1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,320 Speaker 1: Welcomed. Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. 2 00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:11,399 Speaker 1: Today's guest historian is John Buscher. He is the author 3 00:00:11,440 --> 00:00:15,520 Speaker 1: of many books and articles on the history of American spiritualism, 4 00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:18,279 Speaker 1: and that should be no surprise. He's the co director 5 00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:22,280 Speaker 1: of the International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and 6 00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:25,560 Speaker 1: Occult Periodicals. It's an online database where John and his 7 00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:30,120 Speaker 1: team have digitized thousands of pages of newspapers, pamphlets, books 8 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:33,960 Speaker 1: and advertisements, which is a gold mine for historians and 9 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:37,880 Speaker 1: people like me. Researcher Carl Nellis talked with John about 10 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:40,960 Speaker 1: all kinds of spiritualists. Some we covered in our season 11 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,199 Speaker 1: of Unobscured, like Corras Scott to John Conklin, and some 12 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:46,800 Speaker 1: will introduce to you here for the first time. So 13 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:51,000 Speaker 1: let's get to the interview. Here's Dr John Buscher. This 14 00:00:51,120 --> 00:01:18,679 Speaker 1: is the Unobscured Interview series for season two. I'm Aaron Mankey. Yeah. Well, 15 00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:23,640 Speaker 1: it meant to be attached to a movement that was 16 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:31,920 Speaker 1: sometimes firmly and sometimes loosely associated. Um. These were people 17 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:37,640 Speaker 1: who felt that they could make immediate contact with the soul, 18 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:42,640 Speaker 1: so they departed and in order to do that, They 19 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:47,680 Speaker 1: typically would sit around in a around a table and 20 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:53,200 Speaker 1: join hands and UM wait for things to happen. Lights 21 00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:59,280 Speaker 1: tree usually turned down fairly low, and UM. One of 22 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:04,920 Speaker 1: them would be would act as a medium, which means 23 00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:14,600 Speaker 1: someone who could establish psychic contact with the spirits. Sometimes 24 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:19,200 Speaker 1: things would happen that We're not just what you might 25 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:23,080 Speaker 1: think of as messages coming out of the medium's mouth 26 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:30,400 Speaker 1: from various spirits, but sometimes UM, furniture would move, or 27 00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:36,720 Speaker 1: people would feel caressings or here wraps under the table 28 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,200 Speaker 1: and so on. And that was more or less the 29 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:46,000 Speaker 1: practical meaning of being a spiritualist. But it was wide movement, 30 00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:51,280 Speaker 1: and you didn't necessarily have to actually attend what came 31 00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:55,519 Speaker 1: to be called seances in order to identify yourself with 32 00:02:55,520 --> 00:03:03,480 Speaker 1: as a spiritualist. Spiritualist also developed a kind of constellational 33 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:08,560 Speaker 1: beliefs about the afterlife and about this life, and so 34 00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:15,880 Speaker 1: there were spiritual conventions. There were UM a bunch of 35 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:22,320 Speaker 1: people who traveled as platform lecturers who speculated on this 36 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:27,440 Speaker 1: new theology and new doctrine and new era that was 37 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:33,280 Speaker 1: opening up that would join up heaven to earth. You know, 38 00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:40,160 Speaker 1: That's what it was. In that variety of kind of 39 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:43,240 Speaker 1: events that would be considered spiritualists, from the platform lecture 40 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:48,400 Speaker 1: to the test medium investigation to the seance. When people 41 00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:51,000 Speaker 1: were coming to these seances to meet with these mediums, 42 00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:53,560 Speaker 1: what kinds of things were they looking for? What do 43 00:03:53,640 --> 00:04:00,840 Speaker 1: they want to get out of it? Well, they they 44 00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:07,200 Speaker 1: wanted to see wonder um, and one of the wonders 45 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:12,120 Speaker 1: that they saw or hoped to see was some immediate 46 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:18,320 Speaker 1: connection to their own relatives or friends in the afterlife. 47 00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:25,520 Speaker 1: They were anxious about that, and if it could be 48 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:34,559 Speaker 1: proved that connection was made UM, it would of course 49 00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:39,839 Speaker 1: alieve their own grieving over the departed souls of their 50 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:46,160 Speaker 1: friends and relatives, but it would also give them some conviction. 51 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:51,760 Speaker 1: They typically talked about how traditional religion was based on 52 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:56,560 Speaker 1: faith in the afterlife, but they were seeking knowledge or 53 00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:03,000 Speaker 1: proof of it. So that wonder that they were seeking, 54 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,800 Speaker 1: I think was just larger than asking Aunt Bertha, where 55 00:05:07,839 --> 00:05:12,120 Speaker 1: where that will was of Uncle Carl's that nobody knows 56 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:14,839 Speaker 1: that we can't find it? Now, where was the dresser 57 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:21,159 Speaker 1: or something? UM? Or how are you doing? Um? Is it? 58 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:23,839 Speaker 1: Is it a good place that you've gone to in 59 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:31,200 Speaker 1: the afterlife? But there were larger questions about anxieties to 60 00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:35,080 Speaker 1: be answered about the direction of the country, about the 61 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:42,760 Speaker 1: direction of about even about politics, about the new world 62 00:05:42,839 --> 00:05:47,200 Speaker 1: that would seemed to be merging all around them. Um. 63 00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:48,880 Speaker 1: So these were the kind I mean, it was a 64 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:53,080 Speaker 1: very broad spectrum of things that were going on. There 65 00:05:53,080 --> 00:05:58,680 Speaker 1: were many people who tended seances that called themselves investigators, 66 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:04,240 Speaker 1: you know, as if they were amateur or sometimes professional 67 00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:11,239 Speaker 1: um scientists who were looking for evidence and would regard 68 00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:15,880 Speaker 1: these sessions as an opportunity to test whether or not 69 00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:21,280 Speaker 1: fraud was going on, or self delusion or whatnot, as 70 00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:25,000 Speaker 1: well as firm believers that what they were seeing was 71 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:30,400 Speaker 1: and was in fact true. So I think, um, it's 72 00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:32,599 Speaker 1: a hard question to answer, but there were a range 73 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:39,479 Speaker 1: of motivations from people who joined in seances or even 74 00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:45,080 Speaker 1: who attended platform lectures. Um. I think it's very typical 75 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:48,320 Speaker 1: reading account of a medium who would go up on 76 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:53,360 Speaker 1: stage and the audience would be mixed between firm believers, 77 00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:57,000 Speaker 1: and they would usually set themselves off towards the front 78 00:06:57,080 --> 00:07:00,320 Speaker 1: in a kind of cord and maybe to pretend the 79 00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:04,000 Speaker 1: speaker I don't know, but and then behind them there 80 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:08,440 Speaker 1: big hecklers and people who, you know, we're sort of 81 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:13,720 Speaker 1: vaguely threatening Uh, you know, might ask embarrassing questions or 82 00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:17,840 Speaker 1: try to trick medium or something like that. Mm hmm. 83 00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:25,880 Speaker 1: In the course of researching the movement and studying its members. Uh, 84 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:29,480 Speaker 1: You've you've fastened on some figures like John Mary Spear 85 00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:33,560 Speaker 1: and John Conklin and and odeali Adista Bar and you've 86 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:36,679 Speaker 1: written book length treatments about them. Is there a common 87 00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:39,080 Speaker 1: thread between the kinds of people that you have taken 88 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:43,240 Speaker 1: as your research subjects and decided to tell their their 89 00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:47,200 Speaker 1: story in a kind of robust way. Well, there's two 90 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:50,600 Speaker 1: parts of that answer, Quarrel. I think one is that 91 00:07:52,560 --> 00:07:58,440 Speaker 1: I'm fascinated with writing people's biographies. Um. I don't know 92 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:04,280 Speaker 1: how to write history and abstract way. Um I usually 93 00:08:05,200 --> 00:08:08,120 Speaker 1: my eyes usually glaze over as I'm looking through history 94 00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:14,000 Speaker 1: that depicts it as a playground of impersonal forces and 95 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:20,240 Speaker 1: working against each other and dropping out the individuals. I 96 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:26,000 Speaker 1: think all I can see about history is the stories 97 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:32,400 Speaker 1: of people to tell tales about other people, and that's 98 00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:36,240 Speaker 1: what I've always been interested in. So that's one way 99 00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:41,800 Speaker 1: to to talk about why