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As the 20th century approached, our understanding of the natural world and of the cosmos was increasing at a more rapid pace than any time in the history of science. We were building on our knowledge of asteroids, the discovery of Neptune, and understanding the transit of Venus, and science fiction like Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was taking our imagination deep inside our own planet.
But one man rejected the long march of seemingly-irrefutable scientific progress. The cult leader Cyrus Teed was convinced that we weren't living amidst a complex solar system, and that we weren't on top of the Earth at all. Cyrus Teed thought that we were living inside the Earth.
Teed's Koreshan movement focused on the concept of a hollow earth, and he set out to prove scientifically that we were living on a concave surface inside of a giant hollow ball. From the religious awakenings of Upstate New York to Chicago to a swamp in Florida, Cyrus Teed gained converts who believed in his science and his religion. But did the rectilineator Teed built to conduct his painstaking measurements prove that we're really living inside, or did they just prove that Teed and his followers were insane?
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