The Holy Ghost and Us Society
/We’re starting off the new year with more CULTS. We dig into some local history to talk about Frank Sandford and The Holy Ghost and Us Society - a story of religious fanaticism, lawsuits, and a shocking amount of drama surrounding boats.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of child abuse, child death, illness, racism, death, mental illness, antisemitism, ableism, drowning, starvation, and imprisonment.
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world as we've been doing for almost 10 years, Julia. It's our first episode of 2026. We started the show in 2016. Also famously, a terrible year. So I am just gonna hype us up every episode this freaking year because we've been doing this almost 10 years. Yes!
JULIA: We have. You know, it's been 10 years and, like, sometimes I feel the lag and then sometimes I discover an episode that I'm like, "Holy shit, I can't wait to tell Amanda about it." Part of that is I really love digging into local history, right? Especially how it pertains to stuff that I personally find really interesting. Honestly, if you think about it, that's how our urban legends episodes got started. I wrote up—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —about some local urban legends and ghost stories from Long Island, and then people started telling us their own urban legends and ghost stories. So I am really grateful every time I get to dig into a Long Island legend or some folklore or something like that. But every once in a while, Amanda, I tend to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole just to see if there's anything new or spooky or interesting that I can dig out of Long Island.
AMANDA: Who else is doing weird shit in Long Island this year, huh?
JULIA: There's definitely people doing weird shit in Long Island, but maybe not for the best, you know? So something I came across in my research recently was from the Three Village Historical Society on Long Island, which makes up the general area of, like, Setauket, Stony Brook, Old Field, and Poquott. Why is it four villages called Three Village? I don't know. It's not really important to our story, but it is kind of because Old Field and Poquott are incorporated villages and then the Setaukets and Stony Brook are hamlets. I think that's the—
AMANDA: Huh.
JULIA: —general reasoning behind that.
AMANDA: Fascinating.
JULIA: Interesting, right? Anyway, not important, getting away from myself. This comes from an article posted by the Three Village Historical Society in April of last year, 2025, titled, The Cult Next Door: Stony Brook and the Rise of the Holy Ghost and Us.
AMANDA: Ahh!
JULIA: And if that doesn't just grab your attention right away, I don't know what does.
AMANDA: They said, "Amanda, you need a little treat." Boop.
JULIA: They said, "Amanda, you particularly, need a little treat." And it's cult.
AMANDA: All of these cults. Let's go.
JULIA: So I'm going to read you the opening paragraph and you can kind of see even with just that header why I decided to dig in deeper to the story. So it starts, "While organizing the archives, we discovered an old scrapbook belonging to a Mrs. Anderson of Stony Brook, New York. Inside were dozens of newspaper clippings from the late 1890s to early 1900s, a treasure trove of local community events, milestones, and curiosities. But one series of clippings stood out among the rest. Articles detailing a strange and dramatic spiritual clash between the Stony Brook Methodist Church and an encroaching cult known as the Holy Ghost and Us. In the waning years of the 19th century, this small Long Island town found itself at the center of a religious controversy that stretched far beyond its borders. The Society of the Holy Ghost and Us, a radical faith-healing sect headquartered in Shiloh, Maine, began proselytizing aggressively in Stony Brook. Their unorthodox methods, supernatural claims, and charismatic leader, Reverend Frank W. Sandford stirred both fervent devotion and deep concern."
AMANDA: Let's fucking go.
JULIA: I mean, Oh, my God, right? So, Amanda, this week, I bring to you another Long Island cult. It like— it is and it isn't a Long Island cult. Long Island is not the center of the story by any means, but it is a great excuse for me to talk about this.
AMANDA: It's not even my birthday yet. You're so nice.
JULIA: So a little bit before we get started of a content warning. This is a bad cult.
AMANDA: Oh, Julia, is the cult fucked up? Is that—
JULIA: The cult's fucked up. But one of the most damning things about this cult is that it does involve child neglect and physical abuse of children. Frank W. Sandford was a bad man. And unfortunately, to kind of skip forward to the end of the story, he does not see the justice he deserves done to him. He sees some justice, but it's not what he deserves. But if those are topics that are particularly sensitive to you, this might not be the episode for you. Just as a heads up.
AMANDA: You are lovingly invited to re-listen to any of the 471 before this.
JULIA: That is true. That is true. So before we get to how this story relates to Long Island, we have to talk about the man who would become the leader of the Society of the Holy Ghost and Us. They also have several different, like, names that they go by throughout their history, but that is the most interesting of the names, I would say. So—
AMANDA: I do just have to say, Julia, that in my mind right now, you know the American Girl doll book, like My Body and Me or whatever it was called?
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: Like, You're the Guide to Puberty?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: I am picturing that, but it's the Holy Ghost and me.
JULIA: Well, I don't know if Frank would love that for you, but I love it for you. So Reverend Frank W. Sandford. Sandford was originally born in Maine to a large farming family. I believe he was the 10th child of that family. And Sandford's father died when he was 14, which drove him to get a job as a teacher at the local, like, Latin Christian school by the time he was 16 years old. So he was teaching children at 16 years old.
AMANDA: I mean, so was I, but early, early.
JULIA: Not formally, though.
AMANDA: Not formally and not in Latin, to be fair.
JULIA: So it was while he was teaching at the school that he was brought to a revival meeting by his mother at the local Baptist church. He was, at first, kind of reluctant to attend the meeting, but then when he was there, he was so moved by it that he publicly and loudly converted, even informing the school that he taught at, which brought him into some conflict with the higher-ups who "shunned him as a self-righteous humbug."
