¹ Goodman, Felicitas D., How About Demons?: Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

² I want to stress that my understanding of “consciously induced” implies that the subject of the spirit possession is the causal agent of the trance. In other words, I consider spirit possession to be an altered state of consciousness which is brought forth both mentally and physically by the subject.

³ Feminist scholar Marjorie Procter-Smith has written extensively about feminism and Shaker religious practice. She accurately points out that even though there appears to be the potential of a woman-centered or at least non-phallocratic religion in the Shakers, the governance of both church and community remained hierarchical and male-controlled. This was especially true during the revival period. In Women in Shaker Community and Worship: A Feminist Analysis of the Uses of Religious Symbolism, Smith says that by the 1830s any remnant of female leadership had given way to “an ordered community structure, the newly organized Shaker communities were called ‘Families,’ and were as tightly ordered as a military regiment” (42).

⁴ Patterson, Daniel W., The Shaker Spiritual (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

⁵ I use the term Pentecostal mostly as a descriptor for a charismatic, emotionally charged spiritual worship which is, in fact, highly codified and framed by a minister and structured song and dance. I want to make it clear that I am not conflating Shakerism with Charles Fox Pakhams' Pentecostal movement which began during this same period and in the same approximate geographical area as Shakerism. For an excellent feminist account of Pentecostalism in the 1980s see Elaine Lawless' God's Peculiar People. Her focus on Pentecostal women and their social empowerment accessed through charismatic performance resonates nicely with my reading of Shaker women.

⁶ Marshall, Mary, The Rise and Progress of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden to the Present Day with a Disclosure of Shakerism Exhibiting a General View of Their Real Character and Conduct from the First Appearance of Ann Lee. (Concord, NH: Printed for the Author, 1847), 279Google Scholar.

⁷ Marshall, Mary, A Portraiture of Shakerism Exhibiting a General View of Their Character and Conduct from the First Appearance of Ann Lee Down to the Present Time. (Micropublished in “History of Women.” New Haven, CT: Research Publications, Inc., 1975), 28Google Scholar.

⁸ Stein, Stephen J., The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 158Google Scholar.

⁹ Andrews, Edward Deming, The Gift to be Simple: Songs, Dances and Rituals of the American Shakers. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1940), 7Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Andrews, 78.

¹¹ Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction. Trans. Hurley, Robert. (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 12.Google Scholar

¹² Stein, 37.

¹³ Kern, Louis J., An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Utopias—The Shakers, the Mormons and the Oneida Community. (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 89Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Quoted in Stein, 169.

¹⁵ Ibid. 69.

¹⁶ Ibid. 196.

¹⁷ Foucault, 51.

¹⁸ Foster, Lawrence, Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 50Google Scholar.

¹⁹ These photographs suggest that the gestures are similar to the “motions” which go along with contemporary children's songs (like “The Inky Dinky Spider”).