ABSTRACT
Sitting in the silent Reading Room of the British Library, nestled between two diligent and well-seasoned scholars, the author plunged into the pile of rare books that she had just ordered at the circulation desk. The pile of books in front of the author was an odd amalgamation of materials that she had felt initially drawn to read. Published at the beginning of the Quaker movement, they were primarily accounts of the earliest Meetings for Worship, as described by Friends and non-Friends alike. Melvin Endy introduced the author to Fox’s ‘Book of Miracles’, a record of all the hands-on healings the founder and other Friends performed as they walked in the footsteps of Christ. George Fox had preached that he and all Friends must know their faith ‘experimentally’: that is, first-hand, experientially and viscerally. The knowledge the author had gained on Firbank Fell was not intellectual at all; rather, it had penetrated deep into her flesh.
