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Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.

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Speaker 1: There was a stir in the shoemaker's shop. The apprentices

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Speaker 1: were whispering excitedly. Ira Armstrong, who owned the place, asked

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Speaker 1: what they were talking about. The sixteen year old Andrew

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Speaker 1: showed him a printed advertisement across the top in a

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Speaker 1: blast of ink. It read Mesmerism Wonderful Experiments Magnetizer and Phrenologist.

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Speaker 1: Andrew had never heard the term mesmerism before. He had

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Speaker 1: no idea what was going to be on display, but

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Speaker 1: the pamphlets made one thing clear. It was going to

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Speaker 1: be a spectacle. The boys could barely sit still. The

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Speaker 1: word passed through Poughkeepsie that the oncoming professor was some

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Speaker 1: sort of wonder worker, a man who would demonstrate mesmeric

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Speaker 1: miracles at the village hall. Every one in town was

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Speaker 1: talking about it. The boys wanted to see for themselves

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Speaker 1: if the stories were true. Ira grumbled something about magnetic buffoonery,

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Speaker 1: but he must not have been too hard a taskmaster.

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Speaker 1: He gave the boys the afternoon off, and so Andrew

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Speaker 1: bounced off toward Hatch's Hotel with fellow apprentice Edwin in

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Speaker 1: tow when they arrived, though, the pair were led to

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Speaker 1: a quiet room upstairs. This wasn't the miracles in the

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Speaker 1: village hall the advertisements had promised. When Andrew reached the

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Speaker 1: little room, he found a crowd of boys fidgeting in

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Speaker 1: their seats, craning their necks to look around the room.

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Speaker 1: All of them shared that same eagerness. They were there

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Speaker 1: to witness a mystery. What they got when the professor

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Speaker 1: arrived didn't quite bring the advertisement to life. A man

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Speaker 1: walked to the front of the room and he started

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Speaker 1: to talk. He started to lecture. Sure, his subjects were

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Speaker 1: as promised, phrenology and animal magnetism, but these are sixteen

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Speaker 1: year old boys were talking about They wanted action. His

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Speaker 1: droning went on so long. In fact, Andrew later said

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Speaker 1: it was nearly two hours long that the boy started

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Speaker 1: to doze. He closed his eyes and his head drooped,

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Speaker 1: But before he could fall asleep, he heard footsteps approach.

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Speaker 1: The lecturing voice took on an eagerness as it came

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Speaker 1: to a stop in front of Andrew. It was time.

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Speaker 1: The man said, we're a demonstration. He started to wave

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Speaker 1: his hand dramatically in front of Andrew's head. Then he declared,

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Speaker 1: you can't open your eyes. Andrew must have frowned. He

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Speaker 1: raised his head and looked up skeptically into the man's face.

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Speaker 1: We can only imagine the look of teenage contempt the

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Speaker 1: man got for wasting Andrew's afternoon off. It was nothing

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Speaker 1: short of a letdown, so Andrew went back to work.

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Speaker 1: Any of Irish's smugness about his apprentice's gullibility is lost

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Speaker 1: to history. The stranger had been no mesmerist. His voice

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Speaker 1: did have the power to put people to sleep, but

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Speaker 1: where was the miracle in that? It wasn't long, though,

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Speaker 1: before Andrew and Edwins started to hear more stories. They

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Speaker 1: weren't the only ones to attend the demonstration. The following

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Speaker 1: day and the day after that, rumors started to travel

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Speaker 1: throughout town. Other people who went to the demonstrations, they said,

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Speaker 1: had felt something. Maybe they missed it the first time,

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Speaker 1: or perhaps the visitor needed to warm up like an

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Speaker 1: athlete before a big game. Either way, word around town

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Speaker 1: was beginning to sound very different from what Andrew and

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Speaker 1: Edwin had expected, and the people were doing more than

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Speaker 1: just whisper. Soon those murmurs would consume a nation. Something

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Speaker 1: supernatural was about to begin this is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mackey.

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Speaker 1: Why did the power of mesmerism pass by the shoemaker's apprentice.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it had something to do with the boy's hard life.

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Speaker 1: Growing up, Andrew moved between tenements and tenant houses in

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Speaker 1: towns along the west bank of the Hudson River. His

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Speaker 1: father did odd jobs to keep them alive. He made shoes,

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Speaker 1: wove cloth, whatever handcrafts could earn something for his family,

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Speaker 1: a wife and seven children. He never made much, though,

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Speaker 1: with his children to feed, Andrew's father scratched out a

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Speaker 1: living anyway he could. It was a difficult and anxious

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Speaker 1: way to live. Unsurprisingly, much of what he did earn

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Speaker 1: was spent on alcohol. It wasn't just his father's habits

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Speaker 1: that made their life uncertain, though. When they looked at

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Speaker 1: the nation around them, they saw the same thing. Andrew

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Speaker 1: was born in eighteen six, the year the United States

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Speaker 1: celebrated its jubilee. On July four. It had been fifty

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Speaker 1: years since the Declaration of Independence was signed by the

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Speaker 1: founding fathers, but the celebration was darkened by clouds of uncertainty.

