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Doom in 30 years if the Bishops
don't open Joanna's box
By Elizabeth White
Bedfordshire Times 21st August 1970
WITH ONLY 30 years to go before the year 2,000, time is running out for the Bedford-based Panacea society. According to their prophetess, Joanna Southcott, if her box of secrets is not opened before that time, the world will have to meet the Day of Judgement unprepared.
Joanna was a divinely-inspired Devonshire farmer's daughter, who died in 1814. Many of her writings were published, but some, claim the society, the Lord told her not to publish, but hide in a box until the bishops should open it in "a time of grave national danger".
All that is needed to prevent a disastrous Judgement day is a party of 24 Anglican bishops to open this box with all due ceremonial.
But the bishops are understandably sceptical about the value of this operation some of them swallowed their ecclesiastical pride once before and opened what they were led to believe was THE box.
Far from producing miraculous world-ending events, all the performance triggered off was a chorus of episcopal blushes - for the most startling object in the box was a toy pistol.
This was in 1927, 11 years after the society were founded for the express purpose of getting Joanna's box opened. They weren’t going to let all their hard work go to waste just for one small setback. "it was a hoax," they say. "We still have the REAL box safe." The bishops turn a deaf ear.
So the society continue to spend thousands of pounds every year advertising in national newspapers and periodicals that "Crime and banditry, distress of nations and perplexity will continue to increase until the bishops open Joanna Southcott's box."
The proof that they are right, they say. is in such things as the Vietnam War and the increasing drug problem.
The advertisement, which has not changed in 54 years, is the society's only weapon against The forces of evil in the world, and Mrs. Sybil Cuthbertson, the society’s leader, says the cost is immaterial. "We want to bring it to the attention of the public," she says.
"We advertise in about 20 papers and periodicals" says Mrs. Cuthbertson. The Daily Mail alone charges 22 a single-column inch which cost the society 264 last month. Their display advertising department estimate that the advert goes in about once every three months. When they have a space they ring Mrs. Cuthbertson and ask her if she would like to take it. This way she often gets a reduced rate.
The money for all these adverts comes entirely from full members. "We don't take any money from the public," says Mrs. Cuthbertson. "Lots of members who have died have left us legacies."
The society claim thousands of members all over the world, hut the head-quarters are in Albany Road, Bedford. where they have about 13 houses, and a few more in Rothsay Road.
There are about 60 members in Bedford, says Mrs. Cuthbertson, living communal lives in these houses. "We have about 15 houses altogether, and we let out about three of them. The rest we live in ourselves. It is not true that members joining us have to sign over all their goods to us. They can bring things if they like, and leave as much as they want with their people. All the members in Bedford are elderly people, because they have to be able to afford to work full time for us, answering letters we get from the advertisement."
The houses alone are worth about 105,000. An estate agent in Bedford says that houses in Albany Road are worth between 3,500 and 10,000 and in Rothsay Road 5,000 to 15,000.
All this money will no doubt come in useful at the second coming, which is due any day now. Mrs. Cuthbertson thinks the state the world is in, the bishops will be driven in desperation to open the box very soon.
Then the Lord will come "in majesty and power and members of the society and other good people will live happily ever after on earth.
The only snag is that if the box containing some of Joanna Southcott's writings, with instructions for the revelation, is not opened within the next 30 years, the devil's 6,000-year rule will come to an end anyway.
"I am sure the box will be opened before then," says Mrs. Cuthbertson. And if it isn't? "I don't even think about it," she says.
Page last updated: 22nd January 2014