Speaker 1: Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: Historian Emily Clark is Associate professor of Religious Studies at
Speaker 1: Gonzaga University. She's our guest for this episode. Her scholarship
Speaker 1: focuses on African American religions, American Catholic history, colonialism, religious
Speaker 1: material culture, and finally something that we're big fans of
Speaker 1: around here, hauntings. Dr Clark's first book, A Luminous Brotherhood,
Speaker 1: won multiple awards for its exploration of the sir harmonique
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. She sat down to talk with researcher
Speaker 1: Carl Nellis about this fascinating circle of spiritualists and what
Speaker 1: their story tells us about spiritualism in America. But their
Speaker 1: conversation didn't stop there. Her deep understanding of spiritualism was
Speaker 1: invaluable for putting our story together, and we're so glad
Speaker 1: she could join us. We begin with her perspective on
Speaker 1: what it meant to be a spiritualist in nineteenth century America.
Speaker 1: This is the Unobscured interview series for season two. I'm
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky. To be a spiritualist meant that you one
Speaker 1: of the central things guiding your understanding of the religious
Speaker 1: and spiritual world was a belief in a spirit world
Speaker 1: beyond this material, earthly one. Uh. And additionally that communication
Speaker 1: with spirits in that world was possible um, and not
Speaker 1: just possible, but was something that you know, if you
Speaker 1: could do, you should do. Um. Spiritualism was completely compatible
Speaker 1: with various forms of Christianity, especially liberal Protestantism. You'd find
Speaker 1: in lots of Unitarians, Anglicans, Congregationalists who were also spiritualists.
Speaker 1: And for many spiritualists, God and Jesus resided in the
Speaker 1: spirit world. Um. In fact, the group I study they
Speaker 1: received messages from Jesus. Um. The spirit world. It could
Speaker 1: have heaven, it could have um sort of an understanding
Speaker 1: of hell for some. For some spiritualists the spirit world
Speaker 1: had multiple heavens or multiple hells. Um. But I think
Speaker 1: the thing that really unites a lot of them together
Speaker 1: is this belief in a spirit world beyond this one,
Speaker 1: and that we can communicate with those who were in
Speaker 1: the spirit world. So there were people from all kinds
Speaker 1: of especially Christian traditions, who were involved in the practice
Speaker 1: of spiritualism. Um. What kinds of things were people looking
Speaker 1: for when they attended a spiritualist seyance beyond what they
Speaker 1: were getting from their religious traditions already answers. People went
Speaker 1: to a seance for answers um. For many of them,
Speaker 1: it was answers about the nature of reality um, the
Speaker 1: nature of the material world, the spirit world, the relationship
Speaker 1: between the material world and the world beyond this one. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, answers for answers for questions that Christianity sort
Speaker 1: of answered, but also for many answered in a way
Speaker 1: that didn't feel complete. Um. So an understanding of the
Speaker 1: world beyond this one. In many cases, people went to
Speaker 1: sciences for closure. You know, maybe it was shortly after
Speaker 1: a family member or a friend had died and you know,
Speaker 1: you wanted to hear from them one last time, or
Speaker 1: you wanted assurance that wherever you know their entity now
Speaker 1: was was okay. UM. So seiunds could provide closure. And
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, people wanted to say their
Speaker 1: curiosity UM. For those more casual science goers, spiritualism offered
Speaker 1: a really interesting form of leisure activity. You know, how
Speaker 1: better to spice up a Thursday evening than going to
Speaker 1: a seance UM. And you know, maybe something really interesting
Speaker 1: and exciting will happen. So for some people it was
Speaker 1: about curiosity, um, and for some people it was to
Speaker 1: try to debunk supposed Charlatan's. So it could be entertainment,
Speaker 1: but it could also be, you know, a really deep
Speaker 1: spiritual experience. And in that variety of reasons and motivations
Speaker 1: that someone might come to a science um in conversation
Speaker 1: with the idea of people who are a part of
Speaker 1: a religious traation coming. There's also all kinds of people
Speaker 1: who were involved in scientific investigation or the horizons of
Speaker 1: scientific knowledge, UM, who were involved at the beginning with spiritualism.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how in the
Speaker 1: early eight hundreds mesmerism and related pact this is that
Speaker 1: we're considered kind of new horizons of applied science of
Speaker 1: a human mind, of a human person trying to observe
Speaker 1: and measure what was going on with our bodies and
Speaker 1: our minds. How did those new horizons of science lay
Speaker 1: the groundwork for what became spiritualism. So mesmerism um is
Speaker 1: a great sort of religious spiritual movement idea to put
Speaker 1: in conversation with spiritualism. So mesmerism was developed by a
Speaker 1: German physician, Frand's Antoine mesmer UM. And he writes this
Speaker 1: absolutely fabulous doctoral dissertation. UM that's throwing around terms like
Speaker 1: animal magnetism and animal gravity and planetary gravity, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's an absolutely fabulous read for anyone who has
Speaker 1: spare time. UM. And what he ends up coming through
Speaker 1: is is you know this thing that we call mesmerism,
Speaker 1: which more or less argues that there were invisible fluids
Speaker 1: coursing through the bodies of humans, connecting them to a
Speaker 1: larger world around them. UM. And that good health, you know,
Speaker 1: physical health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health. Good health
Speaker 1: was the result of keeping those fluids in harmony. UM.
Speaker 1: So accessing and manipulating these fluids UM, both mesmerists but
Speaker 1: also spirits could affect and influence people's bodies UM. And
Speaker 1: magnetizers that's what mesmerists would call those who could manipulate
Speaker 1: the fluids. Magnetizers could use the powers of their minds
Speaker 1: to harmonize the fluids and others. UH. A number of
Speaker 1: spiritualists would first go into a mesmeric trance before communicating
Speaker 1: with spirits. A number of spiritualists done it UM. But
Speaker 1: either way, mesmerism really paved the way for spiritualism by
Speaker 1: offering this understanding of invisible spiritual forces that connected us
Speaker 1: to the world around us, and more importantly, that we
Speaker 1: could tap into those spiritual for says, and there were
Speaker 1: other invisible forces being harnessed and tapped in, controlled and manipulated.
Speaker 1: Uh in the mid nineteenth century, right with things like
Speaker 1: the telegraph and with new applications of electricity. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the way that in early
Speaker 1: spiritualism there was kind of this conversation between religious discourses
Speaker 1: and science and technologies like the telegraph that all fed
Speaker 1: into what it meant to be a medium. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so spiritualists were incredibly interested in technology. UM. Technology was
Speaker 1: a way of showing legitimacy. Many spirituals understood the communication
Speaker 1: process with the spirit world to be akin to electricity
Speaker 1: or the telegraph UM. The beloved spiritualist theologian Andrew Jackson Davis,
Speaker 1: nicknamed the Poughkeepsie Seer because he's from Poughkeepsie, UM and
Speaker 1: upstate New York, regularly talked about the spiritual telegraph um
Speaker 1: and used use the the understanding of the telegraph to
Speaker 1: explain either, you know, it's totally possible that messages can
Speaker 1: be communicated without us seeing it happening. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: when a message is going through a telegraph wire, you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know that you know it's it's it's happening
Speaker 1: without you being aware or being able to notice that
Speaker 1: something's happening. And spiritualism can be the same way. Messages
Speaker 1: can be communicated through these unseen but very powerful forces
Speaker 1: that you know, scientifically we can measure and spiritually we
Speaker 1: can measure. Um. It wasn't just things like the telegraph
Speaker 1: and electricity. There is this absolutely fabulous chemist uh turned spiritualist,
Speaker 1: Robert Hare, who invented these fantastic um machines that he
Speaker 1: called spiritoscopes, which would be used by a medium and
Speaker 1: they would have all of these dials UM, and wheels
Speaker 1: and pulleys and some names on the dials would letters
Speaker 1: and numbers, and through the communication of a spirit, a
Speaker 1: medium would manipulate this machine and they wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to see what the message was saying, which was proof
Speaker 1: because the messages being not only mediated through the medium
Speaker 1: but also through the machine. Like it's this is a
Speaker 1: way of saying, there's no fraud here. They're just doing
Speaker 1: as the spirit wills them. UM. And so you know,
Speaker 1: machines like that could help UM show the legitimacy of
Speaker 1: spiritualism photography too. As photography really takes off in the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, you've got the development of what gets photography,
Speaker 1: which is UM people taking photographs during seances or um
Speaker 1: after trying to call forth a spirit, and you would
Speaker 1: get these really eerie photographs with sort of these disembodied
Speaker 1: very UM kind of light figures in photographs UM that
Speaker 1: many people get exposed as fraud in what they're doing
Speaker 1: is double exposure to some film. Uh, there's the whole
Speaker 1: scandal of William Mummler who's making tons of money off
Speaker 1: of fake spirit photography. And then you've got planned shots
Speaker 1: and Weuiji boards coming later. So there's always this interest
Speaker 1: in UM the way in which technology where whether it's
Speaker 1: simple machines or something more complicated like how electricity works.
Speaker 1: Spiritualists are engaging with that world and you know, using
Speaker 1: it to help facilitate conversation with the spirit world. And
Speaker 1: those are some of the high tech kind of solutions
Speaker 1: of the day. UM. There are some other aspects of
Speaker 1: spiritualist material culture that play large roles in some turning
Speaker 1: points in spiritualist history. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the spirit cabinet and how that functioned in seances.
Speaker 1: Spirit cabinets were fascinating. Um. They could be these fantastic
Speaker 1: pieces of equipment or really really simple. Um. So some
Speaker 1: spirit cabinets, especially the ones that you would see in
Speaker 1: public seances, were like these edited furniture wardrobes um that
Speaker 1: might have a seat or a bench inside for the
Speaker 1: medium to sit. UM. So imagine you know a wardrobe
Speaker 1: that's sort of empty on the inside, with the exception
Speaker 1: of this little seat for the medium to sit. Often
Speaker 1: the medium would be tied up um to prove that,
Speaker 1: you know, sounds or manifested spirits were clearly not them
Speaker 1: duping the people because they were tied up um. For example,
Speaker 1: the Davenport brothers, the famous Davenport brothers, William and Ira,
Speaker 1: had this large cabinet in which both of them would
Speaker 1: be bound, and then the audience would hear musical instruments
Speaker 1: being played um after they were closed in the cabinets.
Speaker 1: They're even tests to prove that they weren't playing the
Speaker 1: instruments themselves. One one of their tours, I think it
Speaker 1: was in Ireland, someone put blue paint on their hands
Speaker 1: um and then expected, you know, to find all these
Speaker 1: blue handprints all over the trumpets and the trombones um,
Speaker 1: and there was nothing. Or other people would sprinkle flower
Speaker 1: on their laps um and so you know, the idea was,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be very obvious if they had moved,
Speaker 1: because there would be flower everywhere. UM. And at the
Speaker 1: end of the seance, you know, they would open the
Speaker 1: cabinet and they're still they're all tied up UM with
Speaker 1: the flower being intact, or you know, the blue paint
Speaker 1: isn't everywhere. In other cases, spirit cabinets were really simple UM.
Speaker 1: In homes. Sometimes people would refer to their spirit cabinet
Speaker 1: when really it was just a curtain pulled across the
Speaker 1: dead corner of a parlor UM. And so sometimes these
Speaker 1: would be called spirit curtains, but they would frequently get
Speaker 1: referred to a spirit cabinets, and they were super common.
Speaker 1: Materialization seances UM, which were increasingly in the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: quite popular UM. At the at home seance, where a
Speaker 1: materialization spirit or a materialization seance, you would have people
Speaker 1: interact in some cases with the material body of a
Speaker 1: spirit that would emerge. So you'd find these descriptions um,
Speaker 1: from people who are at a materialization seance, and they
Speaker 1: might notice by their feet what looks like a small
Speaker 1: white handkerchief has appeared, and very slowly the handkerchief grows
Speaker 1: and it turns into something bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1: And the next thing you know, the spirit of your
Speaker 1: deceased wife has materialized right next to you. UM. And
Speaker 1: then she hugs you, or she kisses you, she grabs you.
Speaker 1: You can feel her material body. There's so many reports
Speaker 1: of these recently, UM, these widowers whose wives had recently died,
Speaker 1: and they interact with their wife at a materialization seance
Speaker 1: at someone's spirit cabinet in their home. You would also
Speaker 1: have a materialization seance is sometimes the spirit giving gifts. UM.