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Speaker 1: On that exact same day, both John Adams and Thomas

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Speaker 1: Jefferson died in their homes, their coffins slam shut on

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Speaker 1: the founding era. What would come next? One answer was

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Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson's new Democratic Party. It burst into the world

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Speaker 1: with a bold promise that it would bring about something new,

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Speaker 1: the rule of the common man. Here's Molly McGarry, Associate

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Speaker 1: professor of History at the University of California, Riverside. The

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Speaker 1: most significant change affected by Jackson in democracy was the

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Speaker 1: extension of the franchise of the vote to white man

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Speaker 1: over the age of twenty one who did not own property.

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Speaker 1: The elite power brokers who had shaped the nation saw

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Speaker 1: their numbers shrinking, and the oncoming forces of democratic fervor

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Speaker 1: posed a major threat to their top down rule. They

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Speaker 1: fought tooth and nail to hold back the political transformation

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Speaker 1: that was swiftly overtaking them. Already contentious and chaotic in

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Speaker 1: eighteen s the presidential campaign assured men like the New

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Speaker 1: York shoemaker that the nation would now be ordered in

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Speaker 1: their favor. In New York, Little Andrew was named in

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Speaker 1: honor of Jackson's vision for the future. In the end, though,

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Speaker 1: it would be the boy's own visions that would define

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Speaker 1: his life, but he would have to suffer first. Along

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Speaker 1: the way to his sixteenth birthday, Andrew lost his mother,

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Speaker 1: two sisters, and a brother. The grief must have been devastating,

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Speaker 1: but there was no time to rest as the blows

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Speaker 1: kept coming. Because his father struggled to support even his

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Speaker 1: dwindling family. Things were so rough for them that he

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Speaker 1: rented out Andrew to farmers and tradesmen as a hired hand.

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Speaker 1: Whatever the boy felt, his life came down to work. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: in their wandering search for a way to make a living,

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Speaker 1: Andrew and his father arrived in Poughkeepsie, New York, seventy

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Speaker 1: miles north of New York City, where a local shoemaker,

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Speaker 1: Ira Armstrong, hired Andrew as an apprentice. Ira would later

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Speaker 1: note that Andrew knew how to read and write, but

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Speaker 1: that his knowledge was only rudimentary. Andrew's working life hadn't

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Speaker 1: allowed him a lot of time for school. He was

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Speaker 1: known as a frank, open and honest boy with a

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Speaker 1: curious attitude, but he wasn't a scholar, a thinker, or

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Speaker 1: a writer. He was known to most folks as friendly

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Speaker 1: and well disposed, and to his boss he was a

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Speaker 1: steady and reliable worker. When it all added up, he

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Speaker 1: was just ordinary. But in eighteen forty three, all of

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Speaker 1: that would change. In the early eighteen hundreds, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: just the political landscape that was cracking apart. Shock waves

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Speaker 1: in the scientific world were also breaking up old ways

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Speaker 1: of thinking and injecting new ideas into American culture. One

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Speaker 1: of those shock waves was a man by the name

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Speaker 1: of J. Stanley Grimes, and in eighteen forty three he

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Speaker 1: made his way to Poughkeepsie, and with considerable fanfare too.

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Speaker 1: He was a magnetizer and phrenologist, and as arrival was

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Speaker 1: paved with a burst of announcements and show bills. It

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Speaker 1: was their heading Mesmerism that had captured Andrew's attention, originally

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Speaker 1: developed by the German physician France Anton Mesmer, who taught

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Speaker 1: that everything was permeated by an invisible fluid carrying magnetic

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Speaker 1: energy throughout the universe. Here's Kathy gutierres historian and scholar

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Speaker 1: in residence at the New York Public Library. Why don't

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Speaker 1: stars fall out the sky right? Why our planets predictable? Well,

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Speaker 1: they're held in some sort of kinetic tension through magnetic attraction. Certainly,

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Speaker 1: Kepler thought this what Mesmer did was he applied that

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Speaker 1: idea to the human body, so not only the planets,

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Speaker 1: but the tides and the sea, and the waning of

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Speaker 1: the moon, and the flow of this energy through the

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Speaker 1: body could be redirected and redistributed. And that's where J.

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Speaker 1: Stanley Grimes stepped in. For some who kept abreast of

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Speaker 1: advances in science, Grimes was already a household name, a Bostonian,

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Speaker 1: and a medical lawyer by training. Grimes was at the

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Speaker 1: forefront of American sciences of the mind by eighteen thirty two.

