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Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:Barker

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Enoch Root mused that the Barkers were an anti-Papist Puritan sect of"King Killers" in their heyday while in the Cairo of the Puritans —— the city of Boston.

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Community entry - Barker

A fictitious Puritan sect founded by Gregory Bolstrood. Gregory Bolstrood - was an epileptic preacher -- said to 'bark' his long sermons -- is the reason for its nomencalture. Bears a strong resemblance to early Baptists. For example, Barkers are described as opposing slavery (which many early Baptists did) as well as being "gratuitously radical, however -- for example, they believe that Government and Church should have naught to do with with each other" (which virtually all Baptists believed until the 20th century). There is also some resemblance to Quakers, however Quakers were generally not so anti-government as Baptists, since they did not teach believer's Baptism. Believer's Baptism was a major political issue, and argument against believers baptism was a fairly sure death warrant on the Continent and even in England in the 16th century.

Community entry - Barker

The Great Revival of 1801, 1802, 1803, and the Introduction of Shakerism http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohwarren/Beers/0267_great-revival.htm

"[...] There were other exercises which were not so common and are sufficiently described by their names, viz., rolling, running, dancing and the holy laugh. There were instances at Turtle Creek of spinning around on the foot after the manner of the whirling dervishes of the East. The most disgusting of all the exercises was called the “barks,” in which the subject not only imitated the bark of the dog, but sometimes ran upon all fours, growling, snarling and foaming at the mouth. That there were cases of this kind of brutish action cannot be doubted, but to the credit of human nature it is to be recorded that they were rare. It is noteworthy here that among the Convulsionistes of France seventy years before, there were persons similarly affected, some being called barkers and others mewers [...]."

Community entry - Barker

The Black Death and the Dancing Mania by J.F.C. Hecker [1]

"[...] There are some denominations of English Methodists which surpass, if possible, the French Convulsionnaires; and we may here mention in particular the Jumpers, among whom it is still more difficult than in the example given above to draw the line between religious ecstasy and a perfect disorder of the nerves; sympathy, however, operates perhaps more perniciously on them than on other fanatical assemblies. The sect of Jumpers was founded in the year 1760, in the county of Cornwall, by two fanatics, who were, even at that time, able to collect together a considerable party. Their general doctrine is that of the Methodists, and claims our consideration here only in so far as it enjoins them during their devotional exercises to fall into convulsions, which they are able to effect in the strangest manner imaginable. By the use of certain unmeaning words they work themselves up into a state of religious frenzy, in which they seem to have scarcely any control over their senses. They then begin to jump with strange gestures, repeating this exercise with all their might until they are exhausted, so that it not unfrequently happens that women who, like the Maenades, practise these religious exercises, are carried away from the midst of them in a state of syncope, whilst the remaining members of the congregations, for miles together, on their way home, terrify those whom they meet by the sight of such demoniacal ravings. There are never more than a few ecstatics, who, by their example, excite the rest to jump, and these are followed by the greatest part of the meeting, so that these assemblages of the Jumpers resemble for hours together the wildest orgies, rather than congregations met for Christian edification. In the United States of North America communities of Methodists have existed for the last sixty years. The reports of credible witnesses of their assemblages for divine service in the open air (camp meetings), to which many thousands flock from great distances, surpass, indeed, all belief; for not only do they there repeat all the insane acts of the French Convulsionnaires and of the English Jumpers, but the disorder of their minds and of their nerves attains at these meetings a still greater height. Women have been seen to miscarry whilst suffering under the state of ecstasy and violent spasms into which they are thrown, and others have publicly stripped themselves and jumped into the rivers. They have swooned away by hundreds, worn out with ravings and fits; and of the Barkers, who appeared among the Convulsionnaires only here and there, in single cases of complete aberration of intellect, whole bands are seen running on all fours, and growling as if they wished to indicate, even by their outward form, the shocking degradation of their human nature. At these camp- meetings the children are witnesses of this mad infatuation, and as their weak nerves are with the greatest facility affected by sympathy, they, together with their parents, fall into violent fits, though they know nothing of their import, and many of them retain for life some severe nervous disorder which, having arisen from fright and excessive excitement, will not afterwards yield to any medical treatment. "But enough of these extravagances, which even in our now days embitter the live of so many thousands, and exhibit to the world in the nineteenth century the same terrific form of mental disturbance as the St. Vitus's dance once did to the benighted nations of the Middle Ages."

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