At its peak, Mazdaznan, an early 20th century sun-worshipping cult, filled dozens of temples with thousands of followers worldwide. It popularized proto-yogic breathing and physical exercises and disseminated vegetarianism with a bestselling cookbook. Mazdaznan forever transformed the Bauhaus School and the emergent radical right in California. Carl Jung and Upton Sinclair wrote about Mazdaznan. It remains a secret prototype for more famous cults that followed—from Scientology to NXIVM. It then vanished into thin air.

Artist and writer Maya Gurantz (Simons Public Humanities Fellow, Hall Center for the Humanities) shares her research on Mazdaznan; its picaresque founder, the Rev. Dr. Otoman Zar Adusht Ha’nish (born Otto Hanisch); and the enticements of its synthesis of health culture, Theosophical spiritualism, and eugenic fantasy. It’s a fable on the long-term impact of con men, who leave surprisingly powerful traces of themselves in unexpected places.