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Speaker 1: That was when demonstrators arrived from Germany and led curious

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Speaker 1: Bostonians in a course on the discipline of phrenology. They

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Speaker 1: taught that the shape of the human skull reflected uneven

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Speaker 1: development of the brain, where each part performed a specific function.

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Speaker 1: Grimes believed that he could use phrenology to harness the

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Speaker 1: power of Mesmer's animal magnetism. If he followed the right

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Speaker 1: contours of the skull to excite certain organs of the brain,

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Speaker 1: he could pick up where Mesmer left off. In particular,

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Speaker 1: he could drop his subjects into a suggestible, trance like

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Speaker 1: state he called mesmeric sleep in honor of the German doctor.

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Speaker 1: And it was this freno magnetism, his personal combination of

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Speaker 1: cutting edge sciences, that Grimes demonstrated in Poughkeepsie. A few

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Speaker 1: days after Andrew's disappointing encounter with Grimes, a local tailor

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Speaker 1: named William Livingston came by the Shoemaker's shop. He and

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Speaker 1: Andrew struck up a conversation. When they got around to

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Speaker 1: grimes failed attempt to magnetize Andrew well, Livingstone had something

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Speaker 1: to say about that. He told Andrew that Grimes wasn't

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Speaker 1: so special. In fact, Livingstone claimed that he was an

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Speaker 1: even better magnetizer. He performed many magnetic marvels, both in

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Speaker 1: Poughkeepsie and in his travels elsewhere. And Livingstone believed that

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Speaker 1: he could succeed with Andrew where the celebrity scientist had failed,

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Speaker 1: so he invited both Andrew and Edwin to his house

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Speaker 1: for his own attempt to magnetize Andrew. Later that night,

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Speaker 1: the shoemaker's apprentice sat across from Livingstone, relaxed and curious

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Speaker 1: to see if the tailor could succeed where the traveling

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Speaker 1: showman had failed. Andrew closed his eyes and felt William's

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Speaker 1: chilly hand pass and repass over his forehead. The effect

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Speaker 1: was sudden. Andrew would later say that ten thousand avenues

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Speaker 1: of sensation were illumed, as with the livid flames of

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Speaker 1: electric fire. Then a sense of intense darkness, a surge

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Speaker 1: of horrible feelings he couldn't put into words, and then

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Speaker 1: a wave of pain. He tried to protest, but his

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Speaker 1: tongue froze to the roof of his mouth, his cheeks

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Speaker 1: seemed extremely swollen, his lips fused shut, and he could

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Speaker 1: no longer control any part of his body. He was paralyzed,

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Speaker 1: even as he felt himself whirling along a revolving spiral path.

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Speaker 1: He even wondered at that moment if he was dying.

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Speaker 1: And then, as suddenly as the first wave of disorientation

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Speaker 1: had arrived, a cascade of bright, utterly new thoughts gushed

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Speaker 1: into his mind, and he fell unconscious. When he woke up,

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Speaker 1: Andrew was sitting in the same position, in the very

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Speaker 1: same chair, right across from Livingstone. But now he found

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Speaker 1: that the tailor it was bursting with excitement. He saw

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Speaker 1: the same thing on the faces of everyone else in

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Speaker 1: the room, some of whom had not been there when

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Speaker 1: they began. According to Livingstone. He had called them in

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Speaker 1: to watch Andrew perform in his trance. Andrew had read

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Speaker 1: from newspapers held against his forehead, told the time on

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Speaker 1: every watch in the room, and one by one described

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Speaker 1: the diseases and wounds of the people around him. Andrew

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Speaker 1: sat stunned while Livingston described the things he'd done. It

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Speaker 1: shook his world to the core, but it also left

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Speaker 1: him feeling confused. It was one thing to have an experience,

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Speaker 1: but it was something altogether different to explain it. For that,

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Speaker 1: Andrew had nothing to say. But William Livingston, did I

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Speaker 1: know what your power is called? The tailor told him clairvoyance.

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Speaker 1: Clairvoyance comes from the Latin for clear vision, and that's

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Speaker 1: exactly what William Livingston identified in Andrew Jackson Davis on

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Speaker 1: that night in eighteen forty three when he fell into

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Speaker 1: a mesmerized trance and began to speak. But Andrew discovered

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Speaker 1: quickly that the spirit speaking through him. We're looking for

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Speaker 1: a much wider audience, you see. Andrew and William repeated

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Speaker 1: their mesmeric ex yeraments every night, over and over, with

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Speaker 1: the same dramatic result. Andrew would fall into a trance

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Speaker 1: and while his body was locked in stasis, he would

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Speaker 1: burst out into lectures that amazed visitors with their eloquence

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Speaker 1: and insight. The first small groups grew into crowds, including

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Speaker 1: curious neighbors who came to test Andrew's powers, and here

