Shaker laboring worship (historical)

1. Introduction

Version followed: the historical worship of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (the Shakers), as heritage institutions, archives and historians describe it (Shaker Heritage Society; Library of Congress Shaker collection; Smithsonian Folkways notes compiled by Vincent R. Tortora, 1976; historian and former Hancock Shaker Village curator Christian Goodwillie), plus present-day worship at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, as the National Park Service, PBS and Smithsonian magazine report it. This is a historical practice. Ritual dance ("laboring") is no longer part of Shaker worship.

What it was. "Laboring" was the Shakers' name for the bodily side of their worship: shaking, turning and dancing, which over time became ordered dances, marches and gesture ("motion") songs performed in the meetinghouse. The group took shape around Manchester, England, from 1747. By 1770 its members believed that Christ's spirit had returned through their leader, "Mother" Ann Lee. In 1774 she led eight followers to America, where they settled near present-day Albany, New York [source: Goodwillie, NCR]. Outsiders called them "Shakers" (short for "Shaking Quakers") because of their violent shaking in worship, and the members later took up the name [source: Goodwillie, NCR; Shaker Heritage Society]. The account of a Wardley Society that broke from the Quakers, with meetings in Bolton and Manchester, rests only on Wikipedia here [uncertain: secondary, unverified].

How change was understood (the tradition's account, attributed). Ann Lee taught that shaking and agitating the body freed Believers from worldly ills [source: Tortora 1976]. The Shakers worked out their salvation each day through physical and spiritual labour, held property in common and were celibate [source: Goodwillie, NCR]. Historians describe the first formal dances as slow, laborious movements meant to subdue the body and build discipline and unity [source: Goodwillie, NCR]. Early dances were meant to cast off lustful feelings or to express joy, and they stood for unity, purity and labour [source: Shaker Heritage Society]. A historian quoted on a tune-archive page reads the early ordered dances as a way to "control and contain" religious feeling through synchronised movement, with brothers and sisters close together but never touching [source: Traditional Tune Archive, citing Nicoletta 2001]. A phrase the tradition attributes to Mother Ann sums up its link between work and worship: "Hands to work, hearts to God" [source: PBS 2010].

What remains today. Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine, is the only active Shaker community. It holds a Public Meeting for worship on Sundays in its 1794 Meetinghouse [source: NPS]. Recent reports put the membership at three [source: Goodwillie, NCR]. Worship there is seated: Scripture, spontaneous testimony and unaccompanied Shaker songs. It does not include ritual dance. Smithsonian magazine reports that the elders withdrew the dance "gift" around 1900, when few brothers remained [source: Smithsonian 2001]. Goodwillie dates the end of regular dancing to the 1880s [source: Goodwillie, NCR]. The two dates do not match [uncertain]. Today Shaker laboring is met mainly in history books, museums, recordings, choirs, staged reconstructions (for example a 1930 modern-dance work titled The Shakers, cited by the Shaker Heritage Society) and the song "Simple Gifts" [source: Shaker Heritage Society; Goodwillie, NCR].

Where the psychotherapist comes in. Clients meet this tradition by reading its history, by singing, dancing or interpreting reconstructed Shaker worship (in museums, choirs or dance companies), by visiting or inquiring at Sabbathday Lake, or, rarely, by joining it. The therapist's work is the same as for any religious observance: understanding what it means in the client's life, cultural assessment, accommodation, routing health questions to the doctor, watching for scrupulosity, and working with the community's own leaders when the client wishes [synthesis].

2. Framework

This is not a therapy and has no sessions or phases of treatment. Below are the historical stages of the practice as sources describe them, then a framework for the therapist's work alongside it [synthesis].

A. Historical stages of laboring worship

According to Tortora, a service could close with a final procession, worshippers' hands raised to receive God's blessing, and with special hymns sung for it [source: Tortora 1976]. Song types tied to laboring included dance and marching songs, ritual or gesture songs, and songs that came with "spiritual presents" [source: Tortora 1976]. Shakers said many melodies were given to them by spirits. Early songs used wordless syllables (vocables), and more than 1,000 manuscript volumes of songs survive [source: Goodwillie, NCR].

