Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers [Hardcover]

Throughout history uncertainty has generated religious (primarily Christian) groups who interpreted contemporary events in millenarian terms claiming the end of the world was nigh. During the English Civil War some thought they were about to witness the Second Coming of Christ to establish the 1000 year reign of King Jesus. Similar groups sprang up during the Enlightenment, one of which was headed by Joanna Southcott, who in 1792 claimed she had been visited by the Spirit of Truth. She transmitted her experience to writing and consigned them to "The Great Box" where they remained unread until 1801. Her followers claimed some of her prophecies had come to fruition. Southcott invited Bishops and clergy to attend "trials" of her writings and judge whether they were divinely inspired. They refused to do so and her writings were locked away. Southcott announced herself as the woman referred to in the Book of Revelation, claimed she was pregnant aged 64, would give birth to the new Messiah but died shortly after her prophecy was not fulfilled.

In 1919 a small number of middle class ladies, including a vicar's widow by the name of Mabel Barltrop, formed the Panacea Society to advocate Southcott's ideas and persuade the bishops of the Church of England to open Southcott's box in order to understand end of world events which Southcott believed would occur in 2004. Although Barlthrop was born 52 years after Southcott died she believed she was Southcott's child, a daughter of God and renamed herself Octavia. The Panacea Society, initially known as the Community of the Holy Ghost, was based in Bedford. The campaign to open Southcott's box was stepped up and a property prepared in Bedford for the Messiah to live in after the Second Coming. In 1927 psychic researcher Harry Price told an audience of 400 at Church Hall, Westminster, he would open Southcott's Box which he showed to them. Although Price had a reputation for exposing fraudulent mediums, on this occasion he was the fraud. The authentic Box was actually in a bungalow in Morecambe.

Octavia believed the property owned in Bedford was the original site of the Garden of Eden. The Society's task was to prepare for the Second Coming and identify the 144,000 people who would enjoy immortal life on earth. Many people enjoyed that privilege on payment of a fee. It would appear Octavia herself did not pay as she died in 1934 and in the years that followed active membership of the Society dwindled to a handful. Olivia - and many of her female apostles - had been suffragettes thus emphasising the link between social and spirtual unrest as liberalism finally collapsed. The dislocation caused by the Great War, the appearance of Bolshevik atheism and the impact of modernity provided an environment which lacked the certainty for which the Society was looking. Shaw points out that the Panaceans were, as with other pessimist groups of the inter-war years, part of a what Richard Overy called, "networks of anxiety". Overy's groups included eugenicists, socialists, peace activists, psychoanalysts and marginalised intellectuals. Such pessimism was contagious and explains to a large extent why the 1930s was full of groups looking for a better life on earth, deluded Marxists amongst them.

To accommodate their break from traditional Christian dogma the Panaceans wrote a new theology which replaced the Trinity with a four-fold concept of God in which God was both Father and Mother. Emily Watson claimed she was the voice of the Divine Mother with the authority to prescribe what members could and could not do. Although Octavia and Watson tended towards total control (not much different from that exercised by Mrs Pankhurst and Tony Blair) their inability to meet challenges to their views, particularly on sexual matters, on an equal footing, was a major factor in the Society's decline. Octavia's theology came from a variety of sources but settled on the claim that historical theology was the theology of male domination. In addition, she investigated popular Spiritualism, Occultism and Theosophy drawing out those parts she considered helpful in explaining her four-fold concept of God.

Octavia's followers, who lived in the Bedford community, were primarily middle-class females who were disenchanted with organised religion. Married women were excluded. She set about appointing twelve female apostles, each one having been born under a different sign of the zodiac. She became obsessive, refusing to walk 77 steps from her house lest Satan attacked her. She contended there were some who were predestined to live forever. These would prepare for that eventuality by "overcoming" one's personality, aided by detailed instructions on what, and what not, one should do, no matter how trivial the task. Drifting into a world of their own imagination they declared in 1923 that Emily Goodwin was the personification of Eve. Octavia's late husband, Arthur, "had been Jesus in Christ's second incarnation on earth" and her marriage to him divinely determined. Resentment built up against Octavia's demand for complete loyalty. Her interpretation of reality alienated her children.

Left wing critics suggest Shaw failed to explain the delusional aspects of Octavia and her group. Such criticism is unfounded. Shaw has provided a comprehensive record of the Panacea Society and its most prominent members. She makes no secret of Ocavia's mental health history, neither does she record approval of the ideas of Octavia or the Society. What she does is to provide a comprehensive account of the people and the Society in the historical framework in which they existed. Anyone considering the social and historical context of post World War One society will find Shaw has written a comprehensive and scholarly account which, while it will not be of interest to many, is, in its own terms, worth five stars.

This is an excellent book well researched and reveals how extraordinary some people's view on religion can be.Jane Shaw was very fortunate to discover such a rich archive of material.The wider implications of what is described here need to be considered by all interested in matters of faith

This is a wonderful book. Written with a critical sensitivity it provides real understanding about what on earth led a group of mainly middle-aged respectable people in Bedford to believe that they inhabited the Garden of Eden and were never going to die. The Panacea Society is fortunate to have a biographer who is both an academic in the humanities and a priest. For anyone with an interest in matters spiritual or in how different people see the world I cannot recommend this book too highly.