Speaker 1: There was this one, this one medium who frequently would
Speaker 1: call forth this spirit that she called Katie, and Katie
Speaker 1: would give plants and flowers to people, UM that they
Speaker 1: could then take home. M hm. And so let's with
Speaker 1: all these kind of pieces in place, some religion, some technology,
Speaker 1: some science. Uh, some of the practices of what happened
Speaker 1: in the science. UM, let's start talking a little bit
Speaker 1: about some social context. UM. Spiritualism became a global movement
Speaker 1: fairly quickly, and the Catholic Church in France and Spain
Speaker 1: cracked down on spiritualism. Uh. There even uh some some
Speaker 1: accounts of spiritualist books being burned and that kind of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: do you have any comments on what made spiritualism is
Speaker 1: kind of distinctive set of beliefs and practices attractive outside
Speaker 1: of America where it began, for instance, in France or
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean, some of those cultures that were interacting
Speaker 1: with the people that you write about in your book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there was something very countercultural about spiritualism, especially in
Speaker 1: any place that had a history of church and state
Speaker 1: being connected. Um. So, you know, spiritual them really issues
Speaker 1: denominational institutional structure. While there were some attempts in places
Speaker 1: to make you know, churches of spiritualism or a denomination
Speaker 1: of spiritualism, it really sort of, um, it's practiced in
Speaker 1: a way that works against that that kind of formalization.
Speaker 1: So especially in a place like um, Great Britain, where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of spiritualists, or even in France, these
Speaker 1: countries that have a much longer history of church and
Speaker 1: state being connected. Here you've got this this new countercultural
Speaker 1: religious movement that doesn't seem to fit in any neat
Speaker 1: little container or church. You know, it's hard to categorize
Speaker 1: exactly what's being um done and what's going on because
Speaker 1: there's not a formal hierarchy. There's not a formal structure
Speaker 1: that you can interrogate. Um. So in that way, spiritualism
Speaker 1: really democratized religious authority in a completely new way. So
Speaker 1: many women were mediums, and you know, God for a
Speaker 1: big women have religious authority. UM. People who weren't white, uh,
Speaker 1: could become mediums, and so you've got spiritual power in
Speaker 1: the hands of the bodies of marginalized identities. This made
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful for the people and thus pretty dangerous for
Speaker 1: the state. Mm hmm. And that was not at all
Speaker 1: lost on early spiritualists or observers of spiritualism. UM. From
Speaker 1: very early on, spirits like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington,
Speaker 1: William Penn another American states when we're appearing at say
Speaker 1: on circles in America and you know, speaking through translectors
Speaker 1: and sometimes uh, maybe just addressing one or two people
Speaker 1: in a home. Science UM. The Fox sisters in the
Speaker 1: posts spread at the beginning, we're talking with you know,
Speaker 1: the founding fathers. Um, can you talk about a little
Speaker 1: bit about how those kinds of engagements with political ideas
Speaker 1: and in particular statesmen and historical figure years, what they
Speaker 1: say about spiritualism's relationship to history. So, I think, for one,
Speaker 1: it tells us that spiritualists had a very keen sense
Speaker 1: of history. You know. Obviously they were very well educated.
Speaker 1: They had read about these figures, they had read the
Speaker 1: writings of these figures. But I think the thing that
Speaker 1: really strikes me about the appearance of people like Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 1: George Washington, William Penn, all these other important political figures,
Speaker 1: it stands is what really strikes me is that by
Speaker 1: communicating with famous spirits, spiritualists inserted themselves into history. You know,
Speaker 1: they were in conversation then with Franklin, with Washington, with Penn,
Speaker 1: they were in conversation with their ideas. Um. They were
Speaker 1: receiving information direct from the source, even if that source
Speaker 1: had died decades centuries before Um. So spiritualists could become
Speaker 1: part of that story. They could become part of that
Speaker 1: story of human progress, even if it was just a
Speaker 1: small group that maybe no one would ever hear of them.
Speaker 1: You know, Benjamin Franklin knew who they were, or the
Speaker 1: spirit of Benjamin Franklin knew who they were, and so
Speaker 1: they got to feel like they were part of something
Speaker 1: so much bigger than themselves. M and as spiritualists right
Speaker 1: from the get go late fourteen, late eighteen forties, early
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, as they did insert themselves into these histories
Speaker 1: and into conversations and discourses in the church, in science, Um,
Speaker 1: what were some of the early responses to spiritualism? How
Speaker 1: did how did historians? How did politicians? How did churchmen
Speaker 1: or other believers respond to these insertions of spiritualisms and
Speaker 1: spiritualists into their stories? So I guess the easy the
Speaker 1: easy answers. It varied UM with its association with things
Speaker 1: like liberal politics. You know, so many a lot of
Speaker 1: the mediums, especially in the US on the East Coast,
Speaker 1: were women, who received a lot of messages that had
Speaker 1: to do with UM, women's rights, received a lot of
Speaker 1: messages that had to do with abolition. So, with its
Speaker 1: association with liberal politics, spiritualism was banned in some places. UH.
Speaker 1: Southern states like Alabama actually tried to make spiritualism illegal
Speaker 1: UM by taking religious authority away from formal church structures,
Speaker 1: and you know, the the traditional purveyors of religious authority,
Speaker 1: you know, more or less white educated men, white educated
Speaker 1: um in seminaries men. By taking religious authority away from
Speaker 1: UM these more formal structures and placing it in the
Speaker 1: bodies the hands of mediums themselves. I mean, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of churches really didn't like about spiritualism. They
Speaker 1: could see it as a dangerous threat. There were a
Speaker 1: number of ministers who worried that spiritualism was dangerous because
Speaker 1: perhaps it was encouraging interaction with demonic spirits. UM. There
Speaker 1: was some liberal Protestant communities and liberal political communities, UM,
Speaker 1: especially in the Northeast, that found that spiritualism could be
Speaker 1: compatible with their politics, UM, with their theology. That you know,
Speaker 1: why not have spirits like Jesus also up there. Why
Speaker 1: why wouldn't the spirit of you know, assassinated President Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln continue to share his political ideas with us. UM.
Speaker 1: But then you also have those who saw it as
Speaker 1: just so so dangerous. UM. So there's this great article
Speaker 1: in America, a Catholic Jesuit publication that's still around today,
Speaker 1: that came out and I think it was the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds and it it said that spiritualism and weuiji
Speaker 1: boards were dangerous because spirits in heaven would have so
Speaker 1: many other things to do then communicate with people through
Speaker 1: a board game. You know this, this priest is writing like,
Speaker 1: come on, I mean, spirits in heaven, they they got
Speaker 1: so many other things to do, dancing around on clouds.
Speaker 1: They're not going to commune keeps people through a board game.
Speaker 1: And so the only spirits that are probably interacting with
Speaker 1: people through these boards are hellish spirits. Um. And what
Speaker 1: I just think is funny, as I imagined the priest
Speaker 1: who wrote that article would be so pleased with the
Speaker 1: movie The Exorcist, which you know auiji board invites the
Speaker 1: demonic possession and then a priest saves the day. Um. So,
Speaker 1: even in there there were exceptions to this. Um. So,
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church in New Orleans in the eighteen forties
Speaker 1: UM for a little while was actually totally okay with
Speaker 1: the development of this mesmerist society. There's this mesmerism idea
Speaker 1: that begins in New Orleans and a couple of local
Speaker 1: priests were actually members, and they would sometimes recommend mesmeric
Speaker 1: healings to some of their personers who weren't doing well
Speaker 1: the leader get told that they need to stop doing that.
Speaker 1: And they were a small minority anyways. But even in
Speaker 1: a setting like the Catholic Church, which is seeing spiritualism,
Speaker 1: seeing mesmerism as a credibly dangerous there are actual Catholics
Speaker 1: in some cases even Catholic clerics who are like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, there might actually be something to this. H
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just the church responding, like you said,
Speaker 1: the state of Alabama at one point banded spiritualism. What
Speaker 1: are the kinds of responses were spiritualists getting, maybe like
Speaker 1: in the southern press or you know, kind of in
Speaker 1: general discourses through the South around New Orleans, But in
Speaker 1: the other states, what were people saying about spiritualism. So
Speaker 1: one of the really interesting places, um where spiritualism gets
Speaker 1: talked about in Louisiana and the broader Gulf region is
Speaker 1: the the secular New Orleans papers. UM. So, papers like
Speaker 1: the Daily Pickyune and the Daily Pickyune regularly advertised spiritualist
Speaker 1: lectures UM. You would find all the time in the
Speaker 1: you know, the calendar provided by the paper upcoming lectures um,
Speaker 1: which were actually pretty common in eighteen fifties through the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, tons of people are coming to New Orleans
Speaker 1: to talk about spiritualism. You also find articles in the
Speaker 1: secular papers about the alleged medicinal value of mesmerism and spiritualism.
Speaker 1: But you can also find a lot of stories that
Speaker 1: are trying to expose um mesmerism or spiritualism. UM. There's
Speaker 1: a number of stories that are trying to expose it
Speaker 1: as a wag which is just a nineteenth century term
Speaker 1: for fraud. That you know, spiritualism is a total wag UM.
Speaker 1: And so you have a variety of responses just coming
Speaker 1: in people's newspapers which sort of left it up to
Speaker 1: the reader what they wanted to conclude about spiritualism. Now,
Speaker 1: if all you read was the UM official Catholic newspaper,
Speaker 1: you would think spiritualism was, you know, basically the devil
Speaker 1: on earth UM. But if you were just reading the
Speaker 1: secular paper, you would see a variety of responses about
Speaker 1: it MHM. What led to something like a whole state
Speaker 1: outlying the practice. What that ends up coming down to
Speaker 1: is the association of spiritualism with liberal politics. So, especially
Speaker 1: since so many spiritualists coming out of the East Coast,
Speaker 1: are pretty outspoken about abolition, are pretty outspoken about women's rights. Um.
Speaker 1: You even have a number of spiritualists who are communicating
Speaker 1: with the spirits of deceased Native Americans and the receiving
Speaker 1: messages that acknowledge the fact that we white Americans have
Speaker 1: stolen land and we have dispossessed them of not just
Speaker 1: their land but also their culture. UM. Now it's important
Speaker 1: to note that a lot of those messages are also
Speaker 1: pretty tinged with racism, because the medium is talking in
Speaker 1: at times guttural sounds. Um. But there's this very interesting
Speaker 1: acknowledgement of the fact that America is not fair when
Speaker 1: it comes to all of the inhabitants of the country.
Speaker 1: And so, if you've got a religious practice that is
Speaker 1: frequently identifying injustices, and you're in a state that is
Speaker 1: making a lot of money off of injustice, namely slavery,
Speaker 1: spiritual um is going to be persona non grata there.
Speaker 1: So let's move to the community that you focus your
Speaker 1: book on and go to New Orleans in the forties
Speaker 1: and the fifties. Can you tell us about the Afro
Speaker 1: Creole community and the spiritualist group that grew up in
Speaker 1: that community in those early years of spiritualism. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: New Orleans in the eighteen fifties was full of life.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a place that is racially an ethnical,
Speaker 1: ethnically diverse, with its history as a French colony, than
Speaker 1: a Spanish colony, than briefly a French colony again before
Speaker 1: being purchased by the United States. It is a center
Speaker 1: of cultural exchange. It's a place of cultural innovation. Just
Speaker 1: look at the food traditions, UM, with all the cultural
Speaker 1: blending and the significant influence of African diasporic culture and
Speaker 1: things like gumbo. UM. It was a progressive place with
Speaker 1: a very large free black population. Under Spanish rule. UM,
Speaker 1: there were very lax manumission laws, and so the population
Speaker 1: of free black men and women in New Orleans grows
Speaker 1: incredibly fast and quickly, and it is one of the
Speaker 1: um the sites of one of the biggest populations of
Speaker 1: UM free black men and women in North America. UM.
Speaker 1: But also with that, it's a very violent place. It
Speaker 1: had been home to the Deep South's largest slave market.
Speaker 1: So the city has a lot of tensions because of
Speaker 1: all of that diversity. UM. In some cases, certain streets
Speaker 1: were basically dividing lines between different ethnic populations in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. So you'll hear New Orleanans or two Lane
Speaker 1: talking about things like the neutral ground, which typically just
Speaker 1: refers to the grassy median on the city's boulevards, especially
Speaker 1: along street car lines, But originally the term neutral ground
Speaker 1: referred to the medium of Canal Street that was basically
Speaker 1: the dividing line between what was known as the American
Speaker 1: District of the city where a lot of the new
Speaker 1: Um Anglo American arrivals to the city we're living. It's
Speaker 1: now the Central Business District, an old Creole part of town,
Speaker 1: what we now call the French Quarters. You've got you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of tension going on with all of
Speaker 1: this racial and ethnic diversity, and so kind of in
Speaker 1: the heart of all of that, you've got the city's
Speaker 1: Afro Creol community, which was it is a vibrant one
Speaker 1: in large part because of all this history. Uh. These
Speaker 1: were families that typically had a mixed background African, French, Spanish, Haitian,
Speaker 1: Native American UM. They were often educated in large part
Speaker 1: because of that longer history of freedom UM. But at
Speaker 1: the same time you would have some Afro Creol families
Speaker 1: who would still have some members who were enslaved that
Speaker 1: they might be trying to, you know, save up the
Speaker 1: money to purchase that family member's freedom. H There were
Speaker 1: a few members of the Sir Harmonique whose fathers owned slaves.
