Spirit Possession and Popular Religion: From the Camisards to the Shakers

Abstract

The description is outstanding. Nowhere else can one find such a succinct and eminently readable account that places Shakerism its broadest context. Garrett makes character and personality come alive throughout the book, from the Prophets' strange gyrations to Mother Ann Lee's drinking problem.--Journal of American HistoryThe most successful study yet written of transatlantic spiritual enthusiasm the century of the Enlightenment.--Jon Butler, Yale UniversityPietists, Methodists, and sectarian groups such as the Shakers all shared the conviction that God touched the individual directly and visibly; manifestations of spirit possession, accompanied by prophecy, visions, and ecstatic seizures, became outward signs of an inner expedience, a kind of theater as believers acted out their possession before others. Clarke Garrett follows this sacred theaterback to the Camisards of southeastern France, an ecstatic Protestant group whose doomed rebellion against Louis XIV led to their dispersal among Huguenot exiles. Then, Garrett writes, in a form that the Huguenots themselves would probably not have recognized, a dozen English ecstatics, who their native Manchester had been known as Shakers, brought Huguenot spirit possession to America 1774.The Shakers emerge as the culmination of the century's religious quest, preserving the immediacy of spirit possession while making it the basis for the formation of an ideal Christian community.[Unravels] the subtle links among such apparently divergent manifestations of popular religion as that of the Camisards and French Prophets of the seventeenth century, German pietism, the early Methodists England, the revivalsof the Great Awakening, the Amana community, and the Shakers... Garrett's study deserves the attention of all who would understand the history and nature of ecstatic experience and its continuing presence Western religion.--Church HistoryShaker buffs will not find this study very comforting, but serious students of Shakerism and historians interested other communal societies stand Garrett's debt for his excellent contribution to the field, for his determination to address a range of important but difficult interpretive issues, and for his willingness to employ a critical approach to texts too long handled uncritically.--American Historical ReviewA carefully researched, methodologically sophisticated, and lucidly written work..--Catholic Historical ReviewOriginally published as Spirit Possession and Popular Religion: From the Comisards to the Shakers

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