WEBVTT - S2 – INTERVIEW 7: Cathy Gutierrez 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.360 Our guest today is Kathy gautieris a widely respected and 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.599 widely published historian of spiritualism and the occult. She taught 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.680 at Sweet Briar College for eighteen years before serving as 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.800 Scholar in Residence at the New York Public Library. She's 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:27.120 written important works on spiritualism and edited incredibly helpful guides 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.960 like The Occult in Nineteenth Century America and The Handbook 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.360 of Spiritualism and Channeling that are incredible guides to the 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.840 complex and fascinating stories we've discussed. Her book, Plato's Ghost, 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.479 dives deep into the ideas that drove the spiritualist movement. 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.479 If you've been hoping to hear more about what spiritualists 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.680 actually believed, then this interview will be a treat for you. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.520 Enjoy her conversation with researcher Carl Nellis, and be sure 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.200 to pick up Kathy's book without further ado. Here's our 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:01.600 conversation with Dr Kathy gautieris. This is the Unobscured Interview 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:29.240 series for season two. I'm Aaron Banky in the nineteenth century. 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.720 What did it mean to be a spiritualist. There's a 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.080 lot of variety that could go into that designation. It's 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:42.200 not unlike people going to psychics today or New age 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:47.520 clinics something like that. So there are degrees of participation. Right. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.080 You could literally go as a lark, right, something to 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.960 do on a Friday evening because it was all the 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:59.200 rage and it sounded amusing, and have no serious investment 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.960 in intellectual really or spiritually at all. You can also 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:08.480 use it intermittently, so when people would die, for example, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.560 then a lot of people would turn to spiritualism to 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.560 keep in contact with their last loved ones. Or you 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.760 could go the whole chelata, if you will, which is 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.880 to self identify as a spiritualist meant to have particular 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:29.200 political connotations as well as a religious belief structure. And 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:34.200 if you told people you are spiritualist, there are some 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:40.200 possible negative ramifications to that. Some people found it um 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.160 well between sketchy and demonic, depending on how hardcore they 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.600 were in their beliefs. And but it really to be 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.480 able to self identify as a spiritualist meant buying into 0:02:53.800 --> 0:03:01.280 this world view of progress and the ultimate um you know, 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.960 goodness of people. So even if the ultimate goodness of 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:09.720 people was not currently manifesting itself. It would over time, right, 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.600 it would unfold in the direction of progress. Everybody would 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:20.600 get better, everybody would improve unto perfection. So let's talk 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.440 about some of what was going on in American life 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.840 and American culture that led to the practice of spiritualism 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.799 in the decades before. UM. It's part of the part 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.560 of what makes the movements so fascinating is that it 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.840 fed on movements in science. They fed on movements in religion. UM. 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:42.600 Let's start with religion in American life in the thirties 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:44.480 and forties leading up to what came to be known 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.200 as modern spiritualism. How would you describe kind of the 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:55.880 American religious landscape booming Um, from about eighteen twenty five 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.720 to eighteen fifty. You see an extraordinary expansion of different 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.800 kinds of religions imported to America and different religions developed 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.600 in America. So I understand you talked some about the 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.920 utopian movements, UM, and those are all coming out of 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:18.560 this period, right. So, the the Shakers are expanding wildly, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:23.560 the Mormons are, you know, developing. The United Community is developing, 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:28.880 and spiritualism is among the last gasp of that great 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.640 religious fervor. So there are a lot of things that 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:38.640 people need to take new account of. And uh, baby, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:42.159 religions don't start when the established ones are working. So 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:47.360 when you have a new landscape that requires creating new meaning, 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:53.600 that's when you see religions, you know, just go wildfire, 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.719 right as the burned over district in Upstate New York 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:02.040 was called. And Spiritualism is among the last and certainly 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:07.760 the most inclusive of those religions that were brought forth. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:09.680 So let's let's talk a little bit about one of 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:15.200 those traditions that spiritualist very um consciously identified as one 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.000 of the traditions they were inheriting. And um, I'll ask you, 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:20.839 can you describe a little bit about the place that 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:26.640 Emmanuel Swedenborg and the New Church played in that religious landscape. 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:33.960 Swedenborg's effect on American religious landscape cannot be overestimated. He 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.120 really does not get enough credit for his impact on 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:43.200 any of the movements that began during the second grade Awakening, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.680 and he's highly influential on all of them. Frankly, So 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:56.560 what Swedenborg Swedenborg does is he creates a dynamic Protestantism 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.520 so Catholicism has always been dynamic in turn ms of 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.760 there are multiple saints right, there are you know as 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:10.960 continuing miracles. There's ongoing conversations from God. So these ideas 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:15.359 of direct revelation, direct experience of the afterlife, and what 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:20.000 you find in Swedenborg's afterlife is very busy. It's busy busy. 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.880 It's a very Protestant this worldly. So there are three 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.920 tiers in heaven, and people are getting better and farming 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:34.520 societies and making friends and literally learning languages and moving right, 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:36.920 there's progress, and then there are three tears in hell 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:42.160 and you. But but God is not judging. This is 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.360 not an apocalyptic God. So if you're a bad person, 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:50.400 you literally just throw yourself into help. You are drawn 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.840 to the appropriate realm of where you belong in the afterlife, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:59.640 whether that's Yer or Na. So we it's removed from 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:05.359 a sort Protestant literalism, both because it is only somewhat 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.839 dependent on the Bible. He has this radically metaphorical reading 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.320 of the Bible, which is you know, frankly a bit 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:17.520 Catholic um, and it had it just moves away from 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:22.680 the sort of static heaven and hell um. So this 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.240 idea of movement in the afterlife, this idea of a 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:31.160 non judgmental god, this idea that you determine your own 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:36.440 afterlife fate. But spiritualism does and that's what Marmontism does 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:42.040 to it in a different form, is it it takes 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.720 those six fears, it turns them into a platonic seven, 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.320 and it projects it all into heaven. So it eliminates 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.600 health completely. And early Mormonism does the same thing. There's 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.520 a little tiny hell and it's reserved for postdates. There 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.920 are three tears of heaven, and you're a good person, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.080 a better person, or the best person you know, win, 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:08.240 win win. So spiritualism does that for absolutely everyone. And 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:13.280 the movement is continual. So rather than you get placed 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.560 in the correct sphere and then you form societies there, 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.880 you're always going up right, You're always going up through 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:24.280 different echelons of spiritualism in the afterlife. You're always improving. 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.960 So that's one of the major theological influences on spiritualism. 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.679 Let's talk about some of the other practices that were 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.959 going on in what was considered a kind of a 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.920 horizon of science with mesmerism and animal magnetism, UH and 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.920 what was seen as a new science. Uh, you know, 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:47.760 sometimes combined with with phrenology um of the human mind 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.880 and the human soul. What was the influence of those 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:59.120 kind of practices on the beginnings of spiritualism Mesmerism as 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:04.240 it came to a marry come um, which was really 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:12.800 more the brainchild of the student of Anton. Mesmer is 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.200 a healing science, right, And I say is because we 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:22.080 still carry around beliefs that magnets will affect different parts 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.760 of your body. So I know, you know workers for example, 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:29.920 who you know have magnetic soles in their shoes or 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:34.079 have magnets on their backs. That is Mesmerism still in practice. 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:41.160 But Mesmerism was looking for a single cause, right. So 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.920 the discovery of gravity, for example, I was like, oh, 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.880 well that answers nine percent of our questions, right, and 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.320 it's universal, right, gravity works everywhere at all times, so 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:59.080 people who are looking for things like that. But regarding 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:03.680 the human body, so the idea that the cosmos is 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:08.280 held up by magnets goes back to Aristotle, right, not magnets. 