WEBVTT - S2 – 5: Seek and Ye Shall Find 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.800 Daniel was sitting pretty. He was in South Manchester, Connecticut, 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.919 in the well appointed home of Ward Cheney. All the 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.440 little comforts around them were the benefits of the families 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:24.280 growing fortune from silk manufacturing. They patented a new machine 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.560 for rolling silk just five years before, and now it 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.800 was the money that was rolling right into their pockets. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.040 In August of eighteen fifty two. The comforts Ward Cheney 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.440 afforded because of the new machines would become set dressings 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:42.720 for the turning point in Daniel Hume's career as a medium. 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.280 Like other movers and shakers who invited their friends to 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.960 private seances in their parlors, Ward brought a small group 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.720 to his home to sit with Daniel. The Scottish team 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.040 didn't let them down. They started around a typical seance 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.600 table with the dust floating in the dim light that 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.640 trickled in through the windows. The spirits started with Daniel's body. 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.320 He fell into a shuddering trance. One of the men 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.280 who published his account later in the London Quarterly Review, 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.640 said that a dramatic, powerful knocking followed pounding the floor 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.480 and then the walls. The table also started to spin, 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.600 then to rise and fall. A violent creaking like the 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.160 cables of a ship and a storm rose up in 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.039 the room, and voices started to call out, like they 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:32.320 were shouting over a high wind. The table rose, then tipped, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:38.600 and finally capsized, crashing to the floor. They were eager 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:42.600 to see more lifting Daniel. They retreated to a darker 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.640 room and resumed their circle so that they could catch 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.320 the dim flashes of light that warred Cheney claimed the 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:53.040 specters made in Daniel's presence. In the dark, one of 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.320 the sitters could feel a cold, childlike hand pressed against 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.280 his forehead. A pitter patter of tapping sounds skittered around 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:04.160 the room. A feeling of certainty washed over word. It 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:10.360 was the spirit of his dead daughter. Then, unexpectedly, something 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.840 else happened to Daniel's body. He started to lift. Still 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.320 trembling from foot to head, he rose up into the air. 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.560 The group broke their circle and reached out for him, 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.440 grabbing his hands and feet to pull him back down. 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.359 Daniel was raised up from the floor three times, one 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.480 man later said, and then lowered again to be examined. 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.160 It was the first of Daniel's levitation seances. They would 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.520 eventually become the hallmark of his career as a spiritualist medium. 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.000 On the arms of the spirits, he rose above the 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.440 criticism that was dragging down other mediums. This was not 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.600 some popping leg bone or cracking knuckle. This wasn't a 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.040 prank on an anxious mother or a caring neighbor. It 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.079 was one thing for spirits to capsize at table. It 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.320 was another to lift a living body off the ground. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:07.000 Daniel's attendant spirits, and the news of their action swept 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.200 him off to New York City and into high society. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.680 Now get ready for a few names here, Because Daniel 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.720 could have gathered quite a collection for his autograph book. 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.760 William Cullen Bryant hosted him on New York's Fifth Avenue. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.040 Bryant's friends strode through the doorway, and not just Horace Greeley, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.280 who was already there, but other intellectual lights of the nation, 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:34.200 men like the writer James Fenimore Cooper and historian George Bancroft. 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.800 In fact, Bancroft was so impressed he was the one 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.720 to next host a seance with Daniel. And he wasn't 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:44.360 a newly rich silk merchant, or even a well known poet. No. 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.200 Bancroft had been Secretary of the Navy for President James Polk, 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.200 then the Secretary of War, all before establishing the U. S. 