Sun 19 Jan 2003

Robert Burns was 'member of scandalous religious sect'

ANNABEL HOUSE
NEW evidence has emerged about Robert Burns’ involvement with a heretical religious sect that held clandestine orgies.
An amateur historian, who has spent five years researching links between Scotland’s most famous poet and the Buchanites sect, believes Burns was almost certainly a member.
The poet admitted he knew most of the members and secret songs sung at meetings, only to later condemn them for their "scandalously indecent" practices.
But John Millar, 79, said he believed Burns was simply trying to cover up his involvement with the Buchanites in Irvine in 1781 to preserve his reputation and please his father.
It is thought the 23-year-old Burns was attracted by a "young and beautiful" member of the sect, which was led by the charismatic Elspet Buchan. Buchan saw herself as an embodiment of the Holy Spirit and claimed she could pass the Godhead from person to person by mouth.
The Buchanites caused outrage and disgust in Irvine with their loose morals and what Burns referred to as the "great farce of pretended devotion in barns and woods, where they lodge and lye all together".
But in a letter to his cousin, Burns admitted: "I am personally acquainted with most of them."
Murdo Morrison, former president of the World Burns Federation, said Millar’s theory was "new and challenging".
Morrison said Burns’ relationship with his father could have influenced his decision to hide his involvement with the Buchanites .
"His relationship with his father was good but with a strange twist. His father recognised that his son was rather different because he was both respectful and a rebel.
"It would be fair to say that every man that has ever been born has kept at least one secret from his father. The size of that secret can differ."

Last updated: 19-Jan-03 01:00 BST