A NEW RELIGION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5474, 31 December 1904, Page 11

A NEW RELIGION.

ANOTHER “ SALT LAKE” CITY IX FLORIDA. THEOLOGICAL HYPOTHESIS. A queer religious sect, known as the Koreshan Unity, who believe that the earth is a hollow globe and the sky its shell, have incorporated a new city of Jerusalem on the banks of Estero Bay, in Leo County, Florida, and they are confident that it will be populated by ten million persons. New Jerusalem will be constructed on a scale of such magnificence its to dwarf all plans of present large cities. It is asserted by leaders of the new cult that the city will be the greatest on the continent. It begins its existence with an area of about HO square miles, the largest area over contained within boundaries in any new town or city. There is to be no chance development. Its streets, avenues and boulevards, its parks and plazas, magnificent courts and all public buildings are all mapped out. In the work of building the city there is to be no waste of energy or funds. Estero City is planned to be the great co-operative city of America. Competition is to be abolished, scientific economy substituted, and equitable relations guaranteed. Municipal ownership of public utilities and control of industries are features of the new municipality; and steps are taken which will bar from the city all forms of vice common to all large cities. Lse of whisky and tobacco is prohibited. The city will have schools, ant galleries, music halls, theatres and all places of amusement free to the resident population. Koreshanity is a religio-scienoe. It teaches what purports to be a scientific religion, as well as the science of all forms and functions of life in every domain of the universe. In one respect or another Koreshanity is like every great system of thought ever promulgated. It has much to say about the universal doctrines of religion, systems of moral and mental culture, realms of the unseen, and social, industrial and political economy. It is maintained by the new cult that notwithstanding that there is to-day a better classification of superficial knowledge than ever before not one conclusion of modem scientists is fundamentally'true. Koreshanity contradicts modem astronomy and all kindred sciences by asserting that the universe is cellular in form, the basis being the earth, itself concave, with its inhabitants dwelling upon the inner surface. The basis of the Koreshan cosmogony is that all life is cellular, originating in cells, all'living structures being composed of cells and propagating cells. Henoe the conclusion that the universe, the great aggregation of all cells, must itself be a cell, the material walls of which are comprised of the shell of the earth.

The scientific staff of the Koreshan Unity recently undertook to demonstrate the truth of the cosmogonic conceptions by experiment. They claim to have found by geodetic survey of the Gulf coast of Florida that a rectiline extended over a portion of the earth’s or ■water’s surface is the chord of a concave arc. and not the tangent to a convex curvature; and that the surface of water from, the basis of visual and other tests over long distances cannot be convex. From the cellular theory the Koreshans derive all their conceptions of economic, social and political reform. They maintain that the government of the universe is imperialism, and that the ultimate form of human government, when humanity shall have progressed to the stage of higher conceptions, will be a universal empire. Thus Koreshans attach great importance to their science of cosmogony, holding that it contains the key to the solution of all problems which now confront the world. In their communistic life (says a recent article in the “New York Herald”) the Koreshans have a resemblance to the primitive Christians, who held their possessions in common. Their seculat; organisation is called the Koreshan Unity, which is incorporated according to the laws of New Jersey. The property held by the Koreshan Unity is owned in common by the members. In addition to practising communistic principles, the Koreshan Unity maintains celibacy. Hr Oyrus It. Teed, the founder, whose religious cognomen is Koresh (the Hebrew word for Cyrus), whence the name of Koreshanity, made his alleged discoveries in alchemy and cosmogony years ago. He then proclaimed that ho had found the secret of human redemption from the' curse under which man had fallen. Hr Teed has convinced many persons in Bstero and various parts of the world that ho possesses strong mentality and spiritual penetration unclaimed by any other modem teacher. The government of the Koreshan Unity as a body, distinct from its political and secular relations, is vested in an imperial head, called the preeminent, who constitutes the executive power of the system. The governing body is called the pre-eminent concilium. The pre-eminent presides at the meetings of this body. The title of the pre-eminent is “Victoria Gratia Koresch,” signifying Victoria by the grace of Koresoh. The woman thus honoured with the executive office of the Koreshan Unity was originally Mrs Annie G. Ordway, recently of Chicago. Mrs Ordway is about sixty years of age and a forceful The secular government of Estero City is distinct from the government of the religious colony. The municipality is regulated by the statutes of Florida, having its town officials elected by popular ballot.