Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: There was a stir in the shoemaker's shop. The apprentices
Speaker 1: were whispering excitedly. Ira Armstrong, who owned the place, asked
Speaker 1: what they were talking about. The sixteen year old Andrew
Speaker 1: showed him a printed advertisement across the top in a
Speaker 1: blast of ink. It read Mesmerism Wonderful Experiments Magnetizer and Phrenologist.
Speaker 1: Andrew had never heard the term mesmerism before. He had
Speaker 1: no idea what was going to be on display, but
Speaker 1: the pamphlets made one thing clear. It was going to
Speaker 1: be a spectacle. The boys could barely sit still. The
Speaker 1: word passed through Poughkeepsie that the oncoming professor was some
Speaker 1: sort of wonder worker, a man who would demonstrate mesmeric
Speaker 1: miracles at the village hall. Every one in town was
Speaker 1: talking about it. The boys wanted to see for themselves
Speaker 1: if the stories were true. Ira grumbled something about magnetic buffoonery,
Speaker 1: but he must not have been too hard a taskmaster.
Speaker 1: He gave the boys the afternoon off, and so Andrew
Speaker 1: bounced off toward Hatch's Hotel with fellow apprentice Edwin in
Speaker 1: tow when they arrived, though, the pair were led to
Speaker 1: a quiet room upstairs. This wasn't the miracles in the
Speaker 1: village hall the advertisements had promised. When Andrew reached the
Speaker 1: little room, he found a crowd of boys fidgeting in
Speaker 1: their seats, craning their necks to look around the room.
Speaker 1: All of them shared that same eagerness. They were there
Speaker 1: to witness a mystery. What they got when the professor
Speaker 1: arrived didn't quite bring the advertisement to life. A man
Speaker 1: walked to the front of the room and he started
Speaker 1: to talk. He started to lecture. Sure, his subjects were
Speaker 1: as promised, phrenology and animal magnetism, but these are sixteen
Speaker 1: year old boys were talking about They wanted action. His
Speaker 1: droning went on so long. In fact, Andrew later said
Speaker 1: it was nearly two hours long that the boy started
Speaker 1: to doze. He closed his eyes and his head drooped,
Speaker 1: But before he could fall asleep, he heard footsteps approach.
Speaker 1: The lecturing voice took on an eagerness as it came
Speaker 1: to a stop in front of Andrew. It was time.
Speaker 1: The man said, we're a demonstration. He started to wave
Speaker 1: his hand dramatically in front of Andrew's head. Then he declared,
Speaker 1: you can't open your eyes. Andrew must have frowned. He
Speaker 1: raised his head and looked up skeptically into the man's face.
Speaker 1: We can only imagine the look of teenage contempt the
Speaker 1: man got for wasting Andrew's afternoon off. It was nothing
Speaker 1: short of a letdown, so Andrew went back to work.
Speaker 1: Any of Irish's smugness about his apprentice's gullibility is lost
Speaker 1: to history. The stranger had been no mesmerist. His voice
Speaker 1: did have the power to put people to sleep, but
Speaker 1: where was the miracle in that? It wasn't long, though,
Speaker 1: before Andrew and Edwins started to hear more stories. They
Speaker 1: weren't the only ones to attend the demonstration. The following
Speaker 1: day and the day after that, rumors started to travel
Speaker 1: throughout town. Other people who went to the demonstrations, they said,
Speaker 1: had felt something. Maybe they missed it the first time,
Speaker 1: or perhaps the visitor needed to warm up like an
Speaker 1: athlete before a big game. Either way, word around town
Speaker 1: was beginning to sound very different from what Andrew and
Speaker 1: Edwin had expected, and the people were doing more than
Speaker 1: just whisper. Soon those murmurs would consume a nation. Something
Speaker 1: supernatural was about to begin this is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mackey.
Speaker 1: Why did the power of mesmerism pass by the shoemaker's apprentice.
Speaker 1: Maybe it had something to do with the boy's hard life.
Speaker 1: Growing up, Andrew moved between tenements and tenant houses in
Speaker 1: towns along the west bank of the Hudson River. His
Speaker 1: father did odd jobs to keep them alive. He made shoes,
Speaker 1: wove cloth, whatever handcrafts could earn something for his family,
Speaker 1: a wife and seven children. He never made much, though,
Speaker 1: with his children to feed, Andrew's father scratched out a
Speaker 1: living anyway he could. It was a difficult and anxious
Speaker 1: way to live. Unsurprisingly, much of what he did earn
Speaker 1: was spent on alcohol. It wasn't just his father's habits
Speaker 1: that made their life uncertain, though. When they looked at
Speaker 1: the nation around them, they saw the same thing. Andrew
Speaker 1: was born in eighteen six, the year the United States
Speaker 1: celebrated its jubilee. On July four. It had been fifty
Speaker 1: years since the Declaration of Independence was signed by the
Speaker 1: founding fathers, but the celebration was darkened by clouds of uncertainty.
