Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey.
Speaker 1: Daniel was sitting pretty. He was in South Manchester, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: in the well appointed home of Ward Cheney. All the
Speaker 1: little comforts around them were the benefits of the families
Speaker 1: growing fortune from silk manufacturing. They patented a new machine
Speaker 1: for rolling silk just five years before, and now it
Speaker 1: was the money that was rolling right into their pockets.
Speaker 1: In August of eighteen fifty two. The comforts Ward Cheney
Speaker 1: afforded because of the new machines would become set dressings
Speaker 1: for the turning point in Daniel Hume's career as a medium.
Speaker 1: Like other movers and shakers who invited their friends to
Speaker 1: private seances in their parlors, Ward brought a small group
Speaker 1: to his home to sit with Daniel. The Scottish team
Speaker 1: didn't let them down. They started around a typical seance
Speaker 1: table with the dust floating in the dim light that
Speaker 1: trickled in through the windows. The spirits started with Daniel's body.
Speaker 1: He fell into a shuddering trance. One of the men
Speaker 1: who published his account later in the London Quarterly Review,
Speaker 1: said that a dramatic, powerful knocking followed pounding the floor
Speaker 1: and then the walls. The table also started to spin,
Speaker 1: then to rise and fall. A violent creaking like the
Speaker 1: cables of a ship and a storm rose up in
Speaker 1: the room, and voices started to call out, like they
Speaker 1: were shouting over a high wind. The table rose, then tipped,
Speaker 1: and finally capsized, crashing to the floor. They were eager
Speaker 1: to see more lifting Daniel. They retreated to a darker
Speaker 1: room and resumed their circle so that they could catch
Speaker 1: the dim flashes of light that warred Cheney claimed the
Speaker 1: specters made in Daniel's presence. In the dark, one of
Speaker 1: the sitters could feel a cold, childlike hand pressed against
Speaker 1: his forehead. A pitter patter of tapping sounds skittered around
Speaker 1: the room. A feeling of certainty washed over word. It
Speaker 1: was the spirit of his dead daughter. Then, unexpectedly, something
Speaker 1: else happened to Daniel's body. He started to lift. Still
Speaker 1: trembling from foot to head, he rose up into the air.
Speaker 1: The group broke their circle and reached out for him,
Speaker 1: grabbing his hands and feet to pull him back down.
Speaker 1: Daniel was raised up from the floor three times, one
Speaker 1: man later said, and then lowered again to be examined.
Speaker 1: It was the first of Daniel's levitation seances. They would
Speaker 1: eventually become the hallmark of his career as a spiritualist medium.
Speaker 1: On the arms of the spirits, he rose above the
Speaker 1: criticism that was dragging down other mediums. This was not
Speaker 1: some popping leg bone or cracking knuckle. This wasn't a
Speaker 1: prank on an anxious mother or a caring neighbor. It
Speaker 1: was one thing for spirits to capsize at table. It
Speaker 1: was another to lift a living body off the ground.
Speaker 1: Daniel's attendant spirits, and the news of their action swept
Speaker 1: him off to New York City and into high society.
Speaker 1: Now get ready for a few names here, Because Daniel
Speaker 1: could have gathered quite a collection for his autograph book.
Speaker 1: William Cullen Bryant hosted him on New York's Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 1: Bryant's friends strode through the doorway, and not just Horace Greeley,
Speaker 1: who was already there, but other intellectual lights of the nation,
Speaker 1: men like the writer James Fenimore Cooper and historian George Bancroft.
Speaker 1: In fact, Bancroft was so impressed he was the one
Speaker 1: to next host a seance with Daniel. And he wasn't
Speaker 1: a newly rich silk merchant, or even a well known poet. No.
Speaker 1: Bancroft had been Secretary of the Navy for President James Polk,
Speaker 1: then the Secretary of War, all before establishing the U. S.
Speaker 1: Naval Academy. In when Bancroft was U S. Minister to
Speaker 1: England for five years, William Cullen Bryan had visited him,
Speaker 1: a trip that had forged their friendship. With the claims
Speaker 1: floating in the air that the spirits of Benjamin Franklin
Speaker 1: and George Washington were suddenly speaking at seances, we can't
Speaker 1: be too surprised that someone like Bancroft was interested in
Speaker 1: what they had to say. Bancroft was a writer, though,
Speaker 1: and a famous one. His Histories of the United States
Speaker 1: was monumental. He started in eighteen thirty four and wrote
Speaker 1: nine more volumes over the next forty years. Much of
Speaker 1: it was based on his personal correspondence with James Madison
Speaker 1: and his reading in Madison's private archives. Later we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about what kind of place Bancroft imagined the United
Speaker 1: States was, but now it's simply worth understanding that his
Speaker 1: writing made him the most popular and powerful historian of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Bancroft's dinners brought other international stars to
Speaker 1: the table. Washington Irving visited in eighteen fifty three. If
Speaker 1: you know the Headless Horseman or Rip van Winkle, then
Speaker 1: you know things work. But he also served as US
Speaker 1: ambassador to Spain. When he came to daniel seance, he
Speaker 1: brought along the British writer William Makepeace Thackeray. The men
Speaker 1: peppered the medium with questions and laughed at the responses
Speaker 1: that were hammered out on the table, even when Thackeray,
Speaker 1: who called spirit communication a dreary and foolish superstition, came
Speaker 1: around when the table began to spin, whether or not
Speaker 1: the spirit communications had been dire, humbug and imposture, he said,
Speaker 1: the manifestations he witnessed were undeniable. This is unobscured. I'm
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky. When Emma landed in New York, she got
Speaker 1: a very different view of the city, and the city
Speaker 1: took a different view of her. Emma's first impression of
Speaker 1: New York was its ceaseless hurry and rush. She had
Speaker 1: lived in London and Paris, but there was something about
Speaker 1: New York's energy that impressed her. But when the theater
Speaker 1: where she was engaged to perform opened, she started her
Speaker 1: new career on an unpromising note. Emma was met with
Speaker 1: praise from the critics, but failed to find a foothold
Speaker 1: in the theater company. She would later say that the
Speaker 1: theater manager who hired her had expectations about their relationship
Speaker 1: that Emma rejected. We can only guess what he might
Speaker 1: have demanded from the actress, especially when we consider that
Speaker 1: one of her English friend was so angry when he
Speaker 1: heard about it all that he threatened to thrash the
Speaker 1: unsavory man when she didn't bow to her manager's wishes.