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.120 He didn't know the magnets, I don't think. But the 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:15.079 the idea that why don't stars fall out of the 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.480 sky right, why our planets predictable? It was like, well, 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:23.240 they're held in some sort of um, you know, kinetic 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:29.880 tension through magnetic attraction. Certainly Kepler thought those and so 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:36.120 what Mesmer did was he applied that idea to the 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:42.040 human body. So not only the planets, but the tides 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.520 and the sea and the waning of the moon and 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.959 the flow of this energy through the body could be 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:55.920 redirected and redistributed. And this was a a single cause 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:02.680 theory that you know, was extremely successful. Whether one thinks 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.720 that you could attribute most of that placebo effect, I 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.160 personally don't even know why that matters. It was extremely successful. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:16.720 And the marriage of this idea of continual improvement and 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:24.240 your sort of psychological disposition, uh went hand in hand, right, 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.480 And certainly some of the earliest spiritualist mediums were a 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:33.600 mesmeric transhailers. And one of the ways that you describe 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.040 this moment in American history, and many other historians do 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.360 as well, is to call what was going on at 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.840 this time with with new ideas, new literary movements, to 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.080 call it the American Renaissance. Can you talk a little 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:47.920 bit about what you mean by that idea and how 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.400 that helps to frame an understanding of spiritualism that we 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:57.199 can use the Fairs of the American Renaissance was originally 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:03.000 employed by scholars of literature to refer to when Americans 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.360 really started having their own publishing business. So you can 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.520 place it basically at James Fenimore Cooper. So prior to that, 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.480 Americans are reading things that they can get from Britain, 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:18.439 and but from Cooper on and certainly we get to 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.160 Poe and then you know, the great Emerson and friends. 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:27.080 What you you have is this triangulation between Philadelphia, Boston 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:32.439 and New York that creates publishing lines. And so this 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:37.959 sort of refers to that moment because obviously the self 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:42.240 publication and the ability to move that uh these books 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:47.840 into the interior via rivers was crucial for the development 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.360 of basically all of these new religions, every one of 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:56.160 them used printing presses. But I use it specifically to 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:02.000 also mean the American enchantment with the classics, and I 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:07.880 mean Greeks and Romans and Egyptians classics, and I attributed 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:16.360 to the uh discomfiting sense of newness that in America 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.760 we're so pleased with ourselves. If there's a building that's 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.080 three years old. You know, we slap a plaque on 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.439 it and you know, put it on the National Register. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:30.280 But that that had to have been extremely uncomfortable, particularly 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.960 everybody's grandpa was, you know, on the other side of 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.439 the war, right, I mean, how uncomfortable was that. So 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:43.960 this idea that we needed a legitimating grounding story that 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:48.319 comes through, I think, in all of the new religions 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.480 during that movement, and they all seek to place America 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:58.320 in a much longer tradition of what everyone considered to 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:02.840 be venerable. UM. And one of the things that we 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:07.000 see in early spiritualism, UH, is that there are spirits 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.600 like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, William Penn, other statesmen 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:15.200 appearing in various sound circles and translectors and UM, sometimes 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:19.400 just addressing one or two people, sometimes addressing large crowds. UM. 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.360 Can you talk a little bit about what these kinds 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.640 of appearances tell us about spiritual relation to history and 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:31.359 this kind of bigger story that you're talking about. Absolutely, 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:38.480 spiritualism allowed, through its construction, UH, to do two things. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:44.400 Number One, you always had the greats of history to hand. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:46.760 They might not want to talk to you today, But 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.440 Ben Franklin, we'll talk to you tomorrow, as will Swedenburg, 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:54.040 as will Shakespeare, as will Francis Bacon. So you you 0:14:54.160 --> 0:15:00.960 have access to these great luminaries in unprecedented ways sa sultaneously. However, 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.800 a lot of them changed their mind after death. So 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:12.200 if you said something, you know what was considered immoral 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.840 according to eighteen fifty two Culture of Progressive Spiritualists, you 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:22.120 could learn after death that you were wrong. So Plato 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:27.960 becomes an abolitionist. Franklin, of course, is a great American hero, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.000 and the whole idea of spiritualism is predicated on the 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.960 idea of the telegraph. If you can have invisible communication 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.440 across time and space, why can't you have an invisible 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:46.040 communication between life and death, right instantaneous communication. So the 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:51.360 trope of electricity was extremely important, but frankly nobody understood it. 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.120 So they relied a lot on Franklin to sort of 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:00.600 explain how electricity worked and how this affected me unship, 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.480 and how to you know and what the you know? 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.000 The great plans for the future are certainly the same 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:13.400 thing with Washington and this uh again, this building of 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:19.760 a legitimate, solid history that could simultaneously evoke you know, 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:24.640 American and exceptionalism is too strong a word, but American importance, 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:30.560 and also give people a space to learn posthumously. And 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:35.120 you've written about the ways that in your view, spiritualism 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:39.560 and what spiritualists were doing and practicing and teaching, UM 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:46.240 presents a picture of of people, UM, uncomfortable with time. 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:50.120 You say, spiritualism represents a discomfort with time, and so 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:51.920 we've mentioned a little bit about what this means for 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.800 how spiritualist view the past. Can you also talk about 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.160 what you mean when you say that spiritualists, UM, we're 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:06.120 kind of in love with futurity. That's nicely put. Yes, 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:11.159 indeed in love with futurity. The prevailing belief has had 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:16.919 some hiccups obviously, but that you know, everything was progressing right, 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.720 Everything was on this path to perfection. The world is 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:27.959 getting better, We're going to conquer the social crimes, and 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.400 you know, when you die, you continually get better. So 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:39.680 the future was utopian but not set, if that makes 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.199 any sense. So, like a lot of people said, um, 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:48.320 if you're in a traditional sort of Christian apocalyptic worldview, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.320 you know the apocalypse is going to come at point 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:53.919 X and then the good people are gonna, you know, 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.080 have a grand time for a thousand years and then 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.040 go up to the new Jerusalem. The bad people are 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:03.080 going to fry Um and that you know, has a 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:07.920 very specific goal. And people make the mistake of setting dates. 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:09.600 And I tell all my students, if you're going to 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:14.240 start a baby religion, never set a date because on 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.359 verification becomes a problem when the date rolls around in 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.400 the world is still here. So the spiritualist never set 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.440 a date, right. They had a slow, gradual improvement plan 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.520 and they need only look around to see things that 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:32.640 were not working. They very clearly. Victorian America had all 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:38.119 sorts of problems with even post Civil War. You know, 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:42.960 reconstruction was a disaster, the state of women and children 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.800 was awful. Factories, you know, the White Plague, tenement houses, etcetera. 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.080 So they were projects on earth. But everything was marching 0:18:53.440 --> 0:19:01.080 towards this utopian future which would have as handmaids medicine, technology, science, 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.640 that all of these conceptual systems were going to work 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:10.199 together to usher in this future perfection. That's great. So 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.720 with these kind of some of the big picture beliefs 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.320 and historical context, even I'm glad you mentioned technology with 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.239 the telegraph and and the canals and being able to 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:25.159 move information. UM. Let's jump into some of the lives 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.920 of the people who who developed and UH and dispersed 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.040 the movement. And let's start where so many historians do, 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.760 with Andrew Jackson Davis. Who was Andrew Jackson Davis and 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.000 what was significant about him in the context of some 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.200 of these things like mesmerism and the burned over District. 