Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey.
Speaker 1: The stage was stripped of adornments. Maggie promised that her
Speaker 1: act would be as well. Finally, The New York Times
Speaker 1: described the platform as bare and somber, but the crowd
Speaker 1: was anything but. They filled the room with noise, all
Speaker 1: of them hissing and shouting before Maggie could even begin.
Speaker 1: The press was wild with excitement. They filled the New
Speaker 1: York Academy of Music in October when Maggie appeared on stage,
Speaker 1: just as she had so many times since her childhood
Speaker 1: in Rochester. A front page illustrated story in that morning's
Speaker 1: issue of The New York World ensured the crowd would
Speaker 1: pack the hall. After an opening act that highlighted the
Speaker 1: tricks used to debunk other mediums, Maggie arrived on stage,
Speaker 1: still dark haired in her fifties. She out needed glasses
Speaker 1: to see the words she'd written for herself. Maggie held
Speaker 1: the lenses up to her eyes and read off a declaration.
Speaker 1: Everything she had done for spiritualism over the course of
Speaker 1: her life was a falsehood. She had already published a
Speaker 1: letter in The New York Herald that called spiritualism, a
Speaker 1: curse and a covering for heartless persons and the vilest miscreants,
Speaker 1: people who used it to cloak their evil doings. As
Speaker 1: she said, now she was making the same pronouncements in person.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just statements. Of course, Like so many
Speaker 1: other rooms before, the hall became filled with knocking sounds.
Speaker 1: They started around Maggie's feet faintly, then they rose along
Speaker 1: the walls and scattered upward, where they rang out from
Speaker 1: the ceiling, thundering throughout the room. Here's author Nancy Stewart,
Speaker 1: and she and hikes up her skirts and shows how
Speaker 1: she makes these sounds their feet with her toes. And
Speaker 1: by now there's a national Association of Spiritualists and so on,
Speaker 1: and they are just outraged. What follows is an enormous
Speaker 1: controversy that goes on for a long time. A committee
Speaker 1: of doctors stepped on stage and solemnly confirmed what she
Speaker 1: told them. Maggie made the sounds with her feet. It
Speaker 1: was all a hoax, a fraud, and it was everything
Speaker 1: they wanted, an exorcism of Mrs Satan herself and everything
Speaker 1: she stood for. The newspapers, crowd doubters and cynics roared
Speaker 1: their approval from the rooftops. This was spiritualism defeated. This
Speaker 1: was the perpetrators of the nineteenth centuries most infamous fraud
Speaker 1: finally dragged into the light around the Fox family acid
Speaker 1: rumors had always circulated that Leah, a single mom, saw
Speaker 1: an opportunity to take a simple gag her younger siblings
Speaker 1: were pulling on their parents and turn it into something
Speaker 1: which larger a chance to enchant and enthrall audiences. And yes,
Speaker 1: it was also her chance to do more than be
Speaker 1: a part time piano teacher for the daughters of aspiring
Speaker 1: middle class families. But did Leah, like Cornelius Vanderbilt throughout
Speaker 1: his own life, see an opportunity and seize it with
Speaker 1: a vengeance? She was like P. T. Barnum, just someone
Speaker 1: who knew how to profit from spectacle when it crossed
Speaker 1: her path. For viewers of Maggie's very public confession, at
Speaker 1: least that was the takeaway, But it wasn't so simple.
Speaker 1: Here's historian and Browdie. Fraud is a very fraud subject
Speaker 1: in spiritualism, because there are no question that there have
Speaker 1: been fraudulent mediums who perpetrated deception on the public and
Speaker 1: profited by it, and that there have been gullible people
Speaker 1: who were embarrassed and disserviced by fraudulent mediums. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: that is also true of many professions, law and medicine,
Speaker 1: for example, Not to mention politics provides opportunities for deception
Speaker 1: and double speak and misrepresentation. Does that mean that all
Speaker 1: participants in it have those motives and are dishonest? Spiritualist
Speaker 1: believers weren't swayed by Maggie's performance, As we've noticed throughout
Speaker 1: this season of Unobscured. The Fox Sisters were often put
Speaker 1: forward as the mothers of the movement, but they were
Speaker 1: far from the only mediums at work in their world,
Speaker 1: and even if their own stage shows were faked, those
Speaker 1: hoaxes didn't invalidate centuries of spiritual visions and experiences that
Speaker 1: had breathed life into the movement long before the Fox
Speaker 1: Sisters were even on the scene. And when it came
Speaker 1: to Kate and Maggie, spiritualists pointed to Maggie's history of alcoholism.
Speaker 1: She was already discredited. They said, there was nothing she
Speaker 1: could say now, no lie she could fabricate that could
Speaker 1: undo a lifetime of miracles. She was simply pandering to
Speaker 1: the doubters in order to stir up controversy, they said,
Speaker 1: and to put herself in the headlines once again. In fact,
Speaker 1: Leah's husband, Daniel Underhill, soon went to the newspapers to
Speaker 1: make it known that Maggie had betrayed spiritualism out of spite,
Speaker 1: just to put a knife in her sister's back. After all,
Speaker 1: Maggie and Leah had been at odds for decades, and
Speaker 1: three years earlier, Leah, at this point in her seventies,
Speaker 1: had published her own book, The Missing Link in Spiritualism.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, Maggie's on stage confession was
Speaker 1: an axe that hacked at the root of Leah's claims.
Speaker 1: But could that attack banish everything, including Andrew Jackson Davis's
Speaker 1: harmonial philosophy, Cora's trans lectures, Emma's histories, and Sojourner Truth's
Speaker 1: lifetime of work and love and power. New Yorkers had
Speaker 1: certainly witnessed a disaster, yes, But like so many spectacles
Speaker 1: from the world of spiritualism, it seemed that ultimately what
Speaker 1: observers took away from it all looked very much like
Speaker 1: what they brought in belief this is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: Cora took the age. She had been doing it her
Speaker 1: whole life. After all, it was eight and she had
Speaker 1: arrived at the National American Women's Suffrage Convention with an
Speaker 1: official title from an official group. She was now the
Speaker 1: head of the fraternal delegation to the Convention from the
Speaker 1: National Spiritualist Association, and she was there to celebrate the
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of eighteen forty eight for the women's suffrage movement.
