One Friend's Journey

This essay begins with the presentation of an abbreviated historical framework for one of the most enduring, significant, and widely held Quaker beliefs, that of inward, immediate, and direct revelation. This belief is charted with particular reference to significant writings by seventeenth-century Quaker leaders George Fox and Robert Barclay. Many contemporary Quakers believe that direct revelation, also known as "the Inward Light of Christ," is a primary source of knowledge, that it originally inspired and presently empowers the scriptures, that it is superior to reason alone, and that it discovers validation in the gathered Quaker meeting when it achieves consensus. Some of the implications of this experiential epistemological position are then illustrated with reference to two anecdotes drawn from the author's attempts to discover divine guidance in scholarly writing projects.