http://www.pathsoflearning.net/articles_Quaker.php

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Quaker practice seems to confirm the pattern of spiritual development that Ken Wilber (1983) has identified in the history of consciousness: Over the course of many centuries and throughout diverse civilizations, he explains, religious understanding has evolved from magical practices to archetypal mythologies to intellectual models to direct apprehension of transpersonal reality.

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In so doing, they began to break free of cultural (mythological and ideological) identities that differentiate human beings and make them adversaries; they saw instead that a more fully realized spirituality reveals the universal source of human identity.

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A Spirituality of Social Justice

This religious viewpoint leads to potentially radical social and educational ideals, as the Society of Friends has amply demonstrated.

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Quakers have been led to proclaim “testimonies” against slavery, war, and exploitation, and their moral passion has supplied potent leadership and ideals to movements for social justice and peace. Numerous Friends have been moved by their spiritual awakening to “speak truth to power”—to confront injustices perpetrated by governments, armies and others with authority despite personal risk. At many times in the past three and a half centuries, Quaker activists in both England and the United States (and increasingly elsewhere) have sought to arouse a greater public commitment to values such as community, equality, simplicity, and nonviolence or “harmony.”

Friends have been involved in movements for prison reform, improved medical and psychiatric care, gender equality, human rights for Native Americans and other marginalized populations, conscientious objection to military service, environmentalism and other forms of political and humanitarian action.

Indeed, Quaker spirituality has had a profound influence on modern social movements, though it is not explicitly recognized very often. Recently, however, sociologist Paul Ray, who has studied so-called “cultural creatives” and the social vision they have carried forward from the 1960s, was asked about the “earlier struggles” that influenced the rise of social activism in that decade. “Well,” he replied, “you could argue that the Quakers started the whole thing.…” centuries earlier, along with a handful of other groups. “Those people did the first versions of [cultural] reframing—it’s just that the rest of the culture didn’t pick up on it at the time” (van Gelder, Ray and Anderson, 2001, p. 17).

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http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/quaker-influence.htm

Women's Rights
National Historical Park
New York

Quaker Influence

The Society of Friends, or Quakers, are followers of Englishman George Fox. During the 1600s Quakers fled England in large numbers to escape religious persecution in part because the leaders publicly challenged the English class system. Followers of Fox, Quakers, believed that all men and women were equal in the eyes of God and should listen to their "inner light" or conscience to guide their spiritual connection with God and the Bible.

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QUAKER INFLUENCE ON THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTION

The women's rights movement was rooted in the fertile ground of central New York. This area was known for sweeping reform, which burned across the landscape through village, town, and city like a prairie on fire. Much of this reform was due to the numerous members of the Society of Friends, Quakers, who made their homes here. A progressive branch of Quakers lived in and around Waterloo, New York. At a time in America when women had virtually no rights, these Quakers provided model relationships where men and women worked and lived in equality. How did their influence help make the first Women's Rights Convention a success? How did their progressive way of living affect us? A look at two of these Quaker families provides the answer.

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ABOLITION

The M'Clintock and the Hunt families were bound together by more than family relations. Both families adamantly opposed slavery and believed their lives should reflect their religious convictions.

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