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The power was undoubtedly hypnotism. The sensation produced was evt- 
dently that of hypnotic influence. 
Once while I was attending one of these shaker meetings one of the 
actors was hypnotized. This was February 16, 1909. He had been stand- 
ing with hands extended outward and upward for more than an hour 
while the shakers were dancing around him like the waves surging around 
a rock at sea in a stormy time. He was a novitiate at least for that night. 
He was trying to get the “power.” He got it. He jumped up and down 
and stamped the floor in a circular movement, then for some minutes while 
his hands whirled, gyrated and his muscles quivered and jerked in a horri- 
ble manner. So hard did he stamp that he broke a hole through the floor. 
Soon he threw his hands up over his head and fell heavily to the 
floor. As he did so his muscles quivered as though he were in the dying 
stage. His flesh then became rigid. At this climax his pulse ran down 
to 57; five minutes later it was up to 60. Then as the spell was being 
broken twenty minutes later, it ran up to 76. The spell lasted forty min- 
utes. Some of the Indians were seared, thinking the novitlate was dying, 
and rushed out of the hall. The performance over him was a complete 
hypnotie performance. The usual mode of removing hypnotic power was 
used. Hands were rubbed down his body and then the power thus gathered 
would be hurled to the four winds by a slapping, vigorous sliding of the 
hands across each other. When the ‘power’ was removed so that con- 
sciousness was restored, the novitiate entered the dance vigorously again. 
Effect of Shakerism upon the actors: The terrible shaking that has 
been mentioned here and in the previous article is bound to undermine the 
health of any person who will participate in it. Besides, the heating up 
of one’s self as is done in the shaker halls and then the going out of doors 
immediately afterwards, tend to the giving of colds to the participants, 
especially in the winter months. This undoubtedly, will lead to pneu- 
monia, consumption and death to many. Again, the horrid wrying and 
contorting of the faces will cause them to be wrinkled prematurely. 
The muscle-quivering and the hypnotic influence is bound, also, to have a 
damaging effect upon the nerves and mind of the actor; this dance is 
kept up all day every Sunday and from three to four hours every Thursday. 
Furthermore, in the doctoring of the sick the shakers are fanatical in the 
belief that shaking over the patient will cure it. ‘AIL shake—no medicine” 
has killed many an Indian and will in time decimate the tribes holding 
such beliefs. 