AMANDA: Sounds like people knew what this guy was about from the jump.
JULIA: Yeah. It's very interesting because he's often, like, described as being charismatic and being, like, popular and stuff like that. And then also people would be like, "Yeah, but he was too religious." Which is a wild thing to happen in Maine in general.
AMANDA: Yeah, and in a religious school.
JULIA: So he left teaching at that school shortly after to attend Bates College on a scholarship. He was, like I said, overall fairly popular. He was elected the class president and he was also very physically skilled. Like, he was very, like, sportsman-y. So at one point, he's at Bates College, you know, getting a college degree. And then he joins the college's baseball team and gets scouted and starts playing professional baseball for like a while.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: Which is kind of wild and maybe his life would have been better off and several other people's lives would have been better off if he had just stuck to baseball.
AMANDA: Let the man play baseball.
JULIA: But at one point, one of his teammates on the baseball team ridiculed him for attending church on a fast day rather than practicing. And so he was like, "You know what? I don't actually even like baseball anymore," and returned back to Bates College in order to attend their divinity school there.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: No, don't feel bad for him. Don't feel bad for him. Can't take a joke? But even at divinity school, Amanda, he did not seem to fit in. He was, like, very frustrated with how academia approached religious studies in a formalized setting. He did not like the way that they were teaching, like, the Bible or how to be a preacher, essentially. So at the age of 24, he drops out of seminary and becomes a pastor at a Freewill Baptist Church, which is also in Maine. So it's during this point he is young, he is charismatic, and his stint at the First Freewill Baptist Church that he is a reverend at leads to over 300 conversions in three years and over a hundred baptisms.
AMANDA: Now, when I hear stats like that, Julia, I have to assume he was handsome.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Is that true?
JULIA: I don't have a good picture of him young. I have a picture of him when he's older. Would you like to see it?
AMANDA: I would.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Just because, like, at a certain point—
JULIA: Okay, sure.
AMANDA: —like, yeah, the Holy Ghost can move you, but so does a pretty face, you know?
JULIA: So here's his face.
AMANDA: I think that's a striking man.
JULIA: I think without the facial hair and younger, he would have been quite handsome. He has very piercing eyes.
AMANDA: Yes, his eyes look light, which I think makes people think that you, you know, have some good stuff to say.
JULIA: Yes. I agree. But it was around this time, Amanda, that his religious views started to shift when he was introduced at a religious conference to the work of Reverend A.B. Simpson, who focused on the importance of, and this is going to be extremely important to us and the cult later, missionary work and faith healing.
AMANDA: Ah. You lose me at faith healing every time.
JULIA: Hmm, also missionary work, but, like, you know, in a different way.
AMANDA: You know, that's true, Julia. I just did the community meme where I'm—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —like, I can excuse the missionary work, but the faith healing is too much. They're both bad.
JULIA: So he would also, around the same time, be introduced to the concept of premillennialism, which is the doctrine that Jesus himself would physically return to earth before the millennium and bring a literal thousand year age of peace with him. Also means that the world will end, but then Jesus brings the peace with him after the world ends.
AMANDA: Got it.
JULIA: So we're having slightly, like, apocalyptic vibes happening here as well. So all of these ideas are introduced to him. And at the same time, he essentially has a nervous breakdown.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: And he gets put on temporary leave from his church. At this point also, as his religious views are changing, he goes from a Free will Baptist church in a relatively, I would say, working class town and community and then gets transferred to another free will Baptist church in a much richer community.
AMANDA: Okay, good context. What is free will baptism?
JULIA: Free Will Baptism is just a, like, specific Baptist church that had a bunch of different branches in Maine. Not super different than your average Baptist church at this time. It's his religious views that start getting a little funky and a little weird.
AMANDA: Gotcha.
JULIA: So he has, essentially, a nervous breakdown. He's put on temporary leave from his church. This is the rich church at this point. Because the church then offers to pay for him to travel the world with another minister while he's on leave.
AMANDA: I mean, that's a pretty good break.
JULIA: It's pretty great. It's kind of wild that they're paying for this.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And— but remember, he's also super into missionary work, so he's very excited about this.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: They send him to Japan, China, India, the Ottoman Empire, and Jerusalem.
AMANDA: And what years is this?
JULIA: This is pre-1900.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: I would say this is 1890s, maybe 1880s.
AMANDA: I wish I could have my nervous breakdown and travel to the Ottoman Empire in the 1890s.
JULIA: Don't we all? Don't we all?
AMANDA: I feel her brewing in me, Julia. I feel her brewing in me. She wants to go out and she wants to go to Japan.
JULIA: Him visiting the "holy land" also will become extremely important later.
AMANDA: Yeah. Not excited for that chapter.
JULIA: Yes. Also, when he's leaving Jerusalem, he straight up almost dies because his steamer ship fucking sinks.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: Amanda, when I tell you this is not the end of this man's boat trouble? You're gonna love it. It's great.
AMANDA: Oh, no. Oh, a boat trouble.
JULIA: After this trip, he returns to the US and finds that the day-to-day life of a reverend is kind of boring to him now that he's seen the world.
AMANDA: I mean, fair.
JULIA: But then, conveniently, right around the time that he's like, "Wow, it's kind of boring that I'm like just a reverend and just doing this kind of work," two strange things happen to him. He apparently, first, has an experience in which he exercises and casts a couple of demons out of his friend.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: You know, like you do.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Uh-huh. Totally normal experience.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And then, the next day, while on a walk, he hears a voice speak to him in the trees, whispering the word, "Armageddon."
