Sabath Day Lake, Shaker Dining Room
Dear Sir:
I write as I wish to advise, I highly appreciated and enjoyed MY visit to your institution and much appreciate your interview with ME, but regret however, that it was not convenient to see more of the patients on MY visit to see Miss Lena Pritts.
However, as MY Work and Mission are a little strange to the masses of the people that have not studied The History of All Religions, I feel as if though it is MY duty to acquaint you and all others that may be concerned, with some symptoms of the spiritual awakening that I and MY followers are reflecting.
It has been said by a goodly number of the physicians, that MY Movement and its emotions are from the primitive ancestors of some special race or nationality. But I wish to call your attention to one of the most important incidents in The History of All Religions, that worked parallel with MY Teaching to some degree, and yet without being of what you would consider to be sponsored by and represented by the so-and-so race, better known as the c-l-red race.
If all of the psychologists, teachers of philosophy, educators and practitioners, metaphysicians and physicians that are studying the psychoanalysis of ME and MY Movement would study The History of All Religions, and especially Shakerism, the same will~give them much information concerning MY Work and MY activities.
If they will study Ann the Word, better known as Ann Lee of Manchester, England, and of how she and many others from the year 1758, went through the same persecution that Myself and MY followers are going through now, they will get some sketch of the true psycho-analysis of MY Work and MY Mission. But even prior to the persecution of Ann Lee in 1702 and 1705, many were persecuted and put to death for their religious belief.
But in the year 1758 when Ann the Word, better known as Ann Lee, violated the Law of the Spirit of Life, that was in her version, and married against her own will, she brought much persecution and suffering upon herself and caused the unbelievers to misunderstand her.
If you will study and read carefully The History of All Religions and, The New Book of Revelations by Charles W. Ferguson, you can secure valuable information in your study of psychics and psychiatry.
The following is a part of her biography and her experiences:
"There is only one way to tell the story of Shakerism, and that is to begin with moral viscissitudes of Ann Lee. Ann was markedly serious and thoughtful, with grave, penetrating eyes, and very soon after adolescence began, she became depressed by the depravity of human nature and the lustfulness of marriage. She begged her mother piteously to be delivered from matrimony and its impurity, but in vain. When the proper time arrived, she was married to Abraham Stanley, a blacksmith, and a man who loved his beef and beer and his seat in the village tavern.'
But the question of purity was not settled for Ann Lee. Qualms of conscience continued to torture her and she longed and prayed for sexual purity. Ann was also 'burdened for her husband, from whose physical embraes she ahrank with sensitive repugnance.' She spent many sleepless nights of prayer to God for deliverance from her sin in matrimony. She reports that her travail and sufferings were so great that 'my flesh consumed upon my bones; bloody sweat pressed through the pores of my skin, and I became as helpless as an infant.'
This intense suffering and repugnance for the sexual embrace continued for nine years with very little relief. She could neither read nor write, and there was little chance for the great theologians of her day to help her. She was sure of only two things: Ann Lee and sin. In 1758 she joined the Society of Shaking Quakers, a sect carried on in England under the supervision of Jane and James Wardley, which in turn, owed its origin to the Camisards, or French Prophets. These Camisards sprang into being at the time Louis the XIV revoked the freedom they had enjoyed. The sect was led by James Cavalier, an inspired baker who gathered to his standard more than 500 outraged Protestants and led them through the land proclaiming that the Day of the Lord was nigh. In worship these Camisards gave way to paroxysms which resembled fits. They beat the air with their arms, fell upon the ground, and writhed in horrible contortions. When consciousness returned — for they went into the blindest of trances — they were seized with violent tremblings and twitchings, and then began to prophesy and to call upon God for mercy. They claimed the gift of tongues and of clairvoyance.
The result of these manifestations was that the government persecuted the sect mercilessly. Many were put to death in 1702; and 1705 their three most prominent prophets were burned at the stake, and two others were broken on the wheel.
It was from these Camisards that the Shaking Quakers of Jane and James Wardley took their cue. They were given to practically the same kind af convulsions when the Spirit was upon them; they would be seized with a mighty trembling when the Spirit descended, and they would express the wrath of God against all sin. They had, however, two very important characteristics: One was the belief that the Christ Spirit would come again, and that the second time it would be embodied in a woman. The other was their habit or requiring a11 who wished to join them to confess their sins freely and minutely before they were admitted. In this regard they were the Buchanites of their day.
Ann joined them in 1758, made a lurid confession of her sins, and got some temporary relief, but not enough. Her four children died in infancy, and this she took as a divine visitation for having succumbed to the world and the bonds of matrimony. Her suffering continued, albeit she prophesied and took an active part in the work of the Shaking Quakers — active enough at any rate to get herself thrown into jail along with the rest. It was there that the revelation came to her. It was revealed to her that man's sin lay in the premature and self-indulgent use of the sexual union. She saw in a vision — so White and Taylor inform us — that:
The first pair (Adam and Eve) performed ... not for the divinely erected purpose of procreation, but as an act of self-indulgence and therefore sin. The Shakers believe, as did the Rappites before them, that God is not triune, but dual; that He is male and female, and that since Adam was created in His image, Adam was both male and female. It was therefore necessary that there be two Saviours, one to restore man, another to redeem woman from her sin.
It is not surprising that her doctrines met with some disfavor. Persecutions abounded. On one occasion a mob dragged her, kicking and beating her, for two miles, but she was finally released by a nobleman, who testified that he had for some unearthly reason been seized by the urge to go in a certain direction. Always she seemed protected from actual death. Once a mob tried to hang her, but the excited members somehow couldn't tie the knots securely. Again they tried to stone her, but fortunately everyone missed her and she passed out of the midst of them unhurt.
The worst foes were those of her own househald. A brother became so enraged as she sat singing and prophesying, that he seized a stick the size of a broom handle and beat her over the head and face until the stick was splintered. Then he called for a drink and began again with a new stick. Mother Ann testified that she was guarded by some unseen force and that she did not feel any of the blows that fell upon her. At last a messenger was sent to the King for a permit which would enable the village to put her out of the way; but the messenger died on the way in such a manner that his death was looked upon as a judgment from God.'
At last the persecution subsided, but England was too conservative and staid for the faith and Mother Ann concluded that the best chances lay in evangelizing America. With seven followers, including Abraham Stanley, her husband, four other men and two other women, she set sail in 1774 for America. ..(landing in New York, with some settling near Albany)...
There occurred at Mt.Lebanon, New York, one of those gigantic awakenings of the Spirit that mark the years of America's religious history. Among the converts there was violent shaking of the frame, sometimes followed by outburst of inspired song, visions and revelations.' It was such an outpouring of the Holy Ghost as America had not seen. .. The whole affair was marked by that peculiar ecstasy and suffering which attends revivals among neurotic pioneers.
The annihilation of sex continued the distinctive feature of the sect. To married couples who came seeking admission, Mother Ann would plainly say:`You must forsake the marriage of the flesh or you cannot be married to the Lamb.' If the couple wished to join, they had to give up this conjugal relation and live as brother and sister, the one dwelling among the men of the family, the other among the women. Mother Ann died in 1784."
P. S. Under separate cover please find some periodicals carrying MY Message. Will you please kindly peruse them carefully and have the Commission to do the same? And in the meantime will you please kindly ,take under consideration paroling Miss Lena Pritts in MY custody, or the custody of Mrs. Josephine Senft.
As I stress the mystery of John Brown's body, and his spirit through being reincarnated marching on, even so is the true spirit of all devout and sincere believers in God.
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