Ecstatic Movement and Meditative Stillness: Two Sides of the Same Coin

"The next great revolution in medicine, holistic care, well-being, and spiritual practice will be when the practice of shaking is valued as much as the practice of meditation"

Bradford Keeney, Shaking Medicine

In early days of Quakerism meeting for worship would begin with silence and stillness. Then, in time, the stillness would be broken as one or more Friends would begin to quake, weep or vocalize. There was, so it seems, a dynamic in early Quaker worship that included both meditative stillness and ecstatic arousal.

Quaker worship today, however, is characterized by meditative stillness only punctuated by occasional spoken ministry. The element of ecstatic arousal and spontaneous movement has totally disappeared...well, for the most part. Every now and then a Friend's body will suddenly jerk. Or a Friend may experience a brief shaking of the head or trembling in the limbs, especially just before speaking. But such movements are quickly controlled. Modern Friends are careful not to disrupt the silence and stillness of the meeting.

I have always believed that the suppression of spontaneous movement in meeting for worship is not a good thing. The early Quakers had it right. Deep stillness often results in ecstatic movement and ecstatic movement often is followed by a deep stillness. They are both sides of the same coin.

This belief was recently reinforced when I read Bradford Keeney's book, "Shaking Medicine: The Healing Power of Ecstatic Movement." Keeney describes physical and spiritual healing as a complete cycle of alternating states of deep relaxation and ecstatic arousal. The healing power of the relaxation side of the equation is well recognized today. First introduced to America in the 1960's and 1970's as "transcendental meditation" and then later popularized by Dr. Herbert Benson as the "relaxation response", meditation and relaxation have quickly become a kind of panacea for stressed-out moderns. What is less well known today, however,is the healing benefits of ecstatic arousal.

Too much sleep and inactivity can be as harmful as not getting enough. There is an optimal amount of rest and deep relaxation necessary for health and well-being. Similarly, there is an optimal amount of hyperarousal, heightened
activity, and ecstatic body expression that serves our optimal state of being.We can benefit from both deep relaxation and ecstatic arousal, regularly administered, to help balance and maintain the homeostasis of our physical being. It is the whole picture of health--the dance between activity and rest,including spirited ecstasy and quiet trance--that requires our attention.(Shaking Medicine, pg. 26)

What is true in regard to health is also true in regard to spirituality. Keeney, for example, discusses at some length the consciousness research of Roland Fischer. He explains that Fischer identified two paths to altered consciousness: first "the ergotropic pathway of increasing arousal culminating at the extreme in mystical ecstasy" (Fischer) and second "the trophotropic pathway of decreasing arousal resulting in deep meditative trance." (Fischer). Keeney goes on to explain that:

Fischer proposes that the farther one moves in either direction, hyper- or hypoarousal, the closer to transformational experience one gets, with the end
points of both being the same: an experience described as the oneness or coherent unity of the universe, where there is an experiential absence of distinction and duality. (Shaking Medicine, pg. 27)

Friends paid a price when we eliminated quaking from our corporate worship. By limiting ourselves to just one half of the dynamic of physical and spiritual healing, we lost a wholeness of expression that was essential to the early Quaker experience.

Good Grief

Over the last few weeks my quaking has included long periods of deep sobbing. Often the weeping is not attached to any particular memory; it just seems to emerge from a deep well of sadness in my body.

Quaking throughout history has been associated with weeping and tears. Often it is assumed that weeping is the result of being convicted of sin. While I am sure it often starts out that way, I suspect that there may be something more going on. My guess is that when we are shaken by the Power that an emotional purging begins. It is only when we allow the grief, anger, fear and other stored emotions in our bodies to come out that we ready for the more spiritual, ecstatic experiences. The saints call this process purgation.

Recently I have been thinking about how quaking and emotion have been linked in my life. For example, as a small child I would often shake my head when I had what I thought were "bad thoughts." In my child's mind I would shake to get those thoughts out of my head, but looking back now, I think I also was tapping into a very natural process of healing. At age 11 my sister, then 4, was hit by a car and killed while the two of us were crossing a street. I remember rolling on the floor shouting and crying only to be told by my older brother, "What good is that going to do?" Later when I entered into psychotherapy as an adult shaking emerged again. On several occasions when I was overcome by a strong emotion I would lay down on the floor of the therapist's office and my head would jerk from side to side, my legs would kick and I would alternatively rage and cry. Once during the course of Rolfing the same kind of physical/emotional release took place.

