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Speaker 1: Let's take a walk. On my fourth day at the

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Speaker 1: Cassadeca Spiritualist Camp, I take a walk around Colby Alderman Park,

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Speaker 1: sprawling affair that's now a nationally recognized historic district and

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Speaker 1: added in the waterproof historical markers to match. Today we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be talking about the decline of the Fox Sisters

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Speaker 1: and one of my most significant readings at Cassadeca. But first,

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Speaker 1: let's take a stroll through Cassadeca, beginning at the intersection

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Speaker 1: of and I'm not getting Mediumship Way and Psychic Road.

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Speaker 1: I know, and I took a lot of audio as

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Speaker 1: I was just wandering around this neighborhood for consecutive weeks,

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Speaker 1: so to give you an idea of the vibe. There's

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Speaker 1: no side box here. Feels very npr of me to do.

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Speaker 1: It feels very this American life. I feel like a

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Speaker 1: fucking dork. When you get to Cassadega, you pass these

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Speaker 1: white cement pillars on Cassadeca Road, and to your left

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Speaker 1: is the Cassadega Hotel where I'm going to be staying.

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Speaker 1: It's this big, haunted looking building that got rebuilt in

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Speaker 1: the twenties after burning down, but has been out of

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Speaker 1: the hands of the Cassadega camp Proper for many decades now, which,

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Speaker 1: as we've discussed before, has led to a lot of

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Speaker 1: confusion and drama in the community because there are readings

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Speaker 1: done at the hotel, but not ones that are sanctioned

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Speaker 1: by the Spiritualist Proper. In many ways, having this hotel

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Speaker 1: bought out from under them due to their own kind

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Speaker 1: of chronic brokenness is one of the hardest hits Cassadega

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Speaker 1: has ever taken. The hotel is really important. It shares

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Speaker 1: a name with the community and has the only amenities

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Speaker 1: and restaurant, which you need to know is called Sinatra's Restaurante,

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Speaker 1: where karaoke nights get a little too loud for the

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Speaker 1: proper mediums across the street's taste. On the days the

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Speaker 1: restaurant isn't open, you can either survive on chocolate bars

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Speaker 1: from the bookstore or walk to the nearest gas station

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Speaker 1: half hour away. I opt for both of these at

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Speaker 1: multiple points in my trip, and as we've heard several times,

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Speaker 1: the mediums who were trained at Cassadega don't have the

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Speaker 1: highest opinion of the mediums and tarot readers who work

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Speaker 1: out of the hotel. Across the street is a more

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Speaker 1: sanctioned area, the Andrew Jackson Davis Building, this white, one

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Speaker 1: floor wooden structure that serves as both DeCamps, bookstore, administrative office,

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Speaker 1: and activity center where I've already been to message services

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Speaker 1: and a table tipping class, and sat in on a

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Speaker 1: class called Healing one oh one with Reverend Dr Phil.

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Speaker 1: I was not allowed to record this class, but they

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Speaker 1: were very welcoming and we learned all about our chakras

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Speaker 1: and Eastern concept not originally associated with spiritualism. We love it.

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Speaker 1: And I spoke to a particularly gossipy student who told

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Speaker 1: me that she knew that spiritual healing wasn't a substitute

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Speaker 1: for medicine, but the healers at Cassadega had done more

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Speaker 1: than her physical therapist of her had. Let's keep moving,

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Speaker 1: as I learned from the bookstore manager selling a green.

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Speaker 1: The bookstore is a moneymaker for the camp. It's one

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Speaker 1: of the few places where the mediums can capitalize on

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Speaker 1: the average tourist's interests, selling rarer spiritualist texts for the

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Speaker 1: true student, but also overpriced crystals T shirts declaring Cassadega

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Speaker 1: where Maybury meets the Twilight Zone. Two references that make

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Speaker 1: it no wonder. They're struggling to recruit younger members. They

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Speaker 1: sell candles and magnets and those chocolate bars I was

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Speaker 1: telling you about. This is where the spiritualists make good

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Speaker 1: on people seeking mediumship as comfort and self help. The

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Speaker 1: walls are lined with tarot cards that their religion doesn't

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Speaker 1: technically endors. There are self help guides, relationship manuals, guides

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Speaker 1: to the phases of the moon, one local book about

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Speaker 1: a boy who died of rabies. I don't know did

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Speaker 1: not look into this. Further on the other side of

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Speaker 1: the pillars are non camp sanctioned crystal shops, stores that

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Speaker 1: have prices is jacked up into Los Angeles territory. These

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Speaker 1: unsanctioned shops are even more low ceilinged affairs with ten

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Speaker 1: dollar clear courts, crystals and tarot reading rooms with walls

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Speaker 1: so thin that you can hear the college girl crying

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Speaker 1: about why her boyfriend won't take her back while paying

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Speaker 1: seventy five bucks for a twenty minute reading. Walk down

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Speaker 1: a little further and you'll hit Sea Green's Ghost Museum

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Speaker 1: ten dollars for admission, a business originally called the Cassadega

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Speaker 1: History museum, but was then rebranded into a Haunted House

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Speaker 1: due to lack of interest in history. And my favorite,

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Speaker 1: the tiny post office in Cassadega, one that at every

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Speaker 1: point seems to be barely holding onto its justification for existing.

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Speaker 1: I walked back into the camp. Down Stephens Street. You

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Speaker 1: pass a few double decker houses and apartments. A big

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Speaker 1: one is called Harmony Hall. It's a ten apartment ramshackle

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Speaker 1: structure with a big sign out front. Some of the

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Speaker 1: mediums live here, others just actice hear. What I do know,

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Speaker 1: because I know you're wondering, is that people fuck in

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Speaker 1: Harmony Hall, or at least they have fucked, because I

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Speaker 1: received roundabout word of at least two babies that have

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Speaker 1: been conceived within its walls. I walk all the way

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Speaker 1: up to the biggest park on this side of the

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Speaker 1: camp called Seneca Park, named for who founder George Colby

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Speaker 1: claimed was his indigenous spirit guide who led him to

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Speaker 1: the stolen indigenous land he bought and converted into Cassadega,

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Speaker 1: a likely story that will be unpacking next week. I

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Speaker 1: try to meditate and be present, but it's hard because

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Speaker 1: all I can hear is the sound of roosters in

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Speaker 1: the distance. There are so many roosters at this camp.

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Speaker 1: I've run out of things to explore, and I realized

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Speaker 1: that I'm kind of killing time. I'm nervous because I'm

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Speaker 1: about to get a reading with the Reverend. Dr. Lewis,

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Speaker 1: a medium raised by mediums, who doesn't just encourage you

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Speaker 1: to record your reading. He records for you, handing me

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Speaker 1: a high quality c D ram upon payment. Do you

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Speaker 1: know what I had to go through so that you

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Speaker 1: could hear this audio? Have you hand the met before? Kay? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Send me your stats where you just stop me? Want

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Speaker 1: you get take it for you? For you? It's time

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Speaker 1: We've got to talk to Reverend Dr Lewis. I'm going

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Speaker 1: in so this week, not only am I going to

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Speaker 1: give you a look and to listen to what a

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Speaker 1: one on one spiritualist reading is like, We're also going

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Speaker 1: to close out the story of Spiritualism's founders, the Fox Sisters,

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Speaker 1: at the inflection point where the ideas they popularized belonged

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Speaker 1: to the world and no longer to themselves. How are

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Speaker 1: you feeling? I feel like we should get a theme

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Speaker 1: song going. I okay, it's starting awesome. Shodakay. Welcome back, listener,

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Speaker 1: we have so much to discuss. In our last episode,

