August 2, 1881 - May Otis Blackburn
Operating in 1920s Los Angeles, she built a devotional organization around claims of divine authority and spiritual power, extracting money and loyalty from followers who believed in her role as High Priestess of a chosen elect. Her legal entanglement with a defrauded follower produced a California Supreme Court ruling that drew a sharp line between criminal fraud and the state's reluctance to adjudicate sincerely held — or convincingly performed — religious belief. The case stands as an early American example of how courts have struggled to distinguish exploitation from eccentricity when the mechanism is faith.
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