Sitting in Silence: Self, Emotion, and Tradition in the Genesis of a Charismatic Ministry

Abstract

David Willson was the charismatic leader of a small Utopian Quaker sect, the Children of Peace (1812–89), who prophesied a millenarian transformation of the British empire. This article examines the confluence of social forces and historical conditions that made this charismatic ministry possible. Following Csordas, the emphasis is placed on the means by which followership is created, rather than on the personality of the leader. I argue that Willson's charismatic leadership was predicated upon inculcating a distinctive habitus, on shaping and molding cultural conceptions of self and of emotion, which create the distinctive disposition to obey infollowers. A "theology of mind" was critical to Willson's ministry, and the culturally and historically distinctive emotions and dispositions it described were inculcated in the communal ritual practice of "sitting in silence."

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