Speaker 1: On that exact same day, both John Adams and Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson died in their homes, their coffins slam shut on
Speaker 1: the founding era. What would come next? One answer was
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson's new Democratic Party. It burst into the world
Speaker 1: with a bold promise that it would bring about something new,
Speaker 1: the rule of the common man. Here's Molly McGarry, Associate
Speaker 1: professor of History at the University of California, Riverside. The
Speaker 1: most significant change affected by Jackson in democracy was the
Speaker 1: extension of the franchise of the vote to white man
Speaker 1: over the age of twenty one who did not own property.
Speaker 1: The elite power brokers who had shaped the nation saw
Speaker 1: their numbers shrinking, and the oncoming forces of democratic fervor
Speaker 1: posed a major threat to their top down rule. They
Speaker 1: fought tooth and nail to hold back the political transformation
Speaker 1: that was swiftly overtaking them. Already contentious and chaotic in
Speaker 1: eighteen s the presidential campaign assured men like the New
Speaker 1: York shoemaker that the nation would now be ordered in
Speaker 1: their favor. In New York, Little Andrew was named in
Speaker 1: honor of Jackson's vision for the future. In the end, though,
Speaker 1: it would be the boy's own visions that would define
Speaker 1: his life, but he would have to suffer first. Along
Speaker 1: the way to his sixteenth birthday, Andrew lost his mother,
Speaker 1: two sisters, and a brother. The grief must have been devastating,
Speaker 1: but there was no time to rest as the blows
Speaker 1: kept coming. Because his father struggled to support even his
Speaker 1: dwindling family. Things were so rough for them that he
Speaker 1: rented out Andrew to farmers and tradesmen as a hired hand.
Speaker 1: Whatever the boy felt, his life came down to work. Eventually,
Speaker 1: in their wandering search for a way to make a living,
Speaker 1: Andrew and his father arrived in Poughkeepsie, New York, seventy
Speaker 1: miles north of New York City, where a local shoemaker,
Speaker 1: Ira Armstrong, hired Andrew as an apprentice. Ira would later
Speaker 1: note that Andrew knew how to read and write, but
Speaker 1: that his knowledge was only rudimentary. Andrew's working life hadn't
Speaker 1: allowed him a lot of time for school. He was
Speaker 1: known as a frank, open and honest boy with a
Speaker 1: curious attitude, but he wasn't a scholar, a thinker, or
Speaker 1: a writer. He was known to most folks as friendly
Speaker 1: and well disposed, and to his boss he was a
Speaker 1: steady and reliable worker. When it all added up, he
Speaker 1: was just ordinary. But in eighteen forty three, all of
Speaker 1: that would change. In the early eighteen hundreds, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just the political landscape that was cracking apart. Shock waves
Speaker 1: in the scientific world were also breaking up old ways
Speaker 1: of thinking and injecting new ideas into American culture. One
Speaker 1: of those shock waves was a man by the name
Speaker 1: of J. Stanley Grimes, and in eighteen forty three he
Speaker 1: made his way to Poughkeepsie, and with considerable fanfare too.
Speaker 1: He was a magnetizer and phrenologist, and as arrival was
Speaker 1: paved with a burst of announcements and show bills. It
Speaker 1: was their heading Mesmerism that had captured Andrew's attention, originally
Speaker 1: developed by the German physician France Anton Mesmer, who taught
Speaker 1: that everything was permeated by an invisible fluid carrying magnetic
Speaker 1: energy throughout the universe. Here's Kathy gutierres historian and scholar
Speaker 1: in residence at the New York Public Library. Why don't
Speaker 1: stars fall out the sky right? Why our planets predictable? Well,
Speaker 1: they're held in some sort of kinetic tension through magnetic attraction. Certainly,
Speaker 1: Kepler thought this what Mesmer did was he applied that
Speaker 1: idea to the human body, so not only the planets,
Speaker 1: but the tides and the sea, and the waning of
Speaker 1: the moon, and the flow of this energy through the
Speaker 1: body could be redirected and redistributed. And that's where J.
Speaker 1: Stanley Grimes stepped in. For some who kept abreast of
Speaker 1: advances in science, Grimes was already a household name, a Bostonian,
Speaker 1: and a medical lawyer by training. Grimes was at the
Speaker 1: forefront of American sciences of the mind by eighteen thirty two.
Speaker 1: That was when demonstrators arrived from Germany and led curious
Speaker 1: Bostonians in a course on the discipline of phrenology. They
Speaker 1: taught that the shape of the human skull reflected uneven
Speaker 1: development of the brain, where each part performed a specific function.
