Ep 8: Raising the Immortal Baby

Baby Jean is not immortal. She's just a girl a cult leader thinks is The One.

James Bernard Schafer and Baby Jean

He came from the windswept plains of North Dakota, where he had once considered a career in medicine. But for James Bernard Schafer, he found that it was more rewarding, if not more lucrative, to treat a patient's soul instead of the body. When he arrived in New York in 1938 with his previous 42 years of life a closely guarded mystery, he had reinvented himself as the founder of a supposedly ancient cult known as the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians.

Schafer amassed a considerable fortune printing and selling metaphysical literature and how-do guides on how to attain immortality. By the time of his arrival on the East Coast he claimed to boast thousands of followers. Nobody knows if these numbers are accurate, but he couldn't have been too far off, as his wealth allowed him to purchase "Idle Hour"-- the 110-room Long Island mansion built for the grandson of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, in January of 1938. He transformed the sprawling estate into a retreat for his followers, which he renamed Peace Haven, where, for just $1 per day, members of Schafer's self-described "master's circle" could spend their time in meditation. In order to become a member of the master's circle, however, would-be metaphysicians had to purchase a $100 annual membership.

The master's circle was the highest level offered by the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. Novices first had to work their way through the Student's Circle, then the Adept's Circle, and, if they were worthy (and wealthy) enough, they could then qualify for membership into Schafer's Master's Circle, where, if they were really lucky, they would have the privilege of meeting Baby Jean-- the immortal baby.

In November of 1939, James Bernard Schafer announced his most ambitious and audacious plan to date-- to bestow the gift of everlasting life upon the five-month-old child of a waitress named Catherine Gauntt. Catherine didn't have the money or resources to raise a child, so Schafer took Baby Jean into his Long Island mansion, where seventy of his top master's circle members attempted to "death-proof" her through metaphysics and a special diet.

This carefully-supervised diet prohibited all animal products-- meat, cheese, milk and butter. Schafer believed that if the child never heard words like "death", "illness", "sickness" and "disease", she would be spared from the fate of all mortals, as her mind would have no concept of such things. Having never been told about measles or whooping cough, she would never be a victim to these maladies, or so believed the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians. She would be raised to have no knowledge whatsoever of death or viruses or bacteria, which, in essence, meant that she would be raised in a bubble. A 24-acre, 110-room bubble, but a bubble nonetheless. According to Schafer, his plan was to raise Baby Jean to become the immortal leader of his metaphysical cult. To achieve this, he designated one of his most followers, Louise Kerfs, to serve as Baby Jean's round-the-clock nurse.

Schafer based his belief on his interpretation of several Bible verses, such as a verse from the letter of Paul to the Corinthians, which declares that "the last enemy to be destroyed is death". He paid no attention to the jeers and snide comments made by newspaper reporters; he was unfazed by his critics, arguing that all the great philosophers through the ages, from Socrates to Plato, have explored the possibility of physical immortality. But unlike Socrates and Plato, he would not concede the inevitability of death, which, in Schafer's mind, meant that he was the greatest philosopher of them all.

Baby Jean Gauntt

As one might expect, Schafer's experiment did not go too well. Citing the high cost, the immortality project was abandoned after fifteen months. But the primary reason why the experiment was cut short was because Catherine Gauntt wanted her child back. And since Schafer had never legally adopted her, he had no choice but to return Baby Jean to her birth mother.

Baby Jean wasn't the only asset dissatisfied cult members wanted returned to their rightful owners.  One of his former followers, Anna Weber, wanted Schafer to pay back the money she had loaned the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians and was awarded a judgment of $2,500 in city court. Other former members followed with lawsuits of their own.

One of Shafer's wealthier followers had gifted Baby Jean with a diamond ring valued at approximately $50,000. She wanted to know exactly what Schafer had done with this ring, and she brought the matter to the attention of New York Attorney General John J. Bennett.

55-year-old Minna Schmidt, once a personal assistant to wealthy socialites, had also talked to the Attorney General. Schmidt, a loyal follower of James Bernard Shafer, promptly cut him a check for the balance of her life savings-- about $9,000-- after Shafer had convinced her of his "supernatural" powers.

Bennett encouraged Assistant Attorney General Edward W. Scully to look into the cult's finanances, and, from that point forward, things went downhill fast for James Bernard Shafer.

