Word: schafer
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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Handsome, fiftyish James B. ("The Messenger") Schafer has a simple rule of thumb: "When you serve people you create obligations. Then the money comes...
Twenty years ago Schafer was broke. Then he organized the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians, whose aim was "the joyous work of helping others to help themselves." Two years ago, backed by contributions from faithful followers, he was able to buy the $2,500,000 110-room William K. Vanderbilt mansion at Oakdale, Long Island, which he renamed "Peace Haven" and turned into a retreat for what he called metaphysicians...
There, in Vanderbiltian splendor, the members of the R. F. of M. M. (mostly middle-aged women) forgathered to live on a vegetable diet and listen to Mr. Schafer's inspiring talk. One of The Messenger's tenets was that one could become immortal if one had no bad thoughts. To prove his belief, or to show it off, he adopted five-month-old Baby Jean Gauntt, installed her in the mansion with a nurse, and put her on a meatless diet surrounded by nothing but "good." Immortality for Baby Jean was in the bag, said...
...Schafer needed a good quotation. That very day Mrs. Anna Weber, of Queens, was getting a judgment against him for $2,500 she said she had lent him and which he had never repaid. Next day a line of ladies began to march into the Attorney General's office with circumstantial stories of how "the money comes...
...three truckloads of antique furniture, $10,000, and $7.50 a day for a private room at Peace Haven during the summer. (Dormitory accommodations: $2 a day). Investigators said they learned that one woman had lost two rings valued at $5,000 at the retreat, and when she told Mr. Schafer about it he replied: "Nothing is lost in the infinite. You can think them back in your experience...