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Speaker 1: we took a little detour to speak with the people

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Speaker 1: who run Cassadega today, from the mediums themselves to people

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Speaker 1: who run the camps day to day operations. And next

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Speaker 1: week we're going to take look at the camp's origin

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Speaker 1: story and all of the American appropriative mess that comes

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Speaker 1: with it. But before we can get there, we've got

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Speaker 1: to follow the story of American Spiritualisms founders, the Fox sisters, Leah, Maggie,

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Speaker 1: and Kate Fox to their stories end and take a

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Speaker 1: look at how their religion didn't just outlive them, but

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Speaker 1: sort of killed them too. We left off in eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty two and the Foxes Leah now thirty nine, Maggie nineteen,

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Speaker 1: and Kate fifteen went to Philadelphia and it was there

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Speaker 1: that Maggie met a boy, and not just any boy,

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Speaker 1: a thirty two year old man, and so not a boy,

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Speaker 1: a very rich man. His name was Alicia Clark Kane,

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Speaker 1: an Arctic explorer from a wealthy Philadelphia family, you know,

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Speaker 1: like one of those rich guys that's like I can

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Speaker 1: have a job like like. But anyways, that was what

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Speaker 1: he was doing by the time he met Maggie. Kane

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Speaker 1: was a successful explorer and he took an interest in

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Speaker 1: Maggie Fox. Definitely not spiritualism. He asked her out and

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Speaker 1: took her on a date to his brother's grave. A

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Speaker 1: little weird, but I guess a good place to bring

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Speaker 1: a Fox sister, and she did become pretty interested in him.

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Speaker 1: Things he did up quickly, and soon enough he was

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Speaker 1: professing his love for her, vowing to end his engagement

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Speaker 1: that his parents were forcing him into. All while knowing

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Speaker 1: that they would never approve a match with a middle class,

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Speaker 1: new money girl with no generational assets who made her

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Speaker 1: living talking to ghosts. Kane kept her a secret from

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Speaker 1: his family and gave her the first of many ultimatums. Yes,

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Speaker 1: he loved her, but he could only accept her as

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Speaker 1: his wife if she gave up the religion that she'd

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Speaker 1: founded with her sisters. Of course, Leah Fox despised him

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Speaker 1: to some extent. This was sister Lee protectiveness, but it

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Speaker 1: could also be seen as a power struggle between Leah

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Speaker 1: and Alicia Caine to retain control over Maggie Fox's life.

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Speaker 1: Kane's letters, Uh will not endear you to him. He

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Speaker 1: says things like this, Oh, how much I wish that

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Speaker 1: you would quit this life of dreary sameness and suspected deceit,

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Speaker 1: he would say to her in a series of deeply

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Speaker 1: nagging letters. In another, he says this, I need hardly

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Speaker 1: say that I am gratified to find that you write

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Speaker 1: so ably. You have more brain than I gave you

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Speaker 1: credit For just one more, I promise you could never

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Speaker 1: lift yourself to my thoughts and my objects. I can

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Speaker 1: never bring myself down to yours. What a dream boat.

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Speaker 1: And around this time, the Fox sisters were securing some

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Speaker 1: of their biggest supporters ever, including their very first president.

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Speaker 1: During a trip to d C, President Franklin Pierce and

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Speaker 1: First Lady Jane Pierce saw their eleven year old son

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Speaker 1: die before their eyes when a train they were on derailed.

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Speaker 1: Jane Pierce w later do a mediumship session with Maggie Fox,

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Speaker 1: and the sisters also met with a number of congressmen

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Speaker 1: and other DC locals. The religion was catching on in

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Speaker 1: a huge way, in spite of charges of fraudulence and

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Speaker 1: the fluctuating reputations of the sisters themselves. The next spring,

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Speaker 1: Maggie's new boyfriend Kane left for another Arctic expedition, but

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Speaker 1: not before Maggie gave into his wishes and agreed to

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Speaker 1: leave spiritualism and get an education according to his specifications.

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Speaker 1: While he was gone. Maggie's departure from the fold put

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Speaker 1: extra pressure on a sixteen year old Kate Fox, who

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Speaker 1: was understandably getting pretty burnt out from being worked so

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Speaker 1: hard as a kid, in spite of the fact that

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Speaker 1: they were making more money than ever, more than seven

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Speaker 1: times the annual salary of the average female factory worker.

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Speaker 1: A few years passed as Spiritualism continues to expand independently

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Speaker 1: of the Sisters. By this time, it was estimated that

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Speaker 1: there were several hundred thousand spiritualists in the US, and

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Speaker 1: many high profile spiritualists were trying to get the phenomena

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Speaker 1: experienced within the religion investigated and validated by petitioning Congress

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Speaker 1: for a government committee. This was at a time where

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Speaker 1: many spiritualists were especially enthusiastic about the scientific promise of

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Speaker 1: the religion, but most government officials were still very dismissive.

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Speaker 1: A former Wisconsin governor's request for a government committee was

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Speaker 1: privately mocked as a cult science and quickly dismissed. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, the first volume of spiritualist history called

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Speaker 1: Modern Spiritualism, Its Face and Fantasies, Its Consistencies and Contradictions,

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Speaker 1: was published by Eliab Kaprin, and it was also this

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Speaker 1: year that Kane returned to Maggie Fox. Maggie was understandably thrilled.

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Speaker 1: She was pretty bored, wasn't loving school, and missed conducting

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Speaker 1: sciences with her sisters, but she was determined to marry

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Speaker 1: Alicia Clark Kane. But instead of doing that, he showed

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Speaker 1: up at her home several days after back from his

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Speaker 1: mission with the document. He wanted her to sign disclaiming

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Speaker 1: any relationship they'd ever had together and demanded that she

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Speaker 1: returned all his love letters. I this motherfucker came back

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Speaker 1: and said, just kidding, the engagement is off. Signed this

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Speaker 1: n d A like he was writing a Marvel movie

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Speaker 1: or something. It makes me mad, because at this point

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Speaker 1: both of them were very public figures. Kane's memoir of

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Speaker 1: his most recent expedition would become a best seller that

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Speaker 1: was second only to the Bible when it was published,

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Speaker 1: and Maggie Fox was the founder of this on the

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Speaker 1: Rise religious movement. But in Kaine's view, she was a

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Speaker 1: reputational liability new money, so he gives her this n

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Speaker 1: d A. She agrees to sign it, but he changes

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Speaker 1: his mind and Maggie forgave him for maybe one of

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Speaker 1: the meanest things I've ever heard of someone you were

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Speaker 1: supposed to marry doing to you. They began to see

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Speaker 1: each other again, something that didn't affect his reputation but

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Speaker 1: certainly affected her as an unmarried woman who was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be having sex before marriage. The Fox family was

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Speaker 1: not thrilled about this, but Kate and their mother, Margaret,

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Speaker 1: were said to be in attendance when Maggie and Kane

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Speaker 1: were unofficially married in a private ceremony. It was a

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Speaker 1: rushed circumstance. Kane was said to be leaving for a

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Speaker 1: book tour in England the next day and allegedly said

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Speaker 1: to the family, Maggie is my wife and I am

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Speaker 1: her husband. Wherever we are, she is mine and I

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Speaker 1: am hers. This ceremony's authenticity was disputed later, and that

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Speaker 1: is important because Kane became ill on the way to

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Speaker 1: London and died shortly after arriving. Death of a himbo.

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Speaker 1: You hate to hear it. Maggie was very upset She

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Speaker 1: fell into a nervous collapse when she learned this, and

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Speaker 1: the Kane family was swift to cut her out of

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Speaker 1: their bottom line, claiming that their marriage was not legitimate

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Speaker 1: and any money that Kane had appeared to have left

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Speaker 1: behind for her care was not intended for her at all.