I'm incasantly writing biographies. I 100 00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:45,280 Speaker 1: don't know how to do it any other way. But 101 00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:52,280 Speaker 1: the other issue is the people I've focused on, maybe, 102 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 1: as you've noticed, are really wild characters. And I think 103 00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:03,439 Speaker 1: I've always been I don't know if you'd say gifted, 104 00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:09,160 Speaker 1: but at least fascinated by outliers. These are the sort 105 00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:15,000 Speaker 1: of the wildest of the wild folks. And h I 106 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:19,440 Speaker 1: think I've always been able to, I don't know, walk 107 00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:24,400 Speaker 1: along the beach sand and find some odd saying that 108 00:09:24,600 --> 00:09:28,640 Speaker 1: whether people don't notice, or some piece of glass that 109 00:09:28,679 --> 00:09:32,920 Speaker 1: looks shiny, uh. And these are definitely that those kinds 110 00:09:32,920 --> 00:09:36,240 Speaker 1: of people, you know, within the wide range of the 111 00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:42,280 Speaker 1: spiritualist movement, I seem to be able to find, you know, 112 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:45,520 Speaker 1: the toad and the hole or the serpent in the garden, 113 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:50,520 Speaker 1: if you might say. And I think by looking at 114 00:09:50,559 --> 00:09:55,040 Speaker 1: those outliers, so you can see stuff that's true within 115 00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:59,800 Speaker 1: the movement, but maybe harder to see stuff that's true 116 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:06,760 Speaker 1: m in potential, and that leads you into, you know, 117 00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:11,360 Speaker 1: questioning main narrative about what spiritualism was and trying to 118 00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:15,600 Speaker 1: follow its logic. They seem to be loose threads that 119 00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:18,840 Speaker 1: you can pull and see the texture a little better. 120 00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:22,480 Speaker 1: That's that's fantastic. Maybe as we as we as we 121 00:10:22,559 --> 00:10:25,760 Speaker 1: talk over the next hour or so. UM, it would 122 00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:29,040 Speaker 1: be awesome to hear you kind of reflect, maybe because 123 00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:31,920 Speaker 1: I want to talk about both John Conklin and Cora 124 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:37,520 Speaker 1: Scott who became Corea Hatch and Cora Richmond, and maybe 125 00:10:37,559 --> 00:10:40,160 Speaker 1: we'll be able to compare a little bit and talk 126 00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:42,920 Speaker 1: about what the main narrative is and and who the 127 00:10:42,920 --> 00:10:47,320 Speaker 1: outliers are and kind of how they played against each other. Um, 128 00:10:47,360 --> 00:10:50,280 Speaker 1: over a few decades of spiritualist history. I would love 129 00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:51,920 Speaker 1: that if we could do that kind of going forward. 130 00:10:53,280 --> 00:10:57,320 Speaker 1: Um m hm. You're one of those people who has 131 00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:01,920 Speaker 1: done a great service to academia with the with I 132 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:08,360 Speaker 1: apps up in digitizing and working to collect digitized periodicals 133 00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:12,800 Speaker 1: from spiritualist history. Uh. With with the team there, can 134 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:15,640 Speaker 1: you talk about what originally drew you to the to 135 00:11:15,800 --> 00:11:20,200 Speaker 1: that work and uh and what you've done with that organization? Yes, 136 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:23,400 Speaker 1: I can tell you. UM, I put a few things 137 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:30,640 Speaker 1: on the web. M. I don't know fifteen eighteen years ago. UM, 138 00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:36,280 Speaker 1: that struck me as important and fascinating about history of spiritualism. 139 00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:40,760 Speaker 1: Mostly you get to know spiritualism I think from the 140 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:47,480 Speaker 1: ground up as a historian. UM. And the ground was 141 00:11:47,559 --> 00:11:52,960 Speaker 1: missing here. There is plenty of secondary material. But if 142 00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:57,360 Speaker 1: you read secondary material people who already have a take 143 00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:02,959 Speaker 1: on it, and maybe we were not as familiar as 144 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:09,280 Speaker 1: they could have been with this primary material, then you're 145 00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:13,760 Speaker 1: not really getting down into where the history was being formed. 146 00:12:14,679 --> 00:12:20,560 Speaker 1: And it was also my conviction that all of the 147 00:12:20,640 --> 00:12:27,040 Speaker 1: material I was looking for was present in the periodicals 148 00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:31,760 Speaker 1: and newspapers that spiritualists themselves were producing back in those days. 149 00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:38,040 Speaker 1: You know, they would often give lists of platform mediums 150 00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:40,960 Speaker 1: and where they were going in their lecture tours and 151 00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:46,520 Speaker 1: so on. They would also give criticisms of one another, 152 00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:52,800 Speaker 1: um on this point at that point, who was marrying who, 153 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,680 Speaker 1: who was dissing who? Um. Those kinds of things are 154 00:12:56,720 --> 00:13:01,400 Speaker 1: not readily available, and they were only in these periodicals. 155 00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:05,400 Speaker 1: So in order to get hold of these periodicals, I mean, 156 00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:10,080 Speaker 1: these were this is ephemera, you know, and a lot 157 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:15,520 Speaker 1: of if you think about it, librarians, who an archivists, 158 00:13:15,520 --> 00:13:23,280 Speaker 1: who would be expected to um collect and preserve such materials, 159 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:28,280 Speaker 1: they were inclined. Over the century and a half since 160 00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:31,840 Speaker 1: these things were produced, they were quite inclined to de 161 00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:36,360 Speaker 1: accession these things at at their first chance, either about 162 00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:40,200 Speaker 1: of their own convictions or simply because I thought oh, 163 00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:45,040 Speaker 1: this is kind of crazy, and I need the space here, 164 00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:48,600 Speaker 1: and let's throw away these fourteen volumes of the Banner 165 00:13:48,640 --> 00:13:53,200 Speaker 1: of Light or something. So in practice, what that meant 166 00:13:53,480 --> 00:14:00,720 Speaker 1: was if you wanted to do primary research in that area. UM. 167 00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:04,760 Speaker 1: The collections were scattered all over the country, in fact, 168 00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:09,079 Speaker 1: all over the world. You might have a volume collected 169 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:12,400 Speaker 1: here or in Washington and the Library Congress, or there 170 00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:17,320 Speaker 1: might be one UM at the New York Public Library. 171 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:21,280 Speaker 1: And so UM there was three or four of us 172 00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:26,320 Speaker 1: who decided, maybe we're getting to be sort of retired 173 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:29,760 Speaker 1: gentlemen here or whatever, men of leisure or something like that, 174 00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:34,320 Speaker 1: and we're of the same conviction that we really couldn't 175 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:41,680 Speaker 1: rely on UM secondary material. So we set off sort 176 00:14:41,680 --> 00:14:47,440 Speaker 1: of quixotic project to collect all this stuff. And one 177 00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:52,800 Speaker 1: of us, in particular, Mark Damrest, was quite skilled, and 178 00:14:54,400 --> 00:15:00,440 Speaker 1: UM I t and decided that we could elect all 179 00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:03,760 Speaker 1: this and put it on a server. We could scan it, 180 00:15:03,880 --> 00:15:06,760 Speaker 1: We could go dust off stuff, travel here and there 181 00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:10,520 Speaker 1: on our own resources, and use our time and talent 182 00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:16,680 Speaker 1: to either photograph these things stuck in a corner somewhere 183 00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:22,640 Speaker 1: here and there, UM or shell out some bugs to 184 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:29,120 Speaker 1: get the libraries themselves to make microfilm roles that we 185 00:15:29,160 --> 00:15:32,320 Speaker 1: could turn into O c R stuff and call it 186 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:35,000 Speaker 1: at all and put it on the web. And wouldn't 187 00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:40,000 Speaker 1: that be a wonderful resource for everybody, so people wouldn't 188 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:42,080 Speaker 1: have to go trudging around and sort of work in 189 00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:47,520 Speaker 1: the darkness. So that was the that's the inspiration for it. 190 00:15:48,640 --> 00:15:51,280 Speaker 1: And uh yeah, it really has been such a service. 