“We ought, however, to have remembered that bodily convulsions, the jirks, &c. are never mentioned in scripture, as evidences of a graceless state, or a delusion of the devil; nor yet as evidences of a work of God’s grace. In a religious view, we ought to have thought but little of them….”
“Preached to a mixed multitude of Seceders, Presbyterians, Baptists, & Methodists. One took the jirks, another old lady shouted. People in general were serious….”
“[John Bryant Sr.] While feeling opposed [to Shaker worship practices] was taken with the jirks…. He seized a buckeye sapling, but was jerked into willing obedience & now has full faith in dancing!”
“[T]he subjects of this work receive no damage or injury whatever, and the most of them are exceedingly happy when they are thus exercised…. One may ask…, can they not be happy in religion and have the jirks?”
“One young woman had what I would call the whirling exercise…. It far exceeded anything of the kind I ever saw. I was told that she had had the jirks nearly 3 years…. Afterwards I remonstrated with some of them and cautioned them.”
“The phenomenon of…suddenly falling or sinking down, under religious exercises, has not been uncommon in times of great excitement…. But the bodily agitation called the jerks is a very different affection….”