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Speaker 1: It's around this time that Maggie became plagued with increasing

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Speaker 1: struggles with alcoholism and finances. She wrote this to Kaine's

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Speaker 1: brother after his passing. I know that the Doctor must

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Speaker 1: have left some message for me, and know that you

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Speaker 1: will not refuse to deliver it, even though it gives

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Speaker 1: you much pain in recalling the name of him whose

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Speaker 1: memory is and ever will be sacred. I have always

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Speaker 1: held a religious faith in the deep sincerity of the

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Speaker 1: Doctor's love. Meanwhile, Leah and Kate struggled with a series

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Speaker 1: of blows in their religion. In June of eighteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: they participated in another highly publicized investigation, this one by

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Speaker 1: the Boston Courier to prove the existence of spirit communication.

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Speaker 1: Harvard Study and Spiritualism had taken down famous spiritualist adjacent figures.

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Speaker 1: The Davenport brothers to be nothing more than excellent magicians,

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Speaker 1: who could appear and disappear and create music from seemingly

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Speaker 1: disembodied places. Leah and Kate prevail in this investigation, but barely.

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Speaker 1: The results of the study said that there was quote

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Speaker 1: a little rapping by the Foxes, easily traceable to their persons,

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Speaker 1: and easily done by others, without the pretense of spirit,

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Speaker 1: nor a table or piano lifted, or anything moved a

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Speaker 1: single hair's breadth. So ends this ridiculous and infamous imposture unquote.

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Speaker 1: As always, there are two sides to this. It was

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Speaker 1: speculated that at least one Harvard man disliked the Fox

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Speaker 1: sisters in particular because they were a friend of the

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Speaker 1: deceased Alicia Kane, and thought that his involvement with Maggie

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Speaker 1: Fox had led to his downfall. You know how Harvard

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Speaker 1: guys are always bonding over ship that makes no sense.

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Speaker 1: Maggie had managed to hold on to the only proof

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Speaker 1: she had of her relationship with Kane, these love letters,

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Speaker 1: and converted to Catholicism in eighty eight in Kane's honor.

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Speaker 1: Leah soon married a rich Quaker who was obsessed with

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Speaker 1: her good for her, which allowed her to retire from

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Speaker 1: public sciences after ten years of public pressure, Suddenly Kate

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Speaker 1: Fox was the last sister standing to carry the religion

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Speaker 1: on her back, and they were not going to make

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Speaker 1: it easy for her. All Right, We're back in Cassadega

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Speaker 1: to a different kind of medium carrying a different kind

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Speaker 1: of spiritualism on his back. When I get to the

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Speaker 1: Reverend Dr Lewis Gates's door, I've already gotten a few

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Speaker 1: readings done at the camp. The first was a tarot

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Speaker 1: reading at the Hotel Cassadega, where I'm staying. The camp

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Speaker 1: trained mediums don't seem to have a ton of respect

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Speaker 1: for the card readers at the hotel, and sure the

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Speaker 1: readings are maybe a little overpriced, but there are Casadeca

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Speaker 1: mediums who charged comparably, and the rivalry itself seems kind

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Speaker 1: of silly. Once you actually see a medium or a

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Speaker 1: psychic from both parties, they're both good. And I got

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Speaker 1: to see a terror reader just inches from my hotel room,

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Speaker 1: which was, for the record, tiny haunted feeling and a

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Speaker 1: bathroom the size of a closet that I soon learned

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Speaker 1: does not get hot water. Oh, in the best part,

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Speaker 1: a sign that says do not let cats into the hotel.

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Speaker 1: Our hotel does not allow animals on the premises, and

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Speaker 1: beside that sign, without fail, there were always two cats

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Speaker 1: mewing at the top of their lungs trying to get

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Speaker 1: into my room from the outside. One of the better

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Speaker 1: things about Cassadega is it has a community stray cat

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Speaker 1: feeding program called can You figure cats Adega? It's called

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Speaker 1: cats Adega. That is truly one of the only bridges

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Speaker 1: between the Camp Association and their local counterparts. My terror

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Speaker 1: reader at the hotel was with a woman about my

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Speaker 1: mom's age early sixties, and like most of the psychics

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Speaker 1: and mediums who work at the hotel, she had us

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Speaker 1: this pretty cool sweetheart deal. They get to practice upstairs

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Speaker 1: in this hundred year old haunted hotel. They're given their

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Speaker 1: own hotel room to give readings in, and they get

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Speaker 1: to design it as they choose. The room I walk

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00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:16,000
Speaker 1: into is covered in pastel's, there a ton of light,

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Speaker 1: and I have a tarot reading that I would say

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00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:21,400
Speaker 1: is pretty solid. It's funny to me that so many

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Speaker 1: spiritualists dismissed tarot cards as strictly a parlor game, not

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00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:31,240
Speaker 1: because it's technically incorrect, but you might recall the seance

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00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 1: was considered a parlor game for many years, and many

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00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:39,480
Speaker 1: spiritualists used early versions of the talking board, which would

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Speaker 1: become the Uiji board, which was also a parlor game.

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Speaker 1: The modern spiritualist movements relationship with tarot cards is kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting to me at the camp. Formally, it is

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Speaker 1: not something that is used or done, and seems to

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00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:56,399
Speaker 1: even be kind of looked down on by some mediums.

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Speaker 1: My theory of why they no longer tend to appear

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Speaker 1: in modern spiritualism, which is much more focused on the mental,

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00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:07,040
Speaker 1: is because of how many tools were proven to be

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00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:10,800
Speaker 1: fraudulent in their era. But it's a good reading. The

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00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:14,600
Speaker 1: terror reader pulls cards and asks me about myself and

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Speaker 1: interprets what's happening. She pulls the world card, she pulls

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Speaker 1: the three of sorts, the four of sorts, a need

320
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:24,000
Speaker 1: to rest after getting stabbed in the heart three times,

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00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 1: And like any good reading experience, some of it is

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00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:30,960
Speaker 1: just weird. She says things like this spirit wants you

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00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:34,240
Speaker 1: to hear living in the past makes you dead in

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00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:39,720
Speaker 1: the present. That was by Bill Belichick, the football coach.

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00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,200
Speaker 1: I also got a reading done with a formal Cassadeca

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Speaker 1: medium before I go see Louis Gates. I meet with

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Speaker 1: a former Wall Street employee who moved to Cassadega after eleven.

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Speaker 1: She has me sanitize my hands and the pen and

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00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:55,840
Speaker 1: the pad of paper she gave me to take notes,

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Speaker 1: no recording allowed, and the reading is hit and miss,

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00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:02,200
Speaker 1: like many readings are. I don't think I'm going to

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00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 1: be a fashion designer. I wear like three shirts and

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00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:10,879
Speaker 1: one pants. But she does channel my grandmother incredibly well,

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00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:14,600
Speaker 1: giving specific details down to the red scarf that she'd

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00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:16,680
Speaker 1: wear to a church on Sunday, the fact that she

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00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:19,760
Speaker 1: secretly smoked cigarettes to the point that she was only

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00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:22,400
Speaker 1: caught with them on the day she died out of nowhere,

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00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:24,840
Speaker 1: the fact that my dad was around the same age

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00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:28,119
Speaker 1: his dad was when he passed away. So by the

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00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:31,359
Speaker 1: time I get to Reverend Dr Lewis Gates, I'm a

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00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: little guarded at this point of seeing him all over

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00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:38,400
Speaker 1: the camp healing it Sunday services, giving spirit messages, and

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00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: teaching the table tipping class I took. He's a third

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00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 1: generation medium, so he knows American spiritualism probably better than

345
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:49,439
Speaker 1: almost anyone practicing in the country. When he opens the

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00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:53,479
Speaker 1: door to greet me, he just starts the second he

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00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:56,359
Speaker 1: opens the door. I entered the house he practices in

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Speaker 1: with his wife, Marie Gates, and he guides me right inside.