Speaker 1: It marked fifty years since meeting at Seneca Falls, New York,
Speaker 1: and the Declaration of Sentiments that had placed a stake
Speaker 1: in the ground for American women's rights and equality. There
Speaker 1: was still so much work to be done before those
Speaker 1: rights would be recognized, but much had changed in those
Speaker 1: fifty years. Women had already cast legal ballots in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho,
Speaker 1: and Colorado, but it would still be decades before the
Speaker 1: Nineteenth Amendment would be passed into law in nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: giving women across the nation the right to vote. One
Speaker 1: courageous and outrageous woman had even run for presidency, however
Speaker 1: unconventional her approach might have been. For Cora, of course,
Speaker 1: also marked fifty years since the fateful events around Rochester.
Speaker 1: That decade that followed Maggie's confession of fraud in New
Speaker 1: York had done little to overthrow Cora's worldview or her
Speaker 1: place among spiritualists. In fact, the eighteen eighties and eighteen
Speaker 1: nineties were a time when spiritualism and Cora's role within it,
Speaker 1: took on a more permanent form. She had settled in
Speaker 1: Chicago right around the time when Victoria Woodhall was cutting
Speaker 1: ties and leaving for England with a pocket full of
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt money. Victoria's reputation as Mrs Satan had threatened COR's livelihood,
Speaker 1: as it did for spiritualist mediums across the nation, but
Speaker 1: I didn't stop Cora from marrying into a widely respected
Speaker 1: Chicago family and taking a paid position as the shepherd
Speaker 1: of the city's first society of Spiritualists. In eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: Cora and other Chicago spiritualists formed the Morris Pratt Institute
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, built with the proceeds of a mining company,
Speaker 1: a company that had been guided to valuable mineral deposits
Speaker 1: by mediums and their helpful spirits. The Institute would become
Speaker 1: a Temple and School for Spiritualists, a place where teachers
Speaker 1: and students could meet together and study the works of
Speaker 1: spiritualist theology that mediums like Andrew Jackson Davis, Emma Brittain,
Speaker 1: and even Cora herself had delivered to the world. Three
Speaker 1: years later, in Nettie Colburn died, she had been the
Speaker 1: most prominent medium to ever claim that she'd had the
Speaker 1: ear of Abraham Lincoln. When she was laid to rest,
Speaker 1: it was Cora who took the pulpit to preside over
Speaker 1: her funeral. The following year, eightee saw an astonishing event
Speaker 1: come to Chicago. Along with the World's Columbian Exhibition. Something
Speaker 1: new arrived, the World Parliament of Religions, a two week
Speaker 1: summit on faith. But while the spiritualists weren't part of
Speaker 1: the larger gathering, they were certainly there in spirit. Here's
Speaker 1: and Browdie once again in we have the World's Colombian Exhibition,
Speaker 1: where we have Americans exposed to many of the religions
Speaker 1: of Asia for the first time, and we have Swamy's
Speaker 1: and other Asian religious leaders recruited to come to the
Speaker 1: United States and teach Americans about their faith. And so
Speaker 1: we have the whole movement of theosophy which is attempting,
Speaker 1: attempting to combine the wisdom of the East and make
Speaker 1: it accessible to Westerners. And Spiritualism moves in and out
Speaker 1: of all of these developments. Because spiritualism is always available,
Speaker 1: you can always talk to the dead and in any movement,
Speaker 1: whether you think that wisdom is going to come from
Speaker 1: Egypt or from Tibet, or from South America or from Australia,
Speaker 1: you can always make contact with the spirit from one
Speaker 1: of those places who can give you wisdom that draws
Speaker 1: on those traditions and on esoteric practices from another part
Speaker 1: of the world. In fact, spiritualists saw that the reason
Speaker 1: they didn't share the stage with their fellow believers was
Speaker 1: that they still had no organization, and that was the
Speaker 1: precise agenda of their meeting to form a permanent national association.
Speaker 1: They believed it was time for the best interests of
Speaker 1: spiritualists to have a more unified home, and one that
Speaker 1: was more identifiable than a simple network of newspapers passed
Speaker 1: between spirit circles in Washington, Boston, and Chicago. By the
Speaker 1: end of their meeting, the National Spiritualists Association was born. Now,
Speaker 1: they said outside societies could contact them at their headquarters
Speaker 1: with requests for information, or you know, with invitations to
Speaker 1: important meetings of the world's religions. Wink, wink. The irony
Speaker 1: of spiritualists boxing themselves in wasn't lost on those at
Speaker 1: the meeting, or on Cora herself. She started her welcome
Speaker 1: address to the convention by noting that in the past,
Speaker 1: asking spiritualists to join an organization was like talking to
Speaker 1: someone who had escaped from prison about going back again.
Speaker 1: All things connected to human life, she once said, have
Speaker 1: been organized to death. Cora was probably not the only
Speaker 1: one to remember just how many spiritualists had left their
Speaker 1: churches to join the ranks of science schoers. That had
Speaker 1: certainly been true for the Posts who had left the
Speaker 1: Quaker organization behind. It was true of Henri and his
Speaker 1: Sir Carmonique, and for Catholics everywhere who wrestled against church authority,
Speaker 1: and it was a strong memory for any spiritualist who
Speaker 1: had been present for the Ruckus at the Hartford Bible
Speaker 1: Convention forty years earlier. Although those numbers were shrinking every day,
Speaker 1: Spiritualism had always threatened the priest, politicians, and profiteers who
Speaker 1: benefited from the status quo. It had given spiritual and
Speaker 1: moral authority to people who had been stripped of their rights,
Speaker 1: pushed to the margins, and burdened with work, while others
Speaker 1: reaped the rewards. The last thing spiritualists wanted to do,
Speaker 1: even in the nineties was to give up on their
Speaker 1: labors and returned to a world of the strong crushing
Speaker 1: the week. But in the coming decades, Cora and the
Speaker 1: Chicago Spiritualists weren't the only ones who saw a spiritualist
Speaker 1: future finally taking shape. It just wasn't the future they
Speaker 1: had expected. Death was not something to be afraid of.