Speaker 1: No members of the group I looked at UM owned slaves,
Speaker 1: but they had fathers and grandfathers who owned slaves, sometimes
Speaker 1: extended family members. UM. The Afro Creol community was aflic
Speaker 1: They were incredibly Catholic. The Catholic Church offered a a
Speaker 1: sense of home and family UM for New Orleans black
Speaker 1: and mixed race population starting in the eighteenth century UM,
Speaker 1: back when the church was a little more liberal. There
Speaker 1: in its earlier days, there were all these rules about
Speaker 1: how priests were not supposed to baptize UM children born
Speaker 1: out of wedlock. Well, when you think about slavery, one
Speaker 1: of slavery's goals is to tear down families and make
Speaker 1: it impossible to have a family. UM. These priests would
Speaker 1: often baptize kids that they technically weren't supposed to because
Speaker 1: they were trying to help rebuild a sense of family. UM.
Speaker 1: So many an Afro Creole community were very very Catholic,
Speaker 1: and so there's this way in which they very much
Speaker 1: belonged to New Orleans. They reflect and represent so much
Speaker 1: of all of that racial and ethnic diversity, but they
Speaker 1: also didn't belong. Um. Many historians talk of the Afro
Speaker 1: Creol community as one that was between the racialized categories
Speaker 1: of white and slave. Neither of those categories really described them,
Speaker 1: though elements of each category might mhm in in this
Speaker 1: city so rich with life, but riven with these conflicts. Um,
Speaker 1: you talk about the circle Manique rising up, and you
Speaker 1: describe how it comes together around the work of a
Speaker 1: medium named JB. Valmore and a man named Henri Ray
Speaker 1: who becomes a medium in his own right. Who were
Speaker 1: Valmore and Henri Ray? So? JB. Valmore and Rie Louis
Speaker 1: Ray were two members of the Afro Creole community with
Speaker 1: a pretty extensive network within the Afro Creol community. So
Speaker 1: Valmore was a blacksmith and a well known healer. His
Speaker 1: home was also his blacksmith shop was also his say
Speaker 1: on meeting location. UM. He kept his seances public too,
Speaker 1: which made him a bit of a target. The police
Speaker 1: rated at least one of his seances on charge that
Speaker 1: he was practicing voodoo. But he also made friends in
Speaker 1: high places. He UM. In the eighteen fifties, he heals
Speaker 1: this Italian bishop who was traveling through the city. This
Speaker 1: bishop had seen the finest doctors in Europe and none
Speaker 1: of them could cure him. This bishop had completely lost
Speaker 1: his voice, and through just simple laying on of hands,
Speaker 1: Balmore cured him. UM. So Baltmore is kind of the
Speaker 1: center of for the Afro Creole practice of spiritualism. He's
Speaker 1: at the center of it for the earlier part of
Speaker 1: its history. UM. He died in nineteen sixty nine before
Speaker 1: the Sir Carmonique, the group I look at reached their heyday. UM.
Speaker 1: In fact, about a month before he died, the group
Speaker 1: received a message which Valmore took to be a prophecy
Speaker 1: about his death UM. And after he died, his spirit
Speaker 1: began to communicate with the group. So he remains a
Speaker 1: leader from the other side, and his leadership from the
Speaker 1: spirit world actually reveals a lot of really interesting social
Speaker 1: things about the Sir Carminique. Apparently, Valmore and Henri disagreed
Speaker 1: on whether or not the seances should be public. Valmore's
Speaker 1: republic um and Henri apparently didn't agree with that. After
Speaker 1: Valmore dies his spirit delivers messages that more or less say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right, we should probably keep these private. UM.
Speaker 1: And I just find it really interesting how after Valmore
Speaker 1: dies he now agrees with those who are still alive. UM.
Speaker 1: So the man he's agreeing with is Henri louis Ri.
Speaker 1: Uh on Re is the son of Haitian refugees. He's educated.
Speaker 1: He serves a term in the Louisiana Legislature during the
Speaker 1: tenure of the Sir Carminique Um. He's a husband, he's
Speaker 1: a father. He was a soldier during the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and his parents are really well connected in the city's
Speaker 1: Afro Creol community. Um. His father, bartholomy Um is a
Speaker 1: pretty important guy. He serves on a really important school board,
Speaker 1: which may not sound like a big deal, but the
Speaker 1: school board was for the first free school for the
Speaker 1: city's black population. It was supported by an Afro Creol
Speaker 1: Catholic board. Um and some of the city's most beloved
Speaker 1: writers thinkers served on the school Boarder taught in the school.
Speaker 1: Unlike his father, though on Re would leave Catholicism behind. Um.
Speaker 1: His seance records reveal so many messages about the greed
Speaker 1: and the vanity of Catholicism and its priests. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: he gets this really at least me funny message this
Speaker 1: one day from the spirit of a French revolutionary priest,
Speaker 1: Hugh Felicity, the laman A who tells Henri, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know your wife, Adele is wanting your son to be
Speaker 1: raised in the Catholic Church. And I know you're concerned
Speaker 1: about that, but don't worry. Your son is going to
Speaker 1: laugh at the absurdities of the church and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be fine, and he's going to follow your path. So
Speaker 1: both of Almore and Henri are well known in the
Speaker 1: Afro Creole community, either because of their own status as
Speaker 1: a healer or because of their familial connections. Um and
Speaker 1: so they they're really good guides for us working through
Speaker 1: you know, this very tumultualist, tumultualist time of reconstruction New Orleans.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that one of the grounds for rating
Speaker 1: about Marseillance was a charge of practicing voodoo. Can can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about the religious life of
Speaker 1: New Orleans and the Antebello years, what aspects of it
Speaker 1: were maybe racialized or criminalized. When we when we think
Speaker 1: about kind of occult New Orleans. Maybe we do think
Speaker 1: of Voodoo and Marie Va Vow and some of those
Speaker 1: figures who've stuck around in our public consciousness. UM. Can
Speaker 1: you describe that kind of religious life of New Orleans
Speaker 1: maybe through ray H and his his connection to sisters
Speaker 1: of the Holy Family, and what the social status of
Speaker 1: these groups that his family was a part of. Um.
Speaker 1: What it was like for for for Black, for Afro Creole,
Speaker 1: for white New Orleanians. So the religious world of nineteenth
Speaker 1: century New Orleans is a diverse one. UM. So obviously
Speaker 1: you've got Voodoo and Marina and Marie Levo who are
Speaker 1: a huge part of the occulton nineteenth century New Orleans. UM.
Speaker 1: The woman known as Marie Levo was actually two women,
Speaker 1: mother and a daughter, which is why she, you know,
Speaker 1: shockingly lives for almost a hundred years, because it's actually
Speaker 1: two women. UM. Voodoo wise, it is a religion with
Speaker 1: really old the roots leading to Africa. It's similar but
Speaker 1: different from the voodoo practice in Haiti and in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, it was different from what most people think
Speaker 1: of when they hear the term voodoo today. When you
Speaker 1: hear the term voodoo today, people think of just nothing
Speaker 1: but voodoo dolls, which actually, we're not really much of
Speaker 1: a thing. Um in nineteenth century voodoo. Voodoo had a
Speaker 1: cosmology and a pantheon of spirits with both African and
Speaker 1: Catholic influence, UM, but it wasn't an institutionalized religion. It
Speaker 1: didn't have you know, a formal institution, hierarchy, whatnot. So
Speaker 1: it holds that in common with spiritualism, and it's actually,
Speaker 1: it's me really interesting that voodoo develops. But it's also
Speaker 1: not surprising that voodoo develops um in part because it
Speaker 1: was illegal for so much of its history. UM. Under
Speaker 1: French colonial rule, Catholicism was the only legally allowed religion.
Speaker 1: But you also had the development of voodoo. You also
Speaker 1: had a piety of African religious traditions being practiced throughout
Speaker 1: the Gulf. Throughout Louisiana. Uh Congo Square now Louis Armstrong
Speaker 1: Park was well known for its weekend African music and dancing.
Speaker 1: So even with you know this law that states that
Speaker 1: everyone needs to be converted to Catholicism, the religious world
Speaker 1: of Black New Orleanans is a diverse one with a
Speaker 1: lot of spiritual alternatives. And even within Catholicism, Black New
Speaker 1: Orleanians didn't always find a welcoming home. Um. Some priests
Speaker 1: were more politically and socially progressive than others. Um. Most
Speaker 1: white Catholics were fine worshiping alongside Black Catholics. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of tourists and visitors to New Orleans and the
Speaker 1: Antebellum period who write a lot about how surprised they
Speaker 1: were to see, you know, places like St. Louis Cathedral
Speaker 1: being completely into grated and you've got white personers sitting
Speaker 1: next to black parishioners. So it's a Catholicism is integrated.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that it was always welcoming. Um.
Speaker 1: So like you weren't supposed to baptize children born outside
Speaker 1: of marriage, um, but some priests did, which would endear
Speaker 1: them to the black Catholic population. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of places in the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: that were closed off to black Catholics. So, for example,
Speaker 1: mixed race women were not allowed to join the local
Speaker 1: orders of women religious nuns or sisters. UM. So actually
Speaker 1: a group of Catholic women founded their own order. UM.
Speaker 1: This was the Sisters of the Holy Family, an active
Speaker 1: community of women religious still today. The group took their
Speaker 1: initial vows in the Antebellum period, but they were denied
Speaker 1: the right to wear a habit for thirty years. And
Speaker 1: that might sound like a small thing, not being able
Speaker 1: to wear a habit, But by wearing a habit, you know,
Speaker 1: America and culture had long denied black women the right
Speaker 1: to respectability, and by wearing a habit, it marked the
Speaker 1: wearer as a good woman of God and was a
Speaker 1: good critique to that denial of respectability. Now the bishop
Speaker 1: who didn't let the Sisters of the Holy Family wear
Speaker 1: a habit for thirty years, um was this this bishop
Speaker 1: named Napoleon Parchet. And Parche didn't only have some issues
Speaker 1: some runnings with the Sisters of the Holy Family. He
Speaker 1: also hated spiritualism. Uh. He wrote a number of editorials
Speaker 1: in the New Orleans Catholic paper that were all about
Speaker 1: the dangers of spiritualism. And so there's this interesting way
Speaker 1: in which Bishop Parche wanted to be the sole religious
Speaker 1: authority in town. He was wary of any black citizens
Speaker 1: gaining spiritual power, be it through his own church with
Speaker 1: the Sisters of the Holy Family, or be it through
Speaker 1: communication with the spirits through spiritualism. So let's jump to um.
Speaker 1: When Bartholom May dies. Can you describe the encounter that
Speaker 1: that Ari has with his father's spirit that kind of
Speaker 1: shocked him out of his previous opinion of spiritualism, which
Speaker 1: was a little bit, a little bit of mockery, a
Speaker 1: little bit of dismissal. But then he has this encounter
Speaker 1: that makes him want to seek out a spiritualist medium.
Speaker 1: Can you describe that for us? Yeah? So, um on Re,
Speaker 1: I find it hilarious that on Ri was originally really
Speaker 1: skeptical of spiritualism. Um. And he writes about this in
Speaker 1: this really long, like twenty page long autobiographical essay that
Speaker 1: he put in one of the seance record books, where
Speaker 1: he talks about his own history with spiritualism. He talks
Speaker 1: about a couple of his siblings also dabbling in a
Speaker 1: little bit, and sort of the prolog before that powerful
Speaker 1: experience is in eighteen fifty two, his father dies. Here's
Speaker 1: just twenty one or two years old, and just an
Speaker 1: hour after Bartholomy's death, and re sees his father's spirit
Speaker 1: and he goes to embrace him, and just as that happens,
Speaker 1: the spirit disappears, and Henri chocks this up to grief. Um.
Speaker 1: Later on, his father's spirit would reference this experience at
Speaker 1: the seance table to sort of remind on re you've
Speaker 1: known for a long time about the presence of spirits.
Speaker 1: So he has that experience when he's twenty one. He
Speaker 1: kind of chalks it up to grieving and remains skeptical
Speaker 1: of spiritualism despite that, and despite apparently in his essay
Speaker 1: he talks about how he successfully levitated a table one
Speaker 1: day and he's like, I don't know, I'm still not convinced. Um.