Speaker 1: Grimes believed that he could use phrenology to harness the
Speaker 1: power of Mesmer's animal magnetism. If he followed the right
Speaker 1: contours of the skull to excite certain organs of the brain,
Speaker 1: he could pick up where Mesmer left off. In particular,
Speaker 1: he could drop his subjects into a suggestible, trance like
Speaker 1: state he called mesmeric sleep in honor of the German doctor.
Speaker 1: And it was this freno magnetism, his personal combination of
Speaker 1: cutting edge sciences, that Grimes demonstrated in Poughkeepsie. A few
Speaker 1: days after Andrew's disappointing encounter with Grimes, a local tailor
Speaker 1: named William Livingston came by the Shoemaker's shop. He and
Speaker 1: Andrew struck up a conversation. When they got around to
Speaker 1: grimes failed attempt to magnetize Andrew well, Livingstone had something
Speaker 1: to say about that. He told Andrew that Grimes wasn't
Speaker 1: so special. In fact, Livingstone claimed that he was an
Speaker 1: even better magnetizer. He performed many magnetic marvels, both in
Speaker 1: Poughkeepsie and in his travels elsewhere. And Livingstone believed that
Speaker 1: he could succeed with Andrew where the celebrity scientist had failed,
Speaker 1: so he invited both Andrew and Edwin to his house
Speaker 1: for his own attempt to magnetize Andrew. Later that night,
Speaker 1: the shoemaker's apprentice sat across from Livingstone, relaxed and curious
Speaker 1: to see if the tailor could succeed where the traveling
Speaker 1: showman had failed. Andrew closed his eyes and felt William's
Speaker 1: chilly hand pass and repass over his forehead. The effect
Speaker 1: was sudden. Andrew would later say that ten thousand avenues
Speaker 1: of sensation were illumed, as with the livid flames of
Speaker 1: electric fire. Then a sense of intense darkness, a surge
Speaker 1: of horrible feelings he couldn't put into words, and then
Speaker 1: a wave of pain. He tried to protest, but his
Speaker 1: tongue froze to the roof of his mouth, his cheeks
Speaker 1: seemed extremely swollen, his lips fused shut, and he could
Speaker 1: no longer control any part of his body. He was paralyzed,
Speaker 1: even as he felt himself whirling along a revolving spiral path.
Speaker 1: He even wondered at that moment if he was dying.
Speaker 1: And then, as suddenly as the first wave of disorientation
Speaker 1: had arrived, a cascade of bright, utterly new thoughts gushed
Speaker 1: into his mind, and he fell unconscious. When he woke up,
Speaker 1: Andrew was sitting in the same position, in the very
Speaker 1: same chair, right across from Livingstone. But now he found
Speaker 1: that the tailor it was bursting with excitement. He saw
Speaker 1: the same thing on the faces of everyone else in
Speaker 1: the room, some of whom had not been there when
Speaker 1: they began. According to Livingstone. He had called them in
Speaker 1: to watch Andrew perform in his trance. Andrew had read
Speaker 1: from newspapers held against his forehead, told the time on
Speaker 1: every watch in the room, and one by one described
Speaker 1: the diseases and wounds of the people around him. Andrew
Speaker 1: sat stunned while Livingston described the things he'd done. It
Speaker 1: shook his world to the core, but it also left
Speaker 1: him feeling confused. It was one thing to have an experience,
Speaker 1: but it was something altogether different to explain it. For that,
Speaker 1: Andrew had nothing to say. But William Livingston, did I
Speaker 1: know what your power is called? The tailor told him clairvoyance.
Speaker 1: Clairvoyance comes from the Latin for clear vision, and that's
Speaker 1: exactly what William Livingston identified in Andrew Jackson Davis on
Speaker 1: that night in eighteen forty three when he fell into
Speaker 1: a mesmerized trance and began to speak. But Andrew discovered
Speaker 1: quickly that the spirit speaking through him. We're looking for
Speaker 1: a much wider audience, you see. Andrew and William repeated
Speaker 1: their mesmeric ex yeraments every night, over and over, with
Speaker 1: the same dramatic result. Andrew would fall into a trance
Speaker 1: and while his body was locked in stasis, he would
Speaker 1: burst out into lectures that amazed visitors with their eloquence
Speaker 1: and insight. The first small groups grew into crowds, including
Speaker 1: curious neighbors who came to test Andrew's powers, and here
Speaker 1: the young, uneducated shoemaker's apprentice expound on mystical theology and
Speaker 1: the nature of the universe. Andrew's dramatic performance of trance
Speaker 1: visions were big news around Poughkeepsie, and the response was
Speaker 1: equal parts wonder and ridicule, which meant that it didn't
Speaker 1: take long for the news to travel beyond town. After
Speaker 1: that first night, Andrew came out of a trance to
Speaker 1: find that he was famous. As his trances continued, he
Speaker 1: described in greater and greater detail the way that his
Speaker 1: vision opened up to the world within the human body,
Speaker 1: the luminous atmospheres, as he called it, that he saw
Speaker 1: in human brains and hearts, and then into the branches
Speaker 1: and leaves of plants, or in the geologic layers of
Speaker 1: the earth under their feet. When Andrew Jackson Davis was
Speaker 1: in a trance, he said, the fiery light glowing within
Speaker 1: all life became visible to him like a mesmerists diagnostic tool.
