I had to wait for my friend,, Ännie, in town so I pulled over into the shade opposite the Elko County Public Library and went inside. I hadn’t been in for a very long time and it had been remodeled. I used to devour the cozy mystery series, so I went into the stacks and found the latest Domestic Diva Mystery about cheesecake and spied a book by another favorite author.
Click on the cover and it will take you to Susan Wittig Albert’s webpage about the book. If you are interested in herbs as remedies, this is a GREAT book. It’s about the Shakers and it’s impeccably researched and includes excerpts from diaries kept in the 19th century.
What I did NOT expect to learn was that the Shakers were HEAVILY involved in mediumship and contacting spirits! Yes! And not only that, they drew spirits and there are a few surviving works left.
In searching for images of what Albert describes in the story, I found a blog post about THE ALL SEEING EYE!
https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/59417
Object Details
| Title: | Untitled (Shaker Inspirational Drawing) |
| Date: | c. 1840-1860 |
| Artist: | Sarah Bates (American (Shaker), 1792–1881) |
| Medium: | Pen and brush and colored inks over graphite on paper |
| Dimensions: | Sheet: 15 1/8 × 20 15/16 inches (38.4 × 53.2 cm) |
| Classification: | Drawings |
| Credit Line: | Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Julius Zieget, 1963 |
| Accession Number: | 1963-160-3 |
| Geography: | Made in United States, North and Central America |
I tracked down the this illustration which is no longer on the page, but you can download the jpg – someone at the museum hasn’t kept up the website very well. The blog is by a photo editor named Susan Donahue who is also a very good writer and researcher if this one blog post is any testament to her skills. Click on the image and explore her blog. It’s a wonderful exploration. I particularly loved reading about Sargon the Great’s daughter who was a priestess of the Moon Goddess! Considering I’m typing this 54 hours after the peak of the Supermoon in Aries (2:58 am Pacific, September 29, 2023) which, according to Yasmin Boland falls within the 72 hour window where one can still feel the full effect of a full moon, there is NO SUCH THING AS A COINCIDENCE.
She Who Wrote: Enheduanna
I guess I only knew about the Shakers as being celibate. Pictures in history books depicted their dances and growing up in New Jersey and volunteering as a docent at Miller Cory House, I had seen lots of Shaker furniture, but I never knew they were MEDIUMS nor that they held séances!
Here is an excerpt from the website that just blew my mind away especially since I had just JUST heard someone on the radio talking about the Salem Witch Trials. When I was in K-12, we still had prayer, still sang songs from the 1700s-1900s, and we HAD to read the Albert Miller’s The Crucible and had to watch the play! Thirty days from now is Halloween so this is the season for all things witches, etc. To learn that the Shakers were heavily into communicating with THE DEAD and drawing the messages just has me speechless!
“As illustrated by the journal entry above, the Shakers attended séances and invited mediums into their communities. They communicated with Spiritualist preachers, particularly James M. Peebles, whom they considered their “dear friend.” They experienced their own religious revival in the late 1830s and 40s, when a young girl at the South Family in Watervliet received spiritual visions. The Ministry was confused by this sudden upswing in spiritual activity, not least of all because it was not them receiving these messages, but a young novitiate. During this period, public meetings were temporarily closed to avoid any misunderstanding and misinterpretation by the outside world. This Era of Manifestations, also called Mother Ann’s Work, was and is a controversial time in Shaker history. Many of the decrees that came out of the revival were later abandoned, including several spiritual texts. However, an incredible amount of art (“spirit drawings”) and music was created during this period.
The Shakers were very diverse in whom they communicated with during these visions. The journals record messages from a number of Native American spirits, as well as African, Arab, and Chinese spirits. The “instruments” also communicated with “celebrities” like George Washington and foreign royalty. According to the Shakers, Washington had posthumously converted to Shakerism, along with the Marquis de Lafayette”.
As a who the BLEEP cares side note, I am related the George Washington’s wife – he was childless, and I got to go inside the Marquis de Lafayette’s house in Tredyffrin Township, Pennsylvania in the 1970s. It’s not open anymore. I used to try to go in every old building I could up and down the Eastern seaboard and whenever we went West. But I never got to visit a Shaker village. The only still operating one is in Maine. The China Bayle mystery takes place in Kentucky.
When I get to Tennessee, this is a MUST trip. I have got to see this in person.
Albert includes the first lines of the NOW famous Shaker hymn. I remember singing it in grade school. Aaron Copland made it famous but we did sing it as little kids back in the OLD days.
https://www.shakermuseum.us/tis-gift-simple-things-arent-simple-seem/
I’m only up to the part in the story where China is being introduced to the other characters in the story. There’s been an arson and some vandalism. But no murder YET. I hope to learn a lot about the Shakers as the story unfolds. And I hope to delve further into the history of spiritualism in the United States. Craig Parker Hamilton in England and his wife, Jane are the only spiritualists I know.
Librarian's Guide to the Multiverse! 