Speaker 1: For Henri and the Cir Carmonique, death was just what
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis taught it to be, a door into
Speaker 1: a new and more perfect existence. It was the chance
Speaker 1: to leave a corrupt world behind and to climb into
Speaker 1: a higher, more sublime, more magnificent country. For as long
Speaker 1: as their science circles had gathered together, the cir Carmonique
Speaker 1: had held onto the belief that by talking with the spirits,
Speaker 1: they could learn all about that more magnificent country, and
Speaker 1: then they could make this world more like it. In
Speaker 1: his role as a city official and a school board
Speaker 1: member on reh had seen the chance to do just that.
Speaker 1: But as time went on, it became clear just how
Speaker 1: fierce the opposition was. Here's historian Emily Clark. Violence, like
Speaker 1: the Mechanics Institute right, was not alone. In seventy four
Speaker 1: of the Battle of Liberty Place, during which the White League,
Speaker 1: a white supremacist organization, takes control of New Orleans and
Speaker 1: is like cutting telegraph wires and so that messages can't
Speaker 1: get out, they slaughter the At that point, integrated police
Speaker 1: kill some people who are just walking by. There's a
Speaker 1: black carpenter who's killed with his own hatchet by White
Speaker 1: leaguers who are just like marauding through the city. During
Speaker 1: that the spirits of Mechanics Institute riot martyrs appear to
Speaker 1: the Sar Carmenique and encourage them to keep the faith
Speaker 1: that their rights will be maintained. Henri did keep the faith,
Speaker 1: but he watched pieces of his world fall apart around him.
Speaker 1: Black students were kicked out of New Orleans schools not
Speaker 1: long after he was forced off the school board as well.
Speaker 1: Efforts to rebuild the South in the image of a
Speaker 1: different world had been abandoned by the political powers of
Speaker 1: the federal government. This is a place that is increasingly
Speaker 1: becoming more and more dangerous to hold two ideas of equality,
Speaker 1: it seems like actually starting in late eighteen Most of
Speaker 1: the seance records for the last two years are mainly
Speaker 1: just on re and the following years were tough. One December,
Speaker 1: Andre's home was burned to the ground. His seance records
Speaker 1: were saved, including the handwritten messages from countless spirits, but
Speaker 1: much of what was precious to Anri was lost to
Speaker 1: the flames, and slowly the members of the circle died
Speaker 1: or moved on. I think about him sometimes, just sitting
Speaker 1: by himself at a table, a table that used to
Speaker 1: be full of vibrant conversation about the potential of what
Speaker 1: the spirit spoke of, and now it's just him. I'm
Speaker 1: sure the silence records offered some comfort, but in the end,
Speaker 1: it's just him, and the records end in November of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven, as reconstruction itself comes to a close.
Speaker 1: Even as the radical fire burned low in some spiritualist circles,
Speaker 1: the fight for equality continued. The Great Railroad Strike of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven inspired working class people across the country.
Speaker 1: Nine years later, forty thou workers in Chicago fought with
Speaker 1: police in another nationwide push for an eight hour work day.
Speaker 1: In one street battle, police killed four strikers. The following day,
Speaker 1: a bomb was thrown into a crowd of police as
Speaker 1: they marched toward protesters. Eight of the officers were killed
Speaker 1: and dozens more were in In response, the police opened
Speaker 1: fire on the crowd and each other. Eight of the
Speaker 1: city's anarchist organizers were scooped up in the following police raids,
Speaker 1: and that's when Cora stepped in, taking up the mantle
Speaker 1: that Victoria had laid aside. Believing in the cause of
Speaker 1: the striking workers, Cora was shocked when she heard that
Speaker 1: the arrested anarchists were going to be hanged on circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 1: She organized an amnesty committee and then set out for Springfield, Illinois,
Speaker 1: to confront the governor and asked him to support the
Speaker 1: eight hour work day. A massive crowd of people from
Speaker 1: across the state had gathered at the state House pleading
Speaker 1: for the men to be saved. One reporter noted that
Speaker 1: Cora's lecture was so moving that it left the group
Speaker 1: in tears. More than any other. It was this act
Speaker 1: that wrote Cora's name into Chicago's history. In the end,
Speaker 1: though the governor met Cora's please the same way New
Speaker 1: York met Victoria, she was turned away. Four of the
Speaker 1: men were hanged, and Cora turned home in mourning, but
Speaker 1: also certain of her righteous cause. She later wrote that
Speaker 1: the power of money and of human selfishness are doomed,
Speaker 1: whether in the individual, or in society, or in corporations,
Speaker 1: or in governments, or in crowns or in kingdoms. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it would just take longer than the spirits had led
Speaker 1: her to believe. But Cora wasn't the only one on
Speaker 1: daunted by setbacks, because there were Spiritualists across the country
Speaker 1: who had begun to revive that dream of a model
Speaker 1: community that had fostered Spiritualist beliefs way back in the
Speaker 1: eighteen forties. All of them, we're looking for a place
Speaker 1: the finally call home. It was a camp, but only
Speaker 1: in name. In fact, the thriving Spiritualist community in western
Speaker 1: New York had showed signs of being a permanent settlement
Speaker 1: from its early ist years. They would eventually rename their
Speaker 1: town lily Dale. They built their own post office, hotel, store,
Speaker 1: and library. They even took on a bold new project.