Many religious traditions teach that we have not only the "physical body", but several energy bodies as well; perhaps as many as seven. Often included in the list of subtle bodies is the emotional body, from which our feelings arise both positive and negative. The process of spiritual development, these traditions teach, requires us to work through blockages in each of these bodies. This means that releasing emotional pain is very much a part of spiritual growth.

Eckhart Tolle, a contemporary spiritual teacher, talks about the "emotional pain-body". He says that every new trauma we experience in our lives leaves a residue of pain in our bodies that merges with the all the pain we have suffered in the past, particularly in childhood. This accumulated pain becomes a kind of negative energy field that can take over our lives. To live in the present moment, the only place that Spirit can be found, Tolle teaches that we must dissolve or disidentify from our pain-bodies. (Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now)

Quaking under the Power of the Lord can put us in touch with the pain-body in a very profound, visceral way. This, I have found, is not a particuarly pleasant experience, but it is a necessary first step to greater spiritual openness.

Quaking and Scripture

"Search the Scriptures, and you shall finde that the holy men of God do witness quaking and trembling and roaring and weeping, and fasting and tears."

James Nayler, 1653

The early Quakers were much criticized because of their ecstatic worship. They were even accused of witchcraft. In defense, Friends would often point to scripture and remind their critics that "Moses quaked, David roared and Jeremiah trembled" (George Fox, The trumpet of the Lord sounded..., 1654)

In 1652 George Fox wrote a tract in which he attempted to provide the scriptural justification for quaking. The work was entitled, in typical 17th Century fashion, "An exhortation to you who condemne the power of God and speak evill of it, As of Trembling, and Quaking, to beware of what you doe." The arguments Fox made in this pamphlet were repeated time and again as Quakers were forced to defend their ecstatic experiences. (See Chapter 4 in Kate Peter's "Print Culture and the Early Quakers," 2005)

In 1653 Richard Farnsworth wrote a summary of Fox's basic argument in a pamphlet entitled, "A message from the Lord:"

Moses quaked, Hebrew the 12 ver 21. Ezekiel was commanded to eat his bread with quaking. David did tremble, and there with him that quaked. Job his bones did shake, and his flesh did tremble: See Hab 3.16. David roared by reason of the powerful workings of the Lord in him; and his bones did shake, and his flesh did tremble; see Psal. 38.8, 9, 10. and 22.1 Psal. 119, 120. Isaiah spoke to the people to heare the Word of the Lord, that did tremble at it, with many others, etc. And there were Mockers then as there are now: See Job 17.2, Acts 13.41, Isa. 28.22, Isa. 29.20, Psal. 50.2, 3.

I don't know how convinced the "priests and professors" of Fox's day were with his appeal to scripture. I must admit that some of the references seem a bit of a stretch to me. It is very difficult in reading these accounts to distinguish those which describe a simple physiological reaction to fear from those which describe involuntary movement caused by the Power. For example, both Fox and Nayler quote Philipians 2: 12, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Now, does this verse really refer to quaking or does it simply mean that we should live our lives in the fear of the Lord?

There are other passages that I find more provocative. For example, when Moses received the ten commandments on Mount Sinai he said "I am full of fear and trembling". (Hebrews 12:21) Here trembling takes place in the presence of the Lord and "fear" in this case seems closer to "awe" or what Rudolf Otto described as the terrifying and yet fascinating experience of the holy.

And then there is Daniel's experience:

Now I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, while the men who were with me did not see the vision; nevertheless, a great dread fell on them, and they ran away to hide themselves. So I was left alone, and saw this great vision; yet no strength was left in me, for my natural color turned to a deathly pallor, and I retained no strength. But I heard the sound of his words; and as soon as I heard the sound of his words, I fell into a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground. Then behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. (Daniel 10: 8-10)

I find this passage interesting because Daniel's quaking happened, again, in the presence of the Lord. It is also seems apparent that he was in some kind of trance state for he tells us that he fell, lay prostrate upon the ground and entered into a deep sleep. And not only did Daniel quake, but the soldiers with him (soldiers are usually not given to mass hysteria) shook as well.

