Speaker 1: School of Humans. Oh hello, you filthy, filthy filth heads.
Speaker 2: Did any of you listen to last week's episode and
Speaker 2: then be like, Wow, I can improve my life just
Speaker 2: by thinking. I can think and grow rich. Anybody, did
Speaker 2: anybody get rich? If so, please give me some money.
Speaker 2: But yes, last week I was talking about Napoleon Hill,
Speaker 2: the self help book writer and scammer and schemer, and
Speaker 2: a lot of his philosophies can be boiled down to
Speaker 2: positive thinking, or what I might call it being delusional.
Speaker 1: Basically, if you can think it, it can happen.
Speaker 2: And he isn't the one who came up with this,
Speaker 2: A lot of people were having similar thoughts at the time.
Speaker 1: He was just one of.
Speaker 2: The many men of the moment who wrote about it.
Speaker 2: Positive thinking was even making its way in to religion,
Speaker 2: and there was this one guy who started a religious
Speaker 2: cult called the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. Wow, very fancy,
Speaker 2: and he went even further than Napoleon Hill, and he
Speaker 2: was like, Hey, the only reason we die is because
Speaker 2: we know about death. If we didn't think about it,
Speaker 2: that wouldn't happen. And so the leader of this cult,
Speaker 2: he decided that he would test his theory that he
Speaker 2: would prove his theory by raising an immortal baby. Obviously,
Speaker 2: everyone's got to have one. Cue the theme song. This
Speaker 2: is American Built and I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I
Speaker 2: tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's
Speaker 2: episode how to Raise an Immortal Baby. I like how
Speaker 2: the name of this cult kind of sounds like it
Speaker 2: would be in Harry Potter or like some sort of
Speaker 2: wizard world. The Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. Well, it
Speaker 2: was founded around the Great Depression by this guy named
Speaker 2: James Bernard Shaeffer and little James Shaeffer. We don't know
Speaker 2: that much about his early life. He was born in Fargo,
Speaker 2: North Dakota, at the end of the nineteenth century, and
Speaker 2: somewhere along the way he became really good at persuasive communication,
Speaker 2: or you could just say he was a master manipulator,
Speaker 2: and he had a lot of ambition, a very potent combination.
Speaker 2: It does seem that he pursued studies in medicine at
Speaker 2: some point, perhaps at the University of Meigan, and when
Speaker 2: he was a young buck making his way in the world,
Speaker 2: he developed interest in psychology, metaphysics, and esoteric teachings, and
Speaker 2: he wasn't alone. At the time, the New Thought movement
Speaker 2: was making waves throughout the country. That movement was a
Speaker 2: spiritual and philosophical movement that started up in the United
Speaker 2: States in the nineteenth century, and it's based on the
Speaker 2: belief that particularly positive thought has the power to shape
Speaker 2: reality and influence health, success, and personal well being, just
Speaker 2: like all this stuff Napoleon Hill was talking about. Basically,
Speaker 2: it's a movement devoted to good vibes.
Speaker 1: Only just have a good vibe and it will be
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: Shaefer and others were basically like, yeah, positive thinking leads
Speaker 2: to positive outcomes, while negative thinking results in negative experiences.
Speaker 2: For example, the reason you're poor is that you simply
Speaker 2: haven't thought yourself out of poverty. You have too many
Speaker 2: negative thoughts. It's your own fault. James Shaeffer was hardcore
Speaker 2: into these ideas. He even said at one point man
Speaker 2: can have anything he can think. And sure, it's nice
Speaker 2: to be positive, it's nice to have some sort of
Speaker 2: hope for the future. But we're not going to be
Speaker 2: on Shaeffer's side because, like Napoleon Hill, he liked to scheme,
Speaker 2: he liked to scam, but here's another fun piece of
Speaker 2: information about him. He was a member of the Ku
Speaker 2: Klux Klan. That's crazy that he couldn't think his way
Speaker 2: out of being a racist. But whatever his background, however
Speaker 2: he got there, James Shaeffer ended up in New York
Speaker 2: City by the nineteen thirties, he had a wife, a son,
Speaker 2: a daughter, and he began preaching. I mean it was
Speaker 2: more like lecturing, but by the mid nineteen thirties he
Speaker 2: had a huge following. Hundreds of people would come out
Speaker 2: every week on Sundays to hear him talk at Carnegie
Speaker 2: Hall about how all you needed was your mind to
Speaker 2: change the world around you. Shaeffer described himself as a
Speaker 2: messenger and that he was involved with the joyous work
Speaker 2: of helping others to help themselves. But let's just keep
Speaker 2: in mind the context that.
