Though the town of Wildisbuch in the Swiss parish of Trullikon is hard to find today, it must have seemed to a peaceful place back in the 19th century. That it would become the site of one of the most gruesome religious murders of the 19th century, not to mention earning the place a notoriety that lingers even today, seems hard to believe. But it happened all the same.
The young woman who would be at the centre of this bizarre Swiss passion play certainly showed no sign beforehand of the violence that she would bring to her family. Born in 1794 on Christmas Day, Margaretta Peter was the youngest of five daughters born to John Peter and his wife and, except for her mother's death shortly after her birth, grew up with all the love and care that her father, sisters, and brother could lavish on her. Raised in the Zwinglian Protestant faith along with the rest of her family, Margaretta showed remarkable religious zeal from early childhood. Even her pastor was impressed - at first.
Despite being the youngest child, Margaretta had a forceful personality that allowed her to dominate all her older siblings. Even the two sisters who managed to get married still deferred to her religious opinions and moral teachings while her unmarried sisters became her disciples in every way that mattered. Long after the horrific events that I am about to describe, family members continued to praise Margaretta and her teachings. Her father himself would say of her that, ""I am assured that my youngest daughter was set apart by God for some extraordinary purpose."
And she showed that sense of divine purpose from an early age. By the age of six, she was reading the Bible and summoning family members to gather around while she gave sermons. Along with regular prayer sessions, she also urged her father and siblings to live in complete accord with Christ's teachings (as defined by her). Even when she took first communion in 1811, she amazed her congregation with her religious fervour and sheer joy.
In 1816, her mother's brother invited her to live with him in the nearby town of Rudolfingen and act as his housekeeper. Her time at her uncle's house brought her into contact with a Pietist religious community and to attend their services. The Pietists were an extremely fundamentalist Lutheran sect that was spreading across many parts of Europe. Unfortunately, this exposure to Pietism also meant a radical change in Margaret's personality, something even her siblings found disturbing. When asked why the normally happy girl was so despondent, she replied that God was revealing Himself to her and making her more aware of her own sinful nature. But that was just the beginning.
By 1817, she had left her uncle's home and returned to Wildisbuch to establish herself as a revivalist to preach the word of God. This meant returning to her father's home and getting to know three new servants who had been hired while she was away: Heinrich Ernst, Ursula Kundig, and Margaret Jaggli. Both servants would soon play an important role in Margaretta's strange crusade: Margaret because of the epileptic seizures that she hoped would be cured by Margaretta's prayers, Heinrich for his blind loyalty to the Peter family, and Ursula who asked Margaretta to be her "spiritual guide through life and eternity."
It was Ursula who became Margaretta's most fervent disciple. In lavishing praise on her new spiritual mentor, Ursula openly said of Margaretta,"that Christ revealed Himself in the flesh through her, and that through her many thousands of souls were saved." Almost inevitably, the Peter household was flooded by religious minded people from around the area, all of whom gathered to hear Margaretta's sermons. But she soon became tired of her father's household and ,by 1820, decided to travel across the country preaching her gospel. Though she went alone at times, Margaretta often took her either her devoted sister Elizabeth or Ursula Kundig with her.
Margaretta's religious crusade drew people in from all over Switzerland. It was during the course of her wandering that she met a shoemaker named Jacob Morf. Despite being married, Morf seemed mesmerized by Margaretta and she quickly came to feel the same about him. Though it's hard to say whether there was anything physical in their relationship, she and Morf exchanged passionate letters that are still preserved in a Zurich archive. She also announced to him that they would ascend to Heaven together and would share one throne for all eternity. Morf's wife, Regula, was less than thrilled by this strange relationship though her husband managed to relieve her suspicions (at least for a while).
In late 1822, police became alerted when Margaretta and Elizabeth vanished without a trace. After months of searching, the two women turned up on their own on January 8, 1823. Though Margaretta was pale and visibly ill, she refused to say where she and her sister had been. Not long afterward, Jacob Morf turned up at the Peter house, apparently due to a message from Margaretta that the two of them would soon be ascending to Heaven together.
Whatever had happened to her during her absence, Margaretta's behaviour had become more bizarre than ever. She and Elizabeth confined themselves to a single room in the house where they read the Bible and prayed almost non-stop. She seemed obsessed with earning God's forgiveness for her life of sin (not that she shared with anyone what those sins were). When not in her room praying, she would often come downstairs to meet with her followers and share her prophecies with them. As for Jacob Morf, his work and marriage soon drew him back home.
In Morf's absence, Margaretta's religious obsession became even stronger as Easter approached. During one of her episodes, she announced: ""Behold! I see the host of Satan drawing nearer and nearer to encompass me. He strives to overcome me. Let me alone that I may fight him." She apparently believed that the Devil would be coming to claim the souls of all humanity and that she alone stood in his way. With that in mind, she ordered the house to be closed up completely with no "worldly" people being allowed to cross the threshold. That included the local pastor who tried to express his concern about what was happening. And, given the control Margaretta had over the entire household, that's exactly what they did.
Considering the religious hysteria that had gripped the entire household, things went pretty much as you might expect. One evening, Margaret Jaggli reacted to hearing a loud pop from the fireplace by going into convulsions. Screaming that the Devil had come for her, she pleaded with Margaret and the others to pray and save her soul. This led Margaretta to scream out, "Depart, thou murderer of souls, accursed one, to hell-fire. Wilt thou try to rob me of my sheep that was lost? My sheep—whom I have pledged myself to save?"
Though Margaret soon recovered, she continued to have seizures and the rest of the household began having religious visions themselves. Margaret wrote to Jacob Morf to come to her aid and, on March 8, 1823, he finally arrived at Wildisbuch along with two other believers.
And then, with all of the true believers gathered under one roof and in a state of acute religious mania, the final battle for Armageddon could begin.
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