# The prophetess behind the superstition

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH02.P001](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH02.P001/#char=1798,1827): "believing in Joanna Southcote"

Joanna Southcott (1750–1814; Chesterton spells the surname Southcote) claimed a prophetic vocation and acquired organized followers. Her announcement that she would bear Shiloh appeared in her *Third Book of Wonders* (1813); followers prepared for the birth in 1814. The [original Dictionary of National Biography entry](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Southcott,_Joanna), paragraphs on Shiloh, records both these preparations and her death without the promised child. Chesterton's comparison reverses the modernist sneer at religious credulity: believing in oneself can be as unexamined as believing in a prophetess. But the same biography complicates the parallel. It says her followers' enthusiasm initially overbore her own doubts about a literal interpretation of her spiritual motherhood. Southcott is therefore a recognizable satirical example, not clean historical proof of uniformly absolute self-certainty. The older biography's hostile vocabulary should likewise be distinguished from its report of events.

## Sources

- [A. G., 'Southcott, Joanna', Dictionary of National Biography](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Southcott,_Joanna), Opening identification; paragraphs beginning 'At Exeter', 'The announcement', 'Of nine medical men', and 'She died'

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