B. The therapist's work alongside (no source gives session counts) [synthesis]

1. Hear the context (first contact). Is this historical interest, artistic or heritage reconstruction, a visit or inquiry at Sabbathday Lake, or membership? Move on once you can say in the client's own words what the practice means to them.
2. Assess with the Cultural Formulation Interview and its Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module (Module 5) [source: APA CFI modules]. Move on once the role of the tradition in the problem, in coping and in stress or conflict is clear.
3. Integrate or address, using the interventions in section 4 that fit. Use health and exertion questions as the cue to bring in the client's doctor.
4. Review: is the tradition working as a resource, or is it tangled with symptoms (scrupulosity, unusual experiences, loss, a hard choice about community life)? Adjust, or refer to its leaders or a spiritual director.

3. Guiding principles

• Describe, do not adjudicate. Present Shaker beliefs (Christ's second appearing through Ann Lee, songs given by spirits, "gifts") as Shaker beliefs. In practice: say "Shakers held that…" and neither endorse nor debunk [synthesis].
• It is historical, but there are living practitioners. A small community at Sabbathday Lake still worships [source: NPS]. In practice: do not speak of "the extinct Shakers". If a client is a member or an inquirer, treat the tradition as their living faith [synthesis].
• Laboring was disciplined worship, not catharsis. Historians describe ordered dance as a way of subduing the body and building unity [source: Goodwillie, NCR]. In practice: do not recast it as "emotional release" or as dance therapy without the client's own framing [synthesis].
• Reconstructed is not authentic worship. Staged and museum versions are performances [source: Shaker Heritage Society]. In practice: ask whether the client experiences their reconstruction as art, heritage or prayer, and respect the community's own authority over what Shaker worship is today [synthesis].
• Name versions and dates. Sources differ, for example on when dancing ended. In practice: when a client cites a fact, ask where they read it and tolerate disagreement between sources [synthesis].
• Assess culture systematically. In practice: use CFI Module 5 rather than improvised questions about religion [source: APA CFI modules].
• The body comes first. Vigorous dance and repeated practice involve exertion and risk of falls. In practice: send health questions to the client's doctor and prescribe no exertion, fasting or sleep regime [synthesis].
• Do not pathologise unusual experience, and do not miss illness. Trance, whirling and visions belonged to Shaker revival history. In practice: explore meaning first, then screen for psychosis, mania or dissociation if features suggest it [synthesis; Lindahl et al. 2017, PLOS ONE, via Cheetah House, for the wider context].
• Hold the role boundary. The therapist is not an elder, confessor or spiritual director. In practice: send doctrinal and membership questions to the community's leadership, and do not advise on joining or leaving [synthesis].
• Client-led integration with consent. In practice: bring Shaker songs, texts or movement into sessions only at the client's request, in their words, and stop when they ask [synthesis].
• Celibacy and separation of the sexes are values, not symptoms. In practice: explore what they mean to the client before considering any clinical concern [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

The historical practice itself is described in sections 1 and 2. Laboring dance is no longer part of Shaker worship and is not taught as a devotional practice for others to take up, so this guide gives no instructions for doing it. The interventions below are the psychotherapist's own work with clients who encounter the tradition. All procedures are [synthesis] unless a source is tagged.

4.1 Mapping how the client meets the tradition

• Purpose / when: At the first mention of Shakers, Shaker songs or dance, a Sabbathday Lake visit, or heritage, choir or dance work. This sets which of the following interventions apply.
• Steps: (1) Ask which of four contacts applies: reading and history; artistic or heritage reconstruction (museum interpretation, choir, staged dance, recordings); visiting or inquiring at Sabbathday Lake's Sunday Public Meeting, which is open to the public [source: NPS; Smithsonian 2001]; membership or the novitiate. (2) Ask what draws them: beauty, simplicity, community, celibacy, the ecstatic past, a family or regional link. (3) Ask what the practice does for them now: calm, belonging, prayer, artistic meaning. (4) Ask how it touches the presenting problem. (5) Summarise back in their words and agree whether to bring it into therapy.
• Example language (illustrative): "You mentioned singing Shaker songs with the choir. Is that mostly music for you, or does it feel like prayer as well?" / "What is it about the Shakers that speaks to you right now?"
• Watch for: Over-identification with an idealised community as an escape from current relationships. Shame about being "weird" for loving an obscure tradition. Working: the client can say clearly what role the tradition plays, and the agreed focus feels like theirs.