The prophet Habakkuk had a very similar experience.

I heard and my inward parts trembled: At the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones. And in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. (Habakkuk 3:16)

Again, Habakkuk's trembling is provocative because it happens during a vision. He expriences a deep, inward quaking and then as "decay enters his bones" he, like Daniel, falls to the ground.

While these verses may not have convinced the priests and professors or to those of us today who have not experienced quaking for ourselves, it is easy to see how they must have spoken to Fox and the early Quakers for whom ecstatic experience was a lived reality.

Image: King David dancing (or as one translation says "whirling") before the Ark.

Born Again: Quaking and Evangelicals

The Power, quaking, trance, vocalizations and miracle healings were not unique to the early Quakers. In fact, the Power and its manifestations have been evident in many of the world's great religions and their founders. According to Protestant theologian Harvey Cox, these phenomena represent an "archetypal" or "primal" spirituality, "a surging, ever-present undercurrent" of religiosity, usually surpressed but breaking out all the same throughout the history of religion. (Cox, Fire from Heaven, pg. 81)

Evangelical Friends have a heritage particularly rich with the Power and its workings because it wasn't only the early Quakers that quaked; early evangelicals quaked, too.

While we usually think of evangelicalism as a faith centered on scripture, it has also emphasized a personal, conversion experience. And for many of the first evangelicals, this "born again" experience was often accompanied by manifestations of the Power.

Modern day evangelicalism has its roots in an unprecedented period of revival that took place in England, Wales and Scotland and throughout the American colonies during the 18th and early 19th centuries. One of the key figures in America's First Great Awakening (1730-60) was Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was known for his highly emotional sermons depicting the absolute sovereignty of God, the depravity of humankind and the horrors of hell. One of Edwards best known sermons was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" which portrayed the unrepentant as a spider held by a thin thread above the fires of hell. When people heard Edwards preach they would often weep, convulse, tremble, cry out, run, faint and have visions. Edwards wrote several books in defense of these strange manifestations. He saw them as a "possible but not essential component of the process of the new birth." (Garrett, Spirit Possession and Popular Religion). Another prominent preacher in the First Great Awakening was the Methodist John Whitefield. People also demonstrated manifestations of the Power when Whitefield preached but he had serious reservations about the behavior and thought that it should not be encouraged. Whitefield believed that there was "something of God in it" but that "the devil ...interposes." (Garrett, pg. 83)

America's Second Great Awakening took place in the early 1800's. The manifestations of the Power were even stronger and more numerous during this period, particularly on the frontier. The Second Great Awakening saw the introduction of the camp meeting, a revival usually held under a tent or outdoors that lasted for several days, involved multiple preachers and might be attended by as many as 20,000 people at a time. The working of the Power was very evident during camp meetings. People would roll on the ground, run, dance, shout, laugh, spin, bark and perhaps most strange of all, be overcome by the "jerks." When taken by the jerks, a person's head would uncontrollably move from side to side at a rapid pace. One of the prominent figures in the Second Great Awakening was Charles Finney. Finney believed that "a revival is not a miracle...It is purely philosophic (i.e. scientific) result of the right use of the constituted means." For Finney, these means included preaching for an immediate decision, the mourner's bench, an inquiry room for counseling seekers, music and other revival practices still followed to this day by evangelists such as Billy Graham.

Quaking and the Unclenching of the Body/Mind

George Fox was pretty tough on those in his day he suspected spoke without personal experience. He would often call them "professors", someone who professes something but does not possess it, and dismissed their ideas as "notions", or empty, intellectual speculation. I sometimes wonder what George Fox would think if he visited a Quaker meeting today. Would he consider us professors and our ministry notions?

We Quakers, like most Americans, can be a pretty heady group of people. Many of us are highly educated, work in professional jobs and are addicted to National Public Radio. We love inspiring ideas. Our vocal ministry is full of them and we often gauge the depth of a meeting by just how inspiring we found the messages to be. Inspiring ideas, however, have a very short shelf life. They make for an enjoyable ride home, but before we know it, we are picking up a book or hitting the Internet for a new fix. It is not surprising that many of us look at the spiritual journey as an intellectual problem to be solved and experience Quaker values such as compassion or peacefulness more as mental ideas than sensations naturally arising from our bodies.

