The Spirit Fruit Society was a communitarian group in the United States that was organized after a period of repeated business depressions during the 1890s. The society had its beginnings in Lisbon, Ohio and, over the years of its existence moved to Ingleside, Illinois and, finally, to California. Plagued by rumor, suspicion, and attacks in the press during its early years, the group remained active until 1930. Although it never numbered more than a handful of adherents, the Spirit Fruit Society existed longer and more successfully than any other American utopian group. The name is derived from the group's belief that mankind's spiritual state is that of a bud or blossom on a plant and that man's soul has not yet developed into a fruit from a blossom. The goal of the society was to bring the soul to fruition. As the society's founder, Jacob Beilhart, said in documents for incorporation of the society, "... as yet, man is an underdeveloped 'plant' which has not manifested the final fruit, which he is to produce." The essential philosophy of the group was based upon a belief in self-renunciation, hard work, tolerance, and peace. Jacob L. Beilhart, founder The Spirit Fruit Society was started by Jacob Beilhart (4 March 1867 – 24 November 1908), who was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, to a Lutheran father and a Mennonite mother. Beilhart was raised in the Lutheran church and his early home environment was strictly religious. When he was 18, Beilhart moved to Kansas, where he met and married Olive Louema Blow, whose family belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist church, which Beilhart then joined. Jacob and Louema traveled to California to attend the Adventist College at Healdsburg. Jacob received a preacher's license and the couple returned to Kansas where he began preaching. After two years, however, faced with the prospect of being sent to work in other areas of the country, Beilhart left preaching, maintaining that he wanted to do something "besides talk". Beilhart felt a strong need to help the sick so he enrolled in a nursing program at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was run by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Beilhart became friends with C. W. Post, who had been a patient at the sanitarium. Post's health improved dramatically while under the care of a Christian Science "faith healer", Mrs. Elizabeth K. Gregory. In 1892, Post started La Vita Inn, a sanitorium