Abbe
Chatel, whose idea was to entrust sacerdotal functions to the most
worthy among his followers, by means of a public vote. The sect
prospered for a time, but soon disappeared amid general indifference,
and the Abbe ended his days as a grocer.

The doctrine of Fabre Palaprat had more success, being drawn from the
esoteric teachings of the Gospel of St. John. He either suppressed or
modified many of the Catholic dogmas, abandoned the use of Latin and
inaugurated prayers in French.

The _Fusionists_ were founded by Jean-Baptiste de Tourreil. After a
divine revelation which came to him in the forest of Meudon, near
Paris, he broke with Catholicism and preached the intimate union of man
and nature. He anticipated to some extent the naturalist beliefs which
spread through both France and England at the beginning of the present
century, and his posthumous work entitled _The Fusionist Religion or
the Doctrine of Universalism_ gives an idea of his tendencies. There
was an element of consolation in his doctrine, for the harmony between
man and the universe, as taught by him, renders death only a
prolongation of life itself, and makes it both attractive and desirable.

The _Neo-Gnostic Church_ of Fabre des Essarts was condemned by Leo XIII
with some severity as a revival of the old Albigensian heresy, with the
addition of new false and impious doctrines, but it still has many
followers. The Neo-Gnostics believe that this world is a work of
wickedness, and was created not by God but by some inferior power,
which shall ultimately disappear--and its creation also. While the
Manichaeans teach that the world is ruled by the powers of both good
and evil, God and Satan, the Neo-Gnostics declare that it is Satan who
reigns exclusively upon earth, and that it is man's duty to help to
free God from His powerful rival. They also preach the brotherhood of
man and of nations, and it is probably this altruistic doctrine which
has rendered them irresistible to many who are wearied and disheartened
by the enmities and hatreds that separate human beings.

In 1900, after a letter from Jean Bricaut, the patriarch of universal
Gnosticism in Lyons, the Neo-Gnostics united with the Valentinians, and
their union was consecrated by the Council of Toulouse in 1903. But
some years afterwards, Dr. Fugairon of Lyons (who took the name of
Sophronius) amalgamated all the branches, with the exception of the
Valentinians, under the name of the