Speaker 1: He could clearly see the forces that Mesmer had always
Speaker 1: taught were binding the universe together. Soon enough, in addition
Speaker 1: to the medical cures that Andrew offered to his visitors,
Speaker 1: he also went on journeys into the spirit land. There
Speaker 1: he began to encounter figures who would speak to him,
Speaker 1: to teach him and to pass along wisdom through long
Speaker 1: lectures about the spiritual structure of the universe. Figures who
Speaker 1: told Andrew that they were the spirits of the dead.
Speaker 1: It was an astonishing revelation if it could be trusted.
Speaker 1: That is, like all the Mesmerists who had come before.
Speaker 1: Andrew knew that people would want to witness his trances
Speaker 1: for themselves. So, at the invitation of a Poughkeepsie minister,
Speaker 1: Andrew and William began to travel. William put Andrew into
Speaker 1: trances in Albany, New York, and then Danbury, Connecticut, and
Speaker 1: then Bridgeport as well. His clarivoyant healing and trance lectures
Speaker 1: gathered bigger and bigger crowds. For a time, he made
Speaker 1: a frequent circuit between Connecticut and New York, seeing patients
Speaker 1: along the way and serving as their medical diagnostician, viewing
Speaker 1: their wounds like a clairvoyant x ray and offering healing
Speaker 1: advice from the spirits of the dead. Among those spirits,
Speaker 1: Andrew began to report that his guides included the ancient
Speaker 1: Greek physician Galen, who would help him to heal his patients.
Speaker 1: After that he met the spirit of the Swedish Lutheranistic
Speaker 1: Emmanuel Swedenborg. It was Swedenborg, he said, who guided him
Speaker 1: on journeys through the astral plane and showed him the
Speaker 1: structure of the universe. Here's Ann Browdie, Senior lecturer on
Speaker 1: American religious history at Harvard Divinity School. Swedenborg's vision, which
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis was inspired by, described a world of spheres.
Speaker 1: He understood the world in terms of levels, both levels
Speaker 1: under the ground and levels spheres above the ground that
Speaker 1: are through which the soul advances in its journey towards heaven.
Speaker 1: Orthodox Calvinism and Protestant faith taught that whatever virtue you
Speaker 1: had accomplished in your life at the moment of death
Speaker 1: or lack of virtue, determined your faith for eternity, that
Speaker 1: you would either be damned or you would be blessed
Speaker 1: to sit at the right hand of God for eternity
Speaker 1: and saved thereby from the flames of hell and eternal suffering.
Speaker 1: This is a source of huge anxiety. And Andrew Jackson
Speaker 1: Davis address that anxiety with the idea building on Swedenborg,
Speaker 1: that the soul can continue to progress in grace following death.
Speaker 1: As his fame grew, Andrew found better partners than his
Speaker 1: Poughkeepsie Taylor. In November of eighteen forty five, he began
Speaker 1: working with a mesmeric doctor who offered him the chance
Speaker 1: to become his clairvoyant diagnostician in New York City. And
Speaker 1: Andrew jumped at the chance. Once they're the pair began
Speaker 1: working with a universalist minister and publisher who started writing
Speaker 1: down the things that Andrew would say during his trances.
Speaker 1: After a year of collecting the lectures from his journeys
Speaker 1: into the spirit land, Andrew published it all as a
Speaker 1: book in eighteen forty seven, The Principles of Nature, Her
Speaker 1: Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. Andrew was just
Speaker 1: twenty one at the time, making it quite the accomplishment.
Speaker 1: He didn't know yet, but his work was about to
Speaker 1: become the foundation for a coming movement, spurred on, of course,
Speaker 1: by newspaper reports of the dramatic healings and revelations of
Speaker 1: his lectures. The book was immediately reviewed throughout the New
Speaker 1: York press. Some poured praise on the work, while there's
Speaker 1: mocked it. In the book's defense, a Reverend George Bush
Speaker 1: stepped in and explained that the teachings found inside were
Speaker 1: not that different from the Transcendentalists in Boston. In fact,
Speaker 1: just a few years earlier, Ralph Waldo Emerson had called
Speaker 1: together a meeting of the Transcendental Club precisely to discuss
Speaker 1: the role of mysticism in modern life. For Emerson and
Speaker 1: the other Transcendentalists, Emmanuel Swedenborg was simply a mystic par excellence.
