In 1919, in the wake of the upheaval of World War I, a
remarkable group of English women came up with their own solution
to the world's grief: a new religion. At the heart of the Panacea
Society was a charismatic and autocratic leader, a vicar's widow
named Mabel Bartlrop. Her followers called her Octavia, and they
believed that she was the daughter of God, sent to build the New
Jerusalem in Bedford.
When the last living members of the Panacea Society revealed to
historian Jane Shaw their immense and painstakingly preserved
archives, she began to reconstruct the story of a close-knit
utopian community that grew to include seventy residents, thousands
of followers, and an international healing ministry reaching
130,000 people. Shaw offers a detailed portrait of Octavia and
describes the faith of her devoted followers who believed they
would never die. Vividly told, by turns funny and tragic, "Octavia,
Daughter of God" is about a moment at the advent of modernity, when
a generation of newly empowered women tried to re-make Christianity
in their own image, offering a fascinating window into the
anxieties and hopes of the interwar years.
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