191 00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:54,280 Speaker 1: Uh you know, of course I've been in offended from 192 00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:57,240 Speaker 1: it for this project, but just as I've been sorting 193 00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:00,480 Speaker 1: through the more recent secondary material that's been written since 194 00:16:00,840 --> 00:16:04,280 Speaker 1: those resources have been on the web, Uh, I see, 195 00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:07,480 Speaker 1: I see the debt to you and Mark and and 196 00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:11,360 Speaker 1: the folks who have joined you over Power Vaney, the 197 00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:16,520 Speaker 1: other guy who has joined us was retired lawyer from 198 00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:23,920 Speaker 1: New York. He had spent probably years collecting microfilm roles 199 00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:28,920 Speaker 1: sticking him in his study. He bought a microfilm reader 200 00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:32,440 Speaker 1: and would put, you know, just for enjoyment. Instead of 201 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:35,240 Speaker 1: other people who might, you know, turn on a football game, 202 00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:38,240 Speaker 1: he would go into his study and load one of 203 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:43,120 Speaker 1: these microfilm rolls on and read the Um Spiritual Telegraph 204 00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:47,040 Speaker 1: from eighteen sixty four and just to have a good 205 00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:50,800 Speaker 1: old time. So he was a really primary resource for 206 00:16:50,880 --> 00:16:56,080 Speaker 1: us at the beginning, especially at the beginning. Uh, this 207 00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:59,960 Speaker 1: kind of creates an interesting bridge back to what spiritual 208 00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:05,040 Speaker 1: us we're doing with publishing. How would you describe what 209 00:17:05,160 --> 00:17:09,199 Speaker 1: spiritualists were doing with various kinds of technology. I mean, 210 00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:13,400 Speaker 1: there was lots of experience, experimentation, and interest in both 211 00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:16,359 Speaker 1: spreading news but also figuring out how to communicate across 212 00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:21,920 Speaker 1: new horizons. And I see almost some parallels between I mean, 213 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:24,720 Speaker 1: what kind of what we're doing now with podcasting, but uh, 214 00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:26,920 Speaker 1: you know where every kind of group has a podcast 215 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:28,760 Speaker 1: or a website or a blog, or what you were 216 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:30,960 Speaker 1: doing with digitizing saying we can put this out on 217 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:33,680 Speaker 1: the web. We can. Um, can you talk a little 218 00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:38,080 Speaker 1: bit about how spiritualists in the nineteenth century engage technology 219 00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:44,160 Speaker 1: and communication and how that was really tied into the movement. Well, 220 00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:47,880 Speaker 1: there's several things that we could talk about there. One 221 00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:54,240 Speaker 1: of them is essentially the newspapers from periodicals themselves. There 222 00:17:54,280 --> 00:18:01,800 Speaker 1: weren't that many spiritualists around the country, but um, they 223 00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:07,560 Speaker 1: formed a definite group and had related interest. And the 224 00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:13,280 Speaker 1: newspapers weren't local newspapers, they were national newspapers. They were 225 00:18:13,320 --> 00:18:19,760 Speaker 1: always conceived of is that way, um, And so they 226 00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:24,640 Speaker 1: functioned as a sort of social media platform I guess 227 00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:29,080 Speaker 1: you could say, in a primitive way, uniting people who 228 00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:35,919 Speaker 1: were surrounded by seeds of unbelievers and had you know, 229 00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:40,160 Speaker 1: allowed them to basically talk to each other. So that's uh, 230 00:18:40,359 --> 00:18:45,919 Speaker 1: that's one way in which they used their you know, 231 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:51,560 Speaker 1: the emerging technology of newspaper distributions and subscription lists and 232 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:55,760 Speaker 1: cross references and so on. So it was an interesting 233 00:18:55,800 --> 00:19:00,000 Speaker 1: time in the history of newspapers itself in the United States, 234 00:19:00,840 --> 00:19:06,280 Speaker 1: and spirituals took full use of that made you full 235 00:19:06,359 --> 00:19:11,439 Speaker 1: use of that. So that's one thing. But there's another 236 00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:17,959 Speaker 1: issue that's quite striking about spiritualism in general. There was 237 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:26,439 Speaker 1: an emergence during this time of new technology that was 238 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:32,320 Speaker 1: an inspiration to them religiously. I think you'd have to say, Um, 239 00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:39,520 Speaker 1: it looked to them like harnessing of previously invisible forces 240 00:19:39,840 --> 00:19:48,840 Speaker 1: steam electricity, and there were inventions that suggested to them 241 00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:52,919 Speaker 1: that there was there were things in the world that 242 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:59,920 Speaker 1: hadn't been seen before, powers and potentialities that were being 243 00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:07,360 Speaker 1: revealed to them unmistakably. Spiritual telegraph, which is the name 244 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:12,080 Speaker 1: of one of the main papers back then took its 245 00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:20,719 Speaker 1: name from this kind of inspiration. The electronic telegraph had 246 00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:25,680 Speaker 1: just been demonstrated, and it was a miracle. Basically, too 247 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:33,160 Speaker 1: many many people, and there was some real conviction that 248 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:38,720 Speaker 1: there were things going on, that we're turning the times 249 00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:46,160 Speaker 1: into a new era, a new age, and that it 250 00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:49,000 Speaker 1: was it was you could think of it as a 251 00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:53,440 Speaker 1: sort of secular millennium. Heaven and Earth were being joined, 252 00:20:53,640 --> 00:21:00,760 Speaker 1: the visible and invisible, Spirit and matter were coming close together. UM, 253 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:05,080 Speaker 1: the dead and the living would walk together. Space and 254 00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:12,440 Speaker 1: time would be annihilated. And it was exciting too many 255 00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:16,800 Speaker 1: people and a hopeful and optimistic time that it was 256 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:24,960 Speaker 1: also somewhat distressing, UM annihilated. I think if you look 257 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:35,639 Speaker 1: at there's one particular story of called the Celestial Railroad 258 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:47,359 Speaker 1: that was written by UM David Thorow, and this story 259 00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:53,760 Speaker 1: is about a gentleman who gets on the railroad at 260 00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:56,840 Speaker 1: some place I forget anyway, All the points along the 261 00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:02,760 Speaker 1: way are are named for the points of progress that 262 00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:07,760 Speaker 1: the pilgrim makes in the old Pilgrim's Progress story. And 263 00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:11,760 Speaker 1: by getting on the railroad, he just sails on past 264 00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,720 Speaker 1: the slough of Despond and Vanity Fair. He just sees 265 00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:21,800 Speaker 1: out the window and it sails right onto you know, 266 00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:26,720 Speaker 1: the Heavenly City. But as he's moving into the Heavenly City, 267 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:29,640 Speaker 1: waiting for the final stop, it does occur to him 268 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,879 Speaker 1: whether or not this this is going to be heaven 269 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:37,600 Speaker 1: or it's something like it's reverse. Um. There was plenty 270 00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,119 Speaker 1: of anxiety as well as optimism about it. And I 271 00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:43,159 Speaker 1: think this is one of the things that made people, 272 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:47,720 Speaker 1: you know home for the best with the secular millennium 273 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:52,280 Speaker 1: that was upon him. So I think the spiritualists were 274 00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:57,760 Speaker 1: both impressed and put somewhat at sea with the rest 275 00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:01,919 Speaker 1: of everybody else about this new world that was opening 276 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:07,119 Speaker 1: up before them. And there are a few spiritualist inventors 277 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:13,160 Speaker 1: who try to create technologies that will capture or become themselves. 278 00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:17,040 Speaker 1: A spiritual telegraph that will allow spirits to speak to people. 279 00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:19,960 Speaker 1: You you write about John Mary Spear and there's a 280 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:25,440 Speaker 1: god machine. Uh. Decades later, there's the psychophone, right. Yes, 281 00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:33,880 Speaker 1: there's a whole a series of machines for connecting humans 282 00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:41,439 Speaker 1: with the other world. Um. And one of our co 283 00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:47,680 Speaker 1: directors on the IP project, Brandon Hodge, really has made 284 00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:51,840 Speaker 1: that his specialty. He's a collector. If you walk through 285 00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:57,000 Speaker 1: his house. It's kind of scary anyway. But he's collected 286 00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,800 Speaker 1: plan chats and whigy board to do all kinds of stuff. 287 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,240 Speaker 1: He's very well up on this. This is really his his, 288 00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,959 Speaker 1: He's Bailey Wick. But yes, there was But they didn't 289 00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,879 Speaker 1: just focus on machines to contact make contact between the 290 00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,639 Speaker 1: living and the dead, but they also put their minds 291 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,840 Speaker 1: at work to try to get inspiration spirit help to 292 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:27,800 Speaker 1: invent new machines that would that would help everybody. John 293 00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:31,639 Speaker 1: Murray spirit you mentioned, he worked on under the conviction 294 00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:37,320 Speaker 1: that the spirits could give him and his fellow workers 295 00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:43,280 Speaker 1: new ideas for patenting. They would avoid the patents of 296 00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:49,000 Speaker 1: the singer and how for perfecting the sewing machine and 297 00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:54,600 Speaker 1: spend quite a bit of time trying to um materialize 298 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:57,320 Speaker 1: those I guess you would say, into a workable machine. 299 00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:04,480 Speaker 1: Another spirit actualist you claim to have invented vacuum canning. 