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Speaker 1: the young, uneducated shoemaker's apprentice expound on mystical theology and

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Speaker 1: the nature of the universe. Andrew's dramatic performance of trance

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Speaker 1: visions were big news around Poughkeepsie, and the response was

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Speaker 1: equal parts wonder and ridicule, which meant that it didn't

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Speaker 1: take long for the news to travel beyond town. After

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Speaker 1: that first night, Andrew came out of a trance to

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Speaker 1: find that he was famous. As his trances continued, he

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Speaker 1: described in greater and greater detail the way that his

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Speaker 1: vision opened up to the world within the human body,

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Speaker 1: the luminous atmospheres, as he called it, that he saw

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Speaker 1: in human brains and hearts, and then into the branches

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Speaker 1: and leaves of plants, or in the geologic layers of

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Speaker 1: the earth under their feet. When Andrew Jackson Davis was

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Speaker 1: in a trance, he said, the fiery light glowing within

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Speaker 1: all life became visible to him like a mesmerists diagnostic tool.

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Speaker 1: He could clearly see the forces that Mesmer had always

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Speaker 1: taught were binding the universe together. Soon enough, in addition

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Speaker 1: to the medical cures that Andrew offered to his visitors,

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Speaker 1: he also went on journeys into the spirit land. There

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Speaker 1: he began to encounter figures who would speak to him,

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Speaker 1: to teach him and to pass along wisdom through long

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Speaker 1: lectures about the spiritual structure of the universe. Figures who

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Speaker 1: told Andrew that they were the spirits of the dead.

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Speaker 1: It was an astonishing revelation if it could be trusted.

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Speaker 1: That is, like all the Mesmerists who had come before.

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Speaker 1: Andrew knew that people would want to witness his trances

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Speaker 1: for themselves. So, at the invitation of a Poughkeepsie minister,

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Speaker 1: Andrew and William began to travel. William put Andrew into

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Speaker 1: trances in Albany, New York, and then Danbury, Connecticut, and

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Speaker 1: then Bridgeport as well. His clarivoyant healing and trance lectures

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Speaker 1: gathered bigger and bigger crowds. For a time, he made

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Speaker 1: a frequent circuit between Connecticut and New York, seeing patients

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Speaker 1: along the way and serving as their medical diagnostician, viewing

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Speaker 1: their wounds like a clairvoyant x ray and offering healing

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Speaker 1: advice from the spirits of the dead. Among those spirits,

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Speaker 1: Andrew began to report that his guides included the ancient

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Speaker 1: Greek physician Galen, who would help him to heal his patients.

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Speaker 1: After that he met the spirit of the Swedish Lutheranistic

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Speaker 1: Emmanuel Swedenborg. It was Swedenborg, he said, who guided him

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Speaker 1: on journeys through the astral plane and showed him the

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Speaker 1: structure of the universe. Here's Ann Browdie, Senior lecturer on

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Speaker 1: American religious history at Harvard Divinity School. Swedenborg's vision, which

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Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis was inspired by, described a world of spheres.

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Speaker 1: He understood the world in terms of levels, both levels

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Speaker 1: under the ground and levels spheres above the ground that

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Speaker 1: are through which the soul advances in its journey towards heaven.

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Speaker 1: Orthodox Calvinism and Protestant faith taught that whatever virtue you

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Speaker 1: had accomplished in your life at the moment of death

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Speaker 1: or lack of virtue, determined your faith for eternity, that

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Speaker 1: you would either be damned or you would be blessed

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Speaker 1: to sit at the right hand of God for eternity

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Speaker 1: and saved thereby from the flames of hell and eternal suffering.

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Speaker 1: This is a source of huge anxiety. And Andrew Jackson

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Speaker 1: Davis address that anxiety with the idea building on Swedenborg,

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Speaker 1: that the soul can continue to progress in grace following death.

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Speaker 1: As his fame grew, Andrew found better partners than his

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Speaker 1: Poughkeepsie Taylor. In November of eighteen forty five, he began

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Speaker 1: working with a mesmeric doctor who offered him the chance

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Speaker 1: to become his clairvoyant diagnostician in New York City. And

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Speaker 1: Andrew jumped at the chance. Once they're the pair began

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Speaker 1: working with a universalist minister and publisher who started writing

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Speaker 1: down the things that Andrew would say during his trances.

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Speaker 1: After a year of collecting the lectures from his journeys

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Speaker 1: into the spirit land, Andrew published it all as a

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Speaker 1: book in eighteen forty seven, The Principles of Nature, Her

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Speaker 1: Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. Andrew was just

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Speaker 1: twenty one at the time, making it quite the accomplishment.