To be fair, we modern Quakers live in a very different world from George Fox. Today we are subject to constant mental stimulation. We are continually being bombarded with information and ideas from radios, the Internet, TVs and cell phones. Unlike the early Friends who did physical labor and worked with the earth, we are much more likely to be information workers who sit in front of computers all day in small cubicles without windows. It is not surprising that we begin to actually feel like computers: disembodied, information processing machines.

A consequence of opening ourselves to the Power through quaking is that we begin to get out of our heads and more into our bodies. This coming home begins with feeling just how deadened our bodies have become. As we shake we start to feel our clenched jaws, armored chests, shallow breathing, frozen pelvises, lifeless legs and unsteady stance. Frequently occurring movements are often a clue to where we are blocked off. We may find ourselves constantly rotating a frozen joint, moving a stuck pelvis or pounding an area of armoring. These are all signs that the Power is unclenching our body/minds and allowing us to center more deeply in the body.

I sometimes think there are three ways of experiencing Quakerism: one rooted in the head, a second coming from the chest and a third felt in the guts.

When I am experiencing Quakerism from my head I find myself very intrigued with its concepts. There is, of course, a convincing logic to Quakerism and a great beauty in its ideas. The danger, though, with experiencing Quakerism only at this level is that ideas quickly become notions when they are cut off from the body and lived experience.

When I am experiencing Quakerism from my chest I find myself trying to live the ideals of Quakerism. I truly want to be more loving, peaceful and open. The problem with living from the chest is that we tend to force our feelings. We try so hard to feel what we think a Quaker should feel that we can lose all sense of personal judgment and end up doing violence to ourselves and even others in the process. Emotions, even noble emotions, can become sentimentality when experienced in isolation from the greater wisdom of the body.

When I am experiencing Quakerism from my guts, what the Japanese call "hara" or Isaac Penington the "bowels", head and heart come together through a centeredness in authentic, whole body awareness. Martial artists know that a movement from hara will be more powerful because it issues from a body working in coordination. Similarly, I sense that on those rare occasions when I bring my whole body to the practice of Quakerism there is deeper meaning and more effortless practice.

We must be patient with ourselves, though. It is not easy to live from this deepest center for any time more than a moment at first. The Power is not done with us. We are still in the making.

"Physical Movement" versus "Quaking"

Isadora Duncan, often called the Mother of modern dance, was once asked following a performance what her dance meant. She replied, "Darling, if I knew what it meant I wouldn't have to dance it!" I feel much the same way when talking about quaking. The best way to understand quaking is to experience it for yourself. Any attempt made to describe it is bound to cause as much distortion as clarity.

My last posting, "A Beginner's Guide to Quaking", is a case in point. I decided to write a "how to" manual because I doubted that many Friends would try something as foreign as quaking without some kind of explanation first. But more importantly, I wrote the guide because I was concerned about the safety of people who might try quaking at my suggestion. Quaking is not without its dangers. I found this out the hard way. When I first began quaking I would allow myself to move freely around my living room . One night I found myself in a twirling motion (much like the whirling of dervishes or the turning of Shakers) that was so strong that I panicked and attempted to interrupt the motion prematurely by falling to the floor. As I made my way to the floor the momentum of the movement was so strong that it sent me crashing into a piece of furniture. I was unhurt but my antique desk was badly damaged. Now when quaking, I maintain a stationary position and have had no further problems.

The downside of providing "how to" information is that some readers got the impression that I was describing a technique. In reality, quaking is a non-technique. It is simply allowing your body to be moved by the Power. Quaking is not so much something you do as it is a process of letting go or surrendering. But I understand how some may have missed this point.

In a later post I will discuss how we can re-embody corporate worship and invite the Power more strongly into our meetings. I started with talking about individual practice, however, because I feel that one of the reasons why corporate worship is often so shallow is because we do not use the time between First Days to cultivate the Power in ourselves. I believe that one of the most important steps we can take to revitalize corporate worship is to rediscover the Quaker notion of daily, personal retirement. While there are many ways we can prepare for meeting, Quaking is a particularly powerful one and intimately associated with our tradition.