Speaker 1: Emma was given smaller and smaller parts to play until
Speaker 1: she was completely sidelined, and even though her reviews by
Speaker 1: the critics were, as she said, warm and complimentary, an
Speaker 1: actress wasn't likely to win respectable friends outside the theater.
Speaker 1: Here's historian and Browdy remember that the theater was not
Speaker 1: a morally neutral environment. Women of the theater were considered
Speaker 1: to be public women. They were considered to be women
Speaker 1: of the night, and not necessarily women of the moral
Speaker 1: caliber that one would meet at one's church or want
Speaker 1: one's son to marry. Women were considered to be appropriate
Speaker 1: to the private sphere, to the sphere of the home,
Speaker 1: of the detections of domesticity, and being public. A public
Speaker 1: woman was often another word for a prostitute. That is,
Speaker 1: there was a moral equivalence between a woman being in
Speaker 1: public rather than private and selling her body. Unwilling to
Speaker 1: fully embrace this identity, Emma found herself facing obscurity in
Speaker 1: a city she didn't know or understand. Left with idle hands,
Speaker 1: she went looking for amusements and opportunities. Actresses weren't the
Speaker 1: only professional performing women in the city, so Emma decided
Speaker 1: to see what else New York had in store, and
Speaker 1: she began by investigating American spiritualism and sending her reports
Speaker 1: home to her curious London friends. Even though she dismissed
Speaker 1: seances as foolish behavior, Emma was nervous, So nervous, in fact,
Speaker 1: that when she went to her first seance, she got spooked.
Speaker 1: It seems that as the people around the table were
Speaker 1: questioning the spirit about the Bible and theology, the answers
Speaker 1: they received back were so irreverent and blasphemous that Emma
Speaker 1: bolted from the room before it was even over. She
Speaker 1: rushed down the stairs, out into the street, and back
Speaker 1: to her boarding house, thoroughly indignant and disgusted. It would
Speaker 1: take some time before the shock wore off, and it
Speaker 1: would take the coaxing of one of her theater friends
Speaker 1: to get her back to another seance. When the pair
Speaker 1: finally went together, Emma had an entirely different experience. She
Speaker 1: climbed the stairs of a boarding house, determined to sit
Speaker 1: through the whole seance this time, and also to collect
Speaker 1: a full collection of flaws that she might use to
Speaker 1: write a crushing article about spiritualism. But her angry thoughts
Speaker 1: were interrupted when the door was pushed open and in
Speaker 1: walked a woman named Ada Foy. Aida was courteous and
Speaker 1: welcoming and sat down with Emma and her friend at
Speaker 1: a simple table before the seance had even begun, though
Speaker 1: a pounding broke the silence, as if something was slam
Speaker 1: being into the bottom of the table. Even Aida seemed
Speaker 1: surprised and looked into Emma's face with wonder. She had
Speaker 1: come prepared to invite the spirits, but never had they
Speaker 1: attended her with so much force. In fact, she claimed
Speaker 1: that her powers as a medium weren't nearly strong enough
Speaker 1: for something like this. It would take someone more attuned
Speaker 1: to the spirits, someone who was a great medium, someone
Speaker 1: apparently like Emma. Aida pushed a card into Emma's hand
Speaker 1: that was covered with the letters of the alphabet, followed
Speaker 1: by a pencil. She told Emma to point to the
Speaker 1: letters and wait for the knocking sounds to tell her
Speaker 1: which ones to copy down, but Emma wasn't ready to
Speaker 1: play along. When the knocking sounds began again, Emma didn't write. Instead,
Speaker 1: she jumped to her feet, knocking the table over. She
Speaker 1: was certain that there was some kind of electric device
Speaker 1: hidden under it that was responsible. Instead, it was her
Speaker 1: certainties that were overturned. She would later say that she
Speaker 1: stood baffled and aghast as the knocking thundered beneath her feet.
Speaker 1: After that, they then left the floor, hammering up the
Speaker 1: walls around the room and even on the very chair
Speaker 1: she sat in. That's when Aida looked at her and said,
Speaker 1: the spirits have a mighty work to perform through you.
Speaker 1: And then she bent over, picked the pencil off the floor,
Speaker 1: and put it back in Emma's hand. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: New York, of course, as spiritualism climbed the ladder of
Speaker 1: prestige in the Empire state and explored the back stairwells
Speaker 1: of its boarding houses. It also traveled south to the
Speaker 1: nation's capital. Kate and Maggie Fox made a journey to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. In eighteen fifty three. There they found curious
Speaker 1: spiritualists already waiting for them. In fact, they were welcomed
Speaker 1: into the home of the chief stattician for the U. S.
Speaker 1: Postal Service, who allowed them to hold seances with them
Speaker 1: right there. The capital was also home to followers of
Speaker 1: Scottish utopian manufacturer Robert Owen, and they welcome spiritual is
Speaker 1: Um just as he did. Others who thought of themselves
Speaker 1: as radical free thinkers were among the most willing to
Speaker 1: give the new revelations a test drive, and of course,
Speaker 1: statesmen from Upper New York gave an ear to the
Speaker 1: message that was coming out of their region. In fact,
Speaker 1: one congressman who represented New York's thirty third district, Senator
Speaker 1: Nathaniel P. Talmadge, had actually been a champion of spiritualism
Speaker 1: since his election in eighteen fifty one. As the Fox
Speaker 1: sisters made converts and Spiritualism elected, spiritualist candidates to represent them.
