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Father Divine supposedly kills people with flashes of lightning

Father Divine

Father Divine aka George Baker was a black cult leader that set up his headquarters in Sayville. The house was sold to him because the prior owner wanted to spite a neighbor that he did not get along with by having a black live next to him. The ad actually said for sale to "colored." He commanded his followers to worship him as God incarnate. Their first communal dwelling, which they called heaven, was in Sayville. All members had to turn over all possessions to him, and work for free. There was lots of noise. "I phoned to Divine's place one night and I asked if the noise could be stopped," said a neighbor. "A voice I believed to be his replied, ‘Do you know whom you are talking to? This is God himself!"'

A Sayville resident that said he was God, and said he killed a judge with his supernatural powers.

The Curse on the Village: He put a curse on the village " Sayville sowed seeds of its own destruction."

Because of the weird goings on, many real estate agents wanted to run him out of town since his presence lowered the property values on Macon St. Worldwide there were 178 “Heavens” and Father Devine contributed to Sayville’s reputation for this sort of thing worldwide. People came from all over to worship him as god. According to Newsday, ""I have information that this man is not a moral man, but immoral," Smith said. 'I believe that he is not a useful member of society, but rather a menace to society.' Divine would have the last laugh. Five days after the sentencing, the 55-year-old Judge Smith died of a heart attack. From his jail cell in Riverhead, Divine is reported to have said, 'I hated to do it.' " "Devine Intervention in Sayville" by George DeWan, Newsday. PBS said there were "Newspapers reported allegations of mishandling of funds, sexual abuse, and homosexuality." He also thought white women looked better than black ones.

He was arrested in 1931 for being a nuisance. Father Divine was convicted, and immediately afterwards the judge died. Papers all over the country said the judge was struck down by god for sentencing Devine to 1 year in jail. Eventually to the relief of the business community and real estate agents, Devine relocated to Harlem. His white woman was called Mother Devine.

"FLASHES of LIGHTENING went out from his body." << Symbol of Sayville

USE OF LIGHTNING: According to the FATHER and MOTHER DIVINE'S International Peace Mission Movement, "Witnesses say that just then FATHER clutched HIS Heart and in the power of HIS Spirit flashes of lightning went out from HIS Body, and as it did so, the D. A. staggered from the middle of the courtroom to the stairway outside, falling down the stairs paralyzed." In addition, his followers claimed he set a hotel on fire, and killed his critic Mrs. Annie Hallick, all with his supernatural powers.

New Yorker Magazine Article about Father Divine

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www.advocateweb.org/hope/pdf/evingerbiblio.pdf
Harris, Sara. (1953). Father Divine: Holy Husband. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 320 pp.
Harris researches and writes about practical sociology. A biography, and frequently sympathetic
portrait, of Father Divine, a diminutive African American born as George Baker in Georgia on a
rice plantation around 1890. In 1912, he broke with two preachers he had teamed with in
Baltimore, and declared himself to be the dwelling of God. He relocated to Georgia where
authorities forced him to leave in 1914. He resettled in New York City and built a following, and
then relocated his base to Sayville, Long Island. Gradually, he built up the Divine Peace Mission
with an enthusiastic following, especially among poor New Yorkers. By 1930, his movement was
increasingly interracial and had attracted more middle class adherents. He renamed himself
Father Divine and referred to himself as God. He reported how he effected physical cures and
inflicted retributive illness and death. In 1933, he relocated to Harlem, New York City. Co-
operative businesses staffed with his followers and underwritten with their money allowed him to
house his followers and feed the community during the Depression. In 1942, he relocated to
Philadelphia. His movement had major real estate holdings in Philadelphia, New York City, and
Newark, New Jersey, that were worth millions. Followers surrendered their money to him and
renounced their families, and he gave them new names. A follower’s death was interpreted by
Divine as evidence that the person was not a true follower. He prohibited sexual relations by
married couples. Rumors persisted that he used young women followers who were close to him,
known as ‘angels’ and ‘rosebuds’, for sexual indulgence. Harris reports that his young male
followers worshipped him with the same “naked sexual glare” as of the young women. She
provides a description of a coterie of young secretaries who manifest physical orgasm rooted in
spiritual ecstasy.

http://old.www.lcms.org/cyclopedia/a/f.html
Father Divine
(original name believed to be George Baker; ca. 1880–1965). Negro cult leader; b. probably Hutchinson Island, near Savannah, Georgia; itinerant worker; asst. to evangelist Samuel Morris in Baltimore; ca. 1907 Morris took the name Father Jehovia and the title God in the Fathership Degree and gave Baker the name Messenger and the title God in the Sonship Degree: traveling preacher in the South 1912–15; to NYC 1915; operated an employment agency; purchased home 1919 in a white community at Sayville, Long Island, under name of Major Morgan J. Devine and made it a communal dwelling, his first “heaven”; operated an employment agency; changed name to Father Divine 1930; arrested with followers for disturbing peace 1931; released on bail and moved to Harlem 1932; opened first Harlem “heaven” 1933; sued by an apostate and moved to Philadelphia 1941; est. “kingdom” including many properties; movement called Peace* Mission; defined deity: “God is not only personified and materialized. He is repersonified and rematerialized. He rematerialized and He rematerialates. He rematerialates and He is rematerializatable. He repersonificates and He repersonifitizes.”