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:57.720 Naval Academy. In when Bancroft was U S. Minister to 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.040 England for five years, William Cullen Bryan had visited him, 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.960 a trip that had forged their friendship. With the claims 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.680 floating in the air that the spirits of Benjamin Franklin 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.520 and George Washington were suddenly speaking at seances, we can't 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.600 be too surprised that someone like Bancroft was interested in 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:18.280 what they had to say. Bancroft was a writer, though, 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.000 and a famous one. His Histories of the United States 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.839 was monumental. He started in eighteen thirty four and wrote 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.040 nine more volumes over the next forty years. Much of 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.200 it was based on his personal correspondence with James Madison 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:37.440 and his reading in Madison's private archives. Later we'll talk 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.320 more about what kind of place Bancroft imagined the United 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.760 States was, but now it's simply worth understanding that his 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.479 writing made him the most popular and powerful historian of 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:52.320 the nineteenth century. Bancroft's dinners brought other international stars to 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.599 the table. Washington Irving visited in eighteen fifty three. If 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.440 you know the Headless Horseman or Rip van Winkle, then 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.279 you know things work. But he also served as US 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.960 ambassador to Spain. When he came to daniel seance, he 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.599 brought along the British writer William Makepeace Thackeray. The men 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.600 peppered the medium with questions and laughed at the responses 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.760 that were hammered out on the table, even when Thackeray, 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:22.800 who called spirit communication a dreary and foolish superstition, came 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.839 around when the table began to spin, whether or not 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:31.440 the spirit communications had been dire, humbug and imposture, he said, 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:41.559 the manifestations he witnessed were undeniable. This is unobscured. I'm 0:05:41.600 --> 0:06:19.960 Aaron Manky. When Emma landed in New York, she got 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.920 a very different view of the city, and the city 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:27.000 took a different view of her. Emma's first impression of 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.360 New York was its ceaseless hurry and rush. She had 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.039 lived in London and Paris, but there was something about 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.960 New York's energy that impressed her. But when the theater 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.040 where she was engaged to perform opened, she started her 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.040 new career on an unpromising note. Emma was met with 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.000 praise from the critics, but failed to find a foothold 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.520 in the theater company. She would later say that the 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.680 theater manager who hired her had expectations about their relationship 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.840 that Emma rejected. We can only guess what he might 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.960 have demanded from the actress, especially when we consider that 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.080 one of her English friend was so angry when he 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:03.440 heard about it all that he threatened to thrash the 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.320 unsavory man when she didn't bow to her manager's wishes. 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.840 Emma was given smaller and smaller parts to play until 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.360 she was completely sidelined, and even though her reviews by 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.560 the critics were, as she said, warm and complimentary, an 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.239 actress wasn't likely to win respectable friends outside the theater. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:29.680 Here's historian and Browdy remember that the theater was not 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:35.920 a morally neutral environment. Women of the theater were considered 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.960 to be public women. They were considered to be women 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.920 of the night, and not necessarily women of the moral 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:50.200 caliber that one would meet at one's church or want 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:55.240 one's son to marry. Women were considered to be appropriate 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.920 to the private sphere, to the sphere of the home, 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:04.640 of the detections of domesticity, and being public. A public 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:10.040 woman was often another word for a prostitute. That is, 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:14.560 there was a moral equivalence between a woman being in 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:21.880 public rather than private and selling her body. Unwilling to 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:26.200 fully embrace this identity, Emma found herself facing obscurity in 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.240 a city she didn't know or understand. Left with idle hands, 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.280 she went looking for amusements and opportunities. Actresses weren't the 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.880 only professional performing women in the city, so Emma decided 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.200 to see what else New York had in store, and 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:44.720 she began by investigating American spiritualism and sending her reports 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:49.600 home to her curious London friends. Even though she dismissed 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:54.480 seances as foolish behavior, Emma was nervous, So nervous, in fact, 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.200 that when she went to her first seance, she got spooked. 