WEBVTT - Selects: How Spiritualism Works 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:03.800 Hey, guys, it's me your old pal Josh, And for 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:09.680 this week's select, I've chosen our twenty twenty episode on spiritualism, which, 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:11.399 as you might be able to tell from the first 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.080 couple of minutes, was recorded during the height of the 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:18.239 COVID pandemic. But that's not why I chose this one. 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:20.520 I chose it because it's been coming up a lot 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:26.120 lately for some reason in episode after episode, which I've 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.040 taken as a sign to choose this as a select. 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:31.800 But it's also kind of made me think about all 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.200 of the back and forth I've gone through in my life. 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.920 Is there an afterlife? Is there not an afterlife? Who knows? 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.240 That's where I'm at right now. Who knows. So maybe 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.440 listen to this episode about the spiritualism movement and see 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.879 what you think about the whole thing. Enjoy. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:59.200 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.760 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:08.360 Charles W Chuck Bryan over there somewhere in the heart 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.920 of darkness. I'm in the office, dude, where I hear 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:14.520 your voice, Chuck, but I can't see you. 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.800 Yeah, I mean, I don't know why people need to 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.479 know the behind the scenes things. But home recording provides 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.200 some challenges and I was getting pretty frustrated. So I 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:27.600 was like, you know what, I'm going to go to 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:32.120 the studio yep, because I know it'll sound great in here. Yeah, 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:36.120 and I know there won't be dogs and children and 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.080 everyone should feel good about it because I have not 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:40.240 seen another human being. 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.600 Yeah, in the building. Didn't a security guard. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:45.800 Didn't a security guard try to run you off the 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:46.920 road when you were parking? 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:49.920 He didn't try. He stopped me literally in the parking lot. 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:51.040 I was like, what are you doing here? I was like, 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:56.480 I'm going to my job, and he said, okay. 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.240 He said stay home, save lives. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.040 But before we left, I mean I apparently since I left. Uh, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:03.320 they have these. 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:11.040 There's a bottle of microphone sanitizer. Whoa, there are headphone 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:16.000 sanitized or not sanitized, but just disposable headphone covers. Sweet, 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.799 And I feel more safe here than I do at 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:20.320 my house. 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.239 What a microphone sanitizer? That sounds really made up? 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:29.280 Yeah, it's We'll go ahead and buzz market. No I 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.160 won't because it smells bad and I didn't want to 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.560 buzz market. And then say it smells bad. It's apple flavor, whoa, 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.960 which would make Emily just like turn over in her bed. 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.480 It's a good, jolly rancher flavor. Not the best scent, though. 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.040 I hate it when they add scent to stuff that 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:45.799 doesn't need scent. 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:46.720 Yeah, agreed. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.639 Try finding an unscented garbage back these days. 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.320 Uh is it tough to Yeah? 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.519 Man, every single one of them. I even got some 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:58.720 that said unscented and it still smells like. 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:06.560 You've missed it. In parentheses underneath it says mostly we 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:13.040 can't help ourselves. Rosemary, Well, I don't have my over 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.200 the ear headphones right now. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.800 I just yeah, so I'm look one. 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:24.280 Of Yumy's long scarves wrapped around my head twice to 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:30.200 keep from your audio bleeding onto the track through my microphone. 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:33.880 You either look like Lawrence of Arabia or like you 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:35.840 just wandered in with a head entry. 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:37.120 Yeah. I had to. 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:39.760 It kept slipping off with the Lawrence of Arabia looks, 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.200 so I had to do it the other way around. 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:44.920 So now it looks like I have a nineteenth century toothache. 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.160 Oh man, to me another picture. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:50.920 It's not It's not very comfortable. My Adam's apple is 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.240 being pressed towards the back of my throat right now. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.080 Yeah, what was the deal with that whole toothache thing? 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:56.280 Like? 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.280 Was there ice in there or something? 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:01.440 Or was it just like just tie their gin shut 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:02.960 and it'll help. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.440 Knowing that era, there were probably some sort of like 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.600 razor blade and heroin concoction that would just scrape the 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.160 area where the tooth was and inject you with dope 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:15.520 to keep you from complaining. 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:22.360 Doctor uh, doctor Payne's new chin wrap now with more leeches. 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.960 All right, from the makers of microphone sanitizer. 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:31.480 All right, let's get into this. We've already been goofing 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.960 around for too long. Let's just finish. Fine, just get 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:34.520 this over with. 