Installation view of Stephan Yancoiskie’s paintings of Uriel and the Peacock Clock of Ioshanna, High Priestess of Atlantis, in the Museum of Sex’s Utopia (all crappy photos taken by me because the Museum of Sex press office never answered my email)
A dour-looking, ruddy-faced Quaker, who, after a heavenly bout of what was likely typhus in the same year that our founding daddies signed the Declaration of Independence, was resurrected as “a genderless servant of God.” A swivel-eyed polyamorous duo who bred unicorns (or really, did questionable surgeries on goats), one of which, named Lancelot, hit the big time in the big top. A pyramid-building sect nestled among the Mormons of Utah, who hocked their own ritual booze and lube. A World War II vet whose weed-induced hallucination told him to kickstart a new swinging religion, but it took twelve tries to get it right.
These abridged tales of Public Universal Friend, Morning Glory and Oberon from the Church of All Worlds, Summum, and Kerista are just some of the pleasingly beserk histories contained within the Museum of Sex’s current exhibition Utopia: Three Centuries of Sexuality in American Cults and Communes. The show offers a dazzling collection of attempted Shangri-Las, esoteric eccentricities, and imaginative devotion for those, like me, fond of communal batshittery and extreme behavior. Utopia, curated by Jodi Wille, a filmmaker who has made documentaries on the Source Family and the Unarius Academy of Science, surveys centuries of the United States’ foundational encouragement of whatever nutty new religious practices intrepid believers could conjure up from their overheated brains. Given that this exhibition is at the Museum of Sex, with a viewership looking for titillation before hoisting themselves up on a climbing wall of butts and dicks in the museum’s filthy funhouse, Wille frames her cult compendium in terms of these communities’ usually inventive rethinking of sexuality, ranging from tossing aside the boring nuclear family for expansive free love to embracing celibacy, using all that excess energy for rapturous revivals like the Shakers or running a popular baseball team and amusement park such as the fuzzy Israelite House of David.
Public Universal Friend
Organized semi-chronologically, Utopia opens with the earliest bunch of bonkers, the Moravians, who, like many religious loons, left Europe for the American colonies in the 18th century to live out their spiritual kinks. For the Moravians, this meant “bridal mysticism,” or an understanding that all people, no matter the gender, are brides of Christ with, as the exhibition’s wall label notes, “an intimate, even erotic, union with Jesus.” Hot. The Moravians had a particular taste for Jesus’s vulva-like side wound, that temptingly probe-able birth canal of Christianity that similarly fascinated Medieval artists and illustrators. For reference, take a gander at the eye-popper, The Wound of Christ, illustrated in the prayer book of Bonne of Luxembourg, Duchess of Normandy, on view in the Met Cloisters’ similarly erotic exhibition, Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages. Though displaying a tacked-on print of Johann Valentin Haidt’s painting of doubting Thomas fingering Christ’s side hole, the best tidbit from the Moravians’ Utopia display is their…ahem…unusual setting for a quickie: “consummation occurred in a blue cabinet: the groom sat while the bride straddled him, witnessed by trusted elders.” Imaginative!
From how little I’ve actually discussed the objects within the show so far, it might be obvious that I spent most of my time geeking out over the wall labels. My fixation, however, doesn’t mean the show is all curatorial description. Spread over two floors, Utopia brings together an eclectic array of cult memorabilia: Shaker bonnets, upside-down chairs, and an alarmingly unflattering, bulbous-headed print of leader Ann Lee; a brown dress from the eugenics-practicing Oneida Community, a surprisingly plain choice for a collective based on “complex marriage,” meaning all women were betrothed to all men; a mysterious “sex magic receptacle holding sacred ritual fluids” from the vegetarian restaurant-owning Source Family, alongside cassette tapes containing leader Father Yod’s rambling but enthusiastic morning meditation sessions; a genuflection-worthy penis-heavy altar from Summum; kooky civil rights activist Father Divine’s pins, reading “Father Divine is God”; and a wall of tapes from Osho (or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh), most with amusing covers featuring the intensely penetrative stare of the guru himself. I’ve previously been open about my obsession with the curious frequency of cults’ musical forays, and Utopia doesn’t deny viewers the pleasure of tuning into the Source Family’s surprisingly successful band with a projected grainy video featuring garland-wrapped members belting a hippie-dippie tune.
The most transfixing and thematically appropriate inclusions are the randy lexophilic explosion of books, magazines, pamphlets, how-to guides, and other publications about sex. Many of the groups didn’t simply share highfalutin sexual philosophizing but provided useful practical advice about heightening sexual pleasure. Take Summam’s guide to “Permanent Male Ecstasy,” which seems a tad scary given that after thirty to sixty minutes of stimulation, “It may not be possible for him to speak.” Blink if you need help! Many of the communities also wrote about navigating polyamorous relationships. My favorite comes from the Beat-founded, queer, anticapitalist San Fran commune, Kaliflower, which hosted members from theatrical troupes, the Cockettes and the Angels of Light. In a colorfully illustrated spread, “How to Have a Special Love Affair in a Commune,” they provide novel suggestions for maintaining harmony among a multiplicity of partners:
“Sit on your Special Lover’s lap, quack and act like a duck for him her under the main spotlight of the commune. Not only will it make him her laugh and be happy, but it will make others around you giggle and feel good by its warmth and affection.”
