Decades before Charles Manson’s followers spread terror in Los Angeles and Jim Jones orchestrated mass suicide in Guyana, a bearded mystic named Thomas Lake Harris preached salvation in the hills above Santa Rosa.

He claimed to speak with spirits, rewrote the Bible and battled demons in trances. His followers gave him their money — sometimes a great deal more. What began as a utopian experiment called Fountaingrove ended in scandal and headlines about “spiritual harems” and mind control.

In a new book, “ Unholy Sensations: A Story of Sex, Scandal and California’s First Cult Scare ” (Oxford University Press, 2025), historian Joshua Paddison revisits Harris’ rise and fall. It is a sensational tale of faith, fraud and forbidden desire that captivated 19th-century America, with themes that

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