Speaker 1: He was in the clan.
Speaker 2: But for the group of whites that praised him and
Speaker 2: loved his ideas, it kind of made sense that this
Speaker 2: was happening at the time that these ideas were in style,
Speaker 2: because it was the Great Depression. People had lost a
Speaker 2: lot of money, there was a lot of hopelessness. But
Speaker 2: here Shaeffer is offering basically a free solution.
Speaker 1: To their lives. You can just think, you don't need money,
Speaker 1: just be thinking.
Speaker 2: By the end of the nineteen thirties, some people think
Speaker 2: he had about ten thousand followers, and of course from
Speaker 2: those people he started soliciting money. Remember for the cause
Speaker 2: for the religion was the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians
Speaker 2: of Religion. Ah, he would say so, but as we'll see,
Speaker 2: he mostly probably said that for the tax exemptions. But
Speaker 2: by the end of the nineteen thirties Shaffer was like, huh,
Speaker 2: I think we actually need a physical location. So in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty eight he bought a one hundred and ten
Speaker 2: room mansion that used to belong to the Vanderbilts. It
Speaker 2: was on Long Island and he renamed it the Peace Haven.
Speaker 2: It kind of was like a country club, but some
Speaker 2: people did end up living there. Initially, the fee to
Speaker 2: become a member was one hundred dollars, but over the
Speaker 2: three years that he had the property it increased to
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars, and then you could board there for
Speaker 2: two dollars a day. Furnishings were not provided, and it
Speaker 2: was also suggested to bring along some stuff for the Shafers,
Speaker 2: so a lit of his followers paid these fees. Of
Speaker 2: course they were tax exempt because Shaffer was saying this
Speaker 2: was a religious organization. Many of the contributions that Shaeffer
Speaker 2: got to the property had no strings attached. But as
Speaker 2: we'll see, a lot of those contributions were loans. People
Speaker 2: expected to get that money back at some point once
Speaker 2: the movement, once the cult was more profitable. That's right,
Speaker 2: a religion that's profit based. But with that money he
Speaker 2: made improvements to the mansion, like installing a swimming pool.
Speaker 2: You know, if you can think you can have a
Speaker 2: swimming pool, you can have one. And I know you're
Speaker 2: not gonna be able to believe this, but a lot
Speaker 2: of the members of the Royal Fraternity were women, and
Speaker 2: there seemed to be kind of a weird sexual component
Speaker 2: to the cult. Like Shaeffer said a few times that
Speaker 2: his followers liked to caress and kiss him, and oh boy,
Speaker 2: he thought it would be rude if he stopped them.
Speaker 2: But as we all know, religion was created so that
Speaker 2: men could fornicate with as many women as they like.
Speaker 2: Is that a negative view of religion?
Speaker 1: It's fine.
Speaker 2: Also, while the Royal Fraternity was operating, Shaffer also ran
Speaker 2: a semi secret organization called the Stork Club. The whole
Speaker 2: group was made up of men, and what they did
Speaker 2: is they would gather clothing and baby supplies for unwed
Speaker 2: women and their babies, and to show that they were
Speaker 2: part of this organization, they wore diaper pins on their lapels.
Speaker 2: Schaeffer had the role of Chief Stork. Other members of
Speaker 2: the group had titles like Stork Entertainment Second Assistant Chairman.
Speaker 2: And sure, maybe these were all just good hearted men
Speaker 2: trying to help out unwed women who were struggling with
Speaker 2: their babies. But at the same time, a lot of
Speaker 2: people thought the Stork Organization was a bit sus you know,
Speaker 2: it was men going into unwed mothers' homes under the
Speaker 2: guise of generosity. I'm sure they didn't expect anything in return.
Speaker 2: And if that was really all they were doing, then
Speaker 2: why did they have several assistant entertainment chair people. But
Speaker 2: something that was a little bit different about the Royal
Speaker 2: Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians was that Schaeffer and his followers
Speaker 2: thought that illness and death resulted from destructive thinking. Now,
Speaker 2: Napoleon Hill, the crazy man that he was, didn't say
Speaker 2: this that Hey, the reason you die is because you
Speaker 2: have bad vibes. He even seemed to be like, Hey, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just what happens.
Speaker 1: You have a body and it dies.