Speaker 1: Hope started to grow. Perhaps everything the mediums and their
Speaker 1: friends were witnessing along the rivers in Ohio and around
Speaker 1: pianos in Rochester would finally be studied and understood if
Speaker 1: only the right attention was given, which is why. In
Speaker 1: April of eighteen fifty four, Senator James Shields of Illinois
Speaker 1: brought a new petition before the United States Senate. It
Speaker 1: requested that the Senate turned the resources of the government
Speaker 1: toward investigating the strange powers at work around the seance table.
Speaker 1: In particular, he requested that the Senator point a scientific
Speaker 1: commission to investigate the many undocumented forces tilting tables, mysterious lights,
Speaker 1: and the knocking, rumbling, and low murmurs of human voices
Speaker 1: that seemed to emanate from thin air. Here's author Nancy Stewart.
Speaker 1: By eighteen fifty four, there are fifteen thousand signed in
Speaker 1: a petition by some very prominent senators and judges and
Speaker 1: so on, and it's brought to Congress because now it's
Speaker 1: become this outrage, I mean, the religions are all up
Speaker 1: in the air about the standard religions. Despite the fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand signatures on the petition, though not every member of
Speaker 1: Congress was able to take the suggestion seriously. In fact,
Speaker 1: when Shields presented the petition, it was greeted with laughter.
Speaker 1: In the face of mockery, Senator Shields himself admitted that
Speaker 1: he believed the manifestations at seances were delusions, yet he
Speaker 1: still pushed for the commission. In the past, he argued,
Speaker 1: studying the arcane delusions of occultists like John d and
Speaker 1: Cornelius Agrippa had led to scientific breakthroughs, so naturally, these
Speaker 1: new mysteries at the edge of knowledge in the eighteen
Speaker 1: fifties were also worth studying. In the end, though it
Speaker 1: seems pretty clear that his argument wasn't taken seriously. One
Speaker 1: senator said that since the spirits were in another country,
Speaker 1: the petition should be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Speaker 1: This brought another laugh from the Senate floor. Senator Shields
Speaker 1: responded that he hoped the petition would be referred to
Speaker 1: the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, just like
Speaker 1: the Telegraph had been. No such luck, though, Instead the
Speaker 1: petition was tabled and it's fifteen thousand signers were turned away.
Speaker 1: Here's Nancy Stewarts once again. It just shows you the
Speaker 1: enormity of the popularity of it and the fantastic publicity
Speaker 1: that surrounded this early movement. When news of the Senate's
Speaker 1: rejection reached the press, it ruffled spiritualist feathers. Nathan Talmidge,
Speaker 1: who had been a U. S Senator and then governor
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin, published a sharp response. You see, he had
Speaker 1: been one of the people who had urged Senator Shields
Speaker 1: to bring the petition to Congress. In his view, spiritualism
Speaker 1: had been laughed out of the government without ever getting
Speaker 1: a fair hearing. In fact, he said, if the senators
Speaker 1: believed that spiritualism was a delusion, it was all the
Speaker 1: more important to put it under the microscope rather than
Speaker 1: wave it away with a dismissive hand. When the petition
Speaker 1: was tabled, one Indiana senator suggested that spiritualism was a
Speaker 1: religious matter and should be left to the nation's religious experts,
Speaker 1: the pastors of America's churches. But if the senators had
Speaker 1: paid attention to what was being said inside those churches,
Speaker 1: they would have noticed something very surprising. Those pastors weren't laughing.
Speaker 1: They were the nemesis of the pulpit. That was Oliver
Speaker 1: Wendell Holmes assessment of it all with the snap of
Speaker 1: a knee joint. He wrote, Kate and Maggie Fox had
Speaker 1: started a spiritual earthquake that ended with and I quote,
Speaker 1: such a crack of old beliefs that the roar of
Speaker 1: it is heard in all the minister studies in Christendom.
Speaker 1: When he was writing his article to Defend Spiritualism, Nathaniel
Speaker 1: Talmadge estimated that support for spiritualism was much stronger than
Speaker 1: the fifteen thousand who had signed the petition. In fact,
Speaker 1: he guessed that in eighteen fifty four there were over
Speaker 1: two million Spiritualists in the United States. Elliot cape Roun,
Speaker 1: the radical Quaker who had been the Fox sisters first manager,
Speaker 1: included the same guests in his book the next year.
Speaker 1: Later on, Cora would write that spiritualists would claim no
Speaker 1: definite number, but both supporters and opponents agreed on one thing.
Speaker 1: The movement was going gangbusters. Besides, as Cora wrote, it
Speaker 1: wasn't the number that was the most important aspect of
Speaker 1: the movement. It was the truth of its principles. If
Speaker 1: something was true, she said, then all the world must follow,
Speaker 1: and follow they did by eighteen fifty two, the editor
Speaker 1: of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, had given the
Speaker 1: movement its name Modern Spiritualism. He offered the title Spiritualists
Speaker 1: two seekers who flocked to seances and the mediums who
Speaker 1: conducted them, speaking in the voices of their dead loved ones.
Speaker 1: But it was also personal for Greeley. He'd seen the
Speaker 1: Fox Sisters demonstrate their powers in New York. After he
Speaker 1: wrote his public defense of their seances. He even invited
Speaker 1: them to stay in his home. He wanted them to
Speaker 1: hold seances for his wife Mary. You see, Horace and
Speaker 1: Mary had recently lost their four year old son, Picky.
Speaker 1: In fact, four of their five children had already died.
