CHAPTER I
SECTS IN FRANCE AND ELSEWHERE
During the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, scarcely a single country has been free from religious manifestations of the most varied kind, all concerned with new ways and means of attaining salvation; and if one were to include all the different phases of occultism as well, one would be astounded at the mystical ardour of which modern humanity is possessed.
From the spiritualists and the theosophists to the crystal-gazers and the palmists, all these occult practices are, in reality, merely the result of a more or less intensified desire to communicate with the spiritual worlds.
France, although considered a country pre-eminently sceptical, has not escaped the general tendency, for even in what appeared to be the most rationalistic epoch—that of the Revolution—the "Cult of Reason" was founded, to be succeeded by the "Religion of the Supreme Being" introduced by Robespierre. And what numbers of new sects and religions can be recorded since then!
There was, first of all, the Theophilanthropy of Jean-Baptiste Chemin and Valentine Haüy, representing the faith of those who love man in God, and God in so far as He loves man. The Empire, in persecuting this doctrine, only added to its vitality, for it has hot even yet completely died out.
The religion of Father Enfantin, which had a great vogue in the last century, conformed in many respects to the name of its founder. Man and woman, united by religion, were to form priests "in duplicate" for the guidance of their flock, young and old, lovers and married couples alike. The Saint-Simonites—so admirable in some ways—allied themselves to this doctrine, and succeeded in attracting a number of sympathisers.
The life of French sects has always been of short duration, though there have existed among them many that in other countries would certainly have won for their founders the laurel-wreath of fame. Such was, for instance, the Church of France, inaugurated by the Abbé Chatel, whose idea was to entrust sacerdotal functions to the most worthy among his followers, by means of a public vote. The sect prospered for a time, but soon disappeared amid general indifference, and the Abbé ended his days as a grocer.
The doctrine of Fabre Palaprat had more success, being drawn from the esoteric teachings of the Gospel of St. John. He either suppressed or modified many of the Catholic dogmas, abandoned the use of Latin and inaugurated prayers in French.
The Fusionists were founded by Jean-Baptiste de Tourreil. After a divine revelation which came to him in the forest of Meudon, near Paris, he broke with Catholicism and preached the intimate union of man and nature. He anticipated to some extent the naturalist beliefs which spread through both France and England at the beginning of the present century, and his posthumous work entitled The Fusionist Religion or the Doctrine of Universalism gives an idea of his tendencies. There was an element of consolation in his doctrine, for the harmony between man and the universe, as taught by him, renders death only a prolongation of life itself, and makes it both attractive and desirable.
The Neo-Gnostic Church of Fabre des Essarts was condemned by Leo XIII with some severity as a revival of the old Albigensian heresy, with the addition of new false and impious doctrines, but it still has many followers. The Neo-Gnostics believe that this world is a work of wickedness, and was created not by God but by some inferior power, which shall ultimately disappear—and its creation also. While the Manichaeans teach that the world is ruled by the powers of both good and evil, God and Satan, the Neo-Gnostics declare that it is Satan who reigns exclusively upon earth, and that it is man's duty to help to free God from His powerful rival. They also preach the brotherhood of man and of nations, and it is probably this altruistic doctrine which has rendered them irresistible to many who are wearied and disheartened by the enmities and hatreds that separate human beings.
In 1900, after a letter from Jean Bricaut, the patriarch of universal Gnosticism in Lyons, the Neo-Gnostics united with the Valentinians, and their union was consecrated by the Council of Toulouse in 1903. But some years afterwards, Dr. Fugairon of Lyons (who took the name of Sophronius) amalgamated all the branches, with the exception of the Valentinians, under the name of the Gnostic Church of Lyons. These latter, although excluded, continued to follow their own way of salvation, and addressed a legal declaration to the Republican Government in 1906 in defence of their religious rights of association.
In the Gnostic teaching, the Eons, corresponding to the archetypal ideas of Plato, are never single; each god has his feminine counterpart; and the Gnostic assemblies are composed of "perfected ones," male and female. The Valentinians give the mystic bride the name of Helen.
The Gnostic rites and sacraments are complicated. There is the Consolamentum, or laying on of hands; the breaking of bread, or means of communication with the Astral Body of Jesus; and the Appareillamentum, or means of receiving divine grace.
In peculiarities of faith and of its expression some of our French sects certainly have little to learn from those of America and Russia.