4.2 Cultural Formulation Interview, Module 5 (Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions)

• Purpose / when: Structured assessment when the tradition is central to the client's identity, coping or distress, especially for members, novices, former members, or people strongly drawn to joining.
• Steps: (1) Use the core CFI first. (2) Add Module 5, which has 16 questions and covers five areas: identity and affiliation; the tradition's role in daily and family life; private and public practices and their importance; how it helps with coping (leaders, texts, rituals); and whether it contributes to stress, distress, discrimination or conflict [source: APA CFI modules]. (3) Paraphrase the areas in Shaker terms: the meetinghouse, testimony, songs, covenant life, celibacy, shared work ("work is worship" [source: PBS 2010]). (4) Add the Social Network and Psychosocial Stressors modules if community life or leaving it is at issue [source: APA CFI modules]. (5) Write a short cultural formulation in the notes. The APA permits clinicians to reproduce the CFI for use with their patients [source: APA CFI modules]. Do not base a diagnosis on the CFI alone [source: APA CFI modules].
• Example language (illustrative): "Some of my questions are about faith and community, because these can help or strain. How does Shaker life, or your interest in it, shape your days?"
• Watch for: Defensiveness if the client expects their faith to be judged. Answers that show conflict with family over joining. Working: the formulation shows how the tradition is both a resource and a source of strain, as relevant.

4.3 Accurate, attributed historical framing

• Purpose / when: When a client's distress involves misinformation ("the Shakers were a sex cult", "it was all mass hysteria") or when they are trying to make sense of what they read, for example about the Era of Manifestations.
• Steps: (1) Ask what they have read and where. (2) Offer reliable heritage and archive sources (section Sources), naming the version and noting where sources differ, for example on when dancing ended. (3) Attribute religious meaning: "Shakers understood their shaking as…". (4) Separate history (dated, sourced) from the client's personal meaning. (5) Invite them to bring questions of faith to the community's leaders rather than to you.
• Example language (illustrative): "Historians describe the first ordered dances as a way to discipline the body and bind the community together. How does that fit with what you'd read?"
• Watch for: The therapist taking sides in doctrinal or historical debates, or quietly mocking (outsiders long mocked Shaker worship [source: Shaker Heritage Society, quoting Cooper]). Working: the client can hold the history without shame or idealisation.

4.4 Supporting reconstructed or performed practice (choirs, dancers, heritage interpreters)

• Purpose / when: Clients who perform Shaker songs or reconstructed dances professionally or as amateurs and bring stress, injury, meaning conflicts or performance anxiety.
• Steps: (1) Ask whether performing feels like art, education or worship to them. (2) If it feels like worship, explore how they reconcile performing it with its source in a living faith, and whether they would like contact with the Sabbathday Lake community (its Sunday meeting is public [source: NPS]). (3) Treat performance anxiety with your usual methods, using the client's own meanings. (4) Refer physical strain, exertion or injury from repeated rehearsal to their doctor or a dance-medicine clinician; prescribe no training load. (5) If they use Shaker material in teaching, encourage accurate attribution and respect for the community.
• Example language (illustrative): "When you sing that song on stage, where does your attention go: to the audience, the music, or something you'd call prayer?"
• Watch for: Guilt at "using" sacred material. Exhaustion or injury. Working: the client feels congruent about how they relate to the material.