In this post I would like to risk a further bit of analysis which I hope will be helpful to beginning quakers but which, no doubt, oversimplifies the reality.

As we begin to quake it is important that we learn to distinguish between mere physical movement and true quaking. Physical movement, we might say, is activity directed by our minds to serve our purposes. We walk to the store to buy bread or we do sit-ups to flatten our stomachs. It comes about because our brain sends electrical impulses that cause our muscles to flex. We are in control of physical movement.

Quaking, however, is something very different. And you will easily sense the difference when it happens. Quaking is movement caused by the Power, not the human mind. There is an unmistakable, involuntary quality to it. When you quake, you know you are not the one in control. Quaking isn't so much muscular movement (although the muscles are certainly involved) as it is a dynamic of fullness and emptiness that causes a corresponding movement in the body. Physical movement is exercise; quaking is spiritual practice.

Quaking cannot be forced. It comes on its own volition. We can invite quaking by doing a repetitive motion and waiting for it to become involuntary, but we can not make ourselves quake. Quaking is always the result and not the cause of the coming of the Spirit.

Now, as soon as I have made this distinction it becomes very apparent to me that the reality I am trying to describe really isn't all that simple. One reason for this is that the Power is not only a force from the beyond that seizes us; it is also a force that resides within us. And so, while quaking movements are initiated by the Power they also can be influenced by our minds. And while quaking is spiritual practice, it also has definite health benefits. And so on.

The radical meaning of the "inner light" is that the Power is not something totally separate from what we are. For as scripture says, it is in the Spirit that we live and move and have our being.

A Beginner's Guide to Quaking

When people read about the quaking and trance states of early Friends they often think that such things only happen in extraordinary times and are certainly not available to us today. The truth is that quaking is fairly easy to experience. This guide will show you how.


Quaking is good for your health. It can help to increase vital energy in the body and break up energetic blockages. Quaking massages the organs of the body. It releases nervous tension and helps to combat stress. There are psychological payoffs as well. Quaking can trigger strong emotional releases and help to resolve long held emotional patterns. And then there are the spiritual benefits. People who have become frustrated with traditional, quiescent meditation may find that quaking is easier to do and able to take them to deeper states. Quaking, surpisingly, can alter our consciousness and give us a direct experience with the divine.


Preparing for Quaking

You need plenty of room for quaking. If inside, a large, carpeted room is best. Be sure you are at least 12 feet away from furniture or windows. If outside, find a soft, grassy spot not too close to trees or bushes. It is best to quake on an empty stomach. Wait for at least 2 hours after your last meal and 2 hours before eating again to do your quaking practice. Before quaking it is a good idea to empty your bladder and bowels.

The Three Phases of Quaking

We usually think of quaking as movement. Actually, there is a dynamic to quaking that includes not just vigorous movement but also deep stillness. Think of your quaking practice as taking place in three phases: connecting to energy, movement and stillness.

Phase 1: Begin your quaking practice by connecting to your body's energy. One way to do this is to stand with knees slightly bent; your feet shoulder width apart and tongue touching the roof of your mouth. Relax your arms with the palms of your hands one over another resting against your body in the area of the navel. Breathe deeply through your nose allowing your belly to expand with each inhalation and then collapse as you exhale. Relax your mind and allow yourself to become heavy and sink into the floor. Hold this position for at least 5 to 10 minutes. As you become more experienced with quaking you will need less and less time to connect with your energy and may eventually want to skip this step altogether.

Phase 2: The next phase of quaking is movement. As you begin to connect with your energy simply allow your body to move as it wants. If you don't find this happening automatically gently sway from side to side or bounce up and down by bending at your knees. In time these movements will begin to take on an action of their own. You will know when this happens because the movements will have a heavy and involuntary quality to them. The idea here is not to force movement but simply to allow it to happen. Allow whatever movement you are experiencing to run its course and then wait for a new one to arise. Common movements during quaking include the shaking of the head, trembling in the legs, body swaying or large circular movements of the arms. At some point you may feel like shouting or making some kind of noise. Allow yourself to do this. It often helps to make the "ahhh" sound or repeat the word "halleluiah" over and over again until a more spontaneous vocalization arises. You may find it helpful to play rhythmic music while you are quaking. Drumming, chanting or gospel music can all help to stimulate movement.