Speaker 2: But Shaeffer was like, Nope, the only reason you die
Speaker 2: is because you be thinking about it. And Shaffer called
Speaker 2: himself the secret giver, and that secret was that he
Speaker 2: could bestow the secret of immortality. Unfortunately, that secret wasn't
Speaker 2: very helpful with his adult followers. See, if you're an adult,
Speaker 2: you've already been exposed to the dithers and drudgery of
Speaker 2: the world. Your mind is already polluted with negative thoughts
Speaker 2: that can't be undone. Thus you can't achieve immortality. So
Speaker 2: what Shaeffer needed was a baby. We'll be right back
Speaker 2: after these soothing advertisements. So James Schaeffer wasn't the first
Speaker 2: person to have the idea of an immortal baby, just
Speaker 2: most people didn't take it literally. Other people in the
Speaker 2: New Thought movement coined immortal baby more as a concept,
Speaker 2: a symbol representing the potential for eternal life, not necessarily physical,
Speaker 2: but in the soul and the spirit. But Shaeffer, he
Speaker 2: was like, hell, no, the immortal baby is a real
Speaker 2: ass thing, and I'm going to show you with an experiment.
Speaker 2: His idea was that death and disease only happened because
Speaker 2: you know about them, because you thought about these concepts before.
Speaker 1: If sickness, death, disease, if none.
Speaker 2: Of that stuff is introduced to you at a young,
Speaker 2: impressionable age, then you can live forever. But you also
Speaker 2: must have a pure body. You know, you got to
Speaker 2: abstain from alcohol, caffeine, drug, sex, Heaven forbid. If you
Speaker 2: do that, the body should be able to live forever.
Speaker 2: And James Schaeffer he didn't want to just prove this concept.
Speaker 2: He also wanted to have an immortal baby to become
Speaker 2: the supreme Leader of the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians.
Speaker 2: If there was an immortal baby at the Helm, that
Speaker 2: person could teach and guide everyone throughout the generations. So
Speaker 2: first things first, Schaeffer needed a baby. In November nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine, the baby Schaeffer found was baby Jean. Her mother,
Speaker 2: Katherine Gaunt, was a waitress and was going through a
Speaker 2: hard time. She couldn't afford to raise her babe. Catherine
Speaker 2: wasn't part of the cult, and it's not clear exactly
Speaker 2: how she knew Shaeffer. But when Shaeffer offered to take
Speaker 2: the baby, she was like yeah. The later she would
Speaker 2: say that she was coerced into giving up the child.
Speaker 2: I know. Can you believe it that someone who believes
Speaker 2: that positive thinking can evade death would be manipulative?
Speaker 1: Weird?
Speaker 2: Also, Shaeffer never officially adopted the baby, as I imagine
Speaker 2: presenting this to a government official might be a little
Speaker 2: suss being like, Hey, I'm going to adopt this baby
Speaker 2: to make her immortal?
Speaker 1: Is that okay?
Speaker 2: When Shaeffer adopted her, baby, Jean was five months old
Speaker 2: at the time, red haired and blue eyed. He brought
Speaker 2: her to the peace Haven mansion and intended to raise
Speaker 2: her amongst all the best luxuries and to be doted
Speaker 2: on and cared for around the clock. All of this
Speaker 2: to begin her journey to everlasting life. Shaeffer said, I
Speaker 2: can think of no child outside of Royalty who might
Speaker 2: have had a better start life. Baby Jean was quote
Speaker 2: loved twenty four hours a day. The fact that a
Speaker 2: bunch of Colt freaks were raising an immortal.
Speaker 1: Baby obviously hit the press. What a story.
Speaker 2: One reporter talked about how Shaeffer thought that this experiment
Speaker 2: was so important that he tried to convince the officials
Speaker 2: running the New York World's Fair to dig up a
Speaker 2: time capsule so that they could add a memento from
Speaker 2: Baby Jean. Shaeffer was like, wouldn't that be so great
Speaker 2: because she would still be alive when you unearthed the capsule.
Speaker 2: In the year sixty nine forty, another reporter came to
Speaker 2: the mansion for her six month birthday party. There was
Speaker 2: a huge cake which did seem to go against her
Speaker 2: healthy diet of vegetables and other unseasoned foods. The reporter
Speaker 2: wrote that the gooey frosting of her birthday cake interested
Speaker 2: Baby Jean much more than the immortality for which she
Speaker 2: is being trained by the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphisians.
Speaker 1: The reporter was.