Speaker 1: They relocated the house where the Fox family had first
Speaker 1: been shocked by the sounds of spirit rappings, and once
Speaker 1: it was safely at home in lily Dale, the structure
Speaker 1: turned their community into the destination for spiritualist pilgrimages in
Speaker 1: the Northeast. Down in Florida, friends of the lily Dale
Speaker 1: community followed spirit voices to a home of their own
Speaker 1: on the Atlantic Coast. Previous meetings in Florida had brought
Speaker 1: together as many as one thousand spiritualists, so in the
Speaker 1: president of the National Spiritualist Association joined the founders of
Speaker 1: lily Dale and many others to open camp meetings in Cassadega, Florida.
Speaker 1: As so many spiritualists had done before, they put out
Speaker 1: a call for universal brotherhood, welcoming people of any race
Speaker 1: or class who were interested in spiritualism. But when white
Speaker 1: Northern leaders welcome their new black neighbors to lectures at Cassadega,
Speaker 1: they violated several Jim Crow laws, highlighting the spirit of
Speaker 1: liberty that had visited so many seance tables in previous decades.
Speaker 1: Here's historian Kathy gutierres the Cassadega community, the Wily Deal community.
Speaker 1: These folks understood perhaps the single most important thing about spiritualism,
Speaker 1: and that is the vanguard for multiculturalism. I completely think
Speaker 1: that Spiritualism's primary contribution is to ethics, and it is
Speaker 1: to the dismantling of a duality of heaven and health,
Speaker 1: and to the relegating of all of your neighbors who
Speaker 1: are not exactly like you to help. There are other
Speaker 1: people who didn't actively believe in a hell, the Unitarians,
Speaker 1: the universalists, right, everyone was going, you know, to heaven.
Speaker 1: You don't want universalist smith. But as a mainstream, low
Speaker 1: splashy movement, spiritualism really was a driving force behind nascent multiculturalism,
Speaker 1: and I think that that is its lasting contribution. Even today,
Speaker 1: the Cassadega community continues to be a home for Spiritualist practice.
Speaker 1: Like Lily Dale in New York. It remains an enduring
Speaker 1: testament to the power of the harmonial philosophy and the
Speaker 1: deep belief of the generations who had lived and loved
Speaker 1: its teachings. But it wasn't just on the East Coast
Speaker 1: that spiritualists made more permanent homes. In California, Spiritualist settled
Speaker 1: along the Pacific and form settlements like harmony growth, a
Speaker 1: community that's still meeting in a spot first marked by
Speaker 1: a simple ten foot platform and a hitching post. In
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara County, Spiritualist formed a colony they called Summerland.
Speaker 1: It was their own slice of heaven, and it became
Speaker 1: a haven for spiritualist all throughout the West, even more
Speaker 1: so when they drilled for oil off the coast, and yes,
Speaker 1: you heard that right, by pumping crude oil up from
Speaker 1: the seafloor in eight six, the Summerland Project became the
Speaker 1: nation's first offshore oil well. It was one more sign
Speaker 1: for those still certain of their spirits guiding them at least,
Speaker 1: that they were entering a new age of prosperity. If
Speaker 1: only those spirits had been more foresighted. But if there
Speaker 1: were some spiritualists who held true to those original goals
Speaker 1: of the mid nineteenth century, there were others who had
Speaker 1: veered away. They were looking for new revelations in a
Speaker 1: different direction. And even as those new offshoots of spiritualism grew,
Speaker 1: they watched the influence of the old spiritualism fade and change.
Speaker 1: If you've been listening to the stories of figures like
Speaker 1: Sojourn or Truth, Cora and the Fox Sisters. And you've
Speaker 1: been wondering what happened to spiritualism. Well, the answer might
Speaker 1: lie closer than we think. Here's historian Molly McGarry. It
Speaker 1: had found its way to theosophy, which does grow. During
Speaker 1: that time, spirituals are still meeting in camp meetings in
Speaker 1: the you know, in the eighteen eighties and beyond, they're
Speaker 1: still doing their work. I think what's true is because
Speaker 1: the newspapers become less important and the community becomes more diverse,
Speaker 1: and because many historians look at the northeast and don't
Speaker 1: look at the west quite as much, that they've missed
Speaker 1: a lot of the rebuilding that goes on in the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties and the kind of experiments that are happening
Speaker 1: outside the northeast or the central New York, and that
Speaker 1: that area that had borth the original movement. So I
Speaker 1: think that it's less that spiritualism declines. I mean, that
Speaker 1: would be one way to see it. But it just
Speaker 1: becomes more difficult to see for all sorts of reasons,
Speaker 1: and it moves, it moves into different formations, but it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I yes, theosophy was one of the new religious movements
Speaker 1: that drew strength from its spiritualist roots but also from
Speaker 1: its spiritualist founders. And among the earliest visionaries of theosophy
Speaker 1: was Henry Steele Alcotts, that veteran investigator of frauds who
Speaker 1: turned his mind to spiritualism in the eighteen seventies, and
Speaker 1: he was joined by Emma Britton, whose theatrical performances were
Speaker 1: surpassed in their power by her histories of spiritualism itself.
Speaker 1: Here's Kathy Gutierres once again. Well, Emma was at the
Speaker 1: initial eighteen seventy two party in New York that founded
Speaker 1: the Theosophical Society. And what the Theosophical Society and Madame
Speaker 1: Bolvowski in particular proposed is that spiritualism was this is
Speaker 1: my phrase, and obviously but too exoteric, right, That actual
Speaker 1: occult work requires initiation, it requires adepts, and it requires secrecy.
