Home of Truth, Utah
| Home of Truth | |
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| Ghost town | |
Entrance to the "Inner Portal"
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 Home of Truth
Home of Truth
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| Coordinates: 38°03′40″N 109°23′02″W / 38.06111°N 109.38389°WCoordinates: 38°03′40″N 109°23′02″W / 38.06111°N 109.38389°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Utah |
| County | San Juan |
| Established | 1933 |
| Abandoned | 1937, empty 1977 |
Home of Truth is a ghost town located in San Juan County in southeastern Utah, United States. The settlement was a short-lived utopian religious intentional community in the 1930s, led by a spiritualist named Marie Ogden. The Home of Truth started in 1933 with an initial population of 22 people, but grew to around 100 at its peak.
During its brief history the town was isolated from the surrounding community socially as well as physically, its residents keeping to themselves in a strict, simple lifestyle. Ogden took over the local newspaper and used it to introduce outsiders to her beliefs. The crisis that led to the downfall of the Home of Truth resulted from her writings about efforts to raise a woman from the dead. The investigations by local authorities and the intense media attention that followed drove most of the members to abandon the group by the end of 1937. A handful of residents continued to occupy Home of Truth until 1977.
Today the empty buildings at Home of Truth, lying on fenced private land, are little-noticed curiosities along Utah State Route 211, seen mainly by visitors to the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park.
The site of Home of Truth lies about 15 miles (24 km) north of Monticello, Utah, and some 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Church Rock. The settlement was spread out along Dry Valley, bounded on the north and south by irregular mountain ridges that come close together at the western end, in a place called Photograph Gap. Utah State Route 211, the road to Newspaper Rock and the entrance to the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park, passes through the site.
Marie Ogden (May 31, 1883 – March 4, 1975) was a wealthy, well-educated widow from Newark, New Jersey. She was prominent and active in community affairs, working for the welfare of the poor and rising to the presidency of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs. After the death of her husband, Harry Ogden, in 1929, she sought comfort in spiritualism, soon forming an occult group called the School of Truth. Ogden was attracted to the idea that spiritualism could allow her to communicate with her dead husband and learn why he died, as well as to find the answers to life for herself. She briefly joined the early "League of the Liberators" organization of spiritualist William Dudley Pelley, whose esoteric spiritual experiences and millennialist teachings resonated with her. In 1932 she became the largest single financial contributor to Pelley's movement, but she parted ways with him over his developing political extremism. Claiming to receive divine revelations through automatic writing on her typewriter, Ogden toured the country lecturing and gathering followers.
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