Speaker 2: Very sarcastic, having a good time, and said that Baby
Speaker 2: Jean seemed like a mere mortal. After passing Baby Jean
Speaker 2: off to her wrinkly, kindly faced old nurse, Schaeffer, who
Speaker 2: the reporter said was immaculately groomed, explained that Jeane would
Speaker 2: be raised quote in conformity with the code, which sets
Speaker 2: up taboos against the eating of meat, use of tobacco,
Speaker 2: and drinking of alcoholic beverages. The reporter also talked about
Speaker 2: how she would avoid foods like vinegar and salt, you know,
Speaker 2: extreme evils that would corrupt her purity. Baby Jane was
Speaker 2: also very spoiled at the party. She clutched a teddy
Speaker 2: bear as big as herself. There was also a rumor
Speaker 2: that she had been bestowed a fifty thousand dollars ring
Speaker 2: that she would get when she turned eighteen. And Napoleon Hill,
Speaker 2: while he didn't come to this birthday party, six months later,
Speaker 2: he came to her first, and he gave her many gifts,
Speaker 2: and he also had been named her godfather. Unfortunately for Shaeffer,
Speaker 2: but probably better for Baby Jean. Fifteen months after she
Speaker 2: was adopted by the Shaffers, she was returned to her mother.
Speaker 2: This was in nineteen forty. Her mother had apparently been
Speaker 2: able to acquire a better place to live in New
Speaker 2: York at a boarding house. One newspaper read, now the
Speaker 2: parents have adjusted themselves and they want her back. Since
Speaker 2: Baby Jean was never officially adopted, Shaffer seemed perfectly willing
Speaker 2: to give the baby back, and he said it was
Speaker 2: up to them whether or not they were going to
Speaker 2: raise Baby Jean as an immortal just in case. He
Speaker 2: gave them instructions on the eternity diet that involved being
Speaker 2: a vegetarian and avoiding all those horrible things like vinegar
Speaker 2: and salt.
Speaker 1: However, it became very.
Speaker 2: Clear that once Baby Jean was home, she was not
Speaker 2: going to pursue immortality. Her mom gave her some prunes,
Speaker 2: and prunes were not part of the diet. She immediately
Speaker 2: started munching on them. So alas Baby Jean was destined
Speaker 2: to do what the rest of us do die And
Speaker 2: while on the surface, Schaeffer tried to make this exchange
Speaker 2: seem very.
Speaker 1: Easy, very friendly.
Speaker 2: Probably one of the reasons why he gave Baby Jane
Speaker 2: back so readily was that he was getting slammed with lawsuits.
Speaker 2: First from Baby Jean's mom. Her lawyer had sent a
Speaker 2: strongly worded letter demanding Baby Jean's return, and this lawyer
Speaker 2: was also representing some other folks from the Royal Fraternity
Speaker 2: of Metaphysicians for fraud and grand larceny whoopsies, and really,
Speaker 2: ever since the Baby jen experiment began, the Royal Fraternity
Speaker 2: of Master Metaphysicians was in decline. Shaeffer seemed to be
Speaker 2: hemorrhaging money, and he was losing followers. Much of that
Speaker 2: was probably a lack of return on investment. The members
Speaker 2: gave Shaeffer money and they didn't get anything in return.
Speaker 2: Perhaps they found they needed to do more than think
Speaker 2: in their life to make things happen. Who would have thought.
Speaker 2: But some people hadn't just invested money in the organization
Speaker 2: as a whole. They had also invested in some other
Speaker 2: schemes that Shaffer was up to, specifically with Napoleon Hill. Yes,
Speaker 2: self help book writer Napoleon Hill. Shaeffer explained it that
Speaker 2: Napoleon had got him interested in investing in a magazine
Speaker 2: that he was trying to revive.
Speaker 1: Shaeffer trusted Baby.
Speaker 2: Jean's now former godfather and was like, ah, this must
Speaker 2: be a good investment if Napoleon is suggesting it. And
Speaker 2: Shaefer had convinced some members of the fraternity to also
Speaker 2: invest in this magazine. And if you can believe it,
Speaker 2: it was all a scam. Napoleon was just pocketing the money.
Speaker 2: Shaffer said he had no idea that this was a scam.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure he had no idea.
Speaker 2: Things were getting so big and so bad that the
Speaker 2: new York Attorney General launched an investigation into Shaffer's affairs,
Speaker 2: and he saw several lawsuits piling up. One woman claimed
Speaker 2: that the Shaffers owed her twenty five hundred dollars per
Speaker 2: financing peace Haven. Another woman said that she needed one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars for an unpaid publicity bill, and Baby Jean's
Speaker 2: mom wasn't done. Not only had she demanded the return
Speaker 2: of her daughter, she also said that Baby Jean had
Speaker 2: been given that ring that was worth fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and the mom was like, well, that was a gift
Speaker 2: for my babe, so it's mine, I get it.
Speaker 1: This ring caused quite a hubbub.