Speaker 1: Now Andrew was meeting with that man's spirit and narrating
Speaker 1: it for all religiously curious Americans. What Davis started with
Speaker 1: his first book soon came to be called his harmonial philosophy.
Speaker 1: At its core, his message was one of universal religion,
Speaker 1: that there was a truth transcending all religions, and that
Speaker 1: if we lived by that truth, it would create a
Speaker 1: world of peace and order. Spirits who embraced that piece well,
Speaker 1: they would progress into the upper heavens to help spread
Speaker 1: his harmonial philosophy. Davis and his cohorts Estabil wished a
Speaker 1: newspaper that became his mouthpiece. Their goal was, and I quote,
Speaker 1: the establishment of a universal system of truth, the reform
Speaker 1: and the reorganization of society. To really make the movement
Speaker 1: take off, though, the theology and the community would need
Speaker 1: something else, something tactile and visible and earthier, something powerful
Speaker 1: for people to experience. Don't fool yourself into thinking that
Speaker 1: America wasn't ready for something different. In the early eighteen fifties,
Speaker 1: the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson reflected back on the state
Speaker 1: of religion in America and he wrote that the stern
Speaker 1: old faiths have all pulverized America, he said, was a
Speaker 1: whole population of gentlemen and ladies out in search of religions.
Speaker 1: Tis a flat anarchy in our ecclesiastical realms. Here's Harvard
Speaker 1: Divinity schools and Browdie once again. The period of the
Speaker 1: eighteen twenties and thirties is known as the second grade Awakening,
Speaker 1: and it's sometimes referred to as the period of the
Speaker 1: democratization of American religion, when we see religious authority and
Speaker 1: experience sweeping the country through revivals, and we see a
Speaker 1: declining emphasis on an educated clergy, on religious hierarchies, on
Speaker 1: religious education, and an increasing emphasis on religious experience that
Speaker 1: is accessible to any individual. It was the perfect environment
Speaker 1: for men like Aidan Blue. He was born in eighteen
Speaker 1: oh three into a family that had farmed the same
Speaker 1: land in Rhode Island for generations. At the age of twelve,
Speaker 1: his whole family experienced a new kind of religion when
Speaker 1: they attended a Universalist revival meeting, singing, praying, and weeping
Speaker 1: at the incredible stories the traveling pre church told them.
Speaker 1: It was so powerful, in fact, that for the next
Speaker 1: three years, Aiden's whole family chased the high. They formed
Speaker 1: their own church, and Aiden's father served as the deacon.
Speaker 1: But not long after that, his family experienced their first
Speaker 1: taste of sorrow. Arnold, one of Aiden's older brothers, became
Speaker 1: ill and passed away. It was a moment that changed
Speaker 1: aid into the core. It wouldn't be the last time
Speaker 1: he experienced loss, but that didn't mean it was any
Speaker 1: less powerful. In fact, the death of his brother haunted him.
Speaker 1: And then there was the vision. One night, long after
Speaker 1: his brother had passed away, Aiden awoke in the middle
Speaker 1: of the nights. Feeling disoriented, he sat up and looked
Speaker 1: around the room to try and find his bearings, and
Speaker 1: then finally glanced out the window, and that's when he
Speaker 1: saw it, a human form in a white robe standing outside. Strangely,
Speaker 1: Aiden didn't feel afraid, but instead examined the figure. As
Speaker 1: his eyes adjusted to the figure's brightness, he the features
Speaker 1: of the face and suddenly recognized it. The shining figure
Speaker 1: outside his room was his dead brother, and then it
Speaker 1: moved toward him, passing through the solid wall to arrive
Speaker 1: at the side of his bed. I have a command
Speaker 1: from God, the figure said, with a finger pointed at him.
Speaker 1: Preach to your fellow men. The blood of their souls
Speaker 1: will be on your hands. Aiden's peace suddenly vanished and
Speaker 1: was replaced with panic and fear. He spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the night trying to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming,
Speaker 1: that what he had seen was real, because if it
Speaker 1: was real, then he needed to obey. From that day forward,
Speaker 1: he was plagued by questions about the afterlife and by
Speaker 1: the issues of suffering and loss. He would eventually go
Speaker 1: on to start his own church and to travel around
Speaker 1: the New England area, preaching and serving the communities he
Speaker 1: had countered. He wasn't to train minister, but that wasn't
Speaker 1: about to stop him. After all, his mission came straight
Speaker 1: from the other world, from God himself, and he would
Speaker 1: be a fool to ignore it. He would taste the
Speaker 1: bitter wine of loss a few more times over the years.