300 00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:09,240 Speaker 1: I think she did actually, So there were people that 301 00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:14,560 Speaker 1: were looking who who are thinking about inspiration in a 302 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:21,760 Speaker 1: new way, were open to ideas that they didn't know 303 00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:24,920 Speaker 1: where where they were coming from. I think everybody actually 304 00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:30,520 Speaker 1: has such experience of feeling that they've been inspired by 305 00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:36,639 Speaker 1: in the creative act inspired by ideas that don't seem 306 00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,320 Speaker 1: to them to be connected with anything that they actually 307 00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:46,440 Speaker 1: tried to figure out to work from. And spirituals were very, very, 308 00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:51,080 Speaker 1: very much of that mind that goes way back right 309 00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:55,080 Speaker 1: to the idea of the muse. Yes, I think so. 310 00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:03,040 Speaker 1: I think the muses personific asian of something mysterious that 311 00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,040 Speaker 1: that works inside you. You know, in some ways you 312 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:14,280 Speaker 1: can you can see there something that connects spiritualist movement 313 00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:20,160 Speaker 1: which began late eighteen forties with the earlier Romantic movement UM. 314 00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:24,640 Speaker 1: They two were very much impressed with UM the idea 315 00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:29,919 Speaker 1: that poetry was a holy art and you could be 316 00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:41,640 Speaker 1: inspired by resorting to non non rational faculties and powers 317 00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:48,320 Speaker 1: that were beyond your little self, And in the thirties 318 00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:53,640 Speaker 1: and forties kind of seating the ground for modern spiritualism. 319 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,840 Speaker 1: There was all kind of interest in uh mesmerism and 320 00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:01,480 Speaker 1: animal magnetism and um magna of ties, chances and some 321 00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:05,240 Speaker 1: of those practices that were considered kind of new horizons 322 00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:09,119 Speaker 1: of applied science of the of the human person, of 323 00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,600 Speaker 1: the mind of the soul. Can you talk a little 324 00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:15,240 Speaker 1: bit about how those ideas laid the groundwork for what 325 00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:24,560 Speaker 1: would become spiritualism. Okay um. Historically, there was a French 326 00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:31,119 Speaker 1: mesmerist who whose name was Charles Poya, who decided to 327 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:36,120 Speaker 1: come to America and give a series of Mesmerick demonstrations, 328 00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:40,000 Speaker 1: as he called them, and spent most of his time 329 00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:45,959 Speaker 1: around New England giving demonstrations of what we would recognize 330 00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:55,040 Speaker 1: as hypnosis, and it very much impressed people. Um, and 331 00:27:56,040 --> 00:28:05,200 Speaker 1: it created a rowing mass of other mesmeric demonstrators, demonstrators 332 00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:10,320 Speaker 1: who applied their way around the country, showing off what 333 00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,719 Speaker 1: was possible here and the sort of miraculous things that 334 00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:20,960 Speaker 1: that people under hypnotic control could be expected to do, 335 00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:26,760 Speaker 1: one of which was clairvoyance. Some of their mesmeric subjects 336 00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:31,879 Speaker 1: were seemed to be capable of leaving their bodies and 337 00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:36,080 Speaker 1: traveling other places, coming back and reporting to the audience 338 00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:40,600 Speaker 1: details that they couldn't know. Um. They might be able 339 00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:46,520 Speaker 1: to report being able to see into other people's bodies 340 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:54,080 Speaker 1: and figuring out diagnosing their diseases and prescribing what would 341 00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:01,520 Speaker 1: cause them to heel. Um. This was a shock to people, 342 00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:07,520 Speaker 1: and I think it was, as he said, laid the 343 00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:14,680 Speaker 1: groundwork for the possibility that um, well, you know, in 344 00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,080 Speaker 1: a larger sense, I think you can see him during 345 00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:24,080 Speaker 1: that time that what we call the self was a 346 00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:28,080 Speaker 1: mystery was being revealed as a mystery, that that it 347 00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:35,600 Speaker 1: wasn't unitary, or there was something underneath, hidden underneath, beyond 348 00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:40,360 Speaker 1: what was on top of your consciousness that usually identified 349 00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,720 Speaker 1: as yourself. You know, people who are speaking about main 350 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:50,480 Speaker 1: narratives here. It is often said that one of the 351 00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,760 Speaker 1: crises of modernism a modern man that threw man into 352 00:29:54,800 --> 00:30:03,840 Speaker 1: a dizzy. I mean capital M. Here was um for 353 00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:08,160 Speaker 1: a for ad Darwin. But in Fred's case it was 354 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,440 Speaker 1: that he discovered and made plausible the notion of a 355 00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:17,960 Speaker 1: subconscious But in fact um this was an issue, had 356 00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:23,200 Speaker 1: been an issue um and a matter of much anxiety 357 00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:27,320 Speaker 1: back into the late eighteenth century. And the people that 358 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:34,520 Speaker 1: were wandering around showing off their mesmerism, Um, we're certainly 359 00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,680 Speaker 1: part of that. I don't know what you called uh 360 00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:46,360 Speaker 1: discussion or um in the broader public realm didn't demonstrating 361 00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:50,640 Speaker 1: that there were other things going on inside the self 362 00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:56,160 Speaker 1: that might not be a parent At the same time, Uh, 363 00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,560 Speaker 1: there are also changes in American religion. You write a 364 00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,000 Speaker 1: lot in your book The Other Side of Salvation about 365 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:09,720 Speaker 1: connections between especially universalist ministers and spiritualists in the eighteen 366 00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:14,240 Speaker 1: forties and eighteen fifties. Can you talk a bit about, um, 367 00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,880 Speaker 1: the way that Universalism's place in American religion, uh was 368 00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:28,880 Speaker 1: another piece uh of preparing the ground for spiritualism. Yes, okay. Um. 369 00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:35,560 Speaker 1: Universalists were people who generally were what they called come 370 00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:42,120 Speaker 1: outers of established religion. Now come outers as a term 371 00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:45,560 Speaker 1: that they lifted out of a reference to the Book 372 00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:51,680 Speaker 1: of Revelation where the Holy people are advised to come 373 00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:57,200 Speaker 1: out of Babylon the fallen and go off into the wilderness, 374 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:03,400 Speaker 1: separate themselves. And so yeah, Um, there were many people 375 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,400 Speaker 1: who formed groups that I thought of themselves as come 376 00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:13,760 Speaker 1: outers from either established religion or established government. And um, 377 00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:19,440 Speaker 1: America was full of utopian projects and communes and so on, 378 00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:25,120 Speaker 1: always has been, and the universe less in particular work 379 00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:31,800 Speaker 1: come outers of what they called orthodoxy. That it's probably 380 00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:36,200 Speaker 1: a too narrow a term to really understand without comment. 381 00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:44,280 Speaker 1: What they meant by orthodoxy was a form of congregationalism 382 00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,200 Speaker 1: based on mostly on what they understood of John Calvin. 