Speaker 1: He goes to a seance and he mocks it, but
Speaker 1: the spirits have a sense of humor. UM. So Henri
Speaker 1: puts his hand down on the table and he says
Speaker 1: in a mocking way, I'm a medium, and a spirit
Speaker 1: shakes him and that sort of wakes him up. He
Speaker 1: later identifies the spirit as um, the spirit of his
Speaker 1: deceased father in law, UM, and he's like, WHOA. So
Speaker 1: he seeks out a local um spiritualists woman by the
Speaker 1: name of Sister Louise and attends some training with her,
Speaker 1: gets some guidance with her, and at his first meeting
Speaker 1: with Louise, he just writes and writes and writes and
Speaker 1: writes and rites, all under the powerful influence of spirits.
Speaker 1: And as he starts to get tired, I mean, we
Speaker 1: don't do a lot of handwriting anymore. We're always on
Speaker 1: our computers. But handwriting pages and pages and pages, you know,
Speaker 1: your your arm gets tired. Um, he gets begins, he
Speaker 1: begins to get tired. In the spirit of his father,
Speaker 1: Bartholomy comes to him and assures him, you know, you
Speaker 1: can keep writing. You're not really tired. Me and the
Speaker 1: other spirits will sustain you. And so it's sort of
Speaker 1: this progression of experiences that convinced him. And then the
Speaker 1: really funny thing is his wife goes through the exact
Speaker 1: same experience. She's pretty skeptical at first. Um Adele Rose
Speaker 1: um three. She was from the Crocker family, which is
Speaker 1: also pretty well connected in religious life. It's possible that
Speaker 1: her father was um. It's possible that her father kept
Speaker 1: a mistress, that mistress being Marie Levo Um. But Adele
Speaker 1: Rose so she's you know, seeing her husband develop all
Speaker 1: of these um abilities of a medium. He's a clairvoyant,
Speaker 1: you know, he sees spirits all the time, including on
Speaker 1: their you know, uh, their front porch. But she's still
Speaker 1: not convinced herself. And then this one evening they're laying
Speaker 1: in bed and you know, he's trying to talk to
Speaker 1: her about spiritualism and convince her, and he says, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, if there's a spirit in the room, knock somewhere,
Speaker 1: and shortly after that they feel this loud thump on
Speaker 1: their headboard, and on returns to Adele and says, do
Speaker 1: you believe in spiritualism now? And all of this is
Speaker 1: cataloged in this long autobiographical essay that he wrote um
Speaker 1: and so you get this like it wasn't an easy
Speaker 1: conversion to spiritualism for him, you know, he had to
Speaker 1: be convinced. M On JB. Valdor's side, there is a
Speaker 1: really dramatic story that you tell in the book when
Speaker 1: the spiritualist who's becoming better and better known originally from
Speaker 1: London and then came to New York as an actress
Speaker 1: and then became active in spiritualist circles and started touring
Speaker 1: Emma Harding who would later be Ema Harding Britain. She
Speaker 1: comes on the Southern tour and arrives in New Orleans
Speaker 1: and gives a salience and has an encounter with J.
Speaker 1: B Abolt Moore. Can you describe that encounter for us? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that encounters great. Um. So in the late Antebellum period,
Speaker 1: famous spiritualist Emma Harding Britain, she's delivering a lecture in
Speaker 1: New Orleans at one of the Fraternal Lodges. She's one
Speaker 1: of the most well known spiritualists of the nineteenth century. Um.
Speaker 1: Her name pops up quite a bit in the local
Speaker 1: paper advertising some of the other lectures that she's given.
Speaker 1: I can't remember this is her first lecture in town
Speaker 1: or one of the later ones. Um. But she comes
Speaker 1: to New Orleans more than a few times. She writes
Speaker 1: this huge encyclopedic book on spiritualism in the eighteen seventies,
Speaker 1: which is honestly one of our best resources on the
Speaker 1: practice because it contains all these letters and reports from
Speaker 1: all around the country. So anyway, she's delivering this lecture
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty nine or so, and she begins to
Speaker 1: get tired. Um. Now, she'd been lecturing on spiritualism and
Speaker 1: demonstrating for a while now, and UM, you know, I
Speaker 1: can tell you, as a college for fessor, lecturing is
Speaker 1: more tiring than people might think, especially if you've got
Speaker 1: a performative element to it. So she's tiring and her
Speaker 1: spiritualist demonstrations are suffering. As this is going on, a
Speaker 1: black creole man was walking by and he's supposedly seized
Speaker 1: by a spiritual force that pulls him into the auditorium. Uh.
Speaker 1: Emma invites him to come up on the stage, as
Speaker 1: she says, because he is full of electricity. Um. And
Speaker 1: this black creole man is Valmore and he and Emma
Speaker 1: Harding have the spiritual affinity, it seemed. So he remains
Speaker 1: with her on stage and she uses that connection between
Speaker 1: them to draw power and she continues these demonstrations for
Speaker 1: a couple more hours, just leaving the audience enthralled. So
Speaker 1: for a lot of people like this isn't a big
Speaker 1: surprise for them. Um. You know, this was a guy
Speaker 1: who was a pretty well known healer, who was known
Speaker 1: for being a bit of an expert in these alternative
Speaker 1: religious practices. Um. And you know it certainly isn't surprising
Speaker 1: those who end up becoming involved with the Sir Carminique.
Speaker 1: In one of their sands record books, there is this
Speaker 1: little not really a notepad, but it's a couple of
Speaker 1: pieces of scrap paper that describes some of the curative
Speaker 1: practices of Balmore, um, some of the cures that he
Speaker 1: would use. So for many it was just sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: obviously he could do that, Obviously he could be her battery.
Speaker 1: And so what are the events that lead up to
Speaker 1: the formation of the Circumbinique with Valmore and with Ree
Speaker 1: and with the other people that they brought together to
Speaker 1: form this group. So there were some other spiritualists in
Speaker 1: New Orleans at the time. There were white Creole who
Speaker 1: are practicing spiritualism, who are doing their own thing that
Speaker 1: are pretty separate from the Sir Carminique, the Afro Creal spiritualists.
Speaker 1: Valmore sort of goes between the two groups a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: It seems like what brings the Sir Carminique originally together
Speaker 1: and it's kind of not clear who all is a
Speaker 1: member at what time, UM, but it seems like on
Speaker 1: reason conversion and sort of this famous interaction between Valmore
Speaker 1: and Emma Harding sort of galvanized a small group of
Speaker 1: Afro Creole men to start practicing, um to getting to
Speaker 1: get together, hold seances and have through that process. Um,
Speaker 1: these really rich, politically infused conversations about the world. And
Speaker 1: you mentioned that in that early Sunds with Sister Louise
Speaker 1: or really starts writing and writing and writing. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about the way that receiving those messages through writing
Speaker 1: was really significant for the circumnique. So the Sir Carminique,
Speaker 1: over the course of their roughly twenty years of practice,
Speaker 1: bill something like thirty five or thirty seven books with messages. Um.
Speaker 1: If you stack all of the Sciunce record books up, um,
Speaker 1: it reaches around my rib cage. And I'm not overly short.
Speaker 1: I'm not super tall, but I'm not that short. Um.
Speaker 1: So we're talking thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of pages of messages from the world beyond this one,
Speaker 1: and writing all of that out takes time, and so
Speaker 1: the process of writing all of that out is clearly
Speaker 1: very important. Um, there's a way in which the spirits
Speaker 1: messages don't become really real and tell they're written down
Speaker 1: and tell there's a material record of them that can
Speaker 1: then later be consulted and referred to. But there's something
Speaker 1: very important about that process of cataloging what the spirits
Speaker 1: had to say, And in part, the spirits tell them
Speaker 1: that there are a number of messages where the spirits say,
Speaker 1: write all of this down. Uh, so you know, okay, Chief,
Speaker 1: we will. And in terms of the message that was
Speaker 1: being communicated, one of the things that you emphasize in
Speaker 1: your book is that so many of these figures were
Speaker 1: the spirits that we're appearing. We're giving the messages about
Speaker 1: what they came to call the idea, which was politically
Speaker 1: charged and inspiration motivate shan really addressing the social and
Speaker 1: political world of the carmonique. What was the idea to
Speaker 1: this group of spiritualists. So what they would call the
Speaker 1: idea was a concept that their messages never straightforwardly defined,
Speaker 1: but it's referenced frequently, and that element alone is really significant.
Speaker 1: The fact that they didn't need to ever define it
Speaker 1: meant that it was very clear to everybody involved what
Speaker 1: the idea was. So they received so many messages that
Speaker 1: made mention of the idea, and when you put all
Speaker 1: these together, it becomes clear that this was a concept
Speaker 1: that meant humanitarian progress, brotherhood, egalitarianism, equality, harmony, UM. It
Speaker 1: was similar to some other ideas that are going around
Speaker 1: nineteenth century America, UM ideas of millennial progress, This desire
Speaker 1: to build the Kingdom of God here on earth in
Speaker 1: the US. Um, the idea, the idea would require work, um,
Speaker 1: you know, to make the idea of reality on earth
Speaker 1: would would not just happen. Um. The triumph of the
Speaker 1: idea would require free thought, democracy, equality, um. You know,
Speaker 1: the progressive march of humanity is not going to happen
Speaker 1: on its own. And the idea, the idea could be trusted.
Speaker 1: The idea was what structured the spirit world and thus
Speaker 1: should be the foundation of our own. It was, as
Speaker 1: one spirit called it, a blazing torch um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's light, it's luminous um. For example, a few spirits
Speaker 1: describe the Emancipation Proclamation as a manifestation of the idea
Speaker 1: on earth. Um. And so it's it's an idea that
Speaker 1: comes from the spirit world, and it's an idea that
Speaker 1: needs to become manifest here in our world. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: through something like the idea, And you talked about how
Speaker 1: this was similar to other concepts or movements in progressive discourse.
Speaker 1: We end up with the debates over the expansion of
Speaker 1: slave power and the conflict leading up to the Civil War.
Speaker 1: When when the Civil War breaks out, you talk about
Speaker 1: how the sir Carminique broke up for a time kind
Speaker 1: of Uh, what was a redoing during the war and
Speaker 1: what was it that convinced them that they couldn't keep meeting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the very first book of the Sir Carmonique Science
Speaker 1: Records covers four years UM and actually no, it covers
Speaker 1: like five years in part because you've got on res
Speaker 1: service the Civil War UM breaking it up. So Ri
Speaker 1: and his brother Octave Uh and others many other Afro
Speaker 1: Creole men in the city joined the war effort UM,
Speaker 1: but Untel New Orleans was seized by the Union in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two. When they joined the Louisiana Native Guards
Speaker 1: the Black regimen for the city, they had to muster
Speaker 1: for the Confederacy, which was not what they wanted. They
Speaker 1: joined the war effort because they felt strongly about defending
Speaker 1: their home UM, but they disobeyed the Confederacy's orders. As
Speaker 1: the Union was approaching the city UM in eighteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: the Confederacy orders all of the troops out and the
Speaker 1: Black troops stay. Uh. They disobey, and they want to
Speaker 1: stay with their homes and protect their homes and protect
Speaker 1: their families. UM. A committee of four in the Louisiana
Speaker 1: Native Guards, including on Ri and his brother Octave, were
Speaker 1: the group that surrendered their weapons to the Union when
Speaker 1: the Union comes into New Orleans. But then they quickly
Speaker 1: got them back because now they were able to serve
Speaker 1: on the side. Wanted to unreserved in the Union Army
Speaker 1: until he was discharged due to illness in eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: He's discharged before one of the big battles um in
Speaker 1: terms of the action that the Louisiana Native Guards saw,
Speaker 1: which was the battle at Port Hudson Um. While he
Speaker 1: was serving in the army, on RhE and others didn't
Speaker 1: seem to keep much in terms of spiritualist records, but
Speaker 1: it seems pretty clear that on Re at least practice
Speaker 1: some AH. He received a message while at Camp Strong
Speaker 1: that he later transcribed in his records. It's a message
Speaker 1: that he gets in eighteen sixty two from the spirit
Speaker 1: of French revolutionary priest Hugh Felicite de Laminae, who more
Speaker 1: or less tells them, you know, like keeping the struggle AH.
Speaker 1: He also publishes a poem in the local liberal newspaper
Speaker 1: in sixty two while he's serving in the army, and
Speaker 1: this poem sounds so so so much like the science
Speaker 1: records Um and the poem he commends a number of
Speaker 1: figures Jesus, Um, the theologian, Emmanuel Swedenborg, Joan of Arc.
Speaker 1: These are all figures that come up in the Science records,
Speaker 1: either as spirit to appear or figures to admire. And
Speaker 1: the poem heralded all the ideals that the sort of
Speaker 1: carmenique in the spirits held, dear liberty, peace, progress, fraternity.
