they referred to the whirling dance as "spiritual beer", on account of its intoxicating effect. He reports that after the dance had continued for some time, the worshippers fell to the floor: "And that was the end of it. But apparently only because I was present." Radzinsky claims that in some arks, the Khlysts would at this point engage in "group sinning" – a frenzied sexual orgy, which they believed would purify them from the lusts of the flesh. Similarly, C. L. Sulzberger, in his book The Fall of Eagles, writes that the Khlysty's "foremost idea was that salvation could be attained only by total repentance and that this became far more achievable for one who had truly transgressed. 'Sin in order that you may obtain forgiveness,' was the practical side of the Khlysty." Other scholars have dismissed these rumours. Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, referencing a study by Karl Konrad Grass, writes: Historian Joseph T. Fuhrmann claims that "splinter groups practiced 'holy intercourse,' but most khlysty were devout pentecostalists who condemned such behaviour." Persecution Accusations of sexual immorality pursued the sect from its earliest days, and provoked numerous government investigations. In 1717, Lupkin and twenty other Khlysty were arrested in Uglich. They were held for five months, during which time they were interrogated and beaten. While some of his followers remained in custody, Lupkin managed to negotiate his own release, with the help of a 300-ruble bribe. Despite officially repenting, he continued to lead the movement until his death in 1732. From 1733 to 1739, a specially-formed government commission arrested hundreds of suspected Khlyst members, charging them with participation in sexual orgies and ritual infanticide. These accusations were repeatedly denied, but the commission nevertheless convicted over three hundred people. They handed out sentences of hard labour, beatings, and mutilation of the nostrils and the tongue, and sent many of the prisoners into exile in Siberia or Orenburg. However, the Khlysty were undeterred, and continued practising. Some of those who had been sent into exile began to spread the movement through Siberia. In 1745, therefore, a new commission was formed, this time using "far crueler methods of interrogation". This commission, although eliciting false confessions of sexual deviation and cannibalistic communion, and sending another 200 people into exile, likewise failed to stamp out the movement. Later history Around 1750, some doctrinal changes took place within the sect, and they became known as the