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Speaker 1: He didn't know yet, but his work was about to

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Speaker 1: become the foundation for a coming movement, spurred on, of course,

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Speaker 1: by newspaper reports of the dramatic healings and revelations of

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Speaker 1: his lectures. The book was immediately reviewed throughout the New

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Speaker 1: York press. Some poured praise on the work, while there's

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Speaker 1: mocked it. In the book's defense, a Reverend George Bush

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Speaker 1: stepped in and explained that the teachings found inside were

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Speaker 1: not that different from the Transcendentalists in Boston. In fact,

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Speaker 1: just a few years earlier, Ralph Waldo Emerson had called

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Speaker 1: together a meeting of the Transcendental Club precisely to discuss

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Speaker 1: the role of mysticism in modern life. For Emerson and

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Speaker 1: the other Transcendentalists, Emmanuel Swedenborg was simply a mystic par excellence.

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Speaker 1: Now Andrew was meeting with that man's spirit and narrating

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Speaker 1: it for all religiously curious Americans. What Davis started with

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Speaker 1: his first book soon came to be called his harmonial philosophy.

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Speaker 1: At its core, his message was one of universal religion,

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Speaker 1: that there was a truth transcending all religions, and that

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Speaker 1: if we lived by that truth, it would create a

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Speaker 1: world of peace and order. Spirits who embraced that piece well,

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Speaker 1: they would progress into the upper heavens to help spread

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Speaker 1: his harmonial philosophy. Davis and his cohorts Estabil wished a

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Speaker 1: newspaper that became his mouthpiece. Their goal was, and I quote,

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Speaker 1: the establishment of a universal system of truth, the reform

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Speaker 1: and the reorganization of society. To really make the movement

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Speaker 1: take off, though, the theology and the community would need

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Speaker 1: something else, something tactile and visible and earthier, something powerful

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Speaker 1: for people to experience. Don't fool yourself into thinking that

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Speaker 1: America wasn't ready for something different. In the early eighteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson reflected back on the state

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Speaker 1: of religion in America and he wrote that the stern

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Speaker 1: old faiths have all pulverized America, he said, was a

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Speaker 1: whole population of gentlemen and ladies out in search of religions.

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Speaker 1: Tis a flat anarchy in our ecclesiastical realms. Here's Harvard

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Speaker 1: Divinity schools and Browdie once again. The period of the

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Speaker 1: eighteen twenties and thirties is known as the second grade Awakening,

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Speaker 1: and it's sometimes referred to as the period of the

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Speaker 1: democratization of American religion, when we see religious authority and

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Speaker 1: experience sweeping the country through revivals, and we see a

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Speaker 1: declining emphasis on an educated clergy, on religious hierarchies, on

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Speaker 1: religious education, and an increasing emphasis on religious experience that

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Speaker 1: is accessible to any individual. It was the perfect environment

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Speaker 1: for men like Aidan Blue. He was born in eighteen

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Speaker 1: oh three into a family that had farmed the same

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Speaker 1: land in Rhode Island for generations. At the age of twelve,

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Speaker 1: his whole family experienced a new kind of religion when

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Speaker 1: they attended a Universalist revival meeting, singing, praying, and weeping

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Speaker 1: at the incredible stories the traveling pre church told them.

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Speaker 1: It was so powerful, in fact, that for the next

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Speaker 1: three years, Aiden's whole family chased the high. They formed

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Speaker 1: their own church, and Aiden's father served as the deacon.

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Speaker 1: But not long after that, his family experienced their first

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Speaker 1: taste of sorrow. Arnold, one of Aiden's older brothers, became

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Speaker 1: ill and passed away. It was a moment that changed

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Speaker 1: aid into the core. It wouldn't be the last time

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Speaker 1: he experienced loss, but that didn't mean it was any

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Speaker 1: less powerful. In fact, the death of his brother haunted him.

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Speaker 1: And then there was the vision. One night, long after

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Speaker 1: his brother had passed away, Aiden awoke in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the nights. Feeling disoriented, he sat up and looked

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Speaker 1: around the room to try and find his bearings, and

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Speaker 1: then finally glanced out the window, and that's when he

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Speaker 1: saw it, a human form in a white robe standing outside. Strangely,

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Speaker 1: Aiden didn't feel afraid, but instead examined the figure. As

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Speaker 1: his eyes adjusted to the figure's brightness, he the features

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Speaker 1: of the face and suddenly recognized it. The shining figure

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Speaker 1: outside his room was his dead brother, and then it

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Speaker 1: moved toward him, passing through the solid wall to arrive

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Speaker 1: at the side of his bed. I have a command

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Speaker 1: from God, the figure said, with a finger pointed at him.

