Sacred Energy

Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, taught that carnal union was the root of the Fall, and that her followers should live as brother and sister

Ann Lee's theology located humanity's fundamental sin specifically in sexual union itself, not in disobedience generally, which made lifelong celibacy for her followers a matter of doctrinal necessity rather than optional extra devotion.

Ann Lee, an English-born working-class woman who joined a radical Quaker offshoot before emigrating to America in 1774 and founding what became the United Society of Believers, known popularly as the Shakers, taught a theology in which the biblical Fall was reinterpreted specifically around sexuality: carnal relations between Adam and Eve, in her reading, were the origin of humanity's separation from God, not a subsequent or symbolic act. This reading is preserved in the Testimonies of the Life of Mother Ann Lee, compiled by her followers from oral accounts and community records after her death in 1784, which record her instructing believers to live together as spiritual brothers and sisters rather than as married couples, even among those who had been married before joining the community. Lee's own biography likely shaped this theology directly, she had borne four children who all died in infancy, and this personal experience of loss through childbirth is often cited by historians as part of what turned her toward associating sexuality with suffering rather than blessing. This made Shaker celibacy considerably more absolute in its theological grounding than most traditions in this collection, since it was framed as a correction of humanity's founding error rather than a chosen discipline layered onto an otherwise unproblematic institution of marriage.

Ann Lee's own experience of losing four infant children is frequently cited by historians as a likely influence on her theology linking sexuality to suffering.

Testimonies of the Life of Mother Ann Lee