Excerpt from Archibald Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience (1844)

1816-1860, American Antiquarian Society, Books, Essays & Treatises, Other Bodily Exercises & General References, Presbyterians

“In those remarkable bodily affections, called the jerks, which appeared in religious meetings some years ago, the nervous irregularity was commonly produced by the sight of other persons thus affected; and if in some instances without the sight, yet by having the imagination strongly impressed by hearing of such things….”