Cellular cosmogony

[[File:Cyrus Teed.jpg|thumb|right|165px|''Massaraksh'', this guy totally looks like a rod-up-the-ass cult leader.]]
{{pseudoastronomy}}
{{hatnote|Were you looking for [[David Koresh]], a different cult leader?}}
'''Cellular cosmogony''' is a particularly nutty view of the [[Universe]], invented by a [[cult]] leader named Koresh Teed (a.k.a. '''Cyrus Reed Teed''') {{lived|1839|1908}} and described by him in a book with the same title.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/cellularcosmogo00morrgoog/page/n6 The Cellular Cosmogony, or, The Earth, a Concave Sphere] by Koresh & U. G. Morrow (1898) Guiding Star Pub. House.</ref> It basically states that we are living not on the outer surface of a globe, but on the inner surface of a spherical hollow.

==Koresh and his cult==
Cyrus Reed Teed was a practitioner of [[eclectic medicine]] from upstate [[New York]]. After accidentally electrocuting himself and having a [[near-death experience]], he changed his name to its [[Hebrew]] form, Koresh, [[Jerusalem syndrome|proclaimed himself]] a [[messiah]] and started gathering followers. In 1894, Teed and his followers, known as the '''Koreshan''' Unity, moved from Chicago, [[Illinois]], to Estero, [[Florida]], where they established a [[religious]] commune, and tried to build a "New Jerusalem" on [[Earth]]. After Teed's death in 1908, membership began to dwindle, possibly because of the fact that they believed in "[[sex]] inside of [[marriage]] only, for procreation only". The last Koreshan, Hedwig Michel, gave most of the land to the state of Florida and later died in 1981. Nowadays, the site is now known as the Koreshan State Park: not only is Florida chock-a-block full of live crackpots, they also have state parks dedicated to dead ones.<ref>[https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/koreshan-state-park Koreshan State Park]</ref> 

==Beliefs==
[[File:Concave_hollow_Earths.svg|thumb|left|200px|"New Zeland" is directly above [[Italy]], ''massaraksh''.]]
Koreshanity has several nutty beliefs, including [[reincarnation]], although "cellular cosmogony" is their keystone. According to Cellular Cosmogony, the surface of the Earth is actually the ''inner'' surface of a sphere ("cell"). The rest of the universe is also contained within. The actual Sun is invisible; our [[Sun]], the [[Moon]], and the [[star]]s are just reflections off some [[mercury]] discs in the centre of the Universe.

Teed was very [[pseudoscientific]] in other regards; he was an [[Alchemy|alchemist]] and enshrined this in his cult. Teed was a fan of [[radium]] — according to him, [[radium]]'s mysteries defeated the science of the day.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190525001653/http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/cc/cc27.htm "The Wonderful Properties of Radium"] by Koresh (1906) In: ''Flaming Sword'' pp. 204-208 (archived from May 25, 2019).</ref> He was right that it would be in the basis of a great discovery, but he was dead wrong when trying to predict what that discovery was. Teed didn't like [[Charles Darwin]] and used him as an example of "modern scientific conclusions" to mock the [[scientific method]]<ref>''The Cellular Cosmogony'' (1922), chapter ''Koreshan Cosmogony in Contrast with Modern Astronomy''[http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/cc/cc09.htm]: "…[[Darwinism]] is a fair sample of the processes by which modern scientific conclusions are invariably reached…"</ref> (or rather his [[straw man]] of it).<ref group=note>His argument consists mainly of [[quote mining]] Darwin to insistently assert that "Darwinism", the {{wpl|Light#Wave theory|"undulating theory of light"|,}} and the rest of the science of the time are based on "mere conjecture" — "a mere guess" that wants to be accepted without any evidence.</ref>

===Refuting===
Cellular Cosmogony is completely wrong. Although, with a lot of broken [[Occam's razor|razors]] and the right metric (one that turns space inside out and enlarges and reduces distances accordingly), [[Bullshit|this model can actually sort-of work as a mathematical model matching astronomical observations]], but there are many problems. Seismic analyses show Earth is a non-hollow sphere<ref group=note>Technically an oblate spheroid, but what's a few miles?</ref> with a crust, mantle, and core. This is reflected in things like where waves from earthquakes are recorded, in a model consistent with a solid (not hollow) Earth but not with a [[hollow Earth]] we're inside.

==Woo never dies?==
The cult was still chugging along when it published its only known book in 1971 titled ''Koreshanity, the New Age Religion'',<ref>''Koreshanity, the New Age Religion'' (1971) The Koreshan Foundation.</ref> perhaps entering a period of quiescence until the [[internet]] came along.

One would think that Koresh's crackpottery would have died with his last follower, ''massaraksh'', but on the [[Internet]] no [[woo]] is old enough or implausible enough to be rejected. A number of forum threads and [[YouTube]] videos indicate that there are people who still (or ''again'') believe in an inside-out world.

And all those pictures from the [[Mars landing hoax|Mars rovers are fake]], because…
{{cquote|[[TPTB]] want us to believe that we are unimportant and unsignificant{{sic}} in comparisson{{sic}} to the infinite expanding universe. they want us to feel lonely and separated. … this theory is a deep psychological and spiritual idea, which gives us an understanding of who we are and why we´re here…|||Anonymous Coward 996709, [[Godlike Productions]]<ref>[http://archive.ph/MDfcv WE LIVE INSIDE A HOLLOW SPHERE, THAT CONTAINS THE WHOLE UNIVERSE] by Anonymous Coward 996709 (06/08/2010 11:21 AM) ''Godlike Productions'' (archived from 7 Jul 2013 13:05:02 UTC).</ref>}}

==See also==
*[[Hollow Earth]] — A larger category, although most of these nuts believe we're on the "outside" of the cell.
*[[Flat Earth]] — Yes, people really still believe this.
*[[Geocentrism]]

==External links==
*[http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/cc/ ''The Cellular Cosmogony'']by Koresh, full text of the 1922 edition at the Internet Sacred Texts Archive
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLRH8hDa3Rs You Tube - The Earth Egg]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20030908230745/http://www.floridastateparks.org/koreshan/ Koreshan State Historic Site], official site
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20030922235605/http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hollow/morrow.htm Turning the Universe Inside-Out: Ulysses Grant Morrow's Naples Experiment]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20030921182037/http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hollow/tamarack.htm The Tamarack Mines Mystery]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Cults]]
[[Category:Florida]]
[[Category:New Age]]
[[Category:Silly "Earth" theories]]

Categories: Cults, Florida, New Age, Silly "Earth" theories