The Religion of Satanism—or, as it was sometimes called, the Religion of Mercy—founded by Vintras and Boullan, deserves special mention. Vintras was arrested—unjustly, it seems certain—for swindling, and in the visions which he experienced as a result of his undeserved sufferings he believed himself to be in communication with the Archangel Michael and with Christ Himself. Having spent about twelve years in London, he returned to Lyons to preach his doctrine, and succeeded in making a number of proselytes. He died in 1875. Some years afterwards a doctor of divinity named Boullan installed himself at Lyons as his successor. He taught that women should be common property, and preached the union with inferior beings (in order to raise them), the "union of charity," and the "union of wisdom." He healed the sick, exorcised demons, and treated domestic animals with great success, so that the peasants soon looked upon him as superior to the curé who was incapable of curing their sick horses and cattle.
Vintras had proclaimed himself to be Elijah come to life; Boullan adopted the title of John the Baptist resurrected. He died at the beginning of the twentieth century, complaining of having been cruelly slandered, especially by Stanislas de Guaita, who in his Temple of Satan had accused Boullan of being a priest of Lucifer, of making use of spells and charms, and—worst of all—of celebrating the Black Mass.
The founder of the Religion of Humanity had a tragic and troublous career. Genius and madness have rarely been so harmoniously combined for the creation of something that should be durable and of real value. For one cannot doubt the madness of Auguste Comte. It was manifested in public on the 12th of April, 1826, and interrupted the success of his lectures, which had attracted all the leading minds of the time, including Humboldt himself. After a violent attack of mania, the founder of the philosophy of Positivism took refuge at Montmorency. From there he was with difficulty brought back to Paris and placed under the care of the celebrated alienist, Esquirol. He was released when only partially cured, and at the instigation of his mother consented to go through a religious marriage ceremony with Madame Comte, after which he signed the official register Brutus Bonaparte Comte! The following year he threw himself into the Seine, but was miraculously saved, and, gradually recovering his strength, he recommenced his courses of lectures, which aroused the greatest interest both in France and abroad.
The Positivist leader had always shown signs of morbid megalomania. His early works are sufficient to prove that he was the prey to an excessive form of pride, for he writes like a Messiah consciously treading the path that leads to a martyr's crown. His private troubles aggravated the malady, and the escapades of his wife, who frequently left his house to rejoin her old associates, were the cause of violent attacks of frenzy.
Later the philosopher himself was seized by an overwhelming passion for Clotilde de Vaux, a writer of pretensions who was, in reality, distinguished neither by talent nor beauty. The feeling that she inspired in him has no parallel in the annals of modern love-affairs. After some years, however, she died of consumption, and the germ of madness in Comte, which had been lying latent, again showed itself, this time in the form of a passionate religious mysticism. His dead mistress became transformed, for him, into a divinity, and he looked upon everything that she had used or touched as sacred, shutting himself up in the midst of the furniture and utensils that had surrounded her during her life-time. Three times a day he prostrated himself, and offered up fervent prayers to the spirit of Clotilde, and he often visited her grave, or sat, wrapped in meditation, in the church that she had frequented. He sought to evoke her image, and held long conversations with it, and it was under her influence that he founded a new religion based chiefly on his Positivist Catechism. In this cult, Clotilde symbolised woman and the superior humanity which shall proceed from her.
Although a profound and original thinker, Comte was like the rest in considering himself the High Priest of his own religion. He sought to make converts, and wrote to many of the reigning sovereigns, including the Tsar; and he even suggested an alliance, for the good of the nations, with the Jesuits!
But to do him justice we must admit that he led an ascetic and saint-like life, renouncing all worldly pleasures. An Englishman who saw much of him about 1851 declared that his goodness of soul surpassed even his brilliancy of intellect.
Though he had so little sympathy for the past and present religions upon whose grave he erected his own system, he himself reverted, as a matter of fact, to a sort of fetishism; and his "Humanity," with which he replaced the former "gods," manifested nearly all their defects and weaknesses.
In his Sacerdoce and Nouvelle Foi Occidentale the principal ideas are borrowed from inferior beliefs of the Asiatic races. He incorporated the arts of hygiene and medicine in his creed, and declared that medicine would reinstate the dominion of the priesthood when the Positivist clergy succeeded in fulfilling the necessary conditions.
The remarkable success of this religion is well known. Numerous sects based on Comte's doctrines were founded in all parts of the world, and his philosophy made a deep impression on the minds of thinking men, who assisted in spreading it through all branches of society. Even to-day believers in Positivism are found not only in France, but above all in North and South America. In Brazil, Comte's influence was both widespread and beneficial, and the very laws of this great Republic are based on the theories of the Positivist leader.
The value of certain of his fundamental doctrines may be questioned, equally with the ruling ideas of his religion, his Messianic rôle, and his priesthood. But there is nevertheless something sublime in the teaching that individual and social happiness depends upon the degree of affection and goodwill manifested in the human heart. This is no doubt one reason why the adherents of the Positivist Church are so often distinguished by their high morality and their spirit of self-sacrifice.
