Modern Saints and Seers

Joe Smith was, to speak plainly, nothing but an adventurer. Having tried more than twenty avocations, ending up with that of a gold-digger, he found himself at last at the end o...

Amid luxuriant vegetation, in an enchanting position overlooking the Pacific Ocean, flourishes the religion of reincarnation "without beginning and without end." Its followers,...

In the American of the United States there exist two distinctly opposed natures: the one positive and practical, the other inclined to mysticism. The two do not clash, but live,...

The town of Denver, the "pearl of Colorado," was _en fete_. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were flocking to it from all parts of America, and all, immediately they arrived, m...

The marriage between Science and the Bible, brought about by Mary Baker Eddy, has given birth to a most prosperous sect. In this amalgam, the Christianity is not of the purest,...

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 kin...

The thirst for perfection, the ardent desire to draw near to God, sometimes takes the form of an unhappy perversion of reason and common sense. The popular soul knows no hesitat...

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 docket...

It is as difficult to pick out the most characteristic traits of the innumerable Russian sects as it is to describe the contours of clouds that fleet across the sky. Their numbe...

The official clergy, finding it incumbent on them to defend the articles of the orthodox faith, were themselves frequently swept away by the storm of religious mania. Before the...

The origin of this sect seems to be lost in the mists of the past. Some connect it with the teachings of Vishnu, some with mysterious practices of antiquity; but the "divine men...

Let us now travel to the extreme north, to the land where dwell the Yakuts, the Marseillais of the Polar regions. Living a life of gay and careless vagabondage in this snowy wor...

On the outskirts of Jaransk, in the Viatka district, a race called the _Tcheremis_ has dwelt from time immemorial. While Russian scholars, like Smirnov, were employed in unveili...

Nearly all Communistic theories when applied in practice prove failures, but there seems to be one infallible safeguard--that supplied by religion. Faith, when mingled with the...

Sister Helen Petrov, of the convent of Pskov, declared in a moment of "divine illumination" that the Church had no hierarchy, that priests were harmful, that God had no need of...

The tragic death of the monk Rasputin made a deep impression upon the civilised world, and truth was lost to view amid the innumerable legends that grew up around his life and a...

A sect of considerable importance, that of the _molokanes_, owed its origin to the _douchobortzi_. It was founded by a sincere and ardent man named Oukleine, about the end of th...

The career of Rasputin provides one of the most disquieting chapters in the history of sexual and religious emotions, and furnishes remarkable proof of the close relationship wh...

We will now travel to the south of Russia, and examine more closely what might be called a laboratory of sects, or in other words a breeding-ground of religions whose idealism,...

The numerous admirers of Count Tolstoi will find in his writings some derivations, whether conscious or unconscious, from the principles elaborated by many of the Russian sects....

The most propitious and fertile soil in which collective mania can grow is that of unhappiness. Famine, unjust taxation, unemployment, persecution by local authorities, and so o...

The pilgrims and "workers of miracles" who wander through Russia can always find, not only free lodging, but also opportunity for making their fortunes. Their gains mount, often...

The Slavonic atmosphere exhales an intense longing for the ideal and for heaven. Often a kind of religious ecstasy seems to sweep over the whole length and breadth of the Russia...

Imagination can scarcely conceive of some of the strange forms under which the thirst for religious truth in Southern Russia was revealed. In this great laboratory of sects, all...

A sect no less extraordinary than the last was that of the Stranglers (_douchiteli_). It originated towards the end of 1874, and profited by a series of law cases, nearly all of...

About the month of April, 1895, all eyes in the town of Simbirsk were turned upon a sect founded by a peasant named Pistzoff. These poor countryfolk protested against the injust...

From time to time this thirst for the ideal, this dissatisfaction with the actual, gave rise to a series of collective suicides. We may recall the celebrated propaganda of the m...

It seems enough, in Russia, when a single individual is obsessed by some more or less ridiculous idea, for his whole environment to become infected by it also. The ease with whi...

The forms taken by religious mania are not always as harmless as in the case of the "God Sava." Ivan Grigorieff, founder of the Russian Mormons, began by preaching that God crea...

The sect of the "little gods," or _bojki_, was founded about 1880 by a peasant named Sava. Highly impressionable by nature, and influenced by the activities of at least a dozen...

Side by side with these flourishing sects whose followers could be numbered by millions, there existed other communities, founded upon naive and child-like superstitions, strang...

The flood of religious mania reached even beyond the borders of European Russia, and its effects were seen as much among the followers of other religions as among the Christians.

The religious ferment of South Russia was due to some special causes, its provinces having served since the seventeenth century as lands of exile for revolutionaries of all kind...

This sect believed that man could attain to perfection of life and health only by avoiding the fatigue of penance and fastings; and that all men should equally enjoy the gifts o...

The Soutaievtzi (founded in 1880 by a working-man of Tver, named Soutaieff) scoffed at the clergy, the ikons, the sacraments, and military service, while upholding the principle...

Although most of the sects of which we have spoken sprang from the orthodox church, the _molokanes_ and the _stoundists_ were indirect fruits of the Protestant church, and even...

The Jumpers, or _sopouny_, founded by one Petroff, considered it their duty to blow upon one another during Divine Service. This arose from a misinterpretation of the ninth vers...

The suffering of a people nourishes the spirit of rebellion, enabling it to come to birth and to survive. There are some religious sects based exclusively upon popular disconten...

The "sons of God" held that men were really gods, and that as divinity is manifested in our fellows and in ourselves, it is sufficient to offer prayers unto--our neighbours! Eve...

I. THE NEGATIVISTS II. THE WHITE-ROBED BELIEVERS III. THE STRANGLERS IV. THE FUGITIVES V. THE SOUTAIEVTZI VI. THE SONS OF GOD VII. THE TOLSTOYANS VIII. THE SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS...