Signs and Wonders in the Ministry of Maria Woodworth-Etter

By the early 1880s, reports of most unusual supernatural manifestations accompanying the ministry of Maria Woodworth-Etter were beginning to surface in press reports. The most prominent of these manifestations was what was described as the “trance” state.  This condition appears similar to a phenomenon that had surfaced in rural camp meetings about 80 years earlier. Then, however, something akin to the “trance” experience was in evidence and was often termed the “falling exercise.”

As the 19th century began, powerful revivals broke out in the rural wilderness in the form of camp meetings. Camp meetings were called that because those who attended, who were primarily farm families, came from near and far, bringing their farm wagons and camping in the woods.

The sheltering branches protected them from rain. The abundant trees allowed for the construction of rough benches and what were called “preacher’s stands.”

At the Cane Ridge camp meeting at a place known by that name in Kentucky, perhaps as many as 20,000—maybe more— camped under trees in a remote location. This was to hear fiery preaching and to praise God day and night. Many of those who attended Cane Ridge became subject to the “falling exercise.”

The phenomenon was nothing new. Countless individuals fell to the ground under the powerful preaching of John Wesley and George Whitefield during the previous century.

Falling might be compared to the modern experience of becoming what is called “slain in the Spirit,” a common experience in “charismatic” Christian meetings, were it not for some pronounced differences. The experience was often not at all the same.

Those who fall in modern Christian meetings are typically back on their feet within a few short moments. They tend to be easily brought out of their “slain in the Spirit” state and moved back to their seats when convenience so dictates.

The prostration experiences associated with Mrs. Woodworth’s ministry, however, were often radically different and far more powerful. Frequently, they were more akin to what was experienced in some of the early camp meetings, such as at Cane Ridge.

There, it is said:

Some of the fallen individuals did not even appear to breathe. They could be picked up and stacked up like logs without disturbing them.

In fact, those who had succumbed to the “falling exercise” were often picked up and carried off to a more convenient location where they would be out of the way. In the process they remained undisturbed and did not emerge from their trance for many hours or perhaps even several days.

In Mrs. Woodworth’s meetings, some individuals were so affected that they could be pricked by a pin or picked up and carried, without disturbing them at all. Those attending Woodworth’s meetings sometimes remained in the trance state for as long as eight days.

In some cases they did not fall at all, but simply became frozen in their tracks.

Then they might resist all attempts to bring them out of that condition. Oftentimes their eyes were wide open, while not a single muscle of their body moved.

Observers tried to concoct all sorts of explanations for these phenomena. Some claimed that she drugged her followers, others that she hypnotized them. Occasionally someone would attempt to construct scientific-sounding analyses of the trance phenomenon, but they only sounded silly at best.

One newspaper reporter, as an example of a scientific-sounding but nonsensical explanation, commented that it was a matter of “ecstasy which is produced by a concentration of the mind through one set of faculties to the exclusion of all others.”42 The same writer claimed that similar trance states were said to result in ancient times from the worship of the goddess Venus.

The reporter commented that although opinions differed about the trance state, “one thing is sure, it is real.” Real or not, people just did not know what to make of it. Another newspaper asked, “Is it contagious or infectious, epidemic or endemic, good or evil?”43By the time of Maria Woodworth’s early ministry, the “falling exercise” and trance-like states associated with early 19th century camp meetings had become all but forgotten by most Christians. Mrs. Woodworth, however, caused public attention to once again be riveted on these types of manifestations.

As Mrs. Woodworth ministered, evangelistic movements led by such big-name evangelists as Dwight L. Moody (1837– 1899) and Thomas Harrison (1854-) (the “boy evangelist”) were in their heyday. In their meetings, such phenomena as falling, trances, and visions were strangely absent.

A correspondent for the Herald of Gospel Liberty noted in 1885, however, that Maria Woodworth’s meetings did not fit the late 19th-century norm:

I attended one meeting at New Corner, [Indiana,] conducted by the lady evangelist, Mrs. Woodworth, and saw some in trances. I talked to different ones who had been in trances and had beheld visions of the better land. One was in a trance sixteen hours. I count it a manifestation of the power of God, similar to the manifestations at the Cane Ridge revival in 1801.44

When such experiences began surfacing in Mrs. Woodworth’s meetings, the sheer novelty resulted in extensive press coverage.

Her crowds and the press were both perplexed: What was the cause of these experiences? Was it God, the devil, hypnotism, mesmerism, or simply religious hysteria?

Even as early as February 1881, a Pennsylvania newspaper reported that an Indiana woman fell into a trance at a revival meeting.45  She remained in that state for six days.

While the article does not mention Maria Woodworth or any minister in particular, she was very likely associated with the meeting, either directly or indirectly. Newspapers quickly began to pick up on the trances associated with Mrs. Woodworth. Literally countless articles (certainly not all of which have ever been found in modern times) in newspapers across the country commented on the strange woman evangelist and the trances in her meetings.

Once she had entered ministry, the experience of entering into trances accompanied by visions seemed to rub off onto others. As an 1885 newspaper account expressed it, not only did Maria Woodworth enter into trances herself, but she “so influences her congregations that they also go into a trance state.”46As prostrations and trances became more common in her meetings, her reputation continued to grow. Of course, attendance swelled as the curious crowded into her services.

An 1884 newspaper mentioned that she was personally entering a trance in “almost every meeting.”47 Before long, she was being referred to as Mrs. Woodworth, the “trance evangelist.” Occasionally, she was given other nicknames: the “shouting evangelist,”48 and even the “electric evangelist.”49 After her second marriage, when she became known as Maria Woodworth-Etter, she was also called “the hyphenated evangelist.”

