Cyrus Reed Teed

October 5th, 2006

Cyrus Teed was an eclectic physician who liked to experiment with dangerously high levels of electicity. One day, he was badly shocked and passed out. When he came round, Teed proclaimed that he had been visited by a divine being who had informed him that he was the messiah. Teed set about using his scientific knowledge to redeem humanity, changing his first name to Koresh, the Hebrew word for Cyrus.Fuelled by divine grace (or perhaps electrically-induced mental instability), Teed denounced the idea that the Earth revolved around the sun and devised a new universe model, which he termed Cellular Cosmology. This states that humans live on the inside of the Earth, with their heads facing the centre and centrifugal force, not gravity, keeping everything in place. The sun is battery operated and stays still, but appears to move due to refraction. Teed enlisted the help of Ulysses Grant Morrow and together they carried out a number of experiments attempting to prove the concave nature of the Earth’s surface.

Teed’s theories, grouped with his ideas on alchemy, immortality, celibacy, collectivism and more, were termed Koreshanity, which he began preaching in New York. He attracted many followers, who formed the Koreshan Unity. Small communes sprang up in various cities, and in 1894 Teed took his followers to Estero, a small Florida town, to form his “New Jerusalem”. They developed the town, erecting buildings, landscaping, and bringing electricity to it and the surrounding area. Attempts to run candidates for local election were unsuccessful.

The community began to break up after Teed died in 1908 following a beating by the town marshall. His followers, believing he would be reincarnated, refused to bury him. Instead they propped up his body in a bathtub and waited for Teed to return to life. Several days later local health officials intervened and forced his burial.

Entry Filed under: Bad Scientists