and not mystics.
During a time of extremely repressed sexuality and puritanical beliefs, male Quakers experienced considerable discomfort about the effects the experience had on the body (particularly its sexual effects) and on its effects on women - women were the most likely to exhibit ecstatic behaviour.
Ministers and elders were advised to “avoid all imagined, unseasonable and untimely prophesying.” Next all travelling 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.”
Quaker forum – Internet
Encountering this material as a twenty-first–century Friend, I felt saddened and robbed of my spiritual heritage…….. 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". We are all the lesser for it.
One of the most blatant acts of censorship by Quaker leaders 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.
A number of people in the Quaker movement on understanding and reading of their spiritual heritage and what had been expunged and lost set about trying to recreate it in a ‘Quaker Revival movement’. This movement started in the twentieth century, but lasted only a short time…..
So effective was the revival in some quarters - whilst it lasted - that they had much the same experiences as their early predecessors……..
Quakerism is marked with trances, shaking (like convulsions), glossolalia, and visions, comparable to mystics of the occult. ……… adherents would fall backwards often accompanied with a trance-like state, facial and body contortions, trembling or laughter and so on.
The Quaker revival took place at much the same time as the Pentecostal revival. The Azusa Street Revival was an historic Pentecostal revival meeting. It began with a meeting on April 14, 1906, and continued until roughly 1915. The revival was characterized by ecstatic spiritual experiences accompanied by speaking in tongues, “dramatic worship services, and inter-racial mingling”!! The participants received criticism from secular media and Christian theologians for behaviors considered to be “outrageous and unorthodox”. Today, the revival is considered by historians to be the primary catalyst for the spread of Pentecostalism in the 20th century.
“…here were also many signs of trembling, speechlessness, holy laughter, and drunkenness in the Spirit at Azusa Street during the outset of the Pentecostal revival... Continuous meetings were held there every day for a period of three years beginning in mid-April, 1906. The mission on Azusa Street published the well-known newspaper, THE APOSTOLIC FAITH [William Seymours Paper]… contains many accounts of these manifestations. For example…In the fourth issue (p. 4), G. W. Batman wrote, "I received the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire and now I feel the presence of the Holy Ghost, not only in my heart but in my lungs, my hands, my arms and all through my body and at times I am shaken like a locomotive steamed up and prepared for a long journey."
J. Roswell Flower
“The meetings began in the mornings and continued for at least 12 hours… There were no hymnals, no liturgy, no order of services. Most of the time there were no musical instruments. But around the room, men jumped and shouted. Women danced and sang. People sang sometimes together, yet with completely different syllables, rhythms, and melodies…’’
So as time went on the quaking stopped as a method, but its equivalent continued in the form of fren