KORESHANITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 138, 13 June 1934, Page 11

KORESHANITY.

| A TOPSY-TURVY CREED WORLD LIKE AN EGG-SHELL. TREASURE FIGHT PROMISED. (B7 a Special Correspondent.) MIAMI (Fla.), May 15. Should one of those reckless souls who occasionally threaten to "shoot" thoanselves to Mars ever pluck up the courage to hop off, he had best stop rocketing after the first 4000 miles and do a little reckoning—for Africa lies dead ahead' and he will bo half way there. Don't get the idea that the moon is a burned-out world and the stars are inhabited planets, as the scientists would persuade us. The moon is just a reflection of the earth and stars are the rejections of chemical constituents of the earth in a sea of hydrogen, some 2000 miles above us. If Admiral Byrd had put off his South Pole expedition a few more centuries, he could have sauntered down there without his overcoat, but probably would havo headed instead for the equatorial regions, which would then be the coldest spot on earth. For ev ;ry 24,000 years or so, the poles of the earth are at the equator and the equatorial area of to-day becomes the polar region of to-morrow. All this is very confusing, of course, unless you know your cellular cosmogany, the belief of Koreshanity, the stronghold of which is a colony forming the town of Estero in Lee county, near Fort Myers. It has 10,000 adherents throughout the United States. All Money Pooled. Estero is owned by the Koreshan Unity, which holds about 2000 acres of the linest land in Florida. Koreshans do not have money and no one works —at least they do not call it that. They call it "doing uses" for the community. There is one big general fund of about £600,000. There are no bosses, but each man doe's according to his liking and ability. He may bo able to run a turning lathe in the community's machine shops, or aid in operation ot the community's lino power plant, which supplies power not only to Estero but to neighbouring communities, or he may guide a boatload of tourists' on a fishing trip. All money earned goes into the general fund. Estoro is idyllic, hidden from the main highway, its 12ft sidewalks bordered with gigantic palms, huge clumps of bamboo and eucalyptus. It is threaded by a navigable stream, with shady banks overhung by tropical foliage. It has sunken gardeirs and other attractions made possible by expert landscaping. Paintings by noted artists hang on the walls of its art gallery. There is a complete library housed under the same roof with the community dining room— for the community dines together. It is not easy to crash the gates of this strange paradise. Applicants for membership in the sect are placed on a year's probation, and if then they accept its tenets they must relinquish their rights to all their earthly possessions, including wives and children. Community directors become their instructors. Celibacy is strictly practiced in earthly preparation for the coming of Koresh-Hebrew for Cyrus. Should any member desire to withdraw ho may do so, but he cannot again claim any right to his possessions. Just now the community is stirred by reports that the Smithsonian Institution plans to use emergency relief workers to excavate Mound Key in a hunt for early Spanish and Indian relics. Koreshans believe it to be the hiding place of presents given by Hernando De Soto, the explorer, to King Carlos of the primitive Indians. They purchased the shell mound to save it from road material excavators, and will seek legal protection of their property rights to any treasure that may be found in the mound. In a Concave "World. Koreshan cosmogany teaches the ■world is a shell or hollow sphere; that the surface upon which we dwell is concave, not convex. The Koreshans assert they have proved this point by a geodetic instrument known as a rectilineator. The instrument shows, they say, that the surface of the earth curves upward at the rate of about eight inches to the mile. The earth is said to have a diameter of about 8000 miles, a circumference of 25,000 miles. Koreshans believe the earth is like a giant egg. We are walking around inside the shell and the inner contents of the egg is the sea of hydrogen on which tho earth's reflection is cast. If you were to take a hickory nut and remove the kernel, the inside of the empty shell, with its corrugations representing mountains, its depressions eeas, would represent what tho Koreshans think the world looks like. If you are sceptical there is a £2000 reward offered for disproof. By this time you can readily see where the man in the rocket would be headed for, according to Koreshans, if he hopped off for Mars. Shadows on the moon which appear to be continents are in reality reflections of our continents, Koreshans 6ay. Stars are caused by discs of mercury revolving between the lamina or plates of metal in the earth's shell. The sun is the highest thing in the universe, the pivot point, and is not a globe, but a spiral, according to Koreshanism. It revolves, throwing off light on one side, darkness on the other. It tips suddenly every 24,000 years, and then the poles become tho equatorial belt, and the equatorial regions become glacial. The sun's motion also causes seasons of the year. . Vision of the Hereafter. Spiritual beliefs of the Koreshans are as strange. They believe future races will be perpetuated by immaculate conception, beginning with the advent of Koresh, or Cyrus. Heaven or hell is a state of mind only, and everyone in mortal flesh is the offspring of evil. The spirits of men who die live on in the spirit world for a period, then die there and return.to earth—as new-born children. Only a few- persons will reach the higher life. The total wilPbe 228,000, and there will be an equal number of both sexes. These will be transformed into biunial beings, 144,000 in number. Koreshanism was founded in Chicago on September 0, 1888, by Dr. Cyrus R. Teed, who was born in Delaware County, New York, on October 18, 1839. The! Florida colony, now the central unit of, Koreshanity, was established in 1894 by Dr. Teed. At one time Estero boasted a popula-! tion of, about 200, but some deserted the faith and others died, so that now , there are only sixty at the central unit of the sect. The remaining members, however, deride the suggestion that it will ever pass from the control of the j Koreshan unity. — £N__..N.A.), , . '