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: Hmm, not great. Not ideal. Not an ideal situation.
AMANDA: I just— I imagine him being like, "Wow, Thursday was intense. Time to start my Friday with a nice, calming morning 'Oh, my God.'"
JULIA: Oh, my God, Armageddon's happening. He also wildly around this time gets married right after all this goes down to a woman named Helen Kinney who was essentially a, I want to say, wool heiress. Like, her father had a lot of money from doing some sort of farming.
AMANDA: I don't think I need to hear any other details about Helen to be immediately sympathetic to her.
JULIA: Hmm. I mean, you don't really need to know more. She doesn't pop up too much in the story other than the fact that he gets married and he has kids with her. And also, at this point, it is 1893. He is 31 years old and he tells his congregation that God told him to "Go," single word.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: God only speaks in single words, apparently, according to this man.
AMANDA: "Armageddon, go!"
JULIA: And so he leaves the church to preach the gospel without being tied to a particular institution.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Which also means he has no congregation. Which also means he has no financial support.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah.
JULIA: So he starts traveling through rural Maine with Helen, and basically because he is fairly charismatic, he starts building a following and was financially supported by those he was preaching to. The way that they describe it is they're like, "He never put out a plate or asked for donations, but people just seemed to give him money."
AMANDA: Yeah, I get that.
JULIA: So less than two years of doing this, he has a revelation, because of course he does. Actually, Amanda, and you'll remember this from when we talked about several of the other cults that we've talked about on the podcast at this point, actually holds no responsibility for any of the actions he takes. And in fact, any actions he takes, it's just the Holy Spirit moving through him.
AMANDA: Okay, Frank, enough. Take some responsibility, my man.
JULIA: So he has this revelation and also around this time with a group of very small but very committed young people who are part of his, like, not congregation but congregation, he decides he's going to open a religious school that he calls the Holy Ghost and Us Bible School.
AMANDA: I have to say that name's less. [15:37]
JULIA: It does, it does. Unfortunately, it does.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: At this school, no tuition, no real courses to speak of.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: No teachers, just Sandford and a Bible.
AMANDA: Sounds a lot like some toxic workplaces I have been at in the past. But I mean, this can't be that uncommon, right? Like, there are a lot of churches popping up around this time, a lot of people starting their own congregations, their own movements, family churches, et cetera.
JULIA: Yes. And that is true. But it does get weird. It does get a little hanky. Not gonna lie. Because he's like, "Okay, well, we're going to build this beautiful Bible school. We need a place for the Bible school to call home, right?" So luckily, God told him just where to put it, which was in Durham, Maine.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: But the man literally at the time that he's like, "We're going to build this Bible school." He has literally three cents in his pocket.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: But what he does is at the time when he was still traveling, he had started up essentially like a newsletter or a magazine where he could, like, talk about his beliefs and then build kind of congregation through that, even if he wasn't visiting the towns, right?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And also like people who had seen him in one town before he moved on to the next town would sign up for the newsletter, pay the subscription fee, and then get the newsletter, right?
AMANDA: Listen, not a bad business model.
JULIA: So he publishes a list of his needs in that newsletter and his supporters essentially volunteer their labor and the money to build the school's building dubbed Shiloh or the Shiloh Temple.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Now, this starts off as a single building that is supposed to be this Bible school, right? But at its height, Amanda, it was a compound. It had 500 rooms, space for a thousand residents, though at its peak numbers, it never reached more than like 600 or so.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: And also a side note here, a lot of what I'm telling you about is from a book by Shirley Nelson called Fair, Clear, and Terrible: The Story of Shiloh, Maine. So in case this is something that you want to dig into deeper, check out that book. It's very good. But according to Nelson, the residents there were supposed to "live in the supernatural." So depending on God to basically supply their needs
AMANDA: Huh.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: This is getting very intense.
JULIA: A little freeloader-y [18:05] and a little bit like, "Oh, God will provide." And you're like, "Hmm, you might have to do something about that. We'll see."
AMANDA: I think sometimes by God, charismatic preacher men mean other people's wives.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And there's probably a lot of women doing the labor of this whole compound that we don't talk about.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. So Sandford also instilled in his followers a sense of a need for constant readiness for "the Holy Spirit's latest." This meant no—
AMANDA: Hmm, the Holy Spirit, Julia, is always sending out new dispatches and we gotta be ready to receive them.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. This meant no settling into ruts of any kind. It meant being ready to do any job, especially those you were least adept at. It meant being open to "last-minute changes in schedule."
AMANDA: Okay, I am genuinely sweating a bit because this sounds so much like many bad bosses who are like, "I don't know, agile, just figure it out." Ay.
JULIA: Almost exactly, honestly. So this literally meant that no matter what you were doing or what you had planned, Sandford could be like, "No, actually, you're doing this now."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: Or could be like, "Everyone, stop what you're doing and just pray."
AMANDA: This is stripping of autonomy. This is—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Uh-oh.
JULIA: Because as he put it, "God's work could not be crammed into a human schedule and fussy ideas about order were not appropriate."
AMANDA: I mean, we can argue the merits of the first part, but come on, man. You're running a town.
JULIA: It's tough, it's tough out there. There's— Amanda, we haven't even gotten to the truly bizarre shit yet.
AMANDA: Uh-oh.
JULIA: Before we dig into that, I don't know, I think we're gonna need a refill.
