The dance went on until people fell exhausted to the ground and groans and tears replaced the former singing. The fire died out slowly and, when darkness had become complete, the voice of Rasputin was heard calling upon his disciples to proceed to the sacrifice which God required them to perform. Then followed a scene of general orgy.
* * * * *
As one can see by this tale, the strange practices introduced by the seer, about whom people were already beginning to talk, differed in no way from those generally in use among the Khlysty, and, indeed, Rasputin made no secret of his allegiance to this particular form of heresy, in which, however, he had introduced a few alterations. For instance, he did not admit that the souls of his followers could be saved by a general prayer, but only thanks to one uttered in common with him, and by a complete submission to his will. Some persons have alleged that during the early wanderings of Rasputin he had gone as far as China and Thibet, and there learned some Buddhist practices, but this is hardly probable, as in that case his instruction would have been more developed than it was. It is far more likely that during his travels he had met with exiled sectarians belonging to the different persecuted religious Russian communities, of which there exist so many in the whole Oural region, and that they initiated him into some of their rites and customs. They also made him attentive to the hypnotic powers, which he most undoubtedly possessed, teaching him how to use them for his own benefit and advantage.
Very soon Rasputin found that Pokrovskoie was not a field wide enough for his energies, and he took to travelling, together with a crowd of disciples that followed him everywhere over the eastern and central Russian provinces. There he contrived to win every day new adherents to the doctrines in which free love figured so prominently. Among the towns where he obtained the most success can be mentioned those of Kazan, Saratoff, Kieff and Samara.
Concerning his doings in Kazan, people became informed through a letter which one of his victims addressed to the bishop of that diocese, Monsignor Feofane, who had shown at the beginning of Rasputin’s career a considerable interest in him and who had protected him with great success. In this letter, which later on found its way into the press, the following was said among other things:
“Your Reverence, I absolutely fail to understand how it is possible that you continue to this day to know and see Gregory Rasputin. He is Satan in person and the things which he does are worthy of those that the Antichrist alone is supposed to perform, and prove that the latter’s advent is at hand.”
The writer then proceeded to explain that Rasputin had completely subjugated the mind of her two daughters, one of whom was aged twenty, whilst the second had not yet attained her sixteenth year.
“One afternoon,” writes this unfortunate mother, “I met in the street, coming out of a bathhouse, Rasputin, together with my two girls. One must be a mother to understand the feelings which overpowered me at this sight. I could find no words to say, but remained standing motionless and silent before them. The prophet turned to me and slowly said: ‘Now you may feel at peace, the day of salvation has dawned for your daughters!’”
Another woman, who had also fallen under the spell of Rasputin, wrote as follows about him:
“I left my parents, to whom I was tenderly attached, to follow the prophet. One day when we were travelling together in a reserved first-class carriage, talking about the salvation of souls and the means to become a true child of God, he suddenly got up, approached me, and * * * proceeded to cleanse me of all my sins. Towards evening I became anxious and asked him: ‘Perhaps what we have been doing to-day was a sin, Gregory Efimitsch?’ ‘No, my daughter,’ he replied, ‘it was not a sin. Our affections are a gift from God, which we may use as freely as we like.’”