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00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: Waste no time. He's got a ton of energy and

350
00:22:03,359 --> 00:22:07,400
Speaker 1: he's recording the whole thing on this CD ROM recorder,

351
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,119
Speaker 1: which I wasn't even aware was a thing that existed.

352
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 1: But that means you can hear it too. If I'm

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00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:14,840
Speaker 1: not looking at you, I'm not. I'm not ignoring you

354
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:16,960
Speaker 1: on where you're there. I just watched what they're doing

355
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:20,400
Speaker 1: your stuff. I'm looking over there somewhere else, not ignore you.

356
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 1: Know you're there. I've heard on like four reces and

357
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:28,000
Speaker 1: so a little wired, and yeah, he's a little wired.

358
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 1: I've never heard so many ideas channeled and thrown out

359
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:35,520
Speaker 1: there from a medium so quickly in what seems to

360
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:38,760
Speaker 1: be this effortless motion that felt kind of jarring and

361
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:42,439
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Not everything resonated or made sense to me.

362
00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:46,159
Speaker 1: In fact, listening back to this, even less made sense

363
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:48,639
Speaker 1: to me than I thought did in the moment, but

364
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 1: some of it felt true and resonant. You're just kind

365
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:55,199
Speaker 1: of pelt it with information and ideas, and even if

366
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 1: something isn't making sense to you, as he looks past

367
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 1: your head to the wooden floorboards to describe something like this,

368
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 1: a gentleman sitting up there on the floor. I haven't

369
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:06,400
Speaker 1: figured out what he's doing yet. I just don't fear

370
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: what he's doing yet. I feel like this passing was

371
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:13,119
Speaker 1: extremely suddenly, extremely quickly passed, a quick pass, but I

372
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: feel like he was quite sick. He was sick, he says,

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00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 1: his body was giving up on it. You barely have

374
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,399
Speaker 1: time to register it before he's moved on to something else,

375
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: in which he and I'm paraphrasing, Loki says, I'll never

376
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 1: get married. He says this a lot. If you're married,

377
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 1: I don't see it. So if you're married, I don't

378
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:33,200
Speaker 1: see it in the path behind yourself, okay. Also, he says,

379
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,240
Speaker 1: I don't belong in Florida, have no business, and the

380
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:36,920
Speaker 1: state of Florida. I'm not going to kick him out

381
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 1: and a business here? Do you live here? Thank God?

382
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: It's interesting because the reverend doctor is going back and

383
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 1: forth between psychic abilities and medium ship abilities here. As

384
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 1: I've been told by pastor not pastor dead before, all

385
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums. Psychic

386
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: work as I understand in it is more of the

387
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 1: prediction of the future, reading your energy, talking about the

388
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: fact that you're never gonna get married. Mediumship is the

389
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:12,920
Speaker 1: guy sitting on the floor who died suddenly, not channeling

390
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:16,919
Speaker 1: something from the generalized universe, but a message from a

391
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 1: specific individual spirit. Both of these practices line up cleanly

392
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 1: with themes that spiritualists have followed forever, themes of self improvement,

393
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:31,919
Speaker 1: general optimism, the Golden Rule, and comforting messages from this

394
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,880
Speaker 1: group of spirits that are meant to be your guides

395
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: through life. And spiritualists have always used this very American

396
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 1: individualist idea that it's not just about hearing from the dead,

397
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: it's about hearing from your dead personality. And all during

398
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 1: my time with Louis, he throws a lot out there.

399
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: There's a guy named Don following me around. There's a

400
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 1: lady named Helen following me around. There are several archangels

401
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: with him from people in your vibrasion. You have a gentleman,

402
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: two of them sitting over there. Now, Yeah, you heard

403
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:07,919
Speaker 1: that we have two guys in the room. You have

404
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: a guy in your viversion. You have a guy in

405
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: your vibration named don God guide for you, guide for

406
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: use false people times, definitely guide for you. If you

407
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,680
Speaker 1: warking to Michael with you right now, to archangels, you

408
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: are for you. Two guys in the room. He keeps

409
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: throwing stuff out there, and he doesn't seem to care

410
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: or notice if it hurts my feelings. You're not looking

411
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: to do calm. You work for the rest of your life.

412
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: You're not Molly Homemaker. You not Florence Nightingale. But they

413
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:35,920
Speaker 1: need to know that. People may know that I'm not

414
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: that I tell people something's in your life. It's not

415
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: your surface, not your monkey, which you shouldn't be on

416
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: the first name basis of the clowns. There's a lot

417
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: of midsized dogs sitting underneath your chair walking in here,

418
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:53,679
Speaker 1: sitting underneath your chair. It's information, information information. My spirit

419
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: guides want me to buy a comedy club. There's a

420
00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: woman in my vibration who says I swear too much.

421
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: Someone's putting the Star of Day of the necklace on me.

422
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: Am I Jewish? No, I'm not Jewish. Well they put

423
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: that necklace on me. This is the Casadega way. The

424
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: skeptics will tell you that this is a combination of

425
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: hot and cold reading tactics. Hot readings being a technique

426
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: where a medium uses what they could know about you

427
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 1: before you enter the room. In my case, it's not

428
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: hard to learn that I am a comedian, for example,

429
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 1: and cold reading techniques where no previous information is known,

430
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 1: and the psychic or medium throws a lot of stuff

431
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: at the wall and either backs off or goes in

432
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 1: further on one detail, depending on the physical or verbal

433
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: affirmations the sitter gives them. And sure that will make sense.

434
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: But when a piece of information hits from a medium,

435
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: any of that logic goes completely out the window. In

436
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: those moments, it's all real. And I mean that no

437
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 1: matter how much you know, no matter how many times

438
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: the reverend doctor tells you you're never gonna get married, Well,

439
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: you meet somebody to walk the faculty. And that's me

440
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: really looking for when it hits, when there's no explaining it,

441
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: no amount of conventional logic is going to talk someone

442
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 1: who believes in it out of it even a little.

443
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: And this phenomenon of belief had a huge effect on

444
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: the final days of the Fox Sisters. So let's check

445
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: in with them. The last twenty five years of the

446
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: Fox sisters Lives is at times baffling and other times tragic.

