Shakers, officially the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, were founded in the 1747 by James and Jane Wardley in Manchester, England. They were initially known as Shaking Quakers because of their overjoyed behavior during worship. To escape religious persecution, Shakers brought their religion to America in 1774 where they practiced a communal lifestyle that included celibacy and pacifism. They were known for their simple living and equality between the sexes.  

Like the Spiritualists that followed, they believed that they received messages from God during religious revivals and silent meditations. Unlike Spiritualists, they also believed that the end of the world was near, and they should renounce all sinful acts.  When Christ appeared again, the true church would rise and all others would be swept away.  

Some Shakers kept extensive journals, in which they mentioned attending Spiritualist meetings and hosting mediums. Henry Blinn published their experiences that occurred over a ten-year period from 1837 to 1847.

One event occurred in Watervliet, NY. A group of children began to shake and to whirl. After the event was over, they told about their visit to the Spirit Land where they heard beautiful singing, saw pretty flowers, and visited with other children. Another event in Mount Lebanon, NY, affected eight people who went into trance. “This was the introduction to the great spiritualistic wave that passed over the society and continued active for several years,” Blinn wrote.  “The record of visions for some days reaching the astonishing number of eighteen.”

Other events occurred in New Hampshire. In East Canterbury, in 1837, “the little children of this Society were visited with the visionary and trance power.  Nothing of the kind had taken place at a former date and its introduction through a class of active, fun-loving little children was nothing less than a matter of surprise as well as of conjecture. Indeed, the heavens seemed to have opened and the treasures of the celestial Kingdom were given as from the hands of angels.”  In Pleasant Grove, two brothers and two sisters were selected as mediums in 1842 and used the advice of the spirits to build their meeting hall.

Other Shaker journals described events in the 1850s. A little-person medium visited the Watervliet Shakers at least twice. Two Shaker brothers went to observe the Fox Sisters who later became spiritualist mediums. Unlike members of many Christian religions, the Shakers were open to psychics and seances. Speaking with the spirit world was a way of affirming their beliefs, not defying them.

Blinn, Henry Clay (1899) The Manifestation of Spiritualism Among the Shakers 1837-1847. East Canterbury, N.H.

White, A & L.S. Taylor (1903) Shakerism: It’s Meaning and Message. Fred J. Heer Press, Columbus, OH