We were told by many people that we should make it a point to visit the Shaker Village outside of Lexington. Neither Kyle nor I knew much about the Shakers except that they were known for making furniture. We had no idea just how much we didn't know. For those of you as ignorant as we were, let me fill you in. Bearing in mind, this was gleaned from a little spiel, not any of my own research.

The Shakers had many interesting beliefs, the most astonishing of which is that they believed in utter celibacy. And one wonders why the Shakers aren't thriving today.
Apparently, they also believed the second coming of Christ had already taken place - in the form of a woman. And as such, they believed they were living in the 1000 year reign of Christ - the Millenial Period of peace under Christ's rule. They were most alarmed and unsettled when the Civil War broke out. They had a hard time explaining that away, but to their credit, they were incredibly generous to the slaves of the time - often purchasing them at auctions and giving them their freedom. They gave the freed slaves the choice of joining the Shakers and living in freedom among their community or they helped them flee to the North to safety. I like that aspect of them.

Let me back up a step, though. The woman they believed to be the second Christ - she is an interesting bird and I can sort of understand why she made some of the declarations she did. Apparently, she was from England and at a very young age, her father basically married her off to a much much older man. Yuck. She gave birth to 4 children, all of whom died before the age of 5. She believed this was God's punishment to her. Not sure what she thought she did, but I can tell you that she was responsible for the celibacy part of the Shakers. She believed that the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden wasn't eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but rather, having sex. I told Kyle she must have had one horrible experience with her much much older, probably cruel, disgusting husband. Just speculating, of course. Anyway, that was her take on the original sin.

She was imprisoned for something (I should have taken notes) in England and it is reported that she went without food or water for 10 days and survived. Therefore, she was believed to be the second Christ. She somehow made it over to the United States, around the time of the Quakers. The Shakers were a very charismatic bunch and as you might imagine, shook violently during their worship times, earning the name - The Shaking Quakers. This was later shortened to the Shakers.

In addition to believing Christ had already returned and that sex was taboo, they also believed that God was both male and female equally. They took the verse in Genesis that says that God created man in His own image - male and female He created them. So, they deduced that God was equally male and female. As a result, they were way ahead of their time in their equal treatment of women. In fact, any position of power held by a man had a corresponding female in charge. As I said, very forward thinking.

However, they also took very very literally the idea of us being Children of God and believed that every single person was in fact literally a sister or brother - further sealing themselves to lives of celibacy.

You might ask how they ever managed to build any sort of a congregation if they didn't reproduce. Well, they recruited heavily. They started out primarily headquartered in the NE, but as word got around of a widespread religious revival going on in Kentucky, they moved down to put in their two cents and were quite successful at their recruitment efforts. What I found interesting was that upon joining the Shakers, married couples were to immediately dissolve their marriage. All women were sisters and all men were brothers. They lived in incredibly large houses that they constructed from scratch and the women lived on one side - the men on the other.



They also made everything from scratch. They kept silkworms on the property and from it spun silk, they had sheep for wool, etc. and they dyed all the materials from items found in nature. Tea, coffee, certain bugs native to the area, indigo... they had looms to bring it all together...it was pretty incredible. They even made their own brooms- which are supposed to last from 15-20 years. (I bought one.)



So that is what I learned about the Shakers. For those Shaker experts out there, forgive me for not being meticulous or precise in my recounting of their beliefs. And apparently, there are 3 Shakers left - living in Montana, I believe.