WEBVTT - S2 – 1: Seer 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:09.440 Welcomed, unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.800 There was a stir in the shoemaker's shop. The apprentices 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:19.520 were whispering excitedly. Ira Armstrong, who owned the place, asked 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.600 what they were talking about. The sixteen year old Andrew 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.799 showed him a printed advertisement across the top in a 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:33.919 blast of ink. It read Mesmerism Wonderful Experiments Magnetizer and Phrenologist. 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.960 Andrew had never heard the term mesmerism before. He had 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.720 no idea what was going to be on display, but 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.640 the pamphlets made one thing clear. It was going to 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:50.159 be a spectacle. The boys could barely sit still. The 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.760 word passed through Poughkeepsie that the oncoming professor was some 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.480 sort of wonder worker, a man who would demonstrate mesmeric 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.920 miracles at the village hall. Every one in town was 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.360 talking about it. The boys wanted to see for themselves 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:10.400 if the stories were true. Ira grumbled something about magnetic buffoonery, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.760 but he must not have been too hard a taskmaster. 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.840 He gave the boys the afternoon off, and so Andrew 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.840 bounced off toward Hatch's Hotel with fellow apprentice Edwin in 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:23.679 tow when they arrived, though, the pair were led to 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.480 a quiet room upstairs. This wasn't the miracles in the 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.080 village hall the advertisements had promised. When Andrew reached the 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.679 little room, he found a crowd of boys fidgeting in 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:36.840 their seats, craning their necks to look around the room. 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.560 All of them shared that same eagerness. They were there 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:45.360 to witness a mystery. What they got when the professor 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:49.240 arrived didn't quite bring the advertisement to life. A man 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:51.480 walked to the front of the room and he started 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.920 to talk. He started to lecture. Sure, his subjects were 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.480 as promised, phrenology and animal magnetism, but these are sixteen 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:05.120 year old boys were talking about They wanted action. His 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.160 droning went on so long. In fact, Andrew later said 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.160 it was nearly two hours long that the boy started 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.320 to doze. He closed his eyes and his head drooped, 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.440 But before he could fall asleep, he heard footsteps approach. 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.760 The lecturing voice took on an eagerness as it came 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.480 to a stop in front of Andrew. It was time. 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:28.560 The man said, we're a demonstration. He started to wave 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.119 his hand dramatically in front of Andrew's head. Then he declared, 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.480 you can't open your eyes. Andrew must have frowned. He 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.760 raised his head and looked up skeptically into the man's face. 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.720 We can only imagine the look of teenage contempt the 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.120 man got for wasting Andrew's afternoon off. It was nothing 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.760 short of a letdown, so Andrew went back to work. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:54.160 Any of Irish's smugness about his apprentice's gullibility is lost 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.040 to history. The stranger had been no mesmerist. His voice 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.200 did have the power to put people to sleep, but 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.880 where was the miracle in that? It wasn't long, though, 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.160 before Andrew and Edwins started to hear more stories. They 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.560 weren't the only ones to attend the demonstration. The following 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.760 day and the day after that, rumors started to travel 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.560 throughout town. Other people who went to the demonstrations, they said, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:25.200 had felt something. Maybe they missed it the first time, 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.400 or perhaps the visitor needed to warm up like an 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:32.520 athlete before a big game. Either way, word around town 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.160 was beginning to sound very different from what Andrew and 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.400 Edwin had expected, and the people were doing more than 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:44.360 just whisper. Soon those murmurs would consume a nation. Something 0:03:44.480 --> 0:04:19.360 supernatural was about to begin this is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mackey. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.760 Why did the power of mesmerism pass by the shoemaker's apprentice. 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.880 Maybe it had something to do with the boy's hard life. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.560 Growing up, Andrew moved between tenements and tenant houses in 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.560 towns along the west bank of the Hudson River. His 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.920 father did odd jobs to keep them alive. He made shoes, 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.880 wove cloth, whatever handcrafts could earn something for his family, 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:52.520 a wife and seven children. He never made much, though, 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.440 with his children to feed, Andrew's father scratched out a 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.920 living anyway he could. It was a difficult and anxious 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.320 way to live. Unsurprisingly, much of what he did earn 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:07.239 was spent on alcohol. It wasn't just his father's habits 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.920 that made their life uncertain, though. When they looked at 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.360 the nation around them, they saw the same thing. Andrew 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.360 was born in eighteen six, the year the United States 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.040 celebrated its jubilee. On July four. It had been fifty 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.039 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed by the 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:28.560 founding fathers, but the celebration was darkened by clouds of uncertainty. 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.000 On that exact same day, both John Adams and Thomas 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:36.120 Jefferson died in their homes, their coffins slam shut on 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:41.360 the founding era. What would come next? One answer was 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.119 Andrew Jackson's new Democratic Party. It burst into the world 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.760 with a bold promise that it would bring about something new, 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.120 the rule of the common man. Here's Molly McGarry, Associate 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.839 professor of History at the University of California, Riverside. The 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.800 most significant change affected by Jackson in democracy was the 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.200 extension of the franchise of the vote to white man 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.120 over the age of twenty one who did not own property. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.240 The elite power brokers who had shaped the nation saw 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.919 their numbers shrinking, and the oncoming forces of democratic fervor 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.240 posed a major threat to their top down rule. They 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.200 fought tooth and nail to hold back the political transformation 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:27.599 that was swiftly overtaking them. Already contentious and chaotic in 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.440 eighteen s the presidential campaign assured men like the New 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.039 York shoemaker that the nation would now be ordered in 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.520 their favor. In New York, Little Andrew was named in 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.600 honor of Jackson's vision for the future. In the end, though, 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.360 it would be the boy's own visions that would define 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:50.839 his life, but he would have to suffer first. Along 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.720 the way to his sixteenth birthday, Andrew lost his mother, 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:58.160 two sisters, and a brother. The grief must have been devastating, 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.440 but there was no time to rest as the blows 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.760 kept coming. Because his father struggled to support even his 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.400 dwindling family. Things were so rough for them that he 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.720 rented out Andrew to farmers and tradesmen as a hired hand. 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:16.960 Whatever the boy felt, his life came down to work. Eventually, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.560 in their wandering search for a way to make a living, 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.920 Andrew and his father arrived in Poughkeepsie, New York, seventy 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.920 miles north of New York City, where a local shoemaker, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:31.280 Ira Armstrong, hired Andrew as an apprentice. Ira would later 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.440 note that Andrew knew how to read and write, but 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.720 that his knowledge was only rudimentary. Andrew's working life hadn't 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.040 allowed him a lot of time for school. He was 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.200 known as a frank, open and honest boy with a 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.240 curious attitude, but he wasn't a scholar, a thinker, or 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.200 a writer. He was known to most folks as friendly 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.160 and well disposed, and to his boss he was a 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:58.000 steady and reliable worker. When it all added up, he 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:04.120 was just ordinary. But in eighteen forty three, all of 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:12.960 that would change. In the early eighteen hundreds, it wasn't 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.800 just the political landscape that was cracking apart. Shock waves 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.679 in the scientific world were also breaking up old ways 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:24.560 of thinking and injecting new ideas into American culture. One 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:26.440 of those shock waves was a man by the name 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.800 of J. Stanley Grimes, and in eighteen forty three he 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.520 made his way to Poughkeepsie, and with considerable fanfare too. 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.640 He was a magnetizer and phrenologist, and as arrival was 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.800 paved with a burst of announcements and show bills. It 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:47.320 was their heading Mesmerism that had captured Andrew's attention, originally 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.280 developed by the German physician France Anton Mesmer, who taught 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.160 that everything was permeated by an invisible fluid carrying magnetic 0:08:55.280 --> 0:09:00.000 energy throughout the universe. Here's Kathy gutierres historian and scholar 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.320 in residence at the New York Public Library. Why don't 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:08.640 stars fall out the sky right? Why our planets predictable? Well, 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:15.319 they're held in some sort of kinetic tension through magnetic attraction. Certainly, 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:20.559 Kepler thought this what Mesmer did was he applied that 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.920 idea to the human body, so not only the planets, 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.480 but the tides and the sea, and the waning of 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:34.280 the moon, and the flow of this energy through the 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:39.440 body could be redirected and redistributed. And that's where J. 