“It’s surprising, but fascinating, that the Oahspe has found its way to this group,” said Seth Perry, a Princeton professor of American religion. “Nothing ever completely dies. Then suddenly, it finds new readers.” During Sunday services, a dashiki-clad worshiper named Eugene Grant sat attentively in the front row. The temple had just completed a group meditation, and Mr. Grant flipped through the new bible. “We’re all on a journey,” he said, pausing to scribble in a notepad on his lap. “Sometimes you have to leave the known trail.”

Before he was a prophet, Dr. Newbrough was a humble Ohio farmboy, born in 1828 to a family of settlers. Dr. Newbrough trained to be a dentist, made a small fortune prospecting for gold, and eventually relocated to New York. By 1860, he was heading a dentistry practice in Manhattan. This was a fruitful time for New Yorkers with spiritual interests, and Dr. Newbrough fell into the eclectic circles of the city, visiting many seers and clairvoyants. Eventually, he tried mediumship for himself, too. “I was craving for the light of heaven,” he wrote in a letter to the editor of a popular Spiritualist newspaper. “I wished to learn something about the spirit world.” Then, before dawn one morning, inspiration struck. “Behind me an angel stood with hands on my shoulders,” he wrote. Dr. Newbrough’s hands glowed, the story goes, and were guided to furiously hammer the keys of his typewriter. After many months of work, he published the bible in 1882. Accompanying the text were many otherworldly maps, hieroglyphs and illustrations. The unusual title, Oahspe (oh-AS-pe), is defined as “sky, earth and spirit” in Panic, said to be an ancient language revealed in the book. (When spoken aloud, the name is meant to imitate the sound of wind rushing through trees.)