A Very British Cult

Rogue Priests and the Abode of Love

Stuart Flinders

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781837731480
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Social History

A secluded country house. A rogue Anglican Priest. Ceremonial sex and mislaid fortunes.
This is the almost-forgotten story of Victorian Britain's strangest religious sect and its wealthy, mostly female, followers who believed they could ascend directly to heaven. Henry James Prince was a rogue Anglican Priest with a flare for the dramatic, and the founder of the Agapemone, or 'Abode of Love'. He also claimed to be the immortal conduit of The Holy Spirit and purportedly engaged in free love and ceremonial sex with his mostly female followers. But Prince's eventual death didn't mark the end of this strange set... he was promptly replaced by another. John Hugh Smyth-Pigott - otherwise known as the Clapton Messiah.
The Abode transformed a sleepy, rural corner of Somerset into one of England's most notorious locations. While the followers shut themselves away and waited patiently for the end of the world, outrage grew - the word 'Agapemone' because a byword for licentiousness or idleness, used by Charles Dickens and Ford Maddox Ford. The reclusive Clapton Messiah became a fixture in the nation's papers, with frenzied efforts to discredit the organisation and undermine its leader. And still the cult grew.
Expertly drawing on primary sources to tell the story of the Agapemonites in details for the first time, Stuart Flinders shines a light on the people drawn to the cult - the forced marriages; the swindled fortunes; the women condemned to asylums; and those who managed to escape from the Abode. It is also the story of two extraordinary men, whose claims of divinity were at the heart of this very British cult.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction: ‘You whose eyes Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe’
• 1 ‘The glory of the institution’: The emergence of Brother Prince
• 2 ‘God will crush you’: The Nottidge sisters brought under Prince’s control
• 3 ‘I have seen God face to face’: The kidnapping of Louisa Nottidge
• 4 ‘Miserable dupes’: Agnes fights back
• 5 ‘A mark of God’s love for the flesh’: Prince takes a ‘spritual bride’
• 6 ‘A capital man of business’: Prince’s money-making exposed
• 7 ‘Come and hear!’: The Agapemonites on tour
• 8 ‘If men will not hear us, what are we to do?’: The Agapemone throws open its doors
• 9 ‘A dangerous amount of personal magnetism’: The emergence of the cult’s future leader
• 10 ‘That is Jesus!’: Smyth-Pigott declares himself to be the Messiah
• 11 ‘Down with the impostor!’: The Clapton Messiah faces an angry public
• 12 ‘Sexual intercourse is the highest form of spiritual worship’: Smyth-Pigott’s spiritual brides
• 13 ‘There is no such thing as sin’: Smyth-Pigott brought to book
• 14 ‘You know who I am? I am the Messiah’: Life at the Abode of Love
• 15 ‘My worthless enemies, whom I forgive’: The Clapton Messiah and the press
• 16 ‘Messiah Dead’: The death of John Hugh Smyth-Pigott
• 17 ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended’: The Agapemone closes
• Afterword: ‘So many people … taken in so completely’
• Bibliography
• Endnotes