WEBVTT - S2 – INTERVIEW 3: Emily Clark 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.639 Historian Emily Clark is Associate professor of Religious Studies at 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:17.160 Gonzaga University. She's our guest for this episode. Her scholarship 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:22.880 focuses on African American religions, American Catholic history, colonialism, religious 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.720 material culture, and finally something that we're big fans of 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:31.640 around here, hauntings. Dr Clark's first book, A Luminous Brotherhood, 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.479 won multiple awards for its exploration of the sir harmonique 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.000 in New Orleans. She sat down to talk with researcher 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.800 Carl Nellis about this fascinating circle of spiritualists and what 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:46.400 their story tells us about spiritualism in America. But their 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.640 conversation didn't stop there. Her deep understanding of spiritualism was 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.160 invaluable for putting our story together, and we're so glad 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.240 she could join us. We begin with her perspective on 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.480 what it meant to be a spiritualist in nineteenth century America. 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.679 This is the Unobscured interview series for season two. I'm 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:30.000 Aaron Manky. To be a spiritualist meant that you one 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.840 of the central things guiding your understanding of the religious 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.120 and spiritual world was a belief in a spirit world 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:42.640 beyond this material, earthly one. Uh. And additionally that communication 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.200 with spirits in that world was possible um, and not 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.520 just possible, but was something that you know, if you 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.880 could do, you should do. Um. Spiritualism was completely compatible 0:01:55.040 --> 0:02:00.000 with various forms of Christianity, especially liberal Protestantism. You'd find 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:06.440 in lots of Unitarians, Anglicans, Congregationalists who were also spiritualists. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.640 And for many spiritualists, God and Jesus resided in the 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.799 spirit world. Um. In fact, the group I study they 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.280 received messages from Jesus. Um. The spirit world. It could 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.119 have heaven, it could have um sort of an understanding 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.760 of hell for some. For some spiritualists the spirit world 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.360 had multiple heavens or multiple hells. Um. But I think 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.400 the thing that really unites a lot of them together 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.600 is this belief in a spirit world beyond this one, 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.680 and that we can communicate with those who were in 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.960 the spirit world. So there were people from all kinds 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.520 of especially Christian traditions, who were involved in the practice 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.799 of spiritualism. Um. What kinds of things were people looking 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.840 for when they attended a spiritualist seyance beyond what they 0:02:55.840 --> 0:03:00.400 were getting from their religious traditions already answers. People went 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:05.079 to a seance for answers um. For many of them, 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:09.440 it was answers about the nature of reality um, the 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.240 nature of the material world, the spirit world, the relationship 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:18.480 between the material world and the world beyond this one. Um. 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:23.840 You know, answers for answers for questions that Christianity sort 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.840 of answered, but also for many answered in a way 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:32.280 that didn't feel complete. Um. So an understanding of the 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.040 world beyond this one. In many cases, people went to 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.680 sciences for closure. You know, maybe it was shortly after 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:45.120 a family member or a friend had died and you know, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.200 you wanted to hear from them one last time, or 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:52.480 you wanted assurance that wherever you know their entity now 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.200 was was okay. UM. So seiunds could provide closure. And 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.160 in a lot of cases, people wanted to say their 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:05.840 curiosity UM. For those more casual science goers, spiritualism offered 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:10.120 a really interesting form of leisure activity. You know, how 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.520 better to spice up a Thursday evening than going to 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.280 a seance UM. And you know, maybe something really interesting 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:18.760 and exciting will happen. So for some people it was 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.440 about curiosity, um, and for some people it was to 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.640 try to debunk supposed Charlatan's. So it could be entertainment, 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.359 but it could also be, you know, a really deep 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:34.960 spiritual experience. And in that variety of reasons and motivations 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.720 that someone might come to a science um in conversation 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.039 with the idea of people who are a part of 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.040 a religious traation coming. There's also all kinds of people 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.719 who were involved in scientific investigation or the horizons of 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:54.480 scientific knowledge, UM, who were involved at the beginning with spiritualism. 