1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,240 Speaker 1: Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. 2 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,440 Speaker 1: We begin the interview series for Unobscured season two with 3 00:00:11,560 --> 00:00:15,960 Speaker 1: the phenomenal historian Dr Anne Browdie. She is Senior lecturer 4 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:19,480 Speaker 1: on American religious history at Harvard Divinity School, where she 5 00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:23,080 Speaker 1: directs the Women's Studies in Religion program. Dr Browdy has 6 00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:27,120 Speaker 1: published widely on women in American religious life, exploring everything 7 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:32,040 Speaker 1: from spiritualism to Judaism, Christian science, and Native American religions. 8 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:34,840 Speaker 1: She's an amazing scholar and we're so glad she joined 9 00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:38,879 Speaker 1: us to talk about spiritualism. The research team found her 10 00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:41,720 Speaker 1: book Radical Spirits while they were working on episodes for 11 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:44,839 Speaker 1: my other podcast Lore. Needless to say, it was one 12 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:49,000 Speaker 1: of the inspirations for this season of Unobscured. Researcher Carl 13 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:52,400 Speaker 1: Nellis started each historian interview by asking our guests what 14 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:55,440 Speaker 1: it meant to be a spiritualist in the nineteenth century America. 15 00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:59,040 Speaker 1: So Dr Browdie's answer to that question is where we'll begin. 16 00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:04,400 Speaker 1: This is the Unobscured Interview series for season two. I'm 17 00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:27,440 Speaker 1: Aaron Maggey. What I would say it meant to be 18 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:31,039 Speaker 1: a spiritualist in the nineteenth century was to be part 19 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:34,600 Speaker 1: of a movement that was seeking empirical evidence for the 20 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:39,399 Speaker 1: immortality of the soul by communicating with the spirits of 21 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:44,440 Speaker 1: the dead, and in general that meant communicating with the 22 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:49,600 Speaker 1: spirits of the dead through the intervention of a human medium. Really, 23 00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:56,520 Speaker 1: what spiritualists believed they accessed through the medium of a 24 00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:00,880 Speaker 1: human being who was being used for communication and were 25 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:06,120 Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead and uh Those spirits might 26 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:11,400 Speaker 1: be the spirits of deceased relatives or loved ones or 27 00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:15,639 Speaker 1: friends who had passed to the world beyond. They might 28 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:20,760 Speaker 1: be public figures or historical figures. They could be figures 29 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:29,120 Speaker 1: from religious history or political history. They could be um 30 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:34,160 Speaker 1: other cultures, other civilizations. They could be what we're understood 31 00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:38,320 Speaker 1: to be the spirits of dead Indians, the indigenous inhabitants 32 00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:43,400 Speaker 1: of the America's um, but they were understood to be 33 00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:47,720 Speaker 1: the spirits of individuals in general that they were seeking 34 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:51,359 Speaker 1: to communicate with. When people came to these seances, what 35 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:56,240 Speaker 1: were they looking for? Many people were looking for consolation. 36 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:01,160 Speaker 1: They were looking to be reunited with a loved one 37 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:05,280 Speaker 1: who had been ripped away from them by death and 38 00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:11,400 Speaker 1: one often thinks that the appeal of spiritualism would be 39 00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:17,560 Speaker 1: limited to times when death is very present, to times 40 00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:22,279 Speaker 1: of epidemic or of war, And indeed, wars in particular 41 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:27,359 Speaker 1: give rise to a lot of interest in spiritualism because 42 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:35,400 Speaker 1: young people are ripped away suddenly. The fabric of reality 43 00:03:35,560 --> 00:03:40,520 Speaker 1: is really rent by the loss of those we expected 44 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:45,640 Speaker 1: to be with us, particularly children, UM, young men in war, 45 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:52,040 Speaker 1: loved ones, people very near and dear who's lost made 46 00:03:52,240 --> 00:04:04,800 Speaker 1: reality um unbearable, understandable, incomprehensible um. And the attempt to 47 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:11,840 Speaker 1: reconnect with those lost loved ones is also an attempt 48 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:17,120 Speaker 1: to heal the fabric of reality. And you notice I 49 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:21,920 Speaker 1: used the present tense there. Communication with the dead is ubiquitous. 50 00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:25,680 Speaker 1: Everyone does it. It occurs in all times and places, 51 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:32,960 Speaker 1: at certain periods. It takes a kind of form that 52 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:38,159 Speaker 1: more than one person experiences, and that gives rise to 53 00:04:38,279 --> 00:04:42,880 Speaker 1: a community of communication with the dead, a community of 54 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:46,200 Speaker 1: people who understand this as a goal that they can 55 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:51,960 Speaker 1: seek together. And that's what spiritualism is in nineteenth century America. 56 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:57,440 Speaker 1: It's a new religious movement of people who believe that 57 00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:02,040 Speaker 1: they can find scientific evidence for the immortality of the soul. 58 00:05:02,760 --> 00:05:06,680 Speaker 1: By communicating with the spirits of the debt. And you 59 00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:09,719 Speaker 1: mentioned that some of those spirits they are both kind 60 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:12,520 Speaker 1: of the lost loved ones, but some of those spirits 61 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:17,640 Speaker 1: are figures like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, William Penn, Daniel Webster, 62 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:21,040 Speaker 1: even more recent at that time, you know Henry clay 63 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:27,360 Speaker 1: Um or after his death, Theodore Parker. Sometimes they were 64 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:29,680 Speaker 1: addressing just one or two people in a in a 65 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:32,760 Speaker 1: small science, but sometimes they're addressing large crowds through a 66 00:05:33,040 --> 00:05:36,880 Speaker 1: trans lecturer like Corre scott Um. Just tell us about 67 00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:41,920 Speaker 1: spiritualist relationship to history, kind of written large. Mm hmmm. Well, 68 00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:45,040 Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up trans lecturers because I had 69 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:50,640 Speaker 1: really only spoken about family seances, where people are seeking 70 00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:54,960 Speaker 1: communication with an individual from their own life and their 71 00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:01,440 Speaker 1: own circle. And trans mediums were public lecturers who gave 72 00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:06,599 Speaker 1: lectures guided by usually though not always a particular spirit. 73 00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:11,000 Speaker 1: Sometimes they went into trance and were guided by a 74 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:15,440 Speaker 1: more generalized sense of spirit presence, but usually it was 75 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:23,279 Speaker 1: an identifiable external intelligence with a specific identity who spoke 76 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:27,800 Speaker 1: through the medium in a public setting. And the trans 77 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:32,760 Speaker 1: lecturers are a very important development in American history because 78 00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:37,640 Speaker 1: they are the first large group of American women to 79 00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:41,640 Speaker 1: mount the podium and speak in public. There certainly had 80 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:45,360 Speaker 1: been other instances of women who had did had done this, 81 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,880 Speaker 1: most of them under some kind of spirit guidance, whether 82 00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:56,120 Speaker 1: it be the Holy Spirit um uh or spiritual inspiration 83 00:06:56,640 --> 00:07:02,119 Speaker 1: connected to the Bible. But trance speaker is who saw 84 00:07:02,160 --> 00:07:09,000 Speaker 1: themselves as communicating messages from spirits, were the first significant 85 00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:14,120 Speaker 1: group of American women to go on tour as public lecturers, 86 00:07:16,280 --> 00:07:21,120 Speaker 1: and you asked about the spirits who spoke through them. Um. 87 00:07:21,160 --> 00:07:27,200 Speaker 1: In general, trance speakers had particular relationships with particular spirits, 88 00:07:27,400 --> 00:07:33,280 Speaker 1: so that um while a public a public figure might 89 00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:38,560 Speaker 1: deliver a message through a spirit, they usually were figures 90 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:42,360 Speaker 1: who came back repeatedly to speak through a specific spirit. 91 00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:49,880 Speaker 1: When public spirits inspired trans lectures, they often delivered communications 92 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:54,480 Speaker 1: on subjects that they were concerned about during their own lifetime. 93 00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:59,240 Speaker 1: So in the case of Benjamin Franklin, he was a 94 00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:05,840 Speaker 1: favorite medium for the communication of scientific information, and the 95 00:08:05,920 --> 00:08:14,400 Speaker 1: notion that spirit mediums could communicate scientific information was understood 96 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:22,160 Speaker 1: as another kind of evidence of spirit presence. Because um 97 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:25,920 Speaker 1: most of the mediums were people who did not have education. 98 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:30,679 Speaker 1: The ideal medium was the fourteen year old girl, someone 99 00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:37,440 Speaker 1: who was understood as being innocent, naive, um, and therefore 100 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:44,199 Speaker 1: incapable of duplicity, incapable of making up a trans lecture 101 00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:50,160 Speaker 1: that came through her during in a in a public setting. 102 00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:54,640 Speaker 1: Of course, that issue that you just pointed at played 103 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:57,920 Speaker 1: a large role in our first season of Unobscured, because 104 00:08:57,920 --> 00:08:59,800 Speaker 1: we were looking at the same on which trials and 105 00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:03,640 Speaker 1: question of whether the young girls who were claiming afflictions 106 00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:07,719 Speaker 1: could be witnesses against established church members and leaders in 107 00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:10,200 Speaker 1: the community as well as kind of outsiders or each other. 108 00:09:10,760 --> 00:09:15,720 Speaker 1: Um And I'm thinking about uh. In addition to Radical Spirits, 109 00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:18,040 Speaker 1: you've written Sisters and Saints and edited a number of 110 00:09:18,040 --> 00:09:21,600 Speaker 1: other projects on the religious history of American women. How 111 00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:25,960 Speaker 1: significant is spiritualism as a chapter in American women's history. 112 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:30,160 Speaker 1: You just kind of pointed at the public stage. But 113 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:31,880 Speaker 1: do you have some more reflections on kind of what's 114 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:34,680 Speaker 1: the significance of spiritualism in this kind of long history 115 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:40,800 Speaker 1: of American women and religion. Well, that's a great question. 116 00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:43,760 Speaker 1: I don't think anybody has ever asked me that question, really, 117 00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:46,360 Speaker 1: um and I could talk about it for a long time. 118 00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:51,920 Speaker 1: So you cut me off if I've said enough. But 119 00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:57,800 Speaker 1: in some ways the spirit medium is like a mirror 120 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:03,840 Speaker 1: image of the ideal Christian woman at the same time 121 00:10:03,920 --> 00:10:09,000 Speaker 1: that she pushes the characteristics of the ideal nineteenth century 122 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:14,160 Speaker 1: Christian woman to its extreme. So you know, what's sometimes 123 00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:16,920 Speaker 1: referred to as the cult of true womanhood in the 124 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:26,760 Speaker 1: nine century posits the notion that women by nature are pure, passive, 125 00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:36,560 Speaker 1: and pious. And the understanding there is that women um 126 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:41,960 Speaker 1: in some ways reflect the qualities of a perfect Christian 127 00:10:42,280 --> 00:10:48,000 Speaker 1: better than men do. That they are untainted by the 128 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:52,680 Speaker 1: the competitive values of the marketplace and of the economic sphere, 129 00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:59,719 Speaker 1: and therefore they reflect the values of the home, the 130 00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:05,000 Speaker 1: domestic values of Christianity, a place of charity, of nurture, 131 00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:11,360 Speaker 1: of retreat from the marketplace, the world of politics where 132 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:18,400 Speaker 1: men get dirty through competition, um, And that women rather 133 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:24,880 Speaker 1: reflect a place of purity where Christianity can blossom. So 134 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:32,120 Speaker 1: spirit mediums push this idea to its radical extreme, that 135 00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:36,079 Speaker 1: if women have these spiritual qualities more than men do, 136 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:42,400 Speaker 1: then they can send spirits that they are are perfectly 137 00:11:42,559 --> 00:11:47,160 Speaker 1: suited to be vehicles for divine knowledge. Now that's, of course, 138 00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:51,680 Speaker 1: the opposite of what the Christian churches are teaching, particularly 139 00:11:51,720 --> 00:11:56,800 Speaker 1: the established churches that recognize the authority of education, the 140 00:11:56,840 --> 00:12:02,800 Speaker 1: authority of scripture, the authority of apples, stalic succession, the 141 00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:09,240 Speaker 1: notion that priesthood in the Catholic or Episcopal Church, for example, 142 00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:13,360 Speaker 1: is passed from man to man through the laying on 143 00:12:13,559 --> 00:12:19,560 Speaker 1: of hands back to Christ. And it's this uninterrupted lineage 144 00:12:19,640 --> 00:12:24,760 Speaker 1: of male religious authority into which no women have ever intervened. 145 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:29,960 Speaker 1: The idea of the spirit medium presents us with a 146 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:36,840 Speaker 1: very different possibility of religious authority if women could convey 147 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:43,040 Speaker 1: spirituality because of their innocence. You know, I've met mediums 148 00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:49,960 Speaker 1: who are alive today who give this same feeling of 149 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:55,440 Speaker 1: personalities where there's space for other things to pass through. 150 00:12:56,080 --> 00:12:59,520 Speaker 1: And we have many other psychological terms that we might 151 00:12:59,640 --> 00:13:02,800 Speaker 1: use to describe that in this day and age. But 152 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:07,800 Speaker 1: it's very close to the idea of a young girl 153 00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:13,559 Speaker 1: who doesn't present impediments to an external intelligence that wants 154 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:19,000 Speaker 1: to use her as a vehicle for communication. Spiritualism uses 155 00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:26,679 Speaker 1: concepts and experiences that derive from the history of Christianity 156 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:32,840 Speaker 1: and from Christian experience that are related to gender, and 157 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:36,720 Speaker 1: it kind of just pushes them a little too far. 158 00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:41,160 Speaker 1: In this direction or that direction until they no longer 159 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:47,240 Speaker 1: qualify as orthodox Christianity. And so spiritualism in some sense 160 00:13:47,679 --> 00:13:51,559 Speaker 1: tells us where the limits are of orthodoxy, the limits 161 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:57,120 Speaker 1: of what's acceptable for Christians, because, after all, Christians are 162 00:13:57,200 --> 00:14:03,559 Speaker 1: taught in many contexts that they should try to communicate 163 00:14:03,679 --> 00:14:07,200 Speaker 1: with benevolent spirits who are looking after them, who are 164 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:11,720 Speaker 1: looking down from heaven to lead them in positive directions. 