Pietists, Methodists, and sectarian groups such as the Shakers all shared the conviction that God touched the individual directly and visibly; manifestations of spirit possession, accompanied by prophecy, visions, and ecstatic seizures, became outward signs of an inner expedience, a kind of sacred theater as believers acted out their possession before others. Clarke Garrett follows this "sacred theater"back to the Camisards of southeastern France, an ecstatic Protestant group whose doomed rebellion against Louis XIV led to their dispersal among Huguenot exiles. Then, Garrett writes, "in a form that the Huguenots themselves would probably not have recognized, a dozen English ecstatics, who in their native Manchester had been known as Shakers, brought Huguenot spirit possession to America in 1774."The Shakers emerge as the culmination of the century's religious quest, preserving the immediacy of spirit possession while making it the basis for the formation of an ideal Christian community.
Originally published as Spirit Possession and Popular Religion: From the Comisards to the Shakers

From the old world to the new world: Origins of the Shakers

History

Garrett, Clarke

Americas

Johns Hopkins University Press

This book explores the ways in which the natural environment and the historical development of the Cumberland Valley shaped leisure activities in the nineteenth century. Their evolution in the course of the century was shaped by important national developments such as industrialization and a revolution in transportation, but they also reflected the unique physical environment of the valley and its dozens of towns and villages. 
 Sometimes leisure was enjoyed in such simple activities as dancing, singing around a piano, or roller skating. Sometimes it was sought at special events like parades, the annual visit of the circus, or the U.S. Centennial. 
 During the first decades of the century, popular entertainment consisted of plays and exhibitions presented in taverns. It later evolved into travelling minstrel shows, vaudeville entertainment and movies, presented in public halls or the town's opera house. 
 Those in the valley also enjoyed music, singing in choral groups or playing in brass bands. Yet the most satisfying leisure activity of all might have been a picnic somewhere in "the loveliest spot on earth"--the Cumberland Valley.

In Pursuit of Pleasure: Leisure in Nineteenth Century Cumberland County (Heritage Series)

Cumberland County Historical Society

Originally published in 1975. The French Revolution generated a wave of popular piety and religious excitement in both France and England, where millenarians--prophets of the millennium--attempted to interpret the Revolution as the fulfillment of the predictions of Daniel and St. John the Divine. This study discusses the millenarian ideal in the context of the intellectual and religious attitudes of the time. Rejecting interpretations of millenarianism that chalk it up to class struggle or mass hysteria, Garrett stresses the interaction between politics and religion, viewing the phenomenon as the interpretation, by a varied assortment of individuals, of coincident political events in eschatological terms. Faced with a change as significant as the French Revolution, people found in the prophetic books of the Bible an understanding of what was happening to them. If the Revolution was God's will, if its development had been foretold, then surely the final outcome would be beneficial, at least for the faithful. Political events became eschatological events, and dangers and misfortunes became simply the chastisements that a fallen world must undergo before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ can redeem it. Although some of the beliefs may now seem bizarre, Garrett shows that, at the time, they attracted many followers for whom these ideas were both reasonable and respectable. Focusing on the careers of three millenarians--Suzette Labrousse, Catherine Théot, and Richard Brothers--Garrett tries to understand these prophets as persons rather than dismiss them as fanatics. Their prominence resulted from their success in transmitting a new political consciousness through familiar religious imagery. While the Revolution gave urgency and tangible reality to millenarian convictions, Labrousse, Théot, and others were convinced, well before the Revolution, that they were the bearers of divine revelations and thus welcomed the Revolution as confirmation of their own missions.

Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England

Business & Money

Economics

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