The History of Sex: South of France -- Sexing up the Messiah -- (Chap. III, Pt. 12)

Of course, Catholics might have argued, just as believably, that Mrs. Smith's spirit guide was a demon deluding her about the afterlife, but she and Dr. Guirdham preferred to see her visions as proof of reincarnation. The psychiatrist subsequently became something of a neo-Cathar guru.

In his follow-up book—centered on another younger woman—Guirdham touted the idea of group reincarnation, telling the incredible tale of how he and seven other people in the West Country came to realize that they'd all known each other as Cathars in the thirteenth century.

And here's a curious coda.

Another Oxford-educated psychiatrist who reviewed Guirdham's work initially chalked it up to a bad case of 'shared delusion' and pooh-poohed his 'reincarnational soap opera.'

Several years later, though, he started having his own flashbacks and decided that he'd been a mercenary crusader who'd converted to Catharism and wound up being burnt at the stake.

In addition to clinics on regression therapy and other exotica, this reincarnated Cathar now leads 'pilgrimages' through the south of France 'in search of the Magdalene, the Black Madonna, and the Lost Goddess' charging gullibles—I mean, believers—around £2,000 a pop ('special early bird price:' £1,700—around $2,600).

And that's nothing compared to the success of books like The Da Vinci Code, which resurrected an obscure Cathar legend—namely, that Jesus had sex with Mary Magdalene—and miraculously transformed it into a popular 'school of thought.'

A still from Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ

Perhaps a sexed-up Messiah better suits our post-Freudian mindset: we simply can't imagine a leader who wouldn't try it on with his more comely disciples.

So latter-day heresy is big business.

THE LAND OF OO-LA-LA

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church is in danger of dying out in France, with doomsday reports predicting that half the country's priests will meet their Maker within a decade, while the few seminaries that are still open produce a paltry 150 or so pères a year to serve the entire country.

In a special address in 2004, Pope John Paul II commiserated with the bishops of Toulouse and Montpellier about 'the particularly alarming situation that your country is going through,' noting that 'the question of ecclesiastical celibacy and the chastity associated with it is often a stumbling block for young people.'

In the land of oo-la-la, celibacy is a tough sell.

At last count, the diocese of Carcassonne—the old stamping grounds of the Cathars and troubadours—had only seventeen priests under the age of sixty-five.

And whereas Toulouse had more than 700 priests serving 100,000 inhabitants in the 1850s, it now has less than 200 for a population of over a million.

The situation is so desperate the Church has actually started importing African priests to the French countryside.