165 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:17,240 Speaker 1: And whether they're formal theological doctrines of their religions teach 166 00:14:17,320 --> 00:14:21,920 Speaker 1: that or not, popular culture teaches that, and it abus 167 00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:29,240 Speaker 1: Christianity very broadly in practical settings, in in the personal 168 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:35,040 Speaker 1: experience of popular Christianity. So the ideas of spiritualism should 169 00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:40,640 Speaker 1: not be so foreign to Christians, and in many cases 170 00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:45,000 Speaker 1: they're not. In many cases, people who are church members, 171 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:50,040 Speaker 1: um even members of other religions are also participating in 172 00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:58,080 Speaker 1: communication with spirits, even though it formerly formally contradicts the 173 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:01,160 Speaker 1: doctrines of their faith. The are a number of traditions 174 00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:05,480 Speaker 1: within Christianity that address the communion of saints in some way, 175 00:15:05,600 --> 00:15:11,640 Speaker 1: right or um, that's right, yeah, yeah. You mentioned the 176 00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:15,560 Speaker 1: way that spiritualism kind of explores or pushes the boundaries 177 00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:20,720 Speaker 1: of orthodoxy sometimes leaps over them. Um. In the decades 178 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:24,480 Speaker 1: before UM, there was the kind of formalization of what 179 00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:28,200 Speaker 1: is modern spiritualism in the late eighteen forties. UM. There 180 00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:31,640 Speaker 1: are some other pressures on American Christianity and American religion. Uh. 181 00:15:31,720 --> 00:15:35,520 Speaker 1: Some historians talk about the significance of Jacksonian democracy for 182 00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:39,520 Speaker 1: American life in the decades before spiritualism arrived. UM. Can 183 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:43,040 Speaker 1: you address maybe what we mean by Jacksonian democracy and 184 00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:45,800 Speaker 1: what influence it had on American religion and kind of 185 00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:49,920 Speaker 1: the twenties and thirties. UM. Well, I won't address Jacksonian 186 00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:53,880 Speaker 1: democracy because I will not tread into political history for 187 00:15:54,160 --> 00:16:00,480 Speaker 1: here of going outside my expertise. However, the period of 188 00:16:00,520 --> 00:16:03,840 Speaker 1: the eighteen twenties and thirties is known as the Second 189 00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:09,040 Speaker 1: Greade Awakening, and it's sometimes referred to as the period 190 00:16:09,040 --> 00:16:15,000 Speaker 1: of the democratization of American religion. When we see religious 191 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:21,520 Speaker 1: authority and experience sweeping the country through revivals, and we 192 00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:28,479 Speaker 1: see a declining emphasis on an educated clergy, on religious hierarchies, 193 00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:35,840 Speaker 1: on religious education, and an increasing emphasis on religious experience 194 00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:42,080 Speaker 1: that is accessible to any individual. Anyone who accepts Christ, 195 00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:48,240 Speaker 1: accepts their sinfulness and their need of Christ's salvation. UM. 196 00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:51,960 Speaker 1: So the Second Greade Awakening is a period of mass 197 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:57,480 Speaker 1: revivals and UM that's also a kind of preparation for 198 00:16:57,520 --> 00:17:07,359 Speaker 1: spiritualism because of it, it's a religiously democratizing impulse that's fantastic. UM. 199 00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:12,679 Speaker 1: There were also movements in science and in thinking about 200 00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:16,760 Speaker 1: the human person and the human mind through mesmerism and 201 00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:20,520 Speaker 1: animal magnetism, some of those things that laid the groundwork 202 00:17:20,640 --> 00:17:25,879 Speaker 1: for magnetic trances and clairvoyance UM. But there were also 203 00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:30,640 Speaker 1: influences in communications technology that we're changing the way people 204 00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:34,760 Speaker 1: were thinking about communicating across distances. And you talk about uh, 205 00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:37,480 Speaker 1: women being attuned to the spirits in a way that 206 00:17:37,520 --> 00:17:40,840 Speaker 1: men weren't. Can you talk a little bit about maybe 207 00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:43,720 Speaker 1: the way that changes in thinking about the human mind 208 00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:48,320 Speaker 1: and what was possible with technology also laid the groundwork 209 00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:53,480 Speaker 1: for spiritualist thinking and practice. Well, you have to remember 210 00:17:54,080 --> 00:18:00,840 Speaker 1: the shock of technological advance, Electricity, the telegram of these 211 00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:04,800 Speaker 1: things were like magic for a society in which they 212 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,400 Speaker 1: had not previously been existed or known, and they were 213 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:13,640 Speaker 1: poorly understood and um as they came to be introduced 214 00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:19,280 Speaker 1: as ideas before people witnessed them personally, it was as 215 00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:23,520 Speaker 1: plausible that there could be a spiritual telegraph that would 216 00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:29,359 Speaker 1: connect communication through human mediums with the spirits of the 217 00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:33,760 Speaker 1: dead as that there could be a telegraph that would 218 00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:38,199 Speaker 1: send communications across the country without anybody being able to 219 00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:42,240 Speaker 1: hear them or see them. And I don't think it's 220 00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:47,320 Speaker 1: any coincidence that the first spirit messages that were communicated 221 00:18:47,359 --> 00:18:52,040 Speaker 1: through the Fox Sisters were communicated by raps wraps on 222 00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:55,439 Speaker 1: the table, on the furniture, on the wall, on the floor, 223 00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:59,480 Speaker 1: which if you think about that, it sounds like UH 224 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:04,280 Speaker 1: tell leograph tapping out Morse code. And the the first 225 00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:10,119 Speaker 1: UH seances were conducted by writing the alphabet out on 226 00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:15,240 Speaker 1: a piece of paper and the person UH who was 227 00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:20,520 Speaker 1: running the seance would pass their hands over the alphabet 228 00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:24,680 Speaker 1: until raps were heard, and then stop on that letter 229 00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:28,040 Speaker 1: and write that letter down. And during some of the 230 00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:32,879 Speaker 1: first communications, they had a hard time separating these letters 231 00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:36,520 Speaker 1: that they received in this way into words. It wasn't 232 00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:39,800 Speaker 1: always clear what the messages were. So if you think 233 00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:45,960 Speaker 1: about this, it's a it's a technology that is kind 234 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:52,840 Speaker 1: of mimicking and inspired by the new technologies of electricity 235 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:56,600 Speaker 1: and the telegraph. They're trying to do something very similar 236 00:19:56,680 --> 00:20:01,400 Speaker 1: but with spirit power. And if you think about it, 237 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:07,560 Speaker 1: it's kind of boring. Um two. And what what that 238 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:14,360 Speaker 1: informs me of is the great hunger for spirit communication. 239 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:20,359 Speaker 1: If you think about people and these they have other 240 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,080 Speaker 1: things to do, but they are sitting around a table. 241 00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:27,080 Speaker 1: Think how long it took to get a spirit message 242 00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:30,880 Speaker 1: by passing your hands over the alphabet until you heard 243 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,480 Speaker 1: raps at a single letter, and then you had to 244 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:38,679 Speaker 1: repeat that process maybe fifty or a hundred times to 245 00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:44,560 Speaker 1: get a brief spirit message. And meanwhile, you're kind of 246 00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:48,080 Speaker 1: hoping that you have a human medium who will be 247 00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:52,240 Speaker 1: an effective vehicle for communication. You're hoping that you have 248 00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:58,240 Speaker 1: created the right atmosphere in the seance room that will 249 00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:03,200 Speaker 1: make a spirit comfortable to communicate and confident that this 250 00:21:03,320 --> 00:21:07,400 Speaker 1: is a medium through which they can communicate, and an 251 00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:10,960 Speaker 1: audience that will be receptive to their message. So you 252 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:13,879 Speaker 1: have a lot going on, and just think about I 253 00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:18,080 Speaker 1: mean this is we tend to think of seances as 254 00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:21,879 Speaker 1: a parlor game, and certainly they could become that, and 255 00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:28,600 Speaker 1: they did become that a popular entertainment. But the first seances, 256 00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:32,160 Speaker 1: I don't think we're games at all. I think they 257 00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:36,879 Speaker 1: show us the deep, deep hunger to communicate with the 258 00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:41,160 Speaker 1: spirits of the dead, the deep hunger to be reconnected 259 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:45,359 Speaker 1: with loved ones that we have lost, and the deep 260 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:48,840 Speaker 1: hunger for knowledge of the divine, for knowledge of what 261 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:53,679 Speaker 1: will happen after we die. Mm hm And you mentioned 262 00:21:53,720 --> 00:22:00,360 Speaker 1: the Fox sisters, uh, before we get there, um, very 263 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:04,760 Speaker 1: very soon before uh, Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer 264 00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:11,760 Speaker 1: um publishes on harmonial philosophy, and you mentioned the trying 265 00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:15,760 Speaker 1: to get the atmosphere right conducive to spirit communication, and 266 00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:19,640 Speaker 1: the idea of harmony becomes very important to spiritualist practice 267 00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:22,439 Speaker 1: and belief. UM. Can you talk a little bit about 268 00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:26,480 Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis and how his ideas were significant and 269 00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:29,679 Speaker 1: his trances were significant in a way that distinguished them 270 00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,480 Speaker 1: a little bit from say, the Shaker visionaries or other 271 00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:38,800 Speaker 1: trance or clairvoyance experiences that preceded him. So Andrew Jackson Davis, 272 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:42,880 Speaker 1: the Poughkeepsie see or the prophet of the Harmonial philosophy 273 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:47,640 Speaker 1: was quite different from the Shaker visionaries who preceded him. 274 00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:53,400 Speaker 1: They were um seeking messages or receiving messages, whether they 275 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:56,560 Speaker 1: sought them or not in the context of a community 276 00:22:56,800 --> 00:23:03,840 Speaker 1: gathered around a single figure, mother Ann Lee Um. Andrew 277 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:08,240 Speaker 1: Jackson Davis didn't have that kind of community around him. 278 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:12,120 Speaker 1: He tried to create it, but he never had that 279 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:16,159 Speaker 1: sense of authority that Mother Anne did, or the sense 280 00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:20,200 Speaker 1: of creating a community that would live by a set 281 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:25,159 Speaker 1: of agreed upon rules. So he was really just preaching 282 00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:31,120 Speaker 1: this harmonial philosophy to like minded individuals wherever he might 283 00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:36,679 Speaker 1: find them. And I wonder whether his philosophy would have 284 00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:39,040 Speaker 1: caught on in the way that it did, And it 285 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,359 Speaker 1: certainly did catch on in a very powerful way. But 286 00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,600 Speaker 1: I wonder if it would have done that without the 287 00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:51,040 Speaker 1: Fox Sisters, because the Fox Sisters brought a kind of 288 00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:59,200 Speaker 1: popular accessibility to spirit communication, whereas Andrew Jackson Davis preached 289 00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:04,080 Speaker 1: a harmony philosophy that made room for spirit communication but 290 00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:09,600 Speaker 1: placed it in a much broader context. He the spirit 291 00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:13,840 Speaker 1: who spoke through him was the spirit of Emmanuel Swedenborg, 292 00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:22,240 Speaker 1: and Swedenborg's vision, which Andrew Jackson Davis was inspired by, 293 00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:30,640 Speaker 1: Um described a world of spheres. Swedenborg had been involved 294 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:35,639 Speaker 1: in the mining industry, and he understood the world in 295 00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:42,280 Speaker 1: terms of levels, both levels under the ground and levels 296 00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:46,679 Speaker 1: spheres above the ground that are through which the soul 297 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:52,280 Speaker 1: advances in its journey towards heaven. So there's a notion 298 00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:56,680 Speaker 1: of progression, and this is something that Andrew Jackson Davis 299 00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,800 Speaker 1: wrote about that people found very meaningful, the idea that 300 00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:06,640 Speaker 1: the soul continues to progress after death. Where Orthodox Calvinism 301 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:12,160 Speaker 1: and Protestant faith taught that whatever virtue you had accomplished 302 00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,400 Speaker 1: in your life at the moment of death or lack 303 00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,800 Speaker 1: of virtue determined your faith for eternity, that you would 304 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,880 Speaker 1: either be damned or you would be blessed to sit 305 00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,640 Speaker 1: at the right hand of God for eternity and saved 306 00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:31,639 Speaker 1: thereby from the flames of hell and eternal suffering. You 307 00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:35,119 Speaker 1: would go to one of those two places according to 308 00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,639 Speaker 1: the state of your soul at the time of death. 309 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,840 Speaker 1: This was a source of huge anxiety to family members 310 00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:46,000 Speaker 1: who might not have known the state of their loved 311 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,000 Speaker 1: one's soul at the moment of death. They might not 312 00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:53,120 Speaker 1: have felt confident that their loved one was among the 313 00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:58,080 Speaker 1: elect who had been selected by God to enjoy His 314 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:03,000 Speaker 1: blessings forever and be reunited with their family in heaven. 315 00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,600 Speaker 1: So if this is a source of huge anxiety, and 316 00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:14,360 Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis address that anxiety with the idea building 317 00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:18,040 Speaker 1: on Swedenborg, that the soul can continue to progress in 318 00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:24,680 Speaker 1: grace following death, and many spirit messages described the so, 319 00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:31,000 Speaker 1: for example, people who communicated with children who had been lost, 320 00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,520 Speaker 1: some of them even before the age of being able 321 00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,120 Speaker 1: to speak, not to mention, before the age of reason 322 00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,240 Speaker 1: of knowing the difference between right and wrong. How could 323 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,800 Speaker 1: you know what the fate of such a child would 324 00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:50,280 Speaker 1: be if they couldn't choose whether to do good or ill. 325 00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,159 Speaker 1: So families had a lot of anxiety about this, and 326 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:58,440 Speaker 1: the notion that a child could continue to progress after 327 00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:04,359 Speaker 1: death allowed people to hear spirit messages from their deceased 328 00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:09,360 Speaker 1: beloved babies and children who could describe to them how 329 00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:15,240 Speaker 1: they continued to develop, continued to learn, were educated, learned 330 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:18,760 Speaker 1: to read and write, and develop in all kinds of 331 00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:26,080 Speaker 1: ways after death, and usually these messages of consolation also 332 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:31,960 Speaker 1: assured the parent or the survivor that the deceased spirit 333 00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:37,080 Speaker 1: continued to care about them after death. A particularly consoling 334 00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:42,719 Speaker 1: idea for the parents of children who had been lost 335 00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:50,080 Speaker 1: before they could express gratitude or or fealty or loyalty 336 00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:53,720 Speaker 1: or love to the parents who loved them so much. 337 00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:58,560 Speaker 1: M hm. And you you mentioned that in this second 338 00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:03,120 Speaker 1: grade awakening period it um, there there are multiple ways 339 00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,800 Speaker 1: in which Christianity is fragmenting. I think there's the I 340 00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,600 Speaker 1: think it's Emerson, or maybe it's the Row who says 341 00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,920 Speaker 1: that the stern old face have all been pulverized. Right. 342 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,040 Speaker 1: And so you're looking at an American religious landscape that 343 00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:23,320 Speaker 1: includes now Methodists and Universalists and Shakers and Quakers and Baptists. 