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.280 Can you talk a little bit about how in the 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.360 early eight hundreds mesmerism and related pact this is that 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.440 we're considered kind of new horizons of applied science of 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.160 a human mind, of a human person trying to observe 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.200 and measure what was going on with our bodies and 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.160 our minds. How did those new horizons of science lay 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:17.800 the groundwork for what became spiritualism. So mesmerism um is 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:24.880 a great sort of religious spiritual movement idea to put 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.359 in conversation with spiritualism. So mesmerism was developed by a 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:33.080 German physician, Frand's Antoine mesmer UM. And he writes this 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:38.200 absolutely fabulous doctoral dissertation. UM that's throwing around terms like 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.440 animal magnetism and animal gravity and planetary gravity, and it's 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.960 just it's an absolutely fabulous read for anyone who has 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:49.080 spare time. UM. And what he ends up coming through 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.440 is is you know this thing that we call mesmerism, 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.080 which more or less argues that there were invisible fluids 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.080 coursing through the bodies of humans, connecting them to a 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.640 larger world around them. UM. And that good health, you know, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.360 physical health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health. Good health 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:13.599 was the result of keeping those fluids in harmony. UM. 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:18.520 So accessing and manipulating these fluids UM, both mesmerists but 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:24.960 also spirits could affect and influence people's bodies UM. And 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:30.160 magnetizers that's what mesmerists would call those who could manipulate 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:35.120 the fluids. Magnetizers could use the powers of their minds 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:39.359 to harmonize the fluids and others. UH. A number of 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.400 spiritualists would first go into a mesmeric trance before communicating 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.839 with spirits. A number of spiritualists done it UM. But 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.480 either way, mesmerism really paved the way for spiritualism by 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:55.440 offering this understanding of invisible spiritual forces that connected us 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.000 to the world around us, and more importantly, that we 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:02.000 could tap into those spiritual for says, and there were 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.280 other invisible forces being harnessed and tapped in, controlled and manipulated. 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.120 Uh in the mid nineteenth century, right with things like 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.640 the telegraph and with new applications of electricity. Can you 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:15.720 talk a little bit about the way that in early 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:20.720 spiritualism there was kind of this conversation between religious discourses 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.800 and science and technologies like the telegraph that all fed 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.720 into what it meant to be a medium. Oh yeah, 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:32.720 so spiritualists were incredibly interested in technology. UM. Technology was 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:37.080 a way of showing legitimacy. Many spirituals understood the communication 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.680 process with the spirit world to be akin to electricity 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:49.280 or the telegraph UM. The beloved spiritualist theologian Andrew Jackson Davis, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.880 nicknamed the Poughkeepsie Seer because he's from Poughkeepsie, UM and 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:58.280 upstate New York, regularly talked about the spiritual telegraph um 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:04.240 and used use the the understanding of the telegraph to 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:11.800 explain either, you know, it's totally possible that messages can 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.520 be communicated without us seeing it happening. Um. You know, 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.120 when a message is going through a telegraph wire, you 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.760 don't necessarily know that you know it's it's it's happening 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.240 without you being aware or being able to notice that 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.920 something's happening. And spiritualism can be the same way. Messages 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:35.559 can be communicated through these unseen but very powerful forces 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.960 that you know, scientifically we can measure and spiritually we 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.079 can measure. Um. It wasn't just things like the telegraph 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:47.680 and electricity. There is this absolutely fabulous chemist uh turned spiritualist, 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:54.640 Robert Hare, who invented these fantastic um machines that he 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.160 called spiritoscopes, which would be used by a medium and 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.520 they would have all of these dials UM, and wheels 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.720 and pulleys and some names on the dials would letters 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:09.080 and numbers, and through the communication of a spirit, a 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.880 medium would manipulate this machine and they wouldn't be able 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.120 to see what the message was saying, which was proof 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.400 because the messages being not only mediated through the medium 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.680 but also through the machine. Like it's this is a 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.079 way of saying, there's no fraud here. They're just doing 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.760 as the spirit wills them. UM. And so you know, 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:32.520 