Modern Saints and Seers Part 15

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 cure who was incapable of curing their sick horses and cattle.

Vintras had proclaimed himself to be Elijah come to life; Boullan adopted the t.i.tle 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 Ma.s.s.

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 a.s.sociates, were the cause of violent attacks of frenzy.

Later the philosopher himself was seized by an overwhelming pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sionate 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 surpa.s.sed 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 "G.o.ds," manifested nearly all their defects and weaknesses.

In his _Sacerdoce_ and _Nouvelle Foi Occidentale_ the princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sisted 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 role, 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 G.o.d 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 princ.i.p.al church of the sect, formerly in the Avenue de Segur, has now been moved to the Rue Francois-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 a.s.sumption 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.n.a.logies 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 G.o.d. 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 s.e.xual unions and the near approach of the Kingdom of G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l 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.

CHAPTER II

THE RELIGION OF MURDER

There are certain periodical publications which as a rule are neither examined nor discussed. Yet their existence dates back for many years, and in this age of filing and docketing they must by now provide a regular gold-mine for the study of human psychology. What increases their value is that they avoid all attempt at "literary effect." No picked phrases, no situations invented or dramatised to suit the taste of the author; nothing but facts taken from real life and recorded by the functionaries of His Majesty the Emperor of India. We are referring to those very interesting _Reports of the Indian Government_ to which we owe practically all our knowledge of fakirism and its miracles, of the artificial conservation of human life in the tomb, and of the strangulation rites of the Thugs. They are indeed a valuable contribution to the study of the perversions of religious faith--that most alluring and yet least explored section of psychology.

A librarian at the British Museum showed me some years ago one of the most suggestive doc.u.ments that the art of cartography has ever produced. It was the famous map prepared by Captain Paton, about 1890, for the British Government, showing the various neighbourhoods in which the Thugs had strangled and buried their victims. Drawn up according to precise information furnished by several leaders of the sect, it indicated every tomb in the province of Oudh, where the majority of the worshippers of the G.o.ddess Kali were to be found. The written descriptions that accompanied the map were particularly interesting, for--like Swift, when he enumerated the benefits that would accrue to the starving Irish people if they killed their children like sheep and ate them instead of mutton--Captain Paton felt himself compelled to record the glorious deeds of some of the most valiant of the Thugs. He gave details which would have rejoiced the imagination of a de Quincey or an Edgar Allan Poe. About 5200 murders had been committed by a company of forty people, all highly thought of and commanding general respect. At their head was the venerable Buhram, who laid claim to 931 a.s.sa.s.sinations during his forty years of religious activity in the province of Oudh. The second in merit, one Ramson, had strangled 608 people. The third, it is true, could only claim about 500, but he had reached this figure in thirty years, and had made a record of 25 murders in one year. Others had to their credit 377, 340 and 264 a.s.sa.s.sinations respectively, after which one dropped from these heights to figures of twenty, ten or even only five annual murders in honour of Kali. This record undoubtedly represented the supreme flower of the religion of this G.o.ddess, who not only taught her followers the art of strangulation, but also succeeded in hiding their deeds from the suspicious eyes of unbelievers.

Murders followed thick and fast, one upon another, but though thousands of Hindus, rich and poor, young and old, were known to disappear, their terrified families scarcely dared to complain. English statisticians go so far as to say that from thirty to fifty thousand human lives were sacrificed every year on the altar of this fatal G.o.ddess, who, desiring to thwart the growth of the too prolific life-principle in the universe, incited her worshippers to the suppression and destruction of human beings. But while using her power to shelter her followers from suspicion and discovery, Kali expected them, for their part, to take care that none witnessed the performance of her duties. One day misfortune fell upon them. A novice of the cult had the daring to spy upon the G.o.ddess while she was occupied in destroying the traces of her rite, and Kali's divine modesty being wounded, she declared that in future she would no longer watch over the earthly safety of her followers, but that they themselves must be responsible for concealing their deeds from the eyes of men. Thus, after having worshipped her with impunity for centuries, the Thugs all at once found themselves exposed to the suspicions of their fellow-countrymen, and above all, of the British Government. Captain Sleeman played the part of their evil genius, for in his anger at their abominable deeds he decided, in spite of the resistance offered by the heads of the East India Company, to wage war to the knife against the religion of Kali. Such alarming reports were received in England that at last the home authorities were aroused, and in 1830 a special official was appointed to direct operations (the General Superintendent of Operations against Thuggee).

Captain Sleeman was chosen to fill the appointment, and he dedicated to it all his courage and practically his whole life. The tale of the twenty years' struggle that followed would put the most thrilling dramas of fiction in the shade.

In the works founded on Captain Sleeman's reports, and above all in his own official doc.u.ments, are found remarkable accounts of the ways in which the Thugs lured their victims to their doom.

A Mongol officer of n.o.ble bearing was travelling to the province of Oudh accompanied by two faithful servants. He halted on his way near the Ganges, and was there accosted by a group of men, polite in speech and respectable in appearance, who asked permission to finish their journey under his protection. The officer refused angrily and begged them to let him go on his way alone. The strangers tried to persuade him that his suspicions were unjust, but, seeing his nostrils inflate and his eyes gleam with rage, they finally desisted. The next day he met another group of travellers, dressed in Moslem fashion, who spoke to him of the danger of travelling alone and begged him to accept their escort. Once more the officer's eyes flashed with rage; he threatened them with his sword, and was left to proceed in peace. Many times again the brave Mongol, always on his guard, succeeded in thwarting the designs of his mysterious fellow-travellers, but on the fourth day he reached a barren plain where, a few steps from the track, six Moslems were weeping over the body of one who had succ.u.mbed to the hardships of the journey. They had already dug a hole in the earth to inter the corpse, when it was discovered that not one of them could read the Koran. On their knees they implored the Mongol officer to render this service to the dead. He dismounted from his horse, unable to resist their pleadings, and feeling bound by his religion to accede to their request.

