A most mysterious book
Had I said that the angels wrote it through my hands, then I would have been denounced
“If a book were to fall down from the sky with Jehovih’s [sic] signature to it, man would not accept the book on that account,” the Editor’s preface to the concludes. “Why, then, should anything be said about how this book was written? It is not a destroyer of old systems or religious. It reveals a new one, adapted to this age, wherein all men can be brethren.”
It's on this strange – and almost defensive – note that the first edition opens. Positioning itself as “A New Bible,” Oahspe was a book with something to prove – as, no doubt, were all nascent late-19th century religious texts. Though its author (or, perhaps more appropriately, messenger) was quick to note that the 900-page tome wasn’t so much scripture as historical text.
At his home on 34th st. – one block east of where the Empire State Building would be built some 47 years later – the humble Manhattan dentist would debut the text to a small gathering. Included in the group was a New York Times reporter, who wrote uncritically about the book and its author, citing testimonials from an Egyptologist and an “Oriental scholar.” The former attested that the book’s contents matched the text of ancient hieroglyphics, while the latter, believed that “a man could not produce such a work, and believed it was the work of supernatural agents,” per the report.
The story comported with the words of J.B. Newbrough, who told the crowd that he had employed a form of automatic writing in the book’s creation. It was a phenomenon that was all the rage among spiritualists of the era, largely channeling spirits of the dead. For Newbrough, however, it was the work of angelic guides, as noted in the title page,
A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih and His Angel Ambassadors. A Sacred History of the Dominions of the Higher and Lower Heavens on the Earth for the Past Twenty-Four Thousand Years together with a Synopsis of the Cosmogony of the Universe; the Creation of Planets; the Creation of Man; the Unseen Worlds; the Labor and Glory of Gods and Goddesses in the Etherean Heavens; with the New Commandments of Jehovih to Man of the Present Day.
The dentist had invested in a brand new invention called a typewriter, in front of which he would wait for a bright light to envelop his fingers. For 50 weeks, the light overtook his fingers for 15 to 30 minutes every morning, until the text was finished. "I could not read it, for the light would not let me," he told the paper, "and I did not know the contents of the book until it was ready for type."
Several months after publication, a letter to Boston-based spiritualist newspaper The Banner of Light offered more details on the creation process. The note strikes a similar tone as the book’s preface, obfuscating its provenance, while insisting that such details were secondary to the text itself.
“Had I said that the angels wrote it through my hands, then I would have been denounced as a pretender,” Newbrough writes. “Again, if a book have merit, what matters it as to who wrote it? And if it have no merit, then certainly it does not matter whence it came.”
Claiming divine insight from an early age, Newbrough’s father actively discouraged his son, flogging him when he reported such visions. But intervening years would bring their share of serendipitous events, including success as a gold prospector that afforded him the ability to relocate to New York City. From there, he developed an affordable method for setting dental plates. After winning a patent infringement suit brought on by Goodyear, Newbrough committed himself more fully to his spiritual pursuits.
Groups of Faithists sprung up almost immediately in the wake of the book’s publication. Two years later, he founded a Land of Shalam, a commune in Las Cruces, New Mexico devoted to his teachings. Residents were commanded to be pure and practice humility. They were strict vegetarians, tasked with raising local orphans. Four months after the first 20 settlers arrived, things began to unravel.
A flu epidemic swept across the adopted the camp. Three children died, while the toll of attending to them felled Newborough, who died of pneumonia in 1891. Legal and financial issues plagued the colony for it final days, culminating in its 1901 dissolution. The remaining children were sent to local orphanages and the land was sold off.
While quick to spread, Faithism failed to capitalize on its popularity like its rough contemporary, Mormonism. Over the decades, however, the book has been revisited in fits and starts. In 2018, The Times once again made note of Newbrough’s work, as it remerged at the The New York Kosmon Temple in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
“What is this bible?” the temple’s president asks in the piece, holding the Oahspe aloft, telling worshippers that it is, “a most mysterious book.” Opening to a page featuring a Newbrough portrait, he adds, “this is the man who received this bible. He was like Moses.”
Sources:
The Origin of Oahspe https://www.sacred-texts.com/oah/pamphlet.htm
Oahspe : A new Bible https://archive.org/details/thewordsofjehovih/page/n3/mode/2up
Dr. Newbrough’s Oahspe https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1882/10/21/102794958.pdf
The Glorious Land of Shalam https://www.jstor.org/stable/43463823
A Forgotten Religion Gets a Second Chance in Brooklyn https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/nyregion/a-forgotten-religion-gets-a-second-chance-in-brooklyn.html