Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty two, a paper called The Spirit Messenger
Speaker 1: told people new to spiritualism how to hold their very
Speaker 1: own seance. Who right, Okay, let's get some seance music going.
Speaker 1: Huh nice? Okay. A seance or a spirit circle requires
Speaker 1: this of the sitter, according to the publication quote, First,
Speaker 1: let none join your circle but those who feel attracted.
Speaker 1: Invite none but those who feel a desire to search
Speaker 1: for truth and would be congenial with you. Second, when
Speaker 1: you have a medium present, communications are promised conditionally. If
Speaker 1: you come with candid minds and a desire to know
Speaker 1: the truth, the spirits will endeavor to communicate with you. Third,
Speaker 1: let one among you be appointed to repeat the alphabet. Fourth,
Speaker 1: your meetings should be opened with singing, and clothes with singing,
Speaker 1: and all should pray, ferishing an inward desire to have
Speaker 1: good spirits with you or those who are the most progressed. Five,
Speaker 1: in the absence of a medium, the circle should be
Speaker 1: formed with the same harmonious feelings, and the spirits be
Speaker 1: with you and impress with truthful thoughts. Six. Those who
Speaker 1: unite with the circle must not indulge in inharmonious feelings, strife,
Speaker 1: or bitterness, but follow the example of Christ in doing
Speaker 1: good seven all strive to live cheerful or happy, and
Speaker 1: there will be a corresponding harmony between you and the
Speaker 1: spheres unquote. Now, obviously, the mid nineteenth century wasn't the
Speaker 1: first time that people had tried to make contact with
Speaker 1: the dead in human history. They had been at it
Speaker 1: first centuries. Ancient mythology and history is full of accounts
Speaker 1: of contact with the dead through necromancy, which shares qualities
Speaker 1: of the seance, but is not the seance. Necromancy, unlike
Speaker 1: the mediums who are inspired by the Fox Sisters of Hydesville,
Speaker 1: New York in the forties, often involved violence in its
Speaker 1: early history, featuring a combination of ritualized words spells if
Speaker 1: you will, and an action, often a sacrifice. Necromancy appears
Speaker 1: in some of the most famous early stories we have.
Speaker 1: So just kick it back to your middle school brain
Speaker 1: for a second and think of Odysseus, who talks to
Speaker 1: a witch who is able to conjure the spirit of
Speaker 1: a crewman in odissease his mother and even the mythic
Speaker 1: hero Hercules for him to get advice. And yes, they
Speaker 1: all drink the blood of sheep it's the whole thing Orpheus.
Speaker 1: This whole story involves going down to the spirit world
Speaker 1: to rescue his wife from the underworld, and Hercules himself
Speaker 1: goes down there too. In ancient Rome, the stories were
Speaker 1: even louder and more violent. One of my favorite is
Speaker 1: when a witch screams, do I ever jet? These spells
Speaker 1: out consuming human and trails incredible energy. Let's let's bring
Speaker 1: up back. Some Roman emperors actually employed necromancers, most notably
Speaker 1: Emperor Nero, which is interesting because I feel like he
Speaker 1: was a pretty chill guy. Otherwise, there's also records of
Speaker 1: necromancy and killed the history and myths. It is featured
Speaker 1: throughout the Middle Ages in early Christianity, where some of
Speaker 1: the earliest cautionary tales exist. One that comes right to
Speaker 1: mind is King Saul outlawing the practice of necromancy and
Speaker 1: then seeking out a spirit guide anyways, and action that
Speaker 1: leads to the loss of a huge battle as well
Speaker 1: as the life of him and his son. These appear
Speaker 1: alongside uh good Christian ghosts, which are different for reasons.
Speaker 1: I mean Easter ghost holiday Phononically, there's actually a lot
Speaker 1: of ghost holidays. There is Dia de los Muertos in Mexico.
Speaker 1: So when in the Celtic tradition the Hungry Ghost festival
Speaker 1: or Yulawn in China, Oban in the Japanese Buddhist tradition
Speaker 1: gaid in Haiti or Easter where Jesus is famously dead.
Speaker 1: But there's one important element that distinguishes the seance from
Speaker 1: virtually all of these holidays and many of these myths.
Speaker 1: In these holidays, the ghosts come to us. We are
Speaker 1: on their schedule. In a seance, we are the ones
Speaker 1: calling them. In these stories, the person who seeks out
Speaker 1: contact with the dead for their own personal comfort as
Speaker 1: opposed to the interest of others or to serve their
Speaker 1: own God are usually punished in seances. That's the whole point.
Speaker 1: It's a small distinction, but an important one. The seance,
Speaker 1: as spiritualists use it was one of the first major
Speaker 1: innovations of the faith. But the history of spiritualist rituals
Speaker 1: came to be so much more, some of which has
Speaker 1: fallen by the wayside, and other practices that are still
Speaker 1: used in Cassadega today. Today is all about turning it
Speaker 1: up to an eleven. We're going to go to Cassadega
Speaker 1: to check out the colossic spiritualist ritual of table tipping,
Speaker 1: and check in with the Fox Sisters who invented the
Speaker 1: practice of the science on their first national tour, and
Speaker 1: see what happened during their first brush with public backlash. So, okay,
Speaker 1: we're starting our science. Now, let's get this going. Step three,
Speaker 1: let's get singing. Somebody once told me the world is
Speaker 1: just kidding. Start the theme song wore. All right, I'm
Speaker 1: back in Cassadega, Florida, and I'm waiting for a friend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have friends. I'm walking around looking for snacks, of
Speaker 1: which there are none to be found. But on my
Speaker 1: walk around the neighborhood, I do spot this beautiful candy
Speaker 1: colored lavender house, four bedrooms and a small gazebo on
Speaker 1: sale for a kind of stunningly reasonable price. But it's
Speaker 1: a nonstarter. You need the approval of the Southern Cassadega
Speaker 1: Spiritualist Camp to live there, due to its status as
Speaker 1: a protected official campgrounds home. This approval process is referenced
Speaker 1: extensively on the Cassadega, Florida and lily Dale, New York websites.
Speaker 1: Sure you can live in a gorgeous house for a
Speaker 1: low price, But you first need to prove that you
Speaker 1: are worthy and involved with the community, and in a
Speaker 1: move that is a little exclusionary but makes sense to
Speaker 1: me in the circumstances. Mediums who have completed the equivalent
Speaker 1: of a three or more year university course slash unpaid
Speaker 1: internship to live there will get preference. But I let
Speaker 1: myself have the fantasy for a minute. Anyways, a friend
Speaker 1: and I come down to Cassadega. We learned to immune
Speaker 1: with the dead. We live a minute's walk from a
Speaker 1: gorgeous public park and community, and well, I guess we
Speaker 1: would need to get a car because the only place
Speaker 1: to get food in all of Cassadega is a place
Speaker 1: called Sinatra's Restaurante, and it's open five days out of
Speaker 1: the week. But the ear here smells so fresh, and
Speaker 1: it's attempting idea. But to quote the man who I
Speaker 1: am taking today, is able tipping class from the reverend doctor.
Speaker 1: I know another reverend doctor, the reverend doctor Lewis Gates.
Speaker 1: He will say to me in a reading I get
Speaker 1: from him a couple of days later, you have no
Speaker 1: business in Florida. Okay, he's probably right, but that's a
Speaker 1: little harsh but I don't know he's going to say
Speaker 1: that yet. At this point, Reverend Doctor Lewis Gates is
Speaker 1: little more than a name on a website to me.