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.960 Let's get serious and talk about spiritualism, shall we. 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.839 This is a great, great job by Grabster, a great 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:43.799 idea by you. Yeah, and it'll be a great. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:44.840 Episode, yeah, grabs Her. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:46.800 We asked them to help us out with this, so 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.560 we put together a world class article for us. And 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.200 when we asked him, we said, hey, how about spiritualism? 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.640 He because my brother wrote his dissertation on that should 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.680 be simple and me. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:57.919 Just forwarded us that. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.960 Right it did. He didn't even like erase his brother's 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:05.160 first name. He just did a strikethrough and wrote. 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.360 Ed after it easy Money. 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:13.040 So it is like a really really interesting phenomenon and 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.920 something I think we kind of take for granted because 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:21.000 it pops up everywhere in our world in pop culture. 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.000 I mean, it's just a part of everything from crystal 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:28.520 balls to seances, to Ouiji boards to tarot cards, all. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:29.840 Of this stuff. Movies. 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.039 Yeah, as a matter of fact, I ran across so 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.120 you know Dan Akroyd's hugeno UFOs, right. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:36.279 I did know that. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.520 Actually, he's also enormous into spirits and ghosts. It's actually 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.160 one of the impetuses. Yeah, I think so of him 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:49.120 writing Ghostbusters. He's actually a fourth generation spiritualist with a 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:53.440 capital S, like the Church spiritualism. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:54.400 He was raised that way. 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.880 His father, grandfather, and great grandfather were all spiritualists and 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:03.040 that's how he was raised as well. So it does 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.360 just kind of it's so permeated our culture. It's weird 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.479 to think of a time when it wasn't there. But 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.120 there actually was this period starting in right about in 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.560 the middle of the nineteenth century going well into the 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:21.800 twentieth century where there was a movement that basically said, 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:26.400 the spirit world is there, it exists. When you die, 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:30.720 your personality survives, and some people actually have a talent 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.760 for communicating with the spirits in the spirit world, and 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.320 we're going to start doing that. And that was spiritualism, 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:40.520 the spiritualist movement. 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.320 Yeah, and Ed pointed out, which we should as well, 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.040 that ghosts and things like that and ghost stories they 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.360 had been around since people had been around. Everyone since 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.599 the dawn of humankind has tried to figure out what 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.960 happens after you die. Do people visit, do they take on, 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.640 you know, other forms or whatever. So that's different than 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.680 what we're talking about. What we're talking about is spiritualism 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:14.080 in that it became a big scam and way to 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.640 get money out of people who are in pain from 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:18.200 a friend's or loved one's death. 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.000 Sadly, yeah, yeah, for sure, but there is like a 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:27.280 throw a thread through there where this same era, the 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.280 same period, and this belief in communicating with the spirits 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.320 and the idea that you could go to a seance 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.560 and talk to your dead loved one or whatever. It 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:41.080 produced this other group of people who said, yes, there 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.360 are tons of fraudsters and hucksters out there, who are 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:45.560 taking advantage of this. 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.240 But there's also this real. 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:54.040 There's the real version of it actually does exist, and 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.800 we're going to apply this newfangled thing called science to 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.640 investigate it. And that produced that era of people like 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:07.920 Charles Fort or Harry Price who visited the Borley Rectory, 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:13.320 the most haunted place in England, or Sir Arthur Conan 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:18.000 Doyle like those guys. I know, I'm trying, not a 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:23.760 new version to these guys though they were they believed 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.320 in this stuff and the possibility of it. They also 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.200 believed in the possibility of applying science to it. And 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.800 even if science couldn't explain it, it didn't mean that 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.719 it didn't exist. And then there was another group who 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.280 were what we would recognize today is like pure skeptics, 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.559 like the James Randys of the day, who all followed 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.200 in the footsteps of Harry Houdini. Is we'll see who 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.480 kind of created this. So you had hucksters, believers who 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.400 were skeptical, and genuine pure skeptics who believed none of 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:52.240 it was correct. 