MDDM Chapter 44: Quakers, Prison and Meditation

[Terrance]

John Bailey wrote:
> 
> Not really M&D but all this talk reminds me of the 'Model Prison' which
> existed in Port Arthur, Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land) a little later.
> Established by Quakers, one of the notable characteristics of this jail was
> the complete silence and solitude it enforced: prisoners were kept mostly
> separate, eye contact was forbidden as was all speech, even the guards wore
> special slippers to minimise sound. The idea, as I understand it, was a very
> Quakerite notion of redemption through meditation, voluntary or otherwise.
> This prison was also restricted to chronic offenders or those considered
> irredeemable.

Involuntary meditation sounds like a very difficult thing to pull off.
Reminds me that in the 1660s thousands of Quakers were sitting in prison
in England, not all of them meditating silently, voluntarily or
involuntarily. The prisons were so crowded, men and women confined
together, that many died. It was against the law to attend a Quaker
meeting. Meetings were broken up, people arrested. The Quakers met in
the streets and practiced passive resistance. When the cops grabbed a
man or women speaking, another would take his/her place until hauled off
to prison. The Quakers did not suffer alone, the 1662 Act of Uniformity,
an attempt to get all men and women to think alike, sent clergy with
independent thoughts to prison. Fox was picked up. He sat in prison for
about a year. When they gave him a chance to break the silence with an
oath to the Church, he refused and was moved to a hole in Scarborough
castle. Some Quakers faired  far worse than Fox, they died in prison or
on ships when they, like the Rev.. Cherrycoke, were forced to sea, some
to the to island of Jamaica. Tough times, plague, the London fire. Many
a mad preacher were running about proclaiming the second coming, the
wrath of God. Fox had visions in prison. One was beautiful, peaceful,
but one was the destruction of the Turks. There is wonderful tale about
the Quaker confrontation with two men who claimed to be the two
witnesses mentioned in the book of Revelation. 
Worth reading to get a sense of these awakenings of religious zeal. This
was all an hundred years prior to the drawing of the line in America,
but we should not forget how intense this struggle, this dance, this
hunt for Christ was. 

 “All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended
by silence. Silence is the consecration of the universe. Silence is the
only voice of our God.” 

	--Herman Melville