Holt was briefly the head of a religious sect, founded on a walk with two comrades over Stansfield Moor. As a younger man he had often gone there to make calf-love with other weavers and to dream. He had had the idea for a new faith around the time of the 1926 General Strike, as his disillusionment with political orthodoxy grew, and he began to seek a worthy vessel for his anger. He had a vision of "a religion of physical action" for common people (who on the whole, he said, were good at heart, longed for a "bold lead" in matters of faith, and much preferred actions to words). He warned that those “whose actions were definitely evil […] would be attacked by our sect—the volunteers—in the spirit of the intrepid airmen who during the War flew their machines dead into the belly of a Zeppelin, destroying it and themselves with it […] Our religion of action would provide a bridge for the people to cross to the Millennium, to Communism, to the Kingdom of God on earth...”
They placed an advertisement in the local paper for a meeting at Basin Stone, where Todmorden Chartists used to congregate, at half-past ten the following Sunday. “We followed the wandering path of black earth strewn with grey crystal gravel and sheep-droppings, with here and there the imprints of clog-irons and dogs’ feet. On each side of us were black bog-holes, and our feet crackled on thin sheets of ice, until we came to Basin Stone with its natural steps and pulpit and little hollows filled with frozen water.” Sixty people arrive throughout the course of the meeting and listened and left in silence. They “made no converts.”
Later, Holt’s less idealistic companions insisted that they “go to the people”, and for the sect to meet and preach on the market ground instead of on the high hostile moors. “’But the valley is dark,’ I pleaded. ‘Let us go on; move from hill-top to hill-top through the Pennines. Convert those who come up, and send missionaries to fetch the people up.’ But my friends were adamant, and I gave way to them.”