344 00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:26,240 Speaker 1: And there are these practices in the in the in 345 00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,080 Speaker 1: the period like camp meetings and circuit preaching and a 346 00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:33,480 Speaker 1: new privileging of religious enthusiasm. And how did this kind 347 00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:39,520 Speaker 1: of uh, i'll say, riotous religious atmosphere um. You mentioned 348 00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,040 Speaker 1: this a little bit, maybe a couple more of your 349 00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,440 Speaker 1: reflections on how it opened a space for spiritualism and 350 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:50,400 Speaker 1: maybe which traditions, which theological traditions, do you see as 351 00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:56,040 Speaker 1: the strongest influences on Spiritualism's origin. Well, you would think 352 00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,880 Speaker 1: that those who were involved in what you called riot 353 00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:05,880 Speaker 1: us expressions of spirituality might be the most likely to 354 00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:11,400 Speaker 1: give birth to spiritualist communication. Not so, it was more 355 00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:18,200 Speaker 1: the quiet faiths. It was Quakerism, Unitarians, and universalists who 356 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:24,360 Speaker 1: were apt to explore spiritualism. Quakers in particular, had already 357 00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:32,240 Speaker 1: a notion that the individual contains within themselves a perfect 358 00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:37,320 Speaker 1: transcript of ultimate truth, that each individual is a transcript 359 00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,400 Speaker 1: of the mind of God, and so we should look 360 00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:44,479 Speaker 1: within ourselves to know the mind of God. And that 361 00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:48,600 Speaker 1: notion of what Quakers called the inner Light was very 362 00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:53,080 Speaker 1: close to what spiritualists would do when they looked to 363 00:29:53,200 --> 00:30:00,000 Speaker 1: individual mediums to hear the voices of spirits, to hear 364 00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:06,320 Speaker 1: spiritual knowledge UM coming from an individual, and the idea 365 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:12,600 Speaker 1: that an individual medium could look within themselves could so 366 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:18,640 Speaker 1: the the seance had some commonalities with a Quaker meeting, 367 00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:23,760 Speaker 1: where Quakers sit in silence to await the voice of God. 368 00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:30,000 Speaker 1: That's what spiritualists are doing. Also, they're waiting for a 369 00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:35,479 Speaker 1: spirit voice they Now, Quakers would never be so rude 370 00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:39,560 Speaker 1: as to do what is often done in a spiritualist 371 00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:45,400 Speaker 1: church service or um seance, which is to boldly ask 372 00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,720 Speaker 1: are there any present? Are there any spirits present who 373 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:53,680 Speaker 1: wish to communicate um? Spiritualists do not wait in silence 374 00:30:53,920 --> 00:31:02,640 Speaker 1: as uh Quakers might. They create the conditions to promote 375 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:08,800 Speaker 1: spirit communication UM. But it's interesting that they do view 376 00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:16,240 Speaker 1: silence quiet, perhaps proceeding by preceded by him singing or 377 00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:23,040 Speaker 1: prayers that would create the ambiance, the atmosphere in which 378 00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:28,000 Speaker 1: a spirit would feel comfortable communicating. Let's go to talking 379 00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:31,800 Speaker 1: about one of those particular Quakers, who is a remarkable 380 00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:36,400 Speaker 1: historical figure that I had never heard mentioned or addressed 381 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,360 Speaker 1: in any of the histories that I've read, but who 382 00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,560 Speaker 1: just stands out as so key to a number of movements. 383 00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:47,040 Speaker 1: I'm talking about Amy post Um. Nancy Hewitt's just published 384 00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,760 Speaker 1: a fantastic biography of her called Radical friend Um. But 385 00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,760 Speaker 1: I would love to hear your reflections on Amy Post 386 00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,000 Speaker 1: as a Quaker in Rochester, New York, because she's at 387 00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:02,360 Speaker 1: the she's at the center of women's rights conventions, she's 388 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,720 Speaker 1: helping to run the underground railroad through Rochester, and she's 389 00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:09,200 Speaker 1: there to be the midwife for spiritualism. Can you tell 390 00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,280 Speaker 1: us a little bit about Amy Post? Absolutely. Amy post 391 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,800 Speaker 1: is one of my favorite historical characters. She was in 392 00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,080 Speaker 1: the room where it happened, not just for spiritualism, but 393 00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:26,080 Speaker 1: for so many new developments in radical, radical religion in 394 00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:30,840 Speaker 1: the area of Rochester, New York. And she was a 395 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:36,600 Speaker 1: critical figure in spiritualism because of the degree of respect 396 00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,480 Speaker 1: that she commanded. So she became kind of a mentor 397 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:47,560 Speaker 1: to the Fox Sisters. She lent credibility to this development 398 00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:52,360 Speaker 1: of spiritualism by her friendship with the Fox Sisters and 399 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:58,960 Speaker 1: also by her um by the fact that spiritualism spread 400 00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:03,040 Speaker 1: through her net work of radical Quakers. And these were 401 00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:09,800 Speaker 1: Quakers who were champing at the limits of Quakerism, who 402 00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:16,560 Speaker 1: were not content to observe the restrictions that the Society 403 00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:20,880 Speaker 1: of Friends placed on them. They were not content to 404 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,960 Speaker 1: restrict their friendships to members of the Society of Friends. 405 00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:32,440 Speaker 1: They were not content to restrict their religious practices to 406 00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:39,360 Speaker 1: members of their own faith. And Spiritualism helped them push it, 407 00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:44,040 Speaker 1: the push it the limits of what the Quaker faith permitted, 408 00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:50,240 Speaker 1: both socially through their organization and who they could communicate 409 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:55,720 Speaker 1: with with, but also religiously what the sources could be 410 00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:03,160 Speaker 1: of spirit knowledge. So she's in Rochester, New York. Um, 411 00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:06,520 Speaker 1: could you briefly describe what made Rochester, New York the 412 00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,640 Speaker 1: right place to serve as this kind of nerve center, 413 00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:12,160 Speaker 1: not just for spiritualism, but the women's movement and some 414 00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:13,759 Speaker 1: of these other things that were going on at the 415 00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:18,120 Speaker 1: same time, what made Rochester the place where things arrived 416 00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:22,800 Speaker 1: and sprang out from Rochester with that area was called 417 00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,680 Speaker 1: the burned Over District. Upstate New York was known as 418 00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:30,880 Speaker 1: the burned Over District in the early nineteenth century, and 419 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,200 Speaker 1: what that meant is that it had been burned over 420 00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:39,239 Speaker 1: by the spirit that waves of the flames of revival 421 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,720 Speaker 1: had passed through Upstate New York, leaving in their wake 422 00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:52,040 Speaker 1: newly organized evangelical churches and religious communions um, Mormonism, Seventh 423 00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:59,000 Speaker 1: Day advent Is Um, new religious developments UM that seemed 424 00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:04,520 Speaker 1: to find root and receptivity in that arena. It's no 425 00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:11,239 Speaker 1: coincidence that Upstate New York and Seneca Falls in particular, 426 00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:16,439 Speaker 1: which is a small village not far from Rochester. It's 427 00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:21,080 Speaker 1: no coincidence that these areas gave birth both to spiritualism 428 00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,400 Speaker 1: and to the women's rights movement. And there were a 429 00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:31,160 Speaker 1: lot of individuals who participated in the very formative moments 430 00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:36,920 Speaker 1: and events of both these two movements. Many of these 431 00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:42,239 Speaker 1: people were involved in the abolition movement. Many of them 432 00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:48,280 Speaker 1: were involved in Quaker networks. They were people who were 433 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:55,160 Speaker 1: pressing the idea of individual agency so that they really 434 00:35:55,560 --> 00:36:00,480 Speaker 1: um press the idea of the autonomy of the visual 435 00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:05,959 Speaker 1: in both a spiritual and a political sense. So this 436 00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,920 Speaker 1: is what we see in the radical wing of the 437 00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:16,240 Speaker 1: abolition movement, people like um William Lloyd Garrison, who really 438 00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:21,680 Speaker 1: saw abolition as an extension of the idea that it 439 00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:29,200 Speaker 1: is heretical for one individual to assert ownership over another individual, 440 00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:34,520 Speaker 1: because they are asserting the authority of God over one 441 00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:40,319 Speaker 1: of God's creatures. And only God has the authority or 442 00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:46,400 Speaker 1: the ability to hold that control. And human beings, be 443 00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:52,359 Speaker 1: they white or black, be they men or women, must 444 00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:57,200 Speaker 1: ultimately place their allegiance in God alone, and not to 445 00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:02,160 Speaker 1: any human master, whether it be a slave master, whether 446 00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:07,160 Speaker 1: it be a priest or minister, whether it be a 447 00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:12,799 Speaker 1: husband who had authority, legal authority over his wife in 448 00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:17,600 Speaker 1: almost every way at this time. He owned his wife's property, 449 00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:22,600 Speaker 1: had authority over her physical person, over her children, over 450 00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:27,560 Speaker 1: where she lived. And all of these questionings of personal 451 00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:32,400 Speaker 1: and religious authority were intertwined so that the appeal of 452 00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:36,880 Speaker 1: a form of religiosity that could cut through all forms 453 00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:41,480 Speaker 1: of religious authority by saying you the individual, or if 454 00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:45,640 Speaker 1: not you, then the fourteen year old girl in your household, 455 00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:50,279 Speaker 1: can cut through the structures of religious authority. You don't 456 00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,400 Speaker 1: have to ask a minister, you don't have to ask 457 00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,120 Speaker 1: your Sunday school teacher, you don't have to even consult 458 00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:01,759 Speaker 1: the authority of the Bible. You can learned directly what 459 00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:06,160 Speaker 1: the divine order is, what happens when we die. You 460 00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:10,840 Speaker 1: can find out directly. You can have direct knowledge of 461 00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:20,480 Speaker 1: ultimate truth. And in uh, Well, eighteen forty eight is 462 00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,200 Speaker 1: a is a is a key year. Key year. Frederick 463 00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,360 Speaker 1: Douglas and William c Now arrive in Rochester to launch 464 00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:31,120 Speaker 1: the North Star, and they share an office with Amy 465 00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,960 Speaker 1: Post and the New York Anti Slavery Society. Right, but 466 00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,320 Speaker 1: more happens in eighty eight in the history of the 467 00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,279 Speaker 1: women's rights movement and in the history of spiritualism. Can 468 00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:45,880 Speaker 1: you maybe give us a capsule of those events? What 469 00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,480 Speaker 1: happens in eighteen forty eight? Well, eighteen forty eight is 470 00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:54,640 Speaker 1: a pivotal year in many many arenas, um specifically in 471 00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,560 Speaker 1: relation to spiritualism and women's rights. Eighty eight is when 472 00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:02,239 Speaker 1: the Fox sisters first to hear the wrappings that they 473 00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,640 Speaker 1: attribute to the spirit of a dead peddler, that they 474 00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,320 Speaker 1: hear wrappings on the walls and furniture of their small 475 00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,880 Speaker 1: cottage in Hydesville, New York, and that when it is 476 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:21,080 Speaker 1: taken seriously by adults, ultimately gives rise to the spiritualist movement. 477 00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,680 Speaker 1: Is also when the first women's rights convention is called 478 00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:30,600 Speaker 1: in Seneca Falls, New York by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth 479 00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:35,120 Speaker 1: Katie Stanton, and the very table where they right the 480 00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:40,400 Speaker 1: famous Declaration of Sentiments based on the Declaration of Independence 481 00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:45,560 Speaker 1: that gives the first real statement of women's rights in 482 00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,640 Speaker 1: North America. That table, which is now in the Smithsonian 483 00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:55,239 Speaker 1: had been rocked by spirits. It had been uh, the 484 00:39:55,320 --> 00:40:00,439 Speaker 1: wraps had rapped on that small mahogany table, and many 485 00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,719 Speaker 1: of the same people were present at both of these events. 486 00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,160 Speaker 1: You have to remember that the Seneca Falls Convention, when 487 00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:12,360 Speaker 1: Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Katie Stanton put out the call 488 00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:17,880 Speaker 1: for the Seneca Falls Convention, an unprecedented call. It was 489 00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:24,120 Speaker 1: to discuss the civil, political, and religious rights of women. Now, 490 00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,319 Speaker 1: what are religious rights and who cares about religious rights? Well, 491 00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:33,520 Speaker 1: they did. They were just as concerned with their rights 492 00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:38,719 Speaker 1: in their religious spheres as in the civic and political spheres. 493 00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:41,800 Speaker 1: They cared about whether they could vote in their churches 494 00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,640 Speaker 1: as much as whether they could vote for the school 495 00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:52,080 Speaker 1: board or the Senate, And they were excluded from lay 496 00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,920 Speaker 1: rights in the churches in the same way that they 497 00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:59,640 Speaker 1: were excluded from voting rights in civil society. They were 498 00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:04,000 Speaker 1: eluded from ordination in the churches the same way they 499 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:09,160 Speaker 1: were excluded from elective office in civil society. So religious 500 00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:14,680 Speaker 1: rights offered direct parallels. They were excluded from religious education, 501 00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:20,480 Speaker 1: from seminaries and um Bible scholarship the same way that 502 00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:25,399 Speaker 1: they were excluded from law schools and secular colleges. So 503 00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:30,600 Speaker 1: there was an exact parallel that was discussed at Seneca Falls, 504 00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:38,760 Speaker 1: and the Seneca Falls Convention declared that when men usurp 505 00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:44,280 Speaker 1: the rights of authority in the church by excluding women 506 00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:49,720 Speaker 1: from the clergy and from religious office, that they step 507 00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:56,760 Speaker 1: into the place of God by excluding women from religious rights. 508 00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:00,960 Speaker 1: So we often think of Seneca Fall as the birth 509 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,440 Speaker 1: of the woman's suffrage movement. In fact, women's suffrage was 510 00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:09,160 Speaker 1: a very controversial proposition at Seneca Falls, and not everyone 511 00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:14,000 Speaker 1: supported it. It was ultimately included, but it was hotly debated. 512 00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:21,279 Speaker 1: And religious rights, I'm sure we're also controversial, but no 513 00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,239 Speaker 1: more so than women's suffrage. And we don't think of 514 00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,720 Speaker 1: Seneca Falls so much as the birthplace of religious rights, 515 00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:34,640 Speaker 1: but when they came to write the history of women's suffrage, 516 00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:41,680 Speaker 1: they included those developments, and in many religious documents. For example, 517 00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:47,160 Speaker 1: the fiftieth anniversary History of the Women's Missionary Movement traces 518 00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:51,040 Speaker 1: its origins to the Seneca False Convention and to the 519 00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:55,800 Speaker 1: women's rights movement that they saw that as the point 520 00:42:55,840 --> 00:43:00,680 Speaker 1: of origin for women demanding equality in the churches and 521 00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:05,200 Speaker 1: in the religious sphere. What is it that takes what 522 00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,719 Speaker 1: starts out as just kind of a neighborhood kerfuffle where 523 00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,520 Speaker 1: the Fox parents are talking with their daughters and get 524 00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:14,399 Speaker 1: some neighbors to come and hear this sound and try 525 00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,200 Speaker 1: to figure out what it is. What takes that neighborhood 526 00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:23,960 Speaker 1: event into the public sphere and and and forms it 527 00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:28,600 Speaker 1: into a new religious movement. How does it grow so fast? Well, 528 00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,560 Speaker 1: there's several answers to that question. The most immediate one 529 00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,439 Speaker 1: is the Post family. Amy and Isaac Post, who took 530 00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:40,359 Speaker 1: the Fox sisters into their home and gave them credibility. 531 00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,640 Speaker 1: And they were so much at the network, They were 532 00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:49,239 Speaker 1: so much at the node point of this large network 533 00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:57,120 Speaker 1: of abolitionists, radical reformers, and radical Quakers at information spread 534 00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:01,880 Speaker 1: quickly through them, but it spread faster than that once 535 00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:05,440 Speaker 1: the news of the spirit rappings was out and once 536 00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,120 Speaker 1: adults had taken it seriously, And that is a key 537 00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:14,800 Speaker 1: point I personally, Actually, this is not a personal conviction. 