The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet

Wall Street Journals Five Best Books About Cults Brilliantly written and strangely moving. Millner has resurrected the lost history of a cult devoted to a utopian vision as pure as it was outlandish.Steve Almond author of God Bless America: Stories A fascinating look at the American search for meaning and ultimate answers. Millner writes with grace and makes history an adventure.Dan Wakefield author of New York in the Fifties Teed may have wanted a shiny new world but what Millner provides is a guide to an old lost one a picture of a vanished century when science religion journalism and social movements collided in an unending and totally fascinating brawl.Madeleine Blais author of In These Girls Hope is a Muscle Those seeking an understanding of what makes otherwise sensible individuals willing to give up everything in service of the apparently outlandish notions of a charismatic true believer like Teed will find this carefully researched volume satisfying and memorable.Les Standiford author of Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean A riveting tale of a long-neglected part of Floridas history. Written with style and panache this well-researched book is a terrific read.Susan and Martin Tolchin coauthors of Pinstripe Patronage: Political Favoritism from the Clubhouse to the White House and Beyond Millners marvelous chronicle of the peripatetic and resolute Koreshans is provocative intriguing and so much stranger than fiction. You may pause you may shake your head you may throw up your arms but you will not put down this book until youre done.John Dufresne author of No Regrets Coyote: A Novel For five days in December 1908 the body of Cyrus Teed lay in a bathtub at a beach house just south of Fort Myers Florida. His followers the Koreshans waited for signs that he was coming back to life. They watched hieroglyphics emerge on his skin and observed what looked like the formation of a third arm. They saw his belly fall and rise with breath even though his swollen tongue sealed his mouth. As his corpse turned black they declared that their leader was transforming into the Egyptian god Horus. Teed was a charismatic and controversial guru who at the age of 30 had been illuminated by an angel in his electro-alchemical laboratory. At the turn of the twentieth century surrounded by the marvels of the Second Industrial Revolution he proclaimed himself a prophet and led 200 people out of Chicago and into a new age. Or so he promised. The Koreshans settled in a mosquito-infested scrubland and set to building a communal utopia inside what they believed was a hollow earthwith humans living on the inside crust and the entire universe contained within. According to Teeds socialist and millennialist teachings if his people practiced celibacy and focused their love on him he would return after death and they would all become immortal. Was Teed a visionary or villain savior or two-bit charlatan? Why did his promises and his theory of cellular cosmogony persuade so many? In The Allure of Immortality Lyn Millner weaves the many bizarre strands of Teeds life and those of his followers into a riveting story of angels conmen angry husbands yellow journalism and ultimately hope.