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.000 Andrew Jackson Davis was a guy from Poughkeepsie, New York 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:56.200 who was called the Poughkeepsie Sayre Fabulous title, and he 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:02.320 was a mesmeric trance healer. He was also a wildly 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:08.280 prolific author, and he wrote dozens of books that would 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:13.320 go into many many editions over the course of his lifetime. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:24.000 On UM basically was sweden Borgian take on the future 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.600 of you know, dead people and the most merrick take 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.160 on the future of life people. And he put these 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:35.800 things together in what he called the Harmonial philosophy. And 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.679 the Harmonial philosophy was very palatable. You're talking a world 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:44.359 in which you know, blood letting still happened, and you know, 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:49.360 people did not yet understand that clean linens would cut 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.760 down on you know, the spread of disease. So the 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:57.240 the idea that you could have been magnetized and have 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.280 a conversation one on one with this person who was 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.400 listening to you and who was sincerely trying to make 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.280 your life better and that your disposition would improve. This 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:13.680 was all extremely palatable given the medical landscape of the time. 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:19.920 So he's trooping around publishing books on the harmonial philosophy 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:24.639 at the time. He appreciates the Fox Sisters by many years, 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.440 and so when he hears about the Fox Sisters and 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:34.360 the so called mysterious wrappings, he melds his worldview with 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:40.080 their experiential ritual, if you will, and that was the 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:45.280 marriage that needed happening. Can you describe he gave theology 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:51.560 to their ritual and they brought ritual to his philosophy beautifully. 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.280 But oh, that's great, I'm glad you said that. Um, 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.680 can you describe a little bit about how responsible he 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.679 was for what you described earlier where you say in general, 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.000 spiritualist theology of the afterlife was taking Swedenborgie in heaven 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.119 and hell and plopping it all into heaven. How responsible 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.320 for that idea was Andrew Jackson Davis And how did 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:11.840 he kind of frame it? How did he talk about 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:17.480 it in his writing? Oh? He was very very much 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.440 responsible for that in so many important ways. Obviously, other 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:26.560 people had to have the experiential when you're talking to 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.399 a dead person, if they're like, oh, I I'm on 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:31.280 the second run, but I think I'm going to make 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.320 it to the third round pretty soon because I've done 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.520 this in this and then you know, you needed that 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.239 sort of reinforcement for his you know what I call 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:48.159 theological backbone to have worked. However, he was very like 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.280 like most mystics. He was infuriating, and that he claimed 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:57.200 to never have read anything, including Swedenborg. Nobody believes this, 0:22:57.320 --> 0:22:59.720 but you know, the the idea that, well, if I 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:02.920 made this all of myself, I'm clothing not smart enough 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:06.480 to do that. So it must come from the spirits, right. Um. 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:13.119 So what he does he casts the whole afterlife. He 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:19.680 calls it the Summerland, and he himself makes many Swedenborgian 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:25.520 style trips to the afterlife, where he hangs out with 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:31.840 famous dead people with literary figures, people prognosticate on things 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:36.240 like the future of Prussia, the coming of the American 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:43.639 Civil War, and what he finds in the afterlife is 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:50.080 complete gender equality. He finds religious equality sort of let 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:53.680 me expand on that in just sec So everyone goes 0:23:53.720 --> 0:24:01.480 to heaven and but they're segregated weirdly, uh, Andre tex 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:03.680 and Davis is writing, so they're like, you know, little 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:06.400 towns of twos and little towns of Hindus and little 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:12.360 towns of you know, Catholics and um. But because everybody 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:16.520 is improving, right, there's only one perfection, so everybody is 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:23.320 moving toward the same ultimate goal. So again, you're simultaneously 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:28.160 radically progressive in thinking that everyone in the entire universe, 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:34.280 across time and space goes to heaven. Super progressive. On 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:37.480 the other hand, you do then get to say, and 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.679 I am quoting and I'm physically making little bunny fingers 