Quack! Quack! And because I can’t help myself, here’s another one:
“Harass your Special Lover to brown a zillion onions for a free gravy in the Panhandle. Fuck, suck, lick him or her, being sure your Special Lover is never sexually frustrated so that his her energies can be directed toward selfless service in the commune.”
More than the joy of fantasizing about browning a bajillion onions as tearful foreplay, what these publications present is proof that these various religious and mystical movements were hard at work reconsidering exactly what sex and community could be and endeavoring to live out these ideals to the best of their abilities. Granted, it didn’t always work. Some, like Oneida, gave it all up to make silverware. Others collapsed after the untimely deaths of their guru, like Father Yod’s tragic hang-gliding accident. And yet others kept it going like Father Divine’s flock, which maintained he was still alive after he died in 1965 (even withstanding Jim Jones’ attempted flock stealing, one of my favorite anecdotes about the Peoples Temple). However, all reveal a drive to push the boundaries of convention, heteronormativity, the nuclear family, and often mental and emotional stability, with extremes of either a whole lot of sex or no sex at all at the heart of their alternative utopias.
This lends credence to the exhibition’s central argument that, despite all the pearl-clutching about cults, especially after some…ahem…pretty newsworthy revolutionary suicides and unfortunate piggy bloodlust, new religious movements provide more than satiating ghoulish, morbid fascination. Many are actually, as the exhibition’s introductory text explains, “heartfelt experiments aimed to redefine the American dream.” I’d go one step further: Given the long history of communities seeking the freedom to practice their peculiar brand of strange spirituality in this country, this actually IS the American dream! And more than the great-again-yet-increasingly-out-of-reach American dream of two kids, a car, and a home, this American dream looks much more FUN. I mean, quacking like a duck? Sex magick? Ann Lee’s visionary shake, rattle, and rolls for a hermaphroditic God? Where do I sign up?!
Kaliflower’s guide for “How to have a Special Love Affair in a Commune”
All this being said, I have some gripes with Utopia. While I’d take any opportunity to rewatch the hysterical cult (wah wah) classic Tricia’s Wedding and marvel at a photograph of young Sylvester’s androgynous beauty, I don’t buy the inclusion of the glittery bearded Cockettes, which seems like an opportunity to highlight gender-fucking queer people outside of the portrait of genderless Public Universal Friend. A similar critique stands for the display of radical faeries and lesbian commune ephemera. However, the thought of back-to-the-land lesbian separatists as cults made me laugh, so I’m open to that.
Mostly, my grousing has to do with the fact that Utopia makes sex cults look a bit too fun. Some of this relates to one noticeable absence in the show: Where the hell is Children of God? Kickstarted in Huntington Beach, California, in 1968 by David Berg, otherwise known as David Moses, Children of God, now called the Family International, is perhaps the biggest and most disturbing end-times new religious movement whose theology, recruitment, and religious practices were (are?) entirely wrapped up in sex. As exposed in first-person accounts like Miriam Williams’s aptly titled Heaven’s Harlots: My Fifteen Years as a Sacred Prostitute in the Children of God, Children of God’s main method of proselytizing and raising money was through sex work, a practice they called “Flirty Fishing” or covertly “F.F.ing.” “Flirty Fishing” was based on a loose and appallingly literal interpretation of Jesus’s “fishers of men” from Matthew 4:19. The doomsday cult certainly has enough artistic materials for an exhibition too, given much of Berg’s missives came via cartoon-drawn “Mo Letters” with Mo usually represented as a gigantic lion, alongside Flirty Fishing encouragement and other discomforting sex tips. The latter may account for its absence, for what makes Children of God so horrifying is the rampant, sanctioned systemic pedophilia, documented in the Mo Letters and the harrowing The Story of Davidito, which cheerfully celebrates the sexual abuse of Berg’s adopted son, Ricky Rodriguez, who later shot and killed his nanny (one of his many abusers) and himself. Now, I get that pedophilia and sex work evangelism are rough subjects for any exhibition, let alone one that is mainly a pitstop before playing with RuPaul the fortune teller. Yet, Children of God are, at least in my mind, the most infamous sex cult, and to skip over them entirely without even a passing mention is a glaring omission, like organizing an exhibition on death cults without the Peoples Temple.
