{"product_id":"the-allure-of-immortality-an-american-cult-a-florida-swamp-and-a-renegade-prophet-9780813061238","title":"The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult  a Florida Swamp  and a Renegade Prophet","description":"\u003cp\u003eWall 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279645270069,"sku":"ByrdShop_0813061237","price":37.56,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780813061238_a9f83f13-7b4a-47ed-bc01-05061612ff74.jpg?v=1780604593","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-allure-of-immortality-an-american-cult-a-florida-swamp-and-a-renegade-prophet-9780813061238","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}