Speaker 1: So if you could talk to the dead, you were
Speaker 1: approaching something important, but you weren't there yet. So they
Speaker 1: actually set out to create a much more esoteric as
Speaker 1: an actively secret and requiring gradations of initiation that sort
Speaker 1: of spun off of some of the primary principles of spiritualism,
Speaker 1: and it was also unlike spiritualism, which, as we've discussed,
Speaker 1: it's very optimistic in so many ways, theosophy is paranoid.
Speaker 1: It's a massive conspiracy theory. So it has a different trajectory, right.
Speaker 1: It is not progressive or kind or healing. At the
Speaker 1: core of it. It's much more about self transformation. It's
Speaker 1: much more about the secrecy and inner sanctum. In the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies, Mary Baker Eddies Christian science joined theosophy as
Speaker 1: another religious belief that blossomed in the world that spiritualism
Speaker 1: had made. But it wasn't just new religious movements that
Speaker 1: found their origin in spiritualism. It was science too, especially
Speaker 1: the science of the mind in the eighties. When you
Speaker 1: really see the rise of neurology and psychology as medical disciplines,
Speaker 1: then they start edging into what has traditionally been religion's purview.
Speaker 1: So when you have women speaking in multiple voices than
Speaker 1: traditionally okay, are you a saint, are you a witch?
Speaker 1: Or are you mad? And Nancy Stewart agrees, So it's
Speaker 1: a gateway, if you will, into what we know today
Speaker 1: is a modern psychology and understandings about psychiatric states and
Speaker 1: trance states, and illnesses and and so on. I think
Speaker 1: that's all pretty familiar to people today, but then was
Speaker 1: brand new investigation. In many ways, it's fair to say
Speaker 1: that spiritualism was the bridge from our past to our
Speaker 1: presence even today. If we know where to look, we
Speaker 1: can find its trace is all around us. If we
Speaker 1: listen closely, if we know how to interpret the quiet echoes,
Speaker 1: we can sense its eerie presence in the background of
Speaker 1: our everyday life, like the sounds of knocking on a
Speaker 1: distant door and I'm scaring. The past doesn't always mean
Speaker 1: delivering a simple story. Sometimes it means stripping away the
Speaker 1: simple parts of our past that we think we know
Speaker 1: in order to explore the complexities of what really happened.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that means we come into a chapter of history
Speaker 1: thinking we have all the answers, and then learning that
Speaker 1: the story we were told barely even gets the big
Speaker 1: picture right, let alone the smaller details. And honestly, it
Speaker 1: sometimes means re examining a familiar moment in time and
Speaker 1: noticing the ways the crucial parts of its history were
Speaker 1: written out of the story, the embarrassing, the uncanny, the
Speaker 1: parts that look foolish when we're using today's lenses to
Speaker 1: filter out the uncomfortable parts of our past. But when
Speaker 1: we look back objectively, with help from scholars and historians
Speaker 1: like those who have joined us this season, we can
Speaker 1: start to see with a bit more clarity. Spiritualist people,
Speaker 1: along with their ideas and hopes and fears, were embedded
Speaker 1: all throughout life in nineteenth century America. Religion, science, finance, technology,
Speaker 1: and politics were all braided together with the echo of
Speaker 1: voices from beyond the grave. Rapid changes in the world
Speaker 1: gave rise to modern spiritualism, and then those spiritualists turned
Speaker 1: around and changed the world some more. By listening to
Speaker 1: and following those spirit voices. Spiritualists showed just how much
Speaker 1: the age old questions still capture our hearts and minds,
Speaker 1: even as a rush of new ideas and new devices
Speaker 1: turn our world into something unfamiliar all over again. Here's
Speaker 1: historian and browdie. We tend to think of seances as
Speaker 1: a parlor game, and certainly they could become that, and
Speaker 1: they did become that a popular entertainment. But the first seances,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're games at all. I think they
Speaker 1: show us the deep, deep hunger to communicate with the
Speaker 1: spirits of the dead, the deep hunger to be reconnected
Speaker 1: with loved ones that we have lost, and the deep
Speaker 1: hunger for knowledge of the divine, for knowledge of what
Speaker 1: will happen after we die. I think how long it
Speaker 1: took to get a spirit message by passing your hands
Speaker 1: over the alphabet until you heard raps at a single letter,
Speaker 1: and then you had to repeat that process, maybe fifty
Speaker 1: or a hundred times to get a brief spirit message.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, you're kind of hoping that you have a
Speaker 1: human medium who will be an effective vehicle for communication.
Speaker 1: And to my mom, as a historian, I feel completely
Speaker 1: confident in saying that the majority of mediums were absolutely
Speaker 1: sincere in their belief that they were channeling communications from
Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead. Spiritualism earned many critics throughout
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds. It suffered through predators and fell victim
Speaker 1: to profit seeking opportunists, just like so many other realms
Speaker 1: of American life. But I can't help but think back
Speaker 1: to Amy Post and her mixture of ardent, hope and
Speaker 1: sincere belief in the eighteen fifties, because it was that
Speaker 1: mixture that led her to spend those long hours at
Speaker 1: the seance table taking down messages from the spirit world,
Speaker 1: and all the criticism that can land at spiritualism's doorstep. Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the death knell people assumed it would be.
Speaker 1: In many ways, we're still living in a world that
Speaker 1: spiritualism made. Here are some final thoughts from Molly McGarry.
Speaker 1: If it's very easy to sort of look back at
Speaker 1: the past and see irrationality and superstition and a kind
Speaker 1: of secularization narrative in which we, you know, are are
Speaker 1: no longer part of this kind of you know community
Speaker 1: community of believers are dupes or the credulous ones. And
Speaker 1: you know, I live in Los Angeles. Most people know
Speaker 1: their sun sign, if not their rising sign. People don't
Speaker 1: know their blood type, and they know their astrology. This
Speaker 1: hasn't gone away. I mean, what can be seen as
Speaker 1: a kind of spurious consolation or after dinner pastime speaks
Speaker 1: to a real need for people for contact, for connection.
