeles.^[34] But despite the success of the church and other religious institutions in establishing themselves in Los Angeles, despite the auxiliary social ties and entertainments provided by State Societies, fiestas and rodeos, religious restlessness was growing, more so after 1895. Many new immigrants of Protestant background did not join a church; many who joined did not attend; and many, whether churchgoers or not, became involved in one of the metaphysical religions.^[35]

The new movements achieved their success and contributed to southern California culture not because of any collapse of the churches or other institutions, but simply because the traditional forms fit inadequately, for many people, with the evolving social and natural environment of California. As in the north, they were transplants that continued to serve some functions but did not take root

strongly—hence the supplements of State Societies and Mexican romanticism providing two different kinds of roots. The churches supported a small-town orientation and dedication to a busy, industrious life, with a consciousness of building a society under God's rule. Southern California Protestants shared those values, but by the turn of the century a significant number were living in new residential areas providing a quite different social context. Churches followed them there, but now they included Churches of Christ, Scientist, and a variety of small New Thought groups.^[36] At the same time, people were willing to give up some of their orientation toward working and building in order to create another kind of life.

The metaphysical movements, it could be argued, were not necessarily much better at integrating all these new elements; if they had been, people would have flocked to them in much greater numbers. New Thinkers, Christian Scientists, and Theosophists largely ignored southern Californians' experience of nature and climate, their suburban environment, and their economic situation and new lifestyle. Unlike their Protestant counterparts they did not rely for their power on external relations to society or nature. They depended on the individual's personal sense of satisfaction: first, that in some way a practice or belief works or feels helpful; and second, that a person feels as if he or she is contacting deeper knowledge or a deeper level of self.

The metaphysical religions appealed especially to the immigrants' desires for a full life, a "fullness of peace, power, and plenty." If the new southern Californians were escaping the disturbances of the 1880s and 1890s in the Midwest, if they were disoriented in their adjustment to the new region, if they felt "enervated" or unhealthy (which would be natural in the aftermath of their "culture shock"), the metaphysicians showed them a way to calmness, confidence, and physical health. They taught mental focus, release from strain, disciplined reading and study, and ways to achieve a sense of spiritual elevation and create a private retreat from external confusion. They taught, in short, a new form of order. As Malinda Cramer, founder of Divine Science, put it, "we believe in perfect action and perfect thinking . . . in perfect breathing and perfect circulation, perfect digestion and perfect generation, perfect voice and perfect speaking. This is law and order everywhere."^[37]

If this portrayal of the white Protestants of southern California is correct—if amid the bustle of establishing and maintaining a strong

church-centered culture, there was also considerable disorientation and a search for stability and peace, and if the metaphysical religions were as important culturally as I am suggesting—then we ought to observe some evidence of it in the Protestant denominations. We saw that in the north the presence of people advocating related ideas brought forth denunciation and heresy trials. In the south, too, we would expect ministers or church organizers to respond, either by attacking the challengers or by changing their own religious priorities to take account of the new needs of the people they served. Such responses did occur, and at the time we would expect, namely in the period after the turn of the century, when the metaphysical religions were growing most rapidly. In the next chapter we will examine a few of the most notable responses.