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.640 Yeah, and what I mentioned before, like all the previous 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.280 attempts to do stuff like this pre mid eighteen hundreds, 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.880 in largely the Northeast United States. It was more religious 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.520 like prophets and shaman and stuff like that. Spiritualism was 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.679 the birth of the Madam Kleios of the world. Ed 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.640 refers to it as a democratization, and that's one way 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.560 to look at it. But it was the idea that hey, 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.320 if you are chosen and you are special, you could 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:24.760 you know, it's not like you have to be some 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.280 religious leader, you can just be a regular person with 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:28.800 the gift exactly. 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:29.120 Yeah. 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:33.679 Which was a huge sea change. And there are basically 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.760 a few things that kind of came together for this mentality, 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:43.800 this fertile kind of imagination of this pocket of America 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.360 and western New York where all of this began to 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.360 kind of take shape. And one of those things was 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:54.520 the frontier, this frontier mentality. The historian Frederick Jackson Turner 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.600 called it the significance of the frontier in American history, 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.880 and he basically said, man, the people who are living 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.240 out there on the frontier, they're living on the edge 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:08.840 of civilization, the leading edge right right beyond that what 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.280 they're coming up against. And this is highly debatable because 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.559 part of what they were coming up against was Native America. 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.960 It just wasn't a civilization in the Forum that any 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.480 European had ever encountered before. But the idea was that 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.920 the people who are living on the frontier and expanding 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:32.280 westward were basically being forced just by virtue of having 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:36.800 to survive under these weird conditions outside of culture and 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:41.080 civilization in the European sense, that they were having to 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.640 abandon that culture and basically make it up as they 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:48.280 went along and recreate a new culture from the frontier, 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:50.719 and that that just kind of threw the rules out 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:51.240 the window. 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.200 Yeah, this is one of my favorite things when we 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.960 do topics, that when you can look back at a 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:03.000 movement and point to factors that at any other time 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.440 in history, if just one of these might not have 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:07.559 taken you know, might not have influenced it, that it 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.560 might not have happened at all. There's something about that 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.480 that I've always really loved. And this is a perfect example. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:18.160 The frontier life is one. Religious fervor is another, and 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.960 specifically in New York in the eighteen hundreds, people were 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.880 really caught up on this religious fervor and it kind 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.360 of went from town to town and there was no 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.640 there was no big religious authorities in the area that 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.920 were out on the frontier, they had no structured hierarchy 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.800 of religion, and so again they could just make up stuff. 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.160 And I'm not saying that's not tied to this next sentence, 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.280 because I don't want to turn anyone off, but a 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.000 lot of religions sprang out from this region during that time, 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:54.120 like Millerism and Mormonism and Quakers and Shakers kind of 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.480 had a resurgence, basically as shot in the arm, just 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:00.480 because of this fervor going on the time. 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.439 And I couldn't quite put where Millerism why it seems 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.480 so familiar, And then I remember that that was the 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.280 woman who gave birth eventually to the Seventh day Adventists, 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.640 and that popped up in the Kellogg episode. Remember yeah, yeah, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.520 Millerism was where it all started. But that was And 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.840 that really kind of indicates I love it when things, 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.880 just things we've talked about before, like have even more 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.280 context from something else. But that just kind of goes 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:27.800 to show you, like, this is the kind of place 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.920 where somebody could be like I'm in contact with the spirits, 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.360 or Jesus came and hung out with me or whatever, 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.560 and this is what I know, And what I've been told, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.040 So let's start a religion based on it. And not 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:45.160 even necessarily just religions too, but also like social movements 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.800 like utopian societies where. 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.160 And chew your food twenty times so you'll poopies here. 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:54.960 Exactly, or you know, women have equal rights as men, 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.439 which is just completely radical. Or how about fifty of 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.199 us lived and just by the fact that we all 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:07.520 lived together, we're married according to this utopian society, just 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:12.040 whatever you wanted to do, you kind of could because 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.840 the frontier threw the rules out the window, or at 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.840 the very least cultural traditions that most people are raised into. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.960 When that's not there, people make up their. 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.480 Own, Yeah, for sure. