Walking past some of the grand looking Victorian houses in Bedford you’d be forgiven for not knowing that one of them has been completely refurbished for the return of Jesus Christ in the Second Coming.
Keeley Knowles finds out more about a society which has charmed people for decades.
Fitted with new carpets and curtains, there is even a shower waiting for Christ at The Ark in Albany Road.
Previously, the religious cult believed that the world would end at the turn of the Millennium and that their own messiah – Octavia, the daughter of God and founder of the society – would also return. And, as many of its properties in and around the Castle Road area are rented out, the tenants are said to still be on two months notice.
In her book recently published about the society, Reverend Dr Jane Shaw – priest, historian and a trustee of the society – writes about how the last surviving members – there are only two – were adjusting to the fact the Millennium had come and gone.
With assets of more than £22 million, the society functions as a charity and has given away £2.7m to various causes over the last three years. It also funds a large amount of research including £152,963 to a study taking place at Kings College, London, to investigate the psychological aspects of prophecy.
But its origins can be traced back to almost 200 years ago to Joanna Southcott from Devon who claimed that she would give birth to Shiloh (a messianic figure).
The women – who went on to gather around Mabel Baltrop, the founder of the Panacea Society – believed that she was this child.
A vicar’s widow, Mabel, known to her followers as Octavia, moved to Bedford after receiving a number of messages from the Lord.
She said the Lord told her that she was to take down His Word each day and so for the next 15 years without interruption she would sit down and write His Communications which were later bound as books.
Rev. Dr Shaw – who was the first person outside of the society to have access to her archive, writes about her ‘remarkable capacity in founding what was essentially, a new religion’.
Few people I have spoken to have heard of the Panacea Society but in its heyday it had thousands of followers. Probably even fewer people know that for more than 80 years it has offered the public a healing method for all types of ailments.
The practice, which reached more than 130,000 people across the world including in Africa, Asia and Australasia, began when the Divine Mother proclaimed that Octavia had the power to heal.
Rev. Dr Shaw describes how Octavia breathed over rolls of linen which could be sent out to anyone in the world to be mixed with water.
It is thought the international healing ministry, which is run by one of the society’s remaining members, Ruth Klein, still receives reports from people using the water and it is claimed that Octavia breathed on enough linen squares to last a long time.
On the society’s website it states that if the applicant perseveres in taking the water (four times a day) it may overcome faults such as ‘rudeness and sulkiness’.
And in 1925 a special part of protection work was done to guard the ‘Garden of Eden’ - at the corner of Albany and Castle Road. A radius of 12 miles was drawn from the society’s chapel and at eight points on the circle they buried linen sections.
Another peculiar phenomenen of the society’s work over the years has been to open a special box – which featured in a Monty Python sketch in 1969 – said to contain the sealed writings of Joanna Southcott.
The society bought a house where it believed 24 bishops would gather to open the Box.
Rev. Dr Shaw writes that if we are to understand why they would invest £8,000 (a large sum in 1930) in a house and prepare it for the bishops who one day might come, then we must remember ‘they believed they were receiving messages of this sort from God on a daily basis.” Now, as the society – which says that as a charitable body it takes no position on the return of Christ – prepares for an exhibition to open next year, the public may finally get a chance of a glimpse into what remains largely a mystery…
Octavia, Daughter of God: The story of a female messiah and her followers by Rev. Dr Jane Shaw is available in various book stores.