447
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: While interest in spiritualism continued to rise in the US,

448
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: especially when the absurdly high number of Civil War casualties

449
00:27:55,160 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: starting in eighteen sixty one created this understandably increased interest

450
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 1: in speaking with the dead, Maggie and Kate in particular,

451
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 1: began to suffer more and more. Spiritualists in the US

452
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: at this time generally accepted Abraham Lincoln's leadership, but because

453
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 1: the religion was popularized by Rochester abolitionists, Spiritualism waned in

454
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: popularity in the American South during the war, but in

455
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: the North it surged in a major way. Spiritualist papers

456
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 1: really pushed supporters of their religion to enlist in support

457
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 1: of the Union. Spiritualist historian Emma Hardened wrote, quote spiritualists

458
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,719
Speaker 1: total unconcern on the subject of death made them the

459
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: bravest of soldiers unquote. The spiritualists also got their second

460
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: first Lady supporter after losing her eleven year old son

461
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: Willie to typhoid fever in eighteen sixty two. First Lady

462
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: Mary Todd Lincoln became the latest White House residents to

463
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: engage with spiritualism, and was said to have held as

464
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 1: many as eight seance as in the White House. Their

465
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 1: interests in spiritualism and spirit photography, a physical spirit manifestation

466
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: that shows you you're dead in ghost form in a

467
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: compact souvenir. Pick continued after her husband's assassination as the

468
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 1: war continued. In eighteen sixty four, one of the most

469
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: significant moments in the attempts to organize American Spiritualists took

470
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: place at their first national convention in Chicago. There had

471
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 1: been some previous attempts throughout the eighteen fifties, but as

472
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: with all things Spiritualists, and I'll say it most leftist

473
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: groups in general, they were plagued with an inability to

474
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: agree on anything, and their inherent resistance to declaring leadership

475
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: and hardline rules made it very difficult to all get

476
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: on the same page, which stagnated growth. The Fox Sisters

477
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: did not attend this first national convention, but the Spiritualists

478
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: did manage to unify on one issue, rehabilitating the image

479
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: of their religion from al gations of fraud. A statement

480
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 1: from the convention read this, American Spiritualism means something more

481
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: than table tipping and trumpet blowing, trance, speaking, and size,

482
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: seeing that the highest conditions it imposes are not abnormal

483
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: states of beautified unconsciousness, but a vigorous, healthful working state

484
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: for the practical attainment of physical and spiritual freedom, purity,

485
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: and growth. In the eighteen sixties, twenty something, Kate was

486
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: now the only sister who practiced in public. She was

487
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: still innovating science techniques and was now working in automatic writing,

488
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: a process that involved transcribing messages with her left hand

489
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: in reverse script while verbally channeling as normal. It's around

490
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: this time in the eighteen sixties through the early twentieth

491
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: century that public demand for more theatrical manifestations of spirit

492
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:56,479
Speaker 1: came into practice. Other examples included full body manifestations, something

493
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: that Kate was said to do for a wealthy banker

494
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:02,239
Speaker 1: client who had lost his wife. Again, this brings up

495
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: simultaneous questions of whether Kate was responding to public pressure

496
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: for larger physical manifestations, or, as spirits are often accused of,

497
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: if she was exploiting the grief of a wealthy man

498
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: by claiming that she could physically make is dead return

499
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 1: who boy. By the end of the Civil War, more

500
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: Americans were killed than in World Wars one and two combined.

501
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:33,479
Speaker 1: President Lincoln was assassinated, and the extremely fraught period of

502
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: reconstruction in the US began. According to Emma Hardinge, the

503
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: war resulted in two million additional Spiritualist converts, a huge

504
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,719
Speaker 1: moment for the religion, although there was no guarantee that

505
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,479
Speaker 1: the movement would continue to align with the times. It

506
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: was around this time that both of the Fox sisters

507
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: parents John and Margaret, passed away, further fracturing the sister's relationship.

508
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: And the loss of her mother drove Kate Fox to

509
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: begin drinking to excess. Her sister Maggie was already too

510
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: sick to help her, and eldest sister Leah strategically kept

511
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: her distance interesting sidebar here. In an attempt to intervene

512
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: with Kate's alcoholism, a doctor friend arranged to have her

513
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: be checked into the facility of one doctor George Taylor,

514
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: an American who would go on to invent something called

515
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: the manipulator in eighteen sixty nine, essentially a huge machine

516
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: designed to make women come I'm not getting it's a

517
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: big old vibrator. The attitude towards the Victorian vagina was

518
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: both misogynists in the expected way and kind of roundabout

519
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,719
Speaker 1: progressive by mistake. In a society known for litigating the

520
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: bodies of marginalized people, the post Civil War era saw

521
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: women like Kate, those with some of the most privileged

522
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 1: in the nation, diagnosed with hysteria. Now we're all familiar

523
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: with that, but one of the proposed cures for hysteria

524
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: was quote tellific massage to hysterical paroxysm coming u so

525
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: deviant behavior from the owners of Victorian vaginas could be

526
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: cured by coming, although of course the procedures didn't make

527
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: it sound as if this had anything to do with pleasure.

528
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 1: In a culture that famously assumed that pussy shunned squirt

529
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: without the guidance of good dick, and was predicated on

530
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: the idea that women were emotionally and intellectually inferior, Thus hysteria,

531
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: there were doctors whose job that was to make you come.

532
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: That's just history. Dr Rachel Maine's, a sex historian and

533
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: the author of the Technology of Orgasm, said this of

534
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: the good doctor George Taylor. Dr Taylor advised colleagues that

535
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: women would tend to want more treatment than they really needed.

536
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: They would overdo it if you let them. H These scamps,

537
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: these freaks, they're coming all over town. Hide your children.

538
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: Kate Fox's time with Dr Taylor was by all accounts,

539
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: really fun for her. He'd pioneered something called the Swedish

540
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 1: Movement Cure, which encouraged regular vibrator stuff along with exercise, massage,

541
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: and all vegetarian diet, and this worked for her for

542
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: some time, but of course it couldn't cure her financial

543
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: issues or her addiction. Kate would occasionally disappear for weeks

544
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: at a time to conduct seances for the Nuvaux Reach

545
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: of New York City, often being bribed with alcohol and

546
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,840
Speaker 1: going on weeklong benders. Eventually, Dr Taylor and his wife

547
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: Sarah decided to protect Kate by allowing her to stay

548
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: at their facility free of charge in exchange for some

549
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 1: quid pro quo seances, once again meaning that Kate Fox

550
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: was paying her rent by keeping a couple in touch

551
00:34:55,840 --> 00:35:00,280
Speaker 1: with their dead children. Harriet Beetristowe, author of Tom's Happen,

552
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: was also a patient of Dr Taylor's and attended seances

553
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:11,760
Speaker 1: where Kate continued to manifest more and more physical manifestations

554
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: disembodied hands, twinkling lights, spirit portraits, likely influenced by early

555
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: spirit photography. Still struggling with addiction that Kate would sometimes

556
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: channel medium's messages that seemed to be directed at herself.

557
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: Here's an example. Now, go and rejoice, Katie, and live.

558
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: There are two paths, one happiness and peace, one misery

559
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,439
Speaker 1: and death. Choose the former, and great will be your

560
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 1: golden reward. By one spirit, had Kate informed the tailor's

561
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: that it was time for their medium and residence to

562
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: go abroad via a popular spirit that Kate would channel

563
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: named Benjamin Franklin. I'm serious. You might remember from a

564
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: few episodes ago that I was kind of jar when

565
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 1: finding out a present day Cassadega medium considered JP Morgan

566
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 1: to be one of his spirit guides. But there is

567
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,240
Speaker 1: weirdly precedent for that kind of thing. American and English

568
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 1: spiritualists would often channel historical figures like this, that is,

569
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: ones highly glorified in their culture at the time who

570
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: are deeply entrenched in these colonial and imperialist myths. It's

571
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 1: yet another example of the spiritualist movement being generally progressive,

572
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: but still majority composed of middle class white Americans who

573
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: were frequently tone deaf and self centered, a major reason

574
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: that the religion has not diversified much today and why

575
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: as well discussed next week. Black and brown spiritualists felt

576
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: ostracized from the movement and would go on to form

577
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: their own churches and customs. The tailors weren't thrilled to

578
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,319
Speaker 1: see the prone to relapse in Kate leave, but she

579
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: was now in her mid thirties and there wasn't much

580
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: they could do. She left for England in late eighteen

581
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 1: seventy one and was thrilled to see that spiritualism had

582
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: taken off in England significantly. By this time, England had

583
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,800
Speaker 1: produced a number of legendary mediums since the religion was

584
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: brought to the country in the early eighteen fifties. There

585
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: was a deed Home, who I've mentioned on Ghost Church before,

586
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 1: who was known as one of the least debunked mediums

587
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:26,320
Speaker 1: of the time, although skepticism ran rampant there as well.