383 00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:53,720 Speaker 1: And the reason they came out of it was or 384 00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,800 Speaker 1: or said that they came out was because they they 385 00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:05,600 Speaker 1: were anxious. Seemed they were oppressed by the notion that, um, 386 00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:11,440 Speaker 1: that there could be a god who would ah force 387 00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:20,000 Speaker 1: people into endless misery and that such people couldn't act 388 00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:26,080 Speaker 1: two affect that from their reading of Calvinism, it seemed 389 00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,960 Speaker 1: that they were cut off from heaven, they were cut 390 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:34,960 Speaker 1: off from any effort to change their destiny, and that's 391 00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:40,640 Speaker 1: a hard load to bear, and so they declared for 392 00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:47,120 Speaker 1: universal salvation instead. All people would be saved in some ways. 393 00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:53,280 Speaker 1: It's taking Calvin and turning him on his head. M 394 00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:59,680 Speaker 1: So that was how exactly they came out, um, but 395 00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,840 Speaker 1: I mean humans are humans. So they immediately began arguing about, well, 396 00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:11,240 Speaker 1: if if everybody goes to heaven straight off, no matter 397 00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,320 Speaker 1: what they've done on earth, then that means, for example, 398 00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:22,120 Speaker 1: that Judas, who hung himself after betraying Christ, got to 399 00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:27,160 Speaker 1: heaven before Jesus did his master are you know, posing 400 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:34,200 Speaker 1: sort of extreme consequences on each other to try to 401 00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:39,279 Speaker 1: figure out, well, maybe there is some thing going on 402 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:47,080 Speaker 1: in the afterlife that would be evolution. The soul would progress, 403 00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:53,319 Speaker 1: it would move higher and higher, And that notion of 404 00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:58,239 Speaker 1: progression in the afterlife was one of the things that 405 00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:06,719 Speaker 1: definitely disposed universalists, particularly of the conviction that there was 406 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:11,200 Speaker 1: progress in the afterlife. You couldn't you couldn't just say 407 00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:15,000 Speaker 1: that everyone was immediately saved, so you could speak to 408 00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:20,319 Speaker 1: maybe spirits who would tell you about what they were 409 00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:25,640 Speaker 1: doing here and have conversations with you. And the afterlife 410 00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:29,840 Speaker 1: was a place very much like this, except everybody was 411 00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:35,360 Speaker 1: moving upward, you know, a little bit better day by day. Um. 412 00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,160 Speaker 1: So that notion was really part of spiritualism from the beginning, 413 00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:44,080 Speaker 1: and it was what you might say, both attracted universalists 414 00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:47,600 Speaker 1: to it as well as I think you could say 415 00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:52,319 Speaker 1: that early spiritualism was you know, which was at the 416 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,840 Speaker 1: very beginning was a very chaotic group of phenomena, but 417 00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:04,879 Speaker 1: it was Universalists, mostly ministers, that that coagulated around it, 418 00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:10,799 Speaker 1: gloamed onto it, that formed it's it's most basic convictions 419 00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:16,440 Speaker 1: about this. So, with it being these come outers who 420 00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:22,400 Speaker 1: are so helpful in addressing and building up a kind 421 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,880 Speaker 1: of a reputation for spiritualism, how did it then relate 422 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:32,480 Speaker 1: to those established tradition Christian traditions. Um, with it being 423 00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,960 Speaker 1: so involved with universalism, what was kind of the response 424 00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:40,000 Speaker 1: of the the other Christian traditions other than universalism to 425 00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:52,480 Speaker 1: spiritualism following, you know in the okay Um. It's a 426 00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:59,000 Speaker 1: very complex thing about the relationship between spiritualism and Christianity. 427 00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:01,279 Speaker 1: In some ways, you can really see it as a 428 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,640 Speaker 1: sort of this is a loaded word, but a sort 429 00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:10,719 Speaker 1: of parasitic upon Christian belief. Um or is codependent with 430 00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:20,720 Speaker 1: Christian belief, mainline Christian belief, but um clearly the history 431 00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:25,840 Speaker 1: of Christianity is very much in the direction that, hey, 432 00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,600 Speaker 1: you're not supposed to call up the dead and talk 433 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:37,200 Speaker 1: to them. That's from absolutely forbidden UM. And that's that's 434 00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:43,600 Speaker 1: just the way it always was. So most of the 435 00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:48,279 Speaker 1: um Christian population the United States thought that this was 436 00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:52,840 Speaker 1: not only crazy and full of fraud and duplicity, but 437 00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:56,319 Speaker 1: it was also demonic. It was it had to do 438 00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:01,720 Speaker 1: with idle worship and a resort to witches and soothsayers, 439 00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:06,399 Speaker 1: fortune tellers and so on. So there was there was that, 440 00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:10,319 Speaker 1: and they found that the spirituals found themselves quite a 441 00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:17,800 Speaker 1: quite hammered on because Christians vaulted them for all that. 442 00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:26,200 Speaker 1: On the other hand, spiritualists themselves were often conceived of 443 00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:31,360 Speaker 1: themselves as as if they were part of what you 444 00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,880 Speaker 1: might call the second wave of the perfection of the 445 00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,479 Speaker 1: Protestant Revolution, which was itself a sort of coming out. 446 00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:42,919 Speaker 1: They were come outers, the early Protestants from the Catholic Church. 447 00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:50,480 Speaker 1: So um, they themselves were of divided opinion about their 448 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:56,440 Speaker 1: relationship with Christianity. Some of them, some of the most 449 00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:03,560 Speaker 1: famous spiritualists, saw themselves as having come out completely out 450 00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:13,920 Speaker 1: of Christianity into um secularism, atheism, free thought, and saw 451 00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,760 Speaker 1: Spiritualism as the enemy of Christianity. On the other hand, 452 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:22,640 Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that they were the majority of spiritualists. 453 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:27,000 Speaker 1: The majority of spiritualists I think saw themselves as sort 454 00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:33,239 Speaker 1: of Christianity plus m hm hm. With the kind I 455 00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:37,840 Speaker 1: answer that, yeah, that's great, that's okay. Um, with the 456 00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:43,120 Speaker 1: kind of opposition to spiritualism that you just described, uh, 457 00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,560 Speaker 1: where the majority of Christians take a very negative view, 458 00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,000 Speaker 1: whether because they see it as idle worship or fraudulent 459 00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:56,400 Speaker 1: or demonic. Um. It seems maybe surprising that spiritualism spread 460 00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:59,960 Speaker 1: so quickly and even became a global movement, got picked up, 461 00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:04,319 Speaker 1: you know, traveling back to France and to England and 462 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,920 Speaker 1: to Germany and the Caribbean and Australia. Um. What made 463 00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:14,760 Speaker 1: this kind of distinctive modern spiritualism attractive beyond the context 464 00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:21,280 Speaker 1: in which it first appeared. Well, I think it's probably 465 00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:26,120 Speaker 1: common human aspiration to try to know about the afterlife. 466 00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,640 Speaker 1: Death is a worrisome thing. If there's an answer somewhere 467 00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:34,560 Speaker 1: and you can be made to believe it, it's certainly 468 00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:37,919 Speaker 1: something you'd want to pay attention to, no matter where 469 00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:40,640 Speaker 1: you were on earth. That's one way to answer your question, 470 00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:50,600 Speaker 1: I suppose. UM. Another way is to sort of comb 471 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,840 Speaker 1: into the final details of what actually did get spread. 472 00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:58,799 Speaker 1: There is a variety might say, of spiritualism that was 473 00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:08,760 Speaker 1: shared through personal contacts and through English language. UM, that 474 00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:13,799 Speaker 1: you could think of as Anglo American spiritualism, and this 475 00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:18,600 Speaker 1: was something that was has always been predominant in the 476 00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:26,480 Speaker 1: United States, in Britain, in Australia. But there is a 477 00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:32,680 Speaker 1: wider form of spiritualism that I think was inspired by 478 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:40,880 Speaker 1: the early experiences of American spiritualists and referred to it, 479 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,480 Speaker 1: often referred to it. But this form was developed by 480 00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:49,040 Speaker 1: essentially and and was essentially spread by the writings of 481 00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:56,799 Speaker 1: a French um. He called himself a spiritist to distinguish 482 00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:03,759 Speaker 1: himself from spiritualists, and his name was Alan Cardack. That 483 00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:08,680 Speaker 1: was his pseudonym anyway. And the big difference I think 484 00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:14,920 Speaker 1: there is that he believed in and wrote in his 485 00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:24,040 Speaker 1: all his works um reincarnation, reincarnation, and that was something 486 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:30,320 Speaker 1: that was absolutely surprising and even an athema too Anglo 487 00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:38,280 Speaker 1: American spiritualists who regarded the afterlife and the soul's further 488 00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:45,759 Speaker 1: progression is something that was onward and upward, maybe with 489 00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:49,840 Speaker 1: varying degrees of velocity, but it wasn't coming back to 490 00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:57,399 Speaker 1: Earth as a materialized being. So that's uh. That form 491 00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:03,520 Speaker 1: of spiritualism is something that at took cold in France 492 00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:10,480 Speaker 1: and southern parts of Europe and then spread through Brazil 493 00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:16,000 Speaker 1: other parts of other parts of the world. M. Most 494 00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:20,480 Speaker 1: of the Brazilians in Brazil is has a huge population 495 00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:26,480 Speaker 1: and a large probably the largest spirit is population of 496 00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:30,000 Speaker 1: any country in the world, and their followers of Cardeck 497 00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:35,960 Speaker 1: and therefore reincarnation is a part of their belief M hmm, 498 00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:42,000 Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, that's great. Um, let's jump into the 499 00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:47,600 Speaker 1: stories of a few particular mediums. Um. So I'll ask you, 500 00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,120 Speaker 1: I didn't have him in this outline that I prepared 501 00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,440 Speaker 1: for us, but okay, springing on me, Well, you've written 502 00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:55,600 Speaker 1: about it. I remember the name. I don't know, well, 503 00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:59,080 Speaker 1: it's John Dods. It's John Bovi Dodds, who you've written about. 