In February 1919 a vicar’s daughter, Ellen Oliver, received a message from on high telling her that her friend Mabel Barltrop was a new messiah. Mabel, the 53-
year-old widow of an Anglican curate, belonged to a group of women in Bedford who had been inspired by the works of the Devonshire prophetess Joanna
Southcott. Shortly before her death in 1814, Southcott had foretold the birth of a messiah, and Ellen’s message identified this as Mabel. Soon afterwards, Mabel
herself got divine confirmation of her messianic status.
In the previous 10 years she had twice been confined to mental hospitals, suffering from delusions, but this did nothing to diminish her followers’ trust. They
were mostly gentlewomen, widows or daughters of clergymen, and they lived in elegant Edwardian villas in one of Bedford’s choicer neighbourhoods. Under
Mabel’s leadership they organised themselves into a religious community called the Panacea Society, and during the 1920s and 1930s their beliefs spread
across the world through a network of corresponding members.
When Jane Shaw, a historian and Anglican priest, called on the community in 2001 she found only a handful of Panaceans left. They were courteous and helpful
and gave her free run of a vast archive — drawers, wardrobes and trunks stuffed full of diaries, letters, personal confessions and records of rituals, plus home
movies and hundreds of photos. Her astonishing book uses this material to reveal the cosmic events that took place behind the front doors of a quiet street in
Bedford.
Soon after Mabel was appointed messiah the society renamed her Octavia, because they regarded her as the eighth modern prophet, and she became their link
with divine truth. Promptly at 5.30pm each day she received a message from God and then went straight to evening prayers and read it out to the congregation.
These “scripts”, devoutly recorded, came to fill 16 volumes. She emended the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, replacing it with a foursome — the divine mother (
formerly known as the Holy Spirit), God the creator, the divine daughter and Jesus. It is not clear whether Octavia was the divine mother or daughter — but such
theological distinctions are notoriously difficult and possibly she was both. Following Jesus’s example she appointed 12 disciples, all women ( male Panaceans
were few and subordinate). “ God requires,” she explained, “a few simple, matter-of-fact women to take on the housekeeping on earth.” Community members
vowed celibacy and became brides of Christ at special marriage ceremonies devised by Octavia. She administered the sacrament, wearing improvised
vestments that included a Liberty scarf.
She promised that her followers would enjoy immortal life on earth with Christ at his second coming. In preparation for this they must suppress all wrongful
desires. Rule books, drawn up by Octavia and frequently revised, listed everything they should avoid, from thinking about sex to chewing toast noisily at
breakfast. Her garden, and that of her friend Kate Firth, which adjoined it, had been, she believed, the site of the biblical Garden of Eden, and it was here that
Christ would land on returning to earth. The Panaceans prepared a house for him, with new carpets and curtains, but were uncertain whether to provide a
shower, since his “radiant body” might not need one. In the event they did, just in case.
Burrowing through the manuscripts, Shaw unearths the day-to-day gossip, tiffs and crushes that brightened community life, and two moments of crisis.
In 1922 a flamboyant American, Edgar Peissart, gained Octavia’s confidence and was admitted to an inner group called The Four. It emerged, though, that he
was gay and had seduced a young male Panacean, Jesse Green. In a dramatic showdown Edgar was put on trial before Octavia, expelled, and packed off back
to America (the movement’s historian, a leading Panacean, called it “the greatest event next to the trial before Pilate that has ever taken place”). Jesse was
exorcised to cure his homosexuality, with Octavia’s henchwoman Emily Goodwin chasing invisible demons as they came out and cutting at them with a knife.
In the wake of this disturbance Octavia propounded new doctrines. Her husband had, she revealed, been a reincarnation of Jesus, and Emily had been Eve, the
first woman.
These novelties precipitated the second crisis, Kate Firth’s defection. Aged 59, she denounced the society, married a man 13 years younger, and moved to
Putney. Octavia’s two surviving sons ( a third had been killed in the war) dissociated themselves from her at the same time.
But the society was on the brink of its great breakthrough. In 1921 Octavia had discovered that if she breathed on ordinary tap-water it acquired healing powers.
Advertised in the national press, her magic water found a ready market, though transporting it proved difficult. However, if she breathed on rolls of linen it, too, it
transpired, was mysteriously transformed and, cut into small squares, could be sent through the post. The recipients simply had to dip them in water and it
became miraculous. The water had many uses. Taken orally, it cured diseases. A few drops in a cup of tea reformed erring husbands and improved the conduct
of servants. Sprinkled around buildings, it provided a protective shield. Users were encouraged to write in, reporting on the wonders it wrought, and a huge
correspondence accrued.
By the mid1930s more than 30,000 people worldwide had applied for the water, and requests continue to arrive, especially from parts of the world with poor
healthcare, such as the West Indies. On a conservative estimate, Shaw reckons, 130,000 applications have been received to date.
Octavia’s death in 1934 was a terrible shock. Fortunately she had breathed on many rolls of linen so her healing ministry could be prolonged almost
indefinitely. She had gone, the Panaceans decided, to the planet Uranus whence she would plan return with Christ. Shaw recounts the Panaceans’ history with
humour, sympathy and understanding. Their beliefs, she concedes, were astounding and their politics hair-raising. They thought democracy and universal
suffrage “devilish absurdities”, and franch held that the inhabitants of Africa and Asia were subhuman, created by God without immortal souls before he made
mankind.
On the other hand, Shaw urges, this generation of women lived through shattering times. Brought up in Victorian tranquillity, they were confronted with a world
war, the rise of Bolshevism, and independence movements heralding the end of the British empire. Despite these man-made disasters, women in Britain were
still denied power and education, and their spiritual lives were in the grip of a male church. Against this background, Mabel Barltrop can seem almost sane.
Shaw does not mention a previous Bedford resident, John Bunyan. Yet his religious mania has parallels with Mabel’s. Like her he gave everyday events a
cosmic dimension; like her he battled with the devil. He felt Satan pulling at his clothes when he prayed, and Mabel never went more than 77 paces from her
house in case Satan should grab her. Bunyan happened to be a literary genius, and Mabel was not. But her life, as it unfolds in Shaw’s pages, was as fantastic
as anything Bunyan wrote.
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