Seventy Seven Paces: This Far and No Further
by Volunteer Adrian Bean
Sadly, there were very few years in Mabel Barltrop’s life when she was completely free from some kind of illness. In her later years she had many physical illnesses, largely connected to diabetes. But greater than that were the chronic mental health problems which must have been obvious to those close to her. Her once firm friend Kate Firth remarked that because of Mabel’s illnesses, she had ‘never seen her happy since their first meeting’.
Like other Barltrop family members, especially Dilys, she suffered bouts of depression and delusions. It is likely she had a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Increasingly, she felt she had to leave small pieces of food on the side of her plate), and for the last eighteen years of her life created a prison for herself by refusing to walk more than 77 paces from her home. Despite convincing herself that it was simply God’s will that she should suffer in this way, and the evidence from members that she could still be an inspirational charismatic leader and trusted confidante, it must have been a cruel and frustrated existence that she lived in her self-imposed jail.
Many of the Panacea Society’s attitudes and beliefs, albeit sincerely held, seemed to some bold and outlandish, but it is clear that on a personal level we should have sympathy for Mabel for her mental situation. If she were our neighbour or relation we would try to help, and not ridicule her as it can be so easy to do.
The first of her periods in a mental institution was in 1906 at the Three Counties Asylum in Stotfold. She had depression, probably resulting from her husband being terminally ill and the domestic pressures of bringing up four children in her reduced circumstances. Today she would be treated in a very different way. This was not the first indication that she had mental problems. As early as 1895 she experienced a “Divine Voice” which she interpreted as telling her that she would have a life of bitter sacrifice. Her delusions reappeared in mid-1915 and she became an inmate of St Andrew’s Hospital Northampton. She left there in October 1916, supposedly cured.
From then until the day she died, she never dared to go further than 77 paces for fear that if she did so, Satan would attack her. This meant, for example, that she could not walk along Albany Road to visit the Community houses apart- from the few within the 77 step limit, so followers had to come to her. Similarly, as time passed, and people such as Fanny Waldron and Ellen Oliver died, she couldn’t bring herself to attend their funerals at Bedford Cemetery; she would simply have watched as those close to her were taken away, beyond the place where she felt safe.
But why 77?
Numbers had an attraction and importance to Mabel and her followers, to the point of an obsession. Extrapolating from the importance of 24 (the number of Elders referred to in the Book Revelation and consequently the numbers of Bishops needed to open the Box) they also held 12,144, 1440 and so on to be important.
Organised groups within the Society were referred to as “the four,” “the 33,” “the 66,” “the 99” and as membership grew, they were organised into “companies” of 50 to make it easier to calculate how close they were to achieving the 144,000 who, according to the Book of Revelation, would be saved.
It’s not entirely clear how the number 77 became so important. The most likely explanation is that it refers to a necklace. In 1916 she started wearing a chain of 77 large and six smaller beads. For whatever reason, she and her close group looked upon it as being the sign of a captive. According to one report, she dropped the chain and one large bead was missing. According to another, several were lost. She placed it on Joanna Southcott’s sampler in the hope that she could now leave off wearing this sign of her captivity believing that Southcott’s work was near achievement. Significantly, when they counted the beads they found 66 plus the small ones; they took this to mean 666, the number of the Beast in Revelation. From this number, she concluded that Satan would attack her if she went more than 77 paces from her house.
The fixation with or fear of the number 77 continued throughout her life. In January 1930 for example, she spotted that two chains in her house were broken, and this jogged her memory that the previous day she had put the word “Bead” in large letters on page 77 of her writings, and that made her refer back to the Script of October 1920. There she had written: “Shalt thou forever wear the Chain of Captivity? ...Note these 77 days...for the blow is struck at Satan and the chain is ready with which to bind him.” She seems to have been constantly watching out in her daily life for any and every coincidence involving the number 77.
According to Rachel Fox, Mabel used to walk round and round her garden at 12 Albany Road but “77 feet was all I had to walk in.” She also looked for significance in the number 77 in letters between Fox, Shepstone and herself. And again, she noted that the number of months of her confinement in St Andrews Hospital was 77… although her method of counting is perhaps questionable.
Sadly, Kate Firth was probably right in saying that she had never seen Mabel happy in the usual human way. Rather, she was frightened. As she said, in a conversation with Emily Goodwin (The Divine Mother),
“I do not want any of those with me, or anyone else, to suffer as I do...but I hope it will not get any worse...I do not play at being a prisoner. I am one because I CANNOT, dare not go out...the day I say I am happy will be a great day in the history of the world.”
Nowadays, psychiatrists may have treated her by working to break the illogical association of 77 with Satan. But in her confined world, Members latched onto her state of mind, found further evidence of the association thinking that they were doing her a service, and this doubtless fuelled her paranoia.