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:46.480 right now, the lower tribes and races unquote, um are 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:52.440 you know on the baby step rungs, right, So you 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:57.479 include them, but it's not untouched by its own historical moment, right, 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:04.800 which just rampant with colonialism and yeah, racism, and so 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:09.719 it's a step forward. I'm yeah, they are fantastic in 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:13.600 terms of that step forward, but it's not completely what 0:25:13.640 --> 0:25:19.960 we would consider to be you know morally equivalence, and 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.160 that's something that we really are able to explore when 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:25.640 we see spiritualism through Sojourner Truth size And um, I'm 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:29.280 really loving I didn't you know understand before I started 0:25:29.280 --> 0:25:32.359 this project to what extent Sojourner Truth was involved with spiritualism. 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:34.679 But some of the things that she notices and comments 0:25:34.720 --> 0:25:36.919 on over the course of her life really really do 0:25:37.000 --> 0:25:39.359 bring that to the four where she says, this is great, 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:42.760 but here are the limitations here? How far we here, so, 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:44.480 how far we've come here, so how far we still 0:25:44.520 --> 0:25:50.399 have to go? Um? Absolutely, there were really a number 0:25:50.440 --> 0:25:56.920 of African Americans who made it as mediums in part 0:25:57.160 --> 0:26:05.199 because of the frankly racist belief that you know their people, 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:10.879 if you will, are are closer to a spiritual naivete 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:15.320 and therefore, you know, more easily able to access the afterlife. 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:19.760 So there were people in the underground Railroad, for example, 0:26:20.080 --> 0:26:25.520 who were mediums in Quaker homes in New York. And 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:27.879 these women knew that they were sort of playing the 0:26:27.880 --> 0:26:34.119 white people right, So simultaneously they were able to really 0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:38.520 carbo an important niche for themselves and be appreciated. But 0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:43.760 they also knew that this was the as the sort 0:26:43.800 --> 0:26:48.439 of flip side of romanticizing. You know, their their own hair, 0:26:48.520 --> 0:26:51.600 and you see the same thing so often, uh from 0:26:51.600 --> 0:26:56.359 the beginning, but especially into the seventies with spiritualists channeling 0:26:56.560 --> 0:27:00.880 Native spirit guides or mediums having spirit controls where it's 0:27:01.600 --> 0:27:06.199 a romanticized Native nation, you know, a chief or a 0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:09.680 young girl that kind of presents Native nations and and 0:27:10.200 --> 0:27:14.200 you know, the Indian Wars in a kind of romanticized 0:27:14.240 --> 0:27:19.000 and sentimentalized light through through those seances where it's usually 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:21.959 almost always a white medium who is playing Indian in 0:27:21.960 --> 0:27:30.960 that way. Absolutely, and that still continues there, it is, 0:27:31.440 --> 0:27:38.199 it remains extraordinarily popular for current spiritualists have Native American um, 0:27:38.240 --> 0:27:41.280 you know, spirit guides. Well, let's jump back to the beginning. 0:27:41.560 --> 0:27:44.000 I loved what you said about the way that Andrew 0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:47.560 Jackson Davis picked up and and uh and used what 0:27:47.600 --> 0:27:50.000 the fox dishes were doing. But let's talk. Let's talk 0:27:50.000 --> 0:27:53.199 a little bit about about Hydesville and what happened there 0:27:53.200 --> 0:27:58.960 in um, not so much the details, but what what 0:27:59.040 --> 0:28:02.440 was it about that particular experience, because you know, as 0:28:02.440 --> 0:28:05.480 we've mentioned before, there were other kinds of trances and 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:09.960 mediumship that were happening before this, But what made what 0:28:10.000 --> 0:28:13.359 happened in Hindsville explode and become a movement, you know, 0:28:13.400 --> 0:28:18.800 go from kind of a neighbor neighborhood hullabaloo into uh 0:28:18.840 --> 0:28:22.640 into this huge movement that grows into something global within 0:28:22.640 --> 0:28:29.240 a couple of years. That is an excellent question. And 0:28:29.720 --> 0:28:33.800 scholars do like to throw down about dating spiritualism to 0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:38.560 the Fox sisters because phenomenologically there are multiple and they're 0:28:38.600 --> 0:28:40.920 they're always women in trances, right, that is one of 0:28:40.920 --> 0:28:45.400 the few cross cultural truisms, and that is clearly a 0:28:45.440 --> 0:28:49.920 way for women to um, you know, find a way 0:28:49.960 --> 0:28:54.440 to speak powerfully from the margins. So what you know, 0:28:55.120 --> 0:28:59.440 what makes Hindsville important, right, It's it's a haunting, it's 0:28:59.440 --> 0:29:05.320 a politic well, to be perfectly frank, it's their older sister, Leah. 0:29:05.680 --> 0:29:11.360 She understands, she sees exactly the monetary value in this 0:29:11.600 --> 0:29:16.040 from the minute it starts. She rewrites the script to 0:29:16.120 --> 0:29:18.920 put her baby sisters at the center, which is really 0:29:18.960 --> 0:29:23.920 not historically true or not provable at least, And she 0:29:24.000 --> 0:29:27.800 takes them in and she puts them in the Rochester 0:29:28.120 --> 0:29:32.480 shows and their wraps on in these these halls and 0:29:33.320 --> 0:29:39.320 this concatenation of again a telegraphy. Right, so the Fox 0:29:39.360 --> 0:29:43.720 sister did this very clunky um. The rap system was 0:29:43.800 --> 0:29:47.160 like one for A, two for B took forever. And 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:51.040 but that's like a a thirteen year old version of 0:29:51.080 --> 0:29:54.200 Morse code. And that's exactly what it was, was the 0:29:54.200 --> 0:29:58.000 thirteen year old version of Marse's code. So this idea 0:29:58.440 --> 0:30:03.600 of a telegraph to the dead with this combination of 0:30:04.720 --> 0:30:08.280 a ongoing revelation, but not in a way that was 0:30:08.280 --> 0:30:13.560 going to truly upset the you know, the Bible crowd 0:30:13.520 --> 0:30:15.680 to set some of them. But you know, by and large, 0:30:15.720 --> 0:30:18.440 there should be no particular conflict with being a Christian 0:30:19.040 --> 0:30:21.760 and thinking that you can talk to you know, you're 0:30:21.800 --> 0:30:25.520 deceased Uncle George right there. That's not you know, a 0:30:25.560 --> 0:30:33.200 major logical hazard. So but Leah really saw the potential 0:30:33.360 --> 0:30:37.280