machines like that could help UM show the legitimacy of 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:36.360 spiritualism photography too. As photography really takes off in the 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.800 eighteen fifties, you've got the development of what gets photography, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:45.280 which is UM people taking photographs during seances or um 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.480 after trying to call forth a spirit, and you would 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.000 get these really eerie photographs with sort of these disembodied 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:58.320 very UM kind of light figures in photographs UM that 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.600 many people get exposed as fraud in what they're doing 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.480 is double exposure to some film. Uh, there's the whole 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.160 scandal of William Mummler who's making tons of money off 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.319 of fake spirit photography. And then you've got planned shots 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.040 and Weuiji boards coming later. So there's always this interest 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.760 in UM the way in which technology where whether it's 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:21.240 simple machines or something more complicated like how electricity works. 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:27.720 Spiritualists are engaging with that world and you know, using 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.400 it to help facilitate conversation with the spirit world. And 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.559 those are some of the high tech kind of solutions 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.440 of the day. UM. There are some other aspects of 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.360 spiritualist material culture that play large roles in some turning 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:44.800 points in spiritualist history. Can you talk a little bit 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:49.200 about the spirit cabinet and how that functioned in seances. 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.520 Spirit cabinets were fascinating. Um. They could be these fantastic 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.840 pieces of equipment or really really simple. Um. So some 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.559 spirit cabinets, especially the ones that you would see in 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:08.040 public seances, were like these edited furniture wardrobes um that 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.520 might have a seat or a bench inside for the 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:16.440 medium to sit. UM. So imagine you know a wardrobe 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.439 that's sort of empty on the inside, with the exception 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.120 of this little seat for the medium to sit. Often 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.760 the medium would be tied up um to prove that, 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.560 you know, sounds or manifested spirits were clearly not them 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.800 duping the people because they were tied up um. For example, 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.960 the Davenport brothers, the famous Davenport brothers, William and Ira, 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.320 had this large cabinet in which both of them would 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.240 be bound, and then the audience would hear musical instruments 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.319 being played um after they were closed in the cabinets. 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:44.840 They're even tests to prove that they weren't playing the 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.960 instruments themselves. One one of their tours, I think it 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.079 was in Ireland, someone put blue paint on their hands 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:53.920 um and then expected, you know, to find all these 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:59.040 blue handprints all over the trumpets and the trombones um, 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.760 and there was nothing. Or other people would sprinkle flower 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.800 on their laps um and so you know, the idea was, 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.640 you know, it would be very obvious if they had moved, 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.439 because there would be flower everywhere. UM. And at the 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.000 end of the seance, you know, they would open the 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:16.160 cabinet and they're still they're all tied up UM with 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.600 the flower being intact, or you know, the blue paint 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:24.800 isn't everywhere. In other cases, spirit cabinets were really simple UM. 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.199 In homes. Sometimes people would refer to their spirit cabinet 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.520 when really it was just a curtain pulled across the 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.280 dead corner of a parlor UM. And so sometimes these 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.000 would be called spirit curtains, but they would frequently get 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.800 referred to a spirit cabinets, and they were super common. 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:47.120 Materialization seances UM, which were increasingly in the nineteenth century 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:52.440 quite popular UM. At the at home seance, where a 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:58.120 materialization spirit or a materialization seance, you would have people 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.240 interact in some cases with the material body of a 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:05.520 spirit that would emerge. So you'd find these descriptions um, 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:07.960 from people who are at a materialization seance, and they 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.400 might notice by their feet what looks like a small 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:16.720 white handkerchief has appeared, and very slowly the handkerchief grows 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.520 and it turns into something bigger and bigger and bigger. 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.440 And the next thing you know, the spirit of your 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.040 deceased wife has materialized right next to you. UM. And 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.520 then she hugs you, or she kisses you, she grabs you. 