Speaker 1: But unlike most reverends and mediums at the camp, he's
Speaker 1: got deep roots here. He's a third generation medium, raised
Speaker 1: by a medium mother and a Baptist priest father. And
Speaker 1: he'll tell us that he still uses the deck of
Speaker 1: tarot cards that belonged to his grandmother. Now, one of
Speaker 1: the defining traits of modern spiritualism is its seemingly intentional
Speaker 1: lack of central figure. But for my money, if Cassadega
Speaker 1: at present has one defining figure, it appears to be
Speaker 1: Reverend Dr Lewis. He's virtually everywhere during my time there.
Speaker 1: He's at services, he's doing healings, he's headlining the message
Speaker 1: service as it were, he's going on walks, he's attending services,
Speaker 1: he's not even technically participating it. And he's got a
Speaker 1: big personality. He's a real animated guy and probably the
Speaker 1: best candidate to show us how tables can connect us
Speaker 1: with the spirit realm, both because he has a lot
Speaker 1: of experience and because he has this unique ability to
Speaker 1: sell a group of people mostly new to the religion
Speaker 1: of Spiritualism on one of its more esoteric experiences. Another
Speaker 1: of these more obscure ideas that he specializes in that
Speaker 1: I find particularly fascinating is trance mediumship, a form of
Speaker 1: mental mediumship where a spirit communicates through a medium using
Speaker 1: their own voice and mannerisms. Reverend Dr Lewis writes on
Speaker 1: his website about a spirit that he channels most often,
Speaker 1: whose name is Lucerne, who he identifies as quote being
Speaker 1: from another dimension unquote. Lucern started coming to him many
Speaker 1: years ago, so for comparison, Reverend Dr Lewis Gates, sounds
Speaker 1: like this, we have a fear of leaving people behind.
Speaker 1: I'll leaving our life behind, our vibration. We are the
Speaker 1: fear kind of what we're going to see when we
Speaker 1: open our eyes on the other side. And Locern sounds
Speaker 1: like this, when you actually despaired world to come here,
Speaker 1: you pick your place in the city and state of
Speaker 1: your bath, in the city and country of your bath,
Speaker 1: my kingdom for a single meeting with Ucern. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: Lucern is not making an appearance in Cassadaga today. Instead,
Speaker 1: my friend and I are taking a class in the
Speaker 1: Reverend Dr Lewis's physical mediumship through table tipping. My friend
Speaker 1: is from Orlando, about a half hour away, and she
Speaker 1: is coming in completely cold, so buckle in right away.
Speaker 1: She has this combination of wonder and conviction about how
Speaker 1: the world works that is fascinating to me. I've never
Speaker 1: actually met this friend in real life before. We met
Speaker 1: around six months ago through unionization efforts for podcasters, which listener,
Speaker 1: let me tell you worked out unionize your workplaces. But
Speaker 1: this is the first time we've actually met in a
Speaker 1: time where I sometimes forget that I haven't met people
Speaker 1: in person in a while. She parked in front of
Speaker 1: the bookstore and doesn't know whether to comment on how
Speaker 1: bizarre it is that this place exists so close to
Speaker 1: where she grew up, or to just kind of take
Speaker 1: in the experience. She starts by telling me that I'm
Speaker 1: so much taller than she thought, which is something I
Speaker 1: get a lot. You know, Jamie, I didn't expect you
Speaker 1: to be this tall. Well, guess what, I'm six ft
Speaker 1: tall and my personality is hard five six all right,
Speaker 1: I don't have to disclose that to you. Nice to
Speaker 1: meet you too. She comes into the gift shop with
Speaker 1: me as the class is about to start, and immediately
Speaker 1: picks up on one of the more obvious and polarizing
Speaker 1: aspects of Cassadega and of American spiritualism on the whole.
Speaker 1: It's extremely white, she says, quote, what is this? Is
Speaker 1: this white people culture? I look around nervously, already feeling
Speaker 1: like my most recent encounter with the Spiritualist had left
Speaker 1: me a bit at a disadvantage. My goal for today
Speaker 1: is to be here, be present, try not to piss
Speaker 1: anyone off, and show that I'm genuinely interested so that
Speaker 1: the board of the Spiritualists who control public relations don't
Speaker 1: tell me to go fuck myself. But it feels weird.
Speaker 1: So I lean over to my friend and I tell
Speaker 1: her I don't really know what table tipping is, but
Speaker 1: surely Reverend Dr Lewis is going to tell us what
Speaker 1: it is. At the beginning of the two hour table
Speaker 1: tipping session, right, I noticed a few things about the
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis Educational Room that I didn't at the
Speaker 1: message service earlier in the day, particularly this one poster
Speaker 1: sized papyrus font graphic reading proclamation beneath Cassadega's signature, some
Speaker 1: flower loco everything is significant here, and so it stands
Speaker 1: to reason that the sunflower is as well. I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to trace the history of who decided that the
Speaker 1: sunflower was the symbol of the spiritualists, but it's one
Speaker 1: that has always symboled constancy and can be found on
Speaker 1: nearly every branded item in the camp. There's maybe about
Speaker 1: forty people at the afternoon table tipping class. Our chairs
Speaker 1: are surrounding Reverend Dr Lewis Gates and his fellow Cassadega
Speaker 1: medium and spouse Marie Gaines. They stand in the center
Speaker 1: of the meeting room with three tables of various sciences,
Speaker 1: all of which have three legs. I'm about to learn
Speaker 1: way more about the other people in this room than
Speaker 1: I thought I was going to. Within minutes, I will
Speaker 1: know that there's a man whose father had died just
Speaker 1: weeks before, who he was desperate to make contact with
Speaker 1: in spite of his disc belief in the great beyond.
Speaker 1: I would learn about the old woman who comes every
Speaker 1: time this workshop is held in an attempt to make
Speaker 1: contact with her dead pets. I would meet the Cassadega
Speaker 1: regulars who want to say hello to their dead relatives
Speaker 1: that they speak to on the tables all the time.
Speaker 1: I meet the curious goth girls making a day trip
Speaker 1: together after the first one of them got their driver's license.
Speaker 1: The German tourist girls on a semester abroad who gets
Speaker 1: scared and leave in the middle. The middle aged women
Speaker 1: who are there to support their friend as she embarks
Speaker 1: on the goal of becoming a medium and maybe going
Speaker 1: to night class question mark. And I'm there with my
Speaker 1: friend too, So let me give you a feel for
Speaker 1: Louis and Marie Gates. He wears a Hawaiian shirt, more
Speaker 1: casual than the Sunday dressing of just an hour before.
Speaker 1: And Marie, who grew up as a Quaker, and I
Speaker 1: later noticed walks of real footsteps behind her husband on
Speaker 1: their morning walks as they take their cat around in
Speaker 1: a stroller. Iconic love that for them. They both have
Speaker 1: very distinct personalities. His is booming and hers is observational
Speaker 1: and at a few choice points a little quietly sarcastic
Speaker 1: towards her husband. They act as if we all know
Speaker 1: exactly what table tipping is, which is a huge mistake,
Speaker 1: if the confused faces of most of the people in
Speaker 1: the room are any indication. But they banter like a
Speaker 1: married couple because they are a married couple. Here's Louis
Speaker 1: Gates being introduced at a Sunday service in Cassadega the
Speaker 1: week after I left by Marie at a service where
Speaker 1: because the Valentine's Day, a number of spiritualists had just
Speaker 1: renewed their wedding vows. At this time, I would like
Speaker 1: to bring up our pastor, Reverend Dr Louis Gates, pastor, medium, healer, teacher,
Speaker 1: an awesome husband. Yeah, I wanted to speak today about
Speaker 1: our commitment to each other, our commitment to the universe,
Speaker 1: our commitment to our own being within our lives. A
Speaker 1: lot of times we forget ourselves as we move into
Speaker 1: different situations. Today we committed our connection to the individual
Speaker 1: that we married as our renewal vows. Again, we had
Speaker 1: a few connect to their higher connection to themselves. But
Speaker 1: we always have to realize that we have to nurture
Speaker 1: our being in this lifetime. We have to nurture ourselves.
