A Scandal in Königsberg

As told by one of our greatest historians, the story of the scandal that took down two Lutheran preachers in the heart of 19th-century Prussia—a chamber piece of cultish esotericism, pseudo-science, and political resistance that conjures up Europe at the end of the Age of Reason and presages our current Age of Misinformation In 1835, Johannes Ebel and Georg Diestel were tried with having started a cult. Worse: a cult that encouraged scandalous sexual behavior in women, including daughters of pre