The Anti-Sex Communist Cult Leader Who Thought The World Was Inside Out
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There won't be an episode next Friday, since I'm still traveling and I don't have time to make new episodes. At the moment this episode goes live, I'll be in Latvia. But there'll be plenty more before long!
What else should have been part of Teed's belief system?
That "melted buildings" TikTok conspiracy theory - https://www.patreon.com/torscabinet/membership
Gene Ray's revolutionary Time Cube theory of 4-day time - https://x.com/parsons_tor
Estophilia (an intense interest in the people, language, and/or culture of Estonia) - https://www.reddit.com/user/MrSluds/
Quebecois nationalism 'cause why not - https://www.instagram.com/tor.in.oregon/
Sources & further info (mostly gathered by the great Nick Miller):
1. J. Phillip Arnold, ‘Did David Koresh Plagiarize Cyrus R. Teed,’ 102.
2. Annual Report of the Adjutant-General of the state of New York for the Year 1903 (Albany NY: State of New York, 1904) 11, 1144.
3. Register of Graduates, 1867-1908 (New York: Eclectic Medical College of the City of New York, 1908; John H. Francis, comp., Utica City Directory, 1869-1970 (Utica: White & Floyd, 1869) 319.
4. Cyrus R. Teed, The Illumination of Koresh: Marvelous Experience of the Great Alchemist at Utica (New York, n.p, n.d.) 9, 13.
5. Cyrus Teed (Koresh), “Interpretation of the Book of Revelation Part II,” The Flaming Sword, February 1923, 1–2; “Interpretation Part VIII,” The Flaming Sword, August 1923
6. Koresh, The Cellular Cosmogony, or, the Earth, a Concave Sphere. Guiding Star Publishing House, Estero, FL.
7. Adam Morris, ‘Perils, Gold and Yellow: Cyrus Teed’s The Great Red Dragon,’ 196-197.
8. Richard S. Berrey, ‘The Koreshan Unity: An Economic History of a Communistic Experiment in Florida,’
9. Koresh, Not Allow Yourselves to Be the Tools of a Plutocratic, Daily Press! The Flaming Sword 3(21): 3-4; Woman's Restoration to Her Rightful Dominion and Her Relation to Koreshanity. Guiding Star Publishing House, Estero, FL.
10. Richard S. Berrey, ‘The Koreshan Unity: An Economic History of a Communistic Experiment in Florida,’ 64
11. Sally L Kitch, Chaste Liberation? Celibacy and Female Cultural Status. (University of Illinois Press, Chicago, IL. 1989)
12. Hedwig Michel, A Gift to the People, 1975, 5.
13. Koresh, the Koreshan Unity: General Information Concerning Membership and Its Obligations. Guiding Star Publishing House, Chicago, IL
14. Sarah A. Tarlow, ‘Representing Utopia: The Case of Cyrus Teed’s Koreshan Unity Settlement,’ 91.
15. Mildred Fryman, National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form (Koreshan Unity Settleman Historic District). Manuscript, Florida Office of Cultural and Historical Programs, Tallahassee, 8.
16. New York Times, August 10, 1884, 1 col. 5; Syracuse City Directory, 1884 (Syracuse NY: 1884), 371; Howard Fine notes in his review there was no listings in NYC directories from the 1880s that appear to ‘belie or confirm his residence in the city’ and ‘nor was there any record of Dr. Cyrus Teed in the physicians and surgeons records of the New York County Clerk’s Office’. Howard D. Fine, ‘The Koreshan Unity: The Chicago Years of a Utopian Community,’ 215
17. World's College of Life, Metaphysics (Chicago, hand dated June 11, 1887), 4.
18. Cole v. Teed, Case G. 103461, Circuit Court of Cook County
19. Utica (N.Y.) Herald-Dispatch, Dec. 26, 1908, p. 8, col. 2; Lee County, Florida, Closed Index to Deeds, I^Z, Grantee from 1887 to July 1, 1922, p. 334.
20. Elwin E. Damkohler, Estero, Fla., 1882: Memoirs of a First Settler (Fort Myers Beach, Fla.: Island Press, 1967), pp. 22-23
21. Chicago Herald, April 8, 1894, p. 30, cols. 4, 1.
22. H. K. Carroll, The Religious Forces of the United States, rev. ed. (New York: Christian Literature Co., 1896), p. 11
23. Fort Myers Press, September 27, 1906, 4; The Pioneer University of Koreshan Universology (ca. 1904; rpt. Estero, Fla.: Koreshan University System).
24. Lyn Rainard, "Conflict Inside the Earth: The Koreshan Unity in Lee
County," Tampa Bay History 2 (Spring/Summer 1981)
25. Elliott Mackle, "Cyrus Teed and the Lee County Elections of 1906", Florida Historical Quarterly 57, 1978: 1-18.
26. Ignatius Donnelly, Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century, edited by Nicholas Ruddick (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003)
27. Herald of the New Covenant (Utica, N.Y.) 1, no. 5, p. 51, Robert S. Fogarty, The Righteous Remnant: The House of David (Kent, OH: Kent
State University Press, 1981), 138–39;
28. Millner, “Koreshans.” Lyn Millner, "The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet" (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2019)