Speaker 1: We have to connect ourselves to this higher sense of consciousness. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're a team and they practice out of the same
Speaker 1: building around the corner. But today we are table tipping
Speaker 1: and they get right into it without explaining to you
Speaker 1: what the funk is going on. This seems to be
Speaker 1: the general practice in the area, though, these assumptions that
Speaker 1: you understand what's happening, things like yes, spirit is real, Yes,
Speaker 1: you're going to talk to the spirit. Yes, right now, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go. Oh this table. Yeah, it's made with the
Speaker 1: house of George Colby, the man who founded Cassadega. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course his house burned down, and of course we
Speaker 1: retrofitted the banister into a table. What question could you
Speaker 1: possibly have? It's your turn. We hope you thought about
Speaker 1: who you wanted to hear from from the great Beyond
Speaker 1: before you arrived. Louis does do us the service of
Speaker 1: introducing the three tables he's brought with him. One of
Speaker 1: a pretty small coffee table that falls far below his
Speaker 1: I would say about six ft five frame. One is
Speaker 1: a medium sized TV dinner table that your grandma would
Speaker 1: set her coffee on, which tween episodes of soap operas.
Speaker 1: And then there's this larger table, this pale blue George
Speaker 1: Colby table that will be using today, one that has
Speaker 1: been made specifically to Louis Gates's body's specifications, and which
Speaker 1: his wife Marie can make work as well as in
Speaker 1: use the table to get in touch with the ghosts.
Speaker 1: He says this of the George Colby table, where I,
Speaker 1: in just a couple of minutes will be speaking with
Speaker 1: my dead brother. I need one so I don't have
Speaker 1: to stoop down, you know. Louis Gates gave a speech
Speaker 1: at Gala Day in Cassadega just the day before about
Speaker 1: an equally esoteric spiritualist practice called spirit trumpets, essentially an
Speaker 1: older spiritualist tradition in which spirits will make instruments move
Speaker 1: and play. Today, he tells us that the tables for
Speaker 1: table tipping need to have three legs for the Father,
Speaker 1: Son and Holy Spirit. Something about three legs just works,
Speaker 1: he says, and that any table will do, but the bigger,
Speaker 1: bulkier ones are his personal preference. He says that he's
Speaker 1: blessed the space before we entered. This involves his saying
Speaker 1: a prayer in each corner of the room to clear
Speaker 1: negative energy, and being the one who said the prayer
Speaker 1: automatically makes him the alpha of the workshop. He is
Speaker 1: responsible for our spiritual safety. Rooms can hold onto energy
Speaker 1: positive and negative, he explains to us, So you have
Speaker 1: to be very careful. He uses the example of the
Speaker 1: way that you can enter a space where something horrible
Speaker 1: has happened and you can somehow just feel it, feel
Speaker 1: that something isn't right, or to borrow an example of
Speaker 1: the room that we're currently standing in, a hall where
Speaker 1: there were fundraising dances during both World Wars and where
Speaker 1: mediums say they can hear music and joyful foots steps
Speaker 1: while they're on nighttime walks. It's not that these spirits
Speaker 1: are haunting the space, he tells us, it's the energy
Speaker 1: of the event and things that happened there, which means
Speaker 1: that my virginity is haunting a dirty hotel room in Annapolis, Maryland. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you apply this rule to any hotel room, they
Speaker 1: become uninhabitable. Anyways, Reverend Dr Lewis says this, I've been
Speaker 1: doing this since I was five years old. It took
Speaker 1: me years to get in touch with all of this.
Speaker 1: He says, this with the swagger I'll come to associate
Speaker 1: him with, as he introduces the tables, saying it takes
Speaker 1: years of practice to get them to quote unquote fly
Speaker 1: the way they do for him. Hell, he says, even
Speaker 1: Marie has trouble getting the tables going. Sometimes sometimes their
Speaker 1: own cat has more success getting the table to move
Speaker 1: than Marie, and it's like, jeez, man, she's standing right
Speaker 1: there after all. Reverend Dr Lewis explains he's been practicing
Speaker 1: mediumship to some degree for over half a century, one
Speaker 1: of the only people at the camp to be a
Speaker 1: generational member of Spiritualism. Yes, he says he's seen tables levitate. Yes,
Speaker 1: he says he hears the tables rattle around he and
Speaker 1: Marie's house at night. He points to one table and
Speaker 1: says he found it rattling in the back of an
Speaker 1: antique store and the dealer said, I don't like that table.
Speaker 1: Something's not right with it, and so Reverend Dr. Lewis
Speaker 1: bought it because it was jumping out at him. He's
Speaker 1: got the kind of charisma that makes you glad that
Speaker 1: Spiritualism has no interest in being a cult, because this
Speaker 1: guy could sell a cult the same way that the
Speaker 1: early Spiritualists of the eighteen hundreds could sell the religion.
Speaker 1: But we'll get back to them now that we've met
Speaker 1: the tables. The table tip in class begins. Reverend Dr
Speaker 1: Lewis asks for six people to get up. They do
Speaker 1: and get around the big wooden table with Lewis and Marie,
Speaker 1: and everyone is instructed to put their hands on the
Speaker 1: edges of the table very lightly, no grip. The rest
Speaker 1: of us stay on the perimeter of the circle in
Speaker 1: our chairs as the group of six begin to move
Speaker 1: the table around the interior of the room, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what to tell you. After a second, the table,
Speaker 1: which is huge, does begin to move, and it seems
Speaker 1: to kind of take the eight people surrounding it to
Speaker 1: the left side of the circle we've created as the
Speaker 1: less initiated, like myself and my friend look on kind
Speaker 1: of in bafflement. Now, I want to be clear, this
Speaker 1: isn't a table movie, as in levitating, This isn't a
Speaker 1: conjuring movie. It's not this what's going on, ladies, please
Speaker 1: remove your glove believe we're about to commuting with the spirit.
Speaker 1: His lips are red like blood from a coop when
Speaker 1: you took his teeth, a sharp black yours when you
Speaker 1: bit a coot. And it's so cold and dark and
Speaker 1: wet like the jungle, like tears. I am crying. I
Speaker 1: am sorry. Fright, father, find me, find me, save me,
Speaker 1: Save me. Uh. There was a clip from Penny dreadful.
Speaker 1: But it is a table dragging across the floor, not lifting,
Speaker 1: but moving quickly and not appearing to be pulled by
Speaker 1: anyone in particular. And for skeptics listening, I promised to
Speaker 1: take this class seriously. But of course I'm watching Lewis
Speaker 1: and Marie's forearms to make sure that they're not flexing
Speaker 1: with every movement that the table makes, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: look that way. But okay, they're both wearing long sleeves,
Speaker 1: and maybe I'll have a better idea when my turn
Speaker 1: around the table comes. For now, all I know is
Speaker 1: that the six not gates is are chasing the table
Speaker 1: around as it lifts towards its first victim, a woman
Speaker 1: who has been here before. So once the table stops,
Speaker 1: it tends to tip towards one person, and it sways
Speaker 1: back in this jerky, seasick kind of way while it
Speaker 1: waits to make contact. So Reverend Dr Lewis nods at
Speaker 1: the woman the table is tipping towards, saying, that's you, sweetheart.
