Free World Famous Cults and Fanatics by Colin Wilson Page A

Bentinck appointed him to suppress the
Thugs.
    Fortunately for Sleeman, the organization had already become corrupt and degenerate. In its earlier days, the members of the sect had been strict in their observance of the rules. It was
forbidden to kill women, because Kali was a woman; it was also forbidden to kill religious mendicants, carpenters, metal workers, blind men, pariahs, lepers, mutilated men, and men driving a goat
or cow. Greed had caused a gradual relaxation of the rules (it must have been infuriating to let a rich caravan escape because it contained a carpenter or blind man); and it was to this
disobedience that the Thugs attributed their decline in fortunes. In a sense, this was true. Haste and greed meant that bodies were sometimes left unburied, so a search could be instituted more
quickly. And in some cases, lack of preparation meant that the killing was bungled – Sleeman mentions a case in which the Thugs were pursued back to their own village, and saved from arrest
only by the intervention of the villagers (who had been well bribed). When Sleeman’s researches were published, travellers became suspicious of “holy men” or poor Moslems who
asked for protection. Better roads (built by the British) meant that Thugs could be pursued more easily. Many of them became informers (or “approvers”) to save their own lives. Within a
few years, thousands of Thugs had been arrested and brought to trial.
    Sleeman was the first to understand the fundamentally religious nature of Thuggee: that the murders were sacrifices offered to the dark mother, Kali (also known as Durgha and Bhowani). Because
he was deeply religious, the Thug was usually scrupulous, honest, kindly and trustworthy; Sleeman’s assistant described one Thug chief as “the best man I have ever known”. Many
Thugs were rich men who held responsible positions; part of their spoils went to local rajahs or officials, who had no obiection to Thugs provided they committed their murders elsewhere. Colonel
James Sleeman, grandson of Sir William, described Feringheea as “the Beau Nash of Thuggee”. Like the Assassins, most convicted Thugs met their deaths with remarkable bravery, which
impressed their British executioners. It is this Jekyll and Hyde character that makes the Thugs so baffling. One old Thug was the nurse of a family of British children, and obviously regarded his
charges with great tenderness; for precisely one month of every year he obtained leave to visit his “sick mother”; the family found it unbelievable when he was arrested as a Thug. For
the Thugs were capable of murdering children as casually as adults. A Thug leader described how his gang decoyed a group of twenty-seven – induding five women and two children – away
from a larger group of travellers (arguing that they could travel more cheaply). At midnight they stopped to rest in a grove – already chosen in advance as the murder place. There the Thugs
strangled the adults; the children – two three-year-old boys – were given to two Thugs; but one of them kept crying for his mother, whom he had just seen murdered. The Thug picked him
up by his feet and dashed out his brains against a rock. This was one of the few occasions when retribution followed. The adults were buried, but the Thugs overlooked the boy’s body. It was
discovered the next morning by the local landowner, who set out to hunt the Thugs with armed men. After a chase, the Thugs were located; when the armed men opened fire, they scattered, leaving
behind much of their booty. Four Thugs were arrested, and kept in captivity for a few years. (Sleeman points out that the landowner’s motive was not a sense of justice, but to seize the
spoils.) The other boy was brought up as a Thug.
    The male children of Thugs were automatically initiated into the sect. They were first placed in the care of a Thug tutor, who insisted upon absolute obedience, and acted as their religious
instructor. (It