ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the religious knowledge and belief are as likely to be found in the material and embodied as in more obviously discursive forms. It focuses on the Shakers and Shakerism in the nineteenth century, when the movement was at its height. However, the fact is that all religions must sustain a material culture if they are to remain in any sense visible both to one another and to others. Some religious groups may seem to have a richer material culture than others Catholicism and Hinduism spring to mind but no group can be said to have no material culture. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice the chapter examines the extent to which religious knowledge and belief are both embodied and materialized and consider the ways in which they are immanent in the immediate built environment of Shaker communities.