Some saw the phenomena associated with her ministry as genuine manifestations of the power of God, while others saw them as simply the result of hypnotism, hysteria, or what was commonly called “religious enthusiasm.” When a newspaper reported that she had “fallen over in a heap” during a revival meeting in Sheldon, Indiana in 1884, the paper attributed this to “an excess of religious fervor.”50Some claimed that she possessed mysterious occult powers that were the result of carrying powerful lucky charms with her. On one occasion, a reporter told her, “Some say that you have a rabbit’s paw, taken from a graveyard at midnight, and that it is studded with turtle eyes.” “Well, I never heard that before,” Mrs. Woodworth replied, “but I suppose some foolish ones talk that way.” She continued,

"You would be surprised at the foolish ideas that some people have. Why, they say I wear an electric belt. Well, so I do, please God! It reaches to the heavenly throne and the Lord sends down shocks to the sinners."51

As the press increasingly picked up on the goings-on of this unconventional woman evangelist, sensational reports of phenomena at her meetings continued to fill columns of papers, especially in the Midwest. As often as not, she was simply made the object of ridicule.

A Fort Wayne, Indiana newspaper complained in 1884 that she had “failed to do her great emotional flop-over act”52 while holding a meeting in a small town near the city. The same paper had announced in a tongue-in-cheek manner that, at those meetings, special seating would be reserved for “ungodly news- paper men.” Another article claimed that she had worked what the paper called the “trance racket” to “perfection.”53On the other hand, many of those early reports also noted that sinners were coming to Christ in droves in her meetings. An 1884 account referred to her as the “sensational” evangelist who had converted the Indiana towns of Monroeville, Hoagland, and Sheldon.54A bit later, while ministering in the tiny hamlet of Zanesville, Indiana, she was said to be “yanking Zanesville sinners by the dozen.”55

Five days later the same newspaper reported that she had “succeeded in converting every person in town but one.”56

A couple weeks after that, she was said to have “converted all the people in Markle,”57 another small Indiana town.

By the mid-1880s, much of the Midwest had heard of Mrs. Woodworth, and whole towns appear to have been thrown into a frenzy whenever she arrived. One of her 1885 meetings in Indianapolis, held in a Methodist church, was reported by no less than the New York Times and the Boston Globe.

Both papers quoted a letter from Indiana that noted the unusual manifestations accompanying her meetings:

Scores have been stricken down at these meetings, and whatever form the limbs or body chance to assume in that position, immovable as a statue, they remained— sometimes the hands were uplifted far above the head, the eyes open wide, and not a muscle of the entire body moved; they were as immovable as in death. Many have gone to these meetings in a spirit of jest, and were the first to be under the influence pervading the assembly. The people are wonderfully excited, and neighbor asks neighbor, “What is it?”58The reference to those who attended her meetings in “a spirit of jest” sometimes being among the first to succumb to the manifestations was echoed in various later articles. One man, who interrupted one of Maria Woodworth’s meetings to hurl profane accusations at her, suddenly found himself incapable of speaking.

When asked by others what happened to him, he answered, “Go up yourself and find out.”59

Others who came to mock the trances found themselves among the first to fall under what became termed “the power.”

In a much earlier era, similar experiences had met those who came to ridicule the early camp meetings. There, it was said, individuals who were deriding the camp meeting phenomena often suddenly fell to the ground, in many cases in mid-sentence, as though shot by a gun.

Visions of Heaven

At almost the same time that Philo Woodworth was applying for a pension, his wife’s meetings were exhibiting in great abundance the sorts of supernatural manifestations that had brought her fame and notoriety back in Indiana. “They cause the brain to whirl in wonder,” declared a St. Louis newspaper.241Individuals frequently entered the trance state and saw visions of heaven. At the same time, curious onlookers in the back of the tent, who desired to see a spectacle, would occasionally shout, “More light!” “Give us light!”242A 13-year-old boy was asked what it was like to see heaven:

Oh, it was lovely. . . . I thought that I was taken away  up in the air some place, where there was sweet music all the time. There were angels flying all around. They had big white wings, and had on long white gowns. Their faces shown bright and like gold and in the middle of them stood Jesus. His face and form were so bright that it would hurt your eyes to look at him. Way down below . . . there was a big crowd of people . . . and they seemed to be waiting for the world to come to an end. They looked so bright and happy and the angels seemed to be so glad all the time, I want to see it again.243“Did you know where you were all the time?” a reporter asked. “Oh, yes; people kept punching against me as I lay there, and of course that broke the thing once in a while, but it was just grand while it lasted.”

Occasionally, individuals in the Woodworth tent in St. Louis would be seen to make climbing motions, as though trying to climb an invisible ladder.

They were presumed to be seeing the Jacob’s ladder of the Bible, extending upward into heaven.

E.S. Greenwood, who was Maria Woodworth’s volunteer assistant in her St. Louis meetings, offered a comment about, as he termed them, “those who fall.” He said that they “invariably seem to strain upwards, holding their hands aloft and sometimes even trying to climb up.”244Occasionally in Maria Woodworth’s meetings, not just in St. Louis, individuals were known to see Jacob’s ladder extending to heaven. Mrs. Woodworth herself had spoken a few years earlier in a meeting in Kokomo, Indiana about climbing a ladder to heaven. In 1885 she noted that: If we are climbing Jacob’s ladder, as we should, we will be happy Christians, and will be praising God, telling the good things he is doing for us continually. Shout and make a joyful noise to God.245(*Footnote citations can be reviewed in Maria Woodworth-Etter: The Evangelist.)