Important note: as you begin to move be sure to maintain your stance with feet firmly planted on the floor. If you find yourself taking a step in one direction or the other, simply come back to your original stance. Free-ranging quaking is more likely to produce movements that can cause falling and possible injury.

The movements of quaking will feel involuntary, however, you can still exercise control over them. If a particular movement becomes uncomfortable, slowly stop doing it. More insistent movements will subside if you bring your attention to them and will them to slow down and stop.

Phase 3: The last phase of quaking is stillness. Often periods of stillness will occur quite naturally while you are quaking, particularly after a strong movement. You still want, however, to close your quaking practice with an intentional period of quietness and stillness. As you reach the end of the time you have set aside for quaking gently make your way to the floor. Just lie there for a few minutes, sinking into the floor and enjoying the relaxation the quaking has produced. During quaking but particularly in these times of stillness you may hear words or see images. Pay attention to these messages and be sure to write them down as soon as your practice is over.

Managing Side Effects

Physical symptoms or side effects can occur during quaking. While at times uncomfortable, side effects generally subside over time and are seen as signs that an inner transformation is taking place.

Nausea: A feeling that you are going to be sick or vomit is not uncommon in early quaking. If the nausea is mild, try to push through it. If it becomes severe, stop practicing and lay down. Thumb pressure on the acupuncture point "pericardium 5" located on the palm side of both arms, four finger widths about the center of the wrist crease can help to calm nausea.

Vertigo: Dizziness during quaking practice becomes dangerous if you fear that you may lose your balance and fall. If you experience vertigo sink down into your stance as if you are releasing the dizziness into the floor. If you still feel disoriented lower yourself to the floor and lay there until the symptoms subside. In time you will learn what movements are most likely to cause vertigo and can actively discourage them.

Urgent Urination or Defecation: Visiting the bathroom before beginning practice can help to eliminate these problems. But if you suffer from constipation, you will find that quaking is excellent treatment. Interrupt your practice if the urgency to eliminate becomes severe.

Other Bodily Sensations: During or after practice you may experience physical sensations such as heat, cold, tingling in the extremities, itching, heaviness or lightness. These are all common reactions to the movement of energy and will pass in time.

Closing Thoughts

As with any new practice it is recommended that you start slow. Keep your daily quaking practice to no more than 15 minutes at first. It is always a good idea to explore quaking with a friend so you can spot for one another during practice. While you are unlikely to find "quaking instructor" in the yellow pages, there are teachers of qigong who can be very helpful, particularly those who incorporate spontaneous movement into their practice.

Obviously, quaking is not recommended for everyone. People with medical conditions, back problems or osteoporosis, for example, should consult their doctors before beginning a practice of quaking. People with a history of severe mental illness should also seek the advice of a professional.

The experience of the early Quakers can be ours today. Quaking can open the door.

Celestial Inhabitation: Early Quakers and the Body

I have often wondered how early Friends could accept the quaking, weeping, shouting and even vomiting and incontinence that would sometimes occur in their meetings. Something as simple as a persistent cough or rumbling stomach during meeting can be a cause of embarassment for Quakers today. How is it that Friends living in the 17th century, during the heyday of Puritianism, could actually seem more at ease with their bodies than we "liberated", 21st Century Quakers?

Perhaps one part of the answer is that the early Friends, at least for a while, experienced the body in a radically different way. Rather than an obstacle to be overcome, Friends experienced the body as the very locus of their salvation. Quaking, shouting, etc. were the signs that this inward transformation was taking place. As Michelle Lise Tarter observes:

"when the spirit poured onto flesh, Friends returned to a prelapsarian state and experienced a concrete, substantial, and viseral convincement: indeed, they 'magnified' the 'indwelling Christ' and embodied perfection on earth...In this corporeal manifestation of God, a worshipper became 'celestial flesh,' and anyone in this ecstatic state was thereby called to give sound or movement to such divine motion and 'inward light.'"