Speaker 1: So while there's not a lot of formal messages being received,
Speaker 1: there's these couple little things going on and on Ree's world, um,
Speaker 1: his immediate world, during his time in the Union Army,
Speaker 1: that would indicate that spiritualism is never out of his mind.
Speaker 1: And I read that Colonel Daniels, who was a white
Speaker 1: officer put in charge of the Native Guards, in his
Speaker 1: reports and in his diary, he talks about as a spiritualist,
Speaker 1: as a great medium Um, And I was fascinated when
Speaker 1: I found that too, meaning he was practicing. And and
Speaker 1: there are a couple of times when Colonel Daniels in
Speaker 1: his diary notes that he sat for a science with Are,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. So he wasn't meeting with the Sir Carminique.
Speaker 1: But clearly he was, as you say, still practicing as
Speaker 1: a medium and following these spirits and listening to their
Speaker 1: messages and those kinds of things. That was that was
Speaker 1: really fascinating to learn. Yeah, I mean there's when you're
Speaker 1: a spiritualist. You're a spiritualist. You're not only doing this,
Speaker 1: you know, one or two days a week. This is
Speaker 1: this is the way you understand the world. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: So you you talked about the Union Army taking New Orleans.
Speaker 1: That was under the direction of General Benjamin Butler, and
Speaker 1: he becomes a major figure for the life in New
Speaker 1: Orleans under Union Army rule because he's the commanding officer
Speaker 1: and sets all kinds of policies. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: who Benjamin Butler was and he did handle the administration
Speaker 1: of New Orleans. I'm interested in this in part become
Speaker 1: because he becomes uh it comes back into the story
Speaker 1: of spiritualism. Later as a political advisor for Victoria wood
Speaker 1: Hall in New York. So who he was, what his
Speaker 1: political thinking was like really influence his spiritualism and a
Speaker 1: couple of key points here for the strike Harminique and
Speaker 1: later for Victoria Woodhall. So who was Benjamin Butler and
Speaker 1: what was life in New Orleans like under his governorship.
Speaker 1: So General Benjamin Butler is the Union general who oversees
Speaker 1: New Orleans while it is being um occupied by the
Speaker 1: Union as the Civil Wars going on. He serves later
Speaker 1: in the US Congress, And one's opinion of Butler was
Speaker 1: very much influenced by one's opinion of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: And he also made a lot of decisions in New
Speaker 1: Orleans that also just made him a little unpopular to
Speaker 1: the locals. Um. Honestly, it kind of seems like he
Speaker 1: wasn't really cut out for military rule. UM. So his
Speaker 1: order to enlist black men in the Union army is
Speaker 1: met with much acclaim. Um. You know, he's seen as
Speaker 1: then a friend of the southern black population. But then
Speaker 1: he didn't really know what to do with escaped enslaved
Speaker 1: still enslaved men and women who left Louisiana plantations and
Speaker 1: sought refuge in the Union occupied city. UM. And he
Speaker 1: describes them as contraband, not people, and so many of
Speaker 1: them back to where they had just escaped. Um. And
Speaker 1: his his occupation of the city was described as a
Speaker 1: scourge uh for white Confederate leaning Uh. Confederate supporting New Orleanans,
Speaker 1: they give him the nickname of Beast. He was known
Speaker 1: as Beast Butler. One of the decisions that made him
Speaker 1: really unpopular UM with the Confederate loyalist in UM New
Speaker 1: Orleans was he pas us is this um, this rule
Speaker 1: that allows him and others in charge to treat any
Speaker 1: woman who insults a Union soldier as a prostitute. So
Speaker 1: any woman, any Confederate UM woman who says something disparaging
Speaker 1: to a Union soldier will now be treated as a
Speaker 1: woman of loose morals. Um. He also said some really
Speaker 1: terrible anti Semitic things about the city's Jewish population. UM.
Speaker 1: So we should always keep that in mind when thinking
Speaker 1: about Butler, especially with his later work in the U. S.
Speaker 1: Congress to pass legislation like the ku Klux Klanak which
Speaker 1: outlawed the group. So he's he's a complicated figure, UM,
Speaker 1: and I feel like anyone's opinion of him would change
Speaker 1: with every decision that man made. And he was followed
Speaker 1: in the administration over New Orleans by General Banks. UM.
Speaker 1: Can you mention or or maybe describe the influence that
Speaker 1: Banks had on the sixty four Constitutional Convention When Ah
Speaker 1: they were trying to figure out under what laws and
Speaker 1: under what policies New Orleans would be governed going forward.
Speaker 1: So the Constitutional Convention of eighteen sixty four was, you know,
Speaker 1: something that brought a lot of people hope and something
Speaker 1: that brought a lot of people disappointment. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just in many ways, the constitutional conventions of the eighteen
Speaker 1: sixties in Louisiana are a hot mess. UM. You've got
Speaker 1: you've got people obviously hoping for things like, um, the
Speaker 1: outlawing of slavery to be put into the constitution. UM.
Speaker 1: And you've got people who are serving that are pretty
Speaker 1: pretty staunch in support of slavery continuing. UM. You've got
Speaker 1: throughout the eighteen sixties and seventies dual governments at times
Speaker 1: working in the state. UM. So in eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of questions about what exactly is going
Speaker 1: to be made law, UM, which then impacts who is
Speaker 1: allowed to vote, who is allowed to serve in UM,
Speaker 1: the state and in local political governing bodies. UM. You've
Speaker 1: got people hooting and hollering during the constitutional convention. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's not really until the Constitutional Convention of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six that things start to become a little more
Speaker 1: clear about where the state's constitution is going to end up.
Speaker 1: And it's it's in the spring of eighteen sixty five
Speaker 1: that the Confederate Army surrenders at Appomatics and we can
Speaker 1: his assassinated. Can you talk about the science where the
Speaker 1: spirit of Abraham Lincoln first appears to the Sard Carminique. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln's first appearance to the Sara Carminique is on
Speaker 1: December seven, about seven months after his assassination. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a particularly busy science. Uh, He's not the only spirit
Speaker 1: who delivers a message. That day. St. Vincent de Paul
Speaker 1: and a few others also appeared, and he delivers the
Speaker 1: kind of message that you would expect. He identified that
Speaker 1: particular day as one of fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving for
Speaker 1: post war peace and freedom. He would do stuff like
Speaker 1: that during his term as president as well, declaring, you know,
Speaker 1: days of fasting and thanksgiving. His spirit noted how he
Speaker 1: was glad that they had broken the chains of slavery,
Speaker 1: but he also recognized that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: work still to be done. Um, you know, we shouldn't
Speaker 1: start patting ourselves on the back just yet. He also
Speaker 1: talks about how those who tried to stop the progress
Speaker 1: of freedom would regret those decisions after death, where you know,
Speaker 1: those who had suffered for righteous causes would be blessed
Speaker 1: by God and happy in the spirit world. You know,
Speaker 1: freedom was something that was created and ordained by God.
Speaker 1: And while freedom originated in heaven, his spirit talks about
Speaker 1: how it's intended to reign on earth to UM and
Speaker 1: then he signs off the message like he does many
Speaker 1: of them with your brother and friend Abraham Lincoln. M
Speaker 1: And that idea that there are people opposing because of
Speaker 1: freedom is not abstract to the companique and two Afro
Speaker 1: creoles in the black community New Orleans, UM. You describe
Speaker 1: in your book the Mechanics Institute riot in sixty six.
Speaker 1: Can you relay those events to us now and talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how that's tied into sixty four
Speaker 1: Constitutional Convention, but then also how it became kind of
Speaker 1: a touchstone for the Star Carmonique in the following years. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so the Civil War and reconstruction changes a lot about
Speaker 1: life in New Orleans, UM. You know, as with the
Speaker 1: end of the Civil War. UM, you've got a very
Speaker 1: interesting thing that starts happening in the South, and that
Speaker 1: is you have black local and state politicians. Um. You
Speaker 1: had the long vote over whether or not black men
Speaker 1: could vote. Um. Which there's this really interesting moment. I
Speaker 1: think it's in the I can't remember which constitutional convention
Speaker 1: it's in, but um, black repert senatives who were elected
Speaker 1: are in the chamber and they're not allowed to vote
Speaker 1: because the neo Confederate white politicians aren't letting them vote. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you've got a little bit of a hullabaloo
Speaker 1: going on there in the Constitutional convention because you have
Speaker 1: people who are not being allowed to sit down and
Speaker 1: you know, do their jobs. Um. But you know, this
Speaker 1: starts to get settled a little bit. So you've got
Speaker 1: black men in the legislative chambers making important decisions. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, Louisiana would be the first state to have
Speaker 1: a black governor when PBS Pinchback took over after Henry
Speaker 1: Clay Warmuth's impeachment. Henry Clay Warmath is an interesting political
Speaker 1: figure in New Orleans history. He presents himself as a
Speaker 1: friend to the New Orleans black population, and then after
Speaker 1: he's elected, he begins to court favor with former Confederates
Speaker 1: to try to keep in power. He was just a
Speaker 1: really power hungry dude. Um. And so you've got this interesting, hopeful,
Speaker 1: auspicious feel um of you know, we might actually get
Speaker 1: get some rights. Um. But with this new political power,
Speaker 1: white supremacy doesn't go away. It continues really strong, and
Speaker 1: it continues with violence. UM. In the eighteen sixty six
Speaker 1: Mechanics Institute riot, which really, historians, we need to just
Speaker 1: rename this thing a massacre um, is a horrible example
Speaker 1: of this. So on July sixty six, a group of
Speaker 1: primarily black delegates meet to revise the state constitution um
Speaker 1: because they want to make sure that it definitely includes
Speaker 1: black male suffrage um. And so this is intended to
Speaker 1: be a constitutional convention session at the Mechanics Institute. And
Speaker 1: the day begins with, you know, some fanfare. There's like
Speaker 1: a little parade um of black New Orleanans marching to
Speaker 1: the Mechanics and Institute to celebrate this. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be a great day, but it's not. It ends up
Speaker 1: being an absolutely horrid, horrid day because a white mob,
Speaker 1: aided by local police and firefighters, storm the building and
Speaker 1: massacre many of the delegates inside UM. Most of the
Speaker 1: delegates were were unarmed, but that white supremacist mob was
Speaker 1: heavily armed. Over forty people died that day, almost all
Speaker 1: of them black. Three local white allies at the meeting
Speaker 1: also died that day, including a minister and a local dentist, Dr. A. P. Doasty,
Speaker 1: who is a well known UM thinker of liberal politics
Speaker 1: and in violence. That, like the Mechanics Institute right, was
Speaker 1: not alone. You know, in eighteen seventy four of the
Speaker 1: Battle of Liberty Place, during which the White League UM,
Speaker 1: a white supremacist organization takes control of New Orleans and
Speaker 1: is like cutting telegraph wires and so that messages can't
Speaker 1: get out. UM, they slaughter the At that point, integrated
Speaker 1: police UM kill some people who are just walking by.
Speaker 1: There's a black carpenter who's killed with his own hatchet
Speaker 1: UM by white leaguers who are just like marauding through
Speaker 1: the city. UM. And so the Mechanics Institute violence is
Speaker 1: not alone. Also, in the summer of eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: you have the Memphis Massacre, which is just this horrendous
Speaker 1: white supremacist slaughter of black Memphis citizens and destruction of
Speaker 1: black owned property UM and violence like this in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six ended up galvanizing a new brand of reconstruction
Speaker 1: politics nationally, which then worked harder to promote black civil rights.
Speaker 1: But even those politics are short lived and end in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven with the close of reconstruction for the
Speaker 1: ark Harmonique. The Mechanics Institute riot became an incredibly important event.
Speaker 1: The martyrs of that day's violence often delivered messages the
Speaker 1: spirit of one martyr, Victor, and they call themselves martyrs,
Speaker 1: and other spirits refer to these men who died at
Speaker 1: the Mechanics Institute martyrs, their martyrs for the idea um.
Speaker 1: One of these spirits, Victor Lacroix Um, a very well
Speaker 1: connected Afro Creole man, whose body was mutilated by some
Speaker 1: of the white mob, and his and his valuables were
Speaker 1: stolen watch that he had inherited with stolen. His spirit
Speaker 1: afterwards noted how their blood, the blood of the martyrs,
Speaker 1: flooded the streets of New Orleans that day, but that
Speaker 1: their suffering was not in vain because it prompted a
Speaker 1: response from the US Congress. Um Another one, Dr A. P. Dosty,
Speaker 1: that white dentist who supported black suffrage. He delivers a
Speaker 1: number of messages over the years, many of which recall
Speaker 1: how he was killed like an animal. His death was
Speaker 1: particularly gruesome. The white mob was particularly not happy seeing
Speaker 1: UM fellow white men supporting black liberty. UM ghosties body
Speaker 1: is just he's like shot and stabbed, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: die during the violence. He dies about a week later
Speaker 1: when they take his um dying body out of the building.