Speaker 1: And it's easy to see a superstition or as a
Speaker 1: child kids parlor game, but it was really powerful. It
Speaker 1: was amazing to me the way that the imagination, the
Speaker 1: possibility that spiritualists could cross from this world to the next,
Speaker 1: allow them to collapse, distinctions between world, between bodies, between genders,
Speaker 1: between races in some cases. That that cosmology allowed for
Speaker 1: a remaking of things in this world, and that material connection,
Speaker 1: I think remains very powerful. There is no death. That's
Speaker 1: what one of the best known British mediums called her memoir.
Speaker 1: She borrowed the title from American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Speaker 1: but the idea of messages traveling across fathomless depths had
Speaker 1: always defined spiritualism's power. Besides, spiritualists had been saying it
Speaker 1: for decades. For spiritualists, there is no Death wasn't just
Speaker 1: a platitude. It was truth. The memoir was published in
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties and it reads like the personal recollections
Speaker 1: that we've discussed throughout this season. The medium tells stories
Speaker 1: of encountering the spirits of dead children and lost friends,
Speaker 1: and by doing so, she offered hope that even when
Speaker 1: our loved ones pass away, they will always be there.
Speaker 1: We can always talk to them because are always near.
Speaker 1: After all, there is no death. But the First World
Speaker 1: War was coming. It would deliver death to European families
Speaker 1: on an unbelievable scale, and all that loss created a
Speaker 1: home for spiritualism in Britain that deserves to have its
Speaker 1: own story told. Here's historian John Busher. There was a
Speaker 1: big revival of spiritualism in the post War War One period,
Speaker 1: and in some sense it's still a part of what
Speaker 1: lay at the heart of spiritualism is still in continuity
Speaker 1: with what we see around us all the time in
Speaker 1: our own culture. Belief in psychic powers, relief in channeled
Speaker 1: texts that give some higher revelation. A lot of that
Speaker 1: interest is now labeled new Age, which is a term
Speaker 1: that was, as far as I know, was invented in
Speaker 1: its original center, or in the sense that we know
Speaker 1: it now in the spiritualist community. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of that still with us today, just like the thousands
Speaker 1: of American mediums who haven't entered our story this season.
Speaker 1: The long and complex legacy of spiritualism in Britain has
Speaker 1: only gotten a few brief mentions. But the same can
Speaker 1: be said about any of the other nations where spiritualists
Speaker 1: traveled and taught and heard their questions answered in the
Speaker 1: dim light of a seance, places like Europe, Brazil, Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: and Australia in the early nineteen twenties, though, spiritualism may
Speaker 1: have found its most ardent new student in the person
Speaker 1: of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who added his name to
Speaker 1: the list of the Curious and then the converted. Here's
Speaker 1: Nancy Stewart. You know people have laughed about this, people
Speaker 1: like Arthur Conan Doyle. Here we are the most rational
Speaker 1: detective writer. He's a spiritualist. Fudini started out believing in
Speaker 1: it and then he got to debunk it as a magician.
Speaker 1: You know, it just kind of goes on. This leads later,
Speaker 1: much later into investigations by people like William MacDougald, Harvard
Speaker 1: psychology professor was the chairman. Duke and his disciple Dr
Speaker 1: Joseph Banks Ryan look into esp In the first decades
Speaker 1: of the New century, Spiritualism was revived and responded to
Speaker 1: new catastrophes and to offer answers to the questions of
Speaker 1: a new century with its new wars, new technologies, and
Speaker 1: new social formations. It survived countless tests and investigations. It
Speaker 1: even outlived its most powerful publication, The Banner of Light,
Speaker 1: which finally ceased printing in nineteen o seven, and it
Speaker 1: survived the decline of its most hopeful early projects, as
Speaker 1: well as the scandals of its most prominent mediums. And
Speaker 1: there are so many more stories left to be told
Speaker 1: because for spiritualism, well, there is no death. She was
Speaker 1: the oldest, and of the many medium we followed this season,
Speaker 1: it's easy to see how sojourn Or Truth forged a
Speaker 1: path for others to follow with her courage. Here is
Speaker 1: Margaret Washington to share a final word on her life.
Speaker 1: To me, it's almost like a no brainer. And spiritualism,
Speaker 1: how is that different from spirituality except that people want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with loved ones who have gone on,
Speaker 1: and an African spirituality that is taken as a given
Speaker 1: that your loved ones not only do they not leave,
Speaker 1: they protect you. They surround you, so they're part of you.
Speaker 1: So spiritualism for her was an extension of that. Sojourner
Speaker 1: finally reconnected with those loved ones in three when her
Speaker 1: traveling feet finally found rest. Yes, she was oldest, but
Speaker 1: there were others who had walked most of that road
Speaker 1: with her. They might not have had the same destination
Speaker 1: all the way, but Sojourner and the Fox Sisters were
Speaker 1: travel companions nonetheless, and they were ambassadors for spiritualism, just
Speaker 1: like she was in their own ways. Even after Maggie's confession,
Speaker 1: the show went on because just one year later, she
Speaker 1: changed her mind and tried to take back whatever she
Speaker 1: had thrown to the wind, but time got away from
Speaker 1: her and in Leah would pass away to the other side.