Speaker 2: One of the members of the cult slash organization Slash Fraternity,
Speaker 2: claimed to be the gift giver of the ring, and
Speaker 2: she said that the ring was not in fact worth
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars and in fact had no monetary value.
Speaker 2: Another big issue that the New York Attorney General found
Speaker 2: was that Schaeffer had been claiming all of this.
Speaker 1: Money tax free, all of.
Speaker 2: These donations, all of these membership fees, because he said
Speaker 2: it was a religious organization. But the Supreme Court of
Speaker 2: New York ruled that there was nothing religious about the fraternity.
Speaker 2: By September nineteen forty one, Schaeffer had so many legal
Speaker 2: suits against him and so many legal fees that he
Speaker 2: had to pay off, that he ended up having to
Speaker 2: auction off Peacehaven, that huge mansion. The Vanderbilts had spent
Speaker 2: one point five million dollars building this mansion, but in
Speaker 2: the foreclosure sale, Schaeffer only got twenty two thousand dollars
Speaker 2: for one hundred and ten rooms and twenty four acres.
Speaker 1: Whoops.
Speaker 2: Shaeffer did not actually attend the auction, as he was
Speaker 2: only recently out of jail on a five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: bail for grand larceny charges, and in nineteen forty two
Speaker 2: he was sentenced to Sing Sing prison for five years,
Speaker 2: specifically for embezzling nine thousand dollars from one of his
Speaker 2: female members. The judge characterized Schaeffer like this as a thief,
Speaker 2: an ex clansman who swindled his own organization, a spiritual faker,
Speaker 2: and a religious hypocrite who's been loose preying on misguided
Speaker 2: women for too long. Honestly, in my opinion, he sounds presidential.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Another stab at Trump in this series. Shaeffer served all
Speaker 2: five years, and once he was out of prison, peace
Speaker 2: Haven had been foreclosed, but somehow he was living on
Speaker 2: another estate that was in New York. Like I have
Speaker 2: no idea, and nobody else seems to know how he
Speaker 2: got enough money to lease another big ass house. This
Speaker 2: one had one hundred acres and they named it Oakdale.
Speaker 1: I guess he still had some followers.
Speaker 2: He still had that charisma, He still had that verve
Speaker 2: that could get people attracted to his cause. At this estate,
Speaker 2: he and his wife were teaching metaphysics and they also
Speaker 2: printed a magazine. But even though they were somehow able
Speaker 2: to get a new place to live and still had
Speaker 2: enough people to teach metaphysics too, it seems the situation
Speaker 2: was dire for Schaeffer and his wife, so dire that
Speaker 2: on April twenty sixth, nineteen fifty five, Shaffer's daughter found
Speaker 2: him and his wife dead in their car. The death
Speaker 2: was quickly ruled a suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning. A
Speaker 2: suicide note was found beside them, and in the letter
Speaker 2: he said he had no way out. Isn't as a
Speaker 2: fun way to end the story. It's not clear what
Speaker 2: happened to Baby Jane. But I think it's safe to
Speaker 2: say that she did not become immortal. And the reason
Speaker 2: she did not become an immortal is because of the prunes. Obviously,
Speaker 2: if she had avoided those prunes, everything would be fine.
Speaker 2: As always, we learn a lesson on American filth, and
Speaker 2: I think the lesson we learned today is that if
Speaker 2: you want to be a healthier person and perhaps live forever,
Speaker 2: stop eating so much salt and stop having so much vinegar.
Speaker 2: Salt and vinegar chips are literally the enemy to a
Speaker 2: long life. So if you're at a New Year's Eve party,
Speaker 2: if you're at a Christmas Eve party, if you're at
Speaker 2: a Hanuka party, whatever events you might be attending this
Speaker 2: holiday season, if they have salt and vinegar chips there,
Speaker 2: know that someone is trying to kill you.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, talk about you next time.
Speaker 2: American Field is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 1: This episode was written, hosted, and produced by me Gabby Watts.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Niswanger. Our executive producers are
Speaker 2: Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr. You can follow
Speaker 2: along with the show on Instagram at American filth Pod
Speaker 2: and also.
Speaker 1: Make sure to leave a review, leave some.
Speaker 2: Stars, share it with your friends. Maybe this could be
Speaker 2: a fun Christmas gift. People open up their Christmas box
Speaker 2: and they're like, what a podcast? Amazing? I thought this
Speaker 2: shit was free, but no, you paid for it. Wouldn't
Speaker 2: that be terrible if you opened a gift and there's
Speaker 2: just like me speaking inside of the box.
Speaker 1: That would be so freaky. But anyway, talk to you
Speaker 1: guys next time.
Speaker 2: Bye School of Humans.