538 00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:20,280 Speaker 1: It's my conviction as a historian. Um My own view 539 00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:24,040 Speaker 1: is that there is too much emphasis on the Fox 540 00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:29,720 Speaker 1: Sisters in the history of spiritualism. They are an important moment, 541 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:35,800 Speaker 1: and they are uh. Their initial wrappings did give birth 542 00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,640 Speaker 1: to a new religious movement. But if the adults around 543 00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:44,840 Speaker 1: them had not taken this seriously as spirit communication, it 544 00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:49,400 Speaker 1: would have made no difference. That these adolescent girls heard 545 00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:53,360 Speaker 1: these rappings and attributed them to a dead peddler. It 546 00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,799 Speaker 1: would have made no difference if adults hadn't taken them seriously. 547 00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:02,120 Speaker 1: If adults who were well respected and and we're known 548 00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:07,080 Speaker 1: for their religious piety hadn't taken them seriously, it would 549 00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,880 Speaker 1: have made no difference. But once that happened, once this 550 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:18,520 Speaker 1: had been taken seriously by adults, spirit communication addressed a hunger. 551 00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:23,080 Speaker 1: And it's possible that the democratization of spirituality in the 552 00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:30,759 Speaker 1: second grade awakening loosened up the receptivity of the American 553 00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:35,000 Speaker 1: public so that they were willing to hear spirit communication 554 00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:40,840 Speaker 1: from sources that had not been previously considered credible. Yet, 555 00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:46,000 Speaker 1: there were other kinds of hungers that spiritualism was addressing 556 00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:50,920 Speaker 1: as well, the hunger for consolation. This is a time 557 00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:59,840 Speaker 1: when families are becoming more connected to younger children. Infant 558 00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:05,719 Speaker 1: mortality is on the decline, and therefore one can afford 559 00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:10,840 Speaker 1: to become more invested in one's love for an infant 560 00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:15,919 Speaker 1: child or a young child, even though the mortality rate 561 00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:20,759 Speaker 1: before five years old continued to be higher than after that. 562 00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:25,400 Speaker 1: So losing a young child was often in the purview 563 00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:29,200 Speaker 1: of women. Women were the attendance of both birth and death, 564 00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:35,280 Speaker 1: and children died in their arms at home, and so women, 565 00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,960 Speaker 1: as they came to place more hope that their children 566 00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:44,160 Speaker 1: might survive, were more and more devastated by their loss 567 00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:49,960 Speaker 1: and looked for a form of consolation after their death. 568 00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:56,920 Speaker 1: There's another cultural asports or social movement, uh that's important 569 00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,040 Speaker 1: in this era that we're going to explore, or that 570 00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,920 Speaker 1: we that we are exploring in the show. Um that 571 00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:07,399 Speaker 1: is part of that network that spread spiritualism and that's 572 00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,320 Speaker 1: the utopian the radical utopian movement. Um. Those radical Utopians 573 00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:15,480 Speaker 1: were on the ground floor with spiritualism, so to speak. UM, 574 00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:19,799 Speaker 1: could you briefly describe the religious impulse behind many of 575 00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:25,480 Speaker 1: the utopian communities like Northampton and Hopedale and Fruitlands of 576 00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:31,000 Speaker 1: Nida Brook Farm. There was a religious impulse behind this 577 00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:34,479 Speaker 1: this movement in these communities that were being founded. How 578 00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:39,959 Speaker 1: important were the Utopian collectives for spreading spiritualism in your view? Well, 579 00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:43,799 Speaker 1: the utopian communities all had a religious impulse and they 580 00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:48,120 Speaker 1: were all different. Many have had a charismatic leader who 581 00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:54,120 Speaker 1: had a religious or utopian vision that was guiding. UM. 582 00:47:54,239 --> 00:48:00,200 Speaker 1: The particular community formation Hopedale, which was one of the 583 00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:05,120 Speaker 1: most important for the spread of spiritualism, was considered a 584 00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:10,640 Speaker 1: community based on what they called practical Christian socialism. And 585 00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:15,640 Speaker 1: of course, a communitarian ideal and a socialist ideal go 586 00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,000 Speaker 1: hand in hand because of the idea of shared property. 587 00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:24,799 Speaker 1: Holding property in common is a common element of utopian settlements. 588 00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:29,719 Speaker 1: And believe me, socialism is a lot easier if you 589 00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,640 Speaker 1: have a religious motivation. Without a religious motive, not that 590 00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:38,759 Speaker 1: many people are willing to share property UM or to 591 00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:44,000 Speaker 1: live in harmony to to place their desires as individuals. 592 00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:48,279 Speaker 1: And remember the American Constitution in shrines property as an 593 00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:54,080 Speaker 1: individual right that is uh equivalent to the pursuit of happiness. 594 00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:59,520 Speaker 1: So to give up the notion that individual property equals 595 00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:03,759 Speaker 1: happy us you have to be very deeply committed and 596 00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:10,200 Speaker 1: piety religious fervor go a long way towards making that possible. 597 00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:15,600 Speaker 1: Of course, the Quakers are the most successful communitarian religious 598 00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:20,680 Speaker 1: experiment in American history. That is beyond the communities of 599 00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:25,360 Speaker 1: Roman Catholic religious orders. Utopian communities are looking for truth. 600 00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:30,680 Speaker 1: They are composed of zealous people deeply committed to the 601 00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:38,279 Speaker 1: pursuit of truth, and spiritualism offers as a vehicle for 602 00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:43,839 Speaker 1: truth that is on the present. Truth is always available. 603 00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,840 Speaker 1: If you have access to a spirit medium, a spirit 604 00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:52,919 Speaker 1: might speak through them at any time. And it's who 605 00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:57,279 Speaker 1: is ready to sacrifice and dedicate their life to a 606 00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:01,840 Speaker 1: zealous pursuit of truth. It's a very appealing to have 607 00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:09,560 Speaker 1: access to spirit communication. So spiritualism grows and gathers followers 608 00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:13,400 Speaker 1: through the networks of radicals and utopians. You know that 609 00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:17,800 Speaker 1: network that Amy post was at this important point in um. 610 00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:22,880 Speaker 1: But it also inspires serious opposition UM pretty early on, 611 00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:27,960 Speaker 1: and then through its growth it was gathering members, but 612 00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:31,200 Speaker 1: it was also making enemies. UM. Can you talk a 613 00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:36,400 Speaker 1: little bit about the opposition to spiritualism and maybe if 614 00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,480 Speaker 1: any come to mind, who were the antagonists of spiritualism 615 00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,200 Speaker 1: in the early days. All of the things that made 616 00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:50,719 Speaker 1: spiritualism attractive to radicals made it abhorrent to conservatives, social, political, 617 00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:54,920 Speaker 1: and theological. And I shouldn't even say they needn't even 618 00:50:54,960 --> 00:51:03,360 Speaker 1: be theological conservatives. They need only be people committed two 619 00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:09,719 Speaker 1: religious institutions, because spiritualism is really a form of religious anarchy. 620 00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:13,360 Speaker 1: If anyone can make contact with the spirits of the dead, 621 00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:19,279 Speaker 1: you don't need religious authority, You don't need a religious hierarchy, 622 00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:24,959 Speaker 1: you don't need the authority of the Bible. You can 623 00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:29,520 Speaker 1: if you can go directly yourself or through a medium, 624 00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:34,640 Speaker 1: to religious authority that has the potential to undercut all 625 00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:41,239 Speaker 1: kinds of institutional authority, religious and otherwise. Spirits tend to 626 00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,440 Speaker 1: be antarchic, not all of them, but they have that 627 00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:48,279 Speaker 1: potential because they could say anything, and they can disagree 628 00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:51,200 Speaker 1: with each other. If you don't have a scripture, a 629 00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:57,400 Speaker 1: written scripture in which doctrine is recorded. What is to 630 00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:02,480 Speaker 1: keep spirits from spa outing different doctrines at different times 631 00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:08,520 Speaker 1: and places. Nothing? And they did, and uh they often. 632 00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:15,160 Speaker 1: Spirits often affirmed political or social views of the mediums 633 00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:19,279 Speaker 1: or their communities. And they had the potential for very 634 00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:27,840 Speaker 1: radical communities, particularly communities that were questioning the legitimacy of 635 00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:36,880 Speaker 1: traditional marriage. That we're questioning traditional gender hierarchies. UM. Spirits 636 00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:45,920 Speaker 1: had the potential to affirm the religious validity of departures 637 00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:53,839 Speaker 1: that were extremely threatening to established faiths, and they did so. 638 00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:59,000 Speaker 1: Free love is one of the movements that is often 639 00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:05,280 Speaker 1: associated with spiritualism, and that was anathema to establish Christian Church, 640 00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:10,160 Speaker 1: which saw the sanctity of marriage as the bulwark of 641 00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:17,800 Speaker 1: society and um something that the Church gives birth to, sanctifies, 642 00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:25,239 Speaker 1: and depends on. So questioning of the a traditional view 643 00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:31,600 Speaker 1: of marriage was extremely threatening. Spiritualists espoused the idea of 644 00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:36,960 Speaker 1: spiritual affinity. And I don't want to attribute this to 645 00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:42,000 Speaker 1: all spiritualists because they were not all equally social radicals. Um, 646 00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:47,360 Speaker 1: some could be quite conservative socially, but social radicals tended 647 00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:51,719 Speaker 1: to be spiritualists, and they found in spiritualism and in 648 00:53:51,800 --> 00:53:58,560 Speaker 1: the idea of spiritual affinity UH support for the aggregation 649 00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:02,840 Speaker 1: of traditional marriage. The idea of spiritual affinity was the 650 00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:10,360 Speaker 1: idea that we have one ordained match in spirit life, 651 00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:15,239 Speaker 1: and that if we are if we marry someone who 652 00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:20,239 Speaker 1: is not our true spirit match, our true spirit affinity, 653 00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:25,720 Speaker 1: that marriage is immoral. And so if a woman should 654 00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:31,799 Speaker 1: be forced into marriage or should voluntarily marry for reasons 655 00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:37,440 Speaker 1: other than true love, then her marriage was illegitimate, and 656 00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:42,360 Speaker 1: the same for a man. So spiritualists saw the way 657 00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:47,520 Speaker 1: that women were forced into marriage by economic necessity as 658 00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:54,520 Speaker 1: a religious impropriety because it was coming between the natural 659 00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:58,080 Speaker 1: attraction of a man and a woman that is ordained 660 00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:02,280 Speaker 1: by God. To who say that they could be joined 661 00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:06,120 Speaker 1: by the state, and that a husband could be given 662 00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:11,840 Speaker 1: legal access to his wife's body by a ceremony of 663 00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:16,200 Speaker 1: the church and the state, whether or not she felt 664 00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:21,319 Speaker 1: in her soul, in her being a spiritual affinity for 665 00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:24,720 Speaker 1: that man that made her want to unite with him 666 00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:29,000 Speaker 1: and with his body in sexual congress. So you can 667 00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:34,120 Speaker 1: start to hear much of American society getting upset. It's 668 00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:40,400 Speaker 1: not hard to see how these very controversial um and 669 00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:48,160 Speaker 1: non conforming ideas were upsetting to the majority of religious 670 00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:54,319 Speaker 1: groups and to societies that saw church and state and 671 00:55:54,600 --> 00:56:02,320 Speaker 1: family as mutually supporting institutions. Mm hmm. Let's let's follow 672 00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,680 Speaker 1: this line for a few minutes. Because in the lives 673 00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:10,120 Speaker 1: of some of the prominent spiritualist mediums like Cora Scott 674 00:56:10,160 --> 00:56:17,440 Speaker 1: hatch Um and Victoria Woodhull, Uh, they were not just 675 00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:22,440 Speaker 1: hearing these doctrines but living through often brutal marriages. Um. 676 00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:26,400 Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about uh, kind of 677 00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:29,880 Speaker 1: the maybe a little more about the state of marriage 678 00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:36,239 Speaker 1: kind of at mid century, and um, maybe what they 679 00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,040 Speaker 1: meant by free love, because maybe our ideas are a 680 00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:42,840 Speaker 1: little more inflected by maybe the seventies than what a 681 00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:46,080 Speaker 1: spiritualist would mean by free love in the in the 682 00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:52,520 Speaker 1: eighteen forties, fifties, sixties, seventies. That's absolutely right. The idea 683 00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:57,680 Speaker 1: of free love in the nineteenth century was very limited 684 00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:01,400 Speaker 1: because it was not an idea that said you should 685 00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,440 Speaker 1: be able to have sex with whomever you please. Was 686 00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:08,400 Speaker 1: not that by a long shot. The idea of free 687 00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:12,560 Speaker 1: love is that you should be spiritually free to love 688 00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:17,840 Speaker 1: your true affinity, whether you are legally married to that 689 00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:23,440 Speaker 1: person or not. So the freedom to love that was 690 00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:28,320 Speaker 1: espoused by nineteenth century, free love advocates was a freedom 691 00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:34,520 Speaker 1: of the individual, and it gave particularly women freedoms that 692 00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:38,600 Speaker 1: they did not have under the law. What free love 693 00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:43,320 Speaker 1: meant in the nineteenth century and to most spiritualist advocates, 694 00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:48,520 Speaker 1: was that if a woman did not feel spiritual affinity 695 00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:54,040 Speaker 1: to her husband at that time, she had no obligation 696 00:57:55,080 --> 00:57:59,480 Speaker 1: to have sexual relations with him. She had full autonomy 697 00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:05,000 Speaker 1: over her whole being and she needed to determine for 698 00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:15,800 Speaker 1: herself whether the person her husband or not, who join 699 00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:21,400 Speaker 1: with her sexually was her true affinity or not, and 700 00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:28,439 Speaker 1: spiritualists advocates were very harsh, particularly women. Reformers were very 701 00:58:28,560 --> 00:58:33,640 Speaker 1: very harsh on men who complained that they should be 702 00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,680 Speaker 1: able to have sex out of wedlock because they were 703 00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:39,840 Speaker 1: bound in marriage to someone who was not their true 704 00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:43,280 Speaker 1: affinity and they had met an unmarried woman who was 705 00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:50,200 Speaker 1: their true affinity. Well. Women spiritualist reformers had no time 706 00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:53,520 Speaker 1: for this sort of thing at all. They were very, 707 00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:56,800 Speaker 1: very firm with the idea that if you are married 708 00:58:56,840 --> 00:59:00,960 Speaker 1: to someone who is not your spiritual affinity, you are 709 00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:04,200 Speaker 1: committing a crime of the spirit and you need to 710 00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:08,120 Speaker 1: come forward in the light of day and declare that 711 00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:12,840 Speaker 1: and declare who your spiritual affinity is. So they were 712 00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:17,560 Speaker 1: advocates of divorce and some of the early which was 713 00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:24,640 Speaker 1: not readily available um Andrew Jackson Davis's wife, Mary Loved Davis, 714 00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:29,040 Speaker 1: was married at the time that they met, and she 715 00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:34,400 Speaker 1: moved to Indiana to receive a divorce, a legal divorce, 716 00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:37,640 Speaker 1: and that was the only place where she could do 717 00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:41,720 Speaker 1: that at that time. But to get a divorce in 718 00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:45,880 Speaker 1: order to be able to unite with her spiritual affinity, 719 00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:49,880 Speaker 1: she risked the custody of her children, and she risked 720 00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:53,640 Speaker 1: never seeing her children again. And women had no guarantee 721 00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:57,160 Speaker 1: of custody, which was usually understood to go with the 722 00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:05,400 Speaker 1: father at that time. So this was not a an 723 01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:09,520 Speaker 1: opportunity casual liaison, at least that is not how the 724 01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:17,000 Speaker 1: women reformers understood it. Andrew Jackson Dave self later discovered 725 01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:21,800 Speaker 1: that the woman who had been his partner on the 726 01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:26,040 Speaker 1: spirit on the Spiritualist lecture circuit for so long and 727 01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:31,080 Speaker 1: his partner in reform, the beloved reformer, Mary Loved Davis. 