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Speaker 1: Preach to your fellow men. The blood of their souls

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Speaker 1: will be on your hands. Aiden's peace suddenly vanished and

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Speaker 1: was replaced with panic and fear. He spent the rest

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Speaker 1: of the night trying to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming,

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Speaker 1: that what he had seen was real, because if it

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Speaker 1: was real, then he needed to obey. From that day forward,

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Speaker 1: he was plagued by questions about the afterlife and by

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Speaker 1: the issues of suffering and loss. He would eventually go

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Speaker 1: on to start his own church and to travel around

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Speaker 1: the New England area, preaching and serving the communities he

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Speaker 1: had countered. He wasn't to train minister, but that wasn't

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Speaker 1: about to stop him. After all, his mission came straight

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Speaker 1: from the other world, from God himself, and he would

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Speaker 1: be a fool to ignore it. He would taste the

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Speaker 1: bitter wine of loss a few more times over the years.

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Speaker 1: His first wife passed away just a few years after

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Speaker 1: they were married, and then both of his sons as well.

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Speaker 1: He remarried. But once you've experienced loss on the scale

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Speaker 1: Aiden had, it's easy to keep glancing over your shoulder.

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Speaker 1: For a fighter like him, though, that meant looking for

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Speaker 1: answers and building hope. It wasn't long before he and

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Speaker 1: a few of his followers decided to set out on

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Speaker 1: their own and build a community together. In eighteen forty one,

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Speaker 1: he led twenty eight followers from across New York and

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Speaker 1: New England into the woods thirty miles southwest of Boston.

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Speaker 1: There they founded what was to be the model for

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Speaker 1: a perfect society, a city built on hope. Perhaps that's

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Speaker 1: why he called it Hopedale. Here's Harvard Divinity Schools and Browdie.

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Speaker 1: Once again, Hopedale, which was one of the most important

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Speaker 1: for the spread of spiritualism was considered a community based

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Speaker 1: on what they called practical Christian socialism. And of course,

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Speaker 1: a communitarian ideal and a socialist ideal go hand in

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Speaker 1: hand because of the idea of shared property. Holding property

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Speaker 1: in common is a common element of utopian settlements, and

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Speaker 1: believe me, socialism is a lot easier if you have

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Speaker 1: a religious motivation. Without a religious motive. Not that many

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Speaker 1: people are willing to share property or to live in

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Speaker 1: harmony to to place their desires as individuals. They weren't

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Speaker 1: the first to experiment with the idea of a utopian society,

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Speaker 1: not by a long shot. Transcendentalist reformers, including a young

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Speaker 1: Nathaniel Hawthorne, bounded a similar commune outside of Boston. Elsewhere,

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Speaker 1: a Scotsman named Robert Owen founded two separate communities, including

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Speaker 1: one in Indiana called New Harmony. But even he took

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Speaker 1: inspiration from an earlier example, the Shakers. The Shakers ticked

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Speaker 1: all the boxes for a utopian society from the early

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. They held their own property in common, they

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Speaker 1: worked the land, they plied their trades in cooperation, and

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Speaker 1: they practiced true equality by giving leadership roles to both

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Speaker 1: men and women. But ever since they arrived in New

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Speaker 1: York in the seventeen seventies, the Shakers had also begun

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Speaker 1: to experience something else, ecstatic visitations. In eighteen thirty seven,

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Speaker 1: at their communal home in New York, three girls whose

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Speaker 1: ages ranged from ten to fourteen, fell under some invisible

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Speaker 1: spiritual power, and Goff, the oldest of them, stood before

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Speaker 1: her community and told them that she had seen a

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Speaker 1: female spirit dressed in white. And while that might sound

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Speaker 1: like something pulled right out of the sale in witch

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Speaker 1: trials of sixteen ninety two, the one fifty years that

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Speaker 1: separated them made a world of difference. Rather than start

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Speaker 1: a witch hunt, their story was received with open arms.

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Speaker 1: Later that same day, as the community danced in enthusiastic

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Speaker 1: worship and mostly friend reappeared and moved among them, kissing

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Speaker 1: them and singing songs to them. The next time she

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Speaker 1: was seeing, she brought others with her, always appearing to Anne.

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Speaker 1: Soon enough, the spirits of the dead were appearing at

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Speaker 1: their own funerals to comfort their morning families. Even mother

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Speaker 1: Ann Lee, who founded the Shaker order before dying in

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Speaker 1: sev four, appeared with heavenly messages for her followers. Remarkably,

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Speaker 1: spirits from outside the Shaker community began to arrive as well.

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Speaker 1: George Washington, Lafayette, Napoleon, the biblical Queen Esther, and the

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Speaker 1: spirits of Native Americans all appeared with messages and lessons

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Speaker 1: for them all. And here's the thing. Shaker communities around

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Speaker 1: New York started to believe that some Shakers were born

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Speaker 1: to communicate with these ghostly visitors. They called them instruments

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Speaker 1: of the spirit world, and whatever they received they would

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Speaker 1: share with others, all for the building up of their community.