Having discarded his sword and pistols, he performed the necessary ablutions, and then approached the grave to recite the prayers for the dead. Suddenly cloths were thrown over his own and his servants'

heads, and after a few moments all three were precipitated into the yawning hole.

It may be asked why so much cunning was needed in order to add a few more members to the kingdom of the dead. The reason is that the Thugs were forbidden to shed human blood. The sacrifice could only be accomplished through death by strangling. It might often be easy enough to fall upon solitary travellers, but woe to the Thug who in any way brought about the shedding of blood! Consequently they had to have recourse to all sorts of ingenious methods for allaying suspicion, so that their victims might be hastened into the next world according to the rites approved by their implacable G.o.ddess. They believed in division of labour, and always acted collectively, employing some to entice the victim into the trap, and others to perform the act of strangulation, while in the third category were those who first dug the graves and afterwards rendered them invisible.

The murders were always accomplished with a kind of cold-blooded fanaticism, admitting neither mercy nor pity, for the Thug, convinced that his action would count as a special virtue for himself in the next life, also believed that his victim would benefit from it.

Feringhi, one of the most famous of Indian stranglers, who also held a responsible official position, was once asked if he was not ashamed to kill his neighbour.

"No," he replied, "because one cannot be ashamed to fulfil the divine will. In doing so one finds happiness. No man who has once understood and practised the religion of Thuggee will ever cease to conform to it to the end of his days. I was initiated into it by my father when I was very young, and if I were to live for a thousand years I should still continue to follow in his footsteps."

The Thugs of each district were led by one whom they called their _jemadar_, to whom they gave implicit obedience. The utmost discretion reigned among them, and they never questioned the plans of their superiors. We can imagine how difficult it was to combat a fanaticism which feared nothing, not even death; for when death overtook them, as it sometimes did, in the performance of their rites, they merely looked upon it as a means of drawing nearer to their G.o.ddess.

The origin of this extraordinary religion seems to be hidden in the mists of the past, though European travellers claim to have met with it in India in the seventeenth century. We may note that during the Mahometan invasion all sorts of crimes were committed in the name of religion, and possibly the murders in honour of Kali were a survival from this time. As years went by the sect increased rapidly, and many of the most peaceable Hindus were attracted by it, and joined it in the capacity of grave-concealers, spies, or merely as pa.s.sive adherents who contributed large sums of money. In Sleeman's time about two thousand Thugs were arrested and put to death every year, but nevertheless their numbers, towards the end of the nineteenth century, were steadily increasing. (Of recent years, however, a considerable diminution has been shown.) In 1895 only three are recorded to have been condemned to death for murder; in 1896, ten; and in 1897, twenty-five; while travellers in Rajputana and the Hyderabad district speak of much higher figures. The Thugs always bear in mind the maxim that "dead men tell no tales," and their practice of killing all the companions of the chosen victim, as well as himself, renders the detection of their crimes extremely difficult; while their mastery of the art of getting rid of corpses frequently baffles the authorities. Further, the terrified families of the victims, dreading reprisals, often fail to report the deaths, so that the sect has thus been enabled to continue its murderous rites in spite of all measures taken to stamp it out.

They avoid killing women, except in the case of women accompanying a man who has been doomed to death, when they must be sacrificed in order to prevent their reporting the crime. Stranger still, they admit that murder is not always a virtuous action, but that there are criminal murders which deserve punishment.

"When a Thug is killed," said one of them to the celebrated Sleeman, "or when one does not belong to the sect, and kills without conforming to the rites, it is a crime, and should be punished."

They seem to experience a strange and voluptuous pleasure when performing their rites of strangulation--a pleasure increased, no doubt, by the knowledge that their G.o.ddess looks on with approval. Yet even the most hardened among them is capable of the greatest chivalry when women are concerned, and a rigorous inquiry into the details of thousands of their crimes has failed to reveal any single attempt at violation. A Thug returning from one of his ritualistic expeditions may show himself to be a good and affectionate husband and father, and a charitable neighbour. Apart from numerous acts of a.s.sa.s.sination, on which he prides himself, his conduct is usually irreproachable. No wonder that he fills the English magistrates with stupefaction, and that justice does not always dare to strike when it can act more effectively by persuasion or seclusion.

All things evolve with the pa.s.sage of time, and in the twentieth century even the rite of strangulation has undergone changes. From the main sect of Thuggee, other branches of a new and unlooked-for type have sprung. These, instead of strangling their neighbours, prefer to poison them, the virtue being the same and the method easier and more expeditious. Their proceedings, though more difficult to control, are quite as lucrative for Kali, the devourer of human life, and if they have made their G.o.ddess less notorious than did the Thugs, they certainly worship her with equal ardour.

CHAPTER III

THE REINCARNATIONIST'S PARADISE

Amid luxuriant vegetation, in an enchanting position overlooking the Pacific Ocean, flourishes the religion of reincarnation "without beginning and without end." Its followers, gathered there from all parts of the world, steep themselves in the atmosphere of fraternal love and general benevolence which is exhaled by this doctrine of the evolution of souls, leading to ultimate perfection.

The scenes which greet the dazzled eyes of the visitor are of such extreme beauty that he might well believe himself to have been miraculously transported to ancient h.e.l.las. Greek theatres and temples gleam whitely in the shade of majestic palm-trees, and groups of young people dressed like the youths and maidens of ancient Athens may be seen taking part in rhythmic dances and elaborate processions.