Agapemone, or "The A" was a Christian religious group and community founded in 1846 by Reverend Henry Prince in Spaxton, Somerset, England.[1] He had been fired earlier in his career for his 'radical teachings'. The Agapemonites predicated the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Prince's successor, John Hugh Smyth-Pigott, declared himself Jesus Christ reincarnate.
The Agapemone (Greek for 'Abode of Love') community consisted mostly of wealthy, unmarried women. Both Prince and Smyth-Pigott took many spiritual brides. Later investigations show that these "brides" were not only spiritual but physical also, and some produced illegitimate children.[2]
In 1860, Prince lost a lawsuit to two disgruntled followers, and the group vanished from the public eye. Around 1890, Smyth-Pigott started giving meetings in the community again and in 1902 his fame had spread as far as India from where Mirza Ghulam Ahmad warned him of his false teachings and predicted his miserable end.