728 01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:35,440 Speaker 1: He later concluded that she was not his true affinity 729 01:00:35,720 --> 01:00:38,520 Speaker 1: and that he wanted to sever his relation with her 730 01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:42,880 Speaker 1: and Mary, a younger woman. Spiritualists were shocked by this, 731 01:00:43,240 --> 01:00:49,440 Speaker 1: and it really, Um, it was very detrimental to Andrew 732 01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:53,080 Speaker 1: Jackson Davis is standing in the community. And it gives 733 01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:58,240 Speaker 1: you some of the irony of these radical ideas that 734 01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:02,880 Speaker 1: sexual will liberation in the nineteenth century was a much 735 01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:10,800 Speaker 1: more complicated idea, given the legal climate regarding divorce, regarding 736 01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:15,080 Speaker 1: child custody, and the lack of birth control. It was 737 01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:18,120 Speaker 1: not what we think of as the sexual freedoms of 738 01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:22,200 Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies. Let's keep talking gender and power 739 01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:27,960 Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. There are mediums as spiritualism grows, Uh, 740 01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:34,520 Speaker 1: like the Fox Sisters, Cora Victoria, Emma Brittain who comes 741 01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:38,400 Speaker 1: to the United States as Emma Harding before she's married. Um. 742 01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:41,160 Speaker 1: There are also mediums like Andrew Jackson Davis or Daniel 743 01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:46,440 Speaker 1: Douglas Whome. Um. How was the were the experiences of 744 01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:51,840 Speaker 1: male and female mediums different in the eighteen fifties. Certainly 745 01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:57,120 Speaker 1: there is a stereotype that the passivity of the female 746 01:01:57,240 --> 01:02:03,600 Speaker 1: medium could make her a victim of a um, a 747 01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:09,760 Speaker 1: male merchandiser, and there were examples of this. Cora Daniels. 748 01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:13,920 Speaker 1: It's hard to know what to call her. Her Cora Scott, 749 01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:17,840 Speaker 1: Hatch Tappan, Daniels Richmond to use all of her four 750 01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:22,520 Speaker 1: married names, as well as her h unmarried names Scott, 751 01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:25,840 Speaker 1: under which she became first entered the public record as 752 01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:33,600 Speaker 1: a public medium. Her marital history encompasses just about every 753 01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:40,280 Speaker 1: possibility of the relationship between a female medium and a 754 01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:46,280 Speaker 1: husband or um a male figure. Her first husband was 755 01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:52,640 Speaker 1: a promoter who really um was much older than her 756 01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:59,640 Speaker 1: and wanted to be her manager. She was very appealing 757 01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:05,200 Speaker 1: and successful public medium and trance speaker. She had beautiful 758 01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:11,600 Speaker 1: golden curls, and she was very popular on the lecture circuit. 759 01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:16,760 Speaker 1: She had a golden voice of silver tongue, and people 760 01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:21,560 Speaker 1: flocked to her public performances. She was written about in 761 01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:28,560 Speaker 1: the newspaper, and she was an enormously desirable and appealing figure. 762 01:03:29,120 --> 01:03:33,480 Speaker 1: And her first husband did, to some extent take financial 763 01:03:33,520 --> 01:03:38,439 Speaker 1: advantage of that UM and that became a stereotype of 764 01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:44,080 Speaker 1: the innocent young woman who is subject to spirit control 765 01:03:44,800 --> 01:03:49,240 Speaker 1: and to the control of a domineering male manager who 766 01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:55,800 Speaker 1: will exploit her talents. UM. Her subsequent husbands were quite different. 767 01:03:56,480 --> 01:04:02,040 Speaker 1: Her next two husbands, her second and third husband's, were reformers. 768 01:04:02,560 --> 01:04:06,560 Speaker 1: They were people who traveled with her on reform circuits. 769 01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:12,400 Speaker 1: They were both involved with both abolition and Indian rights 770 01:04:13,040 --> 01:04:17,920 Speaker 1: and UH, they really saw their marriages to her as 771 01:04:18,040 --> 01:04:22,479 Speaker 1: um part of their reform activism, and they traveled with 772 01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:28,040 Speaker 1: her as partners on the reform circuit um, so they 773 01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:35,480 Speaker 1: were kind of peers. Then her fourth husband, Richmond, really 774 01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:41,480 Speaker 1: was in the service of her mediumship, and he published 775 01:04:41,640 --> 01:04:47,160 Speaker 1: volumes and volumes of her spirit lectures. He employed typographers 776 01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:52,480 Speaker 1: to take down what she said in trance and uh 777 01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:57,600 Speaker 1: to trance to write it out, and he prepared these 778 01:04:58,040 --> 01:05:01,760 Speaker 1: volumes and volumes of her spirit extures for publication. So 779 01:05:01,840 --> 01:05:08,000 Speaker 1: he really devoted himself to promoting her mediumship, not to 780 01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:13,880 Speaker 1: exploit it, but out of respect for what she had accomplished. 781 01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:17,760 Speaker 1: By this time, she was a mature woman, well respected 782 01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:23,960 Speaker 1: nationally as a leader in spiritualism, and he married her 783 01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:27,720 Speaker 1: with knowing that that's who he was marrying, a very 784 01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:34,760 Speaker 1: very powerful woman, leader, well known on the public platform. 785 01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:38,440 Speaker 1: Another another woman whose story we're following through Unobscured is 786 01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:41,960 Speaker 1: I'm a Hearting of Britain. She begins her life performing 787 01:05:42,040 --> 01:05:45,600 Speaker 1: music as a young woman, makes contacts in occult circles, 788 01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:49,480 Speaker 1: playing music for their for their meetings and music halls 789 01:05:49,640 --> 01:05:52,280 Speaker 1: in France and in England, then comes to the United 790 01:05:52,320 --> 01:05:58,000 Speaker 1: States and performs on the stage before UM. There there's 791 01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:02,520 Speaker 1: some testimony that she was converted to spiritualism Matta John 792 01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:05,200 Speaker 1: Conklin seance and Conklin is someone we followed to the 793 01:06:05,200 --> 01:06:09,880 Speaker 1: White House, uh later on in our story. UM, but 794 01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,280 Speaker 1: she gives us a look at someone who came from 795 01:06:13,320 --> 01:06:18,200 Speaker 1: performing on stage to spiritualist mediumship. Can you talk a 796 01:06:18,240 --> 01:06:20,600 Speaker 1: little bit about the way that her life gives us 797 01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:23,920 Speaker 1: a glimpse into that side of spiritualism and public performance. 798 01:06:26,320 --> 01:06:32,800 Speaker 1: Spirit mediums could be subjected to really dreadful test conditions, 799 01:06:32,880 --> 01:06:40,720 Speaker 1: and because they depended on passivity to allow spirits to 800 01:06:40,880 --> 01:06:46,280 Speaker 1: communicate through them, they often found themselves in positions where 801 01:06:46,280 --> 01:06:50,800 Speaker 1: they could be exploited. They were tied up, placed in 802 01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:56,280 Speaker 1: bags um nail that were nailed to the ground in 803 01:06:56,440 --> 01:07:00,680 Speaker 1: order to create what we're called test conditions where they 804 01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:08,960 Speaker 1: could not fraudulently communicate with spirits. Um. The idea of 805 01:07:09,000 --> 01:07:14,000 Speaker 1: a test takes us back to the idea of spiritualism 806 01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:18,800 Speaker 1: as scientific investigation. So they're trying to they're trying to 807 01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:26,640 Speaker 1: construct conditions for a laboratory experiment where they're controlling the variables, 808 01:07:26,680 --> 01:07:32,480 Speaker 1: and controlling the variables could mean subjecting a lone woman 809 01:07:33,040 --> 01:07:40,160 Speaker 1: too very dire physical constraints. The other point of similarity 810 01:07:40,440 --> 01:07:46,440 Speaker 1: between a spirit medium, particularly a trance speaker, and a 811 01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:52,840 Speaker 1: performer is that it was okay to look at them. 812 01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:59,439 Speaker 1: Spirit mediums trans lectures were often the first woman that 813 01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:04,200 Speaker 1: people in the towns where they spoke had seen as 814 01:08:04,280 --> 01:08:08,640 Speaker 1: send the public platform. Remember that the theater was not 815 01:08:09,120 --> 01:08:14,880 Speaker 1: a morally neutral environment. Women of the theater were considered 816 01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:19,920 Speaker 1: to be public women. They were considered to be women 817 01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:24,920 Speaker 1: of the night, and not uh not necessarily women of 818 01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:29,520 Speaker 1: the moral caliber that one would meet at one's church 819 01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:34,320 Speaker 1: or want one's son to marry. The idea of a 820 01:08:34,400 --> 01:08:39,519 Speaker 1: woman appearing in public was a breach of protocol. So 821 01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:43,280 Speaker 1: the very some of the early women who made public 822 01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:48,360 Speaker 1: statements and became known for them in the nineteenth century 823 01:08:48,520 --> 01:08:52,479 Speaker 1: would give them to their brothers to read because they 824 01:08:52,520 --> 01:08:55,200 Speaker 1: did not want to appear in public. They did not 825 01:08:55,360 --> 01:08:59,320 Speaker 1: want to be the object of the male gaze. They 826 01:08:59,360 --> 01:09:02,240 Speaker 1: did not to be in what was at that time 827 01:09:02,320 --> 01:09:07,200 Speaker 1: called a promiscuous assembly, that is, an assembly of men 828 01:09:07,400 --> 01:09:13,000 Speaker 1: and women where men could look at women freely. Women 829 01:09:13,040 --> 01:09:17,760 Speaker 1: were considered to be appropriate to the private sphere, to 830 01:09:17,920 --> 01:09:22,639 Speaker 1: the sphere of the home, of the protections of domesticity, 831 01:09:22,760 --> 01:09:28,599 Speaker 1: and being public. A public woman was often another word 832 01:09:28,720 --> 01:09:33,120 Speaker 1: for a prostitute. That is, there was a moral equivalence 833 01:09:33,600 --> 01:09:37,960 Speaker 1: between a woman being in public rather than private and 834 01:09:38,960 --> 01:09:46,280 Speaker 1: selling her body. So women mediums walked a delicate line 835 01:09:46,960 --> 01:09:52,960 Speaker 1: between maintaining their moral stature, which they felt very strongly about, 836 01:09:53,120 --> 01:09:57,880 Speaker 1: because to be a vehicle for spirit communication, one had 837 01:09:57,920 --> 01:10:02,400 Speaker 1: to maintain one's purity m so that one could be 838 01:10:02,600 --> 01:10:07,200 Speaker 1: an an appropriate vehicle for spirit. A spirit, a pure 839 01:10:07,280 --> 01:10:12,120 Speaker 1: spirit would not want to communicate through a person who 840 01:10:12,240 --> 01:10:17,680 Speaker 1: is not pure in mind, in heart, and soul. So 841 01:10:17,760 --> 01:10:22,040 Speaker 1: the purity of the medium was very, very important, and 842 01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:27,640 Speaker 1: it was a little bit suspect if a woman ascended 843 01:10:28,040 --> 01:10:33,880 Speaker 1: the public platform to speak in public. But trance speakers 844 01:10:34,720 --> 01:10:39,720 Speaker 1: had a kind of out that other women didn't have 845 01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:44,240 Speaker 1: if they spoke in public, because trance speakers, we're not 846 01:10:44,439 --> 01:10:48,519 Speaker 1: claiming to speak for themselves. They were claiming that this 847 01:10:48,640 --> 01:10:55,040 Speaker 1: was an external intelligence speaking through them, and intelligence that 848 01:10:55,120 --> 01:10:59,040 Speaker 1: they did not control. So they were not speaking through 849 01:10:59,120 --> 01:11:02,240 Speaker 1: their own authority already, they were not speaking on their 850 01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:07,559 Speaker 1: own authority. It was one else's authority that was so 851 01:11:07,720 --> 01:11:11,680 Speaker 1: they were not breaking the taboos of propriety that a 852 01:11:11,720 --> 01:11:15,720 Speaker 1: woman should not speak in public in the same way 853 01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:20,559 Speaker 1: that an actress was who appeared on stage in the theater, 854 01:11:21,479 --> 01:11:27,240 Speaker 1: or an abolitionist lecturer. Remember the first women who spoke 855 01:11:27,640 --> 01:11:32,679 Speaker 1: as abolitionists, the grim Key Sisters, had rotten fruit thrown 856 01:11:32,720 --> 01:11:36,280 Speaker 1: at them because of the scandal of a woman preaching 857 01:11:36,320 --> 01:11:40,760 Speaker 1: in public. It was considered to be immoral. So when 858 01:11:40,800 --> 01:11:44,680 Speaker 1: spirit medium spoke in public, they were in this kind 859 01:11:44,720 --> 01:11:49,440 Speaker 1: of intermediate space where they were not speaking for themselves, 860 01:11:49,520 --> 01:11:54,000 Speaker 1: they were speaking for someone else. Another one of the 861 01:11:54,040 --> 01:11:59,080 Speaker 1: amazing people that were following with this story is Sojourner Truth. Um, 862 01:11:59,120 --> 01:12:01,760 Speaker 1: and she's a pub speaker. Can you talk a little 863 01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:08,000 Speaker 1: bit about the dynamics of speaking in public for her? Well? 864 01:12:08,120 --> 01:12:14,040 Speaker 1: So Journer Truth really draws our attention to the extent 865 01:12:14,280 --> 01:12:21,200 Speaker 1: to which race contributes to the construction of femininity. So 866 01:12:21,360 --> 01:12:29,120 Speaker 1: journal Truth wasn't subject to the norms of femininity because 867 01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:34,599 Speaker 1: she was not granted the privileges of femininity as someone 868 01:12:34,800 --> 01:12:38,439 Speaker 1: who had been enslaved, as someone who had been in 869 01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:44,320 Speaker 1: domestic service. Um. As someone who lacked legal rights. As 870 01:12:44,360 --> 01:12:48,840 Speaker 1: an African American UM, she did not have the privileges 871 01:12:49,840 --> 01:12:56,840 Speaker 1: that Christian morality ostensibly accorded to women. So her blackness 872 01:12:57,040 --> 01:13:01,880 Speaker 1: conflicted with the norms of femininity that were accepted at 873 01:13:01,920 --> 01:13:05,840 Speaker 1: this period in the minds of those who refused to 874 01:13:06,000 --> 01:13:12,439 Speaker 1: accord her those privileges. Sojourner Truth had other sources of 875 01:13:12,479 --> 01:13:16,880 Speaker 1: strength to appeal to, and in Sojourner Truth, who is 876 01:13:16,920 --> 01:13:22,559 Speaker 1: such a fascinating figure, we see the intersection of a 877 01:13:22,800 --> 01:13:28,599 Speaker 1: number of streams that are intermingling in American religion at 878 01:13:28,640 --> 01:13:33,320 Speaker 1: this time. For one thing, we see the impetus uh 879 01:13:33,479 --> 01:13:39,040 Speaker 1: the the way that African traditions come in through the 880 01:13:39,120 --> 01:13:47,479 Speaker 1: African American population UM and how African traditions come spirit 881 01:13:47,560 --> 01:13:53,639 Speaker 1: presence is a point of intersection between American spiritualism and 882 01:13:53,720 --> 01:13:58,200 Speaker 1: many of the traditions that came with enslaved Africans to 883 01:13:58,400 --> 01:14:02,559 Speaker 1: the New Worlds, where the idea of spirit presence, the 884 01:14:02,600 --> 01:14:07,519 Speaker 1: idea of communication with with ancestors, is very much part 885 01:14:07,720 --> 01:14:14,679 Speaker 1: of many many African traditional practices. In so Turner Truth, 886 01:14:15,400 --> 01:14:21,040 Speaker 1: we see someone who um has African traditions as part 887 01:14:21,080 --> 01:14:25,839 Speaker 1: of her heritage, who is exposed early in her life 888 01:14:26,360 --> 01:14:32,160 Speaker 1: to the proliferation of Christianities that is happening in the 889 01:14:32,200 --> 01:14:40,960 Speaker 1: Burned Over period. Who becomes um ensconced in a community 890 01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:47,080 Speaker 1: of with a charismatic figure, who um is attracting people 891 01:14:47,120 --> 01:14:51,280 Speaker 1: to all kinds of novel ideas. But ultimately she becomes 892 01:14:51,280 --> 01:14:54,640 Speaker 1: a spiritualist, and she does that when she is a 893 01:14:54,680 --> 01:14:59,240 Speaker 1: public figure. So, for so Turner Truth, she's been through 894 01:14:59,360 --> 01:15:04,880 Speaker 1: a number of parts of her religious evolution already by 895 01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:10,080 Speaker 1: the time she encounters spiritualism, but it intersects with her 896 01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:15,760 Speaker 1: role as a reformer and with the reform communities that 897 01:15:15,840 --> 01:15:22,720 Speaker 1: she is part of. So for her, she interestingly is 898 01:15:22,800 --> 01:15:28,880 Speaker 1: someone who shows a different kind of vulnerability that spiritualism 899 01:15:28,920 --> 01:15:36,000 Speaker 1: can address. Whereas white women could be empowered by spirits 900 01:15:36,040 --> 01:15:41,280 Speaker 1: to do things that they were considered incapable of because 901 01:15:41,320 --> 01:15:45,640 Speaker 1: of their innocence, so journal Truth was empowered to do 902 01:15:45,840 --> 01:15:51,600 Speaker 1: things that she was considered incapable of because of stereotypes 903 01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:57,640 Speaker 1: about black femininity and about blackness, and about her ignorance, 904 01:15:57,880 --> 01:16:04,360 Speaker 1: her presumed ignorance as a presumed illiterate black person. So 905 01:16:04,479 --> 01:16:08,640 Speaker 1: spirits could empower her to do things she was assumed 906 01:16:08,640 --> 01:16:13,599 Speaker 1: to be incapable of because of her lack of access 907 01:16:13,720 --> 01:16:18,360 Speaker 1: to education and the authority of education, just as a 908 01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:22,599 Speaker 1: young girl might draw on spirit authority because she was 909 01:16:22,720 --> 01:16:27,000 Speaker 1: uneducated like a she didn't have the education that someone 910 01:16:27,160 --> 01:16:33,160 Speaker 1: with biblical learning or ministerial training would have. Someone who 911 01:16:33,200 --> 01:16:38,040 Speaker 1: was African American was also barred from those same kind 912 01:16:38,040 --> 01:16:43,200 Speaker 1: of opportunities that an adolescent girl was. And like an 913 01:16:43,200 --> 01:16:49,280 Speaker 1: analystent girl, African Americans were considered to be less governed 914 01:16:49,439 --> 01:16:55,200 Speaker 1: by rationality, which was considered to be incompatible with mediumship. 