The New York Kosmon Temple

Crystals jingled. The doors of The New York Kosmon Temple swung open. This wasn’t your typical Brooklyn church. No stained glass. No crucifixes. Just a pink banner proclaiming, “Faithists meet here.” The New York Kosmon Temple sits nestled among the more traditional churches of Crown Heights. Its story is one of a remarkable transformation. It’s a revival of a nearly forgotten American religion. The New York Kosmon Temple wasn’t always a Faithist church. Once, they read from the King James Bible and called themselves Christians. Dwindling membership led them to a dramatic makeover. They embraced a new faith with unusual roots. This faith traces back to 1882. A Manhattan dentist named John Ballou Newbrough published the Oahspe Bible. He claimed it was divinely inspired. Newbrough became a local sensation. Tabloids compared him to Hebrew prophets. The New York Times even declared the arrival of a new religion. They called it the Oahspe religion. This book was a wild mix of myth and religion. It spoke of a lost continent. It even contained what’s believed to be the first literary reference to a spaceship. Newbrough’s followers, called Faithists, formed communes across the country. The Oahspe Bible claimed to reveal Earth’s forgotten history. It introduced a cast of unfamiliar gods, lords, and angels. It asserted that figures like Jesus, Confucius, and Hiawatha all taught the same universal truth. This truth, the book argued, had been corrupted over time. Newbrough, however, promised a rebirth. A new era was dawning in America. He called it Kosmon. And The New York Kosmon Temple stands as a testament to that vision. It’s a unique blend of the old and the new. A place where the jingling of crystals replaces the ringing of gospel bells.