Shakers violate vulgar materialist law

Chris Brooke chris.brooke at magdalen.oxford.ac.uk
Tue Jan 22 11:12:38 PST 2002


Doug wrote:


>Not to mention the no-sex thing being a bit hard on reproducing the
>cult - literally.

And Charles wrote:


>CB: There's a straight forward vulgar materialist explanation for
>the Shakers' decline. They had the superstition of not believing in
>having sex.

Well... The ban on sex was a constant throughout Shaker history, so it needs to be tweaked before it can do work to explain Shaker decline in the twentieth century. (If the ban on sex was such a turn-off, as it were, then why did so many thousands of people become Shakers in the first place?).

I was told once (on a visit to the Shaker museum in New Hampshire) that there are still seven Shakers left in Maine -- is this true? And if so, how are they getting on?

Chris. --

----------------- Chris Brooke <editors at voiceoftheturtle.org> The Voice of the Turtle <http://voiceoftheturtle.org>



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