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.480 It seems that as the people around the table were 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.760 questioning the spirit about the Bible and theology, the answers 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.040 they received back were so irreverent and blasphemous that Emma 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:10.360 bolted from the room before it was even over. She 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.520 rushed down the stairs, out into the street, and back 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:17.480 to her boarding house, thoroughly indignant and disgusted. It would 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.839 take some time before the shock wore off, and it 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.120 would take the coaxing of one of her theater friends 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.720 to get her back to another seance. When the pair 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:30.120 finally went together, Emma had an entirely different experience. She 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.640 climbed the stairs of a boarding house, determined to sit 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.800 through the whole seance this time, and also to collect 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.320 a full collection of flaws that she might use to 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.440 write a crushing article about spiritualism. But her angry thoughts 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.800 were interrupted when the door was pushed open and in 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.880 walked a woman named Ada Foy. Aida was courteous and 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.640 welcoming and sat down with Emma and her friend at 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.760 a simple table before the seance had even begun, though 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.840 a pounding broke the silence, as if something was slam 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.480 being into the bottom of the table. Even Aida seemed 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.960 surprised and looked into Emma's face with wonder. She had 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.880 come prepared to invite the spirits, but never had they 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.360 attended her with so much force. In fact, she claimed 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:15.920 that her powers as a medium weren't nearly strong enough 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.840 for something like this. It would take someone more attuned 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.680 to the spirits, someone who was a great medium, someone 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:28.600 apparently like Emma. Aida pushed a card into Emma's hand 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.240 that was covered with the letters of the alphabet, followed 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.760 by a pencil. She told Emma to point to the 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.120 letters and wait for the knocking sounds to tell her 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.160 which ones to copy down, but Emma wasn't ready to 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.800 play along. When the knocking sounds began again, Emma didn't write. Instead, 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.640 she jumped to her feet, knocking the table over. She 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.199 was certain that there was some kind of electric device 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.080 hidden under it that was responsible. Instead, it was her 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.120 certainties that were overturned. She would later say that she 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:01.439 stood baffled and aghast as the knocking thundered beneath her feet. 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.640 After that, they then left the floor, hammering up the 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.240 walls around the room and even on the very chair 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.640 she sat in. That's when Aida looked at her and said, 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.840 the spirits have a mighty work to perform through you. 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.080 And then she bent over, picked the pencil off the floor, 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:26.920 and put it back in Emma's hand. It wasn't just 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.240 New York, of course, as spiritualism climbed the ladder of 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.640 prestige in the Empire state and explored the back stairwells 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.360 of its boarding houses. It also traveled south to the 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.600 nation's capital. Kate and Maggie Fox made a journey to Washington, 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.880 d C. In eighteen fifty three. There they found curious 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.000 spiritualists already waiting for them. In fact, they were welcomed 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.400 into the home of the chief stattician for the U. S. 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.560 Postal Service, who allowed them to hold seances with them 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.880 right there. The capital was also home to followers of 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:00.120 Scottish utopian manufacturer Robert Owen, and they welcome spiritual is 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.560 Um just as he did. Others who thought of themselves 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.200 as radical free thinkers were among the most willing to 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.040 give the new revelations a test drive, and of course, 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:11.599 statesmen from Upper New York gave an ear to the 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.040 message that was coming out of their region. In fact, 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.600 one congressman who represented New York's thirty third district, Senator 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.400 Nathaniel P. Talmadge, had actually been a champion of spiritualism 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.840 since his election in eighteen fifty one. As the Fox 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:30.920 sisters made converts and Spiritualism elected, spiritualist candidates to represent them. 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.480 Hope started to grow. Perhaps everything the mediums and their 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.600 friends were witnessing along the rivers in Ohio and around 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.040 pianos in Rochester would finally be studied and understood if 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.360 only the right attention was given, which is why. In 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.320 April of eighteen fifty four, Senator James Shields of Illinois 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.360 brought a new petition before the United States Senate. It 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.320 requested that the Senate turned the resources of the government 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.400 toward investigating the strange powers at work around the seance table. 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.479 In particular, he requested that the Senator point a scientific 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:09.760 commission to investigate the many undocumented forces tilting tables, mysterious lights, 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.400 and the knocking, rumbling, and low murmurs of human voices 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:18.000 that seemed to emanate from thin air. Here's author Nancy Stewart. 