Speaker 1: UM a police officer sits on his head as his
Speaker 1: body is taken away, like it's just insult to injury.
Speaker 1: Doesn't even come close to describing this. So it's not
Speaker 1: surprising that doost spirit talks about how he was killed
Speaker 1: like an animal. UM, but also he reports how he
Speaker 1: was glad to die for such a righteous cause. On
Speaker 1: one occasion, even his spirit noted how he would grant
Speaker 1: forgiveness to the spirits of the perpetrators when they joined
Speaker 1: the spirit world, and like, that's an interesting thing to
Speaker 1: think about that, you know, he's he dies in such
Speaker 1: a gruesome, gruesome way. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: his spirit says is that, you know, when the spirits
Speaker 1: of those who did this to me come to the
Speaker 1: spirit world, I well grant them forgiveness and I will
Speaker 1: ask for them to be you know, treated well in
Speaker 1: the spirit world, because progress needed to include everybody m in.
Speaker 1: In the years after that Mechanics Institute massacre, this our
Speaker 1: carminique h held lots of their silences. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: it even reaches the group reaches Heyda even after Balmer
Speaker 1: dies in those years. What what was their corminique science like,
Speaker 1: what was it like to be there? What do we
Speaker 1: know about those those seances? Yes, I'll go and warny
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a long answer. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a lot to say about trying to figure out a
Speaker 1: typical sort carmonique science meeting. Um So, as a historian,
Speaker 1: it's annoying that it's actually impossible to know exactly what
Speaker 1: a seance was like. Um. I suppose we could hold
Speaker 1: a seance and ask on re um. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that we can figure out from their records.
Speaker 1: Their records, you know, sadly never give a play by
Speaker 1: play of how a seance happened. Um But it seems like,
Speaker 1: especially as they got into a groove, the salances were
Speaker 1: pretty well organized. Um So you can you know, glean
Speaker 1: a lot of things from just little things that are
Speaker 1: noted in the margins. UM. They have this one um
Speaker 1: list of rules for the Sir Carmonique UM that give
Speaker 1: a sense of sort of how these salences are going
Speaker 1: to go. UM. It seems like they would spend the
Speaker 1: first part of any meeting preparing for communication with the
Speaker 1: spirit world. UH. They would read a message or two
Speaker 1: that they were received at an earlier meeting. UH, they
Speaker 1: would discuss that message. And this process of reading previous
Speaker 1: messages discussing previous messages was intended to create harmony amongst
Speaker 1: the group. And this is a really common spiritualist idea
Speaker 1: that in order to successfully communicate with the spirit world,
Speaker 1: those who are trying to communicate first need to get
Speaker 1: into a harmonious groove. UM. So you know, it's not
Speaker 1: surprising that the Sir Harmonique calls themselves what they do
Speaker 1: sir Carminique is French for harmonic circle and so UM.
Speaker 1: You know, you would create harmony, and it was then
Speaker 1: important to keep that harmony going UM, and so punctuality
Speaker 1: was very important. There's actually this fabulous message that I
Speaker 1: adore from one medium's mother who opens her message with
Speaker 1: something like I thought we had well established that punctuality
Speaker 1: was important, and I just love it because it's like
Speaker 1: mom shames from beyond the grave. UM. The spirit of
Speaker 1: another member's father admonished him one day because it seemed
Speaker 1: as he was thinking about ladies during one of the
Speaker 1: meetings rather than keeping on tasks. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: not just that you need to establish harmony at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the meeting, but then you know you've got
Speaker 1: to keep in tune with each other. UM. The spirits
Speaker 1: are going to communicate with us best if we're a
Speaker 1: very receptive um community for them. So once that harmony
Speaker 1: was established, you could begin to receive messages. Uh. It
Speaker 1: seems like sometimes the medium might have been the one
Speaker 1: who recorded the messages in the seiance records. In their cases,
Speaker 1: it seems like the medium was clearly the person writing
Speaker 1: the records was not the medium, but the medium was
Speaker 1: relaying what they were told. But this is part of
Speaker 1: the stuff that's not ever clearly detailed in their seiance records,
Speaker 1: like so so and so was getting this message, and
Speaker 1: so and so wrote this down, but they might like
Speaker 1: make little notes about how this is um by the
Speaker 1: hand of honree in terms of like who's writing UM.
Speaker 1: The records themselves are really neat and tidy. There's not
Speaker 1: much in the records that looks like automatic writing. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of pages scattered throughout that look like automatic writing,
Speaker 1: but I think that's pretty I'm pretty sure that's on
Speaker 1: Red by himself, not at one of the meetings. UM.
Speaker 1: The messages are written down on neat and tidy with
Speaker 1: dates at the top, uh to note what day the
Speaker 1: message came on, and then at the end of the
Speaker 1: message it's UM. There's like a sign off from the
Speaker 1: spirit on the right hand side of the page. They
Speaker 1: almost look like letters. UM. Some of these meetings were
Speaker 1: definitely very, very long. You've got in some cases pages
Speaker 1: UM recording a specific seance, which you know that takes
Speaker 1: a long time to hand rite out twenty five pages. UM.
Speaker 1: You know there's some clear sincerity of belief going on here.
Speaker 1: You're not going to spend hours doing something that you
Speaker 1: don't think is true. UM. And so these are long meetings,
Speaker 1: they're organized meetings. The spirits who appear is a huge
Speaker 1: array of people. It includes religious leaders, Jesus Confucius, Franz
Speaker 1: Mesmer of Mesmerism, Emmanuel Swedenborg, another visionary writer, all appear.
Speaker 1: It includes political leaders. Former presidents like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington,
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson appear as well as other political figures like
Speaker 1: John Brown and Daniel Webster. French revolutionary thinkers and actors
Speaker 1: appear all the time, such as Ropes, Pierre, Montesquieu, Jean
Speaker 1: Jacques Rousseau. Figures from the Haitian Revolution to Salt Leopa
Speaker 1: Tour makes a few appearances. Beloved local Catholic clerics appeared,
Speaker 1: as well as Saint Vincent de Paul. Spirits who needed
Speaker 1: to apologize appeared. John Wilkes Booth gives a very brief
Speaker 1: message once that's basically like I regret it um. Former
Speaker 1: Confederate leaders, including Robert E. Lee appear and apologize for
Speaker 1: their role during the Civil War. The spirit of Napoleon
Speaker 1: appears a couple of times, and he gives this one
Speaker 1: great message about how he his spirits not doing that
Speaker 1: great in the spirit world. He's got a lot to
Speaker 1: get over before he can progress um. And he talks
Speaker 1: about how people who thought they were so big on
Speaker 1: earth find that they are quite small here and considering
Speaker 1: people love to make jokes about, you know, Napoleon's heightened stature.
Speaker 1: I just find that really funny that his spirit calls
Speaker 1: himself small UM. Other notable spirits like Pocahonas and Mrs
Speaker 1: Washington appear a few times. Local friends and family appear,
Speaker 1: local politicians appear UM. Local celebrities for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term, also appear, such as UM Captain Andre Cayu,
Speaker 1: a formally enslaved man who died fighting in the Union Army.
Speaker 1: He has this massive funeral that attracted thou sins of people,
Speaker 1: and his bravery on the battlefield helped convince naysayers the
Speaker 1: Black soldiers were courageous fighters. So he appears a few
Speaker 1: times and then. Unnamed spirits were also very common UM
Speaker 1: those who signed their messages your friend, a brother, or
Speaker 1: just with the letter X. And with such an array
Speaker 1: of spirits, the messages broached a variety of topics. There
Speaker 1: were personal ones from family members. These were quite common.
Speaker 1: Family members wanted to confirm that they were well in
Speaker 1: the spirit world. Many spirits developed delivered messages that explain
Speaker 1: the nature of the spirit world and reality. More generally,
Speaker 1: they described what happened to a spirit after death, which
Speaker 1: would help the sur carminique prepare themselves for entering the
Speaker 1: spirit world, and political messages were very frequent. UM. Messages
Speaker 1: that discussed the idea and the progress of humanity are
Speaker 1: all over the records, messages from martyrs, from things like
Speaker 1: the Mechanics Institute Riot. They almost exclusively delivered political messages.
Speaker 1: John Brown never says anything that is not about black liberty.
Speaker 1: The cornerstones of French revolutionary thought, you know, liberty, allote
Speaker 1: fraternity run throughout the records. So so so many messages
Speaker 1: denounced materialism, greed, and desire for power, you know, harmonies
Speaker 1: of very common theme. UM. And so even when it's
Speaker 1: not overtly political things, these more subtly political ideas, things like,
Speaker 1: you know, materialism is something to be avoided, harmony is
Speaker 1: something to aspire to. I would say these are a
Speaker 1: little more subtly political, um, because they're giving some instruction
Speaker 1: about how society should be, how people should act with
Speaker 1: one another. These are all over the records. M hm.
Speaker 1: How strong you mentioned French revolutionary thought. How strong was
Speaker 1: the influence of French revolutionary thought on And there were
Speaker 1: other thinkers and writers at the time, like Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: who had a kind of big transnational vision for liberty
Speaker 1: and freedom, which was evident in The North Star. The
Speaker 1: kinds of stories he was publishing that we're following radical thought,
Speaker 1: radical writers at various places around the world. How how
Speaker 1: kind of global or transnational was the Star Carminique's thinking,
Speaker 1: The Sir Carminique thinking was incredibly transnational. Um. French revolutionary
Speaker 1: thought is hugely influential on them, and they're they're receiving
Speaker 1: messages from French revolutionary thinkers and writers, and they're receiving
Speaker 1: messages that are clearly influenced by French revolutionary thinkers and writers.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense. Um. You know, the kinds of
Speaker 1: some of the books that were very popular in New
Speaker 1: Orleans in the late Antebellum period were books about the
Speaker 1: French Revolution, were histories of Haiti that included descriptions of
Speaker 1: the Haitian revolution. Henri himself, you know, as the son
Speaker 1: of Haitian refugees. Um. They're they're thinking is always very
Speaker 1: local but also very global. Um. So there the ideas
Speaker 1: of the French revolutionaries thinkers are both in their messages
Speaker 1: and they're visited by spirits of French revolutionaries themselves, like Montesquieu, Rousseau, Robespierre,
Speaker 1: the Haitian revolutionary leader to sult Labatur, and the idea
Speaker 1: of these men too, are present in so many of
Speaker 1: the Spirit's messages. You know, spiritualism has this great ability
Speaker 1: to mediate the memory of the French Revolution and its
Speaker 1: promises for republican society, and that act of mediation offers
Speaker 1: answers to the politics and violence of post war New Orleans.
Speaker 1: You know, when we think about the French Revolution, this
Speaker 1: is a revolution to take power from the land owning elite,
Speaker 1: the Asal regime and put it with the people. Um
Speaker 1: the French Revolution was so much more than the storming
Speaker 1: of the Bastille in seventeen eighty nine and the guillotine.
Speaker 1: It sparked a new way of thinking about political systems
Speaker 1: in the organization of society. You know, spirits referenced things
Speaker 1: like the Genius of eighty nine, which is a reference
Speaker 1: to the storming of the Bastille. Many of them will
Speaker 1: conclude messages with things like vive la libertay, you know,
Speaker 1: the very famous battle cry of the French Revolution. And
Speaker 1: it makes sense that these Francophone ideas would find such
Speaker 1: resonance with the Sir Harmonique because the cir Harmonique saw
Speaker 1: themselves as dealing with their own aristocracy. You know, whites
Speaker 1: who had become powerful from slavery where their own as
Speaker 1: she all regime to deal with. And as long as
Speaker 1: that aristocracy ruled, the people couldn't be liberated and no
Speaker 1: one would have real equality. So, you know, the Spirit's
Speaker 1: espouse ideals like living by a social contract, divine friendship, brotherhood.