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.880 Stanley Grimes stepped in. For some who kept abreast of 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:47.280 advances in science, Grimes was already a household name, a Bostonian, 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:50.120 and a medical lawyer by training. Grimes was at the 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:53.959 forefront of American sciences of the mind by eighteen thirty two. 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.840 That was when demonstrators arrived from Germany and led curious 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.520 Bostonians in a course on the discipline of phrenology. They 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.720 taught that the shape of the human skull reflected uneven 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.680 development of the brain, where each part performed a specific function. 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.200 Grimes believed that he could use phrenology to harness the 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:17.000 power of Mesmer's animal magnetism. If he followed the right 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.720 contours of the skull to excite certain organs of the brain, 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.280 he could pick up where Mesmer left off. In particular, 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.599 he could drop his subjects into a suggestible, trance like 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.520 state he called mesmeric sleep in honor of the German doctor. 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.600 And it was this freno magnetism, his personal combination of 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:46.839 cutting edge sciences, that Grimes demonstrated in Poughkeepsie. A few 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.800 days after Andrew's disappointing encounter with Grimes, a local tailor 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.520 named William Livingston came by the Shoemaker's shop. He and 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.480 Andrew struck up a conversation. When they got around to 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.880 grimes failed attempt to magnetize Andrew well, Livingstone had something 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:05.600 to say about that. He told Andrew that Grimes wasn't 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.480 so special. In fact, Livingstone claimed that he was an 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.439 even better magnetizer. He performed many magnetic marvels, both in 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:16.320 Poughkeepsie and in his travels elsewhere. And Livingstone believed that 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.840 he could succeed with Andrew where the celebrity scientist had failed, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.160 so he invited both Andrew and Edwin to his house 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.199 for his own attempt to magnetize Andrew. Later that night, 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:31.240 the shoemaker's apprentice sat across from Livingstone, relaxed and curious 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.760 to see if the tailor could succeed where the traveling 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.880 showman had failed. Andrew closed his eyes and felt William's 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:42.840 chilly hand pass and repass over his forehead. The effect 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.640 was sudden. Andrew would later say that ten thousand avenues 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.920 of sensation were illumed, as with the livid flames of 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:55.080 electric fire. Then a sense of intense darkness, a surge 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.120 of horrible feelings he couldn't put into words, and then 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.280 a wave of pain. He tried to protest, but his 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.000 tongue froze to the roof of his mouth, his cheeks 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.560 seemed extremely swollen, his lips fused shut, and he could 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.559 no longer control any part of his body. He was paralyzed, 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.680 even as he felt himself whirling along a revolving spiral path. 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:18.880 He even wondered at that moment if he was dying. 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.640 And then, as suddenly as the first wave of disorientation 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.520 had arrived, a cascade of bright, utterly new thoughts gushed 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:32.360 into his mind, and he fell unconscious. When he woke up, 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.800 Andrew was sitting in the same position, in the very 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.040 same chair, right across from Livingstone. But now he found 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:41.199 that the tailor it was bursting with excitement. He saw 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:43.360 the same thing on the faces of everyone else in 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.000 the room, some of whom had not been there when 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.280 they began. According to Livingstone. He had called them in 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:54.760 to watch Andrew perform in his trance. Andrew had read 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.600 from newspapers held against his forehead, told the time on 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.160 every watch in the room, and one by one described 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:06.040 the diseases and wounds of the people around him. Andrew 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.520 sat stunned while Livingston described the things he'd done. It 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.360 shook his world to the core, but it also left 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.640 him feeling confused. It was one thing to have an experience, 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:21.000 but it was something altogether different to explain it. For that, 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:27.000 Andrew had nothing to say. But William Livingston, did I 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:32.199 know what your power is called? The tailor told him clairvoyance. 