The Shakers (United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing)

Denomination·Founded 1747 CE·Three members at Sabbathday Lake, New Gloucester, Maine, as of August 2025 — the only Shakers in the world. Membership at the peak in the 1840s is usually put between four and six thousand across eighteen or nineteen communities from Maine to Kentucky; the figures are estimates and the sources differ.

Judaism → Christianity → Catholicism → Protestantism → The Shakers (United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing)

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community — National Park ServiceArchiveHancock Shaker Village

Branch
Overview Belief 3How to Live 1Practice 1Stories & Scripture 1Community 1 You × The Shakers (United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing) Discussion

Stories

the narratives it tells itself
The Era of Manifestations — when the dead started sending things. From 1837 young sisters at Watervliet began receiving messages, songs and drawings from Mother Ann and from spirits, and for fifteen years the communities were flooded with gifts: thousands of songs, secret written languages, and the gift drawings that are now in museums. Read it in full — context →

The Scriptures

the texts that carry the stories — and everything else

The Bible

Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee (1816)

The Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing (1808)

The Millennial Laws (1821, revised 1845)

Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

Built on Hatchable