Speaker 1: Their sister Lee riffed unhealed. Here's Nancy Stewart with the
Speaker 1: end of their story. Long story short. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of sad, but it leaves a lot of questions about her.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of her life, Katie's dying and does
Speaker 1: die of alcoholism. Ultimately, Maggie does die two and they're
Speaker 1: all kinds of mysterious knocks and sounds A person who
Speaker 1: is her nurse, who was not a spiritualist, cannot explain
Speaker 1: them at the time of death. At the very end,
Speaker 1: Maggie seemed to be challenging the world to explain the
Speaker 1: power that had flowed through her. She and Kate barely
Speaker 1: outlived their first interpreter, their friend and mentor, Amy Post,
Speaker 1: who had been more than certain than anyone else about
Speaker 1: how to explain that power. In eighty nine, though she
Speaker 1: passed away into the summer lands. The last surviving member
Speaker 1: of the Sir Carmonique left New Orleans in and moved
Speaker 1: with his children to Jamaica. His letters to relatives in
Speaker 1: Chicago show that in both places the deep belief in
Speaker 1: the power of the spirits lived on. He died in
Speaker 1: nineteen four, and his son in law would later donate
Speaker 1: the seance record books of the Sir Carmonique to the
Speaker 1: library at the University of New Orleans. Here's Emily Clark, So,
Speaker 1: the Sir Carmonique, over the course of their roughly twenty
Speaker 1: years of practice, bill something like thirty five or thirty
Speaker 1: seven books with messages. If you stack all of the
Speaker 1: science record books up, it reaches around my rip cage.
Speaker 1: So we're talking thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of pages of messages from the world beyond this one.
Speaker 1: Those records are a testament to the faith and conviction
Speaker 1: of the Afro Creole community in New Orleans who poured
Speaker 1: their heart and soul into a new vision of the
Speaker 1: future when the cover closed on their last record book.
Speaker 1: Though it was far from the end, New Orleans spiritual
Speaker 1: churches rose in their wake, led by a generation of
Speaker 1: new Black leaders who would be the mothers of a
Speaker 1: vibrant religion in the twentieth century. In Chicago, Cora finally
Speaker 1: laid her head to rest in nineteen twenty three. She
Speaker 1: had traveled, taught, organized, and lectured on the world of
Speaker 1: the spirits for more than half a century. Her legacy
Speaker 1: still lives on in countless ways too, and the efforts
Speaker 1: she made to lay a foundation for the Spiritualists of
Speaker 1: the future held true. The Morris Pratt Institutes and the
Speaker 1: National Spiritualist Association of Churches are still active today. Yes,
Speaker 1: some things do pass away, but others stand the test
Speaker 1: of time, especially when they're rooted in something eternal hope.
Speaker 1: Victoria Woodhall found a new home in England. She found
Speaker 1: a new husband too, and a new life. When the
Speaker 1: British Museum opened a display that explored the Beach or
Speaker 1: Tilton scandal that had destroyed Victoria's place in New York,
Speaker 1: her husband John took the museum to court for libel.
Speaker 1: Victoria was ready to be Mrs Martin. Now no more scandal,
Speaker 1: no more battles, no more smears. But even if you
Speaker 1: believe there is no death for the soul, the body
Speaker 1: can't survive on belief alone. In nine seven, John Martin
Speaker 1: had been sick. He wanted to see if island air
Speaker 1: would help him heal, so he set out to spend
Speaker 1: the winter in the Canary Islands off the northwest coast
Speaker 1: of Africa. But when he did, he left Victoria back
Speaker 1: home in England. She had also been ill, maybe even
Speaker 1: too sick to travel. When he was on his way out,
Speaker 1: John wrote to his father that Victoria was very much depressed,
Speaker 1: just like Elisha Caine. Traveling away from Maggie Fox into
Speaker 1: the frozen North, John left, but anxiety nod at him,
Speaker 1: and he wrote Victoria often during his winter stay. In
Speaker 1: one of his last letters, he said he wondered if
Speaker 1: it would ever reach her. I am out of the world,
Speaker 1: he wrote. There is no telegraph, no newspapers. A flurry
Speaker 1: of lonely telegrams from Victoria were finally answered in March
Speaker 1: when he sent a note saying I will sail tonight
Speaker 1: for the most remote of all the islands and be
Speaker 1: cut off from the world for ten days. He promised
Speaker 1: that he would come home to her afterwards because he
Speaker 1: wasn't getting any better, But he was cut off from
Speaker 1: the world more severely than he had imagined. John died
Speaker 1: far from home on March. His doctors sent Victoria a
Speaker 1: telegram with the devastating news. But if she still believed
Speaker 1: that messages crossing an enormous gulf could be a comfort,
Speaker 1: there is no record of it. On his death, Victoria
Speaker 1: inherited John's wealth, including shares in his bank and his
Speaker 1: family lands, and then she retreated. One note that she
Speaker 1: wrote to herself explores the devastation that she clearly felt.
Speaker 1: Your temperament is of an active type, she wrote. Maybe
Speaker 1: she was thinking back to her younger years criss crossing
Speaker 1: America in a carriage with James Blood. Are going toe
Speaker 1: to toe with New York City's hypocritical ministers and corrupt tycoons.
Speaker 1: But I feel a sad, tired feeling. She continued a lonesomeness,
Speaker 1: so she retreated to the Tutor's style mansion that had
Speaker 1: been empty for ten years. From there, she had a
Speaker 1: view over the Severn Valley and the Cotswalds. She even
Speaker 1: started driving throughout the countryside to keep her mind off
Speaker 1: the dark moments of her past, and by all accounts,
Speaker 1: she fell in love with cars. Here's Mary Gabriel once again.