504 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,239 Speaker 1: He was one of those univer Sist ministers gets into 505 00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:05,320 Speaker 1: spiritualism at one point. Here comes an opponent of spiritualism 506 00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:07,560 Speaker 1: over the course of the eighteen fifties, and then comes 507 00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:10,880 Speaker 1: back to it. So I found his story really interesting. Um. 508 00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:13,399 Speaker 1: Can you can you walk us through kind of who 509 00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:15,640 Speaker 1: he was in his relationship to spiritualism or are you 510 00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:19,200 Speaker 1: comfortable with that? I think though, I don't know if 511 00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:20,759 Speaker 1: I'm gonna be able to say much more than you 512 00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:25,279 Speaker 1: just I'll give her my bed shot. Um, he was 513 00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,600 Speaker 1: John Bovie Dodds. I won't go into all the de 514 00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:31,560 Speaker 1: deals about always got that name, but it was a 515 00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:36,520 Speaker 1: kind of family name. Anyway, he was he was He 516 00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:43,720 Speaker 1: first had his spirit experience walking through the woods one day. Um. 517 00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:51,960 Speaker 1: This was about eighteen o seven eight something like that. Um, 518 00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:58,280 Speaker 1: when he encountered the spirit of his father, who spoke 519 00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,759 Speaker 1: to him and told him some things. When when the 520 00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,520 Speaker 1: boy got home, he told his family that he'd seen 521 00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:06,520 Speaker 1: his father out in the woods, and they thought he 522 00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:11,759 Speaker 1: was crazy or you know, sick somehow. Um, but he 523 00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,680 Speaker 1: did encounter his father's spirit in the woods repeatedly, and 524 00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:24,080 Speaker 1: then he also later the spirit of another relative of 525 00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:30,320 Speaker 1: his who had committed suicide. And so, according to again Orthodoxy, 526 00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:34,040 Speaker 1: I suppose it's I put it in quotation marks for 527 00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:39,440 Speaker 1: everybody at this point orthodox he would would definitely consigned 528 00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:44,719 Speaker 1: to everlasting misery. She appeared to him as a glorious 529 00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:51,080 Speaker 1: spirit clothed in light and told him that things were 530 00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:56,919 Speaker 1: coming to a head and he would be revealed. Things 531 00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:01,600 Speaker 1: would be revealed to him that wouldn vert him from 532 00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:12,160 Speaker 1: um mistaken beliefs. And after that he started experiencing um 533 00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:18,800 Speaker 1: parent what we would call it a paranormal phenomenon. M 534 00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,359 Speaker 1: Furniture would start to move across the room, people who 535 00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,359 Speaker 1: are in the house would hear heard. I think one 536 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:32,480 Speaker 1: group of them experienced hearing but not seeing, a cannonball 537 00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:36,120 Speaker 1: traveling across the room and then jumping onto the bed 538 00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:41,479 Speaker 1: one day, depressing the mattress, and all of this by 539 00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:48,160 Speaker 1: some sort of invisible thing that couldn't possibly be material. Um. 540 00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:56,840 Speaker 1: One day, this glorified spirit grabbed off his hat and 541 00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,319 Speaker 1: threw it in the air and sailed around for a 542 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,080 Speaker 1: mile or so. He watched in the air and it 543 00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:08,000 Speaker 1: came back and landed on his head. He became you 544 00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:14,719 Speaker 1: can imagine that he developed fairly strong beliefs about the 545 00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:21,279 Speaker 1: reality of not only the afterlife, but also because of 546 00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:32,320 Speaker 1: this experience that he is supposedly damnable relative and achieved 547 00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,680 Speaker 1: some high and glorious state. He also came to question 548 00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:43,160 Speaker 1: Orthodoxy as well. So that was his early experience. He 549 00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:48,680 Speaker 1: became a Universalist minister, and then got really fascinated with 550 00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:55,800 Speaker 1: the mesmeric demonstrations of Koyan and some of his fellow 551 00:47:55,920 --> 00:48:02,640 Speaker 1: Universalist ministers, and became m He came a demonstrator himself, 552 00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:07,359 Speaker 1: and spent quite a bit of time um essentially doing 553 00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:13,680 Speaker 1: experiments and hypnosis on himself and his family members and 554 00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:19,160 Speaker 1: anybody else they could drag into. And and he even, 555 00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:23,960 Speaker 1: as I recall, he even tried it on his congregation. 556 00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:28,640 Speaker 1: Um to what extent, I can't I don't know, but 557 00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:32,080 Speaker 1: I'm imagining him standing on you know, on the platform 558 00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:35,239 Speaker 1: in front of the congregation, trying to put his trying 559 00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,200 Speaker 1: to put his congregation in a trance of sub guide. 560 00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:41,920 Speaker 1: I'm not sure there's some comic potential there, Carl, Like 561 00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:46,640 Speaker 1: you know, you could develop it later into stuff. They um, 562 00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:49,600 Speaker 1: the sources are not clear enough for me to imagine 563 00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:54,680 Speaker 1: it very well, but anyway, um. As a result of this, 564 00:48:55,480 --> 00:49:06,480 Speaker 1: he developed this theory that there were, in fact, um 565 00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:10,080 Speaker 1: there were two minds at work. In other words, one 566 00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,960 Speaker 1: of his critics said, every man is engaged in thinking 567 00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:17,480 Speaker 1: thoughts of which he is profoundly unconscious. He carries in 568 00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:21,239 Speaker 1: his own brain a separate world of mind, endowed with 569 00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:27,200 Speaker 1: the power of sustaining masterly arguments, imparting various and astounding 570 00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:33,160 Speaker 1: information before wholly unknown, and answering with readiness many difficult 571 00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:38,839 Speaker 1: questions without his own knowledge of the fact. And yes, 572 00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:42,040 Speaker 1: this was what he was proposing, that there was what 573 00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:47,360 Speaker 1: we would call subconscious at work. The mind was something 574 00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:53,040 Speaker 1: that may have been machine, but it was made up 575 00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:57,920 Speaker 1: of wheels within wheels, that there were things going on 576 00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:01,680 Speaker 1: that we were not conscious of. This was a big 577 00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:05,319 Speaker 1: pill to swallow for a lot of people. Essentially, what 578 00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:10,360 Speaker 1: it did was it moved him off a spirit interpretation 579 00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:17,200 Speaker 1: of his own experiences onto a more materialistic explanation. And 580 00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:21,240 Speaker 1: for a long time he taught that. He wrote, in fact, 581 00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:27,880 Speaker 1: a long book, and a very influential one about spiritualism, 582 00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:32,000 Speaker 1: in which he basically dissolved it into something that was 583 00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:39,240 Speaker 1: a physical or mental phenomenon. And the opponents of spiritual 584 00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:42,120 Speaker 1: him were very grateful for his book and used it 585 00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:47,040 Speaker 1: quite a bit. But what happened to him was, Um, 586 00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:51,400 Speaker 1: the spirit started coming back to him and be rating 587 00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:57,160 Speaker 1: him repeatedly that he aired he'd gone off the track 588 00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:02,319 Speaker 1: here and just such a strong degree did they did? 589 00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:06,800 Speaker 1: They appear to him that he was made to repent 590 00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:14,279 Speaker 1: his materialism and go back to being a spiritualist. So 591 00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,760 Speaker 1: that was the way he continued to be a spiritualist 592 00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:24,800 Speaker 1: into UM be an activist in the spiritualist movement, UM 593 00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:27,440 Speaker 1: based in New York for a long time until his death. 