Shomo believed it until the very moment that he was killed in a carriage accident in 1871. Benjamin Purnell's cult, the House of David, held to the same silly idea until he was thrown into jail for disgusting crimes and his following fell away. Father Divine claimed to be approaching one hundred years of age and to be exempt from mortal death. The deaths of these leaders were unexpected to the followers, and sometimes even to themselves. Thomas Lake Harris, who founded the community "Brotherhood of the New Life," maintained this delusion until the very year of his own death at the beginning of the century. Mary Baker Eddy taught it as a truth but failed, in her own terminology, to "demonstrate" it when she too died soon after Frederick Howland, leader of the little sect Adonai.
-- Notebooks Category 10: Healing of the Self > Chapter 1 : The Laws of Nature > # 73