915 01:16:55,800 --> 01:17:01,640 Speaker 1: Masculinity education was considered to make the personality too organized 916 01:17:01,720 --> 01:17:10,720 Speaker 1: for a spirit to use you as a vehicle. But blackness, femininity, youth, ignorance, 917 01:17:11,040 --> 01:17:18,600 Speaker 1: innocent these were all qualifications for spirit mediumship. Could you 918 01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:22,879 Speaker 1: say a bit more about what black spiritualists like sojourn 919 01:17:22,920 --> 01:17:27,120 Speaker 1: or Truth or Harriet Jacobs or Harriet Wilson would have 920 01:17:27,320 --> 01:17:33,120 Speaker 1: faced in even in abolitionist circles and utopian and reformist movements. Um, 921 01:17:33,160 --> 01:17:35,519 Speaker 1: there were forces at work in these movements that maintained 922 01:17:35,640 --> 01:17:39,519 Speaker 1: racist attitudes and relationships. Uh, they faced racism and bigotry 923 01:17:39,560 --> 01:17:43,320 Speaker 1: even among other abolitionists. There's been some good writing about 924 01:17:44,280 --> 01:17:49,639 Speaker 1: the way that their mediumship was in conflict with even 925 01:17:49,680 --> 01:17:53,320 Speaker 1: these new ideas of authority and hierarchy. Do you have 926 01:17:53,360 --> 01:17:57,320 Speaker 1: any comments on that that you could offer. Spiritualism provided 927 01:17:57,360 --> 01:18:02,040 Speaker 1: the opportunity to cut through any kind of structure of authority, 928 01:18:02,240 --> 01:18:06,960 Speaker 1: be it political authority, the authority of gender hierarchy, the 929 01:18:07,040 --> 01:18:12,200 Speaker 1: authority of racial hierarchy, the authority of the slave system 930 01:18:12,400 --> 01:18:16,720 Speaker 1: of human bondage, the authority of the state, the authority 931 01:18:16,720 --> 01:18:20,240 Speaker 1: of the church, the authority of the Bible of the clergy. 932 01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:26,280 Speaker 1: All of these structures of authority presented opportunities for spiritualism 933 01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:29,719 Speaker 1: to cut through them. So somebody who is suffering under 934 01:18:29,800 --> 01:18:35,360 Speaker 1: any of these forms of authority could be empowered by 935 01:18:35,479 --> 01:18:40,280 Speaker 1: spirit to oppose them and to be liberated from them. Now, 936 01:18:40,320 --> 01:18:44,400 Speaker 1: there is no reason to think that someone who was 937 01:18:44,520 --> 01:18:49,040 Speaker 1: liberated by the spirit from one source of authority wouldn't 938 01:18:49,080 --> 01:18:56,040 Speaker 1: necessarily see the harm or the hierarchy, or the immorality 939 01:18:56,080 --> 01:18:59,920 Speaker 1: of all sources of authority. In fact, those who said 940 01:19:00,040 --> 01:19:05,840 Speaker 1: that all sources of authority are equally challenged by spiritualism 941 01:19:05,840 --> 01:19:09,800 Speaker 1: were the most controversial. Those were the figures who challenged 942 01:19:10,479 --> 01:19:14,960 Speaker 1: the authority of marital bonds, of private property, of all 943 01:19:15,040 --> 01:19:20,200 Speaker 1: kinds of controversial things, so you can see how there 944 01:19:20,439 --> 01:19:25,439 Speaker 1: is gradation that spirit you might spiritualism might empower you 945 01:19:25,560 --> 01:19:29,240 Speaker 1: just to cut through one source of authority or fifteen, 946 01:19:30,200 --> 01:19:34,280 Speaker 1: and there's going to be people everywhere on that continuum. 947 01:19:34,320 --> 01:19:38,640 Speaker 1: I don't find it a bit surprising that spiritualists and 948 01:19:38,760 --> 01:19:44,600 Speaker 1: abolitionists were not completely liberated from all sources of hierarchy. 949 01:19:44,680 --> 01:19:47,720 Speaker 1: In fact, I don't believe that any human being is. 950 01:19:47,920 --> 01:19:52,959 Speaker 1: I believe that a hundred years from now, whatever sources 951 01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:58,000 Speaker 1: of authority or oppression we are blind to today, the 952 01:19:58,120 --> 01:20:02,639 Speaker 1: historians of those next generations will be critiquing the people 953 01:20:02,680 --> 01:20:06,360 Speaker 1: who think they're so woke today for whatever it is 954 01:20:06,400 --> 01:20:10,240 Speaker 1: that we are blind to by our own circumstances. That 955 01:20:10,320 --> 01:20:14,520 Speaker 1: was certainly the case for the abolitionists and the reformers 956 01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:23,400 Speaker 1: of the nine century. For someone like Harriet Jacobs, spiritualist 957 01:20:23,479 --> 01:20:30,120 Speaker 1: networks would provide communities where she would find some sympathetic people, 958 01:20:30,760 --> 01:20:34,880 Speaker 1: some people who accept her mediumship, who were willing to 959 01:20:34,960 --> 01:20:39,280 Speaker 1: follow her leadership, who were willing to support her in 960 01:20:39,479 --> 01:20:45,840 Speaker 1: her spiritual quest, but not all, whereas in another environment 961 01:20:47,280 --> 01:20:52,640 Speaker 1: everyone would have opposed her. Spiritualism is often positioned at 962 01:20:52,840 --> 01:20:56,840 Speaker 1: as an interesting midpoint between, to put it crudely, faith 963 01:20:56,960 --> 01:20:59,080 Speaker 1: and science. I mean, we've talked a little bit about 964 01:20:59,120 --> 01:21:05,280 Speaker 1: that already. Um, empiricism and belief in the spirits, kind 965 01:21:05,280 --> 01:21:08,679 Speaker 1: of touching on technology, that kind of thing. Um For believers, 966 01:21:08,760 --> 01:21:11,000 Speaker 1: it kind of offered empirical proofs for belief in the 967 01:21:11,040 --> 01:21:14,200 Speaker 1: spirit world. For materialists or religious dissenters, it was a 968 01:21:15,360 --> 01:21:19,080 Speaker 1: you know, a phenomenon of the natural world, or may 969 01:21:19,080 --> 01:21:22,759 Speaker 1: be seen a little bit differently. Could you describe whether 970 01:21:22,880 --> 01:21:26,439 Speaker 1: this kind of liminal zone or this this space that 971 01:21:26,479 --> 01:21:30,519 Speaker 1: spiritualism occupies, was it more of an asset or a 972 01:21:30,560 --> 01:21:36,600 Speaker 1: liability for spiritualists in the eighteen fifties. Wow, that's a 973 01:21:36,640 --> 01:21:41,960 Speaker 1: fascinated question. There are many scientists who were deeply committed 974 01:21:42,000 --> 01:21:47,479 Speaker 1: to investigating spiritual communication, and many scientists who were deeply 975 01:21:47,680 --> 01:21:51,760 Speaker 1: invested in a Societies for psychical Research were founded both 976 01:21:51,800 --> 01:21:55,240 Speaker 1: in the United States and in Great Britain and in Europe, 977 01:21:55,840 --> 01:22:01,360 Speaker 1: and these were composed of scientifically mind people, including many 978 01:22:01,439 --> 01:22:06,519 Speaker 1: scientists who were committed to exploring the possibility of spirit 979 01:22:06,560 --> 01:22:13,519 Speaker 1: communication under very strict test conditions. I was it an 980 01:22:13,560 --> 01:22:16,439 Speaker 1: asset or a liability? I don't really know how to 981 01:22:16,560 --> 01:22:21,720 Speaker 1: answer that. Because many scientists are people of faith. Many scientists, 982 01:22:21,800 --> 01:22:28,479 Speaker 1: both then and today see a sympathy between scientific inquiry 983 01:22:28,600 --> 01:22:34,800 Speaker 1: and religious faith. They see the miraculousness of God's creation 984 01:22:35,000 --> 01:22:39,439 Speaker 1: as the subject of scientific inquiry and something that is 985 01:22:39,479 --> 01:22:44,560 Speaker 1: imbued with natural laws that can be discovered through scientific investigation. 986 01:22:45,720 --> 01:22:51,839 Speaker 1: So there's always been a mix of science and faith. 987 01:22:52,720 --> 01:22:58,040 Speaker 1: I don't think that middle space will ever disappear, and 988 01:22:58,160 --> 01:23:04,760 Speaker 1: certainly many religion just figures have viewed scientific inquiry and 989 01:23:04,840 --> 01:23:09,080 Speaker 1: continue to do so as a path to the discovery 990 01:23:09,280 --> 01:23:14,880 Speaker 1: of God's law and the intricacy and miraculousness of creation 991 01:23:15,160 --> 01:23:22,000 Speaker 1: that embodies the natural law of of of God's mind. 992 01:23:22,520 --> 01:23:26,920 Speaker 1: M We talked earlier about some of the opposition to 993 01:23:26,960 --> 01:23:32,280 Speaker 1: spiritualism that would be mustered through the church theologically um 994 01:23:32,439 --> 01:23:36,560 Speaker 1: or we talked about it in terms of a conservatism 995 01:23:36,600 --> 01:23:40,360 Speaker 1: of wanting to, you know, defend the borders or the 996 01:23:40,400 --> 01:23:46,559 Speaker 1: margins of what was a traditional hierarchy UM but there 997 01:23:46,560 --> 01:23:50,800 Speaker 1: were other kinds of antagonisms to spiritualism, maybe out of 998 01:23:50,840 --> 01:23:56,880 Speaker 1: those motives, but that took the form of sometimes antagonistic investigations. 999 01:23:57,800 --> 01:24:01,840 Speaker 1: How did spiritualists react when in Uh say that the 1000 01:24:01,880 --> 01:24:05,439 Speaker 1: fox sisters relative Mrs Culver published an account of Maggie 1001 01:24:05,439 --> 01:24:08,040 Speaker 1: admitting in the eighteen fifties that her raps were staged 1002 01:24:08,560 --> 01:24:12,600 Speaker 1: or um to something like the one investigation by the 1003 01:24:12,600 --> 01:24:17,640 Speaker 1: Buffalo University faculty, after which professors published a report that 1004 01:24:17,680 --> 01:24:21,400 Speaker 1: said the girls were making the sounds with popping joints. Um. 1005 01:24:21,439 --> 01:24:26,760 Speaker 1: What kind of affected these approaches to spiritualism that were 1006 01:24:26,840 --> 01:24:31,639 Speaker 1: kind of exposures or something like that? Um? What did 1007 01:24:31,640 --> 01:24:36,160 Speaker 1: this early negative press, Uh? What influence did it have 1008 01:24:36,200 --> 01:24:45,440 Speaker 1: on spiritualism as a movement. Because spiritualism is a religion 1009 01:24:45,880 --> 01:24:51,040 Speaker 1: that never had an orthodoxy or a religious hierarchy that 1010 01:24:51,120 --> 01:24:56,599 Speaker 1: could say who's in and who's out, Spiritualists were really 1011 01:24:56,760 --> 01:25:01,680 Speaker 1: free to respond in any way that they want to. Certainly, 1012 01:25:02,000 --> 01:25:06,920 Speaker 1: these exposures created a crisis of faith for some people. 1013 01:25:07,680 --> 01:25:14,080 Speaker 1: For some people, it simply meant that while those mediums 1014 01:25:14,080 --> 01:25:19,960 Speaker 1: were not genuine, it was worth continuing their investigations until 1015 01:25:20,040 --> 01:25:23,800 Speaker 1: they were satisfied that they found a medium who was genuine. 1016 01:25:24,840 --> 01:25:33,599 Speaker 1: And fraud is a very fraud subject in spiritualism, because 1017 01:25:33,600 --> 01:25:36,880 Speaker 1: there are no questions that there have been fraudulent mediums 1018 01:25:37,680 --> 01:25:42,040 Speaker 1: who perpetrated deception on the public and profited by it. 1019 01:25:42,600 --> 01:25:47,360 Speaker 1: And that there have been gullible people who were embarrassed 1020 01:25:47,479 --> 01:25:54,200 Speaker 1: and disserviced by fraudulent mediums. Now, that is also true 1021 01:25:54,640 --> 01:26:01,760 Speaker 1: of many professions, law and medicine, for example. UM not 1022 01:26:01,880 --> 01:26:11,559 Speaker 1: to mention politics provides opportunities for deception and double speak 1023 01:26:12,600 --> 01:26:20,000 Speaker 1: and misrepresentation. Does that mean that all participants in it 1024 01:26:20,720 --> 01:26:27,000 Speaker 1: have those motives and are dishonest? These are the questions 1025 01:26:27,040 --> 01:26:32,639 Speaker 1: that spiritualists asked about their mediums, and to my mind, 1026 01:26:33,080 --> 01:26:38,760 Speaker 1: as a historian, I feel completely confident in saying that 1027 01:26:38,800 --> 01:26:44,240 Speaker 1: the majority of mediums were absolutely sincere in their belief 1028 01:26:44,800 --> 01:26:49,240 Speaker 1: that they were channeling communications from the spirits of the dead. 1029 01:26:50,040 --> 01:26:54,960 Speaker 1: I do not believe that the American public is gullible enough, 1030 01:26:55,800 --> 01:27:02,320 Speaker 1: or that there are enough good liars to create a 1031 01:27:02,400 --> 01:27:10,759 Speaker 1: movement of this size and impact and durability solely through fraud. 1032 01:27:12,880 --> 01:27:18,240 Speaker 1: You also had um some antagonism from the press. The 1033 01:27:18,280 --> 01:27:21,880 Speaker 1: New York Times often published mocking articles about spiritualism. The 1034 01:27:21,880 --> 01:27:25,360 Speaker 1: Boston Career mustered the forces of the Academy against Spiritualism 1035 01:27:25,360 --> 01:27:29,080 Speaker 1: and hosted their own investigation with Harvard faculty UM. But 1036 01:27:29,160 --> 01:27:32,920 Speaker 1: in many other cases, spiritualists had allies in the mainstream press. 1037 01:27:33,360 --> 01:27:39,400 Speaker 1: Horace Greeley was famously a spiritualist, and and spiritualists themselves 1038 01:27:39,400 --> 01:27:43,520 Speaker 1: often lefted the chance to spread their message through journalism. Um. 1039 01:27:43,720 --> 01:27:50,280 Speaker 1: How important was the spiritualist use of periodicals for the movement? Well, 1040 01:27:50,439 --> 01:27:54,840 Speaker 1: you've just come on one of my favorite topics, the 1041 01:27:55,960 --> 01:28:01,000 Speaker 1: spiritualist press of the ninete century. Um, the the revolution 1042 01:28:01,240 --> 01:28:08,280 Speaker 1: in communication, the print revolution of the mid ninete century 1043 01:28:08,439 --> 01:28:13,960 Speaker 1: was absolutely crucial to the spread of spiritualism because spiritualists 1044 01:28:14,000 --> 01:28:19,000 Speaker 1: were radicals. They were radical about something. They were religious radical, 1045 01:28:19,200 --> 01:28:26,639 Speaker 1: if not radicals, concerning slavery or or other reforms of 1046 01:28:26,680 --> 01:28:30,200 Speaker 1: the day, and so they were likely to be in 1047 01:28:30,240 --> 01:28:34,360 Speaker 1: the minority opinion of the small towns in which they 1048 01:28:34,439 --> 01:28:40,600 Speaker 1: lived across America. What periodicals provided for them was the 1049 01:28:40,680 --> 01:28:46,679 Speaker 1: ability to form non geographic communities, communities of like minded 1050 01:28:46,720 --> 01:28:49,840 Speaker 1: people who did not see each other face to face. 1051 01:28:50,439 --> 01:28:56,120 Speaker 1: So you really begin the Um, you see the seeds 1052 01:28:56,160 --> 01:28:59,840 Speaker 1: of the virtual communities that have become so important in 1053 01:28:59,840 --> 01:29:05,280 Speaker 1: the digital age. In the periodical press of the nineteenth century, 1054 01:29:05,560 --> 01:29:09,920 Speaker 1: you could subscribe to a periodical published in Chicago or 1055 01:29:09,960 --> 01:29:13,760 Speaker 1: Milwaukee or Boston, no matter where you lived, and you 1056 01:29:13,800 --> 01:29:16,920 Speaker 1: would receive it through the mail, and you would see 1057 01:29:17,040 --> 01:29:21,320 Speaker 1: on it the names of other subscribers in your small 1058 01:29:21,360 --> 01:29:24,360 Speaker 1: town or in your state, and it would give you 1059 01:29:24,479 --> 01:29:29,000 Speaker 1: the potential to communicate with them, to create a network 1060 01:29:29,040 --> 01:29:32,799 Speaker 1: in your community, to learn when speakers might be coming 1061 01:29:32,840 --> 01:29:35,320 Speaker 1: to your state, when a speaker might come to your 1062 01:29:36,439 --> 01:29:39,000 Speaker 1: to the capital of your state, that you could go 1063 01:29:39,080 --> 01:29:43,320 Speaker 1: and here and meet other like minded people and receive 1064 01:29:43,920 --> 01:29:48,200 Speaker 1: further intelligence about the religious movement that you adhere to. 1065 01:29:49,200 --> 01:29:55,080 Speaker 1: So the periodical press was enormously important. It also spread 1066 01:29:55,120 --> 01:30:01,160 Speaker 1: news about traveling mediums and trance speakers did travel on 1067 01:30:01,240 --> 01:30:05,680 Speaker 1: a circuit, and they didn't have the religious organizations, you know, 1068 01:30:05,760 --> 01:30:09,800 Speaker 1: their Methodist circuit rider had the church to set the 1069 01:30:09,840 --> 01:30:12,639 Speaker 1: circuit that they would ride and announce where they would 1070 01:30:12,640 --> 01:30:15,240 Speaker 1: be on such and such a date and on such 1071 01:30:15,280 --> 01:30:19,400 Speaker 1: and such a schedule. Spirit mediums didn't have that. They 1072 01:30:19,600 --> 01:30:25,160 Speaker 1: often traveled on faith. That is, they would um be 1073 01:30:25,280 --> 01:30:30,240 Speaker 1: hosted by spiritualist families in the communities that would invite them. 1074 01:30:30,520 --> 01:30:35,120 Speaker 1: And the the compensation that they received was what was 1075 01:30:35,160 --> 01:30:39,519 Speaker 1: taken at the door, what what contributions were taken up 1076 01:30:39,560 --> 01:30:43,200 Speaker 1: when they passed the hat, and they really didn't know 1077 01:30:43,760 --> 01:30:46,519 Speaker 1: how they would be received, how they would get money 1078 01:30:46,560 --> 01:30:50,160 Speaker 1: to travel to their next destination. It was not an 1079 01:30:50,200 --> 01:30:54,120 Speaker 1: easy life being a spirit medium, particularly being a woman 1080 01:30:54,840 --> 01:31:01,080 Speaker 1: traveling alone, UM by public transportation on trains and stage 1081 01:31:01,200 --> 01:31:08,040 Speaker 1: coaches to smaller places. UM. It was was an arduous movement, 1082 01:31:08,360 --> 01:31:14,040 Speaker 1: and the newspapers were critical to spreading word and making 1083 01:31:14,080 --> 01:31:19,680 Speaker 1: this possible. M UM. In your view, what were some 1084 01:31:19,720 --> 01:31:25,840 Speaker 1: of the most significant periodicals spiritualist periodicals. I don't think 1085 01:31:25,880 --> 01:31:30,559 Speaker 1: many historians would UM contradict me if I said that 1086 01:31:30,600 --> 01:31:34,200 Speaker 1: the two most important periodicals were The Banner of Light, 1087 01:31:34,400 --> 01:31:38,960 Speaker 1: published in Boston, the longest lived and most widely read 1088 01:31:39,000 --> 01:31:44,000 Speaker 1: of the spiritualist periodicals, followed by the Religio Philosophical Journal 1089 01:31:44,280 --> 01:31:50,519 Speaker 1: in Chicago, which was really the voice of the Midwest. UM. 1090 01:31:50,560 --> 01:31:58,240 Speaker 1: And then there were many periodicals published and smaller communities periodicals. 1091 01:31:58,280 --> 01:32:03,680 Speaker 1: Publishing a periodical was a form of ministry. UM. Editors 1092 01:32:03,680 --> 01:32:06,960 Speaker 1: and publishers often did not make a profit on the 1093 01:32:07,520 --> 01:32:11,439 Speaker 1: periodicals that they published, but they understood this as a 1094 01:32:11,479 --> 01:32:15,840 Speaker 1: way of spreading the word of the spiritual manifestations and 1095 01:32:16,160 --> 01:32:20,960 Speaker 1: of joining like minded people into a community of faithful 1096 01:32:21,960 --> 01:32:24,280 Speaker 1: m That's great. I'm glad you said that, because we're 1097 01:32:24,320 --> 01:32:27,360 Speaker 1: focusing on the Banner of Light as Our as our. 1098 01:32:27,840 --> 01:32:30,439 Speaker 1: I mean, it does seem pretty clear that it's the biggest. 1099 01:32:30,439 --> 01:32:32,240 Speaker 1: But you know, we're following the editors of the Banner 1100 01:32:32,240 --> 01:32:34,880 Speaker 1: of Light to their to New Orleans on the trip 1101 01:32:34,920 --> 01:32:36,559 Speaker 1: that they take down there in the eight fifties and 1102 01:32:36,600 --> 01:32:38,320 Speaker 1: looking at the star Carmon Nique and you know some 1103 01:32:38,360 --> 01:32:40,400 Speaker 1: of the things that we're going with spiritual north anyway, 1104 01:32:40,439 --> 01:32:45,479 Speaker 1: So that's fantastic. Let's talk more about another issue that 1105 01:32:45,600 --> 01:32:50,439 Speaker 1: brings spiritualism or race right to the to the surface 1106 01:32:50,479 --> 01:32:54,200 Speaker 1: of spiritualism, UM, which you mentioned earlier, and that is 1107 01:32:54,680 --> 01:33:03,080 Speaker 1: Native American UH Indian spirit controls spirit guides. UM. How 1108 01:33:03,120 --> 01:33:06,679 Speaker 1: do you think about this practice which was so common 1109 01:33:06,720 --> 01:33:09,479 Speaker 1: in spiritualism. What is the myth of the vanishing race? 1110 01:33:10,200 --> 01:33:15,000 Speaker 1: And how did Indian spirit guides reflect or deflect that 1111 01:33:15,120 --> 01:33:19,799 Speaker 1: myth in the years after the Civil War. So spirit 1112 01:33:19,880 --> 01:33:25,400 Speaker 1: mediums very much participate in the myth of the vanishing race, 1113 01:33:26,200 --> 01:33:34,719 Speaker 1: which is the idea that the indigenous inhabitants of North 1114 01:33:34,760 --> 01:33:41,080 Speaker 1: America are part of the past and that there cultures 1115 01:33:41,360 --> 01:33:50,559 Speaker 1: and populations will give way, um to the new inhabitants 1116 01:33:50,600 --> 01:34:01,840 Speaker 1: of North America coming from Europe. The UH, the myth 1117 01:34:01,880 --> 01:34:05,080 Speaker 1: of the vanishing race. I don't actually like that term, 1118 01:34:05,200 --> 01:34:12,439 Speaker 1: the myth of the vanishing race um, because it's not 1119 01:34:14,680 --> 01:34:24,120 Speaker 1: Europeans did slaughter millions of Indian people. So it's not 1120 01:34:24,320 --> 01:34:34,320 Speaker 1: just a myth. That's also a military and economic enterprise UM. 1121 01:34:36,040 --> 01:34:42,400 Speaker 1: But there's also a mythological underpinning that is critical to 1122 01:34:42,800 --> 01:34:48,040 Speaker 1: the American enterprise, to the notion of the United States 1123 01:34:49,040 --> 01:34:55,519 Speaker 1: as a nation with a manifest destiny ordained by God 1124 01:34:56,360 --> 01:35:04,800 Speaker 1: two bring American civilization and Christianity across the continent from 1125 01:35:04,920 --> 01:35:14,800 Speaker 1: sea to shining Sea. And that idea requires a spiritual 1126 01:35:15,120 --> 01:35:24,760 Speaker 1: justification for replacing indigenous inhabitants with inhabitants from Europe as 1127 01:35:24,800 --> 01:35:28,760 Speaker 1: well as people brought here in slavery from it m HM. 1128 01:35:30,800 --> 01:35:37,840 Speaker 1: So it requires a a spiritual understanding that can justify 1129 01:35:38,120 --> 01:35:45,599 Speaker 1: that displacement and the displacement of people's from their lands 1130 01:35:45,800 --> 01:35:52,320 Speaker 1: and the gifting of that land to new inhabitants. Do 1131 01:35:52,360 --> 01:35:55,320 Speaker 1: you have a general way of that that when you're 1132 01:35:55,360 --> 01:36:01,559 Speaker 1: talking about Native spirit guides Indigenous spirit guides, um, how 1133 01:36:01,600 --> 01:36:05,839 Speaker 1: do you describe it in general terms? The practice Indian 1134 01:36:05,920 --> 01:36:10,000 Speaker 1: spirit guides are part of a longer American tradition that 1135 01:36:10,160 --> 01:36:15,200 Speaker 1: dates back long before the spiritualist religion emerges in the 1136 01:36:15,240 --> 01:36:25,400 Speaker 1: eighteen forties. Remember that the Patriots who dumped the tea 1137 01:36:25,640 --> 01:36:30,000 Speaker 1: into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party dressed up 1138 01:36:30,040 --> 01:36:34,760 Speaker 1: as Indians and used hat wielded hatchets while they were 1139 01:36:34,840 --> 01:36:39,880 Speaker 1: dressed as Indians, with the idea that the Indian embodied 1140 01:36:40,439 --> 01:36:45,880 Speaker 1: both independence and a lack of British sovereignty, but also 1141 01:36:46,200 --> 01:36:53,760 Speaker 1: savagery and a wild response to uh tea being the 1142 01:36:53,800 --> 01:36:58,760 Speaker 1: epitome of civilization as well as a staple necessity of 1143 01:36:58,960 --> 01:37:04,880 Speaker 1: British life in the colonies. Um So, this notion of 1144 01:37:05,400 --> 01:37:11,000 Speaker 1: the Indian as a symbolic representation was well imbued in 1145 01:37:11,040 --> 01:37:19,040 Speaker 1: American culture before spiritualism comes on the scene, and spiritualists 1146 01:37:19,040 --> 01:37:27,400 Speaker 1: participate in ideas about romantic ideas about Indians that are 1147 01:37:27,600 --> 01:37:32,920 Speaker 1: have already begun to develop um and are developing in 1148 01:37:33,080 --> 01:37:40,520 Speaker 1: American literature. Lydia Mariah Child writes a romance about uh 1149 01:37:40,640 --> 01:37:44,040 Speaker 1: a woman who falls in love with an Indian and 1150 01:37:44,080 --> 01:37:49,439 Speaker 1: then the Indian mysteriously fades away into the sunset while 1151 01:37:49,920 --> 01:37:55,599 Speaker 1: she develops a more appropriate romantic relationship with a white man. 1152 01:37:56,360 --> 01:38:00,839 Speaker 1: And so there is this ability in America can culture 1153 01:38:01,080 --> 01:38:06,919 Speaker 1: to espouse positive views about Native Americans at the same 1154 01:38:06,960 --> 01:38:11,400 Speaker 1: time that one assumes that they are people of the 1155 01:38:11,439 --> 01:38:16,519 Speaker 1: past who are dying away and who are appropriately part 1156 01:38:16,560 --> 01:38:18,840 Speaker 1: of the past that is part of the land of 1157 01:38:18,880 --> 01:38:26,240 Speaker 1: the spirits. So spiritualists Indian guides of mediums often describe 1158 01:38:26,280 --> 01:38:31,360 Speaker 1: a place they describe as the summer Land, a land 1159 01:38:31,400 --> 01:38:38,120 Speaker 1: of natural beauty and an undisturbed natural land where Indians 1160 01:38:38,200 --> 01:38:41,360 Speaker 1: live in peace and harmony as do white people, and 1161 01:38:41,400 --> 01:38:47,040 Speaker 1: where there is no conflict between the indigenous inhabitants and 1162 01:38:47,160 --> 01:38:52,439 Speaker 1: those who have displaced them. So it spiritualists participate in 1163 01:38:52,520 --> 01:38:59,880 Speaker 1: the fantasy that Indigenous America and a European dominated a 1164 01:39:00,120 --> 01:39:04,320 Speaker 1: Erica can live in harmony and can be part of 1165 01:39:04,400 --> 01:39:09,240 Speaker 1: the same spiritual vision. UM. But that's a fantasy, and 1166 01:39:09,320 --> 01:39:16,000 Speaker 1: spiritualists also participate in the process of displacement. Now, spiritualists 1167 01:39:16,040 --> 01:39:21,240 Speaker 1: are always reformers and they are very active in Indian 1168 01:39:21,320 --> 01:39:27,480 Speaker 1: rights reform movements. They are an extremely critical of massacres 1169 01:39:27,520 --> 01:39:33,320 Speaker 1: of Indians. They protest against them. There is one spiritualist 1170 01:39:33,640 --> 01:39:38,280 Speaker 1: named Samuel Tappan in particular, who is an Indian rights 1171 01:39:38,320 --> 01:39:42,720 Speaker 1: reformer and um who is on the Commission that is 1172 01:39:42,840 --> 01:39:48,200 Speaker 1: charged to invest investigate the Sand Creek Massacre, when Cheyenne 1173 01:39:48,200 --> 01:39:52,320 Speaker 1: and Arapaho people who were under government protection were massacred 1174 01:39:52,400 --> 01:39:56,280 Speaker 1: by the U. S. Army during the Civil War, and 1175 01:39:57,640 --> 01:40:05,200 Speaker 1: he's extremely critical of American Army officials who perpetrated that massacre. 