WEBVTT - S2 – 3: A Spirit Globe 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:12.440 Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.720 Cora sat under a canopy of oak trees. She held 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.480 a blank slate in her hand, waiting to be filled 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.160 as she copied out her lessons. It was a warm 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.720 afternoon in the fall of eighteen fifty one, and even 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:32.000 at eleven corus curiosity and studious nous kept her at 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.800 work while other children played in the trees around her. 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.080 People who knew Cora said that she was much like 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.760 Andrew Jackson Davis, a relatively ordinary child. When her family 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.920 was still in New York, living at Aiden Blue's utopian 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.360 community Hopeedale. Aiden's daughter Abby was Corrus teacher, and her 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.880 notes from the time give us one small clue to 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.800 the future that was coming for Cora. Abbey wrote that 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.360 the girl was an excellent performer. She shone in the 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.080 theatricals they held at the community school even more frequently. 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.520 Friends and relatives remarked that Cora was sensitive. She was 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.199 always a well of emotion, apt to burst into tears 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:16.000 or laughter at a moment's notice. An unkind word, a 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:22.480 misunderstood expression, or any surprise affected her deeply. She wasn't 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.880 particularly precocious for her age. They said. She liked school, 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.640 but she wasn't over studious. Intelligent, but a bit of 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.679 a dreamer, they said. So it was no surprise on 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.240 that warm Wisconsin afternoon, with the sounds of other children 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:40.120 playing around her, and that she fell asleep, But in 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.880 doing so, she also fell into history. When she woke up, 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.360 Cora found that her slate was covered in writing. Guessing 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.200 that one of the other kids had done it as 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.280 a joke, she went into the house and asked her 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:55.360 mother to help her wipe it clean. Cora's mother took 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:58.280 the slate from her, but froze when she read the words. 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.960 It began, my dear sister, and at the bottom it 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.760 was signed with the name of Cora's aunt, who had 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.800 been dead for decades. What scared her mother, though, was 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:11.720 that some of the kids who had been outside with 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.799 Cora had knocked on the door an hour before. They 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.760 told her they'd seen something strange that Cora had been 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.160 writing in her sleep. She scrubbed off the slate and 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:23.800 handed it back to her daughter without a word, but 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.600 it put her on alert. Two days later, as Cora's 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.080 mother sat sewing, she saw the girl again start to 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.560 doze in the heat of the day. When she tried 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.799 to wake the girl up, Cora didn't respond. She started 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:37.799 to worry that Cora was coming down with some kind 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.280 of sickness, but she also noticed a strange trembling motion 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.280 in Cora's hand. Remembering the slate, she stopped trying to 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.200 wake Cora up, and instead she put a pencil in 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:54.079 the shaking fingers, and Cora began to write. One message 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.520 after another flowed out, signed by different members of the family, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.880 all of them were dead. They shured her that Cora 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:05.359 wasn't being harmed, she was simply put the perfect vessel 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.959 for them their new means of communicating with those on earth. 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.359 This time, Cora's mother didn't keep the news to herself, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.280 so in the house was crowded with visitors who all 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.560 came to see the girl who could write in her sleep. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:30.000 One German doctor, who was familiar with mesmerism, proposed to 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.959 Cora's parents that he should put Cora into a magnetic 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.600 trance to see if she could speak with the spirits 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.120 on command. They must have agreed. In the following days, 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.960 Cora and the German doctor were working together for long 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.640 hours inside her parents home, treating patients and providing diagnoses, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.840 sometimes for up to six hours a day. In the 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.560 blink of an eye, Wisconsin had its own miracle girl, 0:03:54.520 --> 0:04:03.560 one who could open graves in her sleep. This is unobscured. 