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:24.000 By eighteen fifty four, there are fifteen thousand signed in 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:28.440 a petition by some very prominent senators and judges and 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:32.040 so on, and it's brought to Congress because now it's 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.719 become this outrage, I mean, the religions are all up 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.880 in the air about the standard religions. Despite the fifteen 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.920 thousand signatures on the petition, though not every member of 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.560 Congress was able to take the suggestion seriously. In fact, 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.680 when Shields presented the petition, it was greeted with laughter. 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.560 In the face of mockery, Senator Shields himself admitted that 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.440 he believed the manifestations at seances were delusions, yet he 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:02.200 still pushed for the commission. In the past, he argued, 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.920 studying the arcane delusions of occultists like John d and 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.360 Cornelius Agrippa had led to scientific breakthroughs, so naturally, these 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:12.920 new mysteries at the edge of knowledge in the eighteen 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.480 fifties were also worth studying. In the end, though it 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:21.320 seems pretty clear that his argument wasn't taken seriously. One 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.640 senator said that since the spirits were in another country, 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.200 the petition should be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.440 This brought another laugh from the Senate floor. Senator Shields 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.000 responded that he hoped the petition would be referred to 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.240 the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, just like 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:42.440 the Telegraph had been. No such luck, though, Instead the 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.840 petition was tabled and it's fifteen thousand signers were turned away. 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:52.600 Here's Nancy Stewarts once again. It just shows you the 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:57.880 enormity of the popularity of it and the fantastic publicity 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:02.840 that surrounded this early movement. When news of the Senate's 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.400 rejection reached the press, it ruffled spiritualist feathers. Nathan Talmidge, 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.720 who had been a U. S Senator and then governor 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.280 of Wisconsin, published a sharp response. You see, he had 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:15.880 been one of the people who had urged Senator Shields 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:20.440 to bring the petition to Congress. In his view, spiritualism 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.960 had been laughed out of the government without ever getting 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.120 a fair hearing. In fact, he said, if the senators 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.160 believed that spiritualism was a delusion, it was all the 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.080 more important to put it under the microscope rather than 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.960 wave it away with a dismissive hand. When the petition 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.840 was tabled, one Indiana senator suggested that spiritualism was a 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.480 religious matter and should be left to the nation's religious experts, 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.960 the pastors of America's churches. But if the senators had 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.280 paid attention to what was being said inside those churches, 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:57.680 they would have noticed something very surprising. Those pastors weren't laughing. 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.000 They were the nemesis of the pulpit. That was Oliver 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.080 Wendell Holmes assessment of it all with the snap of 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.920 a knee joint. He wrote, Kate and Maggie Fox had 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.520 started a spiritual earthquake that ended with and I quote, 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.480 such a crack of old beliefs that the roar of 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:25.120 it is heard in all the minister studies in Christendom. 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.680 When he was writing his article to Defend Spiritualism, Nathaniel 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.600 Talmadge estimated that support for spiritualism was much stronger than 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.720 the fifteen thousand who had signed the petition. In fact, 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.640 he guessed that in eighteen fifty four there were over 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:43.520 two million Spiritualists in the United States. Elliot cape Roun, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.880 the radical Quaker who had been the Fox sisters first manager, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.680 included the same guests in his book the next year. 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.320 Later on, Cora would write that spiritualists would claim no 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.880 definite number, but both supporters and opponents agreed on one thing. 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:03.760 The movement was going gangbusters. Besides, as Cora wrote, it 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.280 wasn't the number that was the most important aspect of 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.600 the movement. It was the truth of its principles. If 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.960 something was true, she said, then all the world must follow, 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.720 and follow they did by eighteen fifty two, the editor 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.399 of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, had given the 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:25.520 movement its name Modern Spiritualism. He offered the title Spiritualists 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.440 two seekers who flocked to seances and the mediums who 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.880 conducted them, speaking in the voices of their dead loved ones. 