The ensuing investigation revealed that Shafer had pocketed over $131,000 by selling membership certificates to The House of the New Commandment of the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians, Inc. Each certificate sold was accompanied by a "check" drawn not from the Bank of New York or Chase National Bank, but from the "Inexhaustible Bank of the Universal Mind". Each check was dated "Eternal" and was payable, not in money, but in "Ideas and Everything Desired With No Limitations." The funds from the sale of these certificates were funneled through several shell corporations owned by the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians.

Shafer, of course, insisted that he was the real victim. He was just a humble cult leader, not some financial whiz. Any improprieties could be chalked up to his own misunderstanding of money management, or so his lawyers claimed. Sure, his mystical, enlightened brain could unravel the deepest esoteric mysteries of the universe, but balancing a checkbook? That was on a whole different level. Shafer insisted that he barely got to keep any of the money for himself; it all went towards operating expenses, paying his staff, and the maintenance and upkeep of Peace Haven.

Nevertheless, grand larceny charges were filed against Schafer by the Attorney General's office, and on August 26, 1941, at his arraignment, he entered a plea of not guilty for defrauding on Minna Schmidt-- but not before threatening to place a curse on Assistant Attorney General Scully-- a curse that would cause him to decompose, and the courthouse to disintegrate. Despite the threat, which apparently didn't strike too much fear into Scully, or the judge, Shafer was released on $5000 bail. 

Shafer later changed his plea to guilty before Judge Owen W. Bohan in General Sessions Court, and on March 24, 1942, he was convicted and sentenced the following month to five to ten years at Sing Sing Prison, though he was released after serving only three.

Legal fees and lawsuits wiped out Schafer's fortune. Peace Haven was auctioned off to pay off the cult's debts, as well as the Adelphi Theatre, which Schafer had purchased in 1940 in order to stage metaphysical theatrical productions. A decade or so after Schafer's conviction, the Adelphi would serve as the studio for the DuMont Television Network, and it was on this theatre stage where the first 39 episodes of the classic sitcom, The Honeymooners, would be filmed.

After his release from prison in 1945, James Schafer and his wife, Cecelia, moved to the Hudson Valley, where James attempted to re-establish himself as the world's foremost master of metaphysics. He opened a correspondence school in West Nyack, about 20 miles north of New York City, and slowly rebuilt his fortune as the leader of the Church of Radiant Life, though his 10-acre estate, as majestic as it was, was a step down from Peace Haven.

But just when it seemed that he was on the cusp of regaining his metaphysical empire, he decided to throw it all away.

James Bernard Schafer

On Tuesday, April 26, 1955, the bodies of 59-year-old James Bernard Schafer and his 55-year-old wife, Cecelia, were found inside their 1954 Lincoln hardtop convertible, which had been parked on a road in a wooded area on their estate. A vacuum cleaner hose ran from the car's exhaust pipe through a tightly taped window. Schafer's arm was around his wife's shoulder. Though he had left a note to his daughter, Mrs. Jeanie Woodruff, James didn't offer any explanation for his self-determined departure from the realm of the living. He simply gave his daughter instructions for running the school in his absence, though he did write in his note that "there was no other way out" for him.

Interestingly, authorities investigated Schafer's finances after his suicide and found that the money he had earned since his release from prison was entirely legitimate, even if the science behind his teachings wasn't. As a result, his cryptic remark to his daughter remains a mystery.  

As for Baby Jean, she hasn't been heard from since 1965, when an intrepid newspaper reporter managed to track her down. By this time, Jean was a married housewife and mother and was still living within ten miles of the former Peace Haven mansion. She firmly refused to answer any questions, and her husband explained that they didn't want anyone to know about Jean's life, past or present.

Records indicate, however, that Baby Jean's mother, Catherine Gauntt, passed away in 1997, and her obituary mentions a daughter named Jeanne, who was living in Newport News, Virginia, at the time. Jeanne is still alive and well, but no longer lives down south. She is currently a resident at an assisted living facility in New York. She describes herself as "extremely shy", and to protect her privacy, I won't reveal any further details.

Ironically, the child who was hand-selected for immortality grew up wanting nothing more than a life of quiet anonymity-- and she certainly seems to have found the type of peace and serenity that James Schafer had preached about, but had never found for himself.