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:25.719 I'm Aaron Manky. The news spread like lightning. Of course, 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.320 after sitting in spiritualist seances at Hopedale, Cora's parents could 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.560 hardly be confused about what they were witnessing. As he 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.159 talked with the neighbors, her father, David realized that his 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.720 family were the first spiritualist to reach Wisconsin. He'd come 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.359 to launch the western branch of Aiden BLUs Hopedale Community, 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.000 but Cora's new spirit messages had become more important than 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.240 any utopian experiment, so he took up the mantle of 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:55.520 missionary for this new age of spirit revelation. David's teachings 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.160 kindled just as many flames of fear as it did 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.120 lamps of inspiration. For example, Mary Folsom, the eighteen year 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.360 old teacher at Cora's school, was deeply shocked by all 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.000 of it. She was a devout Christian, and in her view, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.560 it was her lessons that should fill Cora's slate. Cast 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:15.880 from the seed of authority in favor of the girl. 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.920 Mary fumed from the sidelines. Surely there was only one 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:24.120 way to understand her displacement by mysterious intelligences from the 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.200 spirit world. Cora was in the grip of demonic possession, 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.839 so Mary took the prayer. She begged that the evil 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.920 influence over the girl would be cast out, and then 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.560 she waited for results. The stories kept coming, though in 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.080 fact it seemed like Cora's trances were happening more frequently now. 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.440 Even as Mary's anxiety grew, Cora's family moved forward and 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:51.280 embraced their new mission. One Sunday morning, most of Mary's 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.120 relatives decided that instead of attending church, they were going 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.680 to as Seiance with Cora to hear from the spirits. 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.279 It was everything the young teacher had feared. They apsed 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.240 out of the house, much to Mary's fury, leaving her 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:07.080 behind with her father. While they were gone, though, Mary 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.280 felt the spirit power for herself. She was in the 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.080 kitchen laboring over the dirty dishes when an invisible weight 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.760 slammed into her body, crushing her to the floor. Some 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.719 voice in a language she didn't know or understand, launched 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.479 from her mouth, The sound brought her father in, but 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:26.760 there was nothing he could do to break her free 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.680 from whatever pinned her down. In fact, Mary later said 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.320 that she felt it lift her off her knees and 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:37.160 lead her toward her father's Bible. Mary's hands flipped frantically 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:45.200 through the pages, where her fingers traced the words visions, dreams, signs, wonders, miracles. 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.080 When the grip of the power left her, Mary and 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:52.080 her father were both shaken, but her anxiety was also gone. 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.800 The spirit power hadn't driven her away from God, but 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.200 toward him. She was left with a fresh determination to 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:03.680 seek out Core and talk with the spirits. When she 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.080 finally sat down with a girl, things started the way 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.600 she expected. A strange voice was speaking rapidly from the 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.680 eleven year old in a language Mary couldn't understand. But 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.240 then her own moth started to move. Suddenly she was 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.760 talking with Cora in German. The two of them traded 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.080 comments while they're puzzled. Families watched from around the room. 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:28.200 Cora's German mesmerist translated for the crowd in wonder you See. 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.200 Mary didn't know German, and she certainly hadn't taught her 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.200 student to speak it. Soon enough, Mary was following in 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.920 Cora's footsteps around Waterloo, dispensing medical advice from the spirit world. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.360 As far as they were concerned, the miracles that have 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.400 been promised and the Bible had finally arrived. But Mary 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.000 quickly found that she had simply stepped from one side 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.480 of the argument to the other. She knew she had 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.160 switched sides, but as far as the local churches went, 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.840 she had crossed a line. The churches in Waterloo held 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.440 a revival meeting. Pastors took turns preaching against the growing 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.640 interest in speaking with the dead. Even the local doctors 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.080 took a turn urging their neighbors to come to them 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.800 for medical advice rather than a pair of young girls 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.960 with no medical training claiming to get their messages from 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:17.800 spirit powers. But these warnings landed with a thud. After all, 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.560 the people they were shouting against were teenagers who said 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.560 they just wanted to be obedient and follow the truth. 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.880 What threat could these girls pose against the authorities and 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:34.120 their community. Here's historian and browdy. In some ways, the 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:40.600 spirit medium is like a mirror image of the ideal 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.120 Christian woman. At the same time that she pushes the 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:51.760 characteristics of the ideal nineteen century Christian woman to its extreme. 