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:32.079 You can feel her material body. There's so many reports 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:37.760 of these recently, UM, these widowers whose wives had recently died, 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.720 and they interact with their wife at a materialization seance 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.960 at someone's spirit cabinet in their home. You would also 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.480 have a materialization seance is sometimes the spirit giving gifts. UM. 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:54.160 There was this one, this one medium who frequently would 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.160 call forth this spirit that she called Katie, and Katie 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.200 would give plants and flowers to people, UM that they 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:06.439 could then take home. M hm. And so let's with 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.600 all these kind of pieces in place, some religion, some technology, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.760 some science. Uh, some of the practices of what happened 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.679 in the science. UM, let's start talking a little bit 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:20.840 about some social context. UM. Spiritualism became a global movement 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.920 fairly quickly, and the Catholic Church in France and Spain 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.000 cracked down on spiritualism. Uh. There even uh some some 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.280 accounts of spiritualist books being burned and that kind of thing. Um, 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.640 do you have any comments on what made spiritualism is 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.320 kind of distinctive set of beliefs and practices attractive outside 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.000 of America where it began, for instance, in France or 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.320 in the Caribbean, some of those cultures that were interacting 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:49.000 with the people that you write about in your book. Yeah, 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:54.320 so there was something very countercultural about spiritualism, especially in 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.160 any place that had a history of church and state 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.000 being connected. Um. So, you know, spiritual them really issues 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.680 denominational institutional structure. While there were some attempts in places 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.520 to make you know, churches of spiritualism or a denomination 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:14.280 of spiritualism, it really sort of, um, it's practiced in 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.840 a way that works against that that kind of formalization. 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:23.480 So especially in a place like um, Great Britain, where 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.280 there's a lot of spiritualists, or even in France, these 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.280 countries that have a much longer history of church and 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.360 state being connected. Here you've got this this new countercultural 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.920 religious movement that doesn't seem to fit in any neat 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.640 little container or church. You know, it's hard to categorize 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.280 exactly what's being um done and what's going on because 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.200 there's not a formal hierarchy. There's not a formal structure 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.800 that you can interrogate. Um. So in that way, spiritualism 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:57.040 really democratized religious authority in a completely new way. So 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.600 many women were mediums, and you know, God for a 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:06.200 big women have religious authority. UM. People who weren't white, uh, 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.280 could become mediums, and so you've got spiritual power in 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:14.040 the hands of the bodies of marginalized identities. This made 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.520 incredibly powerful for the people and thus pretty dangerous for 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.200 the state. Mm hmm. And that was not at all 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:26.680 lost on early spiritualists or observers of spiritualism. UM. From 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.480 very early on, spirits like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.120 William Penn another American states when we're appearing at say 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.240 on circles in America and you know, speaking through translectors 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.280 and sometimes uh, maybe just addressing one or two people 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.160 in a home. Science UM. The Fox sisters in the 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.720 posts spread at the beginning, we're talking with you know, 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:50.920 the founding fathers. Um, can you talk about a little 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:56.160 bit about how those kinds of engagements with political ideas 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:01.280 and in particular statesmen and historical figure years, what they 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:07.280 say about spiritualism's relationship to history. So, I think, for one, 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.720 it tells us that spiritualists had a very keen sense 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.720 of history. You know. Obviously they were very well educated. 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.800 They had read about these figures, they had read the 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.760 writings of these figures. But I think the thing that 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.760 really strikes me about the appearance of people like Benjamin Franklin, 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.280 George Washington, William Penn, all these other important political figures, 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.080 it stands is what really strikes me is that by 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:34.480 communicating with famous spirits, spiritualists inserted themselves into history. You know, 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:38.119 they were in conversation then with Franklin, with Washington, with Penn, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.680 they were in conversation with their ideas. Um. They were 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.439 receiving information direct from the source, even if that source 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:51.679 had died decades centuries before Um. So spiritualists could become 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.120 part of that story. They could become part of that 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.760 story of human progress, even if it was just a 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.320 small group that maybe no one would ever hear of them. 