Speaker 1: And what takes place is this stressful game of yes
Speaker 1: or no questions that happens rapid fire. She's a little nervous,
Speaker 1: but she tries an easy question. Is this spirit a man?
Speaker 1: The table goes still, its legs go back on the ground.
Speaker 1: That means no, is this spirit? Uh? Woman? The table
Speaker 1: leans towards her. Yes, that means yes, okay, is it
Speaker 1: her mother? No? She thinks harder. The other five people
Speaker 1: around the table are looking at her intently. There is
Speaker 1: this kind of pressure to perform when the table is
Speaker 1: talking to you. If you lose the rhythm of the thing,
Speaker 1: it gets less exciting. So the woman thinks fast. She says,
Speaker 1: is this her biological mother? Interesting? Now everyone in the
Speaker 1: room knows that she's adopted. The table says yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's rocking back and forth. That's an hiological mother. So
Speaker 1: the woman nods, as Lewis and Marie keeps staring at
Speaker 1: her as if to say, what question are you going
Speaker 1: to ask? Now? Uh? The woman gets nervous ask her
Speaker 1: a question, So the woman asks the spirit are you okay?
Speaker 1: And the table rocks back and forth. Yes. The woman says,
Speaker 1: I love you, and the table tips towards her slowly.
Speaker 1: Louis says, that's a hook. And this woman who is
Speaker 1: talking to her biological mother via table says a little awkwardly, oh, thanks,
Speaker 1: And the table, as if sensing that things are starting
Speaker 1: to get weird, goes still. Everyone in the room takes
Speaker 1: a breath. Was that it is? That all there is
Speaker 1: to a tipping table? And after a second, the table
Speaker 1: takes off again. It moves to the left, this big
Speaker 1: fucking Quiji board, and the group of six starts to
Speaker 1: follow it again, and it starts all over. My friend
Speaker 1: looks over at me a little confused. She mounts to me,
Speaker 1: was that real? And as I sit here, I feel
Speaker 1: more skeptical than I was wanting to. It all feels
Speaker 1: a little forced and performative. But I'm not here to
Speaker 1: decide if ghosts are real. I'm here to watch other
Speaker 1: people decide if they think ghosts are real. Many of
Speaker 1: the table tipping interactions are similar to this first one.
Speaker 1: There are people who are a little nervous and struggle
Speaker 1: to think of questions. There are people who end up
Speaker 1: connecting with a spirit other than the one they had
Speaker 1: clearly been hoping to. There are skeptics that were brought
Speaker 1: with believers who are only taking it half seriously and
Speaker 1: kind of slowing down the proceedings. And there's a million
Speaker 1: Hi Grandma, miss She's but like the message they're resk
Speaker 1: that took place before it. There are moments around the
Speaker 1: table that are extremely intense and even pull tears from
Speaker 1: people who came here to talk to someone who they
Speaker 1: loved and lost. Table Tipping is something of a rarity
Speaker 1: in Cassadega and in modern spiritualism in general, and it
Speaker 1: makes sense that a legacy spiritualists like Reverend Dr Lewis
Speaker 1: Gates is the one to show it to us by
Speaker 1: in large physical mediumship like table tipping and spirit trumpets
Speaker 1: have been abandoned by spiritualists over the years, but the
Speaker 1: majority of mediums ratings in Cassadega now being done intuitively
Speaker 1: or only with the mind. I mentioned this in our
Speaker 1: first episode, but because there is such a misconception on
Speaker 1: this topic even within Cassadega, mediums trained in Cassadega, Florida
Speaker 1: do not use tarot cards and rarely use physical tools
Speaker 1: at all. It's not that they're banned by any means.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can take an occasional table tipping class
Speaker 1: like this. There are things like spirit photography walking tours
Speaker 1: marketed mainly at tourists, that encourage you to walk around
Speaker 1: with a camp sanctioned guide and capture orbs on camera,
Speaker 1: but these events are in the minority, and Cassadega mediums
Speaker 1: have actively distanced themselves from the tarot card readers who
Speaker 1: operate in the camp, particularly the ones who work at
Speaker 1: the Cassadega Hotel where I'm staying. Dot dot dot. That's
Speaker 1: a drama for another day. But one reason that spiritualists
Speaker 1: on the whole seem to have distanced themselves from larger
Speaker 1: physical demonstrations over the years may have to do with
Speaker 1: the extreme controversy that surrounds some debunked methods of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century spiritualists. Again that dichotomy. In the world of
Speaker 1: sciences in the nineteenth century, there was often this demand
Speaker 1: for more, more contact, more proof of life after death,
Speaker 1: a demand that pushed early practices like spirit wrappings and
Speaker 1: table tipping even further towards things like quote unquote spirit
Speaker 1: hands that sitters could touch from the beyond, full on
Speaker 1: body materializations, levitation, spirit photography, ectoplasmic mouth ejaculate. I can't
Speaker 1: talk to you about that right now. That's going to
Speaker 1: have to wait. But it's as gross as it sounds.
Speaker 1: But the more theatrical of a presentation, generally the swifter
Speaker 1: it would be debunked by skeptics, and so to protect
Speaker 1: their own religion and beliefs, most mediums today elected to
Speaker 1: tap into spirit using their minds and no clunky objects.
Speaker 1: That is to say, it's interestingly old school that friend
Speaker 1: Dr Lewis Kates does teach physical mediumship as he does
Speaker 1: and also engages in trance mediumship, because these tend to
Speaker 1: be the elements of spiritualism that draw far more skepticism.
Speaker 1: Here's a quick smattering of early examples of physical mediums
Speaker 1: getting debunked. These examples come from Barbara Weisberg's biography of
Speaker 1: the Fox Sisters Talking to the Dead, as well as
Speaker 1: the book Calling the Spirits a History of Sciences by
Speaker 1: Lisa Morton. Early spiritualists Ira and William Davenport, the teens
Speaker 1: seancers I call him, began as stage magicians before pivoting
Speaker 1: to spiritualist seances, where they were eventually caught performing tricks
Speaker 1: with elaborate spirit cabinets where they'd be tied up and
Speaker 1: shoved inside, only for quote unquote spirits to begin playing
Speaker 1: musical instruments while they were While Ira was said to
Speaker 1: be a practicing spiritualist, he also sat Harry Houdini down
Speaker 1: and showed him how he and his brother pulled off
Speaker 1: the spirit cabinet illusion shortly before he died. Next up
Speaker 1: one of history's most famous mediums, the Scotsman D. D. Home,
Speaker 1: who was often referred to as a medium who never
Speaker 1: got busted, an impressive figure who was said to be
Speaker 1: able to levitate and produce physical manifestations of spirits, and
Speaker 1: he never was publicly exposed for sure, but there were
Speaker 1: several rumors and accounts that detailed things like a found
Speaker 1: fake spirit hand, or in a well circulated rumor about
Speaker 1: a seance attended by writers Robert and Elizabeth Browning, a
Speaker 1: glowing appendage in the dark was grabbed by Robert Browning
Speaker 1: and revealed to be Holmes's own foot. And finally, the
Speaker 1: first popular spirit photographer, William Mummler, who was brought to
Speaker 1: court for fraud, although to his at it after three
Speaker 1: weeks of testimony, including P. T. Barnum testifying against him,
Speaker 1: that's really saying something. No one could definitively show how
Speaker 1: Mumbler had created the spirit photographs, and so he went
Speaker 1: on to take one of the most famous of all time,
Speaker 1: one of Mary Todd Lincoln and what appears to be
Speaker 1: the spirit of her assassinated husband. Maybe you've heard of him. Now,
Speaker 1: Some of what I just described still does remain in
Speaker 1: the murky world of allegation. So physical mediumship, whether you
Speaker 1: believe in it or not, it's riskier. Just because there
Speaker 1: were smoking mirrors demonstrably at play in the examples I
Speaker 1: just gave doesn't necessarily mean that the people doing it
Speaker 1: didn't believe or didn't think that these things weren't possible.