Speaker 1: As a parent myself, I can't imagine the cavern of
Speaker 1: grief they navigated each day, and it was into this
Speaker 1: overn that the Fox Sisters descended. But Greeley is convinced
Speaker 1: Kate to live with them the following autumn. Mary had
Speaker 1: been consumed by Picky's death, and Horace wanted her to
Speaker 1: be able to talk to Picky spirit whenever she wanted.
Speaker 1: But if Kate's visit to the Greeley's house brought comfort
Speaker 1: to them, it was deeply disturbing to her. She wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to Amy post Back in Rochester, telling her
Speaker 1: friend and mentor that she was deeply lonely. She admitted
Speaker 1: that the spirits did wonderful things, from invisible fingers that
Speaker 1: played the piano to the now routine rapping sounds, but
Speaker 1: young Kate didn't find it easy to be the personal
Speaker 1: attendant of a devastated mother. That people like Mary Greeley
Speaker 1: would flock to the comforts of spiritualism was a difficult
Speaker 1: pill to swallow for the leaders of American churches. Every
Speaker 1: time a new spiritualist gathering delivered information that contradicted church teachings,
Speaker 1: it was seen as a problem because the movement was popular,
Speaker 1: but pastors in seminary didn't take it lying down. Church
Speaker 1: magazines and newspapers published articles condemning spiritualism as heresy. They
Speaker 1: warned Christians to reject the teachings of a movement that
Speaker 1: was all about contact with familiar spirits and to rely
Speaker 1: instead on the revelations of God through the Bible. Throughout
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, ministers published books with titles like The
Speaker 1: Infidelity of the Times as connected with Rappings and Mesmerism,
Speaker 1: or Ancient sorcery as revived in modern spiritualism, and spiritualism
Speaker 1: a Satanic delusion and a sign of the times. You
Speaker 1: get the point. I'm sure then, as we've mentioned before,
Speaker 1: there are clear reasons why church leaders would have seen
Speaker 1: spiritualism as a revival of ancient sorcery. Here's historian emmlin Clark.
Speaker 1: By taking religious authority away from formal church structures and
Speaker 1: the traditional purveyors of religious authority more or less white
Speaker 1: educated men, white educated um in seminaries men. By taking
Speaker 1: religious authority away from these more formal structures and placing
Speaker 1: it in the bodies the hands of mediums themselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of churches really didn't like about spiritualism.
Speaker 1: They could see it as a dangerous threat. American Protestant
Speaker 1: churches of every stripe were in a tricky position in
Speaker 1: those decades, and not just the young denominations like the
Speaker 1: Methodists who are trying to grow into something respectable. Like
Speaker 1: we talked about in the last episode, it was the fresh,
Speaker 1: vibrant energy of all those new denominations that had the
Speaker 1: older traditions feeling unstable and no wonder their own domains
Speaker 1: were splintering as denominations divided and subdivided. At the same time,
Speaker 1: they faced more and more questions about the evidence of
Speaker 1: their spiritual claims that were taught from the pulpit. What
Speaker 1: were the reasons to believe everything these pastors preached, or
Speaker 1: even to believe in the authority in the first place.
Speaker 1: In particular, most Protestant ministers were sensitive to the idea
Speaker 1: that their faith was in conflict with science. Pastors in
Speaker 1: that position tended less to criticize spiritualism as satanic. Instead,
Speaker 1: they taught that spiritualism was best explained by fraud. They
Speaker 1: fought against spiritualism not because they were afraid of the devil,
Speaker 1: but because it was so unbiblical. In their eyes, the
Speaker 1: teachings of these fraudulent mediums was simply a trick. Devil
Speaker 1: or not behind the curtain. Still, we can't forget that
Speaker 1: most spiritualists were Christians. Here's an browdie once again. Christians
Speaker 1: are taught in many contexts that they should try to
Speaker 1: communicate with benevolent spirits who are looking after them, who
Speaker 1: are looking down from heaven to lead them in positive directions.
Speaker 1: Whether their formal theological doctrines of their religions teach that
Speaker 1: or not. Popular culture teaches that, so the ideas of
Speaker 1: spiritualism should not be so foreign to Christians, and in
Speaker 1: many cases they're not. In many cases, people who are
Speaker 1: church members, um even members of other religions are also
Speaker 1: participating in communication with spirits, even though it formally contradicts
Speaker 1: the doctrines of their faith. For Christians who long believed
Speaker 1: that they're dead loved ones were looking down on them
Speaker 1: from heaven, the rituals of spiritualism could be taken at
Speaker 1: face value. We saw this in Sojourn or Truths reliance
Speaker 1: on both her dead father's voice and the guiding voice
Speaker 1: of God. And there's the story of chorus teacher Mary
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. The message was simple, though. If the voices
Speaker 1: of the spirits urged Christians to follow God and read
Speaker 1: the Bible, then who could say that spiritualism was wrong.