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.360 So you know, what's sometimes referred to as the cult 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.880 of true womanhood in the nineteen century posits the notion 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:09.280 and that women by nature are pure, passive, and pious. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.400 If women have these spiritual qualities more than men do, 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:19.520 then they can sense spirits. They are perfectly suited to 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:26.600 be vehicles for divine knowledge. Cora, Mary, and their families 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.920 were too certain of this new power to be put 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.680 off by the outbursts of scared leaders who saw their 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.760 followers slipping out of their hands. The power that spoke 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.719 through the young girls was greater. David found himself in 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.920 a fight for his daughter's legitimacy. He spent every waking 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.360 moment of the next few months traveling the region and 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.880 proclaiming the amazing news of his daughter's contact with the dead, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.640 often accompanied by Cora and her German Mesmerist, to demonstrate 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.680 that the dead were striving to reconnect with the living. 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.840 An outpouring of spirit voices followed in their awake, and 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.040 rather than catching the spirit of revival from their local churches, 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.720 the communities around Waterloo, Wisconsin, began to sprout with new 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:13.600 mediums at the horizons of American life. This exciting new 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:25.520 religion was finding a foothold. Wisconsin was just the beginning. 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.079 In fact, spiritualism was about to rush from local spectacle 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.319 into a global movement on a whirlwind world tour. That's 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:38.359 thanks in part to Daniel Hume. Daniel was from Scotland, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.160 raised by his aunt and uncle. He traveled with them 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.199 to the United States when he was only a few 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.280 years old, where they settled in Connecticut. His mother was 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.000 finally able to join them when Daniel was seventeen, but 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.760 shortly after their reunion she died. We can imagine how 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.840 cruel a loss it was for Daniel too. Apparently his 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.240 mother thought it was cruel as well. On a night 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.840 soon after her death, when Daniel was looking into the 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.120 dimness of his bedroom mirror, a movement caught his eye 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.959 in the room behind him. In the reflection, he saw 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:12.920 an empty chair sliding slowly across the floor toward him. 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.200 He whipped around, only to find there was no one 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:20.120 else in the room. Other more familiar events began tapping 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.720 sounds on his headboard when he would lie down to sleep, 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.320 tapping that then followed him to breakfast in the morning. Soon, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:28.880 anytime he sat down to eat with his aunt and uncle, 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.120 it was like someone was drumming on the table with 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:36.080 their fingers. Later, the table and sometimes the chairs started 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.679 to shift without being touched. Daniel's aunt, who had heard 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.640 about the rappings in Rochester and like so many others, 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.240 believed them to be the work of the devil, called 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.400 in all three of her towns ministers. When they observed 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.840 the phenomena around the boy, they confirmed her fears. She 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.160 was so terrified that Daniel simply had to leave. He 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.320 went to live with a friend nearby, who took the 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.600 news about the events with much us fear. He wasn't 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.480 the only one either. In fact, Daniel kept his head 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:06.679 through it all because he remembered what had always been 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:11.400 said about his mother. She had been a seer, She 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.440 had always had the second sight, and she reportedly knew 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.600 what was happening to her loved ones, no matter how 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.480 far away from her they were. So when the knocking began, 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.200 Daniel knew why she was still watching over him from 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:29.040 beyond the grave. And then Daniel's story hit the papers. Suddenly, 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.000 despite what the minister said, Daniel was in demand among 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.840 his neighbors. Soon enough, the homes of the curious in 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.360 his neighborhood were playing host to turning tables and rocking chairs. 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.959 His aunt may not have wanted him in her house, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.040 but there were plenty who did so. Daniel went on 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:48.000 the road, and then in March of eighteen fifty one, 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.760 he took a fateful invitation to hold a seance in 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.720 the house of a woman named Maria Hayden. A group 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.760 that gathered that night settled themselves around a large, heavy 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.880 table and reached out for each other's hands. The pad 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.480 and of what we think of today as a seance 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:07.040 was already starting to come together. Here's historian John Busher. 