Speaker 1: I mean, does the priest in a confession box really
Speaker 1: believe that they are providing divine forgiveness? Probably not always,
Speaker 1: but often when it comes to things like this, literal
Speaker 1: magic tricks, a wet glove, a slipped knot to play
Speaker 1: spirit instruments. I mean, it's very hard to defend, but
Speaker 1: some accusations of fraud are more difficult to parse. And
Speaker 1: I also include the Fox Sisters, who we are overdue
Speaker 1: to check in on. So let's go back to the
Speaker 1: late eighteen forties. After becoming locally famous in upstate New
Speaker 1: York for spirit rappings in their own home said to
Speaker 1: be from a famous murdered shoe peddler named Charles Rosna,
Speaker 1: the sisters Maggie and Kate Fox, both still children, moved
Speaker 1: to the city of Rochester with their older sister Leah,
Speaker 1: herself a single mother, to begin the process of becoming
Speaker 1: public religious figures. I mean, can you blame a kid
Speaker 1: for wanting to so? Where do we leave our gals?
Speaker 1: The Fox sister oh, right, per their account, they're having
Speaker 1: the ship slapped out of them by the ghosts of
Speaker 1: Rochester in the summer of eight I mean, my God,
Speaker 1: the way that Leah Fox, the eldest, describes Slappy the
Speaker 1: ghost my nickname, not hers. I will not give her
Speaker 1: credit for my amazing ghost nickname, but the way that
Speaker 1: she describes this malevolent spirit in her book The Missing
Speaker 1: Link is very intense. The youngest sister, Kate Fox, was
Speaker 1: in particular targeted and tormented, at one point, appearing to
Speaker 1: be slapped to the point that she was unconscious, only
Speaker 1: to come to reciting poetry saying to be with Christ
Speaker 1: is better far. This stage of the Fox sisters lives
Speaker 1: is extremely difficult to verify, in part because the presence
Speaker 1: of spirit in the world, like all things I've become
Speaker 1: hyperfecated on, pends to be pretty difficult to speak of
Speaker 1: with any sort of jectivity. I firmly believe that this
Speaker 1: is a topic that's almost impossible to come at with
Speaker 1: any clear sort of mind, because a person's perspective on
Speaker 1: the afterlife is usually connected to deeply personal parts of themselves,
Speaker 1: how they grew up, their relationship or lack thereof, with faith,
Speaker 1: people that they've lost, and the people that they've lost beliefs.
Speaker 1: I will say that Leah Fox's accounts in particular are
Speaker 1: tough for me. She functioned not only as a Fox
Speaker 1: medium during her career, seriously, just give her a year
Speaker 1: or so, but Leah also worked in the unofficial capacity
Speaker 1: of Maggie and Kith's manager, part time guardian, and family
Speaker 1: myth maker, who would soon be taking their show on
Speaker 1: the road. Like a book of letters that Maggie would
Speaker 1: publish later in her life. The contents of Leah's book
Speaker 1: was heavily contested by her own sisters later in their lives,
Speaker 1: as the relationship between the three of Margaret Fox's daughters
Speaker 1: exploded both their personal lives and their religion in a
Speaker 1: very public way, a moment for Leah here. Barbara Weissberg
Speaker 1: does an amazing job in her biography of Maggie and
Speaker 1: Kate Fox of showing all sides of their sister Leah,
Speaker 1: including the hard to deal with sides. In her day,
Speaker 1: Leo would be considered some sort of saint le mother
Speaker 1: figure in the spiritualist movement, as the public opinion of
Speaker 1: her younger sisters tended to wildly fluctuate as their lives
Speaker 1: went on, But there's indication pretty early on of Leah
Speaker 1: having some volatile tendencies. One example in particular stands out
Speaker 1: regarding how Leah treated her own daughter in these early
Speaker 1: months of spiritualism. A local man hoping to make contact
Speaker 1: with his daughter who was thought to have been murdered
Speaker 1: by her own husband but whose killer was acquitted, met
Speaker 1: with Maggie, Kate, Leah, and Leah's teenage daughter Lizzie for
Speaker 1: a seance. So they conducted this early version of a
Speaker 1: seance with all the sisters present, but no spirit raps came,
Speaker 1: and Leah began to brate and blame her own daughter
Speaker 1: for the raps not materializing. Lizzie began to cry and
Speaker 1: it became clear that she had expressed after witnessing her
Speaker 1: niece Kate pass out seemingly possessed by Slappy the ghost,
Speaker 1: that she wished that the spirits would go away. Oh no,
Speaker 1: she said, she didn't like when her twelve year old
Speaker 1: niece was possessed. What a bit. But in this public forum,
Speaker 1: Leah demanded that Lizzie apologize, humiliating her in front of
Speaker 1: her own family and strangers, and Lizzie sobbed quote I
Speaker 1: was sincere. I don't know how to repent unquote. Finally
Speaker 1: she relented to her mother's verbal accosting and sunk to
Speaker 1: her knees and apologized to the spirits, and suddenly the
Speaker 1: rapping began again. Shortly after, Lea sent Lizzie away to
Speaker 1: live with her father for over a year in Illinois,
Speaker 1: banishing your team daughter, not very saintly behavior. The summer
Speaker 1: of eighteen forty eight found the Fox sisters slowly discovering
Speaker 1: their place within Rochester society, first by making an important
Speaker 1: connection through befriending influential couple Amy and Isaac Post. There's
Speaker 1: probably a whole other podcast to be had about these two.
Speaker 1: They were radical Quaker abolitionists and feminists. They held organizational
Speaker 1: meetings for local abolition advocates. They provided safe harbor for
Speaker 1: fugitive slaves. After the fugitive slave Act of eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: made it so that white Southerners could capture any black
Speaker 1: person on free soil and claimed them as their slave,
Speaker 1: and the federal government played a much more active role
Speaker 1: in the recapturing of enslaved people. They were also close
Speaker 1: friends of Frederick Douglas of Susan b. Anthony of Sojourner Truth,
Speaker 1: and after realizing that the Spiritualist kids who kept popping
Speaker 1: up in the news were actually kids from their own neighborhood,
Speaker 1: the Posts became some of the first true believers in
Speaker 1: the fledgling Spiritualism religion. Like many early and subsequent adopters,
Speaker 1: it's likely that their willingness to give it a chance
Speaker 1: was at least in part motivated by the fact that
Speaker 1: they had lost a child in the past, one that
Speaker 1: they very much wanted to make contact with from beyond
Speaker 1: the grave. Maggie and Kate, still kids themselves, were more
Speaker 1: than happy to oblige. The summer of eighteen forty eight
Speaker 1: was huge in Rochester, New York. In July of that year,
Speaker 1: the girls lived a stone's throw from the Seneca Falls Convention,
Speaker 1: the first major women's right convention in the United States history.
Speaker 1: Amy Post was in attendance along with Frederick Douglas and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Katie's anton. I won't rehash the event for you here.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of places where it's been done far
Speaker 1: more effectively, and I will link them in the episode description.
