A Traveler. Isaac Jones was a black cobbler who lived in Jackson City, Arkansas in the years after the Civil War. When he was in his late thirties he realized that he had the power to break free of his body and cross over to other realms. When he returned from these experiences, he started to teach and write about his revelations.

Wealthy landowners got angry when Jones told the local sharecroppers to break the contracts that kept them in a state of economic slavery. In 1884, Jones was accused of touching a white woman who had dropped by his shop to pick up some shoes. He was arrested by the town sheriff and killed that night by a lynch mob who broke down the door of his cell. Jones was defended by the Harlequin Lion of the Temple (a.k.a. Zackary Taylor). The Harlequin was also killed by the mob.

Within two years of his death, followers began to meet and exchange letters that Jones had written to his friends and family members. The Collected Letters of Isaac T. Jones was published in 1896 and the church was formed in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1905. (See The Divine Church of Isaac T. Jones)