AMANDA: I'm gonna need a double.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, this is Julia and welcome to the refill. Let's start as we always do by thanking our newest patrons. Thank you so much to Angel, Laquin, and Elliot [19:59] for joining us at Patreon. And you too can get some cool rewards at patreon.com/spiritspodcast, like ad-free episodes, bonus urban legends every month, our recommendation newsletter, and so much more. Check that out. That's at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And of course, thank you to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Scott, Anne, Matthew, Lily, and Wil. And of course, our legend-level patrons, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Audra, Sarah, Bea Me Up Scotty, Morgan, Bex, Rikoelike, Chibi Yokai, and Michael. This episode is sponsored by Cornbread Hemp. Cornbread Hemp is a CBD company based in Kentucky. And their products are wonderful. They are flour only, full spectrum. That means no seeds or stems and are USDA certified organic. I really like CBD products. I think that they help with my pain management. Sometimes my hands hurt real bad and having a little bit of CBD either taken or rubbed on my hands can really help with that. Most of their products are also vegan-friendly, including the CBD oils and their gummies. And hey, they are family-owned and crowdfunded with all of their products grown and made in Kentucky. So head over to cornbreadhemp.com and use code SPIRITS for 25% off your order. That's cornbreadhemp.com and use code SPIRITS for 25% off your order.
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JULIA: And now, let's get back to the show.
[theme]
JULIA: Amanda, we're back and honestly, take your shot. We got to get back into it. We got a lot to cover.
AMANDA: The Shot and Chaser is the holy and the ghost, Julia. I'm always saying this.
JULIA: Sure, it is. It's the Holy Ghost and Us.
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: All right. A couple of things that we need to know about Sandford and the Society of the Holy Ghost and Us as it started to grow in popularity, because this is where things become important and it shapes the rest of how the story is going to play out.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: So one really bizarre belief was that— actually, did you know that the Anglo-Saxons were the direct blood descendants of the ancient Hebrews?
AMANDA: Okay, okay, okay. Everybody needs to stop speculating about the direct blood descendants of the ancient Hebrews.
JULIA: U-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Everyone does.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. This is really only important because this sort of gives a lens that the church uses essentially to back up the missionary work that Sandford is building towards. It is called British Israelism and basically validates a bunch of the members of Shiloh as being the chosen people.
AMANDA: My face looks like the emoji with the mouth that's just a circle, because I have never in my life heard a more cursed combination of words than British Israelites, okay? British Israelism. Get the fuck out of here.
JULIA: It's bad. Now, this is a later revelation he has, but it is relevant to the British Israelism, which is at one point in, I want to say, early 1900s. It's like in that first, like, five years of 1900. He has another revelation that God speaks not just a single word to him this time, but three words to him, which is, "Elijah is here."
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Now, what he takes that to mean—
AMANDA: Is it Passover? Is Elijah checking in for all circumcise?
JULIA: Oh, no, Amanda. It just means that he's Elijah.
AMANDA: Oh, sure.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: He believed that, as Elijah, he would be one of the two witnesses in Revelation.
AMANDA: Yikes.
JULIA: Where the world ends and stuff like that, who would then be martyred and then rise from the dead in Jerusalem—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: as part of the coming of Christ's kingdom.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: Now that will be important later, but only a little bit, only just to, like, really kind of put the death knell on this cult, but hold on to it for a little while. So another thing that I touched on earlier but becomes very important to Sandford is divine or faith healing, which you're like, "We can't excuse faith healing. We simply can't." So you know what I'm talking about when I say faith healing, right? This idea that anything from cancer to broken bones, to mental illness can be cured through prayer.
AMANDA: And I don't think it's a bad thing to pray when you want guidance, support, any reason. Prayer is a great addition to any number of things. I get really fucking pissed off when people, parents, others, eschew things that could save people's lives or improve their quality of life in favor of solely prayer.
JULIA: Yep. And Sandford, Amanda, wrote a whole tirade about how Christians shouldn't seek out treatment from physicians because illness was a result of either discipline from God or an attack by Satan.
AMANDA: Uh-uh. Nope.
JULIA: And the only things that could stop those things, prayer.
AMANDA: Not for me.
JULIA: So this problem of faith healing within his church is exacerbated by the fact that he starts claiming to have done miracle healing himself.
AMANDA: Huh.
JULIA: Now, there are two big incidents that are big ones that kind of validate him and put the church sort of on the map of maybe other people are hearing about this outside of the community in Durham, Maine, right? So the first one is a young girl who was declared permanently blind by physicians, who regained her sight when he prayed over her at Shiloh.
AMANDA: Man, they love saying that blind people are not blind.
JULIA: Yep, they do. They really do. And then the other one, this is the big one. This is the one that gets him, like, kind of put on the map is a girl named Olive Mills, who modern scholars looking back at this story now think probably was extremely sick with spinal meningitis.
AMANDA: Yikes.
JULIA: A bad one to be sick with. When it gets bad, spinal meningitis, it makes it seem like you aren't breathing and you have no pulse. So essentially, it makes you seem dead.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: So she's presumed dead, Sandford walks into the room, stands over her, and commands in the name of Jesus that she return to the world of the living. And then almost immediately, she opens her eyes. And then a few hours later, makes a substantial recovery, like gets out of bed, gets dressed, joins everyone for a meal.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So you know that went to his head. You know that went to his head.
AMANDA: Yeah. He goes, "I raise the dead. I'm basically Jesus."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "But you can call me Elijah."