Speaker 1: John Martin, her husband had a family property in Gloucestershire
Speaker 1: and the west of England, and she literally would move
Speaker 1: there and live in this grand house up on a
Speaker 1: hill and wage for the rest of her life, wage
Speaker 1: very small battles for education, for driving, for women's rights
Speaker 1: to drive, of all things. She got involved in minor
Speaker 1: scuffles with local authorities. She was still that fighters, still
Speaker 1: Victoria Woodhall, but her days of trying to change basically
Speaker 1: America and the world were well past her. She went
Speaker 1: on to become the first woman to take driving tours
Speaker 1: through London's Hyde Park along with her daughter. She drove
Speaker 1: all throughout England and France. But she wasn't done forming
Speaker 1: societies either. Her Lady's Automobile Club attracted others from her
Speaker 1: new social set, including the Duchess of Sutherland. Their first
Speaker 1: parade of cars drove right past Buckingham Palace. After the
Speaker 1: First World War, though Victoria finally laid those activities to rest,
Speaker 1: her sister Tenney had also married into English money, but
Speaker 1: she continued to travel and speak. She even went back
Speaker 1: to America to confront Theodore Roosevelt about women's suffrage. But
Speaker 1: Victoria had begun to shut herself off from the world
Speaker 1: and its troubles. One of her gardeners remembered that once,
Speaker 1: when he was weeding the path outside her mansion, he
Speaker 1: heard a strange tapping sound ring out. He looked up
Speaker 1: to see Victoria standing inside, knocking on the glass of
Speaker 1: the window. She shouted at him through the window pane, saying,
Speaker 1: those weeds had the courage to grow in the path
Speaker 1: of man, and you murdered them. Maybe it was a
Speaker 1: hint at the place she felt she had begun to
Speaker 1: inhabit in the world, somewhere between the world and it's
Speaker 1: untamed edges. She had been uncontrollable in the face of
Speaker 1: men who wanted to clear the land, always coming back,
Speaker 1: always stirring up life where others only saw death. When
Speaker 1: death finally came for Victoria in ninety seven, she was
Speaker 1: eighty eight years old. Her ashes were carried into the
Speaker 1: North Atlantic and scattered into the chasm of the ocean.
Speaker 1: Here's Mary Gabriel once again. The war she was waging
Speaker 1: then she could be waging today basically almost using the
Speaker 1: same language, which is really both sad and kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: I think that she's a very pertinent figure for us
Speaker 1: to study at this moment in that period of history
Speaker 1: is a fascinating one for us to look at because
Speaker 1: of the changes that were occurring, and the fact that
Speaker 1: where society wasn't eighteen forty eight, no one could have
Speaker 1: predicted where it would have been even in eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: Last story. When Victor Maria had sued the British Museum
Speaker 1: back in the eighteen nineties, she had taken the stand
Speaker 1: to give testimony. Naturally, the museum's lawyers peppered her with questions.
Speaker 1: Was her spiritualist Guardian Demosthenes? They asked, just as Theodore
Speaker 1: Tilton had written, I do not think I shall tell
Speaker 1: you who he is or what he is, she replied.
Speaker 1: Then they asked her, would it be true that she
Speaker 1: took a prominent part in all the movements social and
Speaker 1: political that we're going on in America? Yes, she told
Speaker 1: them I had, would she say? They asked that her
Speaker 1: life was a career of what would be called a
Speaker 1: very remarkable kind. It was, she said, a very laborious career.
Speaker 1: They then asked if she had at one time been
Speaker 1: a clairvoyant. Not at one time, she answered, all the time,
Speaker 1: and still are they asked, Victoria nodded, and still am.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was the final leg of this season's exploration
Speaker 1: of the spiritualist movement, bringing our journey to an end.
Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed the results of our team's hard work,
Speaker 1: you're written reviews and star ratings would be very welcome
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. Your kind words go a long way
Speaker 1: toward helping newcomers tap that subscribe button, and all of
Speaker 1: that helps the show grow. It's been an honor to
Speaker 1: be your guide over the past few weeks, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to our next tour through the darker corners
Speaker 1: of history. But we're not quite done with the story
Speaker 1: of season two. Starting on January, we'll be releasing all
Speaker 1: eight of our incredible historian interviews in full. These are
Speaker 1: powerful conversations with the leading scholars in the world of spiritualism,
Speaker 1: and the insight and details they bring to the topic
Speaker 1: are perfect for those who want more. Just leave your
Speaker 1: podcast app subscribed to this show, and those interview episodes
Speaker 1: will arrive automatically every week, as will news about season three.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you stick around after this brief sponsor break,
Speaker 1: I'll give you a taste of what's to come. Next
Speaker 1: time on un obscured Spirit Communication is ancient. It's probably
Speaker 1: as old as mankind. It goes way back into the
Speaker 1: Greek philosophers, many Asian religions, Native Americans. They have pet seances,
Speaker 1: the idea that your beloved animals continue with you through eternity. Personally,
Speaker 1: I can think of no stronger argument for belief in spiritualism.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Ekland was a favorite medium for the communication of
Speaker 1: scientific information, and the notion that spirit mediums could communicate
Speaker 1: scientific information was understood as another kind of evidence of
Speaker 1: spirit presence. They didn't just focus on machine to make
Speaker 1: contact between the living and the dead, but they also
Speaker 1: put their minds at work to try to get inspiration
Speaker 1: spirit help to invent new machines that would help everybody.
Speaker 1: They take up nineteenth century Victorian notions of the virtues
Speaker 1: of white female womanhood that allow certain kinds of power
Speaker 1: for women and girls to speak in public, but also
Speaker 1: a range of masculinities for men who might have sat
Speaker 1: outside the strictures or boundaries of what was possible for
Speaker 1: Victorian men. They believe that humanity writ large was also
Speaker 1: on a ladder of progress, and figures like John Brown
Speaker 1: and Tis Sultan over tour. They helped push humanity along
Speaker 1: the ladder of progress. People from all levels of society
Speaker 1: used religion as kind of an umbrella to either hide under,
Speaker 1: to seek salace from, or to use as a mask.
Speaker 1: So Journer, when she wasn't on the platform, she liked
Speaker 1: to sit at the foot of the platform. That way
Speaker 1: she could interject things she could say, Can I say something?
Speaker 1: Un Obscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced
Speaker 1: by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. Research and writing for this season
Speaker 1: is all the work of my right hand man Carl
Speaker 1: Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Learn more about our contributing historians, source material and links
Speaker 1: to our other shows over at history unobscured dot com
Speaker 1: and until next time, thanks for listening. Unobscured as a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Monkey. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.