1176 01:40:05,960 --> 01:40:11,880 Speaker 1: He spends his life trying to find justice for the 1177 01:40:11,960 --> 01:40:15,000 Speaker 1: people who were killed there and for the Cheyenne, Indians 1178 01:40:15,040 --> 01:40:20,920 Speaker 1: and Rabbajos who were harmed by that. But he at 1179 01:40:20,960 --> 01:40:27,520 Speaker 1: the same time views the United States as a westward movement, 1180 01:40:27,800 --> 01:40:33,080 Speaker 1: that is, the spiritual progress, and he at the same 1181 01:40:33,120 --> 01:40:38,800 Speaker 1: time participates in the progress of the railroad westward, the 1182 01:40:38,840 --> 01:40:45,599 Speaker 1: progress of the oil industry, the industries that require Native land, 1183 01:40:45,840 --> 01:40:49,559 Speaker 1: that require Native people to be displaced in order for 1184 01:40:49,640 --> 01:40:56,760 Speaker 1: them to succeed. So spiritualists are in a um an 1185 01:40:56,760 --> 01:41:02,960 Speaker 1: odd position in my view, where they are espousing Indian rights, 1186 01:41:03,920 --> 01:41:10,800 Speaker 1: but they are also perpetrating stereotypes that place Indians in 1187 01:41:10,880 --> 01:41:16,080 Speaker 1: the past, in a romantic past, where Indians are appropriately 1188 01:41:16,160 --> 01:41:20,360 Speaker 1: living in the spirit world and providing support for spirit 1189 01:41:20,439 --> 01:41:28,679 Speaker 1: mediums um rather than exercising sovereignty in the present. When 1190 01:41:28,680 --> 01:41:33,920 Speaker 1: the Civil War began, how did spiritualists respond so Spiritualists 1191 01:41:34,479 --> 01:41:38,679 Speaker 1: had many of the same responses that other reformers did 1192 01:41:38,760 --> 01:41:41,879 Speaker 1: during the Civil War. That is, they supported the war effort, 1193 01:41:42,720 --> 01:41:51,080 Speaker 1: they supported abolition, but they were so committed to a 1194 01:41:51,200 --> 01:41:56,360 Speaker 1: new age of spiritual communication, when human beings would be 1195 01:41:56,400 --> 01:42:02,920 Speaker 1: able to evolve farther within phut from spiritual wisdom, that 1196 01:42:03,040 --> 01:42:08,280 Speaker 1: they wanted to keep their radical reforms and the Sisterhood 1197 01:42:08,280 --> 01:42:13,760 Speaker 1: of Radical Reforms alive during the Civil War. So when 1198 01:42:13,840 --> 01:42:18,680 Speaker 1: most of the reformers like Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Lucretia 1199 01:42:18,760 --> 01:42:23,479 Speaker 1: Mott and lots of the other figures dropped everything to 1200 01:42:23,560 --> 01:42:28,120 Speaker 1: support the Women's Loyal League and support the Union and 1201 01:42:28,680 --> 01:42:33,320 Speaker 1: create a highway of vegetables that women reformers in Chicago 1202 01:42:33,560 --> 01:42:40,720 Speaker 1: sent from the North to the the scurvy laden soldiers 1203 01:42:40,760 --> 01:42:47,360 Speaker 1: in the Union Army, spiritualists kept having spiritualist conventions when 1204 01:42:47,400 --> 01:42:51,280 Speaker 1: most reformers had just dropped everything but the war effort. 1205 01:42:52,120 --> 01:42:57,880 Speaker 1: And that meant that at spiritualist conventions, the reforms of 1206 01:42:58,040 --> 01:43:04,000 Speaker 1: free love and vegetary and ism and women's rights we're 1207 01:43:04,040 --> 01:43:10,280 Speaker 1: still being discussed, even though women's rights conventions had been 1208 01:43:10,400 --> 01:43:14,040 Speaker 1: dropped for the duration of the war. So you see 1209 01:43:14,160 --> 01:43:22,200 Speaker 1: this cadre of extremely radical reformers still advocating for women 1210 01:43:22,920 --> 01:43:25,680 Speaker 1: at a time when everyone else thinks there's something more 1211 01:43:25,720 --> 01:43:29,080 Speaker 1: important to talk about. You mentioned already the way that 1212 01:43:29,680 --> 01:43:35,840 Speaker 1: the massive scale of death during the Civil War influenced 1213 01:43:37,439 --> 01:43:40,320 Speaker 1: the growth of spiritualism. Can you talk a little more 1214 01:43:40,360 --> 01:43:45,200 Speaker 1: about how the war and is aftermass shaped attitudes towards 1215 01:43:45,240 --> 01:43:49,160 Speaker 1: spiritualism kind of generally, and did that differ north to south. 1216 01:43:51,760 --> 01:43:54,920 Speaker 1: I'm not sure that it differed north to south. A 1217 01:43:55,240 --> 01:44:02,200 Speaker 1: huge amount of carnage during the Civil War nor South, black, white, 1218 01:44:02,600 --> 01:44:08,479 Speaker 1: free enslaved. A huge number of people lost their lives, 1219 01:44:09,320 --> 01:44:13,080 Speaker 1: and you can see how that would generate interest in 1220 01:44:13,160 --> 01:44:17,200 Speaker 1: communication with the dead. But there's something else going on 1221 01:44:17,320 --> 01:44:23,840 Speaker 1: during the Civil War, which is the enormous carnage in bodies. 1222 01:44:24,720 --> 01:44:29,000 Speaker 1: And Drew Faust has written about the changing attitudes towards 1223 01:44:29,080 --> 01:44:33,280 Speaker 1: the dead body. The people try to retrieve the bodies, 1224 01:44:33,320 --> 01:44:37,160 Speaker 1: and that's how we get the whole embalming industry that 1225 01:44:37,240 --> 01:44:40,920 Speaker 1: has its origins in the Civil War. And so attitudes 1226 01:44:41,040 --> 01:44:45,719 Speaker 1: towards death are shifting a little bit at this period, 1227 01:44:48,080 --> 01:44:52,080 Speaker 1: and spiritualism is going to kind of move with that 1228 01:44:52,320 --> 01:44:55,120 Speaker 1: and around it and in it and through it and 1229 01:44:55,280 --> 01:44:57,840 Speaker 1: out of it. So some people now are going to 1230 01:44:57,920 --> 01:45:01,559 Speaker 1: be more focused on the body and the wanting to 1231 01:45:01,600 --> 01:45:04,640 Speaker 1: retrieve the body and bury the body and have a 1232 01:45:04,720 --> 01:45:07,479 Speaker 1: place in a cemetery where they can go to be 1233 01:45:07,560 --> 01:45:12,400 Speaker 1: reunited with their loved one. But you know that some 1234 01:45:12,520 --> 01:45:16,759 Speaker 1: people who are taking advantage of the rural cemetery movement 1235 01:45:17,000 --> 01:45:22,200 Speaker 1: and burying that loved one in a family plot, are 1236 01:45:22,200 --> 01:45:24,800 Speaker 1: going to want to communicate with them and are going 1237 01:45:24,880 --> 01:45:27,479 Speaker 1: to go to a seance or to a spirit medium 1238 01:45:27,520 --> 01:45:31,120 Speaker 1: to try to do that. A lot of people died. 1239 01:45:32,040 --> 01:45:36,080 Speaker 1: We really have never seen anything like that on American 1240 01:45:36,240 --> 01:45:41,519 Speaker 1: soil since then, when death was close at hand, and 1241 01:45:42,320 --> 01:45:46,000 Speaker 1: uh so, of course some people are going to be 1242 01:45:46,120 --> 01:45:51,719 Speaker 1: inspired to seek communication during that period, including in the South. 1243 01:45:51,800 --> 01:45:56,120 Speaker 1: And we do see spiritualism in the South in this period, 1244 01:45:56,200 --> 01:45:59,800 Speaker 1: never to the same extent as in the North, but 1245 01:46:00,000 --> 01:46:05,519 Speaker 1: we do see it there as well. Mm hmm. Victoria 1246 01:46:05,560 --> 01:46:10,679 Speaker 1: Woodhall was someone who had her family had been involved 1247 01:46:10,720 --> 01:46:15,719 Speaker 1: in various often criminal practices, and in the years after 1248 01:46:15,760 --> 01:46:20,160 Speaker 1: the Civil War. Um Mary Gabriel's bio of hers one 1249 01:46:20,160 --> 01:46:24,040 Speaker 1: that we're using, and she talks about her family pick 1250 01:46:24,120 --> 01:46:28,160 Speaker 1: and clean the bones of the communities in the border 1251 01:46:28,280 --> 01:46:32,080 Speaker 1: states that we're grieving. Um. But then Victoria goes to 1252 01:46:32,080 --> 01:46:36,920 Speaker 1: New York and she and her sister Tenny become personal 1253 01:46:36,920 --> 01:46:43,160 Speaker 1: clairvoyance for Cornelia's Vanderbilt. And then Victoria becomes a more 1254 01:46:43,200 --> 01:46:47,880 Speaker 1: prominent figure in the women's movement by virtue of that 1255 01:46:47,920 --> 01:46:51,080 Speaker 1: new position, that new influence, that backing, that money, and 1256 01:46:51,160 --> 01:46:55,479 Speaker 1: she starts her her stock brokerage. Can you talk about 1257 01:46:55,479 --> 01:46:58,719 Speaker 1: the way that Victoria wood Hall enters the women's movement 1258 01:46:58,960 --> 01:47:02,960 Speaker 1: at the end of the eighteen sixties and seventies. Well, 1259 01:47:03,360 --> 01:47:09,160 Speaker 1: Victoria Woodhall is a very dynamic and appealing and attractive figure, 1260 01:47:09,240 --> 01:47:12,160 Speaker 1: and practically everyone who comes in contact with her has 1261 01:47:12,200 --> 01:47:16,599 Speaker 1: strong feelings about her of one type or another, and 1262 01:47:16,720 --> 01:47:21,520 Speaker 1: a lot of suffrages see her as a fantastically appealing 1263 01:47:21,640 --> 01:47:26,360 Speaker 1: and articulate spokeswoman for their cause. She attracts a lot 1264 01:47:26,400 --> 01:47:32,559 Speaker 1: of attention, and uh, they see that as an asset 1265 01:47:32,640 --> 01:47:37,200 Speaker 1: that the movement can benefit from and needs. Now, I 1266 01:47:37,280 --> 01:47:40,080 Speaker 1: have to admit I have not read the Mary Gabriel 1267 01:47:40,160 --> 01:47:43,160 Speaker 1: biography of Victoria wood Hall, and I really need to 1268 01:47:43,200 --> 01:47:46,479 Speaker 1: because I'm a huge fan of her new book on 1269 01:47:46,520 --> 01:47:50,840 Speaker 1: the Ninth Street. Women of Abstract Expressionism. UM so I 1270 01:47:50,880 --> 01:47:53,120 Speaker 1: really want to know what she had to say about 1271 01:47:53,200 --> 01:47:57,320 Speaker 1: Victoria Woodall. But I personally am not a Victoria Woodhall fan. 1272 01:47:57,880 --> 01:48:03,839 Speaker 1: I view Victoria Woodhull primarily as an opportunist who would 1273 01:48:05,720 --> 01:48:11,120 Speaker 1: find sisterhood with any movement that provided her an opportunity 1274 01:48:11,160 --> 01:48:15,439 Speaker 1: for self advancement and an cause that she felt she 1275 01:48:15,479 --> 01:48:18,519 Speaker 1: could advocate where she would have a group of people 1276 01:48:18,520 --> 01:48:22,160 Speaker 1: who would stand behind her and follow her and adulate 1277 01:48:22,280 --> 01:48:27,040 Speaker 1: her and place her in leadership. She certainly found that 1278 01:48:27,120 --> 01:48:30,360 Speaker 1: both in the women's rights movement and in the spiritualist movement. 1279 01:48:30,880 --> 01:48:33,760 Speaker 1: She didn't really make a lasting mark on either one 1280 01:48:33,840 --> 01:48:36,960 Speaker 1: of them. She made a lot of trouble for a 1281 01:48:37,000 --> 01:48:39,120 Speaker 1: lot of people. She got a lot of people in 1282 01:48:39,240 --> 01:48:46,600 Speaker 1: trouble through their affiliations with her UM and her association 1283 01:48:46,680 --> 01:48:51,000 Speaker 1: and advocacy of free love, which tainted other people with 1284 01:48:51,200 --> 01:48:55,519 Speaker 1: the the taint of immorality, whether they had earned it 1285 01:48:55,720 --> 01:49:00,120 Speaker 1: or not. UM. So, I might not be depending on 1286 01:49:00,200 --> 01:49:02,799 Speaker 1: what it is you want to say about Victoria Woodall, 1287 01:49:03,840 --> 01:49:06,280 Speaker 1: I might or might not be the best interview. Well, no, 1288 01:49:06,439 --> 01:49:08,920 Speaker 1: that's okay. I'm interested on a couple of events that 1289 01:49:08,960 --> 01:49:11,240 Speaker 1: she was involved in. Your point of view on the 1290 01:49:11,600 --> 01:49:14,760 Speaker 1: when Victoria Woodhall travels from New York to Washington, d C. 1291 01:49:15,280 --> 01:49:17,880 Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty nine. She goes to the Women's Rights 1292 01:49:17,880 --> 01:49:21,479 Speaker 1: Convention that's in Washington, and she comes away frustrated by 1293 01:49:21,560 --> 01:49:25,000 Speaker 1: the internal divisions in the women's movement. Can you describe 1294 01:49:25,000 --> 01:49:27,439 Speaker 1: the conflicts in the women's movement at the time that 1295 01:49:27,560 --> 01:49:31,479 Speaker 1: Victoria was observing that made her feel like the women's 1296 01:49:31,479 --> 01:49:33,400 Speaker 1: movement wasn't going to make the kind of difference that 1297 01:49:33,520 --> 01:49:35,600 Speaker 1: she thought she could. So at the end of the 1298 01:49:35,640 --> 01:49:42,120 Speaker 1: Civil War, the women's movements divide over whether the needs 1299 01:49:42,160 --> 01:49:47,599 Speaker 1: of African Americans for legal rights are so urgent that 1300 01:49:47,640 --> 01:49:52,040 Speaker 1: they should take precedence over the rights of women, or 1301 01:49:52,080 --> 01:49:59,720 Speaker 1: whether women and African Americans should be enfranchised together. The 1302 01:50:00,000 --> 01:50:04,840 Speaker 1: men's rights advocates who advocated for abolition and for the 1303 01:50:04,960 --> 01:50:08,680 Speaker 1: Union cause always believed that they were part of a 1304 01:50:08,760 --> 01:50:12,920 Speaker 1: movement that always advocated for the rights of women, and 1305 01:50:13,120 --> 01:50:19,280 Speaker 1: that they were fighting simultaneously for the human rights and 1306 01:50:19,439 --> 01:50:24,200 Speaker 1: equal rights of blacks and of women black and white. 1307 01:50:25,080 --> 01:50:27,680 Speaker 1: That turned out not to be the case, and that 1308 01:50:27,840 --> 01:50:31,960 Speaker 1: was a very very divisive issue at the end of 1309 01:50:31,960 --> 01:50:37,240 Speaker 1: the Civil War and the women's movement um experienced tragic 1310 01:50:37,280 --> 01:50:41,599 Speaker 1: divisions over that conflict. So what I can also say, 1311 01:50:43,080 --> 01:50:50,599 Speaker 1: um about Victoria Woodhulls election as president of the National 1312 01:50:50,720 --> 01:50:59,560 Speaker 1: Spiritualist Association. Spiritualism was never a movement that prospered through organization. 1313 01:51:00,320 --> 01:51:05,639 Speaker 1: In the twentieth century, the Spiritualist Association of Churches would 1314 01:51:05,680 --> 01:51:10,080 Speaker 1: become a denomination. But at the time that Victoria wood 1315 01:51:10,080 --> 01:51:18,400 Speaker 1: Hall was elected to presidency of a national organization of spiritualists, 1316 01:51:18,520 --> 01:51:23,800 Speaker 1: it was really not a meaningful or representative body. So 1317 01:51:24,560 --> 01:51:30,799 Speaker 1: although she relished being elected president of anything, it didn't 1318 01:51:30,880 --> 01:51:34,720 Speaker 1: really make her a leader in spiritualism, and her affiliation 1319 01:51:34,920 --> 01:51:39,040 Speaker 1: with spiritualism was brief. How would you describe the relationship 1320 01:51:39,080 --> 01:51:42,920 Speaker 1: between the women's rights movement and spiritualism in the eighteen 1321 01:51:43,040 --> 01:51:46,200 Speaker 1: seventies as we're kind of marching forward out of the 1322 01:51:46,240 --> 01:51:50,400 Speaker 1: eighteen sixties into that next decade, and you mentioned the 1323 01:51:50,439 --> 01:51:54,519 Speaker 1: trouble that Victoria brought to the movement by her by 1324 01:51:54,520 --> 01:51:58,439 Speaker 1: association with her. Um, what rolled the spiritualists teaching on 1325 01:51:58,520 --> 01:52:01,920 Speaker 1: sex and marriage and uh Mrs Satan as she was 1326 01:52:02,000 --> 01:52:07,200 Speaker 1: sometimes called. Um, What role did those teachings about sex 1327 01:52:07,200 --> 01:52:10,680 Speaker 1: and marriage and spiritualism play in attracting and repelling advocates 1328 01:52:10,680 --> 01:52:15,640 Speaker 1: of women's rights to the spiritualist movement. Well as the 1329 01:52:15,720 --> 01:52:22,839 Speaker 1: nineteenth century moved on, all sorts of religious nonconformity showed 1330 01:52:22,920 --> 01:52:28,240 Speaker 1: appeal to advocates of women's rights. So women's rights advocates 1331 01:52:28,400 --> 01:52:36,000 Speaker 1: are investigating and becoming involved with Theosophy, with Christian Science, 1332 01:52:36,840 --> 01:52:42,360 Speaker 1: with a diversity of New Thought and New Age movements 1333 01:52:43,200 --> 01:52:47,599 Speaker 1: that a spouse equal rights for women and that permit 1334 01:52:47,720 --> 01:52:55,760 Speaker 1: women's leadership. So we have we have movements espousing a 1335 01:52:55,800 --> 01:53:00,000 Speaker 1: diversity of religious opinions that are in some way critic 1336 01:53:00,080 --> 01:53:05,120 Speaker 1: call of traditional gender roles that women's rights advocates are 1337 01:53:05,840 --> 01:53:10,680 Speaker 1: exploring in different times and places and to different extents. 1338 01:53:11,640 --> 01:53:18,280 Speaker 1: So when Elizabeth Katie Stanton comes to right or I 1339 01:53:18,280 --> 01:53:21,479 Speaker 1: should say, to edit her own critique of the Bible 1340 01:53:21,680 --> 01:53:25,960 Speaker 1: as sexist in the eight nineties, the Women's Bible an 1341 01:53:26,000 --> 01:53:30,720 Speaker 1: incredibly controversial document. Most all of the women who are 1342 01:53:30,840 --> 01:53:35,439 Speaker 1: willing to cooperate with her on that are members of 1343 01:53:35,640 --> 01:53:44,040 Speaker 1: unconventional religious movements, and that would include Spiritualists, Theosophice, New Thought, 1344 01:53:45,439 --> 01:53:51,840 Speaker 1: Christian Science, and other movements. Now, Elizabeth Katie Stanton really 1345 01:53:51,920 --> 01:53:55,479 Speaker 1: wasn't very happy about that, because there were lots of 1346 01:53:55,560 --> 01:54:01,280 Speaker 1: Christian women's rights advocates who were not exploring new religious movements, 1347 01:54:01,840 --> 01:54:06,400 Speaker 1: and it was Stanton's hope that they would support a 1348 01:54:06,560 --> 01:54:10,480 Speaker 1: critique of the sexism of the Bible. People like Francis 1349 01:54:10,560 --> 01:54:15,559 Speaker 1: Willard and other women who advocated women's suffrage but were 1350 01:54:15,640 --> 01:54:19,519 Speaker 1: also leaders of popular Christianity and so they had a 1351 01:54:19,640 --> 01:54:26,439 Speaker 1: much larger following than the Women's Suffrage Association. Stanton hoped 1352 01:54:26,520 --> 01:54:30,680 Speaker 1: that they would support a critique of the Bible that 1353 01:54:30,720 --> 01:54:34,560 Speaker 1: would show the parts of the Bible that spoke about 1354 01:54:34,680 --> 01:54:41,080 Speaker 1: women's rights and what they said those women. The Christian 1355 01:54:41,400 --> 01:54:46,080 Speaker 1: advocates of women's rights and of women's suffrage, would not 1356 01:54:46,280 --> 01:54:50,720 Speaker 1: collaborate with Stanton on this project because for them, the 1357 01:54:50,760 --> 01:54:54,320 Speaker 1: Bible was above reproach. They saw the Bible as a 1358 01:54:54,440 --> 01:54:57,280 Speaker 1: source of women's rights and they didn't want to talk 1359 01:54:57,360 --> 01:55:00,720 Speaker 1: to anybody who was going to critique it, and they 1360 01:55:00,840 --> 01:55:05,160 Speaker 1: knew that they would lose credibility if they did so. 1361 01:55:05,240 --> 01:55:11,440 Speaker 1: When Stanton gathers all these unconventional people, including spiritualists, to 1362 01:55:12,000 --> 01:55:17,200 Speaker 1: critique the Bible, she becomes incredibly unpopular, and the Women's 1363 01:55:17,240 --> 01:55:25,240 Speaker 1: Suffrage Association itself condemned Stanton for doing that. In the seventies. 1364 01:55:25,440 --> 01:55:29,960 Speaker 1: There are also battle lines drawn within spiritualism. Um we 1365 01:55:30,040 --> 01:55:33,520 Speaker 1: have the rise of materialization mediums. Can you talk about 1366 01:55:33,560 --> 01:55:35,760 Speaker 1: what we what we mean by that when we look 1367 01:55:35,800 --> 01:55:39,960 Speaker 1: back and we say materialization mediums. And in your book 1368 01:55:39,960 --> 01:55:43,280 Speaker 1: he wrote about um the way that there was a 1369 01:55:43,360 --> 01:55:45,520 Speaker 1: kind of division. I think you wrote about it in 1370 01:55:45,600 --> 01:55:51,840 Speaker 1: terms of trance mediums and materialization mediums. And if you 1371 01:55:52,080 --> 01:55:55,120 Speaker 1: if you could address what was going on with their conflict. 