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis had taken many beatings. They came from
Speaker 1: the pens and pulpits of American ministers. They also came
Speaker 1: from people he admired, like Emerson and Thorreau. Those in
Speaker 1: particular must have stung. But he had friends too, and
Speaker 1: when he was invited by admirers to leave New York
Speaker 1: City and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Andrew was only too
Speaker 1: happy to oblige. When he arrived, though, he opened the
Speaker 1: paper to find disparaging comments from America's most popular minister,
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher, and as he walked to the cottage
Speaker 1: where he had been invited to live, he was greeted
Speaker 1: by more insults. A group of Sunday schoolboys had chalked
Speaker 1: vulgarities across the fence and gate. One source of comfort
Speaker 1: was his new friendship with Bronson Elcott. Bronson was a
Speaker 1: friend of Emerson and Threau, so there was a little
Speaker 1: of that atmosphere Andrew craved, even if it was only
Speaker 1: second hand. Together they swapped stories and discuss us the
Speaker 1: various communes sprouting up in the northeast. Bronson was convinced
Speaker 1: that Andrew's books were good for people. He thought the
Speaker 1: new spiritual visions would help his followers to sort out
Speaker 1: the old perplexities, as he called them, and the perverted
Speaker 1: teachings of former times. For Bronson, it wasn't that spiritualism
Speaker 1: twisted Christian teachings away from the truth, but rather that
Speaker 1: it corrected the contortions and errors that had built up
Speaker 1: in the church. Over time, with friends like this, Andrew
Speaker 1: felt he was ready to become more than just a
Speaker 1: trance healer and writer. He wanted to step out from
Speaker 1: behind the page, and he decided to start in his
Speaker 1: own backyard. In a series of public lectures, he blasted
Speaker 1: the teachings of Hartford's most prominent congregational minister. He was
Speaker 1: unsound in his teaching, Andrew said, insufficient in his thinking.
Speaker 1: His preaching wasn't as rational as spiritualism, which Andrew told
Speaker 1: his audiences was invulnerable and satisfying. And As Andrew made
Speaker 1: these pronouncements, he suggested that other spiritualists do the same.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, the circle in Hartford was regularly attacking the
Speaker 1: errors of the church. They even put out a public
Speaker 1: challenge to all the pastors in the city to join
Speaker 1: them in a public debate about spirituality. Sometimes it seems
Speaker 1: like the attacks on spiritualism from the churches was a
Speaker 1: symptom of their fear of something new. Sometimes, though, it's
Speaker 1: clear that spiritualists were the ones picking the fight. For
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis and the Hartford Spiritualists. This came to
Speaker 1: a head at the Bible Convention that they held in
Speaker 1: June of eighteen fifty three, they invited reformers and spiritualists
Speaker 1: from around the region to come to Hartford and discuss
Speaker 1: the history and authority of the Bible. The abolitionist William
Speaker 1: Lloyd Garrison came down from Boston, Sojourner Truth made the
Speaker 1: trip as well, and they gathered a crowd. Notably, though
Speaker 1: all the Hartford ministers and Christian scholars refused their invitations.
Speaker 1: One pastor made it no him that he thought spiritualists
Speaker 1: were dishonest plagiarizers and that it was impossible to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with them. After all, they claimed to have
Speaker 1: direct knowledge from the spirits. How could you possibly argue
Speaker 1: against anything they would say. No prominent ministers joined Andrew
Speaker 1: on stage, but they did send their congregations, and they
Speaker 1: didn't come in peace. It started with the heckling. Whenever
Speaker 1: spiritualist leaders took their place at the front of the room,
Speaker 1: they were met with taunts and shouting. Trader someone screamed
Speaker 1: at Andrew blasphemer, and their numbers were growing too. So
Speaker 1: much hostility rippled through the crowd that the Hartford mayor
Speaker 1: had to call in the police to keep order. That
Speaker 1: seemed to hold things back until the final day of
Speaker 1: the convention, when the crowds outside the convention hall filled
Speaker 1: up the streets. Andrew Jackson Davis and William Lloyd Garrison
Speaker 1: found themselves trapped inside. The mayor was so scared of
Speaker 1: the potential violence that he declared the convention canceled. The
Speaker 1: spiritualist speaker couldn't get out until bodyguards were available to
Speaker 1: escort them through the mob of angry Christians. To them,
Speaker 1: the links were clear between spiritualism and reform movements like
Speaker 1: abolition and women's rights, and it created the kind of
Speaker 1: disorder they expected from satanic rituals and atheist freethinkers. And
Speaker 1: there were consequences for some of these attendees. Here's historian
Speaker 1: Margaret Washington, William Lloyd Garrison's brother in law, as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, for supporting it, lost the new job
Speaker 1: that he had ultimately had to leave and take his
Speaker 1: whole family to Kansas. They were so ostracized. But that
Speaker 1: was a big deal that Hartford Convention because they were
Speaker 1: challenging the Bible. But even more devastating to Andrew than
Speaker 1: any public outcry about his work was the death of
Speaker 1: his wife, Katie. Her health had been slowly declining since
Speaker 1: the previous winter. Of course, Andrew had tried multiple times
Speaker 1: to heal her through his trances, but nothing made a difference.
Speaker 1: He even called upon the spit or to the ancient
Speaker 1: physician Galen, but that failed too. When William Lloyd Garrison
Speaker 1: stayed with them during the Bible Convention, he saw Katie's
Speaker 1: pallid features and began to wonder how sick she really was.
Speaker 1: After the scare of the convention, Andrew and Katie moved
Speaker 1: to the Massachusetts coast, hoping the sea air would be
Speaker 1: a better therapy than the winds blowing off the spirit world,
Speaker 1: but she continued to get worse. Finally, her crushing symptoms
Speaker 1: forced Andrew to agree to bring Katie to a doctor,
Speaker 1: but by then it was too late. Katie died a
Speaker 1: short while later in November of eighteen fifty three. Andrew
Speaker 1: worked through his grief by loudly proclaiming to others that
Speaker 1: he had seen her spirit greeted by relatives in the afterlife.
Speaker 1: Then he took to the road, where he tried to
Speaker 1: outrun his loss among new, more sympathetic crowds. The power
Speaker 1: of Andrew's trances had failed to heal his wife, but
Speaker 1: he was still convinced it could remake the nation. Despite
Speaker 1: the fury he had faced, he held on to hope
Speaker 1: in something that others felt was out of reach, harmony.