594 00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:35,680 Speaker 1: M Um, that's great, thank you. UM. Let's jump to 595 00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:40,080 Speaker 1: another one of the figures that you've written about a lot, 596 00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:43,160 Speaker 1: but that a few other historians and scholars seem to 597 00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:49,480 Speaker 1: have really explored, and that's John Conklin. Um. The I 598 00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,320 Speaker 1: had to dig him up out of the grave, Corl. Yes, yes, 599 00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:56,520 Speaker 1: and and I'm so glad you did so. Uh introduce 600 00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:58,960 Speaker 1: him to to our listeners into the world, you know, 601 00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:02,080 Speaker 1: who was on Conklin and how did he get involved 602 00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,400 Speaker 1: in spiritualism? And then of course we'll walk toward the 603 00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:08,760 Speaker 1: White House with him as as we go. Okay. John 604 00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:17,759 Speaker 1: Benjamin Conklin was a member of the proletariat. It was 605 00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:26,200 Speaker 1: sailor Baker. He had various odd jobs. Um. He was 606 00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:32,879 Speaker 1: born well and up in New York, I mean Upper 607 00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:38,719 Speaker 1: New York City near Bronx and uh it's been a 608 00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:44,000 Speaker 1: long time um working on the docks and in the ships. 609 00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:51,440 Speaker 1: And he'd always been fascinated by magic, performing magic apparently. 610 00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:58,640 Speaker 1: And when spiritualism first broke and he began hearing about 611 00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:04,040 Speaker 1: raps on the tables and people going into trances and 612 00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:10,279 Speaker 1: connecting with spirits of the dead, he was He was 613 00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:18,080 Speaker 1: an early adopter and transformed himself into a medium who 614 00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,440 Speaker 1: used it to make a living. He opened up offices 615 00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:26,600 Speaker 1: in New York City which he moved from time to time. 616 00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:36,120 Speaker 1: And not only did he take um individuals for consultations 617 00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:42,400 Speaker 1: in which they would pay him for um for his 618 00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:47,120 Speaker 1: being able to contact dead spirit which should I say 619 00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:50,960 Speaker 1: living spirits anyway, but they He also set up a 620 00:53:51,080 --> 00:54:00,960 Speaker 1: kind of mm hmm exhibition space, performance space, I guess 621 00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:07,560 Speaker 1: quite near Arnama's Museum, and people would come to that 622 00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:13,040 Speaker 1: as part of their experience of the Big city, they 623 00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:19,280 Speaker 1: would visit Arneam's museum. They might take in some other sites, 624 00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:22,960 Speaker 1: but they would also visit his spirit room, in which 625 00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:26,239 Speaker 1: they would sit around in a big circle, rows and 626 00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:32,560 Speaker 1: rows of of people who looked at what was going 627 00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:36,960 Speaker 1: on in the center, and he would face off basically 628 00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:41,360 Speaker 1: against a table, a table between them, someone of the 629 00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:45,239 Speaker 1: of the audience, and it was like, you know, the 630 00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:48,040 Speaker 1: people who were sitting around the outside would take a number. 631 00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:50,920 Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is a game. It 632 00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:53,680 Speaker 1: was exactly true, I don't remember. But when their turn 633 00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:56,600 Speaker 1: came up, and that was their time to go down 634 00:54:56,600 --> 00:55:00,960 Speaker 1: and sit opposite the table of Conquin and uh, he 635 00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:07,319 Speaker 1: would um. In those kinds of situations, he would um 636 00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:16,000 Speaker 1: answer their questions um and usual, often by this excuse me, 637 00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:22,880 Speaker 1: this method of having the person right. Little questions that 638 00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:25,640 Speaker 1: they wanted answered by the spirits are a piece of 639 00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:28,040 Speaker 1: a slip of paper, and they would roll up the 640 00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:31,720 Speaker 1: slip of paper, bunchet up so that he couldn't see it, 641 00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:37,560 Speaker 1: ostensibly as a guard against fraud. And then he would 642 00:55:37,560 --> 00:55:41,080 Speaker 1: take these pieces of paper and roll them up in 643 00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:44,000 Speaker 1: his hands and then throw them down with a bunch 644 00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,680 Speaker 1: of other suppostly blank slips of paper. UM. This was 645 00:55:48,719 --> 00:55:53,680 Speaker 1: called billet reading or ballot reading. UM. The billets were 646 00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:58,560 Speaker 1: the little slips of paper and then he would pull 647 00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:03,360 Speaker 1: out one or two who slips of paper and hold 648 00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:08,840 Speaker 1: it against forehead and answer the question that was written 649 00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:14,680 Speaker 1: on it. These are questions directed to spirits basically that 650 00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:22,080 Speaker 1: the people wanted to contact. He also held private more 651 00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:27,799 Speaker 1: or less private seances in which UM. There was the 652 00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:32,920 Speaker 1: use of a wrapping board. In the early days of spiritualism. 653 00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:35,520 Speaker 1: You know, there are these just random wraps that would 654 00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:42,440 Speaker 1: um emerge in a dark room and these were attributed 655 00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:47,600 Speaker 1: to spirits. Well, they were attributed earlier to ghosts. So 656 00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:50,320 Speaker 1: what was it? What was the big deal here? Well, 657 00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:56,000 Speaker 1: the big deal was that these ghosts or spirits could 658 00:56:56,080 --> 00:57:01,160 Speaker 1: be communicated with. There was a spiritual telegraph you could 659 00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,440 Speaker 1: you could the wraps could be interpreted as like the 660 00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:08,920 Speaker 1: clicks on a telegraph. So the means that was used 661 00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:15,920 Speaker 1: was UM. You would count there was one wrap, it 662 00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:18,080 Speaker 1: was an A. If there were two raps it was 663 00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:20,800 Speaker 1: a B, and so on through the alpha. But so 664 00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:26,040 Speaker 1: basically had to sit around and wait for a message UM, 665 00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:31,560 Speaker 1: which would be a series of wraps UM and I 666 00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:34,560 Speaker 1: can't imagine, but it was boring to sit around and 667 00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:37,920 Speaker 1: wait for the whole message to to wrap itself out 668 00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:40,720 Speaker 1: one not time. Anyway, he would do this. This was 669 00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:45,360 Speaker 1: the early technology, might say of of spiritualism. But it did. 670 00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:48,360 Speaker 1: It did develop into a more efficient system as things 671 00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:51,800 Speaker 1: went along. Um. But he he used whatever he could 672 00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:55,280 Speaker 1: that way. Anyway. He got to be one of four 673 00:57:55,400 --> 00:58:00,480 Speaker 1: or five pretty famous or notorious you might say, um 674 00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:04,600 Speaker 1: spiritualist operators in New York City at the time before 675 00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:08,480 Speaker 1: the war. Emma Harding is another one, Emma Harding Britain 676 00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,600 Speaker 1: that we're following, and he was in her milieu, right. 677 00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:15,440 Speaker 1: They knew each other, they sometimes worked together. Yes, I'm 678 00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:18,160 Speaker 1: not sure how much they actually worked together, that's a 679 00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:21,640 Speaker 1: that's an interesting question. But I do know that Emma 680 00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:26,320 Speaker 1: Harding was essentially converted by him. She went to a 681 00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:31,320 Speaker 1: seance in which there were these raps, one of these 682 00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:35,480 Speaker 1: ones I've described wrapping out a message, and the spirits 683 00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:43,280 Speaker 1: were um allegedly delivering a message that she regarded as blasphemous, 684 00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:50,280 Speaker 1: and so she freaked out and and left, and but 685 00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:55,200 Speaker 1: she went back curious a couple of times and became 686 00:58:55,240 --> 00:59:00,840 Speaker 1: convinced that spiritualism was real, and I suppose she also 687 00:59:01,200 --> 00:59:07,360 Speaker 1: became convinced that it wasn't blasphemous but something elevated. Um. 688 00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:10,240 Speaker 1: So that was her connection. That was her direct connection 689 00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:15,200 Speaker 1: with Conklin. Anyway, and there's Uh, there's another interesting moment 690 00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:18,440 Speaker 1: in his life where he's he wrote about what you 691 00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:21,680 Speaker 1: called a raucous public science in where there was kind 692 00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:25,919 Speaker 1: of a debate between the spirits of Daniel Webster, Uh 693 00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:30,800 Speaker 1: spoken through another medium and Henry Clay spoken through Conklin. 