A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

Spiritualist movement, whose mediums often spoke with great figures of the past (Swedenborg
and Benjamin Franklin were especially vocal) as well as the spirits of various exoticised Others.
The messages carried to the Shakers by the dead were generally of two kinds, a typology
later reflected within Spiritualism with some minor variations. The spirits generally conveyed
words of comfort and concern to individuals or provided broader moral exhortations and a
general prodding to return to stricter Shaker ideals. Spiritual communiqués became a standard
element of Shaker practice, a fact made emblematic by the establishment of “Holy Hills of Zion”
or “Sacred Squares” within Shaker communities. These squares were to be placed atop the
highest hill within a given community and it was there that twice a year, spring and fall, the
Shakers were to commune and feast with the spirits in what were called “Mountain Meetings.”
The Shakers also anticipated Spiritualism via the importance of women to their creed and
mission. The Shakers held that God was both mother and father—an androgynous figure nicely
captured by Frederick W. Evan’s emergence from the holy fire sans genitalia. The structure of
the church itself called for both male and female leaders and Ann Lee was believed to be the
"Second Appearing of Christ in female form". 49
You will also recall that the period of Mother
Ann's Second Appearance was inaugurated by three young girls in Watervliet, illustrating the
precept that it would be a feminine force that would lead the world into the “new era”. As we
shall see, women played a central role in the discourse and practices of Spiritualism as well.
Feminine leadership is a commonplace throughout the cases examined herein. Even when female
leadership is absent, the feminine maintains a strong presence in the prevalence of non-rational
modes of perception and the generally passive ethos of giving oneself over to the cosmos.
Though the situation is not as simple as a displacement of the masculine by the feminine. In
communication with the Other, gender is often troubled as a category. The female Christ of the
Shakers, Evans shorn of his genitals by holy fire, young girls as key spiritual interlocutors—all
49 For a full discussion of the role of women in Shakerism, see Marjorie Proctor-Smith, “’In the Line of the Female’:
Shakerism and Feminism,” in Women’s Leadership in Marginal Religions: Explorations Outside the Mainstream,
ed. Catherine Wessinger (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993).
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