Speaker 1: His first wife passed away just a few years after
Speaker 1: they were married, and then both of his sons as well.
Speaker 1: He remarried. But once you've experienced loss on the scale
Speaker 1: Aiden had, it's easy to keep glancing over your shoulder.
Speaker 1: For a fighter like him, though, that meant looking for
Speaker 1: answers and building hope. It wasn't long before he and
Speaker 1: a few of his followers decided to set out on
Speaker 1: their own and build a community together. In eighteen forty one,
Speaker 1: he led twenty eight followers from across New York and
Speaker 1: New England into the woods thirty miles southwest of Boston.
Speaker 1: There they founded what was to be the model for
Speaker 1: a perfect society, a city built on hope. Perhaps that's
Speaker 1: why he called it Hopedale. Here's Harvard Divinity Schools and Browdie.
Speaker 1: Once again, Hopedale, which was one of the most important
Speaker 1: for the spread of spiritualism was considered a community based
Speaker 1: on what they called practical Christian socialism. And of course,
Speaker 1: a communitarian ideal and a socialist ideal go hand in
Speaker 1: hand because of the idea of shared property. Holding property
Speaker 1: in common is a common element of utopian settlements, and
Speaker 1: believe me, socialism is a lot easier if you have
Speaker 1: a religious motivation. Without a religious motive. Not that many
Speaker 1: people are willing to share property or to live in
Speaker 1: harmony to to place their desires as individuals. They weren't
Speaker 1: the first to experiment with the idea of a utopian society,
Speaker 1: not by a long shot. Transcendentalist reformers, including a young
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Hawthorne, bounded a similar commune outside of Boston. Elsewhere,
Speaker 1: a Scotsman named Robert Owen founded two separate communities, including
Speaker 1: one in Indiana called New Harmony. But even he took
Speaker 1: inspiration from an earlier example, the Shakers. The Shakers ticked
Speaker 1: all the boxes for a utopian society from the early
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. They held their own property in common, they
Speaker 1: worked the land, they plied their trades in cooperation, and
Speaker 1: they practiced true equality by giving leadership roles to both
Speaker 1: men and women. But ever since they arrived in New
Speaker 1: York in the seventeen seventies, the Shakers had also begun
Speaker 1: to experience something else, ecstatic visitations. In eighteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: at their communal home in New York, three girls whose
Speaker 1: ages ranged from ten to fourteen, fell under some invisible
Speaker 1: spiritual power, and Goff, the oldest of them, stood before
Speaker 1: her community and told them that she had seen a
Speaker 1: female spirit dressed in white. And while that might sound
Speaker 1: like something pulled right out of the sale in witch
Speaker 1: trials of sixteen ninety two, the one fifty years that
Speaker 1: separated them made a world of difference. Rather than start
Speaker 1: a witch hunt, their story was received with open arms.
Speaker 1: Later that same day, as the community danced in enthusiastic
Speaker 1: worship and mostly friend reappeared and moved among them, kissing
Speaker 1: them and singing songs to them. The next time she
Speaker 1: was seeing, she brought others with her, always appearing to Anne.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, the spirits of the dead were appearing at
Speaker 1: their own funerals to comfort their morning families. Even mother
Speaker 1: Ann Lee, who founded the Shaker order before dying in
Speaker 1: sev four, appeared with heavenly messages for her followers. Remarkably,
Speaker 1: spirits from outside the Shaker community began to arrive as well.
Speaker 1: George Washington, Lafayette, Napoleon, the biblical Queen Esther, and the
Speaker 1: spirits of Native Americans all appeared with messages and lessons
Speaker 1: for them all. And here's the thing. Shaker communities around
Speaker 1: New York started to believe that some Shakers were born
Speaker 1: to communicate with these ghostly visitors. They called them instruments
Speaker 1: of the spirit world, and whatever they received they would
Speaker 1: share with others, all for the building up of their community.
Speaker 1: Whatever their power might have been, these instruments offered hope.
Speaker 1: And whether they were offering divine wisdom, comforting words, or
Speaker 1: answers to difficult questions, one thing was absolutely clear. For
Speaker 1: those with eyes to see the dead that burst from
Speaker 1: the grave. History hasn't been kind of spiritualism. A recent
Speaker 1: two volume History of the United States treated spiritualism with
Speaker 1: a single dismissive sentence, as if it was an insignificant
Speaker 1: movement making self evidently foolish claims. And honestly, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people today who agree with that sentiment.
