A member of the Esprit-Saint Mission told CBC News reporter Thomas Daigle that vaccinations are against the community's beliefs and that their prophet warns them vaccines result in illness. The member confirmed the first cases of measles in the region originated with the community.
The Esprit-Saint eugenics group was founded by Eugène Richer Dit LaFlèche in 1913. The community purports to live by and work toward spreading the message of the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
A former member of the community said it believes vaccines compromise people's immune systems, and that they feel protected by the spirit of Dit La Flèche, who died in 1925.
Public health officials said Wednesday they believe the number of infections will continue to climb.
This article sounded interesting - I was reminded of how similar this cult's views on vaccinations are to the JWs view, especially back in the 1920s to the 1950s.
So...I did a search on the founder, Dit La Fleche. And, lo and behold...a thread on this forum popped up in the results.
from that older thread:
blondie10 years agow76 11/15 p. 695 I Found Something Worth Fighting For ***
A unique experience was encountered in 1975 when I met some of the influential members of a small French church group of about 1,500 people called "La Mission de l’Esprit Saint" (The Mission of the Holy Spirit). After a long talk with one of these men, he asked if he and some friends could come to see me. "Of course," I said. A few days later he arrived with other members and their wives—forty in all!
In time, they locked up their church, closed their school, and all their "servants" resigned. Then they told their members to start studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Suddenly, a thousand people wanted Bible studies!
In a space of two months I placed 1,300 Bible study aids among them. Many of the studies ceased later, but close to a hundred of this former church group have been immersed as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and four hundred others are either studying or attending meetings at the Kingdom Halls. More are expected to be immersed shortly.
tigoyo12 years agoJust for your information, "The Prince" was the surname of the second leader of "La Mission de l'Esprit-Saint", Gustave Robitaille (d. 1965), sucessor of His Majesty the Master Eugène Richer dit Laflèche. The thing that happened is what some would call a "cognitive dissonance". The Mission servants (equivalent of the elders in a JW Cong.) announced the End of the World (called the Warning) around 1975 too. But the thing is that it never happend (DUH!) and the group falled apart and many offshots grew up from that incident, there's 2 of them remaining nowadays. The "church" that they closed is still there on Everett near Papineau in Montreal but it's almost vacant (1 servant left and maybe a dozen of "consecrated" coming for the weekly meetings. And indeed a good part of the flock of the Mission went to the JW as there is a great similarity in many aspect: worship (3 meetings of 2 hours each week) ,classic music (piano, violin,etc.) , hierarchy (God, The Master (Eugène Richer dit Laflèche) and the Servants (Elders), hate toward the World (avoidance of social activities, pagan fests, home schooling) , a similar 6000 year chronology, importance of the religious litterature over the Bible, modesty (no makeup, no jewels, no hair tint), family (no superior studies, getting married young and no contraception allowed) and alot of similarity in the slang of the two religions (Armagueddon, system of things, a unique definition of the holy spirit).
tigoyo12 years agoCO's Eugène Pothier and Richer Pothier are from La Mission de l'Esprit Saint