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.240 They typically would sit around in a table and join 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:16.240 hand and wait for things to happen. Light tree usually 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.800 turned down fairly low, and one of them would act 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:27.040 as a medium. Sometimes things would happen that we're not 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:34.040 just what you might think of as messages. This was 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.480 one of those times. When Maria Hayden and her husband 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.280 William joined their guests in a circle. They laid their 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.240 hands flat on the surface of the table as they've 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.640 been taught, and hushed voices. They asked any nearby spirits 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:48.520 to come and show them what they could do through 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:54.160 Daniel's mediumship. Suddenly, the table started to turn beneath their hands. 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.480 Some of the guests were startled and ducked under the 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.559 table to see if anyone was pushing it around. Even 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.880 though the table was large and heavy, it rotated smoothly 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.720 until the group lifted their hands off of it, and 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.480 then it stopped. William Hayden, convinced it was a trick, 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.280 gripped the table with his hands and tried to turn 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.880 it using his own strength, but it wouldn't budge until 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.240 he let go. That is, then, even though no one 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.000 was touching it anymore, the table resumed spinning, this time 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.240 faster than before. William tried to grab the table to 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.800 make it stop, but when that didn't work, he climbed 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.800 underneath it and wrapped his arms around the table legs. 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.040 It dragged him in a slow circle across the floor. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.720 There was such a world shaking experience that William Hayden 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.160 wrote a report that was published in the local paper. Again, 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.200 Daniel's profile was raised, and interest in the powerful manifestations 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.960 of spirit presence grew. But Daniel wasn't the only medium 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:57.800 to leave that seance. After that night, Maria Hayden herself 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.280 seemed to become more sensitive to the w old of 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.600 the spirits, a result of her encounter with a powerful 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:08.240 young Scott, no doubt. Soon enough the Hayden's were hosting 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.680 even more seances around that heavy table. But now it 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.800 was Maria who had become the instrument of the spirits. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:31.040 They had crossed the greatest divide imaginable, the one between 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:36.480 life and death. News of Andrew Jackson Davis's harmonial philosophy 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.440 had reached England, and that news brought curious mesmerists to 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:46.600 American shores, men like George Stone. Stone was an electro biologist, 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.160 along with being a fan and follower of the J. 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.880 Stanley Grimes school of freno magnetism we talked about in 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.440 episode one, and George wanted to see for himself the 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.480 most striking success of Grimes methods. He wanted to witnessed 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:05.640 the power of the spirits speaking through American mediums. So 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.680 by the end of eighteen fifty two, Stone was in Connecticut, 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.840 where he was welcomed in by Maria Hayden. No one 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.080 recorded what took place at those sittings, but George was 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.760 clearly overcome, he urged Maria to return with him to 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.360 England and demonstrate her abilities. There. He told her that 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.040 the British public would rejoice to witness the new revelations. 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.400 Maria agreed, and when she arrived, she took a room 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.760 in London and sent out advertisements. An American spiritualist medium 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.000 had arrived, but she found that George Stone wasn't quite 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.560 so spot on about her reception, at least not in London, 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.320 where American newspapers had often treated spiritualism with skepticism. The 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.920 British press blasted it with outright scorn. The London Times 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.720 flat out declined to publish her advertisements, while other papers 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.479 lit into her with relish. It was, as a spiritualist 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.720 historian would later put it, a storm of ribaldry, persecution 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.520 and insult. And even though Maria was deeply hurt by 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.840 her handling in the British newspapers, she experienced the old 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:15.439 truism as well, that there's no such thing as bad press, 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.359 she also had connections to draw on. You see, she 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.520 was able to get a sitting with Robert Owen, the 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.639 Scottish industrialist. His utopian communes had been part of that 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.680 American Wave of social experiments a decade earlier. His travels 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.439 in the US had already earned a macrowd of American friends, 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.840 and his love for the Shakers opened his arms to Maria. 