Speaker 1: Everywhere spiritualism went it met a church eager to stamp
Speaker 1: it out, whether it was the Baptists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists
Speaker 1: in the United States assorted French priests or the leaders
Speaker 1: of the Church of England. Ministers everywhere struggled to maintain
Speaker 1: the confidence of their flock. In England, though, the churches
Speaker 1: responded with far less venom than their American counterparts. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's because the British press was so quick to stab
Speaker 1: at the first American mediums, and it probably helped that
Speaker 1: there were leaders in the English Church who were actually curious.
Speaker 1: It seemed that they were attempted by the news from
Speaker 1: spiritualist meetings, as their congregations were. By eighteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: three years after Maria Hayden had reached England with spiritualism,
Speaker 1: the Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph reported that ministers of the Church
Speaker 1: of England were counted among their spirit circles, and they
Speaker 1: said there were ministers from every other church as well.
Speaker 1: For some, Briton's contact with the spirit world didn't threaten
Speaker 1: their beliefs. Instead, seance after seance, trance after trance, they
Speaker 1: found that spiritualism renewed their Christian faith. The tapping, sounds
Speaker 1: and messages from beyond represented the proof of the afterlife
Speaker 1: that they had always wanted. Roman Catholic Christians had the
Speaker 1: same feeling. At first. There were even a few priests
Speaker 1: who wondered if they had discovered a link with souls
Speaker 1: in purgatory. One priest in Paris even published a pamphlet
Speaker 1: declaring that this was a sign that the age of
Speaker 1: miracles hadn't ended. With that in mind, the Archbishop of
Speaker 1: Paris gave him permission to try out some experiments, and
Speaker 1: he got some results. Spirits spoke to him through tapping
Speaker 1: and knocking. Tables spun at his request, and this kept
Speaker 1: happening even after he poured holy water on the table,
Speaker 1: laid a crucifix on it, and said the name of
Speaker 1: Christ to him. This was a clear sign that whatever
Speaker 1: forces were answering in seances, they weren't demons, as some
Speaker 1: priests feared. Spiritualism was popular in Italy too. It popped
Speaker 1: up in Venice Milan and Turin, but Italian priests believed
Speaker 1: it was a toxic stew of blasphemies and absurdities. A
Speaker 1: few years later, Pope Pious the Ninth wede in writing
Speaker 1: a letter about the abuses of mesmerism. His memorandum was
Speaker 1: circulated to the bishops and inquisitors all over the Papal states.
Speaker 1: Spiritualism was to be crushed. That was the official stance
Speaker 1: of the Church. It didn't stop adventurous mediums from visiting Italy, though,
Speaker 1: especially if they had friends in high places. Our favorite traveler,
Speaker 1: Daniel Hume, held seances in Florence, Naples and Rome during
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, slipping through with his network of high
Speaker 1: profile supporters. A group of prominent citizens in turn organized
Speaker 1: their own spirit circle in eighteen fifty six, which included
Speaker 1: members of the Savoy nobility and even the vice president
Speaker 1: of their parliament, but under pressure from the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: that group didn't last more than two years. In Spain,
Speaker 1: the response was even more dramatic. There, the Bishop of
Speaker 1: Barcelona called on the military to help. He had heard
Speaker 1: that a Spanish bookseller ordered a shipment of spiritualist books
Speaker 1: from France, and they were arriving on a French steamship
Speaker 1: called the L Monarca. They whispered that the captain was
Speaker 1: a known smuggler who had used compartments in the ship
Speaker 1: to transport government fugitives and forbidden literature. From the bishop's
Speaker 1: point of view, El Monarca might as well have shipped
Speaker 1: the books direct from the fires of Hell. When the
Speaker 1: ship landed, soldiers marched aboard and toward apart. They carted
Speaker 1: the books into the city square and threw them into
Speaker 1: a bonfire. The drifting spiral of smoke was all the
Speaker 1: levitation the bishop wanted, but there were some who claimed that,
Speaker 1: just like the mob and Hartford, the book burning had
Speaker 1: the opposite effect. When Barcelona citizen realized what was happening,
Speaker 1: a crowd gathered. First there were just murmurs, but then
Speaker 1: someone shouted down with the inquisition. Soon the boldest people
Speaker 1: in the crowd rushed toward the flames and snatched burning
Speaker 1: fragments of paper. The declaration of forbidden knowledge ended up
Speaker 1: drawing curious citizens like moths to a flame. An underground
Speaker 1: network of spiritualist societies had formed, and it was spreading.
Speaker 1: While Kate Fox had experienced misadventure at Greeley's, Maggie found
Speaker 1: herself in much more dangerous waters. Maggie's reputation had grown
Speaker 1: alongside the national acclaim of her sisters. Of course, they
Speaker 1: were all in demand. When Leah saw opportunities to spread
Speaker 1: their net wider by splitting the sisters up, it just
Speaker 1: made sense. So when Maggie received an invitation to visit
Speaker 1: family friends in Troy, New York and to hold seances there,
Speaker 1: she accepted. Her family expected only friendly faces to be
Speaker 1: waiting for her in Troy, so they sent her alone.
Speaker 1: When she arrived, she was greeted by a friend, but
Speaker 1: on their way into town, they realized that some people
Speaker 1: in Troy wanted to give Maggie a Hartford welcome. You see,
Speaker 1: they'd arrived at the dock for the Hudson River Ferry,
Speaker 1: but what they found was a group of men who
Speaker 1: didn't look very friendly. So Maggie's carriage was instead guided
Speaker 1: up the riverside and across the Troy Bridge. When the
Speaker 1: carriage turned to take the road, though the men followed
Speaker 1: at a distance, That's when they went from sinister to
Speaker 1: downright threatening. Fortunately, Maggie's friends were quick enough to avoid
Speaker 1: the bridge, opting to drive on to an even farther crossing,
Speaker 1: but the group of men kept up. Their plan, whatever
Speaker 1: it had been, had failed, and now they were angry.
Speaker 1: They closed in on Maggie's carriage just as she and
Speaker 1: her friend near the house where she would be staying.
