Sleeping Preacher
Rachel Baker, known as the Sleeping Preacher, was born at Pelham, Massachusetts, in 1794. When she was nine years old her parents removed to Marcellus, N.Y. As a child she had a religious training, her parents being devout people, and she early manifested a strong conviction of her sinfulness. In 1811 she showed symptoms of somnambulism, in which she seemed stricken with horror and despondency. But gradually her mind became calmer, and delivered discourses of singular clearness, marked by a devout and solemn tone. These fits of somnambulism, or trance-speaking, seized her regularly every day, and soon became habitual. She began and concluded her devotional exercises with prayer, between which came the discourse. Then a state of apparent physical distress supervened, and sobs and groans shook her frame. At length the paroxysm passed, and she subsided into a natural sleep. Change of scene did not affect these exercises, but the administration of opium would interrupt them. Her trance discourses were afterwards published. Smagorad, a magic book: (See France.)