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.960 Clairvoyance comes from the Latin for clear vision, and that's 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.760 exactly what William Livingston identified in Andrew Jackson Davis on 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.640 that night in eighteen forty three when he fell into 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.240 a mesmerized trance and began to speak. But Andrew discovered 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.199 quickly that the spirit speaking through him. We're looking for 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:59.040 a much wider audience, you see. Andrew and William repeated 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.400 their mesmeric ex yeraments every night, over and over, with 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.920 the same dramatic result. Andrew would fall into a trance 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.680 and while his body was locked in stasis, he would 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.359 burst out into lectures that amazed visitors with their eloquence 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.480 and insight. The first small groups grew into crowds, including 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.040 curious neighbors who came to test Andrew's powers, and here 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.920 the young, uneducated shoemaker's apprentice expound on mystical theology and 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.240 the nature of the universe. Andrew's dramatic performance of trance 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.960 visions were big news around Poughkeepsie, and the response was 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.240 equal parts wonder and ridicule, which meant that it didn't 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.200 take long for the news to travel beyond town. After 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.880 that first night, Andrew came out of a trance to 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:46.520 find that he was famous. As his trances continued, he 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.480 described in greater and greater detail the way that his 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.600 vision opened up to the world within the human body, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.400 the luminous atmospheres, as he called it, that he saw 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.440 in human brains and hearts, and then into the branches 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.640 and leaves of plants, or in the geologic layers of 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.120 the earth under their feet. When Andrew Jackson Davis was 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.000 in a trance, he said, the fiery light glowing within 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.320 all life became visible to him like a mesmerists diagnostic tool. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.640 He could clearly see the forces that Mesmer had always 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.440 taught were binding the universe together. Soon enough, in addition 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.000 to the medical cures that Andrew offered to his visitors, 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.320 he also went on journeys into the spirit land. There 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.040 he began to encounter figures who would speak to him, 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.080 to teach him and to pass along wisdom through long 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.080 lectures about the spiritual structure of the universe. Figures who 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.880 told Andrew that they were the spirits of the dead. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.320 It was an astonishing revelation if it could be trusted. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.120 That is, like all the Mesmerists who had come before. 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.000 Andrew knew that people would want to witness his trances 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.400 for themselves. So, at the invitation of a Poughkeepsie minister, 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.280 Andrew and William began to travel. William put Andrew into 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.120 trances in Albany, New York, and then Danbury, Connecticut, and 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.640 then Bridgeport as well. His clarivoyant healing and trance lectures 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:09.280 gathered bigger and bigger crowds. For a time, he made 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.840 a frequent circuit between Connecticut and New York, seeing patients 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.560 along the way and serving as their medical diagnostician, viewing 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.080 their wounds like a clairvoyant x ray and offering healing 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.080 advice from the spirits of the dead. Among those spirits, 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.200 Andrew began to report that his guides included the ancient 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.640 Greek physician Galen, who would help him to heal his patients. 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.920 After that he met the spirit of the Swedish Lutheranistic 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.960 Emmanuel Swedenborg. It was Swedenborg, he said, who guided him 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.640 on journeys through the astral plane and showed him the 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.440 structure of the universe. Here's Ann Browdie, Senior lecturer on 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:52.240 American religious history at Harvard Divinity School. Swedenborg's vision, which 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:59.239 Andrew Jackson Davis was inspired by, described a world of spheres. 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:05.560 He understood the world in terms of levels, both levels 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:11.040 under the ground and levels spheres above the ground that 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:16.119 are through which the soul advances in its journey towards heaven. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:23.200 Orthodox Calvinism and Protestant faith taught that whatever virtue you 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.639 had accomplished in your life at the moment of death 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.639 or lack of virtue, determined your faith for eternity, that 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.560 you would either be damned or you would be blessed 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.560 to sit at the right hand of God for eternity 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:42.800 and saved thereby from the flames of hell and eternal suffering. 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:47.199 This is a source of huge anxiety. And Andrew Jackson 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:54.040 Davis address that anxiety with the idea building on Swedenborg, 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.200 that the soul can continue to progress in grace following death. 