The theology behind this process, according to Richard Bailey, was George Fox's notion of "celestial inhabitation." This idea that was shared by most of the early Friends was that the immaterial, glorified body of Christ did not reside in some distant heaven but actually inhabited the mortal body of the believer during conversion. “Doth not Christ dwell in his saints”, Bailey quotes Fox as saying, “and are they not of his flesh and bone?” (Works of George Fox, pg. 397). This notion “that the ordinary person became Christ, in some sense, was fundamental to early Quakerism”, Bailey believes. And it helps to explain a lot, such as Fox's references to being the "son of God" and the James Nayler incident.

The notion of celestial inhabitation stands in sharp contrast to the dualism that has permeated much of Christian thinking. Dualism is the idea that reality can be divided into two opposing forces: the spirit, which is good, and matter, which is evil. Dualism has caused untold damage in religion. It has been used to suppress women, demonize sexuality and hold suspect body-based, ecstatic experience. Dualism is not so much an intellectual position as it is a state of fear. As Bradford Keeney has pointed out "the greatest fear about the body does not necessarily concern sexual expression, but instead liberation of the body into full-flight ecstatic expression."

Seeing shaking, quaking, and sometimes convulsing bodies calls forth the social labels of “madness,” “neurological disorder,” “psychological dissociation,” and“possession by evil spirits.” Most of us, along with the quieted Shakers and Quakers, have stopped shaking because what we fear most is being out of control or being seen by others as sick, bad, or mad. Yet the paradox of human experience is that we seek the transcendent experience that requires us to surrender control. (Shaking Medicine: The Healing Power of Ecstatic Movement, pg. 69)

If we are to rediscover the ecstatic experiences of the early Friends we must restore the body to a central place in our practice and enter into a more trusting relationship with it. As George Fox has said, "The Way of Christ is found in us, God in our flesh." We must sink down into that celestial flesh and trust its widom. The poet Mary Oliver offers us good advice:

You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting
You have only to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
(Dream Work, Wild Geese, pg. 14)

Why Did Quakers Stop Quaking?: Another View

David Yount, a Quaker, wrote an article in 2002 entitled, “Why Did the Quakers Stop Quaking?” The essay was prompted by an incident following a public lecture where Yount was challenged by a Pentecostal minister who suggested that Friends had lost touch with the fervor of their forbears when they ceased to quake. “I'm not good at thinking on my feet,” Yount writes, “but I believe the response that popped into my head that day was pretty good. I suggested to him that Quakers stopped quaking when we stopped being persecuted.”

Bradford Kenney, a non-Quaker and author of “Shaking Medicine: The Healing Power of Ecstatic Movement”, refers to Yount’s article and suggests that the opposite is actually true: “Quakers stopped quaking because they were persecuted, even imprisoned, for their wild ecstatic experiences.”

I have to side with Kenney on this question. Quakers didn’t stop quaking when the persecution ended, they stopped quaking to end the persecution. The turnaround in the treatment of Quakers began with the Toleration Act of 1688, however the quaking had stopped many years before. Richard Baxter, no friend of Quakerism, was able to write as early as 1664 that:

At first they did use to fall into violent Tremblings and sometimes Vomitings in their meetings, and pretended to be violently acted by the Spirit; but now that is ceased, they only meet, and he that pretendeth to be moved by the Spirit speaketh; and sometimes they say nothing, but sit an hour or more in silence, and then depart. (Narrative of His Life, pg. 77)

But there is an even bigger, more disturbing story here. As Michele Lise Tarter argues in her essay “’Go North!’ The Journey towards First-generation Friends and their Prophecy of Celestial Flesh” there was actually an intentional effort on the part of the Quaker leadership following the Nayler incident of 1656 to squelch ecstatic behavior and then to censure all reference to it from surviving manuscripts. As the movement grew and became more organized in the later half of the 17th century, ecstatic experiences were increasingly seen by the leadership as an embarrassment and were no longer to be tolerated. The desire of Friends to fit in and become more respectable was certainly behind this campaign. But Tarter suggests that two other factors were no doubt at work: male Quakers’ discomfort with the body (particularly its sexual and feminine qualities) and concern about the increasing power of Quaker women (women were the most likely to exhibit ecstatic behavior.)

