Indian Shaker Church

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Indian Shaker Church. A new syncretist religion among Indians of NW USA and British Columbia. (There is no relation to white Shakers or Quakers.) John Slocum (?1840–97?) was a Squaxin logger near Olympia, baptized as a Roman Catholic. In 1881, he claimed to have visited heaven during a coma and to have been given a new way. In 1882, his wife Mary's shaking paroxysm was regarded as God's Spirit and cured John of an illness. Together they founded the Shaker Church, with moral reforms and spiritual healing through shaking and dancing rites in place of shamanism.