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.119 At eighty three, Robert was coming to the end of 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.520 his life, but when he sat with Maria Hayden to 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.040 hear from the spirits, it was no doubt because he'd 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:48.399 never lost his curiosity or pioneering spirit, and of course, 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:50.880 with old age taking hold of him, it would only 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:52.760 make sense that he would want to hear from those 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.720 who had crossed the threshold that he himself was quickly approaching. 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.280 He was convinced by the miss serious noises, and he 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.480 became Maria's most important British convert to spiritualism, and he 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:07.639 laid down a path that would lead his son to 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.800 the Fox Sisters in the coming decades. But let's not 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.040 get ahead of ourselves, shall we. Of course, it helped 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.919 that George Stone wasn't the only English doctor working with 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.080 the medical mesmerism and electro biology. In fact, the chief 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.359 medical magnetizer in all of England, a man named Dr 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.359 John Elliotson, had some very distinguished patients, many of whom 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:33.679 were British writers William Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:39.240 Elizabeth Barrett's father were among his clients. For Dickens in particular, 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.320 the arrival of American spiritualists was exciting. You see, he 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.639 had traveled through America in eighteen forty two and tried 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.240 to get an invitation to a Shaker meeting so that 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.040 he could hear from the spirits in those closed communities. 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.159 But Shakers weren't interested in becoming pop culture entertainment and 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:58.879 he was turned away. So Dickens and others in his 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.120 circle queued up eagerly to question the spirits when they 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:06.160 had heard American mediums were in London. Others had more 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:10.160 luck than Charles Dickens. An English shoemaker named David Richmond 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.160 had joined the Shakers in eighteen forty six and lived 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.120 in the community for five years. He wasn't a writer 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:20.320 looking to collect curiosities, though he himself became a Shaker. 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.040 In fact, when he returned to England in eighteen fifty three, 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.040 he came home as a Shaker missionary. He started in 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.560 his hometown of Darlington, preaching about the power of Shakerism 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:36.200 and contacting the dead. While American celebrities like Maria Hayden 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.040 were making inroads into London's upper crust, David Richmond was 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:44.359 welcomed by industrial workers and followers of Robert Owen, especially 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:49.119 in Yorkshire. Richmond's table turning manifestations won a host of converts, 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.520 especially among working people who had had enough of churches, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.399 governments and bosses telling them what to do and what 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:02.320 to believe. Here's author and journalist Mary Gabriel. Europe was 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.960 on fire, for it was a movement called Springtime of 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:09.120 the people, and the people in Europe actually revolted against 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.960 their kings, their governments. They were happy enough to fill 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.000 their coffers with the proceeds of industrialization, but they didn't 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.760 want to make the social changes that were required. The 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:22.960 everyday folks, you know, the the farmers, the small trades people, 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.440 the people who were forced off their lands and moved 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.560 into cities, were being buffeted by forces that were so 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.080 much greater than them. They fled to the cities and 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:37.880 started filling tenements and factories with their work. Spiritualism inspired 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:42.239 one labor organizer to launch the Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph, and 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.080 as David Richmond traveled from factory to factory. The newspaper 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.639 joined him and continued to attract readers to the seance table. 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.359 By the end of eighteen fifty three, some industrial towns 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.200 in Britain were drawing the same packed crowds to spirit 0:20:56.240 --> 0:21:01.560 demonstrations that had filled the Corinthian Hall in Rochester. It 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.879 should come as no surprise that there were many communities 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:08.040 across Europe, places like Germany, Italy and elsewhere, that also 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.480 took up seances and spirit circles, sort of like family 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.600 welcoming home the offspring of an American cousin. Everywhere that 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.439 the news of spiritualism traveled, it followed audiences wrestling with 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.720 new ideas, just as they were in America. And it's 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.800 crucial to remember that many of the intellectual and scientific 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.280 novelties that laid the groundwork for American spiritualism originally came 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.480 from Europe in the first place. The spiritualist radicals believe 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.639 that Karl Marx had been mistaken when he wrote that 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.359 a specter is haunting Europe. He dispensed it as a 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.280 simple metaphor for spiritualists, though the statement was something more. 0:21:47.320 --> 0:22:01.000 It was literal truth. Louis was an alchemist of religious thought. 