1372 01:55:57,600 --> 01:56:05,880 Speaker 1: Sure so. Try mediums communicate the presence of spirits through 1373 01:56:05,920 --> 01:56:13,640 Speaker 1: their words, through their intelligence, through the wisdom that they 1374 01:56:13,680 --> 01:56:24,560 Speaker 1: want to impart to human beings. Materialization manifestations claim to 1375 01:56:25,840 --> 01:56:32,200 Speaker 1: prove spirit presence through the physical presence of the spirit 1376 01:56:32,520 --> 01:56:36,840 Speaker 1: in the room. Now, what is the physical spirit? The 1377 01:56:36,880 --> 01:56:43,000 Speaker 1: physical presence of the spirit. Spirit is usually seen as 1378 01:56:43,040 --> 01:56:51,080 Speaker 1: opposed to matter, So how could spirit manifest physically? And 1379 01:56:51,200 --> 01:56:58,040 Speaker 1: different mediums demonstrated the physical presence of mediums in different ways. 1380 01:56:58,280 --> 01:57:02,760 Speaker 1: Some they would have of musical instruments in the room 1381 01:57:02,960 --> 01:57:07,240 Speaker 1: and they would invite the spirit drum the guitar in 1382 01:57:07,320 --> 01:57:12,680 Speaker 1: a darkened room and demonstrate their physical presence that way. 1383 01:57:13,040 --> 01:57:22,720 Speaker 1: Some materialization seances allowed people to experience being touched by 1384 01:57:22,760 --> 01:57:28,240 Speaker 1: a spirit having a departed loved one brush your cheek 1385 01:57:28,560 --> 01:57:35,760 Speaker 1: with her fingers in a darkened spirit closet, and then disappear. 1386 01:57:38,160 --> 01:57:47,480 Speaker 1: Some materialization mediums exuded a spirit substance from their bodies 1387 01:57:48,080 --> 01:57:56,520 Speaker 1: called ectoplasm. So all of these attempts to demonstrate the 1388 01:57:56,560 --> 01:58:05,800 Speaker 1: physical presence of a here it suggest an opportunity for fraud, 1389 01:58:06,480 --> 01:58:12,680 Speaker 1: and many of the materialization seances gave rise to serious 1390 01:58:13,560 --> 01:58:20,120 Speaker 1: accusations of fraud and discrediting of both mediums and spiritualists 1391 01:58:20,120 --> 01:58:30,920 Speaker 1: who accepted communications through materialization manifestations. Whereas trans mediums were 1392 01:58:31,000 --> 01:58:37,840 Speaker 1: looking to communicate wisdom, not to communicate the embodied presence. 1393 01:58:38,360 --> 01:58:45,040 Speaker 1: Now they also attempted to give tests to prove that 1394 01:58:45,160 --> 01:58:49,000 Speaker 1: a particular spirit was who they said they were. So 1395 01:58:49,080 --> 01:58:53,000 Speaker 1: they would ask questions, or they would ask an investigator 1396 01:58:53,600 --> 01:58:58,760 Speaker 1: to ask questions that only someone who knew that person 1397 01:58:58,840 --> 01:59:03,000 Speaker 1: during life would be able to underto answer, or that 1398 01:59:03,160 --> 01:59:10,560 Speaker 1: only that person themselves would be able to answer. Um. 1399 01:59:10,600 --> 01:59:15,040 Speaker 1: So it wasn't that they weren't trying to prove spirit 1400 01:59:15,120 --> 01:59:20,360 Speaker 1: presence in the same way that the materialization seances were, 1401 01:59:21,160 --> 01:59:25,120 Speaker 1: but they were not um. They did not make recourse 1402 01:59:25,720 --> 01:59:34,200 Speaker 1: to elaborate closets and spirit cabinets and um guitars and 1403 01:59:34,360 --> 01:59:42,800 Speaker 1: violins that uh, the materialization mediums said were necessary for 1404 01:59:43,120 --> 01:59:48,800 Speaker 1: spirit communication to occur. You you said a few minutes 1405 01:59:48,840 --> 01:59:55,160 Speaker 1: ago that spiritualism never prospered through organization and in the 1406 01:59:55,960 --> 01:59:59,760 Speaker 1: in this period, uh, can you describe how gendered power 1407 02:00:00,040 --> 02:00:03,520 Speaker 1: namics led trans mediums to oppose the formation of the 1408 02:00:03,560 --> 02:00:09,360 Speaker 1: American Association of Spiritualists. Well, once you start having electing 1409 02:00:09,680 --> 02:00:16,600 Speaker 1: national delegates, which is what the National Association of Spiritualists 1410 02:00:16,640 --> 02:00:22,200 Speaker 1: attempted to do, then the qualities of a spirit medium 1411 02:00:22,240 --> 02:00:26,400 Speaker 1: are no longer going to be the most valuable qualities 1412 02:00:26,440 --> 02:00:29,960 Speaker 1: in a religious leader, because the person who you want 1413 02:00:30,120 --> 02:00:33,880 Speaker 1: to send to a national meeting to argue for your 1414 02:00:33,960 --> 02:00:40,640 Speaker 1: point of view is not necessarily the innocent, naive, pure 1415 02:00:40,880 --> 02:00:48,000 Speaker 1: passive young girl who is a spect who is effective 1416 02:00:48,920 --> 02:00:52,280 Speaker 1: in allowing a spirit of a deceased family member to 1417 02:00:52,360 --> 02:00:59,040 Speaker 1: communicate with you. So, once you start having organizations, you 1418 02:00:59,360 --> 02:01:04,880 Speaker 1: want people who are good conscious speakers, who are good organizers, 1419 02:01:04,920 --> 02:01:11,400 Speaker 1: who are strategic thinkers, UM, who have good financial sense, 1420 02:01:11,440 --> 02:01:15,280 Speaker 1: who can hold the purse strings, all of the more 1421 02:01:15,320 --> 02:01:20,600 Speaker 1: masculine characteristics that mediums were not considered to possess. So 1422 02:01:20,840 --> 02:01:25,520 Speaker 1: mediums felt that the wisdom of angels was being locked 1423 02:01:25,560 --> 02:01:33,160 Speaker 1: out when spiritualists started to form organizations. Even so, and 1424 02:01:33,200 --> 02:01:35,800 Speaker 1: I find this so interesting in light of that UH 1425 02:01:35,920 --> 02:01:38,960 Speaker 1: Cora is one of the people who all the way 1426 02:01:38,960 --> 02:01:41,320 Speaker 1: to the end of the century is working to form 1427 02:01:41,400 --> 02:01:46,200 Speaker 1: stable institutions for spiritualists. Can you talk about her role 1428 02:01:46,400 --> 02:01:52,480 Speaker 1: in UH in building churches and helping a certain tradition 1429 02:01:52,520 --> 02:01:57,320 Speaker 1: of spiritualism to form as a denomination. That's a great point. 1430 02:01:57,520 --> 02:02:04,400 Speaker 1: She is such a capacious figure. Cora starts as an 1431 02:02:04,480 --> 02:02:10,440 Speaker 1: innocent teenage girl UM who is a medium for Indian 1432 02:02:10,520 --> 02:02:14,720 Speaker 1: spirits and other kinds of spirits and and for deceased 1433 02:02:14,760 --> 02:02:19,680 Speaker 1: family members, and she moves through a long life. I 1434 02:02:19,840 --> 02:02:24,080 Speaker 1: described how she develops, how her career develops through her 1435 02:02:24,160 --> 02:02:27,880 Speaker 1: husband's and the kind of evolution of her husband's but 1436 02:02:28,000 --> 02:02:32,920 Speaker 1: she's also going through a personal evolution to become a 1437 02:02:32,960 --> 02:02:36,320 Speaker 1: figure of authority. And she does become the vice president 1438 02:02:36,360 --> 02:02:40,600 Speaker 1: of the National Spiritual Association, and she really is able 1439 02:02:40,640 --> 02:02:45,920 Speaker 1: to make that transition to a more organized group and 1440 02:02:46,080 --> 02:02:49,680 Speaker 1: to a role as pastor. So she has a settled 1441 02:02:49,720 --> 02:02:57,080 Speaker 1: congregation in Chicago, and that is something that UM is 1442 02:02:57,200 --> 02:03:01,480 Speaker 1: more like a church that will be part of a congregation. 1443 02:03:02,320 --> 02:03:07,600 Speaker 1: Then the Spiritualist associations where mediums traveled and they often 1444 02:03:07,680 --> 02:03:12,960 Speaker 1: didn't speak in a settled congregation. They often were speaking 1445 02:03:13,360 --> 02:03:18,880 Speaker 1: in uh universalist church that was being made available for 1446 02:03:19,520 --> 02:03:23,160 Speaker 1: the occasion, or in a town hall, or in some 1447 02:03:23,240 --> 02:03:26,160 Speaker 1: other kind of free church that they were permitted to 1448 02:03:26,280 --> 02:03:32,880 Speaker 1: youth to use, because without organization, they couldn't finance their 1449 02:03:32,920 --> 02:03:37,640 Speaker 1: own structure, they couldn't pay their own minister, they couldn't 1450 02:03:37,680 --> 02:03:43,120 Speaker 1: support a settled clergy member. But Cora really made that 1451 02:03:43,240 --> 02:03:47,720 Speaker 1: transition to being the pastor of an established Spiritualist church 1452 02:03:47,760 --> 02:03:52,400 Speaker 1: in Chicago. There was another kind of discourse that was 1453 02:03:52,480 --> 02:03:55,440 Speaker 1: growing in significance and that it seems to me, and 1454 02:03:55,480 --> 02:03:58,480 Speaker 1: I'd love to get your views on this, crashed into 1455 02:03:58,560 --> 02:04:01,360 Speaker 1: Spiritualism in this in these and eighties and towards the 1456 02:04:01,440 --> 02:04:06,320 Speaker 1: end of the century, which is um growing uh interest 1457 02:04:06,480 --> 02:04:10,840 Speaker 1: in new ideas about abnormal psychology and the formation of 1458 02:04:10,880 --> 02:04:14,960 Speaker 1: the discipline of neurology, and there are these other explanations 1459 02:04:15,000 --> 02:04:17,920 Speaker 1: for what's going on with a trance, with a fit, 1460 02:04:18,160 --> 02:04:22,120 Speaker 1: with a vision that it seems often because some of 1461 02:04:22,160 --> 02:04:27,200 Speaker 1: the early neurologists were very antagonistic to spiritualism competed for 1462 02:04:27,480 --> 02:04:32,760 Speaker 1: explanation of what a spirit voice was. Can you can 1463 02:04:32,800 --> 02:04:37,440 Speaker 1: you describe what was going on like with neurology and 1464 02:04:37,440 --> 02:04:42,400 Speaker 1: how these ideas of a new medical discipline uh competed 1465 02:04:42,480 --> 02:04:48,960 Speaker 1: or related with spiritualism. Well, we see the rise not 1466 02:04:49,080 --> 02:04:54,600 Speaker 1: only of neurology but also of gynecology as a medical specialty. 1467 02:04:54,760 --> 02:04:57,600 Speaker 1: And you have to remember that the study of women 1468 02:04:57,920 --> 02:05:02,480 Speaker 1: or of the female reproductive system takes off from a 1469 02:05:02,560 --> 02:05:10,000 Speaker 1: tradition that sees the womb as the cause of hysteria 1470 02:05:10,080 --> 02:05:15,200 Speaker 1: in women, that women lose their sanity because the womb 1471 02:05:15,320 --> 02:05:18,320 Speaker 1: is wandering around the body. But there certainly is an 1472 02:05:18,360 --> 02:05:25,600 Speaker 1: association of gynecology and neurology as having common interests in 1473 02:05:25,840 --> 02:05:32,360 Speaker 1: identifying the sources of female insanity, and mediumship is considered 1474 02:05:32,360 --> 02:05:35,240 Speaker 1: to be one of those. There are medical textbooks that 1475 02:05:35,320 --> 02:05:41,960 Speaker 1: describe the disease of mediomania that are um written by 1476 02:05:42,120 --> 02:05:49,440 Speaker 1: early gynecologists and neurologists. So there is this notion that 1477 02:05:49,600 --> 02:05:55,520 Speaker 1: women are more susceptible to irrationality and insanity, and that 1478 02:05:55,600 --> 02:05:59,720 Speaker 1: mediumship is an outgrowth of that, and that it is 1479 02:06:00,120 --> 02:06:05,160 Speaker 1: not a manifestation of spirit presence, but rather that mediumship 1480 02:06:05,880 --> 02:06:10,200 Speaker 1: is a manifestation of insanity, and there certainly were cases 1481 02:06:10,280 --> 02:06:16,160 Speaker 1: where people were committed to mental asylums where spiritualists were 1482 02:06:16,880 --> 02:06:20,800 Speaker 1: because of their conviction that they were communicating with spirits. 1483 02:06:21,480 --> 02:06:27,320 Speaker 1: Now that is not completely an artifact of the nineteen century. 1484 02:06:27,840 --> 02:06:32,880 Speaker 1: I have heard similar theories advanced in the twentieth century 1485 02:06:33,040 --> 02:06:39,880 Speaker 1: where I have heard um schizophrenia, for example, associated with 1486 02:06:40,040 --> 02:06:45,280 Speaker 1: mediumship because one of the things that mediums do that 1487 02:06:45,360 --> 02:06:49,400 Speaker 1: you hear when you visit a spirit medium, you will 1488 02:06:49,440 --> 02:06:54,120 Speaker 1: hear them speak in different voices. When different spirits speak 1489 02:06:54,240 --> 02:06:58,600 Speaker 1: through them, and they sound different, it sounds like they're 1490 02:06:58,640 --> 02:07:03,840 Speaker 1: different people speaking. And that is something that is also 1491 02:07:03,960 --> 02:07:09,720 Speaker 1: reported in schizophrenia, that when a different personality inhabits a person, 1492 02:07:09,800 --> 02:07:14,280 Speaker 1: they speak in a different voice. I have heard speculation 1493 02:07:14,400 --> 02:07:19,200 Speaker 1: about schizophrenia and mediumship, have no qualification to comment on it, 1494 02:07:19,720 --> 02:07:24,919 Speaker 1: but that idea certainly continues that people who hear voices 1495 02:07:25,000 --> 02:07:30,600 Speaker 1: are crazy. So there still are people who hear voices 1496 02:07:30,680 --> 02:07:33,560 Speaker 1: and believe that they are spirits, and there are still 1497 02:07:33,800 --> 02:07:36,840 Speaker 1: people who think that those people are crazy. Um. But 1498 02:07:37,040 --> 02:07:40,800 Speaker 1: as these medical specialties are developing for the first time 1499 02:07:40,960 --> 02:07:45,560 Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, spiritualism but set against them, and 1500 02:07:45,600 --> 02:07:49,880 Speaker 1: there definitely is a a head on collision by the 1501 02:07:50,000 --> 02:07:55,000 Speaker 1: authority that is being wielded, and the medical doctors need 1502 02:07:55,120 --> 02:07:59,600 Speaker 1: to assert in order to create a new medical specialty, 1503 02:07:59,680 --> 02:08:04,120 Speaker 1: because in fact, the medical doctors are also somewhat suspect. 1504 02:08:04,200 --> 02:08:10,480 Speaker 1: They dig up cadavers and dissect them, and uh, they 1505 02:08:10,640 --> 02:08:15,320 Speaker 1: are also struggling for authority and credibility in the same 1506 02:08:15,320 --> 02:08:19,120 Speaker 1: way that spirit mediums are. Not in the same way, 1507 02:08:19,160 --> 02:08:24,400 Speaker 1: but perhaps in a related dynamic um to what is 1508 02:08:24,440 --> 02:08:28,000 Speaker 1: going on in the religious sphere. We opened our conversation 1509 02:08:28,880 --> 02:08:32,320 Speaker 1: in the thirties and forties with religious practices like camp 1510 02:08:32,400 --> 02:08:35,840 Speaker 1: meetings and started preaching in a new privileging of religious enthusiasm, 1511 02:08:36,240 --> 02:08:40,360 Speaker 1: second grade awakening. Spiritualism kind of grew out of religious ferment. 1512 02:08:41,320 --> 02:08:45,160 Speaker 1: What was its place in American religion at the end 1513 02:08:45,200 --> 02:08:49,120 Speaker 1: of the century. Well, at the end of the century, 1514 02:08:50,080 --> 02:08:54,000 Speaker 1: religious ferment continues. It looks a lot different, and we're 1515 02:08:54,040 --> 02:08:58,480 Speaker 1: heading towards new religious ferment and ferment in the early 1516 02:08:58,560 --> 02:09:05,200 Speaker 1: twenty century where heading towards the fundamentalists liberalism crisis in 1517 02:09:05,240 --> 02:09:08,800 Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, where American religion is really going to 1518 02:09:08,880 --> 02:09:15,040 Speaker 1: become very polarized between theological liberals and conservatives and social 1519 02:09:15,120 --> 02:09:19,280 Speaker 1: liberals and conservatives, and the mainstream churches are going to 1520 02:09:19,360 --> 02:09:23,880 Speaker 1: turn one way, and some of the newer evangelical denominations 1521 02:09:24,000 --> 02:09:27,800 Speaker 1: and movements are going to turn another. UM. But there 1522 02:09:27,880 --> 02:09:31,160 Speaker 1: is a third element here, and it is new thought, 1523 02:09:31,880 --> 02:09:38,880 Speaker 1: which is overlapping really with everything UM. New thought is 1524 02:09:38,880 --> 02:09:43,920 Speaker 1: is UM part of the notion of progress in the 1525 02:09:43,960 --> 02:09:49,480 Speaker 1: twentieth century and spiritual evolution. And there are lots of 1526 02:09:49,520 --> 02:09:53,320 Speaker 1: developments and there continue to be new religious movements. We 1527 02:09:53,800 --> 02:09:59,480 Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century. We have UM in we 1528 02:09:59,600 --> 02:10:04,840 Speaker 1: have the World's Colombian Exhibition, where we have Americans exposed 1529 02:10:04,840 --> 02:10:08,920 Speaker 1: to many of the religions religions of Asia for the 1530 02:10:08,960 --> 02:10:14,520 Speaker 1: first time, and we have Swamy's and other Asian religious 1531 02:10:14,600 --> 02:10:18,640 Speaker 1: leaders recruited to come to the United States and teach 1532 02:10:18,680 --> 02:10:22,640 Speaker 1: Americans about their faith. And so we have the whole 1533 02:10:22,680 --> 02:10:27,720 Speaker 1: movement of Theosophy which is attempting, attempting to combine the 1534 02:10:27,760 --> 02:10:33,000 Speaker 1: wisdom of the East and make it accessible to westerners. 1535 02:10:33,880 --> 02:10:39,280 Speaker 1: UM and spiritualism moves in and out of all of 1536 02:10:39,320 --> 02:10:44,720 Speaker 1: these developments, because spiritualism is always available, you can always 1537 02:10:44,760 --> 02:10:47,880 Speaker 1: talk to the dead, and in any movement whether you 1538 02:10:48,000 --> 02:10:50,840 Speaker 1: think that wisdom is going to come from Egypt or 1539 02:10:50,960 --> 02:10:56,280 Speaker 1: from Tibet, or from South America or from Australia, you 1540 02:10:56,320 --> 02:10:59,080 Speaker 1: can always make contact with the spirit from one of 1541 02:10:59,120 --> 02:11:03,320 Speaker 1: those places who can give you wisdom that draws on 1542 02:11:03,440 --> 02:11:11,000 Speaker 1: those traditions and on esoteric um practices from another part 1543 02:11:11,040 --> 02:11:14,640 Speaker 1: of the world. So as the world becomes smaller in 1544 02:11:14,680 --> 02:11:20,880 Speaker 1: the twentieth century, spiritualism continues for a vehicle of all 1545 02:11:21,000 --> 02:11:26,320 Speaker 1: kinds of channeled documents and channeled wisdom, and it continues 1546 02:11:26,360 --> 02:11:31,240 Speaker 1: to move into and out of many other new religious movements. 1547 02:11:32,440 --> 02:11:37,640 Speaker 1: When our listeners are hearing this narrative history from the 1548 02:11:38,040 --> 02:11:43,360 Speaker 1: fifties to about of spiritualism and its place in American life, 1549 02:11:44,080 --> 02:11:47,320 Speaker 1: what do you hope as a historian that they will 1550 02:11:47,360 --> 02:11:52,480 Speaker 1: take away from this history or learn from it. I 1551 02:11:52,600 --> 02:11:56,040 Speaker 1: hope that they will be open to people whose views 1552 02:11:56,200 --> 02:11:59,640 Speaker 1: are different from their own. And I hope that they 1553 02:11:59,760 --> 02:12:04,480 Speaker 1: will be open to people who they may have dismissed 1554 02:12:04,520 --> 02:12:09,360 Speaker 1: as crazy because of their religious beliefs, but whose religious 1555 02:12:09,360 --> 02:12:15,840 Speaker 1: convictions allowed them to act with conviction in ways that 1556 02:12:15,880 --> 02:12:20,320 Speaker 1: we now find enormously admirable. And they would not have 1557 02:12:20,440 --> 02:12:25,240 Speaker 1: been able to do that without the spiritual inspiration and 1558 02:12:25,360 --> 02:12:31,840 Speaker 1: liberation that they found in spiritualism. That's beautiful. Thank you 1559 02:12:31,960 --> 02:12:40,800 Speaker 1: so much. You're welcome. Are we done? We're done? Hey, folks, 1560 02:12:40,920 --> 02:12:44,080 Speaker 1: it's Aaron here. I hope today's interview helped you deepen 1561 02:12:44,120 --> 02:12:48,120 Speaker 1: your understanding of everything involved in the world of spiritualism. 1562 02:12:48,160 --> 02:12:51,000 Speaker 1: But we're not done yet. We have more interviews to 1563 02:12:51,000 --> 02:12:53,720 Speaker 1: share with you, so stick around after this brief sponsor 1564 02:12:53,840 --> 02:13:04,760 Speaker 1: break to hear a preview of next week's interview. Next 1565 02:13:04,760 --> 02:13:11,160 Speaker 1: time on un Obscured, she will not accept the fact 1566 02:13:11,160 --> 02:13:15,840 Speaker 1: that her son has been sold, and she basically campaigns 1567 02:13:16,000 --> 02:13:20,920 Speaker 1: all over the neighborhood of Ulster County, rilling people about this, 1568 02:13:21,160 --> 02:13:24,200 Speaker 1: and especially the Quakers because it is against the law. 1569 02:13:24,440 --> 02:13:29,360 Speaker 1: But what enslaved woman has the wherewithal to challenge the 1570 02:13:29,440 --> 02:13:33,200 Speaker 1: slave power. Well Bell did, and she got help from 1571 02:13:33,240 --> 02:13:37,960 Speaker 1: the Quakers, and she eventually was able to get her 1572 02:13:37,960 --> 02:13:41,640 Speaker 1: son back, but she raised a huge ruck buss A 1573 02:13:41,680 --> 02:13:44,760 Speaker 1: lot of the slaveholders were angry with her for having 1574 02:13:44,800 --> 02:13:49,880 Speaker 1: done this. The Quakers were adamantly anti slavery, and they 1575 02:13:49,880 --> 02:13:54,280 Speaker 1: helped her get a lawyer and eventually get this boy back. 1576 02:13:54,360 --> 02:13:58,120 Speaker 1: Within a year he was back, and when she got 1577 02:13:58,160 --> 02:14:00,760 Speaker 1: him back. She went to court and got him back. 1578 02:14:01,120 --> 02:14:04,400 Speaker 1: He was covered with bruises. He told her that the 1579 02:14:04,480 --> 02:14:07,080 Speaker 1: man who had purchased him, who was also a New 1580 02:14:07,160 --> 02:14:11,200 Speaker 1: Yorker who had moved to Alabama, had had his horse 1581 02:14:11,640 --> 02:14:13,880 Speaker 1: hoof the boy. The boy, her son's name was Peter. 1582 02:14:14,320 --> 02:14:16,760 Speaker 1: In the face, he had a big gash in his 1583 02:14:16,880 --> 02:14:21,840 Speaker 1: forehead where the man's horse had hoofed him. And she 1584 02:14:22,000 --> 02:14:26,360 Speaker 1: was so angry that she asked God for retribution, and 1585 02:14:26,440 --> 02:14:30,960 Speaker 1: she told him to render unto them double for everything 1586 02:14:31,000 --> 02:14:33,560 Speaker 1: they had done to her son. As far as she 1587 02:14:33,680 --> 02:14:37,640 Speaker 1: was concerned, that was her curse that she was leveling 1588 02:14:37,680 --> 02:14:43,640 Speaker 1: against this family. And within a few months, the woman 1589 02:14:44,160 --> 02:14:46,600 Speaker 1: who was married to the man who had sold her 1590 02:14:46,640 --> 02:14:50,400 Speaker 1: son and brutalized him, was killed by her husband, and 1591 02:14:50,480 --> 02:14:54,800 Speaker 1: in a very brutal way. He basically, according to the narrative, 1592 02:14:55,360 --> 02:14:59,600 Speaker 1: he had cut her wind pipe out in a drunken fit. 1593 02:15:00,080 --> 02:15:19,280 Speaker 1: Un Obscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced 1594 02:15:19,280 --> 02:15:22,960 Speaker 1: by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership 1595 02:15:23,000 --> 02:15:26,080 Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. Research and writing for this season 1596 02:15:26,280 --> 02:15:28,360 Speaker 1: is all the work of my right hand man, Carl 1597 02:15:28,440 --> 02:15:32,080 Speaker 1: Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack. 1598 02:15:32,600 --> 02:15:36,520 Speaker 1: Learn more about our contributing historians, source material and links 1599 02:15:36,560 --> 02:15:40,880 Speaker 1: to our other shows over at history unobscured dot com 1600 02:15:40,920 --> 02:15:51,720 Speaker 1: and until next time, thanks for listening. Unobscured is a 1601 02:15:51,720 --> 02:15:54,080 Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Monkey. For more 1602 02:15:54,120 --> 02:15:57,240 Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart radiocs, iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 1603 02:15:57,280 --> 02:16:03,680 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. All