JULIA: Yes. So after that, he decided to build a hospital on Shiloh's campus. And again, this is the point where it is a full, like— it is a compound, right? It is becoming a compound at this point. So he builds a hospital on Shiloh's campus, which of course would have doctors, Amanda, who could consult and help diagnose patients or anything like that. But you know what they couldn't do?
AMANDA: Like prescribe anything or do any treatments?
JULIA: Hand out any kind of medicine.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Bummer.
JULIA: Helpful.
AMANDA: Do you think the doctors were fucking pissed to have that job or were they like, 'Meh"?
JULIA: I mean, I feel like maybe there were some physicians among his people, among his followers, but I don't know for sure.
AMANDA: Bummer.
JULIA: Sad and bad. So remember how I said earlier that Sandford believed that his actions were not his own, that the Holy Spirit was responsible for everything that he did?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Now, this escalated at this point because now he basically is like, "I'm the embodiment of God's will. I can require exact and total obedience from my followers."
AMANDA: No. I think the first commandment, Julia, is, I am God, your God. There's no other God but me."
JULIA: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You would think, you would think.
AMANDA: Well—
JULIA: But this is also— he's preaching this and he's also telling people, "You too can have your actions be just the Holy Spirit moving through you." So he's not claiming that he's the only one that this is the case for, but for like, you know, people who reach a certain level of enlightenment, more or less.
AMANDA: You can get into a flow state with the Holy Spirit and me.
JULIA: So this leads to, as you might expect, some internal conflict. Because if a bunch of his followers also believe that they are being moved by the Holy Spirit, and then they begin to disagree on the actions that they're taking—
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: —it meant that some of them weren't actually being moved by the Holy Spirit.
AMANDA: Got it.
JULIA: So to cut this off at the pass, Sandford decides, "Okay, actually, it's not that we're all being moved by the Holy Spirit. There's actually a chain of authority."
AMANDA: Okay. I mean, again, if thinking about this from a organizational management perspective—
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: —yes, there should be people who are not just the ultimate boss that can do things, but also this feels like a—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —situation ripe for the abuse of power.
JULIA: And I think you're exactly right, because the chain of authority starts with God.
AMANDA: I mean, that's good. That's a start.
JULIA: And then, uh-hmm, then Jesus.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: Makes sense.
AMANDA: Then the Holy Ghost?
JULIA: And— no. And then the prophet who God chose, aka Sandford himself.
AMANDA: See, this is just— it's heretical to put yourself in the Trinity.
JULIA: But he's being moved by the Holy Ghost.
AMANDA: Doesn't count.
JULIA: And then under him, ordained ministers who were subordinate to him. And then everyone else was subordinate to the ministers. And of course, women and children, Amanda, subordinate to their fathers/husbands.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Ah.
AMANDA: Bummer.
JULIA: Now, to ensure— and this— so this kind of goes out of order, but I want you to see how the progression of the authority kind of changes over time here. So to ensure that no one had any issues with this new hierarchy, he announced that he was going to organize a purge among the membership. And so essentially that purge was going to have every worshiper brought in front of him one by one. And remember, height of the— height of this cult had over 600 members. Each one of them was brought to him one by one so they could be judged by "the seven eyes of God."
AMANDA: Hate that.
JULIA: And so basically, Sandford is handpicking his disciples, his followers, more or less, and basically cutting ties with anyone that he thinks is causing conflict within the church.
AMANDA: When you start doing the loyalty tests among the following, it's a bad sign.
JULIA: And then after that, he developed a new three-tiered system for membership. There were the hundred-fold warriors who basically supported the sixty-fold and thirty-fold members who got to essentially, like, live in their own houses rather than in the commune-style housing. And they— those hundred-fold warriors had to financially and physically support the rest of the followers.
AMANDA: This is really a textbook cult. I love this.
JULIA: And then Amanda, to really seal the deal, he essentially was like, "Actually, anyone who still wants to be in the church, I gotta re-baptize you, because now you're having a whole new rebirth, right?"
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And so he took all of the remaining members, re-baptized them in a nearby river, solidifying that they were the "true believers."
AMANDA: Loyalty tests, oh, all— so much stuff.
JULIA: So you can kinda tell at this point that things are getting a little out of hand.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But it gets worse when Sandford takes another trip to Jerusalem.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: He's just con— this is also where he has his revelation that, "Oh, actually, I'm Elijah. And also I might be David, I'm not sure."
AMANDA: Uh-oh.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. He also builds an outpost in Jerusalem and that is going to be relevant to us later.
AMANDA: Okay. Okay.
JULIA: So he takes his trip to Jerusalem, establishes his outpost, has this awakening that he is Elijah and maybe David. And then when he returns back to Shiloh in Maine, he finds that most of the congregation is incredibly sick due to outbreaks of several diseases, including smallpox and diphtheria.
AMANDA: Yeah, like diseases that you could probably treat and at least limit the spread of— or the impact of, but it sounds like they were not letting the doctors who worked there or any doctors at all give any advice.
JULIA: Yeah. And because, Amanda, if you'll remember, Sandford believes that illnesses are caused by sinning.
AMANDA: Ah. He was like, "Oh, well, what all did you get up to?"
JULIA: Exactly. He's like, "You were all sinning in my absence. What were you doing? We're going to have to solve this. So what we're going to do is a church wide fast."
AMANDA: Typically not great to starve a sick body of nutrients.