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.119 You know, Benjamin Franklin knew who they were, or the 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.600 spirit of Benjamin Franklin knew who they were, and so 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:09.520 they got to feel like they were part of something 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:15.000 so much bigger than themselves. M and as spiritualists right 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.639 from the get go late fourteen, late eighteen forties, early 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.600 eighteen fifties, as they did insert themselves into these histories 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:28.200 and into conversations and discourses in the church, in science, Um, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.240 what were some of the early responses to spiritualism? How 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:36.160 did how did historians? How did politicians? How did churchmen 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.639 or other believers respond to these insertions of spiritualisms and 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.720 spiritualists into their stories? So I guess the easy the 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:50.280 easy answers. It varied UM with its association with things 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.679 like liberal politics. You know, so many a lot of 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.639 the mediums, especially in the US on the East Coast, 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.800 were women, who received a lot of messages that had 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.320 to do with UM, women's rights, received a lot of 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.080 messages that had to do with abolition. So, with its 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:11.440 association with liberal politics, spiritualism was banned in some places. UH. 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.800 Southern states like Alabama actually tried to make spiritualism illegal 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:20.120 UM by taking religious authority away from formal church structures, 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:27.600 and you know, the the traditional purveyors of religious authority, 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:32.760 you know, more or less white educated men, white educated 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:38.640 um in seminaries men. By taking religious authority away from 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.840 UM these more formal structures and placing it in the 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.879 bodies the hands of mediums themselves. I mean, there were 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.480 a lot of churches really didn't like about spiritualism. They 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.240 could see it as a dangerous threat. There were a 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:54.480 number of ministers who worried that spiritualism was dangerous because 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.879 perhaps it was encouraging interaction with demonic spirits. UM. There 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:03.480 was some liberal Protestant communities and liberal political communities, UM, 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.560 especially in the Northeast, that found that spiritualism could be 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:11.879 compatible with their politics, UM, with their theology. That you know, 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.800 why not have spirits like Jesus also up there. Why 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.800 why wouldn't the spirit of you know, assassinated President Abraham 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:25.160 Lincoln continue to share his political ideas with us. UM. 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.919 But then you also have those who saw it as 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.760 just so so dangerous. UM. So there's this great article 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.879 in America, a Catholic Jesuit publication that's still around today, 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:37.359 that came out and I think it was the early 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.399 nineteen hundreds and it it said that spiritualism and weuiji 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:46.320 boards were dangerous because spirits in heaven would have so 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:50.360 many other things to do then communicate with people through 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.560 a board game. You know this, this priest is writing like, 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.120 come on, I mean, spirits in heaven, they they got 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.200 so many other things to do, dancing around on clouds. 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.160 They're not going to commune keeps people through a board game. 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.159 And so the only spirits that are probably interacting with 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:10.760 people through these boards are hellish spirits. Um. And what 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.240 I just think is funny, as I imagined the priest 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.080 who wrote that article would be so pleased with the 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.119 movie The Exorcist, which you know auiji board invites the 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.200 demonic possession and then a priest saves the day. Um. So, 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.359 even in there there were exceptions to this. Um. So, 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:28.000 the Catholic Church in New Orleans in the eighteen forties 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.000 UM for a little while was actually totally okay with 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:35.960 the development of this mesmerist society. There's this mesmerism idea 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.720 that begins in New Orleans and a couple of local 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:43.680 priests were actually members, and they would sometimes recommend mesmeric 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.320 healings to some of their personers who weren't doing well 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.479 the leader get told that they need to stop doing that. 