Oneida Community : Millennial Light Poem – UFO ?
$150
Out of stock
Description
An Unusual Poem from The Oneida Community
Millennial Light by Henry J. Seymour. [ Oneida , NY ]. 1868.
Scarce printing of a strange poem by Oneida Community member Henry J. Seymour.
Unusual even by the standards of Oneida material, this work may represent a personal revelation unique to Seymour, or, depending on your persuasion, evidence of UFO activity in 19th-century Upstate New York.
Seymour’s narrator stands contemplating nature and the signs of human impermanence when he is visited by a divine female figure. Together, they climb Lake George’s Prospect Mountain where the appearance of a “strange air-ship” seems to mark a journey through time, confirmed by the narrator reading a newspaper from the utopian world of 2068, 200 years in the future.
Interesting to consider in the light of 20th century alien encounter and abduction narratives, Seymour’s poem matches tropes like lost time, time travel, strange women, and unexplained flying machines. Upstate New York would go on to have its own UFO boom from the 1970-90s with the string of Hudson Valley sightings receiving coverage in the book Night Siege.
First Edition. 8pp pamphlet. Slight crease to top left corner, light wrinkling and discoloration of wraps toward spine and edges. Good condition.
If you liked this pamphlet, you might also enjoy another Oneida Community pamphlet by Henry Seymour defending the group’s free love practices.