Speaker 1: But the short story is that the Seneca Falls Convention
Speaker 1: Hicks started the first wave of American feminism, while laying
Speaker 1: bare the inequities within this movement, particularly between white women
Speaker 1: and women of color. But another topic whispered around this
Speaker 1: convention was that of spirit communication. The Fox Sisters were
Speaker 1: not present at the Seneca Falls Convention, but they were
Speaker 1: sort of there in spirit. No I can't, I'm bailing
Speaker 1: on the joke. The Sisters, either in a move of
Speaker 1: smart networking or smart networking from spirit, were some of
Speaker 1: the first to predict that Frederick Douglas's newspaper, The North
Speaker 1: Star would be a success, the first of many interactions
Speaker 1: with Douglas that indicate that while he wasn't a full
Speaker 1: convert to spiritualism, he was deeply interested in it and
Speaker 1: many of the people who supported it. Barbara Weisberg describes
Speaker 1: it like this in her biography of the Fox Sisters,
Speaker 1: called Talking to the Dead quote many of those in attendance,
Speaker 1: such as Frederick Douglas and Elizabeth Katie Stanton, had also
Speaker 1: heard about the possibility of spirit communication through their Rochester acquaintances,
Speaker 1: and others soon learned of it. Wrapped were reported to
Speaker 1: have struck the very table at which Stanton and her
Speaker 1: colleague Lucretia Mott had drafted the Conventions resolutions unquote, as
Speaker 1: it would for their entire career. The whiffs and accusations
Speaker 1: of Humbug as it were, followed talk of spiritualism wherever
Speaker 1: it went, But many progressives who were strong proponents of
Speaker 1: science were actually inclined to advocate for spiritualism in a
Speaker 1: time where it felt like with some study and some time,
Speaker 1: anything could be proven as true. And in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen forties, negative press was no man for the public's
Speaker 1: curiosity in spirit communication, either in the interest of science
Speaker 1: or as would be true time and time again. Into
Speaker 1: the very recent past, there was a lot of death
Speaker 1: and a lot of people that they're grieving wanted to
Speaker 1: get in touch with in addition to the normal culprits.
Speaker 1: In a time where life expectancy still hovered somewhere around
Speaker 1: forty a cholera epidemic swept Europe and the US in
Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine, bringing with it a new crowd of
Speaker 1: grieving who were eager for closure with relatives and loved
Speaker 1: ones they had suddenly lost. By the end of the decade, Hate,
Speaker 1: Maggie and Leah were notorious communicators with spirit In eighteen
Speaker 1: forty nine, Leah had promoted herself from manager Mommy to
Speaker 1: Manager Mommy Medium Live Left Love with some trademark Fox Drama.
Speaker 1: The Spirits are said to have threatened to leave the
Speaker 1: Sisters permanently during the fall of eighteen forty nine if
Speaker 1: the Sisters didn't comply with a very specific desire of
Speaker 1: spirits that wish to take their show on the road,
Speaker 1: and after a little bit of rehearsal, they did just that.
Speaker 1: In November of eighteen forty nine, the Sisters performed in
Speaker 1: the largest theater in Rochester, New York, officially taking spiritualism
Speaker 1: to the next level. November eighteen forty nine. Price of
Speaker 1: admittance cents fifty cents amidst one man and two ladies
Speaker 1: Good to Know. Four people attend in all, including Amy Post,
Speaker 1: lending the events some bonus credibility. Kate Fox remained in
Speaker 1: the audience for the demonstration, which was attended by both
Speaker 1: the curious and the skeptical, and Maggie came on stage
Speaker 1: in a pale blue dress. In all likelihood, those in
Speaker 1: attendants would have had some familiarity with the concept of
Speaker 1: the supernat troll. Outside of Christianity, there were well known
Speaker 1: figures who navigated this area, people like Emmanuel Swedenborg, the
Speaker 1: Swedish Swedenborgish philosopher turned Christian mystic from the late sixteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: There was also Anton Mesmer, the German physician and friend
Speaker 1: of Mozart, who theorized about quote unquote animal magnetism, which
Speaker 1: stated that there was a super fine, invisible fluid in
Speaker 1: the body that could be amplified. More recently, there was
Speaker 1: the Poughkeepsie seer Andrew Jackson Davis, who had revived interest
Speaker 1: in clairvoyance in New York, and interestingly enough, the whole
Speaker 1: that the table tipping class I took in Cassadega is
Speaker 1: named after him. But these figures were all grown men,
Speaker 1: many of them well educated. None of these figures were
Speaker 1: as underestimated or disrespected as a teenage girl as ordinary
Speaker 1: seeming as Maggie Fox. After a lecture from the journalist
Speaker 1: who had chronicled the events at the Hydesville House, Eliab Capron.
Speaker 1: Maggie entered with Leah Fox, who was now claiming mediumship herself.
Speaker 1: To the shock of the audience, the spirit raps came
Speaker 1: and the crowd was immediately split. Many were just as
Speaker 1: blown away as the people who would come to the
Speaker 1: Hydesville House, but the skeptics organized quickly. When the demonstration
Speaker 1: was complete, and by all accounts, Maggie pulled it off,
Speaker 1: the audience grew restless and in the room demanded that
Speaker 1: there be a committee of five men assigned to investigate
Speaker 1: the phenomena, and nominated them before they let anyone leave.
Speaker 1: The Foxes did not see this coming, understandably, but the
Speaker 1: newly formed committee demanded that the sisters submit themselves to
Speaker 1: testing the next morning, which they did at the Sons
Speaker 1: of Temperance Hall in Rochester the next day, with the
Speaker 1: committee declaring that there would be a second show at
Speaker 1: Corinthian Hall that night to reveal the results. This time,
Speaker 1: and even bigger crowd arrived. Caprine published an account of
Speaker 1: night to along with a fellow journalist. So consider the source,
Speaker 1: they are biased in the Fox sisters favor But the
Speaker 1: long and short of it was that the committee had
Speaker 1: not been able to bust them, even after reportedly putting
Speaker 1: their hands on the feet and joints of the girls
Speaker 1: as the rappings took place, And that still wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: A second investigation was called for, followed by a third
Speaker 1: night of shows to indicate the results. This committee was
Speaker 1: even physically harsher on Maggie and Leah. Their feet were
Speaker 1: bound and their dresses were groped, while the committee demanded
Speaker 1: that the sisters summoned the wrappings. And again the committee
Speaker 1: was unable to find fraud. So on the third night
Speaker 1: of shows, yet another committee was called for. And it's like, guys,
Speaker 1: it's eighteen forty eight. We've got bigger fish to fry here.
Speaker 1: But this time the committee called for would be only
Speaker 1: composed of women, so that the Fox sisters could be
Speaker 1: physically humiliated even further. Barbara Weisberg describes the inspection like
Speaker 1: this quote. With the sister's reluctant consent, a subsidiary committee
Speaker 1: of ladies took them into a separate room, then stripped
Speaker 1: and searched them, examining both quote their persons and clothing unquote,
Speaker 1: in search of noisy devices such as leaden balls mortified.
Speaker 1: Both sisters wept through much of their ordeal, until their
Speaker 1: sobs reached such a pitch that Amy Post burst into
Speaker 1: the room and brought the investigation to a halt. Unquote. Now,
Speaker 1: no matter how you feel, this is a fucking Guantanamo
Speaker 1: style physical humiliation of two women, one of whom is
Speaker 1: a minor. Maggie did not want to return to corint
Speaker 1: i in Hall after this abusive third investigation, but Amy
Speaker 1: Post convinced both her and Leah to attend in protest
Speaker 1: of how they'd been treated. And again the committee found
Speaker 1: no fraud, and the Fox Sisters Kate included, were now
Speaker 1: considered legit enough to continue their work, but at what cost.