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.920 And the third big factor that you mentioned was or 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.640 we haven't talked about yet with science, and you talked 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:32.560 a little bit about science at the beginning, but the 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.360 idea that in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, when 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:38.640 we're really learning a lot more than we ever have 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:43.200 about science and things like elect electromagnetism and things that 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.120 you can't see but science. 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:45.880 Are saying, oh it's there. 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.679 This kind of fed the spiritualist movement because you know, 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.240 that's something else that you can't see, that other people 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.559 are saying is there. So they're like, well, hey, if 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.960 science is saying there are things out there we can't 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.040 quite explain, but trust me it's real, then why shouldn't 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:02.000 I believe this stuff too? 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:02.600 Yeah? 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:07.319 Or well this electric like electromagnetism, maybe that actually explains 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:12.559 how spirits survive. After that, it was a really wide 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:19.280 open time as far as you know, acceptance of possibilities 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.440 rather than no science has said this is not possible, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.960 or it can't explain this, or you can't see it 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.360 with your own eyes, so it won't. It doesn't, it 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.200 doesn't jibe like. There was a lot more willingness among 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.400 people who were scientifically minded to say, well, maybe this 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.400 is a good explanation of that. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:38.680 Let's investigate. 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.080 Yeah, the birth of science and medicine was a really 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:43.040 crazy time. 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.120 It really was. It really was. 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:46.600 So should we take a break? 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.640 Yes, come on, man, Yes, I think you're You're beard 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:54.680 Holster is on too tight. 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.120 I haven't been able to feel my nose for about 0:14:59.120 --> 0:14:59.920 fifteen minutes. 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.080 All right, we'll go rub your nose and bring some 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.400 feeling back, and we'll talk about some of the chiritualists. 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:38.360 Okay, I'm gonna say it spiritualists nice and there there 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.520 was actually so there was a bunch of factors that 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.480 led to the beginning of all of this, including there 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.880 was one that I also came across that we need 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:49.960 to mention, a guy named Andrew Jackson Davis, who combined 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.800 the ideas of the German hypnotist Franz Mesmer with the 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:59.480 Swedish philosopher of the soul, Emmanuel Swedenborg. They were both 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.800 eighteen century. He kind of brought him together and he 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.480 was a bit of a nobody, but he emerged very 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.640 very soon after the Fox Sisters became celebrities as a 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.920 founder of the spiritualist movement, almost like he was doing 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.520 it off in isolation at the same time that all 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:16.200 of us began. 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.120 Yeah, so the Fox Sisters figure into this really quite largely. 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:23.600 And you can even pinpoint a date to what you 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.920 might consider the birth of the modern American spiritualist movement 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:32.320 is March thirty one, eighteen forty eight, in Hydesville, New York, 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.240 near Rochester, at a farm. This Fox family lived there, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.920 real people, not a family of cute little red for 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:41.240 fuzzy creatures. 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.560 Voiced by George Clooney exactly. 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:46.760 Mister missus Fox had three daughters. 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:48.960 Actually one was much older. Her name was Leah. She 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:53.320 was nineteen and twenty three years older. Why was that funny? 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:55.720 Because I saw a picture of her and she's like 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:01.400 the spitting image of Jeffrey Ross. Look her up, Jeffrey 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.760 Ross's that's what Leah Fox looked like. 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:06.720 I didn't see. I saw the picture of the three 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:08.040 of them, and I didn't get a good close up. 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.320 That's an unfortunate look for him and her. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.600 Yeah, anybody really? Uh? 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:15.879 And I think he would admit that too. Oh yeah, 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:16.400 he's doing. 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:20.000 All right though. What if he had really thin skin? Rosmaster? 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.560 He couldn't take a joke against himself. Have you seen 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.280 that bump in Mike Show? It's pretty good? 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.280 Uh? No? Is that the roast competition thing? 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:29.600 Yeah? 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.119 He and David Tell just sit there and roast people. 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:32.760 It's really good. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:33.480 Man. 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.480 I used to love David Tel back in the day. 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.160 He has just turned into like the weird like comedy 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.640 genius friend that Jeffrey Ross has. 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.960 And it shines through in this awesome I'll check it out. 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:50.280 So the Fox family, older daughter Leah was nineteen and 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.760 twenty three years older than younger Kate and Maggie or 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:56.760 I guess Maggie and Kate if you're going in that order. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.119 And on that night, on March thirty first, eighteen forty, 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:04.320 they heard these rapping knocking sounds and they didn't know 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.320 where it was coming from, and that kind of kickstarted 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:08.960 this whole thing. 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.440 In a weird way, this led and. 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:14.640 We'll talk about the more specifics, but in a weird way, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.040 this led to them eventually saying, wait a minute, we 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.360 can make some money if we convince people that young 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.520 Kate and Maggie are a conduit to the other side. 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:25.200 Yeah. 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.800 The thing is is like when it went from you know, like, oh, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.160 there's a ghost rapping or knocking like a poultrygeist kind 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.399 of thing too. This ghost will respond to questions from 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.119 the sisters through rapping and knocking, like how old is 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.760 Maggie and it would rap like fifteen times or something 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.480 like that. And that really caught a lot of people's attention. 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.320 And Maggie and Kate moved in with Leah. And apparently, 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.159 from what I read, it was Leah whose idea it 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.280 was to take the show on the road try to 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.000 scam people out of money. It was not a super 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.200 great person and from what I read. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:06.119 Yeah, I just sorry. I was thinking of a rapping 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:11.520 ghost and right gott sidetracked. I'm the ghost, George Washington. 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.040 I'm here to say I love fruity pebbles in a 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.040 mateor way. You know what's funny is I was going 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.199 to do that exact same thing, but for the Fox family. 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.920 That's like the go to rap for guys like us. 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.600 Oh, it totally is guys who can't wrap. 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.639 Yeah, I'm here to say something something, something in a 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:29.240 something way. 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.359 The Zach Morris method, I think, is what that is. 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:35.879 I wonder if that's based on an actual rap. I 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:37.879 guess there was one at some point that really did. 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.440 That, right, Yeah, I think Blondie was the popular. 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:46.600 My name is Blondie. 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.080 I'm here to say I'm gonna try rap because it's 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:50.040 popular today. 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.480 Exactly. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.320 So what were you saying? I was laughing. I didn't 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:56.879 even notice. 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.320 I'm sorry, Oh, oh, just that it was basically I 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:05.000 was laying at Leah's feet for corrupting the younger sisters. 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:07.439 Yeah, she kind of. She ended up managing them as 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.920 a unit. I think later on, if I'm not mistaken, 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:13.680 But there aren't great records of everything going on at 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.480 the time, But the idea was that Kate and Maggie 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:19.640 were the ones. It wasn't really her parents, but they're 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:22.640 the ones who could actually communicate with this barn spirit. 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.920 And so they said, you know what, they not only 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.760 can talk to this spirit. Media starts, you know, getting 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.320 a hold of these stories. And obviously back then it 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:35.760 was a very big deal with something like this coming 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:37.719 out in the media with not a lot else going on. 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.920 But they moved and would go away to other places 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.320 and said, wherever they go, ghosts are talking to them. 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:50.200 So you guys, my daughters are talented and gifted. They're 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:52.840 not just talking to the what we think is a 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:54.960 murder victim from our previous house. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.320 Right right, which just changed everything. 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.960 And also other suspiciously, Leah suddenly realized that she was 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.480 able to communicate with spirits too, So all three of 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.600 the sisters were able to But yeah, not just that 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.000 one murder victim in their house that had been the 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.879 original ghost, but just about any ghost. And this was 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:20.200 the beginning of the spiritualist movement. Basically a trank by 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:22.439 a couple of teenage girls that got way out of 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:23.439 hand really fast. 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.760 Yeah, and so what do they do they start having 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:31.159 these private sessions where people would pay money, and they 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.840 would wear these big long dresses that were in fashion 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.600 at the time, and they would no one's exactly sure 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:38.800 the exact mechanism, but they would do some sort of 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.879 toe knocking or something where they couldn't be seen. And 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:44.879 that was the Morse code that they said was the 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:45.920 ghost speaking to them. 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.600 So it it's really they had like a little wooden 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.400 stool under the table with them, and they would take 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:57.440 off their shoes surreptitiously, and from what I can gather, 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:04.760 they could pop their knuckle of their toe up and 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:09.240 down with enough force that it would make a thud 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:11.080 on that wooden stool. 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:13.360