Get Thee Behind Me, (Mrs.) Satan! Harper’s Weekly. February 17, 1872
Though not as conspicuous for cult connoisseurs, Utopia also tiptoes around some of the more inconvenient truths in this free love free-for-all. Take the wall description of free love advocate and the first woman to run for president, Victoria Woodhull, which reads:
“Victoria Woodhull exemplified the connection between Spiritualism and free love. Through her weekly newspaper and public speeches, she condemned mainstream marriage and affirmed women’s rights to control their own bodies. A self-educated, lifelong Spiritualist medium, Woodhull spoke with the authority of evolved spirits whose messages she said she channeled. Unafraid to call out hypocrisy and toxic relationships, she exposed a famous preacher’s affair, got arrested for it, and literally ran for president from jail. Her sister Tennessee, was known to be mistress and spiritual advisor to Cornelius Vanderbilt, who funded their enterprises—the first female-run brokerage on Wall Street.”
This is all true, but it’s not the whole story. As revealed in Eden Collinsworth’s The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President, Victoria was also something of a scammer. She came by it honestly, learning con jobs early at the feet of her snake oil salesman (seriously) father, who, seeing dollar signs after encountering those knocking clairvoyants, the Fox Sisters, recruited his daughters, Victoria and Tennessee, as traveling mediums. Experienced with spiritualist hucksterism, the duo managed to woo Commodore Vanderbilt into funding their financial and publishing whims. While yes, Victoria did run for president, she also annoyed the shit out of the suffragettes (icon!) by narcissistically usurping their cause to advocate for herself and hilariously claimed Frederick Douglass as her running mate without his consent. She repeatedly published pamphlets about her own life to revise her story according to her concurrent goals. And later in life, moving to England and doggedly pursuing one of the wealthiest men in the country, she denied ever advocating for free love at all!!
Now, to me, these anecdotes make Victoria Woodhull that much more of a hero! Annoying the crap out of Susan B. Anthony alone makes Woodhull a hilarious filth elder in my eyes! I want my role models to be complicated and kinda BAD rather than simplified, whitewashed pioneers! While I understand that Utopia is attempting to explore a different, more positive side of new religious movements, ignoring flaws and cautionary tales also sidesteps another major part of the American Dream that many of these cults, communes, and new religious movements exemplify: wanton grift! That’s an essential part of America’s foundational ethos, too! Plus, I just happen to know a lot about Woodhull after reading her biography, which raises a bigger question: What else isn’t Wille telling us?!!
Ruth is an ICON
Still, I can understand Wille’s rose-colored glasses when it comes to these delightfully delirious communities. Hell, I can even overlook it, given that Utopia is the one exhibition in recent memory that I feel pangs of envy for not having curated myself! I’m glad I didn’t, though, as Wille introduced me to a few fresh fixations, primarily the psychedelic vision of Unarius, a flying saucer-predicting group founded by Ernest and Ruth Norman in 1954 in Los Angeles. Though Ernest may have started it, frequently crowned and costumed Ruth is the magnificent vision at the heart of the Unarius Academy of Science, resembling a lost character from The Wizard of Oz or Labyrinth (She has a look that demands either a bubble like Glinda or a few Jim Henson-created friends). More than just her sartorial statements, Ruth, according to an exhibition label, “identified spiritually as Archangel Uriel, one of a legion of advanced, benevolent interdimensional beings in the ‘Unarian Brotherhood.’” Archangel Uriel, and by proxy Ruth herself, boasted several prominent past lives, depicted in a series of wonderfully zany paintings by Stephen Yancoiskie. In these works, Uriel is a crinkly-eyed and thoughtful Socrates, a determined King Arthur, a peacock feather-adorned High Priestess of Atlantis, Ioshanna, and, my favorite, an irradiated Ra-Mu from—where else?—Lemuria, the long lost land of the lemurs theorized by zoologist Philip Sclater that has, for generations, been a darling of American New Age practices. Appropriately, Yancoiskie bestows the paintings with what I can only describe as a Mount Shasta aesthetic. Just Google Mount Shasta gift shops and you’ll know what I mean—the direct stare of unshakable esoteric belief set upon a background of glowing inner light purples, blues, and pinks.
Unarius has a few commonalities with one of my favorite recent cults, Love Has Won, led by the late blue-toned Mother God, who spoke to spirits like Robin Williams and also claimed to have powerful past lives, including in Lemuria. Yet, Unarius looks way more fun than livestreaming Q Anon-adjacent conspiracies while hocking homemade colloidal silver (Ok, that sounds kind of fun too…). In fact, Unarius seems like the most gratifying community in Utopia, particularly if you have the patience to sit and strain to hear the audio of Unarius’ grainy, low-budget videos reenacting students’ past lives for…healing, I guess. From what I caught, these videos are splendidly bizarre on their own, but they’re made even better with the knowledge that Unarius broadcast them on public access television! And according to their website, the Academy STILL has a time slot in which they air something in Manhattan from 1 to 1:30 PM (Someone with a TV, please tune in and report back!). Just picture flipping through channels and coming face to face with archival footage of Ruth in her peacock cloak or, even better, the pure transcendent enjoyment of MAKING homemade movies about past-life adventures?! Producing weirdo public access head-scratchers? In my eyes, that’s as close to utopia as humanity can reach!