Meet The Old Cult Leader, Same As The New Cult Leader
It’s perhaps unsurprising that most cult leaders come out of a background of poverty – Manson was born to an unwed 16-year-old, and Jim Jones’ family was apparently heavily hit by the Great Depression – but it seems rarer to have a sect lead by a lady, as in the case of Joanna Southcott.
From the wikipedia:
Her father was a farmer and she herself was for a considerable time a domestic servant in Exeter. She was originally of the Church of England, but about 1792, becoming persuaded that she possessed supernatural gifts, she wrote and dictated prophecies in rhyme, and then announced herself as the woman spoken of in Revelation
Not to be crass, but if I had to spend the majority of my days picking up in a house that wasn’t my own while having my bum pinched by it’s unruly owner, I too might consider digging up some prophecies and hitting the road.
Better yet, she had some luck in her new trade.
Her followers became numerous and in 1802 she settled in London and a chapel was opened for her followers. – Probert Encyclopaedia
Unfortunately, the prophet business is a lot like real estate: it doesn’t mean much unless you can close the sale and show results.
At the age of sixty four she affirmed that she was pregnant and would be delivered of the new Messiah, the Shiloh of Genesis – wikipedia
Although the baby never materialized, Joanna didn’t need to dodge the pointed questions of her followers for terribly long.
The official date of death is given as 27 December 1814; however, it is likely that she died the previous day, 26 December 1814, as her followers retained her body for some time, in the belief that she would be raised from the dead, and only agreed to its burial after it began to decay.
A whiff of decay wasn’t the only thing she’d left her people: she also imparted a trunk full of prophecies, with a suitably difficult bar to achieve before she might be proven wrong.
A final quote from the wikipedia:
She left a sealed wooden box of prophecies, usually known as Joanna Southcott’s Box, with the instruction that it be opened only at a time of national crisis, and then only in the presence of all twenty four bishops of the Church of England[…] Eventually in 1927 one reluctant prelate […] was persuaded to be present at the box’s opening, but it was found to contain only a few oddments and unimportant papers, among them a lottery ticket and a horse-pistol.
It’s much better that they opened the box randomly, imagine how pissed the 24 Bishops would be?
I can’t help but wonder if anyone checked on the status of the lottery ticket. Also, what was with the horse pistol? Did it have sentimental value? Was it loaded?
There’s actually an ongoing group of believers/conspiracy theorists who think that it was a fake box that was opened, and that the real box is hidden away for the right moment – I didn’t mention them in the post because I suspect they may just be attention seekers.
And isn’t that how we keep a religion alive? Cloak it in mystery? 🙂
How very true.
Speaking of prophecies, however, I don’t think hers could be worse than Nostradamus’ or those of every other prophet that came before her. All of them become only clear after the facts happened… what an odd thing for a prophecy, ain’t it? :-/
Anyway, if the trunk thing was some sort of joke and she was actually imagining the faces of the 24 bishops on opening it, then she’s my new idol 😀
Ha! That’s a great point, I would have loved if the top note simply said: ‘Suckers!’
You’re absolutely right that prophets tend to be nothing more than bad poets writing rorschach tests for the future – if there was really such a thing, you’d think they’d go somewhere like Japan and hold up a giant ‘I Told You So’ sign, just as the media shows up to cover the disaster.
“rorschach tests for the future” is a great definition, I have to remember it 🙂
No, if there were really such a thing they’d have been there the day before holding up signs saying “get out now.”
Isn’t it a New York cliché to see a guy with just such a sign wandering the sidewalk?
http://cdn.hragvartanian.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/homer-says-the-end-is-near.jpg
The only sandwich signs you see are for cell phone stores.
The lottery ticket and the pistol. An instrument of misplaced hope, and an instrument of failure? Sounds cult like to me.
Oooh, great point.