"THis Far by Faith" on PBS
www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/journey_3/p_10.html
But his success created problems. Father Divine lived large, dressed ostentatiously, and challenged the status quo. As his empire grew, so did the investigations by journalists and government officials. Newspapers reported allegations of mishandling of funds, sexual abuse, and homosexuality.
His actions got him arrested, imprisoned, and, on one occasion, institutionalized in a mental asylum.
He married white women and lived openly with them.

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Sayville, New York: 1919-1931

Father Divine and his disciples moved to Sayville, New York (on Long Island), in 1919. Sayville was a seasonal vacation community with relatively few permanent residents. Father Divine and his followers were the first black homeowners in town. In this period, his movement underwent sustained growth. Father Divine held free weekly banquets and helped comers find jobs. He began attracting many white followers as well as black.

The integrated environment of Father Divine's communal house and the apparently flaunted wealth of his Cadillac infuriated neighbors. Members of the overwhelmingly white community accused him of maintaining a large harem and engaging in scandalous sex although the Suffolk County district attorney's office found the claims baseless. Nonetheless, neighbors continued to complain.
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Sayville arrests, trail, notoriety, and prison: 1931-1932

On May 8, 1931, a Sayville deputy arrested and charged Father Divine with disturbing the peace. Remarkable in the depression, Father Divine submitted his $1000 bail in cash. The trial, not as speedy as the neighbors wanted, was scheduled for late Fall allowing Father Divine's popularity to snowball for the entire Sayville vacation season.

Father Divine held banquets for as many as 3000 people that summer. Cars clogging the streets for these gatherings bolstered some neighbor's claims that Father Divine was a disturbing to the peace and furthermore hurting their property values.

On Sunday, November 15 at 12:15 AM, a police officer was called to Father Divine's raucously loud property. By the time state troopers, deputies and prison buses were called in, a mob of neighbors had surrounded the compound. Fearing riot, the police informed Father Divine and his followers that they had fifteen minutes. Father divine had them wait in silence for ten minutes, and then they filed into police custody. Processed by the county jail at 3 AM, clerks were frustrated because the followers often refused to give their legal names and stubbornly offered the "inspired" names they adopted in the movement. Seventy-eight people were arrested altogether, including fifteen whites. Forty-six pled guilty to disturbing the peace and incurred $5 fines which Father Divine paid with a $500 bill that the court was embarrassingly unable to make change from. Peninniah, Father Divine, and thirty followers resisted the charges.

Father Divine's arrest and heterodox doctrines were sensationally reported. The New York press feeding frenzy made this event and its repercussions the single most famous moment of Father Divine's life. Although mostly inaccurate, articles on Father Divine propelled his popularity. By December his followers began renting buildings in New York City for Father Divine to speak in. Soon, he often had several engagements on a single night. On December 20 he spoke to an estimated 10,000 in Harlem's Rockland Palace, a spacious former casino.

By May of 1932, meetings were regularly held at the Rockland and throughout New York and New Jersey. Father Divine had supporters in Washington state, California and throughout the world thanks to New Thought devotees like Eugene Del Mar, an early convert and former Harlem journalist, and Henry Joerns, the publisher of a New Thought magazine in Seattle. Curiously, although the movement was predominantly black, followers outside the Northeast were mostly middle class whites.

In this period of expansions, several branch communes were opened in New York and New Jersey. Father Divine's followers finally named the movement: the International Peace Mission movement.

Father Divine's trial was finally held on May 24, 1932. His lawyer, Ellee J. Lovelace, a prominent Harlem African American and former US Attorney had requested the trial be moved outside of Suffolk County due to potential jury bias. The court acquiesced and the trail took place at the Nassau County Supreme Court before Justice Lewis J. Smith. The jury found him guilty on June 5, but asked for leniency on behalf of Father Divine. Ignoring this request, Justice Smith lectured on how Father Divine was a fraud and "menace to society" before issuing the maximum sentence for disturbing the peace, one year in prison and a $500 fine.

Smith, 55, died of a heart attack days later on June 9, 1932. Father Divine famously commented on the untimely death, "I hated to do it." The impression that Justice Smith's death was divine retribution was perpetuated by the press, which failed to report Smith's prior heart problems. The death was implied to be more sudden and unexpected than it was.

During his brief prison stay, Father Divine read prodigiously, notably on the Scottsboro nine. After his attorneys secured release through an appeal on June 25, 1932, he declared that the foundational documents of the United States of America like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were inspired. Father divine also taught that contemporary leaders strayed from these ideals, but he would become increasingly patriotic through his life.