Speaker 1: The final stretch must have been a mad dash, too,
Speaker 1: but Maggie was able to rush inside and bolt the
Speaker 1: door before the mob re her. Frustrated again, they surrounded
Speaker 1: the house and tried to break down the door. When
Speaker 1: that failed, they sent rocks crashing through the windows. After that,
Speaker 1: gunfire began and the whole family had to cower out
Speaker 1: of sight until dark. Under the cover of darkness, the
Speaker 1: family rushed a panic telegram to the Fox family, telling
Speaker 1: them that Maggie was in danger. Assassins had laid a
Speaker 1: plot to destroy her, it said, and they were back
Speaker 1: the next morning. Again they tried to break into the house,
Speaker 1: but failed. Over the next few days, Maggie stayed bunkerd
Speaker 1: in the house while threatening men were almost always seen nearby.
Speaker 1: When Leah received the message, she rushed to catch the
Speaker 1: next train to Troy. She arrived to find the house
Speaker 1: where Maggie was staying besieged by a crowd in disguise
Speaker 1: and surrounded by friends, Leah was able to make it
Speaker 1: through the blockade, but only when one of those friends
Speaker 1: brandished a pistol to clear the path. On their way through,
Speaker 1: they overheard the charges. The group was certain that the
Speaker 1: girls were pracked seen witchcraft, just like so many other
Speaker 1: times in places, it was an accusation that worked like
Speaker 1: a charm. The men were determined that no witchcraft would
Speaker 1: come into their town, and they decided to oppose it
Speaker 1: with violence. Once she was inside, Leah found Maggie so
Speaker 1: overcome by fear that she was sobbing on the floor
Speaker 1: and vomiting. That night, Leoh was able to spirit Maggie
Speaker 1: away in the dark, leaving Troy to return to Rochester.
Speaker 1: Maggie escaped that crowd, but she couldn't escape the sense
Speaker 1: of fear that now clung to her. In the aftermath,
Speaker 1: her family decided that she should leave the state with
Speaker 1: her mother so that she could have time to recover
Speaker 1: in new surroundings. In search of a place where Maggie
Speaker 1: would be surrounded by friends, they took up an invitation
Speaker 1: from the Spiritualist community in Philadelphia. When Maggie arrived there,
Speaker 1: she was still shaken. Barely twenty years old. She had
Speaker 1: been traveling and giving seances for years under the direction
Speaker 1: of her older sister, but she was ready to turn
Speaker 1: a page in her story to start a whole new chapter.
Speaker 1: What she found in the city wasn't quite what she expected,
Speaker 1: but it would also be a pivotal moment in her
Speaker 1: life because it was when she arrived in Philadelphia that
Speaker 1: Maggie would meet Elisha Kent Kane. Maggie had barely begun
Speaker 1: her sittings as a medium when an energetic and intense
Speaker 1: man arrived and asked for a private seance. It started
Speaker 1: the ordinary way. Elisha introduced himself and said he was
Speaker 1: hoping to speak with the spirit of his brother who
Speaker 1: had recently died. Maggie agreed, offering Elisha spirit contact through
Speaker 1: the knocking sounds, and then he retreated. It was a
Speaker 1: session just like most others, and entirely forgettable. That is
Speaker 1: until Elishah came back the next morning. This time, when
Speaker 1: he walked into the room, he stared at her for
Speaker 1: so long that she started to get uncomfortable. Then, looking
Speaker 1: down at her from his full heights, he said, this
Speaker 1: is no life for you. Whatever the man meant by that,
Speaker 1: it didn't stop him from sitting down for another seance,
Speaker 1: not that day or the next. In fact, Elisha started
Speaker 1: coming to Maggie seances every day. He brought friends and relatives,
Speaker 1: and when he started to ask the spirits for clues
Speaker 1: about the location of the missing Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin,
Speaker 1: Elisha's life began to come into view. Here's Nancy Stewart
Speaker 1: once again. Elishah Cancaine was from an elite Philadelphia family.
Speaker 1: His father was a judge and mother was from a
Speaker 1: very well to do Philadelphia family and a very distinguished
Speaker 1: upstanding citizens. And Elishah Cancaine is a physician, but he's
Speaker 1: also an explorer. Like Maggie, Elisha was also a darling
Speaker 1: of the press. For years, it had been his obsession
Speaker 1: to find John Franklin's lost expedition. Now he thought the
Speaker 1: spirits might be able to help. But it quickly became
Speaker 1: clear that he had a new obsession when his daily
Speaker 1: visits to Maggie Seances became several visits each day. In return,
Speaker 1: Maggie began to notice things about Elisha that she liked,
Speaker 1: an understated personal style and a tendency to help others.
Speaker 1: He was kind, and in Maggie's world, that meant a lot.
Speaker 1: By the time Elisha became friends with her mother, Maggie
Speaker 1: was smitten. The three of them would spend hours together.
Speaker 1: Until that is, Elisha's work took him out of town.