Speaker 1: These are ideas that come up in the writings of
Speaker 1: these French revolutionary thinkers. Um. And in a true republic,
Speaker 1: the people's voice mattered. Um. It's it's important though, to
Speaker 1: note that there was some regret to Robespierre's Spirit regrets
Speaker 1: the terror. You know, he's like, yeah, maybe we spilled
Speaker 1: a little too much blood with the guillotine. But he
Speaker 1: also saw that violence is necessary for the success of
Speaker 1: the people. Um. And to your point about Frederick Douglas,
Speaker 1: you know, Frederick Douglas and the Cirque had a lot
Speaker 1: of similar views. You know, they both viewed slavery as
Speaker 1: immoral tyranny. They both believed that real religion endorsed love
Speaker 1: and equality. But it goes deeper than that too. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, Douglas, in one of his letters to William
Speaker 1: Lloyd Garrison. He writes something like, um, as to nation,
Speaker 1: I belong to none. As to nation, I belong to none,
Speaker 1: And the circule reminds me of that. You know, because
Speaker 1: of America's racial hierarchy and relationship to slavery, members of
Speaker 1: the Cirque had not been allowed to be full citizens,
Speaker 1: and they received messages that a shoe national identity in
Speaker 1: favor of humanity in general. Um, there's this great message
Speaker 1: from the Spirit of George Washington in which he says,
Speaker 1: I'm not American, I am of humanity. It's flag is mine.
Speaker 1: And that coming from the US as first president and
Speaker 1: an owner of slaves people, you know that holds weight.
Speaker 1: One's main allegiance should be to humanity and the uplift
Speaker 1: of human equality. Both the Cirque and Douglas thought, you know,
Speaker 1: America could be a place of progress, but it will
Speaker 1: never be with slavery. I'm In that same letter to Garrison,
Speaker 1: Douglas says something like America will not allow her children
Speaker 1: to love her. But the idea that the spirit's dedication
Speaker 1: of those French revolutionary ideas um of liberty, egalite fraternity.
Speaker 1: If the idea could take hold in America, we might
Speaker 1: be able to change it to where America might let
Speaker 1: her children love her mhm. And when you're talking about
Speaker 1: Robespierre believing that violence was necessary to achieve republican democracy, Uh,
Speaker 1: did the Sir Harmonique kind of share that idea about
Speaker 1: the Civil War? How did they? How did they think
Speaker 1: about the Civil War in the in the decades after,
Speaker 1: when they were going through the throes of reconstruction and
Speaker 1: the ongoing struggle and violence that kind of continued the
Speaker 1: war in their local frame? Um, how did they think
Speaker 1: about the fighting that had been done? So the spirits
Speaker 1: and the Sir Carminique, they didn't want there to ever
Speaker 1: be a war. Um. They didn't like violence of any kind.
Speaker 1: But they also solve the necessity of the Civil war
Speaker 1: in order to rid the country of slavery. Slavery was
Speaker 1: horrid um. And the spirits of both formally enslaved persons
Speaker 1: and the spirits of former slavers told them this. So
Speaker 1: in order to in order for the idea to take
Speaker 1: root in the world, slavery would have to be abolished.
Speaker 1: And if it required war, then it required war. Um.
Speaker 1: And after the Civil War, spirits of many who were
Speaker 1: involved appear. So the spirit of Roberty Lee apologizes for
Speaker 1: his leadership in the war. And he's not the only
Speaker 1: Confederate soldier to do to to do that. A number
Speaker 1: of Confederate soldiers apologize. UM. The spirits of Union soldiers
Speaker 1: delivered messages to about how they were continuing the march
Speaker 1: forward in the world beyond Um. The spirit of Captain
Speaker 1: Andre Cayu, that formerly enslave New Orleans man who dies
Speaker 1: on the battlefield of Port Hudson. He said again and
Speaker 1: again and again how he was glad to have died
Speaker 1: for the cause. So, while violence should be avoided, fighting
Speaker 1: for a just cause was itself justice. M You mentioned
Speaker 1: kind of at the top of our conversation that there
Speaker 1: were a number of spiritualist mediums who spoke from you know,
Speaker 1: claimed to be speaking from Native spirit guides. That there
Speaker 1: were people from native tribes. Sometimes they were leaders, sometimes
Speaker 1: they were young girls, you know, and they were saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm speaking in the voice of a of a
Speaker 1: four year old Native girl, and this is what you know,
Speaker 1: territorial expansion or massacre she suffered. Um. Did the Sir
Speaker 1: Carmenique ever received messages from Native spirit gigs they did.
Speaker 1: The Curuk received a couple of messages from Native American spirits.
Speaker 1: They receive one or two from Pocahonas, they receive one
Speaker 1: or two from Montezuma, and they receive a couple from
Speaker 1: a few other spirits that they come right after a
Speaker 1: message from Pocahonas. And their names are things like Pacoa,
Speaker 1: which kind of sounds like an attempt at a Native
Speaker 1: American name. What's really interesting is they'll allude to things
Speaker 1: like monte Zuma has one where he sort of alludes to,
Speaker 1: you know, the the old days of um. It's just
Speaker 1: like Barbary. But their messages are actually kind of bland uh,
Speaker 1: which when compared with some of the white women on
Speaker 1: the Northeast coast who are almost doing these performances of
Speaker 1: uh so called Indian squaws, it sort of makes the
Speaker 1: Sir Carminique's interaction with Native American spirits seemed kind of boring.
Speaker 1: M Um. We also talked to the top kind of
Speaker 1: about in general, what statesmen and political figures appearing in
Speaker 1: silence is meant for spiritualists and their relationship to the past.
Speaker 1: But you've mentioned now all kinds of different figures who
Speaker 1: spoke to the star harmony in particular, Was there anything
Speaker 1: that was unique about the way they start harmonique related
Speaker 1: to these historical figures, whether it's George Washington or I mean,
Speaker 1: in the case of Henrie h getting a message from
Speaker 1: Toussaint Levature about, you know, about the French Revolution, thinking
Speaker 1: about his place in the revolution, all of that would
Speaker 1: have taken on a particular charge, right. Um, Is there
Speaker 1: anything that distinguishes maybe what was going on with the
Speaker 1: Sir Carminique from the other kinds of general things we
Speaker 1: could say about spiritualism and its relationship to the past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, um, I think so. I think the Sir
Speaker 1: Carminique's own flavor of spiritualism is deeply influenced by where
Speaker 1: they are and deeply influenced by the kind of society
Speaker 1: that they want to build. Um. They're pretty unique in
Speaker 1: the sense that the spirits taught the Sir Carminique that
Speaker 1: race didn't exist in the spirit world. Um, one's race
Speaker 1: only exists with the body. They call the body the
Speaker 1: material envelope. And this is something you leave behind when
Speaker 1: you die, you know, It's just something that houses your
Speaker 1: spirit for its short time on earth. And so when
Speaker 1: you think about it, then the spirits taught, racial identity
Speaker 1: isn't what's important. The value that you have, the value
Speaker 1: that you have as a spirit that continues on um.
Speaker 1: So the Sir Carminique is pretty unique in this since
Speaker 1: that they didn't see race as something that structured the
Speaker 1: world beyond this one. In fact, the spirit world would
Speaker 1: be a racial utopia in the sense the racial identity
Speaker 1: and you know, the hierarchy that comes with it doesn't
Speaker 1: exist there Um and spirits reference this a lot. Uh.
Speaker 1: Confucius spirit affirmed that there's said something like on one occasion,
Speaker 1: how there's no different races really because we're all children
Speaker 1: of the same father. Um. There's another spirit who got
Speaker 1: pretty theological on this um and he claimed that, you know,
Speaker 1: if Jesus had been black, or to put it in
Speaker 1: the spirits um own words, you know, he said that
Speaker 1: if Jesus had possessed a black envelope meaning body, He
Speaker 1: said that, you know, Jesus would have been disowned by
Speaker 1: many people. And what a poignant thing to say. I mean,
Speaker 1: so many of these white Christians, he was arguing, would
Speaker 1: deny their own savior if he appeared before them as
Speaker 1: a black man. And so the spirits taught that race
Speaker 1: should not matter, but they also recognized that it did
Speaker 1: here in the material world, and they lamented that fact.
Speaker 1: It's sad in them that Americans place so much value
Speaker 1: on racial identity. UM. In Abraham Lincoln's first spirit message,
Speaker 1: he he asked the rhetorical question at one point, is
Speaker 1: it your fault if God created his children with different colors?
Speaker 1: And so the practice of this or Carmenique, the their
Speaker 1: particular interaction with these major political figures, is deeply influenced
Speaker 1: by the kind of society that they want to build,
Speaker 1: and by interacting with you know, spirits like US President
Speaker 1: George Washington, Haitian revolutionary leader to sult ly of a
Speaker 1: tour radical abolitionist John Brown. You know, they're able to
Speaker 1: put themselves in part of a long history of progress.
Speaker 1: You know, the idea progressed and you could track its
Speaker 1: progress in history. UM. And the Sir Carminique, I think
Speaker 1: would have liked to have imagined themselves as a step
Speaker 1: in that progress. UM. Let me use an idea of
Speaker 1: the sord harmoniques here. So they understood that spirits UM.
Speaker 1: After they died, they ascended what they called the ladder
Speaker 1: of progress Um. The spirit world was organized by the
Speaker 1: ladder of progress. You continued to learn and become better
Speaker 1: in the world beyond this one um. So, for example,
Speaker 1: the spirit of Napoleon shared that he was stuck groaning
Speaker 1: at the foot of the ladder of progress. Well, other
Speaker 1: more luminous spirits were moving along, uh. And one of
Speaker 1: their record books, there's this little drawing of the ladder
Speaker 1: of progress tucked in the pages. UM. And as you
Speaker 1: move up the ladder you see good characteristics develop, things
Speaker 1: like persistence and patients. And at the top of the
Speaker 1: ladder is this little drawing that looks a lot like
Speaker 1: contemporary images of Jesus. So to use the circus own
Speaker 1: concept of the ladder of progress um to explain or
Speaker 1: to think about the particular weight of people like John
Speaker 1: Brown Intusultan Overtour appearing to them. You know, they believe
Speaker 1: that humanity writ large was also on a ladder of progress,
Speaker 1: and figures like John Brown into Sultan Overtour, they helped
Speaker 1: push humanity along the ladder of progress. And the Sir
Speaker 1: Carminique wanted to be a part of that story. They
Speaker 1: wanted to be one of the wrongs on that big
Speaker 1: ladder of progress of humanity. That's moved thing us along
Speaker 1: closer and closer to the idea m the thing that
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about. You know, we're asking a number
Speaker 1: of people to talk about spiritualism and gender, gender and power,
Speaker 1: but I didn't ask you to reflect on gender in
Speaker 1: the Sircarminique. Um, would you be able to just kind
Speaker 1: of off the cuff riff on that a little bit? Yeah, totally. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I think one of the really interesting things when it
Speaker 1: comes to gender in the Sircarminique is for monique is
Speaker 1: composed primarily of Afro Creol men. There's occasionally um female guests,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe someone's wife, a friend's widow, a sister
Speaker 1: um at the meeting, but the Sircarminique's core membership is
Speaker 1: all men um. The overwhelming majority of spirits that they
Speaker 1: are act with, at least those who are gendered, you know,
Speaker 1: the unknown spirits. I guess we can't know their gender,
Speaker 1: but the overwhelming majority of spirits they interact with our
Speaker 1: men um, which you know, they're interacting with public figures
Speaker 1: that they knew, so I guess that's not a big surprise.
Speaker 1: But there's then sort of this you know, there's on
Speaker 1: the few occasions that they received messages that you know,
Speaker 1: bluntly said something about gender. And this usually had to
Speaker 1: do with messages that would say something about the proper
Speaker 1: relationship between men and women, um, which was things like,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of messages about how men should
Speaker 1: take care of women. Uh. They would receive a few
Speaker 1: messages about how I can't remember who these came from,
Speaker 1: but they get they get a couple of messages that
Speaker 1: talk about oh so Jean, the spirit of Jean Jacques
Speaker 1: Rouche Rousseau tells them that women are not to be
Speaker 1: treated as play things. Um. The spirit of Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: also says this, which, considering his rape of Sally Hemmings,
Speaker 1: is always very interesting. Um. They also get a couple
Speaker 1: of messages from spirits that talk about how women should be,
Speaker 1: which is interesting considering that the Sir Carmonique is all
Speaker 1: men and they're getting messages about how women should be. Uh.
Speaker 1: The spirit of Valmore has this one message where he
Speaker 1: more or less reiterates what's known as the Madonna Hoore
Speaker 1: complex that women are either these beautiful, wonderful virginal mothers,
Speaker 1: which is what they should be or they fall into
Speaker 1: loose behavior and prostitution, um, which doesn't give you know,
Speaker 1: a whole lot of agency for women to make their
Speaker 1: own identity. They've got a few messages from this um
Speaker 1: French romantic writer. Um she was a noble woman, and
Speaker 1: I'm blanking on her name. Um. She was a noble
Speaker 1: woman and always signed off with her her title. And
Speaker 1: she wrote these letters with her daughter that were later
Speaker 1: published and sort of held up as this um ideal
Speaker 1: of what women Romantic era women should be. She delivers
Speaker 1: a couple of messages to this sir Carmonique which usually
Speaker 1: kind of told them, hey, don't forget about women. Women
Speaker 1: have some pretty cool ideas to women should be a
Speaker 1: part of the conversation. Um, treat women well, don't treat
Speaker 1: us like material objects and playthings. Um. And the spirit
Speaker 1: of Mrs Washington. She has this one message. It's one
Speaker 1: line long, and she more or less just says like
Speaker 1: remember the ladies, um, which is a famous line of
Speaker 1: Jane Adams to her husband during the you know, early
Speaker 1: Constitutional Congresses, where she tells him remember the ladies. And
Speaker 1: the spirit of Mrs Washington echoes that to the Sarcarmonique
Speaker 1: though it seems like they don't take those messages necessarily
Speaker 1: to heart because women occasionally attend meetings of the Sarcarmonique.
