Home of Truth, Utah

Home of Truth is a ghost town located at Photograph Gap in Dry Valley, some convert|15|mi north of Monticello, Utah by the entrance to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, in San Juan County, Utah, USA. The settlement was a short-lived utopian religious intentional community in the 1930s, led by a spiritualist named Marie Ogden.

Marie Ogden

Marie Ogden (May 31 1883 – March 4 1975) [cite web | title = Burials Database | work = Utah State History | url = http://history.utah.gov/apps/burials/execute/viewburial?cemeteryid=SJ1003&id=799 | accessdate = 2008-03-18] was a widow from Newark, New Jersey. After her husband's death in 1929 she had become involved in spiritualism, forming an occult group called the School of Truth. She briefly joined forces with William Dudley Pelley, but parted ways with Pelley over his developing political extremism. Claiming to receive divine revelations through automatic writing on her typewriter, Ogden toured the country lecturing and gathering followers.cite journal | last = Reese | first = W. Paul | title = Marie Ogden Led Spiritual Group in San Juan County | journal = History Blazer | year = 1995 | month = April | url = http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/marieogdenledspiritualgroupinsanjuancounty.html | accessdate = 2008-03-18]

The Home of Truth

While on her lecture tour in Boise, Idaho, Ogden announced a revelation directing her to establish a religious colony dedicated to "the truth".cite journal | last = Pierson | first = Lloyd | title = The Home of Truth | journal = The Canyon Country Zephyr | year = 2000 | month = April–May | pages = pp.20–21 | url = http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/archives/homeoftruth.html | accessdate = 2008-03-18] She returned to New Jersey with no idea of the location for the project, but convinced it must be in a wilderness area far from city life. Through friends she learned of available land in San Juan County, Utah, and after visiting the area she made up her mind. A group of 21 disciples,cite book | last = McPherson | first = Robert S. | title = A History of San Juan County: In the Palm of Time | series = Utah Centennial County History Series | year = 1995 | month = January | publisher = Utah State Historical Society | location = Salt Lake City, Utah | pages = pp.308–309 | isbn = 0-913738-01-8] mostly from the Boise area, followed her to Dry Valley in southeastern Utah in September 1933. Intending to start a collective farm, the group first tried to buy some irrigated ranch land on Indian Creek, but they couldn't pay the asking price. Ogden offered the owner membership in the colony and a guarantee of eternal life, but to no avail. They settled on a tract of barren desert near Church Rock—the site, according to Ogden, of Christ's Second Coming—and began to build the "Home of Truth".

The Home of Truth was constructed in three sections spread a few miles apart. The Outer Portal was made up of several buildings, including a communal house and dormitory. The Middle Portal was to include a chapel made of cobblestones,cite book | last = Thompson | first = George A. | title = Some Dreams Die: Utah's Ghost Towns and Lost Treasures | year = 1982 | month = November | publisher = Dream Garden Press | location = Salt Lake City | isbn = 0-942688-01-5 | pages = pp.84–85] although the foundation was never even finished.cite book | last = Stegner | first = Wallace | authorlink = Wallace Stegner | title = Mormon Country | edition = 2nd edition | origyear = 1942 | date = December 1 1981 | publisher = Bison Books | location = Lincoln, Nebraska | pages = pp.331–343 | isbn = 0-8032-4129-1] The Inner Portal contained barracks and six houses. Marie Ogden taught that the Inner Portal, where she lived, was located on the exact center of the earth's axis, and that only those who lived here would be spared the coming calamities of the last days.

Residents agreed to a strict code of conduct. They surrendered all personal possessions to the group, which provided food, clothing, and shelter. The rules also forbade consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Although the colony raised chickens in the beginning, eating any meat except fish was later prohibited. Ogden even said they must stop planting gardens, but they were still permitted to hire out as laborers to local farmers. Ogden received instructions for the settlement through her typewriter as well as in revelatory trips to the top of nearby Shay Mountain. She taught her followers doctrines of reincarnation, communication with the dead, and asceticism. Ogden also directed all of the colony's financial matters. Soon after their arrival she purchased the local newspaper, the "San Juan Record", and added a column in which she promoted her metaphysical ideas.

Home of Truth's main industries were farming and prospecting for gold, on a small scale and without much success. Water was scarce, but they installed a windmill-driven water pump and concrete cisterns for irrigating their fields. Members constructed the buildings themselves. There was no electricity or indoor plumbing, consistent with their belief in material simplicity. Despite this spartan existence, the colony continually added new members, the population growing to around 100 at its height in 1934–5.

The Rebirth of a Soul

In the beginning, the sect's mostly Mormon neighbors took little notice of the newcomers, generally tolerant of their unorthodox beliefs. Then on February 11 1935 a member of the group named Edith Peshak died of cancer. She and her husband had joined in search of a promised spiritual cure for her disease. Marie Ogden claimed that Peshak was in a state of purification and could soon be brought back to life. On April 4 1935 her newspaper column included a section entitled "The Rebirth of a Soul", which detailed Ogden's conversations with the dead woman and her beliefs about raising her from the dead. Ogden still had the corpse, which was being fed and washed three times a day in a salt solution. Rumors spread through the Monticello area, and at last the county sheriff came to Home of Truth in June 1935 to investigate the stories. The authorities found Peshak's body well preserved. They decided to allow the colony to keep it, as they determined it was no health threat, and a number of people in the area had old Indian mummies found in dry caves.

Over the next two years the gossip died down, but more than half of the colonists left, disillusioned. In February 1937, Marie Ogden made another announcement that Edith Peshak was about to be restored to life. The investigators returned, insisting that a death certificate must be signed. Mrs. Ogden continued to claim the woman was not actually dead. She was eventually arrested, but the authorities failed to find the body. Finally a former member came forward and confessed to helping her cremate the corpse shortly after the original investigation. All but seven of Marie Ogden's remaining followers abandoned Home of Truth. She eventually sold her property and moved into the San Juan Nursing Home in Blanding, where she died in 1975. [cite book | last = Van Cott | first = John W. | title = Utah Place Names | year = 1990 | publisher = University of Utah Press | location = Salt Lake City, Utah | pages = p.191 | isbn = 0-87480-345-4 ] A few followers continued to live at the colony until 1977, when the remaining contents of the Inner Portal were sold at auction. As late as 1982, all three Portals still held locked, dusty buildings, maintained by a caretaker and surrounded by "No Trespassing" signs.

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