Excerpt from the “Concise Sketch of the Life and Experience of Isachar Bates” (January 31, 1805)
“We called and saw them have the jirks and asked them qustions and went on….”
Letter from John Meacham, Issachar Bates, and Benjamin Seth Youngs to the Shaker Ministry (January 31, 1805)
“I took the Jerks, & was the first person that had it in these parts. Sometimes I have had it in meditating on serious things when alone, sometimes by seeing the situation of the wicked, sometimes by reading, or hearing some striking expressions, sometimes in going about my common employment, & sometimes while in bed….”
Excerpt from Archibald Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience (1844)
“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….”
Letter from George Addison Baxter to Archibald Alexander (April 25, 1833)
“[T]he bodily exercise, and the disorders to which it gave rise were of unspeakable injury to the church in that day….”