Speaker 1: But um, because when they do have guests there, they'll
Speaker 1: usually they usually make some sort of mention of it.
Speaker 1: But it's not all that common. Um. It seems like
Speaker 1: adele On Reese, why if attends some of them. But
Speaker 1: you know, she's also wanting her son to be educated
Speaker 1: in the local Catholic school. So it seems like it's
Speaker 1: a primarily male enterprise for the SARCARMONIQ. What was a
Speaker 1: redoing with his life outside the cirque uh in the
Speaker 1: late sixties, early seventies, so he serves a term in
Speaker 1: the Louisiana legislature. UH. He serves on a school board,
Speaker 1: not the school board of his father, but for public schools.
Speaker 1: Who works at a hardware store. Um. He his house
Speaker 1: catches on fire in the mid seventies. UM, and it
Speaker 1: seems like he loses everything. It's not clear if the
Speaker 1: seiance records were at his home at that point or
Speaker 1: someone else's home, because I sometimes wonder if he ran
Speaker 1: back into his burning home to save his silence records. UM.
Speaker 1: But he's they've got a pretty respectable home UM in
Speaker 1: the Tremay neighborhood. Uh, kind of living a New Orleans
Speaker 1: middle class what we might call middle class for the
Speaker 1: reconstruction period UM life. You mentioned that early on we
Speaker 1: had his his struggles with the Catholic Church. Did the
Speaker 1: Cirque in general have an approach to the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: in New Orleans and did it change at all over
Speaker 1: the decades when they were meeting together. So most members
Speaker 1: of the Cirque would have grown up in the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: They were baptized, they were married in the Catholic Church. UM.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a couple of members of the cir
Speaker 1: Carmonique that the only places that I've been able to
Speaker 1: find a mention of their name outside of you know,
Speaker 1: scribbled in the margins of the science records, is in
Speaker 1: the UM like baptismal records. So they grow up in
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church. UM. But they have a very i
Speaker 1: would say interesting relationship with the Catholic Church. You know,
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church in New Orleans supports the Confederacy very strongly.
Speaker 1: During the Civil War. UM, there's this one very outspoken
Speaker 1: abolitionist priests who's threatened with excommunication UM and has his
Speaker 1: church shut down. UH priests regularly would refuse to give
Speaker 1: Eucharist to UM Black Catholic men in Union UH uniforms.
Speaker 1: There would be ceremonies. The Spirit would refer to these
Speaker 1: ceremonies blessing Confederate flags UM during the Catholic Mass. So
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church locally is in support of the Confederacy.
Speaker 1: Even during the Union occupation of the city UM and
Speaker 1: the spirits delivered tons of messages about the materialism and
Speaker 1: greed of the Catholic Church and its priests, that the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church and wants money and secrets, money and secrets,
Speaker 1: money and secrets, and that's what priests went to. They
Speaker 1: come to your door and they want you to tell
Speaker 1: them all of your family secrets, so then they have
Speaker 1: all of your personal information and then they want your
Speaker 1: money to UM. And so the institutionalism of the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: you know, which was something that made it politically progress
Speaker 1: so early on, is sort of offering this place where
Speaker 1: you could rebuild family despite slavery's attempt to destroy black families.
Speaker 1: It become the Catholic Church then becomes this power hungry,
Speaker 1: greedy thing that's trying to destroy um black agency. So
Speaker 1: they've got this very critical view of the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: But then one of the most common spirit guides who
Speaker 1: appears throughout the tenure of the cur Carmonique is the
Speaker 1: spirit of St. Vincent but DePaul UM, which when you
Speaker 1: think about it more, is not all that surprising. You know. St.
Speaker 1: Vincent DePaul is a champion for the marginalized, He's a
Speaker 1: champion for charity, so it it's not all that surprising
Speaker 1: that he would remain a saint for UM the Sura
Speaker 1: Carminique as well. And there was a pretty active St.
Speaker 1: Vincent de Paul Society in New Orleans at this time,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's a name that had cache for
Speaker 1: progressive Catholic thought. UM. And so you've got Catholic spirits
Speaker 1: who are appearing French revolutionary priests are appearing UM and
Speaker 1: being critical of their own institution. UM. So there was
Speaker 1: this way in which like the institution of Catholicism was
Speaker 1: severely criticized in the spirits m messages, but radical Catholic
Speaker 1: figures were celebrated as UM, you know, beloved spirit guides
Speaker 1: into the seventies as the White League Uh Caesar his
Speaker 1: power in New Orleans starts to dismantle any kind of
Speaker 1: gains that had been made under reconstruction in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Did that inflect the kinds of spirit messages that the
Speaker 1: sarkarmunique was getting. It did? Um. So there's the what
Speaker 1: I would call sort of the heyday of the Sarcarmonique,
Speaker 1: which is in the early eighteen seventies, where they're receiving
Speaker 1: political messages frequently after the Battle of Liberty Place, which
Speaker 1: is in September of eighteen seventy four, this horrible three
Speaker 1: day rogue rule of New Orleans by a white supremacist
Speaker 1: terrorist organization. UM. During that the spirits of Mechanics Institute
Speaker 1: riot martyrs appear to the Sarcarminique and encourage them to
Speaker 1: keep the faith that their rights will be maintained. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's a spirit I can't remember who it is now,
Speaker 1: but there's a spirit that tells them the sort of
Speaker 1: paraphrise kind of also tells them to be careful, um
Speaker 1: that looking for retribution is definitely not a good idea.
Speaker 1: And I think there's sort of a warning in that
Speaker 1: of we're holding dangerous ideas and it's this is a
Speaker 1: place that is increasingly becoming more and more dangerous to
Speaker 1: hold two ideas of equality and so in it seems
Speaker 1: like actually starting in late eight most of the seance
Speaker 1: records for the last two years are mainly just on
Speaker 1: re Um, And that's something that actually makes me really
Speaker 1: sad to think about. Other members had joined the spirit world,
Speaker 1: some had moved Um, some fell away from the group,
Speaker 1: And there's a way in which the spirits promise that
Speaker 1: the idea could take hold and blossom in our world.
Speaker 1: That was a dream that was slipping further and further
Speaker 1: away as Reconstruction began to really demonstrate the failure that
Speaker 1: it wise. And so as that's happening, there's the messages
Speaker 1: are less and less politically potent, especially when it seems
Speaker 1: like it's it's just on re Um sitting there by himself.
Speaker 1: The messages lack so much of the bite of earlier years. Instead,
Speaker 1: he receives a lot of messages that reinforce that he's
Speaker 1: not alone Um, that the spirits are still with him.
Speaker 1: Some of them might contain these sort of bland calls
Speaker 1: for progress Um, but actually it's really just sad to
Speaker 1: me I think about him sometimes just sitting by himself
Speaker 1: at a table, a table that used to be full
Speaker 1: of vibrant conversation about the potential of what the spirit
Speaker 1: spoke of, and now it's just him. Um. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the science records offered some comfort, um, but in the end,
Speaker 1: it's just him and the records end in November eight
Speaker 1: as reconstruction itself comes to a close. Mhm, it's a
Speaker 1: sobering note. Um. In the following decades, spiritualists were still practicing,
Speaker 1: and there were attempts to formalize spiritualism across the US,
Speaker 1: to build institutions. Uh, you know the Morest Pratt Institute
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, the the National Association of Spiritualists, or
Speaker 1: maybe got that wrong. I think it's the National Spiritualist Association. Um.
Speaker 1: What did it look like towards the end of the
Speaker 1: century from from your perspective studying spiritualism broadly and studying
Speaker 1: the Star Carmonique Um, in the later years of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, what was spiritualism's significance or or position kind
Speaker 1: of in the American religious landscape? Two? Around the turn
Speaker 1: of the century, spiritualism is still pretty strong, but it's
Speaker 1: in the process of changing. Um, it's taking on a
Speaker 1: little bit of a different flavor. I think. So you
Speaker 1: still have people practicing at home, but increasingly I would
Speaker 1: say spiritualism is sort of leaving the home parlor and more.
Speaker 1: I mean, it had always had a public element to it,
Speaker 1: but the public element seemed like it was becoming more
Speaker 1: and more important. Um. So you've got like the rise
Speaker 1: of psychical research, including the work of William James, impacting spiritualism.
Speaker 1: Where you've got some people who are doing psychical research
Speaker 1: who are identifying spiritualism as a hoax, others who are
Speaker 1: saying there might be something to this. Um. You've got
Speaker 1: people reading the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, both
Speaker 1: the Sherlock Holmes books, but then also some of his
Speaker 1: other writings on spiritualism. The particular sort of taste I
Speaker 1: think that spiritual some at least leaves in my mouth
Speaker 1: around on a century is it's much more public and
Speaker 1: it has less of that sort of private in home
Speaker 1: feel to its. Um. I think it's a big bump
Speaker 1: in popularity after World War One. Um. You know, as
Speaker 1: as with the Civil War, people look for continued relationships
Speaker 1: with the dead after so much death plagues you. But
Speaker 1: you've also got the rise of you know, all of
Speaker 1: the the flurry of patterns that are coming through the U. S.
Speaker 1: Patent Office for what would become the Luigi Board. So
Speaker 1: there's this m I don't want to sound like I'm
Speaker 1: saying there was no sincerity and spiritualism anymore, because I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not saying that, but it increasingly in what I'm
Speaker 1: looking at, has a little less of that closed, private
Speaker 1: quiet feel mhm. And I think there there's been an
Speaker 1: experience for a lot of religious communities of seeing, whether
Speaker 1: they would say it's commercialization or co option, seeing something
Speaker 1: that is earnest and devotional becomes something that is public
Speaker 1: and marketable, um experienced as a loss, right, a degrading.
Speaker 1: Is that a dynamic that you see in the later
Speaker 1: decades of the nineteenth century and spiritualism. I think there,
Speaker 1: I think there is some of that, But then there's
Speaker 1: also this really savvy response to that. You have the
Speaker 1: development of spiritualist communities UM in places like upstate New
Speaker 1: York or Florida. Yeah, that that take what might sound
Speaker 1: is like this nostalgic lament for you know, back when
Speaker 1: spiritualism was you know, not commercialized, and they've actually had
Speaker 1: some of the their success and maintain the longevity of
Speaker 1: their communities in part because of that public facing element
Speaker 1: of their practice. UM So, I think maybe just the
Speaker 1: main thing to always remembers spiritualists are they're innovative. Um
Speaker 1: you know, spiritual experimentation is one of the most American
Speaker 1: things that there is, and spiritualists innovated on that and
Speaker 1: continue to innovate on that and remain relevant because of it.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Hey, folks, it's Aaron here. I hope today's
Speaker 1: in your you helped you deepen your understanding of everything
Speaker 1: involved in the world of spiritualism. But we're not done yet.
Speaker 1: We have more interviews to share with you, so stick
Speaker 1: around after this brief sponsor break to hear a preview
Speaker 1: of next week's interview. Next time on Unobscured, there are
Speaker 1: many accounts, not just then but later on where you
Speaker 1: really have to wonder whether they develop a clairvoyance, because
Speaker 1: some of them are inexplicable, and it's threaded throughout the book,
Speaker 1: but there are those other incidents. But anyway, it finally
Speaker 1: gets to be so big, and meanwhile the church is
Speaker 1: of course a horrified They think these girls are, which
Speaker 1: is they are communing with something they shouldn't be communing
Speaker 1: with the dead. Their death threats against them, and they
Speaker 1: have to be very careful where they go, and some
Speaker 1: very religious clergy and peep in Rochester threatened to kill
Speaker 1: them and run them out of town a tar and
Speaker 1: feather them at the least. Unobscured was created by me
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and
Speaker 1: Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research and
Speaker 1: writing for this season is all the work of my
Speaker 1: right hand man Carl Nellis, and the brilliant Chad Lawson
Speaker 1: composed the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians,
Speaker 1: source material and links to our other shows over at
Speaker 1: history unobscured dot com and until next time, thanks for
Speaker 1: listening Unobscured as a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Aaron Monkey. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit
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