JULIA: So he forbid all food and liquid for 36 hours.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Now, this included everyone. This included women, this included children, this included infants, it included animals, and of course, most importantly, the sick. So no one was eating or drinking anything for 36 hours, including children and babies and sick people.
AMANDA: God.
JULIA: During this fast, anyone who confessed to sinning, especially the young children, was whipped for their trouble. During this fast, a 14-year-old boy named Leander Bartlett confessed to planning on running away from the church.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Huge sin in the eyes of Sandford and the rest of the church. He also, at the time—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —had diphtheria. He ends up dying from the diphtheria. We don't know if it was also incurring through injuries, but he dies from the diphtheria. During this same fast, Sandford's own son, John, disobeyed him and was also whipped and forced to fast. This is obviously extremely bad, but this is also when news gets out about the treatment of the membership, especially the children and Leander's death. So the newspapers start covering the commune and its practices. It's getting a lot of, like, not just local attention, but it is getting national attention at this point. And also the concerns are being raised to higher members of authority in the community. So it gets all the way to the point of the governor starts hearing about this. And so in June of 1904, they gain enough attention for Sandford to be indicted on charges of cruelty to children and manslaughter.
AMANDA: I'm gonna say right now, that charge was not easy to get in the turn of the century.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: So I am actually kind of impressed that it did.
JULIA: So he is convicted of the cruelty charge. Does not— I believe it ends up being like a fine. I don't think he actually ends up serving any time for the cruelty to children charge, which is fucked. We can just say that right off the top. But then the courts get super hung up on this manslaughter charge that he's brought on. It goes to several different trials, like the first trial is a hung jury, the second time, he gets convicted, but then something about the law changes and so he gets retried again. And he basically, like, it gets a hung jury at the end of things. But Amanda, this is like a several year process of these cases going through trial. He's also receiving a bunch of, like, civil cases against him during this time. These are just like the state going against him, but he's also being sued by several, like, family members for—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —you know, various different things, including trying to have family members outside of the cult, like take custody of children within the cult. There's a lot going on. So he's going through a lot of legal trouble, I would say. Now, Amanda, take for a second, imagine you're Sandford and you're in the middle of all these legal troubles and a huge court case where you're being tried for manslaughter. What's the first thing you do?
AMANDA: Oh. I don't know, like write the president and say, "I'm God."
JULIA: Hmm. So it's not buy a yacht?
AMANDA: No. Oh, you know, Julia, sorry. I should have borrowed from the L. Ron Hubbard playbook. And if I had, the answer obviously would have been buy a yacht.
JULIA: You know, L. Ron Hubbard might have been playing something from the Frank Sandford playbook because—
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: Like I said, this man has boat troubles.
AMANDA: Oh, no. He's gonna take it international waters?
JULIA: So Sandford buys a yacht. It is a racing schooner called the Coronet which ended up being like a very beautiful ship. And so he, during all these legal troubles, takes a couple trips to Jerusalem, just across the Atlantic a couple times, you know?
AMANDA: I was gonna say, get my ass back to Jerusalem, but damn.
JULIA: And you were right. So when his legal troubles eventually come to an end with a hung jury, like I said, he cruised the ship with more of his followers. I think about like 30 or so followers end up coming with him on these trips. And he decides that he is going to go on a missionary trip in which he would circumnavigate the globe.
AMANDA: Oh, sure. Why not? Let's add Magellan to our list of people we also are.
JULIA: But it's so funny, Amanda, because he's like, "We're going to circumnavigate the globe and it's a missionary trip." And you're like, "Okay, so I assume that means you're going to stop in places and preach the word of God."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: "You're going to proselytize, right?"
AMANDA: Right. I don't know, help people maybe.
JULIA: Instead, he decides that he is going to claim the places they are offshore of for Christ, playing a bunch of trumpets and brass instruments from the boat as they sail past.
AMANDA: Okay, yeah. Now I'm 100% certain L. Ron Hubbard got this guy's biography somehow.
JULIA: It's very possible. It's very possible. Or, you know, like it's a broken clock is right twice a day. A cult leader does weird boat stuff every couple of hundred years.
AMANDA: And trumpets, yeah.
JULIA: So he also— this is just insane. He also brought a taxidermist on board and filled his cabin with a bunch of, like, taxidermied birds and animals.
AMANDA: Julia, not the zombie Noah's ark.
JULIA: No, the zombie Noah's ark, that's what's happening.
AMANDA: This man read the Bible and said, "I can do you one better."
JULIA: And Amanda, I kid you not when I say the man almost drowned again.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: So they're off the coast of Cape Horn when Sandford does— God, just like— it's like poet— it like— it's like someone's writing this is how I would describe it. It's so fucking poetic justice. He shoots and he kills a bird for the taxidermist to turn into another horrifying creature in his cabin, right?
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: Do you want to guess what kind of bird it was?
AMANDA: Julia, it wasn't an albatross.
JULIA: It was 100% an albatross! And then Amanda, immediately, fucking immediately, a huge storm starts up and a powerful gust of wind fully breaks the main sheet and part of the mast.
AMANDA: Man, not so nice when the Holy Ghost turns against you, huh?
JULIA: Not so nice, not so nice. So luckily for them, they don't capsize the boat, but damn, with the poetic justice have been great there.
AMANDA: Literally, literally an editor would be like, "A bit on the nose, come on."
