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Shaker Gift Drawings

© Suzanne Hill

The Shakers

The Shakers are members of a religious sect that has endured for more than 220 years. The Shakers, or more formally The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, came to America from England in 1774 seeking a place to freely practice their religious beliefs. They believe life’s purpose is to achieve perfection in order to prepare themselves for an opulent life in Heaven with Jesus. Their core tenets are expressed through confessions of their sins, common ownership of property, cleanliness, and celibacy. Early on, their ecstasy-based worship was characterized by the movement of the spirit manifested by trembling, shaking, violent dancing, chanting wordless songs – fits that often lasted for hours until they were exhausted. Their critics, noting the way they shook and trembled to rid themselves of evil in a frenzied but focused path to salvation, referred to them as “Shaking Quakers,” and then simply as Shakers.

The Era of Manifestations

Between 1837 and 1850, at the height of the Shakers’s popularity, there occurred a period of intense religious zeal that is known as “The Era of Manifestations.” During this time there was an unusual number of visits to the Shakers by heavenly spirits. The spirits brought heavenly gifts to the Shaker women as messages in the forms of trances, visions, possession states, and songs. The women, known as “instruments,” recorded these messages as drawings.

Media, Styles, and Motifs

These drawings, previously referred to as spirit drawings, but now properly called gift drawings, often depict mysterious signs and figures. Individually they may be labeled by each artist, or instrument, as a “token of love,” a “gift,” a “present,” a “reward,” or a “word of notice” sent from the spirit world. Often the drawings are a record of a vision beheld by the instrument. Some are messages of love illustrated with drawings of angels, doves, horses, fruit, roses, and stars. Others mix hand-written words of encouragement with traditional symbolic spiritual objects, such as the “Tree of Life.” The art is meant to convey the heavenly bliss expected in the hereafter.

The images from Shaker gift art find their meaning in Biblical sources. Lamps signify Christ’s guidance. Harps symbolize joyful worship. Drums stand for spiritual people as soldiers of God, swords stand for power, and ladders are a means to heaven. Birds and winged beings depict departed saints. There is a rich play between physical objects and the spirit world. The Shakers do not believe spiritual manifestations like angels are necessarily something of the future. Instead, physical evidences of the spirit world are normal events.

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