Tarter refers to tracts circulated by men calling for a more thorough testing and weighing of leadings. There was a movement to standardize spiritual practice throughout the society. Ministers and elders were advised to “avoid all imagined, unseasonable and untimely prophesyings.” (Tarter, pg. 91) Next all traveling ministers were required to have certificates, something unheard of previously. And then there was the creation of the all-male Second-day’s Morning Meeting. This body was responsible for approving all publications issued by the society. The purpose of the organization, as revealed in its minutes, was to ensure that the Friends’ “weakness and nakedness may not be expressed in print to the whole world.” (Tarter, pg. 91)

One of the most blatant acts of Quaker censorship was the mysterious disappearance of Fox’s “Book of Miracles” shortly following his death. This account of the miraculous healings performed by Quakerism’s founder was not to emerge again until 1948, and then only in the form of a very incomplete reconstruction.

“Encountering this material as a twenty-first–century Friend,” Tarter writes, “I felt saddened and robbed of my spiritual heritage.” (Tarter, pg. 94) I agree. Modern Quakerism is in many respects an invented tradition, constructed by the movement’s second generation in an attempt to replace a “corporeal, experiential spirituality with a rational, philosophical one.” (Tarter, pg. 94) We are all the lesser for it.

Seized by the Power: The Ecstatic Experiences of Early Quakers

The “power of the Lord”, or just simply, “the power”, was a very important concept for the early Quakers. In fact, it is the single, most frequently appearing phrase in the Journal of George Fox, Quakerism’s founder. Surprisingly, the power of the Lord has little or no meaning for Quakers today.

The power had more than one meaning for Fox and the early Friends. It was often used figuratively, for example, to refer to a strong sense of God’s presence or the feeling of being divinely inspired. But it also had the very literal meaning of a sensible, divine power or energy that early Friends could actually feel flowing through their bodies or surrounding them. George Fox, for example, experienced the power as an internal fire when walking barefoot through Lichfield and as a healing energy springing through his injured arm when attacked by a mob. He also felt it causing people to quake and actually shaking the walls of the building in which he preached. His followers experienced the power, too, often during meeting for worship, at the point of convincement or when facing a difficult, personal trial. When seized by the power early Friends would begin to quake, make strange noises and fall to the floor in a trance. Others would sing, cry, see brilliant light or endure long fasts. And still others would prophesize, attempt miraculous cures or go naked as a sign.

Much of what we know about the strange workings of the power is from the writings of Quakerism’s critics. These descriptions are certainly not sympathetic and perhaps even exaggerated. First-hand accounts written by the early Quakers themselves are harder to find, perhaps because they have been ignored or censored out of the literature by later disapproving Friends. Consider, for example, this particularly dismissive account written by one of Quakerism’s early detractors:

…sometimes one, sometimes more, fall into a great and dreadful shaking and trembling in their whole bodies and all of their joints, with such risings and swellings in their bodies and bowels, sending forth shreekings, yellings, howlings and roarings, as not only frighted the spectators, but caused the Dogs to bark, the swine to cry, and Cattel ran about, to the astonishment of all that heard them. (“The Quaker’s Dream”, 1655).

In contrast, here is a more appreciative description written by Thomas Holmes, one of the few surviving accounts actually written by a Quaker:

And the power was so great it made all my fellow-prisoners amazed, and some were shaken, for the power was exceeding great, and I scarcely know whether I was in the body, yea or no, and there appeared light in the prison and astonished me and I was afraid, and trembled at the appearance of the light, my legs shook under me; and my fellow-prisoners beheld the light and wondered, and the light was so glorious it dazzled my eyes. (quoted in Braithwaite’s “Beginnings of Quakerism”, pg. 125)

Early on the leaders of Quakerism did not apologize for or deny the existence of these strange phenomenon and were quick to defend them as legitimate religious experiences. James Nayler, for example, wrote in 1653 that “the holy men of God do witness quaking and trembling, and roaring, and weeping, and fasting and tears; but the world knows not the saints’ conditions.” Early Friends viewed these behaviors in a matter-of-fact way. When asked about someone in the throes of convincement, they would simply say, “Let them alone, trouble them not; the Spirit is now struggling with the flesh.”

The power of the Lord as an actual, sensible experience was absolutely central to the experience of the first generation of Quakers. In fact, they attributed all of their achievements to the influence of the power and saw its strange workings as proof of their divine inspiration. But this, as we will soon see, was about to change.