Speaker 1: But just wait, because that view is far from reality
Speaker 1: and far from the way the world looked to a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the forties, in a time when
Speaker 1: the spiritual sciences of mesmerism, animal magnetism, and phrenology were
Speaker 1: popular and became major new preoccupations. Well, the right way
Speaker 1: to see the world became less and less obvious. Before
Speaker 1: spiritualism became the parlor room seance and the music hall
Speaker 1: spectacle that's so often mocked today, it was born in
Speaker 1: the minds of deeply religious teachers, passionate social reformers, and
Speaker 1: curious scientists who wanted to change the world. Here's Dr
Speaker 1: John Busher, co director of the International Association for the
Speaker 1: Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals. That profound influence that
Speaker 1: they exerted on the national life was deliberately written out
Speaker 1: of histories of reform movements like the Women's movement, of
Speaker 1: labor movement, politics, history of the politics of the period,
Speaker 1: the intellectual history, history of of the novel and poetry,
Speaker 1: and on and on. That story has hardly been told
Speaker 1: in this season of Unobscured. Well trace the path of
Speaker 1: the spiritualists who followed the voice of Andrew Jackson Davis
Speaker 1: over the course of the nineteenth century, spiritualism became a
Speaker 1: kaleidoscope of novel beliefs, courageous people, and world shaking events.
Speaker 1: Here's historian Molly McGarry. There were always many spiritualisms, both
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century and beyond. So some people came
Speaker 1: to the science tables seeking answers, wanting deeply to commune
Speaker 1: with lost loved ones. Others were curious investigators, looking to
Speaker 1: see for themselves with this new technology could materialize. But
Speaker 1: what I found in what I've been most struck by
Speaker 1: is that many spiritualists took seriously the possibility of channeling
Speaker 1: the voices of the dead as a means of both
Speaker 1: connecting with the past and imagining both worldly and otherworldly futures.
Speaker 1: The truth is, spiritualists traveled all around the world, started
Speaker 1: a raft of publications and took up, proclaimed and then rejected,
Speaker 1: a vast web of ideas about the afterlife, communication with
Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead and the authority those spirits
Speaker 1: had over the living. Their story touches everything from technology
Speaker 1: to medicine, to the genocide of Native Americans and the
Speaker 1: murder of a president, and along the way, its values
Speaker 1: were echoed by social causes like abolition, women's suffrage, and
Speaker 1: labor rights, helping it grow from a local fad to
Speaker 1: a global phenomenon. And yes, it's a story about religion,
Speaker 1: but it's so much more. It's a story of idealism
Speaker 1: and individualism, of poachers and preachers, and of freedom fighters
Speaker 1: and celebrities. And while the Shaker Girls provided an early
Speaker 1: model for those emerging spiritualists, it was Andrew Jackson Davis,
Speaker 1: the Seer of Poughkeepsie, who would do something bigger. He
Speaker 1: would be their first bona fide star. Amy was running
Speaker 1: from her pain. In the spring of eighteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: Amy's fiance suddenly became ill and passed away, and then
Speaker 1: a short while later, she received a letter from her
Speaker 1: brother in law that her sister was also sick. Amy
Speaker 1: rushed to her sister's side, and together with her brother
Speaker 1: in law, Isaac, they cared for the dying woman as
Speaker 1: best they could, but eventually the illness won and both
Speaker 1: of them were left to deal with their loss and grief.
Speaker 1: The road to healing also turned out to be a
Speaker 1: road to second chances, and two years later the pair
Speaker 1: were married. Amy and Isaac Post were Quakers, a religious
Speaker 1: group that had been in America since the middle of
Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds. Since the beginning, they often found themselves
Speaker 1: at odds with their Protestant neighbors because of their unique beliefs.
Speaker 1: In fact, during the Salem witch Trials, of being part
Speaker 1: of the Quaker movement was a very good way to
Speaker 1: get yourself accused of witchcraft. But they were also one
Speaker 1: of the first utopian experiments. Here's an Browdie again from
Speaker 1: Harvard Divinity School. To give up the notion that individual
Speaker 1: property equals happiness, you have to be very deeply committed,
Speaker 1: and piety, religious fervor go a long way towards making
Speaker 1: that possible. Of course, the Quakers are the most successful
Speaker 1: communitarian religious experiment in American history. In eighteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: the Quaker movement split into two pieces. One of their
Speaker 1: charismatic leaders, who also happened to be Amy's cousin, thought
Speaker 1: their community had become too worldly, not least because there
Speaker 1: were so many Quakers comfortable with the institution of slavery,
Speaker 1: some even holding slaves of their own. Along with Isaac,
Speaker 1: Amy followed the dissenters, seeking a religion that was more pure.