Speaker 1: Understandably freaked out by how the public had demanded to
Speaker 1: strip search them multiple days in a row, the sisters
Speaker 1: spent the next stretch of time perfecting their spirit rapping
Speaker 1: seances in Rochester in privately arranged sessions. An interesting shift
Speaker 1: here is that they now charged a fee for these seances.
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas was said to frequently attendees. He once got
Speaker 1: so frustrated that it was taking so long for the
Speaker 1: ghosts to show up that he called the display atrocious
Speaker 1: and apologize to Amy Post about it in a letter
Speaker 1: written later. Good stuff, And yeah, that's a really funny story,
Speaker 1: but it lends itself to the predicament that the Foxes
Speaker 1: and the newly minted mediums who were beginning to crop
Speaker 1: up all around the country and even overseas, found themselves in.
Speaker 1: People sitting with mediums wanted instant ratification, They wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to specific spirits, and in some cases it seems
Speaker 1: like more than anything else, they wanted a bit of
Speaker 1: a show. And depending on your perspective, no one could
Speaker 1: put on a show or a ritual white like a
Speaker 1: spiritualist medium could. All right, we're back in Cassada, back
Speaker 1: in the Andrew Jackson Davis building. Yes, that Andrew Jackson Davis,
Speaker 1: the Poughkeepsie seer himself well spotted. Group after group are
Speaker 1: going up to the table in our table tipping class,
Speaker 1: and I feel so self conscious waiting again, wondering if
Speaker 1: there's any chance that Lewis and Marie Gates already know
Speaker 1: who I am, And does that mean that they could
Speaker 1: just take a stab at who I would want to contact.
Speaker 1: That's a classic fraudulent medium technique the hot reading, meaning
Speaker 1: that a medium would research who you are before they
Speaker 1: arrive and then miraculously bring through relevant information across the
Speaker 1: room and around the table. One old man connects with
Speaker 1: his father and surprises himself by starting to cry. Another
Speaker 1: woman comes in with a very specific agenda. She connects
Speaker 1: with her father's spirit and then launches into a hyper
Speaker 1: specific line of questioning. She says she loves him and
Speaker 1: misses him, but she's still mad at him about that thing,
Speaker 1: and tells him on the table that she still doesn't
Speaker 1: forgive him. She then goes up a second time a
Speaker 1: little later on to speak with her mother's spirit and
Speaker 1: seems to connect, bursting into tears and asking if she
Speaker 1: was wrong not to forgive her father. It's intense, it's specific,
Speaker 1: it's technically cheaper than therapy. And then finally it's my turn.
Speaker 1: I go up with a group and have a vague
Speaker 1: plan of what I'm going to do, try to make
Speaker 1: contact with one of my dead grandma's and hope for
Speaker 1: the best. I'm pretty nervous at this point because not
Speaker 1: only is this something I very much want to believe in,
Speaker 1: I also feel very aware of wanting Louis and Marie
Speaker 1: to like me. I'm being appraised here to some extent
Speaker 1: observed by the mediums of Cassadega, and so I'm both
Speaker 1: interested and performing being interested. It's like being on a date,
Speaker 1: except the means to the end is the great beyond
Speaker 1: and the approval of a small community of aging mediums
Speaker 1: and healers. So we stand around the table, me right
Speaker 1: next to Lewis. He's huge and feels huger when I'm
Speaker 1: next to him, And so when the table takes off,
Speaker 1: I kind of hope that it will all suddenly become clear,
Speaker 1: something like I knew it. He's dragging the table or
Speaker 1: Marie is dragging the table. Something very obvious is going on.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't seem that way at all, And in fact,
Speaker 1: the gates Is seem to intentionally keep their touch on
Speaker 1: the table pretty light. But Lewis narrates the experience like
Speaker 1: a sportscaster as the table takes off and leaned to
Speaker 1: the mom across the table from me. Standing around the
Speaker 1: table is a completely immersive experience. It's nothing like watching
Speaker 1: from the perimeter. You smell everyone, smell everyone's breath. You
Speaker 1: feel very self conscious about how tightly or not tightly.
Speaker 1: You're gripping the table like am I dragging it? Am
Speaker 1: I a part of the problem? Are we confirmation biasing
Speaker 1: this table around? Or is this real? But I don't
Speaker 1: have time to think about it because suddenly the table
Speaker 1: is tipping towards me. So I start to speak to
Speaker 1: the dead. Are you a woman? Please say you're a woman.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do if you're not a woman.
Speaker 1: The table goes still, that's a no, it's not a woman.
Speaker 1: I'm fucked. I'm so fucked. So I asked, is this
Speaker 1: not a woman? Because yes or no questions can be
Speaker 1: really gendered. But the table moves again. The answer is yes,
Speaker 1: it's a male spirit talking to me, a dead man.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty lucky. I haven't really lost many men in
Speaker 1: my life, Is it, Papa? No? Is it will no fun?
Speaker 1: I'm blowing it. No one has gotten this many nose
Speaker 1: in a row in the entire time this has been
Speaker 1: going on. So I panic and I ask, is this Matthew?
Speaker 1: And the table starts to nod yes. And that's really
Speaker 1: weird because I don't technically know Matthew. My mom had
Speaker 1: two miscarriages and we were raised to think of them
Speaker 1: as is our siblings, and to talk to them. Even
Speaker 1: our middle names are their names, Matt and Beth, and
Speaker 1: I used to like draw these weird pictures of what
Speaker 1: I thought my cool teenage siblings would look like if
Speaker 1: they were alive. They're not people I've actually met. They're
Speaker 1: kind of like these characters to me, I guess, but
Speaker 1: it made my parents feel better that me spoke life
Speaker 1: into an experience that have been so painful for them.
Speaker 1: But I ask is this Matt? And the answer comes
Speaker 1: back as yes, which leads me to what would I
Speaker 1: say to someone who I've never met and is mainly
Speaker 1: the object of my weird child fan fiction. So I
Speaker 1: think for a second and I asked, are you good?
Speaker 1: I sound like a total dumbass, but he says yes.
Speaker 1: The table rocks back and forth, and I swear to God,
Speaker 1: I'm not touching it. I ask is he with bethany
Speaker 1: my other siblings who passed away? The answer is yes.
Speaker 1: Has he been watching me? Yes? And I feel Louis
Speaker 1: gates his eyes on me and he says, there's a
Speaker 1: man from your work here too. He says, you're funny.
Speaker 1: This kind of stops me in my tracks because this
Speaker 1: doesn't really track for me at all. I can't think
Speaker 1: of a man who I've worked with who's died that
Speaker 1: i'd be close enough with to say that I'm funny.
Speaker 1: But Louis Gates does know that I'm a comedian. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not inconceivable that he could be taking an educated
Speaker 1: guess on something that I would want to hear. But
Speaker 1: I shift my focus back to the table. I'm talking
Speaker 1: to Matt, and I'm really feeling the pressure to stick
Speaker 1: the landing on this conversation. But I can't think of anything,
Speaker 1: and I hear myself blurting out, were you upset about
Speaker 1: what grandma did? And look, listener, what my grandma did
Speaker 1: or did not do is none of your business. But
Speaker 1: I was curious if I could communicate with him what
Speaker 1: he thought. But the table goes still. The answer is no,
Speaker 1: and Marie Gates looks at me and says, they don't
Speaker 1: bring anger into the spirit realm. They really don't. And
Speaker 1: then the table takes off again. My turn is over
Speaker 1: and my friend begins a stilted, nervous conversation with her
Speaker 1: grandfather she only met a few times as a kid.