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:53.719 And they were a small minority anyways. But even in 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.600 a setting like the Catholic Church, which is seeing spiritualism, 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.680 seeing mesmerism as a credibly dangerous there are actual Catholics 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:05.639 in some cases even Catholic clerics who are like, I 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.240 don't know, there might actually be something to this. H 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:12.760 And it wasn't just the church responding, like you said, 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.800 the state of Alabama at one point banded spiritualism. What 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.280 are the kinds of responses were spiritualists getting, maybe like 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:20.879 in the southern press or you know, kind of in 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.200 general discourses through the South around New Orleans, But in 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:28.800 the other states, what were people saying about spiritualism. So 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:32.640 one of the really interesting places, um where spiritualism gets 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:37.400 talked about in Louisiana and the broader Gulf region is 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:41.919 the the secular New Orleans papers. UM. So, papers like 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:47.720 the Daily Pickyune and the Daily Pickyune regularly advertised spiritualist 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:52.360 lectures UM. You would find all the time in the 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:58.080 you know, the calendar provided by the paper upcoming lectures um, 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.080 which were actually pretty common in eighteen fifties through the 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:03.840 eighteen fifties, tons of people are coming to New Orleans 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:08.960 to talk about spiritualism. You also find articles in the 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:15.280 secular papers about the alleged medicinal value of mesmerism and spiritualism. 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:17.040 But you can also find a lot of stories that 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:21.920 are trying to expose um mesmerism or spiritualism. UM. There's 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:23.960 a number of stories that are trying to expose it 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:27.040 as a wag which is just a nineteenth century term 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:31.040 for fraud. That you know, spiritualism is a total wag UM. 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:35.840 And so you have a variety of responses just coming 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:41.399 in people's newspapers which sort of left it up to 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:46.280 the reader what they wanted to conclude about spiritualism. Now, 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:50.359 if all you read was the UM official Catholic newspaper, 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:53.480 you would think spiritualism was, you know, basically the devil 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:55.520 on earth UM. But if you were just reading the 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.359 secular paper, you would see a variety of responses about 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:03.560 it MHM. What led to something like a whole state 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:10.359 outlying the practice. What that ends up coming down to 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:16.560 is the association of spiritualism with liberal politics. So, especially 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:20.240 since so many spiritualists coming out of the East Coast, 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:27.080 are pretty outspoken about abolition, are pretty outspoken about women's rights. Um. 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:32.040 You even have a number of spiritualists who are communicating 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.919 with the spirits of deceased Native Americans and the receiving 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:43.040 messages that acknowledge the fact that we white Americans have 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:48.320 stolen land and we have dispossessed them of not just 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:52.560 their land but also their culture. UM. Now it's important 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:54.320 to note that a lot of those messages are also 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:59.520 pretty tinged with racism, because the medium is talking in 0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:04.760 at times guttural sounds. Um. But there's this very interesting 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:12.080 acknowledgement of the fact that America is not fair when 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:17.880 it comes to all of the inhabitants of the country. 0:25:18.000 --> 0:25:20.760 And so, if you've got a religious practice that is 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:33.280 frequently identifying injustices, and you're in a state that is 0:25:33.320 --> 0:25:36.520 making a lot of money off of injustice, namely slavery, 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:40.400 spiritual um is going to be persona non grata there. 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:46.960 So let's move to the community that you focus your 0:25:47.000 --> 0:25:50.719 book on and go to New Orleans in the forties 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:54.320 and the fifties. Can you tell us about the Afro 0:25:54.480 --> 0:25:58.879 Creole community and the spiritualist group that grew up in 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:04.439 that community in those early years of spiritualism. Yeah, so 0:26:05.119 --> 0:26:09.080 New Orleans in the eighteen fifties was full of life. 0:26:09.119 --> 0:26:11.640 I mean, this is a place that is racially an ethnical, 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:15.280 ethnically diverse, with its history as a French colony, than 0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:18.119 a Spanish colony, than briefly a French colony again before 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:20.879 being purchased by the United States. It is a center 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:24.280 of cultural exchange. It's a place of cultural innovation. Just 0:26:24.320 --> 0:26:27.320 look at the food traditions, UM, with all the cultural 0:26:27.320 --> 0:26:30.800 blending and the significant influence of African diasporic culture and 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:34.439 things like gumbo. UM. It was a progressive place with 0:26:34.520 --> 0:26:41.080 a very large free black population. Under Spanish rule. UM, 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:45.159 there were very lax manumission laws, and so the population 0:26:45.600 --> 0:26:48.560 of free black men and women in New Orleans grows 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:53.200 incredibly fast and quickly, and it is one of the 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:56.120 um the sites of one of the biggest populations of 0:26:56.680 --> 0:27:02.720 UM free black men and women in North America. UM. 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:05.000