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Speaker 1: Whatever their power might have been, these instruments offered hope.

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Speaker 1: And whether they were offering divine wisdom, comforting words, or

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Speaker 1: answers to difficult questions, one thing was absolutely clear. For

425
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: those with eyes to see the dead that burst from

426
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: the grave. History hasn't been kind of spiritualism. A recent

427
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: two volume History of the United States treated spiritualism with

428
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: a single dismissive sentence, as if it was an insignificant

429
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: movement making self evidently foolish claims. And honestly, there are

430
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: a lot of people today who agree with that sentiment.

431
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: But just wait, because that view is far from reality

432
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: and far from the way the world looked to a

433
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: lot of people in the forties, in a time when

434
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: the spiritual sciences of mesmerism, animal magnetism, and phrenology were

435
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: popular and became major new preoccupations. Well, the right way

436
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: to see the world became less and less obvious. Before

437
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: spiritualism became the parlor room seance and the music hall

438
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: spectacle that's so often mocked today, it was born in

439
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: the minds of deeply religious teachers, passionate social reformers, and

440
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: curious scientists who wanted to change the world. Here's Dr

441
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: John Busher, co director of the International Association for the

442
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals. That profound influence that

443
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: they exerted on the national life was deliberately written out

444
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: of histories of reform movements like the Women's movement, of

445
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: labor movement, politics, history of the politics of the period,

446
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: the intellectual history, history of of the novel and poetry,

447
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: and on and on. That story has hardly been told

448
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: in this season of Unobscured. Well trace the path of

449
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: the spiritualists who followed the voice of Andrew Jackson Davis

450
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: over the course of the nineteenth century, spiritualism became a

451
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: kaleidoscope of novel beliefs, courageous people, and world shaking events.

452
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: Here's historian Molly McGarry. There were always many spiritualisms, both

453
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century and beyond. So some people came

454
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: to the science tables seeking answers, wanting deeply to commune

455
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: with lost loved ones. Others were curious investigators, looking to

456
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: see for themselves with this new technology could materialize. But

457
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: what I found in what I've been most struck by

458
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: is that many spiritualists took seriously the possibility of channeling

459
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: the voices of the dead as a means of both

460
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: connecting with the past and imagining both worldly and otherworldly futures.

461
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: The truth is, spiritualists traveled all around the world, started

462
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: a raft of publications and took up, proclaimed and then rejected,

463
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: a vast web of ideas about the afterlife, communication with

464
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead and the authority those spirits

465
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: had over the living. Their story touches everything from technology

466
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: to medicine, to the genocide of Native Americans and the

467
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: murder of a president, and along the way, its values

468
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: were echoed by social causes like abolition, women's suffrage, and

469
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: labor rights, helping it grow from a local fad to

470
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: a global phenomenon. And yes, it's a story about religion,

471
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: but it's so much more. It's a story of idealism

472
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: and individualism, of poachers and preachers, and of freedom fighters

473
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: and celebrities. And while the Shaker Girls provided an early

474
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 1: model for those emerging spiritualists, it was Andrew Jackson Davis,

475
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 1: the Seer of Poughkeepsie, who would do something bigger. He

476
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: would be their first bona fide star. Amy was running

477
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: from her pain. In the spring of eighteen twenty five,

478
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: Amy's fiance suddenly became ill and passed away, and then

479
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 1: a short while later, she received a letter from her

480
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: brother in law that her sister was also sick. Amy

481
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 1: rushed to her sister's side, and together with her brother

482
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: in law, Isaac, they cared for the dying woman as

483
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: best they could, but eventually the illness won and both

484
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: of them were left to deal with their loss and grief.

485
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: The road to healing also turned out to be a

486
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 1: road to second chances, and two years later the pair

487
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: were married. Amy and Isaac Post were Quakers, a religious

488
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: group that had been in America since the middle of

489
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds. Since the beginning, they often found themselves

490
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: at odds with their Protestant neighbors because of their unique beliefs.

491
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: In fact, during the Salem witch Trials, of being part

492
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: of the Quaker movement was a very good way to

493
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:56,719
Speaker 1: get yourself accused of witchcraft. But they were also one

494
00:32:56,760 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: of the first utopian experiments. Here's an Browdie again from

495
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: Harvard Divinity School. To give up the notion that individual

496
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 1: property equals happiness, you have to be very deeply committed,

497
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: and piety, religious fervor go a long way towards making

498
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: that possible. Of course, the Quakers are the most successful

499
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: communitarian religious experiment in American history. In eighteen twenty seven,

500
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: the Quaker movement split into two pieces. One of their

501
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: charismatic leaders, who also happened to be Amy's cousin, thought

502
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: their community had become too worldly, not least because there

503
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: were so many Quakers comfortable with the institution of slavery,

504
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: some even holding slaves of their own. Along with Isaac,

505
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: Amy followed the dissenters, seeking a religion that was more pure.