Speaker 1: And that's my first experience speaking with the dead maybe.
Speaker 1: This session continues for two hours, and it's strange but
Speaker 1: not unpleasant, except for this one moment that sticks out
Speaker 1: to me. A man who was sitting across the circle
Speaker 1: from me had a tearful yes or no conversation with
Speaker 1: his father about an hour before on the table, and
Speaker 1: he hadn't said much sense, even as most of us
Speaker 1: were whispering with our friends or the regulars to the
Speaker 1: camp laugh and catch up with each other. But this
Speaker 1: guy has been keeping to himself, looking down at his
Speaker 1: hands that are kind of shaking. He wants to believe
Speaker 1: that he's talking to his dead father Bade, but he
Speaker 1: clearly has doubts, and finally he breaks and looks to
Speaker 1: Louis and makes a proposition. He asks them, can the
Speaker 1: two of them get on the table, one on one
Speaker 1: and have a conversation with his father. He's half desperately
Speaker 1: wanting to make contact and half wanting to reassure himself
Speaker 1: that there is some chance that all of this might
Speaker 1: be real. He tells us all that he was with
Speaker 1: his father when he died, and breaks down here for
Speaker 1: a minute because it was just a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: then bounces back. He continues, saying his father was extremely
Speaker 1: Christian when he was alive, while he was more open
Speaker 1: to alternatives like spiritualism. That's why he wanted the one
Speaker 1: on one on the table. He wanted to ask his
Speaker 1: dad what he thought about the afterlife and whether it's
Speaker 1: squared with what he very firmly believed when he was alive.
Speaker 1: And now I'm watching like a sports commentator, like how
Speaker 1: is Lewis going to handle a request this direct? These
Speaker 1: interactions can be difficult to watch because here is a
Speaker 1: man who is clearly in pain and seeking out answers
Speaker 1: that could very well be unknowable, and it's one person's
Speaker 1: job Louis Gates to assure us that they are knowable.
Speaker 1: Is this okay? I I don't know. It depends on
Speaker 1: so many things, On if you believe in it, on
Speaker 1: if the person is profiting from it, which it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem really like this camp is on whether the medium
Speaker 1: believes in what they're doing. Louis definitely does not take
Speaker 1: the man up on the one on one table request. Instead,
Speaker 1: he says that there is a period of adjustment in
Speaker 1: the spirit realm in a way that almost sounds matrix e,
Speaker 1: but he says that people in spirit go to a
Speaker 1: place where they feel comfort and acceptance. He says, it's
Speaker 1: possible that this guy's father is able to attend Christian
Speaker 1: ceremonies in the spirit realm, and enough time hasn't passed
Speaker 1: for the deceased dad to understand the real truth of
Speaker 1: what being in spirit is. The guy doesn't know what
Speaker 1: to say. He doesn't push Reverend Dr. Lewis further, and
Speaker 1: Louis takes the opportunity to share a personal anecdote, revealing
Speaker 1: that his father was a Baptist priest who firmly believed
Speaker 1: in what he preached, and that his mother was a
Speaker 1: spiritualist and that's whose path Lewis decided to follow. Louis
Speaker 1: continued saying that even in the spirit realm, his father
Speaker 1: retained his Baptist beliefs, but that they spoke together often.
Speaker 1: He even goes on walks in Cassadega with his deceased
Speaker 1: father and at this the man seems comforted or maybe
Speaker 1: he's just stumped, and that's the whole class. Lewis releases
Speaker 1: us through the gift shop, but tells us before we
Speaker 1: go that you don't need to buy a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff to be a spiritualist. And actually, you shouldn't buy
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff to be a spiritualist. All you
Speaker 1: need is a couple of courts crystals, he says, and
Speaker 1: a lot of practice. And then he laughs and he
Speaker 1: gestures to the door and says this by whatever you want, though,
Speaker 1: and we do, and so ends my journey in the
Speaker 1: art of Cassadagan table tipping. After we leave, my friend
Speaker 1: wants to provide me with a true, authentic Floridian experience,
Speaker 1: so we get subs from Publics, which is a grocery
Speaker 1: store for the uninitiated. It's a go to that she
Speaker 1: coaches me through ordering, and we sit and we talk
Speaker 1: about the tables. I asked her how she felt about
Speaker 1: the whole experience, and she says, she isn't really sure
Speaker 1: what to believe, but she was deeply affected by the
Speaker 1: people who really felt they'd made a connection to a
Speaker 1: recently lost loved one and expressed some embarrassment and asking
Speaker 1: her dead grandmother if she should text her ax again.
Speaker 1: It was like the table was screaming, don't do it,
Speaker 1: and its legs like clattered to the ground, and it
Speaker 1: was incredible comedic timing on the part of spirit or
Speaker 1: the table, or Reverend Dr Lewis, or some kind of
Speaker 1: combination of the three. She had a good time, but
Speaker 1: she has no idea what to make of it, and
Speaker 1: I share the story of the Fox Sisters with her
Speaker 1: because as I've been putting this show together, I find
Speaker 1: myself telling my family and friends the story of spiritualism
Speaker 1: pretty often, because that's what most religions are. It's a
Speaker 1: series of stories. Stories you believe in, stories you attach
Speaker 1: moral significance to, and so on. But after a while
Speaker 1: of doing this, I realized that I was doing something
Speaker 1: a little bizarre. I was always sharing the same story,
Speaker 1: the story of the Foxes. There's the story of my
Speaker 1: experience in Cassadega, But the way that I was framing
Speaker 1: it very much dependent on the person I was talking to.
Speaker 1: The people I knew who had faith as a part
Speaker 1: of their lives. I tended to frame the story of
Speaker 1: the Fox Sisters as a religious story, and they reacted
Speaker 1: to it with more reverence. But if I told this
Speaker 1: same story framed as something a little weird that got
Speaker 1: popular in the nineteenth century also true, people reacted very
Speaker 1: very differently. It was funnier, it was more bizarre, but
Speaker 1: it's the same exact story. So far, Ghost Church has
Speaker 1: been a lot of me taking you through my early
Speaker 1: experiences in spiritualism through my eyes, and to be quite honest,
Speaker 1: after this table tipping class, I found myself kind of
Speaker 1: struggling more than ever on how much I was willing
Speaker 1: to believe, which was a surprise to me. When I
Speaker 1: arrived in Sadega, I honestly thought I would become more
Speaker 1: and more secure in feeling connected with the spiritualist faith.
Speaker 1: But a couple of days in and I was very
Speaker 1: much struggling, and more than anything else, I wanted to
Speaker 1: know how the mediums who practice at the camp now
Speaker 1: were able to find faith like that. So next week
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from four members of the Cassadega
Speaker 1: community and get a feeling for how they became the
Speaker 1: modern spiritualists, as well as learning tragic ending to the
Speaker 1: story of the Fox Sisters, the first to be faithful
Speaker 1: to the religion or were they next week on Ghost Church.
Speaker 1: Ghost Church is a Cool Zone Media production created, written
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Jamie Loftus special thanks to Robert
Speaker 1: Evans for voicing the Reverend Dr Lewis Gates. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by so E Lichterman, edited by Ian Johnson.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Speedy or Tease That's CD Klea,
Speaker 1: Andy Loholt, Audries, Whitesides and Joey Dubeck. Music is by
Speaker 1: Zoe Blade m hm hm