Truth Seeker on the Holy Mount:DeRobigne Mortimer Bennett’s Descent from theShaker Feast Ground

The Shaker Ministry at New Lebanon were jolted when, in August 1837, young girls in the South Family of the Watervliet, New York, community began reporting visionary journeys to the spirit world.Scholars have referred to this period as the Era of Manifestations.The Shakers called it "Mother's Work" or the "New Era."As Brother Isaac Newton Youngs described it, "the windows of heaven and the avenues of the spirit world were set open, and innumerable gifts were showered down, of visions, revelations, inspiration, messages from spirits, spiritual presents and new songs in profusion." 1 These heavenly gifts were received by "instruments," or "visionists," who functioned as spiritual mediums.Over the past fifty years, many scholars have devoted attention to the variety of ways in which spiritual gifts were manifested to the Shakers in the New Era.Pioneering