588
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 1: My favorite example is Victorian writer power couple Robert and

589
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Barrett Browning went to one of Holmes seances in England, ones,

590
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 1: intriguing Elizabeth but prompting Robert to write a brutal takedown

591
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: poem called Mr Sludge the medium, look at me, see

592
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: I kneel. The only time I swear I ever cheated,

593
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: Yes by the soul of her who hears your sainted mother, sir.

594
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 1: All except this last accident was truth. It's really long.

595
00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 1: It's like this Victorian dis tract It's goodd Holme was

596
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: also notable for allegedly introducing spiritualism to a Russian woman

597
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: named Helena Blovotsky in the late eighteen fifties, who spent

598
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: a lot of time defending spiritualism for years, but was

599
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: off put by their fraud allegations. Eventually, using a number

600
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 1: of ideas she'd learned via her travels in Tibet, India

601
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: and all across the East, she brought concepts like karma

602
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: and reincarnation into existing spiritualist rhetoric and founded her own movement,

603
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: Theosophy in eighteen seventy five, a movement that was also

604
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: played by accusations of fraud. Queen Victoria was rumored to

605
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: have either attended or maybe even held spiritualist seances after

606
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: the death of her husband, Prince Albert in eighteen sixty one,

607
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 1: so it was an even bigger boon to the English

608
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:53,439
Speaker 1: spiritualist movement. When v Kate Fox married an Englishman, now

609
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: thirty five years old, she met a widower named Henry

610
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:00,879
Speaker 1: Dietrich Jenkin, who didn't just believe in spiritualists, so did

611
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 1: his parents. She had two kids with him, Ferdinand and

612
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 1: England and Henry Jr. While visiting her sisters in New York,

613
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: and her happy married life and ability to continue practicing

614
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: her religion kept Kate on the wagon for a long time,

615
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: but as always, things remained needlessly chaotic in America. In

616
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:26,359
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two there were two spiritualist adjacent failed presidential campaigns.

617
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:30,959
Speaker 1: Longtime Fox family friend Horace Greeley, who Kate had spent

618
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: the summer getting an education from when she was just

619
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: a kid, had failed in his presidential bid against Ulysses S.

620
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: Grant and died shortly after in a sanitarium. More interesting way,

621
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 1: many American spiritualists were embarrassed when a medium named Victoria

622
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: Woodhull became the first woman to ever campaign for the

623
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: American presidency. Her campaign is considered to be pretty historic

624
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 1: now but was treated like a joke in its day.

625
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: Woodhull had as a women's rights advocate for years. She

626
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: had been pro abolition, She had been a pusher of

627
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: the concept of free love, which at this time only

628
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: meant the right to get married, divorced, or have children

629
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: without social restriction. And then there were some eccentric things.

630
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,320
Speaker 1: She listed Frederick Douglas as her running mate, which I

631
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,879
Speaker 1: guess she never told him about. All this to say,

632
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:27,360
Speaker 1: the Spiritualists did not claim her, and her public presence

633
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: was considered to be an embarrassment to the movement, because sure,

634
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,799
Speaker 1: ghosts are real, but a woman for president, I'm going

635
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: to be sick. I have to get on that big

636
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: scary vibrator again. By the mid eighteen seventies, Kayton Maggie's

637
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,439
Speaker 1: relationship with their older sister Leah hadn't improved very much.

638
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: Kate wrote in a letter to fellow medium D. D.

639
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 1: Home that my sister, Mrs Underhill, who was more than

640
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: twenty three years older than myself, was always jealous of me,

641
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: and when my blessed mother died, we were not on

642
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: speaking terms, but she was working on forgiveness, explaining that

643
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: at times I find the shadows of her unkindness lingering

644
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: in my heart. I tried to remember that she is

645
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: a changed woman and a good woman, while the Fox

646
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: has continued to split hairs. Loosely organized spiritualist camps began

647
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,759
Speaker 1: to pop up all over the country, including a camp

648
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 1: of hundreds of tents in Lake Pleasant, Massachusetts, as well

649
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: as the Cassadega Lake Free Association in upstate New York

650
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy nine. Don't be confused, this is not

651
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: the same Cassadega that I visited this year in Florida.

652
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:47,760
Speaker 1: This is a sister camp that was later named lily

653
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: Dale in nineteen oh six. Lily Dale is still considered

654
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: to be the most influential spiritualist camp in the country,

655
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:59,320
Speaker 1: spanning over eighty acres and briefly being the site where

656
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: the Fox is. His cabin was relocated. Of course, like

657
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: all notable spiritualist buildings, it burned down under mysterious circumstances.

658
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: In Kate's husband died after they had a decade of

659
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 1: a happy marriage and two kids, and Kate almost immediately

660
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,720
Speaker 1: falls off the wagon and begins drinking again. She traveled

661
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 1: to Russia briefly after being invited by a bureaucrat, and

662
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: is said to have held seances for the royal family,

663
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: but those times didn't last very Long eight four brought

664
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: another round of prominent mediums down with a study called

665
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: the Seabird Commission. It was an academic study funded with

666
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 1: money left behind by spiritualist Henry Siebert to confirm the

667
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: phenomena of the religion he dedicated his life too. Conducted

668
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: at the University of Pennsylvania. Maggie met with them, and

669
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 1: while her mediumship wasn't disproven, that was once again cast

670
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: on how the Fox spirit rappings were made, as well

671
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:04,240
Speaker 1: as on other physical phenomena like spirit photography and automatic writing.

672
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: The sisters were thrown into conflict again when Leah published

673
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 1: her heavily editorialized memoirs called The Missing Link in Modern

674
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: Spiritualism in five, which Maggie and Kate did not like,

675
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: particularly because they were struggling financially and with alcohol as

676
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 1: their older sister lived this comfortable, wealthy life. In Everything

677
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 1: comes crashing down that may, Kate Fox was arrested and

678
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: held for three hundred dollars in the Harlem Police court

679
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: on child neglect charges. When the police showed up, the

680
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 1: boys were fined and healthy, but Kate was in fact drunk,

681
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: and the boys, who were fourteen and twelve, were sent

682
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: to a juvenile asylum. Once released, Kate was devastated and embarrassed,

683
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: admitting to having quote intemperate habits end quote, but strongly

684
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: denied that this had affected her parenting and the impact

685
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: that this arrest had extended beyond the personal. For other

686
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: prominent spiritualists, Kate's arrest was an embarrassment that further estranged

687
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:18,800
Speaker 1: the religion's creators from the religion itself. Maggie was able

688
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 1: to get her nephews out of the juvenile asylum by

689
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:25,720
Speaker 1: sending a cable posing as Kate's brother in law, Edward Jenkin,

690
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 1: reuniting Kate with the boys, but that was only the beginning.