4.5 Ecstatic and unusual experiences: meaning first, then differential

• Purpose / when: A client involved in revival-style or reconstructed movement worship, or reading about Shaker trance, whirling, tongues and visions [source: Wikipedia, Era of Manifestations; uncertain: secondary], reports their own unusual experiences: shaking, visions, voices, loss of time, energy-like sensations.
• Steps: (1) Listen for the client's own framing (gift, grace, spirit) and reflect it without endorsing or dismissing. (2) Map the experience: onset, context (only during worship or performance, or also outside), control (can they stop or step out?), distress, function, sleep, mood. (3) Use the wider research on challenging contemplative experiences as background. The Varieties of Contemplative Experience study (Lindahl et al. 2017, PLOS ONE) mapped meditation-related challenges across perceptual, affective, conative, cognitive, sense-of-self, social and somatic domains [source: Cheetah House]. Cheetah House offers resources and training for clinicians [source: Cheetah House]. That research concerns Buddhist meditation, so applying it to movement worship is [synthesis]. (4) Consider psychosis, mania, dissociation or a neurological cause when experiences persist outside worship, impair functioning, or come with sleep loss, grandiosity or command hallucinations. Refer to psychiatry or the GP. (5) Where no disorder is present but the experience is the focus of care, DSM-5-TR lists a religious or spiritual problem as a focus of clinical attention, code Z65.8. (6) Ground: slow the pace, orient to the room, reduce how much the client is engaging in the activity linked to the experiences, and keep sleep regular [synthesis]. (7) With consent, consult the client's faith community or teacher.
• Example language (illustrative): "In some Shaker history, shaking and visions were seen as gifts. I'm not here to decide what yours are. I'd like to understand them, and make sure your body and sleep are OK."
• Watch for: Pathologising sacred experience. Missing an emerging psychosis or mania. Dissociation after trauma. Working: the experiences are understood, chosen and contained, with functioning intact.

4.6 Accommodation in scheduling and treatment

• Purpose / when: Members, novices, regular attenders of the Sunday Public Meeting, or performers with fixed rehearsal and performance calendars.
• Steps: (1) Ask which days and times are protected: Sunday meeting [source: NPS], community work, seasonal performances. (2) Schedule around them. (3) For members in a communal setting, ask how they would like to handle travel, fees and confidentiality within a very small community, where privacy is hard to keep. (4) Agree how to handle telehealth if the client lives in the community.
• Example language (illustrative): "Sunday mornings are for meeting. Shall we keep to weekdays, and is there a time that fits around the community's work?"
• Watch for: The client hiding therapy from the community out of fear of judgement, which can be a sign of strain. Working: sessions fit their life without conflict.

4.7 Celibacy, separation of the sexes and community life: values work

• Purpose / when: Clients drawn to, living in, or reflecting on the Shakers' celibate, communal life. Historically, converts' families were dissolved and spouses, parents and children became spiritual siblings [source: Goodwillie, NCR]. Brothers and sisters still sit apart in meeting [source: PBS 2010].
• Steps: (1) Explore what celibacy and community mean to the client: freedom, devotion, safety, avoidance. (2) Separate a chosen vocation from avoidance driven by trauma, shame or fear of intimacy, and do not assume either. (3) Look at the effect on relationships with family outside the community. (4) Clarify values with the client and support decisions they make themselves. (5) Refer questions of vocation and covenant to the community's leadership. Wikipedia describes a staged novitiate at Sabbathday Lake [uncertain: secondary, unverified].
• Example language (illustrative): "For the Shakers, celibacy was part of a whole way of life. What does it mean for you, and what do you hope it would give you?"
• Watch for: The therapist's own assumptions about sexuality steering the work. Sexual shame or a trauma history driving the choice. Family conflict. Working: the client can say clearly what they are choosing and why.

4.8 Scrupulosity and "shaking off sin"

• Purpose / when: Clients who use Shaker purity themes, the "shaking off sin" gesture [source: Shaker Heritage Society] or strict ideas of order in compulsive ways: repeating a gesture or song until it feels "right", intrusive thoughts about impurity, endless reassurance-seeking.
• Steps: (1) Separate devotion (chosen, meaningful, flexible) from compulsion (driven by anxiety, rigid, time-consuming, bringing short relief). (2) Formulate it as OCD where criteria are met. (3) Use exposure and response prevention adapted to the faith. Agree the exposures with the client, get consent, use graded steps, and set targets that do not ask them to break their own sincere religious standards. (4) With consent, consult a recognised leader of the client's community about what the tradition actually requires, so that compulsions are not mistaken for faith. (5) Use the IOCDF's published resources on scrupulosity [uncertain: not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "Your faith asks for a sincere heart. The OCD is asking you to do it again until the doubt goes away. Can we look at which voice is which?"
• Watch for: Exposures that feel blasphemous to the client (go more slowly, consult). Reassurance-seeking moving onto the therapist. Working: less time on rituals, more freedom in worship.