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.159 As his fame grew, Andrew found better partners than his 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.720 Poughkeepsie Taylor. In November of eighteen forty five, he began 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:10.359 working with a mesmeric doctor who offered him the chance 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.960 to become his clairvoyant diagnostician in New York City. And 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:18.040 Andrew jumped at the chance. Once they're the pair began 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.600 working with a universalist minister and publisher who started writing 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.280 down the things that Andrew would say during his trances. 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.600 After a year of collecting the lectures from his journeys 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.600 into the spirit land, Andrew published it all as a 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.400 book in eighteen forty seven, The Principles of Nature, Her 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:39.280 Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. Andrew was just 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.200 twenty one at the time, making it quite the accomplishment. 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:44.800 He didn't know yet, but his work was about to 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.359 become the foundation for a coming movement, spurred on, of course, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.359 by newspaper reports of the dramatic healings and revelations of 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.679 his lectures. The book was immediately reviewed throughout the New 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.240 York press. Some poured praise on the work, while there's 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.440 mocked it. In the book's defense, a Reverend George Bush 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.360 stepped in and explained that the teachings found inside were 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.440 not that different from the Transcendentalists in Boston. In fact, 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.480 just a few years earlier, Ralph Waldo Emerson had called 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.159 together a meeting of the Transcendental Club precisely to discuss 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.960 the role of mysticism in modern life. For Emerson and 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:26.080 the other Transcendentalists, Emmanuel Swedenborg was simply a mystic par excellence. 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.880 Now Andrew was meeting with that man's spirit and narrating 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:34.680 it for all religiously curious Americans. What Davis started with 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.720 his first book soon came to be called his harmonial philosophy. 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.360 At its core, his message was one of universal religion, 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.480 that there was a truth transcending all religions, and that 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:47.760 if we lived by that truth, it would create a 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.960 world of peace and order. Spirits who embraced that piece well, 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.520 they would progress into the upper heavens to help spread 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.280 his harmonial philosophy. Davis and his cohorts Estabil wished a 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.200 newspaper that became his mouthpiece. Their goal was, and I quote, 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.480 the establishment of a universal system of truth, the reform 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.720 and the reorganization of society. To really make the movement 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.199 take off, though, the theology and the community would need 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:22.399 something else, something tactile and visible and earthier, something powerful 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:32.200 for people to experience. Don't fool yourself into thinking that 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:36.360 America wasn't ready for something different. In the early eighteen fifties, 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.440 the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson reflected back on the state 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.439 of religion in America and he wrote that the stern 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.920 old faiths have all pulverized America, he said, was a 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:51.200 whole population of gentlemen and ladies out in search of religions. 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:56.040 Tis a flat anarchy in our ecclesiastical realms. Here's Harvard 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:00.879 Divinity schools and Browdie once again. The period of the 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:05.040 eighteen twenties and thirties is known as the second grade Awakening, 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.560 and it's sometimes referred to as the period of the 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:15.600 democratization of American religion, when we see religious authority and 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:21.760 experience sweeping the country through revivals, and we see a 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:28.639 declining emphasis on an educated clergy, on religious hierarchies, on 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:35.600 religious education, and an increasing emphasis on religious experience that 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:40.880 is accessible to any individual. It was the perfect environment 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.000 for men like Aidan Blue. He was born in eighteen 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.360 oh three into a family that had farmed the same 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.920 land in Rhode Island for generations. At the age of twelve, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.879 his whole family experienced a new kind of religion when 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:57.520 they attended a Universalist revival meeting, singing, praying, and weeping 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.679 at the incredible stories the traveling pre church told them. 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:04.200 It was so powerful, in fact, that for the next 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.840 three years, Aiden's whole family chased the high. They formed 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:10.600 their own church, and Aiden's father served as the deacon. 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.880 But not long after that, his family experienced their first 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:17.960 taste of sorrow. Arnold, one of Aiden's older brothers, became 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:22.320 ill and passed away. It was a moment that changed 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.080 aid into the core. It wouldn't be the last time 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.480 he experienced loss, but that didn't mean it was any 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.000 less powerful. In fact, the death of his brother haunted him. 