JULIA: Okay, at this point, I can start talking a little bit more about Long Island. This is like— this is a short kind of chapter in what is the whole story of this church, right? Because Shiloh seems like it is just in Maine, it really wasn't. Like I said, he's got a post in Jerusalem. He's creating a bunch of these different outposts of the Society of the Holy Ghost and Us. And like I mentioned during that Olive Mills story, this like "miracle" made international attention. And so people who were hoping to be cured of illnesses began to either flock to Maine or to send money to the group.
AMANDA: I mean, yeah, desperate, sad people trying their best for any option. And I relate to it and it makes me pissed.
JULIA: So one of these people who goes to Shiloh and also sends them a bunch of money is a man named Captain Edwin Smith and also his daughter Stella, as well as several of Stella's friends who are all essentially rich heiresses. They live in Stony Brook, Long Island, New York.
AMANDA: Let's fucking go.
JULIA: Now, Captain Smith heard about the story about Olive Mills. He had to retire from the sea, his sea life, because he had had some, like, physical afflictions. And so he decided to visit Shiloh and claimed that he had been healed there.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Now this started attracting the attention of other members of the congregation as it was revealed that not only like is the Society of the Holy Ghost and Us claiming that they're doing miracles, but also new members of the Society of the Holy Ghost and Us were expected to donate all of their possessions to the community fund.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Basically, this is how Sandford is able to afford yachts while also fighting numerous legal battles, right?
AMANDA: Yeah, that'll do it.
JULIA: So basically, this is particularly upsetting the local churches in Stony Brook, New York, who are like, "Why are you listening to this man? Clearly, this is a charlatan and all of the rich—"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "—people in town are now giving this man essentially all of their money."
AMANDA: Yeah, what if instead you tithed regularly to us like you have been?
JULIA: Uh-hmm, exactly. Slowly this sect started to form in Stony Brook as more and more money began funneling towards the cult. And this would essentially continue until Sandford gets into his final legal troubles, which would then lead to the decline of the church. But how do we get there?
AMANDA: How do we? And I must say too, Stony Brook could not be a funnier place for this to happen. It is a regular town on Long Island, about an hour-ish, an hour and a half from New York City, where I teach podcasting to 18 to 22-year-olds twice a week.
JULIA: Yeah. And it's like very cute and it had—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —like a shipping industry back in the day. So you can see kind of, like, where the richness is coming from, but it's wild to be like, "And, yeah, like a decent chunk of people were all in a cult at one point."
AMANDA: Yeah. What is now a cute, little harbor town used to be a kind of center of industry near New York City, whaling, et cetera, but just— it's— imagine the place where your community college is and, like, that's where this is.
JULIA: Yes, essentially. So the answer to how we get here to the end of the church, to Sandford's final legal troubles is, Amanda, I hate to tell you, more boats!
AMANDA: Not more boats, Julia. Isn't the— aren't the two near-drownings enough? So at this point, like I said before, church has several outposts, including in Jerusalem and in Cape Town. But there is trouble brewing because the Cape Town outpost suffers a little bit of disillusionment when Sandford announces that the second coming of Jesus was about to happen. Again—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —this is like the roots of the premillennialism aspects—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —that I mentioned earlier. So he declares it's going to be on a particular day at a particular time. And so the followers all dress in white robes, they climb to the roof of their temple, and they wait for the exact time that Sandford said the world was going to end.
AMANDA: Damn. That's really— it's— that's swinging— that's the swing and a miss, bud.
JULIA: Yeah. And of course nothing happens.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: At a similar time, he was running—
AMANDA: He should have just killed an albatross, Julia, then it would have at least gotten a big storm.
JULIA: There we go. At a similar time, he was running into trouble with his Jerusalem outpost as well. Essentially, one of his members, who is a woman named Florence Whittaker, wanted to leave the church and she planned on taking her husband, who was the minister in charge of the outpost, with her. So Sandford decides to close down the outpost there. He takes everyone who is living in the Jerusalem outpost with him, puts them back on board a ship called the Kingdom, which is a slightly bigger ship than the schooner that is the Coronet.
AMANDA: Uh-huh.
JULIA: It's like three tiers. It's meant to be like a passenger ship almost. And so he forces them all to return back to Maine with him to come and live in, like, the Shiloh compound.
AMANDA: Damn, Jerusalem to Maine is a big change.
JULIA: So when they arrive back in Maine, Whittaker is not allowed to disembark until she makes amends with Sandford and her husband. So she refuses because she's like, "No. Like, let me off this fucking boat, dude."
AMANDA: Good for you.
JULIA: She's basically like kept captive for several weeks until word gets back to the mainland, and she is freed by court order.
Ananda: Damn.
JULIA: And then she sues Sandford for forcible detention.
AMANDA: Let's fucking go. Who are—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —these women's descendants? I wanna meet them.
JULIA: He's got more legal trouble, so guess what he does? Gets on a boat.
AMANDA: Fastest jury slump, [46:57] we gotta go.
JULIA: He gets on the Coronet. He loads up a bunch of people onto The Kingdom, which is the bigger ship, in order to avoid essentially being drawn into another court battle. And this time, he packs a large number of his followers onto The Kingdom because he's like, "We're going to create another outpost. God has told me we have to make another outpost. This time it's going to be in West Africa, but it might also be Greenland." We'll figure it out.
AMANDA: Very different ends of the globe, but okay.
JULIA: And so he takes his large number of followers, I think it's about 70 people on board The Kingdom and the Coronet only fits, like, about 30 people. So all in all, he's got about a hundred people right between these two boats. So they make their way across the Atlantic Ocean towards Africa, but off the coast of Western Africa, The Kingdom runs aground and is essentially destroyed.