In addition to purely local sects and religions, France has always harboured a number of Swedenborgians, whose beliefs have undergone certain modifications on French soil. For instance, thaumaturgy was introduced by Captain Bernard, and healing by means of prayer by Madame de Saint-Amour. But Leboys des Guais, the acknowledged leader of the sect about 1850, reverted to the unalloyed doctrines of the founder, and thanks to Mlle. Holms and M. Humann, and their church in the Rue de Thouin, the Swedenborgian religion still flourishes in France to-day.
The Irvingites, founded in Scotland towards the end of the eighteenth century, also made many French converts. Irving preached the second coming of Christ, and believed that the Holy Ghost was present in himself. He waited some time for God the Father to endow him with the miraculous gifts needed for establishing the new Church, and then, finding that many of his followers were able to heal the sick with surprising success, he concluded that heaven had deigned to accept him as the "second Saviour." He organised a Catholic Apostolic Church in London, and proclaimed himself its head; while in Paris the principal church of the sect, formerly in the Avenue de Ségur, has now been moved to the Rue François-Bonvin. Woman is excluded from the cult, and consequently the name of the Virgin is omitted from all Irvingite ceremonies, while the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Virgin are denied.
But many other sects exist in addition to those already mentioned. Often their life is short as a summer night, and they appear and disappear, leaving no trace behind them save a passing exaltation in the hearts of their followers. Those who join them seem for a time to be satisfied with dreams and illusions, but usually end by returning to the bosom of the established Church—or by being confined in an asylum.
These innumerable sects with their illusory pretensions serve to demonstrate the truth of our thesis—that the most ardent desire of present-day humanity is for the renewal or transformation of the faith to which it has grown accustomed.
A well-known critic has claimed that it is possible for all the dramatic or comic incidents that have been played in all theatres of all ages to be reduced down to thirty-six situations from the use of which not even a genius can escape. To how many main variations could we reduce the desire for reform displayed by our religious revolutionaries? The search for salvation takes on so many vague and incalculable shapes that we can only compare them to clouds that float across the sky on a windy day; but there are, all the same, signs of kinship to be discovered even between the sects that appear to be furthest apart.
The Chlysty, from whom the religion of Rasputin was partly derived, show some resemblance to the "Shakers," and to the Christian Scientists, both of whom have evolved along lines diametrically opposed. The "Shakers," direct descendants of the Huguenots, teach that the end of the world is at hand, and that all men should repent in preparation for the coming of the heavenly kingdom. Their meetings have always been characterised by visions and revelations, and they sing and dance for joy, leaping into the air and trembling with nervous excitement—to which fact they owe their name.
In tracing out their history we find many striking analogies with the sects of our own day. It was in 1770 that the "Shakers" believed Christ to have reincarnated in the body of Anne Lee, the daughter of a Manchester blacksmith. Although married, she preached—like Mrs. Eddy a hundred years later—the benefits of celibacy, the only state approved by God. Her convictions were so sincere, and her expression of them so eloquent, that when charged with heresy she succeeded in converting her accusers. The cult of virginity was adopted by her followers, who considered her their "Mother in Christ," inspired from on high; and when she counselled them to leave England and emigrate to the New World, they followed her unquestioningly, even to embarking in an old and long-disused vessel for the Promised Land. Arrived there, however, their lot was not a happy one, for they met with much persecution, and Anne Lee herself was imprisoned. But after her release she preached with greater force and conviction than ever the end of sexual unions and the near approach of the Kingdom of God. Her eloquence attracted many, and even today her religion still has followers. Among their settlements we may mention that of Alfred, Maine, where a number of "spiritual families" live harmoniously together, convinced that the Kingdom of God has already descended upon earth, and that they are existing in a state of celestial purity like that of the angels in heaven. They refuse to eat pork or to make use of fermented drinks, and dancing still plays a part in their religious services. Sometimes, in the midst of the general excitement, a sister or a brother will announce a message that has been delivered by some unseen spirit, whereupon all the hearers leap and dance with redoubled vigour.
To-day, even as a hundred years ago, the "Shakers" affirm, not without reason, that Heaven and Hell are within ourselves, and that that is why we must live honestly and well in order to share in the heavenly kingdom from which sinners are excluded. Just so do Christian Scientists declare that we may be led by faith towards heaven, happiness and health.
Even murder, that most extreme perversion of all moral feeling, has been adopted as a means of salvation by several Russian sects as well as by the Hindus, evolving in widely contrasted environments. The general desire to gain, somehow or other, the favour of the "Eternal Principle of Things," thus expresses itself in the most varied and the most unlikely forms, one of the most striking being that of the "religion of murder," which throws a lurid light upon the hidden regions of man's subconscious mind.