The Ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890

by James Mooney

RANTERS, QUAKERS, AND FIFTH-MONARCHY MEN

The middle of the seventeenth century was a time of great religious and political upheaval in England. Hatreds were intense and persecutions cruel and bitter, until men’s minds gave way under the strain. “The air was thick with reports of prophecies and miracles, and there were men of all parties who lived on the border land between sanity and insanity.” This was due chiefly to the long-continued mental tension which bore on the whole population during this troublous period, and in particular cases to wholesale confiscations, by which families were ruined, and to confinement in wretched prisons, suffering from insufficient food and brutal treatment. Individuals even in the established church began to assert supernatural power, while numerous new sects sprang up, with prophecy, miracle working, hypnotism, and convulsive ecstasy as parts of their doctrine or ritual. Chief among these were the Ranters, the Quakers, and the Fifth-Monarchy Men. The first and last have disappeared with the conditions which produced them; but the Quakers, being based on a principle, have outlasted persecution, and, discarding the extravagances which belonged to the early period, are now on a permanent foundation under the name of the “Society of Friends.” One of the Ranter prophets, in 1650, claimed to be the reincarnation of Melchizedek, and even declared his divinity. He asserted that certain persons then living were Cain, Judas, Jeremiah, etc., whom, he had raised from the dead, and the strangest part of it was that the persons concerned stoutly affirmed the truth of his assertion. Others of them claimed to work miracles and to produce lights and apparitions in the dark. In Barclay’s opinion all the evidence “supports the view that these persons were mad, and had a singular power of producing a kind of sympathetic madness or temporary aberration of intellect in others.”

We are better acquainted with the Quakers (Friends), although it is not generally known that they were originally addicted to similar practices. Such, however, is the fact, as is shown by the name itself. Their founder, George Fox, claimed and believed that he had the gift of prophecy and clairvoyance, and of healing by a mere word, and his biographer, Janney, of the same denomination, apparently sees no reason to doubt that such was the case. As might have been expected, he was also a believer in dreams.

We are told that on one occasion, on coming into the town of Lichfield, “a very remarkable exercise attended his mind, and going through the streets without his shoes he cried, ‘Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield.’ His feelings were deeply affected, for there seemed to be a channel of blood running down the streets, and the market place appeared like a pool of blood.” On inquiry he learned that a large number of Christians had been put to death there during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian thirteen centuries before. “He therefore attributed the exercise which came upon him to the sense that was given him of the blood of the martyrs.”

We are also told that he “received an evidence” of the great fire of London in 1666, before the event, and Janney narrates at length a “still more remarkable vision” of the same fire by another Friend, “whose prophecy is well attested.” According to the account, this man rode into the city, as though having come in haste, and went up and down the streets for two days, prophesying that the city would be destroyed by fire. To others of his own denomination he declared that he had had a vision of the event some time before, but had delayed to declare it as commanded, until he felt the fire in his own bosom. When the fire did occur as he had predicted, he stood before the flames with arms outstretched, as if to stay their advance, until forcibly brought away by his friends.

In mental and physical temperament Fox seems to have closely resembled Mohammed and the Indian prophets of the Ghost dance. We are told that he had much mental suffering and was often under great temptation. “He fasted much, and walked abroad in solitary places. Taking his Bible, he sat in hollow trees or secluded spots, and often at night he walked alone in silent meditation.” At one time “he fell into such a condition that he looked like a corpse, and many who came to see him supposed him to be really dead. In this trance he continued fourteen days, after which his sorrow began to abate, and with brokenness of heart and tears of joy he acknowledged the infinite love of God.” ([Janney], George Fox.)

The sect obtained the name of Quakers from the violent tremblings which overcame the worshipers in the early days, and which they regarded as manifestations of divine power on them. So violent were these convulsions that, as their own historian tells us, on one occasion the house itself seemed to be shaken. According to another authority, men and women sometimes fell down and lay upon the ground struggling as if for life. Their ministers, however, seem not to have encouraged such exhibitions, but strove to relieve the fit by putting the patient to bed and administering soothing medicines. (“Quakers,” Encyclopedia Britannica.)

The Fifth-Monarchy Men were a small band of religionists who arose about the same time, proclaiming that the “Fifth Monarchy” prophesied by Daniel was at hand, when Christ would come down from heaven and reign visibly upon earth for a thousand years. In 1657 they formed a plot to kill Cromwell, and in 1661 they broke out in insurrection at night, parading the streets with a banner on which was depicted a lion, proclaiming that Christ had come and declaring that they were invulnerable and invincible, as “King Jesus” was their invisible leader. Troops were called out against them, but the Fifth-Monarchy Men, expecting supernatural assistance, refused to submit, and fought until they were nearly all shot down. The leaders were afterward tried and executed. ([Janney’s] George Fox and [Schaff’s] Religious Encyclopedia.)