liken to the agony and bloody sweat of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. These religions dances are provocative of intense sensual enjoyment; they act upon the nervous system like strong liquors or narcotics, and intoxicate like opium or hashish. The Khlysti call them their spiritual beer, "doukhovnoe pivo," and frequently stimulate their effect by scourging with rods; hence the name applied to the sect.
The crisis of supreme exaltation is the moment for prophesying; half-uttered phrases, frantic ejaculations, incoherent words, are accepted as revelations from on high, transmitted through their unconscious means, and if the message is incomprehensible, it is said to be in unknown tongues, which the elder may interpret at his pleasure.
The Raskol has, since the days of Peter the Great, been confined almost exclusively to the lower orders, but of these mystical sects some have penetrated into high places. Imperial ukases and official records show that their adepts were, in the eighteenth century, found at court m princely families, among foreigners of distinction and ecclesiastics of exalted rank, as well as among native Russians and laymen. Similar occurrences took place during the reigns of Alexander I. and of Nicholas. In 1817 a secret society of mystics was detected in the imperial palace of Michael, at St. Petersburg; it was dispersed by the police, and a few years later was again surprised in a neighboring suburb. Officers of the emperor's household, functionaries of high rank, both men and women, were among its members, all solemnly pledged to secrecy and possessed of the spirit of prophecy. To arouse the prophetic inspiration they had recourse to the whirling dance and scourging of the Khlysti; brotherly love, mystic union of the sexes, spir-
