Director Mona Fastvold’s new film, “The Testament of Ann Lee,” features actor Amanda Seyfried in the titular role: the English spiritual seeker who brought the Shaker movement to America. The trailer literally writhes with snakes intercut amid scenes of emotional turmoil, religious ecstasy, orderly and disorderly dancing – and sex. Intense and sometimes menacing music underpins it all: the sounds of the enraptured, singing their way to a fantastic and unimaginable ceremony.

The trailer is riveting and unsettling – just as the celibate Shakers were to the average observer during their American emergence in the 1780s.

I sit on the Board of Trustees of Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts, where some of the film was shot, though I have not seen the film, which is due to be released on Christmas Day. I was the curator at Hancock from 2001 to 2009 and have studied the Shakers for more than 25 years, publishing numerous books and articles on the sect.

Fascination with the Shakers is enduring, as are they. The sect once had several thousand members; today, three Shakers remain, practicing the faith at their village in Sabbathday Lake, Maine, as they have since 1783.

Many characteristics of Shaker life and belief set them apart from other Protestant Christians, but their name derives from one of the most obvious. Early Shakers manifested the holy spirit that they believed dwelled within them by shaking violently in worship. While they called themselves “Believers,” observers dubbed them “Shakers.” Members eventually adopted the name, although........

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