Speaker 1: Here's Molly McGarry once again. She came from a family
Speaker 1: religious radicals who had thought that the Quaker establishment had
Speaker 1: grown too orthodox, too comfortable with the material institutions of
Speaker 1: the world, including slavery. The couple moved to Rochester in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, where Isaac became a successful pharmacist. Not
Speaker 1: long after, Amy started holding abolition meetings in their home.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just radical Quakers who were invited. You see,
Speaker 1: New York State had abolished slavery a decade earlier, and
Speaker 1: then in eighteen thirty four, a group of black women
Speaker 1: founded Rochester's first female abolition society, following the examples set
Speaker 1: by black women in Salem, Massachusetts, who formed the first
Speaker 1: women's anti slavery society in the United States in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty two. That very same year, a school for black
Speaker 1: children opened in Rochester, two blocks away from a church
Speaker 1: on thirty four Sophia Street. When Isaac and Amy Post
Speaker 1: moved into town in eighteen thirty six, they took the
Speaker 1: home next door. By the mid eighteen forties, words spread
Speaker 1: that Isaac and Amy had started participating in worldly groups
Speaker 1: filled with people who weren't Quakers. This was too much
Speaker 1: even for many of the Quaker separatists Molly mcgeary. Once again,
Speaker 1: Isaac and Amy Posts were actually thrown out of their
Speaker 1: Genesee Quakers group, for, as the story goes, having hosted
Speaker 1: a wedding of two African American friends of theirs. The
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods and black churches in Rochester were growing. As
Speaker 1: news spread, people began to arrive in town looking for
Speaker 1: safe harbor. First and foremost they were people who had
Speaker 1: escaped from slavery, and black churches were the first places
Speaker 1: in the city to provide shelter for them, sometimes finding
Speaker 1: ways to hide survivors in plain sight. At one point,
Speaker 1: local ebolitionists counted that they were helping one fifty people
Speaker 1: each year. Soon enough, Amy and Isaac joined in helping
Speaker 1: their neighbors hide fugitives and also giving them food, blankets, clothing,
Speaker 1: and money for the journey farther north, where freedom awaited them.
Speaker 1: In July of eighteen forty three, Isaac Post and a
Speaker 1: few others put together a three day convention of their friends,
Speaker 1: and the Posts hosted speakers in their home. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of them was a young man who had escaped
Speaker 1: from slavery in Maryland. His name Frederick Douglas, but that
Speaker 1: wasn't all. Amy and Isaac also met a young white
Speaker 1: woman named Leah Fish. She was a single mother who
Speaker 1: was struggling to make a living as a piano teacher
Speaker 1: in Rochester, and they felt moved to help her, so
Speaker 1: they took her into their home. A short while later,
Speaker 1: Leah's parents, John and Margaret also arrived in town, along
Speaker 1: with two of Leah's younger sisters. They had recently lost
Speaker 1: everything in a failed farming experiment farther north and needed
Speaker 1: a place to rest, recover, and plan their next move.
Speaker 1: Amy was only too happy to help. It turned out
Speaker 1: to be a fateful meeting. What Leah and her sisters
Speaker 1: brought into Amy's life would shift her horizons, change her
Speaker 1: place in the world, and etch Rochester's name into the
Speaker 1: nation's religious history. And they would give Andrew Jackson Davis's
Speaker 1: harmonial philosophy the thing it was missing. Eight was about
Speaker 1: to dawn, and the age of Spiritualism was about to begin.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around
Speaker 1: after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's
Speaker 1: in store for next week. Next time on Unobscured, more
Speaker 1: and more seekers were making their way into Rochester, all
Speaker 1: while other religious experiments were falling flat and communities along
Speaker 1: the canal were folding, looking for guidance, for connection and
Speaker 1: for the next step to take in their lives. People
Speaker 1: knew to the city were open to something that could
Speaker 1: be seen and heard, something that could be witnessed. After
Speaker 1: a year of closed sittings, the Spirits spoke up. They
Speaker 1: were ready for a wider audience in a private seance
Speaker 1: just for the Posts. The Spirits spoke through Leah, telling
Speaker 1: Isaac to rent Rochester's Corinthian Hall for a whole three
Speaker 1: nights for the first time ever. They were going to
Speaker 1: throw the doors open wide to a paying crowd. It
Speaker 1: was time for the Spirits to take the stage. Unobscured
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Research and writing for this season is all the work
Speaker 1: of my right hand man, Carl Nellis and the brilliant
Speaker 1: Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about
Speaker 1: our contributing historians, source material and links to our other
Speaker 1: shows over at History Unobscured dot com and until next time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Yeah. Unobscured is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio and Aaron Menkey. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H