691
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: At this point, Maggie and Kate Fox had been synonymous

692
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: with spiritualism for forty years, beginning when they were about

693
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: the same age as Kate's sons. Spiritualism had changed their

694
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: lives completely, for better and for worse. They had become

695
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: some of the most prominent women serving as religious figures

696
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: in the world, but had become so at the expense

697
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: of their privacy, their youth, and the majority of their

698
00:44:56,719 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: personal relationships. They were predisposed to alcohol is m via

699
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: their dad, but these issues were exacerbated by the stress

700
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: and pressure of constant investigations and their status at different

701
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: times in life as unmarried or widowed women definitely did

702
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:17,399
Speaker 1: not help. By this time, Maggie had returned to occasionally

703
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: conducting seances for financial purposes, while maintaining that she was

704
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: technically a Catholic okay Messi. But forty years on, the

705
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 1: world still wondered did they really believe in what they

706
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:36,320
Speaker 1: had spent their lives doing. Maggie Fox published an answer

707
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 1: via a column in the New York Heralds called The

708
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: Curse of Spiritualism, in which she said that it was

709
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 1: all a lie. She explained that she and Kate had

710
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 1: been reassured by Leah as children that their fraudulence was

711
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:54,839
Speaker 1: okay and in service of something greater, that spirit communication

712
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,000
Speaker 1: was real, and that she had proved it by having

713
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 1: spirit rappings that Leah her self produced assure her younger

714
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 1: sisters that they were doing the right thing. Her Maggie

715
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 1: Leah had exploited a prank that they'd played as board kids,

716
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: convinced them it was real, and spun it out into

717
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: a religion that had made her rich and respected, while

718
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: her kid's sisters remained deceived and increasingly destitute. Maggie takes

719
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: pot shots a lot of people in this column, particularly Leah,

720
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:31,439
Speaker 1: but also the general public who were enthusiastic about spiritualism.

721
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: She indicates that she felt the public pressured mediums into

722
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: fraudulence with increasingly ridiculous demands. From her column, spiritualism is

723
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 1: a curse. God has set his seal against it. I

724
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 1: call it a curse for the vilest miscreants make use

725
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 1: of it to cloak their evil doings. Fanatics ignore the wrappings,

726
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: which is the only part of the phenomena that is

727
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: worthy of notice, and rushed madly after the glaring humbugs

728
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: that flood New York of Lellah. Maggie indicated that she

729
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: felt it was Leah who had gotten Kate arrested in

730
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 1: the first place. When she was interviewed in a follow

731
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: up by The Tribune in September, she went in, we

732
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 1: were but innocent, little children. What did we know? We

733
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: get to know too much. Our sister used us in

734
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: her exhibitions, and we made money for her. Now she

735
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: turns upon us because she's the wife of a rich man,

736
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 1: and she opposes us both wherever she can. Oh, I

737
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: am after her. You can kill sometimes without using weapons,

738
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:35,880
Speaker 1: you know. When asked how the Foxes had produced the

739
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 1: wrappings all these years, Maggie promised she would show the

740
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: world at an upcoming lecture. And what gets me the

741
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: most out of this whole story is Maggie saying that

742
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: she never believed that her older sister was lying to

743
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:53,240
Speaker 1: her about spirit communication being real until her own husband

744
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: died and never came back to talk to her. Maggie continues,

745
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 1: why I have explored the unknown as far as human

746
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: will can. I have gone to the dead so that

747
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: I might get from them some little token. Nothing came

748
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 1: of it, nothing nothing. Kate fully supported Maggie, saying that

749
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: the majority of Leah's book was fiction, and at a

750
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: public showing in October, Maggie showed the world how she

751
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: and Kate had been producing the wrappings all these years,

752
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: confirming a lot of speculation from the past four decades.

753
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: She says, at night, when we went to bed, we

754
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:34,359
Speaker 1: used to tie an apple on a string and move

755
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: the string up and down, causing the apple to bump

756
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: on the floor. Or we would drop the apple on

757
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: the floor, making a strange noise. Every time it would rebound.

758
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: As people have been speculating since the early eighteen fifties.

759
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:50,240
Speaker 1: Maggie said the raps were produced with their knuckles and joints,

760
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: fingers toes. Knees. Oh my god, that's so cruel. These

761
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: women's knees were just destroy roy. They were for sure

762
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: double jointed, but over time developed incredible control over the

763
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: motions of their bodies. It's pretty fascinating and kind of

764
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 1: grotesque to think about. It's not like athletic, but that

765
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:18,920
Speaker 1: kind of mastery of your own tiny bodily movements is

766
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: just wild. Uh. Maggie said that no one ever caught

767
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 1: on or mistrusted them when spiritualism began, because they were

768
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: just kids, and that they were led on by my

769
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: sister intentionally and by my mother unintentionally. She called several

770
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 1: physicians to the stage and showed them how she did it.

771
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: She moved around her joints, and just as always, the

772
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:46,839
Speaker 1: spirit raps sounded around the auditorium. The news called it

773
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: the death blow to spiritualism. Here were the two girls,

774
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: now women who had started everything, publicly stating that it

775
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 1: had been a lie, and they regretted it. All Spiritualism

776
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: should have ended right there and then. But that's not

777
00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:05,760
Speaker 1: really how believing in something works is it? By this time,

778
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: spiritualism was in some ways too big to fail. In

779
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: addition to large followings in the US and Europe, a

780
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: movement called a Spiritismo, which will discuss next week, had

781
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 1: combined with other spiritual traditions of enslaved African people in Brazil, Cuba,

782
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 1: and Puerto Rico, to name a few. So spiritualists did

783
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:33,920
Speaker 1: what you might expect, once again, discredit and smear the

784
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: Fox Sisters by any means necessary. Maggie was accused of

785
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: disclaiming spirit for financial reasons, of being abandoned by spirit

786
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:45,879
Speaker 1: by lack of faith, that she wasn't even relevant enough

787
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: to the movement for her opinion to matter. That Kate

788
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 1: was just falling into line with her lie, just as

789
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:54,280
Speaker 1: she had fallen into line with Leah all those years.

790
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: Prominent spiritualists turned on them as they continued to tour

791
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: the j K spit Ritualism Is Fake lecture series. They

792
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: stuck by this for a good year. But here's the

793
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: part that's wildest of all. A year later they took

794
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: it back. Maggie apologized forever having said that spiritualism was

795
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: a lie, now saying that quote would to God that

796
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 1: I could undo the injustice I did the cause of spiritualism.

797
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: She said the Catholics had made her do it, and

798
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:28,319
Speaker 1: certainly not that the wealthy spiritualists had pressured her to

799
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 1: recount her statements. Maggie implied that she would do another

800
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 1: lecture tour the j K. The JK spiritualism is fake

801
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: lecture tour is fake lecture tour. It didn't work. Leah

802
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 1: passed away peacefully at home in eight nine and her

803
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: late seventies, the child abuse accusations never really affecting her,

804
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: and in fact, the backlash against her younger sisters only

805
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:59,359
Speaker 1: elevated Leah's status among long time spiritualists. Kate redacted all

806
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: of her denied aisles of her religion as well, and

807
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: once again started doing sciences for the Vibrator family the Tailors,

808
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 1: but would still disappear on drinking binges before passing away

809
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 1: mid binge at only fifty five in July. Shortly before

810
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,319
Speaker 1: she died, she channeled the spirit of Benjamin Franklin for

811
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: the Tailor's one last time, saying there will be no loss.

812
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:28,000
Speaker 1: God bless you now and forever. Maggie was poor and

813
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: living at a friend's apartment when she grew sick in eight,

814
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 1: dying in her sleep at fifty nine. There was no

815
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 1: money left, but a friend arranged for Maggie and Cake

816
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: to be buried beside each other. And that's the story

817
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 1: of the Fox sisters. They are tough cultural figures to parse.

