Read World Famous Cults and Fanatics Online
Authors: Colin Wilson
World Famous Cults and Fanatics
WORLD FAMOUS
CULTS AND FANATICS
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
This edition published by Magpie Books, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2004
First published by Magpie Books 1992
Copyright © Constable & Robinson Ltd 1992
Illustrations courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library
All rights reserved.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-84529-030-6
eISBN 978-1-78033-330-4
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
B paperback
Printed and bound in the EU
Contents
Chapter one
: Miracles Sometimes Happen
The Day of Judgement according to William Miller
The Crucifixion of Margaret Peter
Chapter two
: Waiting for the Warrior-King
Chapter three
: Tales of Bloodshed
The Black Death and the Flagellants
The Massacre of the Anabaptists
Chapter five
: Messiahs in the Land of Opportunity
Chapter six
: Manic Messiahs and Twentieth-Century Cults
Franz Creffield, or Joshua the Second
The Downfall of Aimée Semple McPherson
Chapter seven
: The New Death Cults
David Koresh and the Branch Davidians
Chapter One
Miracles Sometimes Happen
T
here is no way in which we can dismiss the idea that certain people can perform “miracles”.
And if that is true, then we cannot
dismiss all “messiahs” as fakes.
Perhaps they are people who sense that human beings possess extraordinary powers, and realize that the best way to develop them is to try to live the
“religious life”, and to persuade as many of their fellow creatures as possible to do the same thing.
There are even cases where the powers of such people seem to live on after their
death, as in the odd case of the Deacon of Paris.
Saint Joseph of Copertino and the Deacon of Paris demonstrate that miracles can happen.
What seems stranger still is that the “miracle worker” need not be a genuine saint.
Grigory
Rasputin, the man who has been described as the “evil messiah” of pre-revolutionary Russia, was a bewildering mixture of saint and sinner.
The Day of Judgement According to William Miller
O
n 22 October 1843, crowds of men and women gathered on a hilltop in Massachusetts, led by their prophet William Miller.
In the previous year,
Miller, a farmer and an ardent student of the
Book of Daniel,
had arrived at the conclusion that the end of the world was at hand, and that Christ was about to return to earth.
One man tied
a pair of turkey wings to his shoulders and climbed a tree to be ready for his ascent into heaven; unfortunately, he fell down and broke his arm.
Other disciples carried umbrellas to aid the
flight.
One woman had tied herself to her trunk so that it would accompany her as she sailed upward.
A Millerite chart of the visions and prophecies of Daniel
One Millerite met the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson walking with his friend Theodore Parker, and asked them if they did not realize the world was about to end.
“That doesn’t affect
me,” said Parker, “I live in Boston.”
When midnight passed with no sign of Armageddon, the disciples ruefully went home.
One farmer had given his farm to his son – who was a non-believer, and who now declined to give it back.
Most of the others had sold all they had.
In this moment of depression, Miller suddenly had an inspiration: his calculations had been based on the Christian year, and no doubt he should have used
the Jewish year.
That would make the date of Armageddon the following 22 March.
On that date, his followers once more gathered for the last Trumpet.
Still nothing happened.
One man wrote sadly:
“Still in the cold world!
No deliverance – the Lord did not come.”
Miller’s 50,000 followers soon dwindled to a small band of “true believers”.
Miller himself was not among them; he admitted sorrowfully that he had made his mistake through
pride and fanaticism.
Another follower made an even more penetrating comment, which might be regarded as the epitaph of any number of “messiahs”: “We were deluded by mere human
influence, which we mistook for the Spirit of God.”
Miller died five years later, a deeply chastened man, who recognized that he had been wasting his time in his biblical calculations.
Few
other messiahs have possessed his honesty.
In fact, very few had his opportunity, for a large proportion of them have died ignominiously.
In 1172, an unnamed prophet from the Yemen was dragged in front of the Caliph, who demanded proof
that he was a messenger from God.
“That is easy,” replied the prophet.
“Cut off my head and I shall return to life.”
“That would indeed be a sign,” said the
Caliph, “and if you can do as you say, I will become your follower.”
Whereupon he signalled to his headsman.
The head of the prophet rolled on the floor, and – predictably –
the messiah failed to keep his promise.
William Miller, leader of the “Millerites”
The word messiah means “anointed” in Hebrew, and refers to the Jewish belief that King David will one day return and lead his people to victory.
(Christ means the same thing in
Greek.) The prophet Isaiah announced triumphantly that “unto us a child is born”, and that the Messiah would take the “government upon his shoulders”.
Isaiah was writing
roughly around 700
BC
, after the Assyrians had conquered Israel and led its people (including the mythical “lost tribes”) into exile.
Ever since then, certain
men have become possessed of the conviction that they are the promised Messiah, and ordered their disciples to follow them to victory and kingship.
