A central purpose of the Society was to persuade 24 Anglican bishops to open Southcott's sealed box of prophecies, and to this end, advertisements were placed in newspapers, both national and local. In the late 1920s and early 1930s the Society generated over 100,000 petitions for the box to be opened. The Society claimed to be in possession of the original box. The Panaceans also believed that the one that was opened in 1927 and found to contain a broken horse pistol and a lottery ticket, was not the genuine box.