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.919 Like Andrew Jackson Davis, he mingled Emmanuel Swedenborg's theology of 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.879 the spirit world with the electoral biology of men like 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:13.320 Stanley Grimes or John Elliotson. But Louis Alphonse Kiana had 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:16.720 a more privileged view on some of those ideas. You see, 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:22.240 he was in Paris, the heart of Mesmerism. Mesmer's magnetism 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.240 had been all the rage among the city's aristocrats during 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.120 the seventeen seventies. It survived the French Revolution that scattered 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:32.359 Mesmer's followers to the wind, and even managed to bounce 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.840 back from a government commission that condemned Mesmer's idea of 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:41.240 a universal fluid in seventeen eighty four. Louis was another 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:43.800 of the spiritualist to come from the working class. A 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.280 cabinet maker who earned his living by the sweat of 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.920 his brow, Louis crafted his theology and long weary nights 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.040 of study with a sawdust still clinging to his clothes. 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.720 Like Andrew Jackson Davis and England's David Richmond, he also 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.200 turned his powers of magnetism toward healing, but he focused 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:07.359 on a special category of ailments sleepwalking. Ever since France 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.800 mesmer Most French magnetizers had been interested in the ways 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.800 that charismatic men of the upper class could impose their 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:17.760 willpower and aggression on others. It was an ongoing battlefield 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.320 and the war of ideas for equality. Like the flip 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:23.920 side of the American religious idea that women were more 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.440 open to the spirits because of their passive, willing souls, 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:31.720 some French mesmerists continued experimenting with the idea that naturally strong, 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:36.240 willed men could dominate more passive minds by manipulating invisible 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:41.040 psychic forces. Louis was no aristocrat, but he was still 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:44.200 charmed by the idea of wielding power over more passive 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:47.520 Parisians and who could be more passive but also more 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:51.119 puzzling than a sleepwalker. He could shape oak and pine 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:54.240 to his will, but could he wield magnetism like a 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.320 chisel to sculpt the minds and bodies of other people. 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:01.520 He was in the early eighteen forties that Louise started 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:05.000 trying out magnetic trances on a childhood friend, Adele, who 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:08.400 had been a sleepwalker ever since she was young. At first, 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:10.879 it worked like a charm. In fact, Louis claimed that 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:14.280 he'd even cured her, but that's when the spirit started 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:17.399 speaking to her. Some of their revelations sounded like the 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:19.920 same sort of thing that Andrew Jackson Davis would hear. 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:24.240 The spirits helped Adle diagnosed diseases around her and even 0:24:24.280 --> 0:24:27.960 prescribed cures. Others wanted to tell family members about the 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.639 way that they had died. But something more terrifying started 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:34.840 happening to adult during these seances. You see, when a 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:37.560 spirit would take hold of her and speak through her mouth, 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:41.440 other things would happen to her body as well. In fact, 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:44.600 as Louie would later write, the wounds and diseases that 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:48.240 had killed the spirits began to appear on Adele's body. 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:52.399 She would suffer from coughing fits, Terrible burns would bloom 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:56.119 on her skin once she started choking so hard she 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:59.160 couldn't breathe, and after another trance, a fit of thrashing 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:01.560 and screaming to over her body and left her out 0:25:01.560 --> 0:25:04.720 of her mind for days. Nothing Louis tried would send 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:08.119 the spirits out. Finally, at his wits end, he prayed 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:12.359 to the spirit of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Adele finally relaxed and 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:15.320 lay at rest. It seems it took a power greater 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:20.639 than Louis to command the wild spirits. His book describing 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:24.119 these seances arrived on store shelves in eighteen forty eight, 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:28.120 just as a revolutionary spirit was gripping Paris for those 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:30.280 who felt the heartbeat of an age of freedom. The 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:33.959 nation had been sleepwalking under the influence of powerful leaders 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:37.760