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.199 But it was also personal for Greeley. He'd seen the 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.399 Fox Sisters demonstrate their powers in New York. After he 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.400 wrote his public defense of their seances. He even invited 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.639 them to stay in his home. He wanted them to 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.879 hold seances for his wife Mary. You see, Horace and 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.679 Mary had recently lost their four year old son, Picky. 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.600 In fact, four of their five children had already died. 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.800 As a parent myself, I can't imagine the cavern of 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.760 grief they navigated each day, and it was into this 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.360 overn that the Fox Sisters descended. But Greeley is convinced 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.320 Kate to live with them the following autumn. Mary had 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.639 been consumed by Picky's death, and Horace wanted her to 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.199 be able to talk to Picky spirit whenever she wanted. 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.320 But if Kate's visit to the Greeley's house brought comfort 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:20.880 to them, it was deeply disturbing to her. She wrote 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.000 a letter to Amy post Back in Rochester, telling her 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.520 friend and mentor that she was deeply lonely. She admitted 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.159 that the spirits did wonderful things, from invisible fingers that 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.600 played the piano to the now routine rapping sounds, but 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.200 young Kate didn't find it easy to be the personal 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:42.160 attendant of a devastated mother. That people like Mary Greeley 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.520 would flock to the comforts of spiritualism was a difficult 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.159 pill to swallow for the leaders of American churches. Every 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.520 time a new spiritualist gathering delivered information that contradicted church teachings, 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.400 it was seen as a problem because the movement was popular, 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.240 but pastors in seminary didn't take it lying down. Church 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:07.440 magazines and newspapers published articles condemning spiritualism as heresy. They 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.280 warned Christians to reject the teachings of a movement that 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.920 was all about contact with familiar spirits and to rely 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:18.240 instead on the revelations of God through the Bible. Throughout 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.800 the eighteen fifties, ministers published books with titles like The 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:26.240 Infidelity of the Times as connected with Rappings and Mesmerism, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:32.040 or Ancient sorcery as revived in modern spiritualism, and spiritualism 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.600 a Satanic delusion and a sign of the times. You 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.480 get the point. I'm sure then, as we've mentioned before, 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.640 there are clear reasons why church leaders would have seen 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:47.080 spiritualism as a revival of ancient sorcery. Here's historian emmlin Clark. 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.960 By taking religious authority away from formal church structures and 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:59.200 the traditional purveyors of religious authority more or less white 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:05.600 educated men, white educated um in seminaries men. By taking 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.520 religious authority away from these more formal structures and placing 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.159 it in the bodies the hands of mediums themselves. I mean, 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.760 there were a lot of churches really didn't like about spiritualism. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:20.639 They could see it as a dangerous threat. American Protestant 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.840 churches of every stripe were in a tricky position in 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.119 those decades, and not just the young denominations like the 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.520 Methodists who are trying to grow into something respectable. Like 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.600 we talked about in the last episode, it was the fresh, 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.080 vibrant energy of all those new denominations that had the 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:42.880 older traditions feeling unstable and no wonder their own domains 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:47.440 were splintering as denominations divided and subdivided. At the same time, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.159 they faced more and more questions about the evidence of 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.080 their spiritual claims that were taught from the pulpit. What 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.639 were the reasons to believe everything these pastors preached, or 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.040 even to believe in the authority in the first place. 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.879 In particular, most Protestant ministers were sensitive to the idea 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.479 that their faith was in conflict with science. Pastors in 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.600 that position tended less to criticize spiritualism as satanic. Instead, 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.640 they taught that spiritualism was best explained by fraud. They 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.000 fought against spiritualism not because they were afraid of the devil, 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.439 but because it was so unbiblical. In their eyes, the 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:26.439 teachings of these fraudulent mediums was simply a trick. Devil 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.399 or not behind the curtain. Still, we can't forget that 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:36.800 most spiritualists were Christians. Here's an browdie once again. Christians 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:42.520 are taught in many contexts that they should try to 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.800 communicate with benevolent spirits who are looking after them, who 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:51.600 are looking down from heaven to lead them in positive directions. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.879 Whether their formal theological doctrines of their religions teach that 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.280 or not. Popular culture teaches that, so the ideas of 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:07.719 spiritualism should not be so foreign to Christians, and in 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:11.720 many cases they're not. In many cases, people who are 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:16.760 church members, um even members of other religions are also 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:23.800 participating in communication with spirits, even though it formally contradicts 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:29.040 the doctrines of their faith. For Christians who long believed 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.640 that they're dead loved ones were looking down on them 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:34.960 from heaven, the rituals of spiritualism could be taken at 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:38.720 face value. We saw this in Sojourn or Truths reliance 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:41.640 on both her dead father's voice and the guiding voice 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.879 of God. And there's the story of chorus teacher Mary 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:49.520 in Wisconsin. The message was simple, though. If the voices 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.600 of the spirits urged Christians to follow God and read 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.960 the Bible, then who could say that spiritualism was wrong. 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.480 Andrew Jackson Davis had taken many beatings. They came from 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.240 the pens and pulpits of American ministers. They also came 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:16.239 from people he admired, like Emerson and Thorreau. Those in 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.240 particular must have stung. But he had friends too, and 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:23.120 when he was invited by admirers to leave New York 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.080 City and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Andrew was only too 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:29.080 happy to oblige. When he arrived, though, he opened the 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:32.960 paper to find disparaging comments from America's most popular minister, 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:36.600 Henry Ward Beecher, and as he walked to the cottage 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.040 where he had been invited to live, he was greeted 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:42.480 by more insults. A group of Sunday schoolboys had chalked 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:47.680 vulgarities across the fence and gate. One source of comfort 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:51.199 was his new friendship with Bronson Elcott. Bronson was a 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:53.880 friend of Emerson and Threau, so there was a little 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:56.560 of that atmosphere Andrew craved, even if it was only 0:23:56.760 --> 0:24:00.240 second hand. Together they swapped stories and discuss us the 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:04.960 various communes sprouting up in the northeast. Bronson was convinced 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:07.480 that Andrew's books were good for people. He thought the 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:10.480 new spiritual visions would help his followers to sort out 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:14.119 the old perplexities, as he called them, and the perverted 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:18.320 teachings of former times. For Bronson, it wasn't that spiritualism 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.639 twisted Christian teachings away from the truth, but rather that 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:24.600 it corrected the contortions and errors that had built up 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:28.919 in the church. Over time, with friends like this, Andrew 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:31.000 felt he was ready to become more than just a 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:33.919 trance healer and writer. He wanted to step out from 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:36.720 behind the page, and he decided to start in his 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:41.320 own backyard. In a series of public lectures, he blasted 0:24:41.359 --> 0:24:45.399 the teachings of Hartford's most prominent congregational minister. He was 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.679 unsound in his teaching, Andrew said, insufficient in his thinking. 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:54.080 His preaching wasn't as rational as spiritualism, which Andrew told 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:59.000 his audiences was invulnerable and satisfying. And As Andrew made 0:24:59.040 --> 0:25:02.880 these pronouncements, he suggested that other spiritualists do the same. 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:08.199 Soon enough, the circle in Hartford was regularly attacking the 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:10.840 errors of the church. They even put out a public 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:13.320 challenge to all the pastors in the city to join 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:17.520 them in a public debate about spirituality. Sometimes it seems 0:25:17.560 --> 0:25:20.560 like the attacks on spiritualism from the churches was a 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:24.760 symptom of their fear of something new. Sometimes, though, it's 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:29.119 clear that spiritualists were the ones picking the fight. For 0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:32.879 Andrew Jackson Davis and the Hartford Spiritualists. This came to 0:25:32.920 --> 0:25:35.199 a head at the Bible Convention that they held in 0:25:35.280 --> 0:25:39.920 June of eighteen fifty three, they invited reformers and spiritualists 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:42.400 from around the region to come to Hartford and discuss 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:46.080 the history and authority of the Bible. The abolitionist William 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:49.760 Lloyd Garrison came down from Boston, Sojourner Truth made the 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:53.840 trip as well, and they gathered a crowd. Notably, though 0:25:53.920 --> 0:25:58.080 all the Hartford ministers and Christian scholars refused their invitations. 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:01.280 One pastor made it no him that he thought spiritualists 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:04.399 were dishonest plagiarizers and that it was impossible to have 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:07.720 a conversation with them. After all, they claimed to have 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:11.320 direct knowledge from the spirits. How could you possibly argue 0:26:11.359 --> 0:26:16.840