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.359 And then there was the vision. One night, long after 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.320 his brother had passed away, Aiden awoke in the middle 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.400 of the nights. Feeling disoriented, he sat up and looked 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:43.920 around the room to try and find his bearings, and 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:46.920 then finally glanced out the window, and that's when he 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:53.280 saw it, a human form in a white robe standing outside. Strangely, 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.560 Aiden didn't feel afraid, but instead examined the figure. As 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.600 his eyes adjusted to the figure's brightness, he the features 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.160 of the face and suddenly recognized it. The shining figure 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.480 outside his room was his dead brother, and then it 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.040 moved toward him, passing through the solid wall to arrive 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.439 at the side of his bed. I have a command 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.439 from God, the figure said, with a finger pointed at him. 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.000 Preach to your fellow men. The blood of their souls 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:26.359 will be on your hands. Aiden's peace suddenly vanished and 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:29.560 was replaced with panic and fear. He spent the rest 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.280 of the night trying to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming, 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.119 that what he had seen was real, because if it 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:40.000 was real, then he needed to obey. From that day forward, 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:42.919 he was plagued by questions about the afterlife and by 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:45.840 the issues of suffering and loss. He would eventually go 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.280 on to start his own church and to travel around 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.080 the New England area, preaching and serving the communities he 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:54.640 had countered. He wasn't to train minister, but that wasn't 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.119 about to stop him. After all, his mission came straight 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:01.280 from the other world, from God himself, and he would 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:04.520 be a fool to ignore it. He would taste the 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:07.280 bitter wine of loss a few more times over the years. 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:10.080 His first wife passed away just a few years after 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:12.640 they were married, and then both of his sons as well. 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.240 He remarried. But once you've experienced loss on the scale 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:19.200 Aiden had, it's easy to keep glancing over your shoulder. 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:21.960 For a fighter like him, though, that meant looking for 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:26.440 answers and building hope. It wasn't long before he and 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:28.639 a few of his followers decided to set out on 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:32.280 their own and build a community together. In eighteen forty one, 0:24:32.440 --> 0:24:34.960 he led twenty eight followers from across New York and 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.320 New England into the woods thirty miles southwest of Boston. 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:41.480 There they founded what was to be the model for 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:45.399 a perfect society, a city built on hope. Perhaps that's 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:49.879 why he called it Hopedale. Here's Harvard Divinity Schools and Browdie. 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:54.000 Once again, Hopedale, which was one of the most important 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:59.159 for the spread of spiritualism was considered a community based 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:04.080 on what they called practical Christian socialism. And of course, 0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:08.520 a communitarian ideal and a socialist ideal go hand in 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:13.000 hand because of the idea of shared property. Holding property 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:17.920 in common is a common element of utopian settlements, and 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:22.119 believe me, socialism is a lot easier if you have 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:26.440 a religious motivation. Without a religious motive. Not that many 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:29.920 people are willing to share property or to live in 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:36.000 harmony to to place their desires as individuals. They weren't 0:25:36.000 --> 0:25:39.360 the first to experiment with the idea of a utopian society, 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:43.680 not by a long shot. Transcendentalist reformers, including a young 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:48.240 Nathaniel Hawthorne, bounded a similar commune outside of Boston. Elsewhere, 0:25:48.320 --> 0:25:51.880 a Scotsman named Robert Owen founded two separate communities, including 0:25:51.960 --> 0:25:55.359 one in Indiana called New Harmony. But even he took 0:25:55.400 --> 0:26:01.480 inspiration from an earlier example, the Shakers. The Shakers ticked 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:04.080 all the boxes for a utopian society from the early 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:07.359 eighteen hundreds. They held their own property in common, they 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:10.560 worked the land, they plied their trades in cooperation, and 0:26:10.680 --> 0:26:14.000 they practiced true equality by giving leadership roles to both 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:16.919 men and women. But ever since they arrived in New 0:26:17.040 --> 0:26:20.120 York in the seventeen seventies, the Shakers had also begun 0:26:20.200 --> 0:26:26.720 to experience something else, ecstatic visitations. In eighteen thirty seven, 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:29.760 at their communal home in New York, three girls whose 0:26:29.840 --> 0:26:33.480 ages ranged from ten to fourteen, fell under some invisible 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:37.639 spiritual power, and Goff, the oldest of them, stood before 0:26:37.680 --> 0:26:39.960 her community and told them that she had seen a 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:43.160