4.9 Joining, leaving and high-commitment community dynamics

• Purpose / when: Clients considering the novitiate, leaving a community, or coming from any intense high-commitment group and drawn to Shaker history as a model.
• Steps: (1) Do not label groups. Explore the client's own experience of autonomy, information, finances, contact with family and freedom to leave. (2) Weigh in general signs of coercive control (isolation, punishment for doubt, control of information and money) without assuming they are present [synthesis]. (3) Support decisions about joining or leaving made at the client's own pace. (4) For leavers, address grief for community, identity and loss of belonging, and any religious trauma.
• Example language (illustrative): "Whatever you decide, I'm here to help you think it through, not to steer you. What would you need to know to feel the choice is truly yours?"
• Watch for: Therapist bias for or against communal religion. A client handing the decision to the therapist. Working: a free, informed choice and a support network either way.

4.10 Grief, ending and heritage

• Purpose / when: Members, former members, descendants, volunteers and heritage staff facing the shrinking of the tradition (several thousand members in 19 major communities at its height, three today [source: Goodwillie, NCR]), or the death of members.
• Steps: (1) Name anticipatory grief and loss of a way of life. (2) Explore what the client wants to carry forward: songs, crafts, values ("Hands to work, hearts to God" [source: PBS 2010]). (3) Support the ritual and community resources the client already uses, such as meeting, song and the friends' and supporters' network (PBS reports a Friends of the Shakers group that visits each summer [source: PBS 2010]). (4) Make room for meaning-making, without your own framing of "dying religion".
• Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like you're grieving a whole world, not only a person. What of it do you want to keep alive in your own life?"
• Watch for: Complicated grief, isolation. Working: the client finds continuity and community support.

4.11 Client-led use of Shaker song or movement in session

• Purpose / when: Only when the client asks to bring a Shaker song, text or gesture into therapy, for example as a grounding or meaning resource.
• Steps: (1) Get explicit consent and let the client lead. (2) Use the material as the client already practises it; do not teach dance or set exertion. (3) Debrief: what did it bring up? (4) Stop if it leads to dissociation or distress (see 4.5). (5) Keep the tradition's framing intact. It is not a clinical technique and makes no health claims [synthesis].
• Example language (illustrative): "You said singing that song steadies you. Would you like to sing or say a line now, and then notice what changes?"
• Watch for: Therapist enthusiasm taking over. Turning a sacred song into a "tool". Working: the client feels more grounded and more themselves.

4.12 Collaboration with community leaders and role boundaries

• Purpose / when: Doctrinal, membership or worship questions, or when the client wants their faith community involved. At Sabbathday Lake the elder leads Scripture, prayer and choice of song in meeting, and there is no preacher [source: PBS 2010].
• Steps: (1) With written consent, agree what will be shared. (2) Contact the leader the client names (a public figure such as the community's elder, or a spiritual director). (3) Keep roles distinct: they speak to faith, you to mental health. (4) Avoid dual relationships, for example attending the client's meeting as a friend, or becoming part of the client's heritage group. (5) Disclose your own religious stance only if it helps the client and only briefly. Follow your profession's ethics code [synthesis]. Consider training in spiritual and religious competencies (Vieten et al. 2013 [uncertain: not verified]).
• Example language (illustrative): "That sounds like a question for your elder. Would it help if I spoke with them, and what would you want me to say or not say?"
• Watch for: The therapist sliding into a spiritual-director role. Clergy and therapist giving conflicting advice. Working: a coordinated, client-led plan.

5. Handling problems

No clinical literature specific to Shaker worship appears in the sources consulted. All responses below are [synthesis] unless tagged.