Speaker 1: He had lectures of his own to give in Boston,
Speaker 1: New York, and Washington. Elishah spoke on scientific subjects and
Speaker 1: raised money for his next Arctic expedition, But Maggie and
Speaker 1: Elisha didn't allow the distance to keep them apart. They
Speaker 1: sent each other a flurry of letters. To Maggie, for
Speaker 1: whom so much of life had been consumed with death
Speaker 1: and caught up in the teeth of a hotly contested movement,
Speaker 1: Elisha offered entry into a prestigious Philadelphia family and a
Speaker 1: love unburdened by the schemes of the less honorable. In fact,
Speaker 1: as they grew closer to each other, Ali Shaw became
Speaker 1: less and less convinced that spiritualism was even real. Soon
Speaker 1: he was urging Maggie to give it all up. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just because he didn't believe in it, though, It
Speaker 1: was also because he had decided that he wanted the
Speaker 1: two of them to get married, but he knew that
Speaker 1: if his wealthy Christian family was going to accept Maggie
Speaker 1: into their fold, some things would have to change. Things
Speaker 1: began to blow up. Maggie was under pressure to throw
Speaker 1: away the life her family had created in spiritualism. Leah
Speaker 1: was furious that her sister might shatter everything they've built
Speaker 1: or a potential future with Alisha, so the Fox family
Speaker 1: started to interfere with their relationship. Once Maggie was back
Speaker 1: on the road, traveling from city to city to give seances,
Speaker 1: she was more death spirit than ever to make every
Speaker 1: day with Elisha count. They constantly worked to make their
Speaker 1: paths cross. Once, when Elisha arrived in New York to
Speaker 1: find that Maggie was in the city, he rushed to
Speaker 1: the house where she was staying, but it was Kate
Speaker 1: and Mrs Fox who met him at the door. They
Speaker 1: told him that he was misinformed, Maggie wasn't there. He
Speaker 1: was devastated later when he got a letter from Maggie
Speaker 1: telling him that she had spent a miserable day waiting
Speaker 1: for him, and as far as she knew, he never came.
Speaker 1: For years, Maggie had followed Leah from town to town
Speaker 1: and show to show. The family's decisions and instructions had
Speaker 1: brought her into a life that was now narrowly confining
Speaker 1: as the room where she had been locked up in Troy.
Speaker 1: With the Troy gunshots still echoing in her ears, she
Speaker 1: was now determined to leave the family behind. She and
Speaker 1: Elisha plotted their escape. First, they knew that Maggie had
Speaker 1: to be educated. Elisha made arrangements to pay for her schooling,
Speaker 1: and then he took on the second bigger task, Leah
Speaker 1: had to be pacified. All it took in the end
Speaker 1: was monthly payments to her in the Family's objections just
Speaker 1: sort of faded away. With arrangements made. It seemed like
Speaker 1: there was smooth sailing ahead, but there was trouble yet
Speaker 1: to come. Elisha had finally gathered enough money for his
Speaker 1: next journey into the Arctic. His book, telling the story
Speaker 1: of his first expedition, was published to great celebration. People
Speaker 1: with deep pockets had lined up to invest in his
Speaker 1: new ship and all the supplies that he would need
Speaker 1: to brave the ice again. As with all journeys into
Speaker 1: the North, there was a chance he wouldn't return. When
Speaker 1: he set out. He left Maggie with a pile of gifts.
Speaker 1: They were hints of the upper class life she could
Speaker 1: look forward to, from lace under sleeves and handkerchiefs to
Speaker 1: the central gift that came with the licious promise, a
Speaker 1: diamond ring set in black enamel. So Maggie stayed the course.
Speaker 1: She lived with elisious friends, studied hard, and agreed to
Speaker 1: hold no more seances. Meanwhile, a Aisha's course had already begun.
Speaker 1: He wound his way north at the end of the
Speaker 1: year as things got colder, until one day they discovered
Speaker 1: the ship was locked in ice. He found himself trapped
Speaker 1: on the northwest coast of Greenland. Days stretched into months.
Speaker 1: Elisha's crew was starving. He sent out scouting parties over
Speaker 1: the ice, but they froze. Little by little. His men
Speaker 1: were dying, and they began to see strange things in
Speaker 1: the drifting snow. Glowing hands floated over the ship. One night,
Speaker 1: as the men looked out over the frozen cove, they
Speaker 1: saw a shadow flicker in the dark. When they moved
Speaker 1: out to investigate, they found nothing, not even a footprint.
Speaker 1: Alicia tried to chase away their fears, but there was
Speaker 1: no reasoning with the crew. They believed that they had
Speaker 1: seen a wraith trapped among the grinding ice. Elisha felt
Speaker 1: his hope begin to dwindle. He knew that if he
Speaker 1: was ever going to lay his eyes on Maggie again,
Speaker 1: something miraculous wouldn't need to happen. But his time, it seems,
Speaker 1: was running out. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured.
Speaker 1: Stick around after this short sponsor break for a preview
Speaker 1: of what's in store for next week. Next time on Unobscured,
Speaker 1: they had hoped the warmer climate might save him, but
Speaker 1: the journey to Havannah turned out to be more deadly
Speaker 1: than his trip to the Arctic. After he suffered a
Speaker 1: stroke at sea, it seemed the only thing Elisha's family
Speaker 1: had truly managed to shield him from was Maggie's loving words.
Speaker 1: One of the last things he ever wrote was utterly
Speaker 1: gut wrenching. It was an urgent plea for his wife
Speaker 1: to write him something anything. A second stroke sent him
Speaker 1: on his final journey. He passed away on February of
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven. His body was taken to New Orleans
Speaker 1: on a steamship, then up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers
Speaker 1: to Cincinnati, whereas Coffin was loaded onto a touring train.
Speaker 1: It made stops in Columbus, Baltimore and beyond as it
Speaker 1: headed east. An American hero and a son of science,
Speaker 1: his corpse was honored, just as his exploits had been
Speaker 1: elishah Caine's scientific career was put to rest along with
Speaker 1: his remains, although the tide of American science and conquest
Speaker 1: rolled on to honor his memory and his wishes. A
Speaker 1: grief stricken Maggie was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church
Speaker 1: that August, and she swore that she would never hold
Speaker 1: another seance again. Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thayne
Speaker 1: in partnership with Heart Radio. Research and writing for this
Speaker 1: season is all the work of my right hand man,
Speaker 1: Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the brand
Speaker 1: new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians, source material
Speaker 1: and links to our other shows over at History unobscured
Speaker 1: dot com, and until next time, thanks for listening. Unobscured
Speaker 1: as a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Monkey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.