818
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 1: On one hand, I'll be honest, Leah Fox feels like

819
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 1: a pretty standard girl boss of her era, a single

820
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: mom in her thirties, barred from most lines of work

821
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 1: and certainly most lines of power. She was a single

822
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:06,600
Speaker 1: woman who couldn't even vote. When her little sisters stumbled

823
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:11,360
Speaker 1: onto this local phenomenon, she saw an opportunity and exploited

824
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: it to create space for herself that didn't exist. But

825
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 1: Maggie and Kate Fox, that's a little harder. They were kids,

826
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,319
Speaker 1: and it's much harder to understand what they believed and

827
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: what they didn't and for how long. To this day,

828
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: people generally cast Maggie and Kate as knowing that their

829
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:32,320
Speaker 1: seances were a fraud the whole time. Here's a drunk

830
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 1: history clip to that effect. Spiritualism has taken off of

831
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: that point. And so basically, when Maggie Fox is done,

832
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,839
Speaker 1: made her and her sister's irrelevant. So after Maggie realizes

833
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,640
Speaker 1: that her life is nothing when she's not a meeting him,

834
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 1: she just drank a bunch of boost as she dined.

835
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: But I I don't know. I do believe that they

836
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:56,959
Speaker 1: were playing a prank on their parents that got way

837
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:00,399
Speaker 1: blown out of proportion. But I also believe that if

838
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: you're much older sister tells you something is true when

839
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:07,839
Speaker 1: you're a child, you will probably believe it. Faith has

840
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: skull fucked so many people, often because of what they

841
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: internalized as true when they're very young. And if I

842
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:16,960
Speaker 1: were an eleven year old told that not only did

843
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 1: a prank I pulled on April Fool's Day have accidental

844
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:25,480
Speaker 1: religious significance, but that that significance made me a prophet

845
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: that was going to help my family, I don't know.

846
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 1: Every what would you do. I don't know what I'd do.

847
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 1: And however far down the line, when you learn that

848
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:37,319
Speaker 1: things are not as you've been told, whenever that is,

849
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 1: and it seems like Maggie and Kate had those moments

850
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:44,640
Speaker 1: throughout their lives. By that point, this deceit had determined

851
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:48,400
Speaker 1: every area of their life and stood to rob people

852
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: of the comfort that they had previously felt morally confident

853
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:55,399
Speaker 1: in giving. If Maggie or Kate truly knew that they

854
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 1: were fraudulent, that's up for criticism, and it should be

855
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 1: in particular. I don't think that any grieving parents should

856
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 1: be misled. But there's too much gray area from me here.

857
00:55:05,520 --> 00:55:07,800
Speaker 1: I'm a grieving person doing way too much of this

858
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:10,800
Speaker 1: ship right now. I'm making a wholes show about shades

859
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 1: of gray and skepticism as it pertains to spiritualism. But

860
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: I still went to a medium last week, and I

861
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: don't know if I went for the truth, but I

862
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 1: do know that I went for comfort and I got that.

863
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 1: And if that medium has a crisis of self three

864
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:28,319
Speaker 1: weeks from now and contacts me and says it was

865
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: all a hoax, I would say I still got what

866
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:35,200
Speaker 1: I paid for. But I don't know. Everyone's different. Maggie

867
00:55:35,239 --> 00:55:39,800
Speaker 1: and Kate Fox were not perfect baby angel religious profits

868
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 1: that they were often framed as, But I think they're

869
00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 1: worth empathizing with. Well, not so much on THEA for me.

870
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 1: She lived till eighty off their backs. As far as

871
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, who cares faith is fucked up when you're

872
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:54,760
Speaker 1: a kid and being lifted as a prophet while propping

873
00:55:54,880 --> 00:56:00,720
Speaker 1: up your older sister's fraud probably doesn't help. Over forty

874
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,400
Speaker 1: five years after two sisters had heard wrappings in Hydesville,

875
00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 1: the Fox Sisters were gone, but spiritualism was just getting started.

876
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 1: And just a year after that, the Cassadega Lake Free

877
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:16,399
Speaker 1: Association decided it was time to open up a new

878
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 1: camp that would stay open year round in central Florida.

879
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:25,160
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, let's see how the good referend Dr

880
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:29,279
Speaker 1: Lewis lands this plane by September this year. Not think

881
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:31,200
Speaker 1: you're in a relationship. I think you could be in

882
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 1: a very extremely powerful friendship. Yeah, he's still telling me

883
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:36,920
Speaker 1: that he doesn't think I'll ever be in love my

884
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 1: entire life. But it's fine. We finish our session and

885
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 1: I pay him forty bucks for forty five minutes. And

886
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 1: for those not plugged into the going rate for mediumship,

887
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 1: this is low, about half of what the other Cassadega

888
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 1: medium might visit charges. That's another way that Reverend Dr

889
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: Lewis is old school. Past generations of Cassadega mediums never

890
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: won it to charge for their work at all, Implying

891
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:05,239
Speaker 1: to do so would be to cheapen their gifts and

892
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 1: make spiritualism less generally accessible. Today's mediums do charge different

893
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:14,280
Speaker 1: rates and a showing of respect for each other's labor,

894
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 1: although it still is a controversial issue. As I'm heading out,

895
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 1: I asked the Reverend doctor what the rest of his

896
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 1: day is like, and he tells me he has a

897
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:25,080
Speaker 1: session coming up this afternoon he needs to get ready for.

898
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: It's a family of middle aged siblings who are looking

899
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 1: for buried treasure that a dead father said might be

900
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:37,840
Speaker 1: buried somewhere in their house. Delightful. So no of the

901
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 1: three readings I have at Cassadega, two of which from

902
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: long time certified mediums, nothing completely blew me away. And

903
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:48,880
Speaker 1: that's fine for people who come here. That's a calculated

904
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 1: risk you take. I think I saw them out and

905
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 1: not the other way around. Where the situation can get

906
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: predatory is when mediums and psychics work with the police,

907
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: for example, an issue we'll talk about in a future episode.

908
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: That's a hard line. If a medium is seeking you

909
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: to give false affirmative hope, run the other way. After

910
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:12,720
Speaker 1: I leave my reading with Reverend Dr Lewis, I walked

911
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: past the library, around the corner, past the shop where

912
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: they charged ninety bucks to talk to you behind a

913
00:58:17,880 --> 00:58:20,640
Speaker 1: thin sheet and back to my hotel room where there's

914
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:24,040
Speaker 1: no hot water. It's funny because I've walked around boast

915
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:26,640
Speaker 1: of the camp at this point, around the parks, the

916
00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: ferry trail, the huge Floridian forest where there's a few

917
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: marked bamboo poles that memorialize where either a hotel or

918
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: a sanitarium burned down, depending on who you ask, And

919
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:40,240
Speaker 1: I've definitely been to the gas station. But one element

920
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 1: of the camp always stands out, something that's visually and

921
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:47,880
Speaker 1: verbally referenced all the time because it is a critical

922
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 1: part of the founding myth of Cassadega, and that is

923
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 1: the Indigenous spirit Guide. But for all the talk of

924
00:58:55,680 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 1: respecting and referencing Indigenous culture, this is not a history

925
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: that's available in Cassadega any more than the tragic side

926
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: of the Fox Sister story is one that's ever referenced.

927
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 1: So next week we're going to tackle the next spiritualist myth,

928
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 1: the tangled colonial Mess, and we'll take a detour to

929
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:19,439
Speaker 1: the world of espiritismo. All that and more on next

930
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 1: week's post Church. Ghost Church is a cool Zone Media production, created,

931
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: written and hosted by me Jamie Loftus. The show is

932
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:33,160
Speaker 1: produced by Sophie Lichtman, edited by Ian Johnson. Our theme

933
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: song is by Speedy Ortiz, That's Sadie Duplead, Andy Loholt,

934
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:42,720
Speaker 1: AUDREYSI Whiteside and Joey Dubeck. Music is by Zoe Bade.

935
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: Special thanks to guest voices this week Ian Johnson, Sophie Lichtman, Sharene,

936
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 1: Lonnie Units and Caitlin Drante