The Hawaiian gazette., 1881-11-23
4alraiiialt C5azGtte.
General .msrrfandisr.
n HhGKFrT M IN

composed by Shakers The music was sweet
and yiyacious and we'll adapted TO stimulate
rythmic motions of the body. The WORDS
were so perfectly appropriate to the occasion
that they might as well have been sung al
recular Suiritualist circle as att Shaker meet
ing. What followed l need not uarrate IN de-
tail. All newspaper readers have read &C,
counts Of so-called naturalization seances.
This and the one that took place the Sane
evening. when the room was packed with ZoO
men and women from the different Shaker
families here, were chiefly interesting to Inc
from the fact that the Shakers had prepared
the dark closet and regulated the conditions,
and might be supposed to be innocent OF any
conspiracy TO defraud themselves. Out oil tue
closet into which Eddy went came numerous
substantial-looking forms with shadowy taceS'
one by one, with intervals OF hymn-singlng
between, remaining some minute and some
five CT six minutes. They varied in size from
a child Of FIVE OF six years to big, orawny'
black bearded, six-foot man, head taller
than the medium, who could hardly get out oil
the low door. The men were arrayed IN re-
spectacle black suits; the women were IN
white, with variety OF colored shawls.
Some made short speeches on religious mat
tiers. taking evident care to commend the
views OF the ondheIb OhASAo spun -"
words in a strained, husky voice; still others
did not speak at all, but only pointed TO some
person in the audience. But how did the
Shakers take it? With implicit faith in its
genuineness, for the most part. An exception
was the doctor of the community, who had
been reading about abnormal phases OF mental
action and had his reservation of doubt. There
was also an old brother who, talking next day
on the subject, said he believed in the thing
himself; but not on this particular exhibition
of it. After the night seance was ever "a
group Of Shakers gathered on the lawn back
of the main dwelling and told of their own
experience with the mysterious powers. One
of them had lifted heavy tables to the ceiling
by touching them with the tips Of his fingers,
another had heen helped 10 do two mems work
in the hayfield without fatigue, and had writ
ten all night and gone to the fields fresh next
morning; another had been converted to
Shakerism by conversations with angels. They
we're all serious, earnest men of more than
ordinary intelligence.
Perhaps | ought to apologize for plunging
the reader into this bath of Spiritualism.
was dipped in it myself OH short notice, in
sort OF willy-nily fashion, as soon as
arrived, but | promise TO escape from 1t
speedily and take observations OF the custom
ary ways Of living and thinking OF these pc
culiar people. Their friendly hospitality is
charming; their careful, systematic co-opera-
tive agriculture is worth serious study; their
religion, with its belief in a dual God and in
female manifestation of the Christ principle,
pioues curiosity and the strict celibate lives,
live without the aid of walls or bars or fasting
are wonderful defiance and contradiction of
nature. They furnish the solitary notable ex-
ample Of long-existng prosperous communism
in the civilized world, and they are the only
communal organization where the sexes live
together in the same buildings, eat in the same
rooms, and join in social and religious exer-
cises, and yet subdue and sacrifice the instinct
of sexual love and the ties of iamily.-E. V.
= IN NJ Y Tl.ibuus