“The Findhorn Book of Community Living” is a short and relatively good
introduction to intentional communities, written by Bill Metcalf, who spent
most of his adult life living in or doing research on such communities. The
book is published by Findhorn Press, associated with the Findhorn Ecovillage,
which could be seen as an intentional community itself. Indeed, its way of
functioning is discussed in the book. Metcalf further mentions Twin Oaks (the
Walden Two community), the Christian Hutterites and Bruderhof, the Italian
esoteric community Damanhur, Israeli kibbutzim and a number of projects I never
heard about, such as Lothlorien in Brazil (yes, the name comes from “Lord of
the Rings”) and the sexually hedonistic ZEGG, housed in a compound in Germany
previously owned by Stasi, the East German secret police!
The book also contains chapters on the history of intentional communities, and a survey of such communities around the world today. The first intentional community we have information about was founded by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras in southern Italy 2500 years ago. Two other early examples are the Qumran community in Palestine and the Christian congregation at Jerusalem, which owned all things in common. Despite its small size, I'd say “Community Living” is surprisingly comprehensive! The book is topped off by a long list of resources, most web-based, on where to find intentional communities.
That being said, I have three objections to Metcalf's book. The most serious one is his insistence that intentional communities aren't “cults” and that we should never label them as such, not even when they are exploitative?! The two leading pro-cultists in the scholarly community, J Gordon Melton (who even defends the Children of God) and Massimo Introvigne (a rather obvious fascist) are cited as serious references. Metcalf kindly informs us that members of exploitative communities might not see them that way (so what?) and that there is more abuse in nuclear families (probably true but irrelevant). We are also told that the author never observed any abuse when staying over at a controversial commune in New Zealand… Good grief, William, come on. Reminds me of George Chryssides denying that the Moonies deliberately serve their members bad food, since they didn't serve *him* bad food when he was staying at one of their camps… I think it's obvious that Metcalf is a pro-cultist, or at least dangerously close to becoming one.
My second objection is that the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of various communities is rather weak. However, this isn't a very important objection, since “Community Living” is intended as an introduction to a vast subject. Still, it's intriguing to note that the average life span of an intentional community is only five years, that the most successful secular intentional communities are those which allow their members to earn their own money and have some privacy, and that all successful communistic experiments are religious or quasi-religious. Perhaps this tells us something about human nature, both pro and con?
My third objection is more tongue-in-cheek. Often, “Community Living” sounds like an extended pitch for “Encylopedia of Community”, a mastodon 2000-page work available from Amazon for $ 900, in which Metcalf has been heavily involved. Yeah, my man, we get the message. You need to pool your and your friends' resources to be able to buy it! And form a new intentional commune, maybe?
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