AMANDA: Lord.
JULIA: Luckily, no one dies in the running of the aground.
AMANDA: That's unlikely.
JULIA: But rather than attempting to find different passage for the over 70 men, women, and children who were aboard The Kingdom, he loads them up onto the Coronet. And again, we're going from a 30-passenger ship to now over a hundred people on this ship. And he, of course, as he always does, hears an order from God, which tells him, "Actually, it wasn't Africa. It was Greenland the whole time."
AMANDA: "Uh-hmm, uh-hmm. Sorry, sorry, my bad, my bad. We sailed several thousand miles in the wrong direction. My B."
JULIA: And so he turns the ship back around, again, not finding other, like, passage for all of these people. And he sends them up to Greenland without proper water or proper supplies. And even though he had multiple opportunities to do so, he told his followers that God had ordained that he could not put into port in any US or Canadian port. And I'm sure God told him that and not the fact that he's trying to avoid getting arrested the minute he steps on American soil.
AMANDA: I'm sure it had nothing to do with the reciprocal relationship between US and Canadian governments when it comes to serving open warrants, but who am I to say?
JULIA: Eventually, however, before anyone can starve, which they're very lucky about, they come across the SS Lapland, which provides them with food and supplies, which they're like, "Oh, great, that means we can make it to Greenland. Awesome." However, Amanda, do know what the supplies did not contain?
AMANDA: Oh. Stuff what makes it not scurvy?
JULIA: No fruits, no vegetables.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So, before Sandford eventually saw reason, which meant they kind of did a little bit of a mutiny.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And turned around from trying to go to Greenland and instead docked in Portland, Maine, six members of the crew had died of scurvy.
AMANDA: Oh, God. It's fucking preventable, people. We knew about this.
Brandon: Yes, yes, if he had just restocked with proper supplies, those people would not have died. So he lands in Portland, Maine. He is promptly arrested for the lawsuit that Florence Whittaker is holding against him. And then when news of the deaths of these crewmen get out, he is then put on trial for the negligent deaths of those crewmates.
AMANDA: Another thing, Joy, speaking of last episode, that we should be bringing into this year is holding CEOs and presidents accountable for people who die from neglect under their watch.
JULIA: Agreed. So, during this final trial, which he refused to have a lawyer for, of course.
AMANDA: Oh, obviously, he can represent himself. Please, he's the Holy Ghost and David and Elijah.
JULIA: He claimed that the crew members had died as punishment from God for disobeying his orders to sail to Greenland.
AMANDA: Oy.
JULIA: The jury convicted him in less than an hour! And he was sentenced to no more than 10 years in federal prison. He only served three because of good behavior.
AMANDA: Yeah, I see what you mean. That's not nearly enough. And I don't like prison.
JULIA: While in prison, he attempted to place his teenage son, John, you know, the one he beat?
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: Iin his position of power, but John not suited for the position. Several of his, like, council members became mutinous. So he instead appointed seven ministers that led the group in his absence, though he was basically sending, like, two letters a day instructing them on how the church had to be run.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: When he was released, again, only three years later, he found a depleted church. They were running out of money, and many of the members were either extremely sick or slowly starving to death, honestly.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So he gets out, Shiloh and the Holy Ghost and Us manage to scrape along for a few more years until an investigation by the state essentially is like— its CPS.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And they went in and they're like, we have to remove all of the minors from this community. All of the children, they need to be taken out of here immediately."
AMANDA: For once, CPS, not a villain in the story.
JULIA: I know. It's bad press and it broke up several family members.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So a lot of families left the church. So at this point, the Bible school closed. The membership dropped from 370 to virtually only a few members outside of Sandford's family.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: And this is with several of his children having fled the church while he was in prison.
AMANDA: Jesus. Killed at least eight people, wasted a shitload of money, probably engaged in some imperial and colonial agendas that I don't agree with, and killed a bird. Come on.
JULIA: Killed a bird. So what he ends up doing is he retires to the Catskills, he still writes a bunch of letters preaching to and advising the very small handful of followers that remained. And then he dies essentially an unremarkable death, which the family immediately covered up because as you might recall, he said he was going to be Elijah and die in Jerusalem.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And then be reincarnated.
AMANDA: "Oh, I meant Jerusalem, Orange County, New York."
JULIA: Yeah, nope. Didn't happen.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Didn't happen. So the Society of the Holy Ghost and Us technically continued after his death, led by his personal secretary whose name was Victor Abram, but it was never able to get the following that it had in its heyday. And the Shiloh Temple, which is now known as the Shiloh Chapel, still stands in Durham, Maine. It's the only surviving building from the compound.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Even though it's not associated with the church anymore. If you read a couple of different Stephen King novels, he actually makes reference to it several times, including in Salem's Lot. So—
AMANDA: Cool.
Julia Hey, if you want to read about the building that inspired a lot of scary stuff, you can. But Amanda, that's the society of the Holy Ghost and Us. That is a terrible man who had real problems with boats. And I am sad that he never got to really get the justice that he deserved.
AMANDA: I'm glad we can bring him back a little bit now just to make sure that we know what an asshole he is. And, you know, I just would encourage you that, like, next time you see somebody who could be a baseball prodigy, but they have a kind of, like, fire of an L. Hubbard-esque cult figure in their eyes, lay your hand on their shoulder and say, "Son, go play baseball." And remember—
JULIA: Stay Creepy!
AMANDA: —stay cool.
JULIA: Later, Satyrs.
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