• Client wants instructions to "do Shaker dancing" as a spiritual practice. Explain that laboring dance is no longer part of Shaker worship [source: Smithsonian 2001; Goodwillie, NCR] and is not taught as a devotional practice. Point them to the living community's public Sunday meeting [source: NPS], to heritage institutions, or to their own tradition's forms of embodied worship. Do not improvise a "Shaker exercise".
• Stuck idealisation ("if only I lived like the Shakers"). Validate the values (simplicity, work as worship). Then look at what the fantasy protects against in current life, and test small value-consistent changes now (4.7, 4.9).
• Resistance to assessment of faith ("you'll think I'm odd"). Say plainly that you are neutral. Use the CFI's open framing [source: APA CFI modules]. Let the client set the depth.
• Overwhelm or dysregulation during movement or song (in rehearsal, worship or session). Stop. Ground with orienting and slow speech. Reduce how intensely they engage with the activity. Check sleep and substance use. Screen for dissociation or a trauma link. Bring in their doctor if there are physical symptoms (fainting, chest pain, falls).
• Ecstatic experiences that do not settle. Follow 4.5: a differential, urgent psychiatric referral if there are psychotic or manic features, and coordination with the community or teacher with consent.
• Non-adherence to agreed exposure in scrupulosity work. Re-check whether a step felt like a violation of faith. Consult the client's religious authority. Shrink the steps (4.8).
• Rupture over values (the client senses the therapist disapproves of celibacy, communalism or religion). Name it. Own any bias. Repair. Consider consultation or referral to a therapist with more religious competence.
• Family conflict over a client's wish to join. Offer family or joint sessions if wanted. Stay neutral on the decision and attend to everyone's grief and fears.
• Very small community and confidentiality. Expect that others in the community may learn of therapy. Plan with the client what is shared, and avoid any contact with other members without consent.
• Misinformation and online material. Gently compare with reliable sources. Note honestly where historians disagree, for example on the end date of dancing [uncertain].
• Health questions (exertion, fasting, sleep in intense worship or rehearsal). Do not advise. Route them to the client's doctor. No practice here treats physical disease.
• Concerns about coercion or abuse in any group the client belongs to. Assess risk. Follow safeguarding and reporting duties in your jurisdiction. Name individuals as wrongdoers only as courts, regulators or independent investigations do. For the Sabbathday Lake community, none found in the sources consulted.

Sources

Web sources

• Let Us Labor: The Evolution of Shaker Dance (Shaker Heritage Society, 2012)
• Goodwillie, C. The celibate, dancing Shakers were once seen as a threat to society; 250 years later they're part of the sound of America (National Catholic Reporter)
• Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community (National Park Service)
• The Shakers (PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, 17 Sept 2010)
• Wolkomir, R. & J. Living a Tradition (Smithsonian magazine, April 2001)
• Tortora, V. R. (comp.) Music of the Shakers, liner notes (Folkways Records FH 5378, 1976)
• Shaker collection of records concerning the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, finding aid (Library of Congress)
• Annotation: Square Order Shuffle (Traditional Tune Archive) [uncertain: secondary]
• Era of Manifestations (Wikipedia) [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
• Shakers (Wikipedia) [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
• Cultural Formulation Interview Supplementary Modules (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
• The Varieties of Contemplative Experience (VCE) Study (Cheetah House)

Further works, as cited in the web sources

• Lindahl, J. R., et al. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists. PLOS ONE. (via Cheetah House)
• Nicoletta, J. (2001). The gendering of order and disorder: Mother Ann Lee and Shaker architecture. New England Quarterly, 74(2). (via Traditional Tune Archive)
• Youngs, I. N. (1856). Manuscript description of Shaker dances [uncertain: title not verified]. (via Traditional Tune Archive)
• Cooper, J. F. Notions of the Americans. (via Shaker Heritage Society)
• Vieten, C., et al. (2013), on spiritual and religious competencies [uncertain: not verified]. APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (https://www.apa.org/ethics/code).
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances (includes 'Religious or spiritual problem'), https://www.unboundmedicine.com/icd/view/ICD-10-CM/945432/all/Z65_8___Other_specified_problems_related_to_psychosocial_circumstances