None has so far succeeded.
In the first millennium, it was widely believed that the year
AD
1000 would mark the end of the world.
It failed to materialize, but there was plenty of war and bloodshed
– the Crusades, for example – to encourage the believers to feel that the end was nigh.
The roll-call of those who – like William Miller – have announced the end of the
world is impressive, as we shall see in this book.
Women have also been among these prophets of the new Millennium, and a few have shown even greater fanaticism than their male counterparts.
Perhaps the most gruesome example is the German
prophetess Margaret Peter.
***
At the Kofuku temple in Nara, Japan, a resentful priest named Kurodo decided to play an embarrassing trick on his fellow priests.
At the side
of a pond near the temple, Kurodo set up a placard that read: “On 3 March, a dragon shall ascend from this pond.”
The effect was just what he had expected.
News of the placard spread
far and wide, and people talked of nothing but dragons.
On 3 March the pond was surrounded by thousands of people from all the neighbouring provinces.
The day was sunny and peaceful.
By noon
nothing had happened, and the priests were beginning to feel worried.
If no dragon appeared, they would lose face.
Suddenly, a cloud drifted across the sky.
A wind sprang up.
The day became
darker, and a storm broke.
Rain fell in torrents and lightning flashed.
Before Kurodo’s startled eyes, a smoky shape like an enormous black dragon rose out of the pond and up into the
clouds.
This story may or may not be true.
It was written by the great Japanese author Akutagawa, who probably based it on a tradition of the Kofuku temple.
***
The Crucifixion of Margaret Peter
In the week after Easter 1823, a horrible ceremony took place in a house in Wildisbuch, on the German-Swiss border.
A twenty-nine-year-old woman named Margaret Peter, who was
regarded as a holy woman by her disciples, announced that she had decided that she had to be crucified if Satan was to be defeated.
Her sister Elizabeth immediately begged to be allowed to take her
place.
To demonstrate her sincerity, she picked up a mallet and struck herself on the head with it.
Margaret then shouted: “It has been revealed to me that Elizabeth shall sacrifice
herself,” and she hit her sister on the head with a hammer.
Then the remaining ten people in the room – including Margaret’s other brothers and sisters – proceeded to beat
Elizabeth with crowbars, hammers and wedges.
“Don’t worry,” Margaret shouted, “I will raise her from the dead.”
One tremendous blow finally shattered Elizabeth’s
skull.
“Now
I
must die,” Margaret told them.
“You must crucify me.”
Following her sister’s example, she picked up a hammer and hit herself on the head, then ordered
the others to make a cross out of loose floorboards.
When it was ready, she sent her sister Susanna downstairs to fetch nails.
When Susanna returned, Margaret was lying on the floor on the cross.
“Nail me to it,” she ordered.
“Don’t be afraid.
I will rise in three days.”
Two followers obediently nailed her elbows to the cross.
The sight of the blood made them
hesitate, and one was sick.
Margaret encouraged them.
“I feel no pain.
Go on.
Drive a nail through my heart.”
They drove nails through both her breasts, and a girl called Ursula tried
to drive a knife through her heart.
It bent against one of her ribs.
Her brother Conrad, unable to stand the sight any longer, picked up a hammer and smashed in her skull.
The ten remaining disciples then went to eat their midday meal.
They were exhausted but had no doubt that Margaret and Elizabeth would be among them again in three days’ time.
The deaths
had taken place on Saturday; that meant Margaret and Elizabeth were due to arise on Tuesday.
But as the disciples sat around the battered corpses on Tuesday morning, no sign of life answered their prayers.
Meanwhile, the local pastor, who had heard about the “sacrifice” from
another disciple, called in the police.
(He had known about the deaths for two days, but felt he had to give Margaret time to make good her promise.) The disciples were arrested, and taken to
prison.
They were tried in Zurich that December, and were all sentenced to varying prison terms.
The Death of Joanna Southcott
Sometimes, the prophet – or prophetess – loses faith at the last moment, but even when that happens, the disciples remain immune to doubt.
When the English
prophetess Joanna Southcott lay on her deathbed in 1814, she suddenly announced to her dismayed followers that her life’s work now appeared a delusion.
Although Joanna was a virgin, she had
been convinced that she was about to give birth to the “child” foretold by Isaiah.
And when one of her followers reminded her that she was carrying the Messiah (called Shiloh) in her
womb, Joanna’s tears suddenly changed to smiles.
After her death a few days later, her followers kept her body warm for three days as she had instructed them – then summoned a small army of medical men to remove the Christ child from her
womb.
The smell of putrefying flesh filled the room as the surgeon made the first incision, and some of the disciples hastily lit pipes to cover the smell.
But when the womb was opened there was
obviously no baby there.