506
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: Here's Molly McGarry once again. She came from a family

507
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: religious radicals who had thought that the Quaker establishment had

508
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: grown too orthodox, too comfortable with the material institutions of

509
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: the world, including slavery. The couple moved to Rochester in

510
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, where Isaac became a successful pharmacist. Not

511
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: long after, Amy started holding abolition meetings in their home.

512
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just radical Quakers who were invited. You see,

513
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: New York State had abolished slavery a decade earlier, and

514
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,760
Speaker 1: then in eighteen thirty four, a group of black women

515
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: founded Rochester's first female abolition society, following the examples set

516
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: by black women in Salem, Massachusetts, who formed the first

517
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 1: women's anti slavery society in the United States in eighteen

518
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 1: thirty two. That very same year, a school for black

519
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: children opened in Rochester, two blocks away from a church

520
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 1: on thirty four Sophia Street. When Isaac and Amy Post

521
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: moved into town in eighteen thirty six, they took the

522
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,720
Speaker 1: home next door. By the mid eighteen forties, words spread

523
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 1: that Isaac and Amy had started participating in worldly groups

524
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 1: filled with people who weren't Quakers. This was too much

525
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:00,839
Speaker 1: even for many of the Quaker separatists Molly mcgeary. Once again,

526
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: Isaac and Amy Posts were actually thrown out of their

527
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: Genesee Quakers group, for, as the story goes, having hosted

528
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: a wedding of two African American friends of theirs. The

529
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods and black churches in Rochester were growing. As

530
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: news spread, people began to arrive in town looking for

531
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 1: safe harbor. First and foremost they were people who had

532
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: escaped from slavery, and black churches were the first places

533
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: in the city to provide shelter for them, sometimes finding

534
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:34,439
Speaker 1: ways to hide survivors in plain sight. At one point,

535
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: local ebolitionists counted that they were helping one fifty people

536
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:41,920
Speaker 1: each year. Soon enough, Amy and Isaac joined in helping

537
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: their neighbors hide fugitives and also giving them food, blankets, clothing,

538
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: and money for the journey farther north, where freedom awaited them.

539
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 1: In July of eighteen forty three, Isaac Post and a

540
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:57,240
Speaker 1: few others put together a three day convention of their friends,

541
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:00,439
Speaker 1: and the Posts hosted speakers in their home. In fact,

542
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: one of them was a young man who had escaped

543
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: from slavery in Maryland. His name Frederick Douglas, but that

544
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,959
Speaker 1: wasn't all. Amy and Isaac also met a young white

545
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 1: woman named Leah Fish. She was a single mother who

546
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: was struggling to make a living as a piano teacher

547
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 1: in Rochester, and they felt moved to help her, so

548
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 1: they took her into their home. A short while later,

549
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 1: Leah's parents, John and Margaret also arrived in town, along

550
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: with two of Leah's younger sisters. They had recently lost

551
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 1: everything in a failed farming experiment farther north and needed

552
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: a place to rest, recover, and plan their next move.

553
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: Amy was only too happy to help. It turned out

554
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: to be a fateful meeting. What Leah and her sisters

555
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 1: brought into Amy's life would shift her horizons, change her

556
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: place in the world, and etch Rochester's name into the

557
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: nation's religious history. And they would give Andrew Jackson Davis's

558
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: harmonial philosophy the thing it was missing. Eight was about

559
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: to dawn, and the age of Spiritualism was about to begin.

560
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around

561
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's

562
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: in store for next week. Next time on Unobscured, more

563
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 1: and more seekers were making their way into Rochester, all

564
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:35,879
Speaker 1: while other religious experiments were falling flat and communities along

565
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 1: the canal were folding, looking for guidance, for connection and

566
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: for the next step to take in their lives. People

567
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:44,919
Speaker 1: knew to the city were open to something that could

568
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 1: be seen and heard, something that could be witnessed. After

569
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: a year of closed sittings, the Spirits spoke up. They

570
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 1: were ready for a wider audience in a private seance

571
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,479
Speaker 1: just for the Posts. The Spirits spoke through Leah, telling

572
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: Isaac to rent Rochester's Corinthian Hall for a whole three

573
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: nights for the first time ever. They were going to

574
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: throw the doors open wide to a paying crowd. It

575
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: was time for the Spirits to take the stage. Unobscured

576
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,880
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick,

577
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,760
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio.

578
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: Research and writing for this season is all the work

579
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: of my right hand man, Carl Nellis and the brilliant

580
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about

581
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 1: our contributing historians, source material and links to our other

582
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: shows over at History Unobscured dot com and until next time.

583
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Yeah. Unobscured is a production of I

584
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: heart Radio and Aaron Menkey. For more podcasts for my

585
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

586
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H