This Florida state park was home to a cult that believed the earth is hollow

MSN

July 9, 2025

"What started as a failed alchemy experiment became one of America's most unusual utopian communities. Cyrus Teed gathered followers who believed the Earth was hollow, practiced celibacy, and built a self-sufficient town in the Florida wilderness.

The Koreshans had their own bakery, power plant, and printing house before their leader's death ended their dream. Here's their story, preserved at Koreshan State Park where you can walk through their world."

" ... Electricity flowed from the Koreshan power plant years before reaching neighboring communities. The settlement generated power not only for themselves but sold surplus to nearby farmers.

Farm records from November 1901 through January 1902 document 250 workdays cultivating crops. Workers planted three acres of sugar cane yielding 370 gallons of syrup that season.

Hog sales brought $43.22 to community coffers in 1902. Financial records show meticulous accounting of all community businesses.

American Eagle newspaper, launched in 1906, gained regional readership beyond Koreshan membership. The publication evolved into a respected horticultural journal providing farming advice throughout Florida."

https://wheninyourstate.com/florida/this-florida-state-park-was-home-to-a-cult-that-believed-the-earth-is-hollow/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 6/2/2020

Lev Tahor, Synanon, Psychics,  Koreshans  

YNet: Member of ultra-Orthodox Lev Tahor sect charged with abusing two children

"An indictment was filed on Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court against a member of the ultra-Orthodox Lav Tahor sect for abusing two children, aged 8 and 9."

People: Rocker Mikel Jollett's Memoir Is 'Primal Scream' About Childhood in Synanon Cult

"The frontman for The Airborne Toxic Event explores what it was like to heal — and raise children—after he escaped the violent Synanon cult."
"For readers, Hollywood Park is a powerful memoir about one man's journey after he escapes a violent cult as a child.
For author Mikel Jollett, the frontman for the indie band The Airborne Toxic Event, his book is a "primal scream."
"Sometimes I think about this book as this primal scream, this assertion: 'This happened. Stop telling me this didn't happen, because this happened.'" Jollett, 45, tells PEOPLE about the abuse he and many other children experienced while growing up in the "school" of the infamous Synanon cult.
"I became very interested in the idea of buried history, all the ways that we as children were told things that were patently untrue, and that we believed them," says Jollett, whose book will publish on May 26, just after the same-titled album. "And probing into this world of the traumatized child. What is mysterious about this? In what ways are we just wrong? What lies did we believe wholeheartedly?"
From Dr MartyFirst touted as a rehabilitation center for addicts when it was founded in 1958, Synanon helped thousands get sober and amassed $30 million or more in assets. But, in the late '70s, the California-based organization became synonymous with violence.
The founder, Charles Dederich, ordered his cult followers to divorce and swap partners, with more than 200 couples complying. He also forced women to have abortions and almost 200 men had vasectomies after Dederich forbade any more children.
"I am not bound by the rules," Dederich said, according to a 1978 PEOPLE story. "I make them."
In 1980, the cult leader received widespread attention when he pleaded no contest to charges of assault and conspiracy to commit murder after he and two other Synanon members attempted to kill Paul Morantz, a lawyer who had successfully sued Synanon, by putting a four-and-a-half foot rattlesnake in his mailbox."

Salon: Why business is booming for psychics during the pandemic

"People are calling in droves," a clairvoyant told Salon. Are psychic services a pandemic-proof industry?
"With over 36 million Americans now unemployed, it is certainly a privilege to have a job; each week of the pandemic, millions more file for unemployment. As businesses figure out how to adapt their business models to a socially distanced world, numerous sectors are suffering, from retail to fashion to restaurants. But one industry that is unexpectedly thriving? Psychic services.
Since the quarantine began shutting down large swaths of the economy, astrologers, spiritual guides, tarot card readers and psychics have seen an uptick in business. According to Google search trends, Google searches for "psychic" jumped to a 1-year high during the week of March 8, 2020 — just when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began issuing some guidance on COVID-19. Business review and aggregator site Yelp published an Economic Impact Report that noted that its "Supernatural Readings" business category was up 140 percent as more Americans turned to tarot card readers, mediums and psychics.

Leslie Hale has been offering astrology readings since the late 1990s. She joined Keen . com, an online "spiritual advisor network" in 2001, and told Salon that currently her business is up about 30 percent. (Likewise, Keen . com told Salon they are experiencing a vast increase in traffic as of late.) Hale said usually she had 10 to 15 calls a day, but during the pandemic it's been anywhere between 20 and 30. She charges $3.53 a minute.
"There has never been a time like this," Hale told Salon of her 21-year astrologer career. "I think everybody wants to know if their life is going to go on, and if there's anything in the future they have to look forward to."
It makes sense that average people are seeking clarity in uncertain times. New Age spiritual practices like tarot cards, astrology, and reiki have become increasingly popular over the last several years, in part due to its endorsement from the wellness industry and decline in religion among younger Americans. According to Pew Research data from 2018, an estimated 6 out of 10 American adults accept at least one "New Age belief," a list that includes psychics."

The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet

"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 earth--with humans living on the inside crust and the entire universe contained within. According to Teed's 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 Teed's life and those of his followers into a riveting story of angels, conmen, angry husbands, yellow journalism, and ultimately, hope."

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The Florida Sect Doomed From the Start

Sidonie Sawyer
Huffington Post
April 3, 2016
Continuing our visits on the trail of weird places in Florida, as we were driving down the west coast alongside the Gulf of Mexico, we discovered a small quiet park tucked away from the main roads and hidden from the touristic tracks.

The place was once the headquarters of a curious sect - the Koreshans. Their basic belief was that the entire universe was actually inside the planet, not on the outer skin of it. Hum. With the sky on the inside as well. I know, it’s hard to picture, and even harder to conceive how people could have trusted that it was the truth.

As strange as it seems — I mean, what proof did they have? — the cult-like congregation had some followers. The parallel community was founded in 1894 by Cyrus Teed in Estero, Florida. The utopian facility was named Koreshan Unity, or Koreshanity.

The main teaching was that the universe existed within a hollow sphere. The Koreshans practiced celibacy — effectively assuring their probable extinction — because they believed in immortality. Membership started to slide down when Cyrus Teed died in 1908 — as there was no one to really fill his strange shoes.

The followers reached 250 residents. The community claimed another 4,000 believers around the country. Teed’s original vision was to establish a utopian city of 10,000,000 residents, with streets up to 400 feet (120 m) wide.

Here is the written premise of the Koreshanity — do you see how it rhymes so well with insanity?

“The sun is an invisible electromagnetic battery revolving in the universe’s center on a 24-year cycle. Our visible sun is only a reflection, as is the moon, with the stars reflecting off seven mercurial discs that float in the sphere’s center. Inside the earth there are three separate atmospheres: the first composed of oxygen and nitrogen and closest to the earth; the second, a hydrogen atmosphere above it; the third, an aboron (sic) atmosphere at the center. The earth’s shell is one hundred miles thick and has seventeen layers. The outer seven are metallic with a gold rind on the outermost layer, the middle five are mineral and the five inward are geologic strata. Inside the shell there is life, outside a void.”

By 1961, the last four remaining followers ceded the majority of the land and property to the state of Florida to preserve it as the Koreshan State Historic State. Open to visitors, the visit includes members’ cottages and meeting hall.

If you go:
Located right off of the Tamiami Trail (US41) in Estero, Florida — North of Naples, South of Fort Myers.
Park entrance is $5 per car; the optional ranger-guided tour is $2 adults, $1 for kids.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/the-florida-sect-doomed-f_b_9605444.html