694 00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:35,600 Speaker 1: And this creates a connection to Lincoln for him. Can 695 00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:39,400 Speaker 1: you talk about that science? What strikes me about that 696 00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:46,000 Speaker 1: particular science is that there were two people entranced at 697 00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:51,920 Speaker 1: the same time who were delivering messages in the voice 698 00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:56,840 Speaker 1: of two actors. It was sort of improv wasn't it. 699 00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:03,120 Speaker 1: Um One was playing off the other in a way 700 01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:08,960 Speaker 1: that we wouldn't expect except outside of or modern improvisational theater, 701 01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:11,360 Speaker 1: and neither one knew what the other one was going 702 01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,880 Speaker 1: to say. But they've been prepped, or they'd prepped themselves, 703 01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:19,160 Speaker 1: of course obviously with knowledge of who these actors were, 704 01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:23,880 Speaker 1: what their political positions were, and so on. And so 705 01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:29,520 Speaker 1: we're in a way that or making making riffs on 706 01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:35,160 Speaker 1: the position of Henry Clay or Daniel Webster. It was 707 01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:41,280 Speaker 1: a kind of dramatization, wasn't it, of of what these 708 01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:47,520 Speaker 1: now deceased people would would say on the issue. That's 709 01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:49,600 Speaker 1: probably not what you're driving at, though, is it. Well, no, 710 01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,200 Speaker 1: that's right. There's just in what you wrote about Conklin, 711 01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:56,840 Speaker 1: because Henry Clay was such a mentor figure and an 712 01:00:56,840 --> 01:00:59,560 Speaker 1: inspiration to Lincoln. Um, you mentioned in your in your 713 01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:01,680 Speaker 1: book about Conklin that this might have been the moment 714 01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:07,480 Speaker 1: when he caught Lincoln's attention in that would then perhaps 715 01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:11,600 Speaker 1: have brought him into Lincoln's orbit during the war in Washington. 716 01:01:11,720 --> 01:01:14,840 Speaker 1: But let's just let's just step to that time. It 717 01:01:14,920 --> 01:01:19,520 Speaker 1: may have happened that way, But um, I am fairly 718 01:01:19,640 --> 01:01:25,160 Speaker 1: sure that Lincoln had seen him before and had sat 719 01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:31,960 Speaker 1: in his New York Um exhibition room. Um, maybe not 720 01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:35,080 Speaker 1: in a fully engaged way, but in a curious sort 721 01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:38,560 Speaker 1: of way and asked him questions, submitted questions to him before. 722 01:01:41,440 --> 01:01:45,480 Speaker 1: So then when we get to the war years, John Conklin, 723 01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:50,760 Speaker 1: along with Nettie Colburn and a few others, were spiritualists 724 01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:56,760 Speaker 1: mediums who claimed to have influenced Lincoln, even to the 725 01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:01,720 Speaker 1: point of some claims about UH directly dictating the emancipation 726 01:02:01,760 --> 01:02:06,240 Speaker 1: Proclamation from the spirits to him and those kinds of things. Um, 727 01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:09,920 Speaker 1: how much do we know about the seances in the 728 01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:18,200 Speaker 1: Lincoln White House and how involved these mediums were? Well, 729 01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,000 Speaker 1: I hope that everything we know is in the book 730 01:02:22,040 --> 01:02:26,560 Speaker 1: I just published, as I certainly tried to put everything 731 01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:30,800 Speaker 1: I knew about it in there. But UM, it's a 732 01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:34,920 Speaker 1: lot of it. What we claimed to know or claim 733 01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:43,320 Speaker 1: to be false. UM came out UM essentially much later, 734 01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:50,120 Speaker 1: around eight nine, when a medium spirit spirit medium who 735 01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:53,600 Speaker 1: had been in Washington during the Lincoln years and who 736 01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:57,400 Speaker 1: had certainly been in the White House and involved with 737 01:02:57,520 --> 01:03:03,400 Speaker 1: other spiritualists at the time, published her memoirs. UM. I 738 01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:11,760 Speaker 1: happen to believe that UM Nanty Colburn. While while she 739 01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:16,560 Speaker 1: was a medium and working in Washington, she wasn't a 740 01:03:16,560 --> 01:03:22,760 Speaker 1: professional medium, and she may not even have been noticed 741 01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:28,680 Speaker 1: much by other more famous mediums at the time. UM. 742 01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:34,120 Speaker 1: She was a member of group of friends who were 743 01:03:34,440 --> 01:03:38,240 Speaker 1: spiritualists and more or less direct access to the president. 744 01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:44,040 Speaker 1: But by the time her memoirs came out, it obviously 745 01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:52,120 Speaker 1: been amplified by people during that time, and I mean 746 01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:55,840 Speaker 1: by that the nineties, who had a lot of stake 747 01:03:55,960 --> 01:04:02,680 Speaker 1: at claiming that Lincoln was essentially being directed by spirits 748 01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:06,280 Speaker 1: all the time. And so I try to sort through 749 01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:11,440 Speaker 1: those claims in the book. And Natie may not have 750 01:04:11,600 --> 01:04:17,720 Speaker 1: been the most um famous or or even notorious medium 751 01:04:17,760 --> 01:04:23,160 Speaker 1: who was in the Lincoln's orbit, but she definitely was there. 752 01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:33,440 Speaker 1: John Conklin was definitely there too, although a lot a 753 01:04:33,440 --> 01:04:38,000 Speaker 1: lot of the action seems to have taken place off stage, 754 01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:45,680 Speaker 1: as it were, in the home of postmaster, not a postmaster, 755 01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:50,920 Speaker 1: but a post office and employee, a civil service employee, UM, 756 01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:57,120 Speaker 1: whose family was quite devoted to spiritualist men who thought 757 01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:00,520 Speaker 1: of themselves as mediums. That was, they lived into Georgetown, 758 01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:08,640 Speaker 1: and Lincoln visited there. I'm pretty sure of that. There's 759 01:05:08,680 --> 01:05:13,200 Speaker 1: a lot of testimony that's quite solid that he did that. 760 01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:20,760 Speaker 1: And I think it's also pretty solid that Mrs Lincoln 761 01:05:20,760 --> 01:05:28,080 Speaker 1: in particular was devoted to a full believer in spiritualism, UM, 762 01:05:28,120 --> 01:05:33,320 Speaker 1: that she invited mediums to the White House, that they 763 01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:38,320 Speaker 1: conducted seances there. I'm inclined to believe that her husband 764 01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:42,000 Speaker 1: took part in at least as an interested observer. In 765 01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:47,959 Speaker 1: many of those seances. Typically the line of historians has been, well, 766 01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:52,560 Speaker 1: he just went to protect his wife, which may have 767 01:05:52,640 --> 01:05:57,040 Speaker 1: been the case actually in some in some respects, but 768 01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:01,840 Speaker 1: I think it's the evidence is pretty clear that he 769 01:06:01,960 --> 01:06:10,120 Speaker 1: was listening very very closely, and Conklin was one of those. 770 01:06:10,480 --> 01:06:17,440 Speaker 1: There were others. There was there was a medium who 771 01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:22,800 Speaker 1: was probably brought down to the White House too. I 772 01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:26,000 Speaker 1: think you'd have to say minister to the Lincoln after 773 01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:32,800 Speaker 1: their son had died, and she had a reputation for 774 01:06:32,960 --> 01:06:39,000 Speaker 1: being a healum healing medium who could see inside the 775 01:06:39,080 --> 01:06:46,960 Speaker 1: body and prescribe healing medications and so on. Um. I 776 01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:51,600 Speaker 1: think there was also they were well, they were well 777 01:06:51,640 --> 01:06:58,480 Speaker 1: protected by their guards. There was a cordon of people 778 01:06:58,720 --> 01:07:04,200 Speaker 1: ranging from secretary to um, you know, all kinds of 779 01:07:04,240 --> 01:07:08,880 Speaker 1: folks who were very protective of his reputation and did 780 01:07:08,960 --> 01:07:15,560 Speaker 1: not particularly want the idea that Lincoln was listening to 781 01:07:15,640 --> 01:07:19,600 Speaker 1: mediums in the White House and getting advice on the 782 01:07:19,640 --> 01:07:25,320 Speaker 1: conduct of the war to get out. So it's pretty 783 01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:29,720 Speaker 1: difficult to sort through those kinds of conflicting and you know, 784 01:07:29,760 --> 01:07:36,200 Speaker 1: conflicting testimonies. I did my best here. Um, do you 785 01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:41,360 Speaker 1: have any comments on Colchester? Well? He was a rogue. 786 01:07:42,280 --> 01:07:52,840 Speaker 1: He was um, a man often prosecuted for fraud um um. 787 01:07:52,880 --> 01:07:57,480 Speaker 1: And by that I mean presenting himself as an exhibitor 788 01:07:57,680 --> 01:08:01,960 Speaker 1: of messages from the spirits that were he was caught 789 01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:08,520 Speaker 1: in as having faked UM. He was amount of bank. 790 01:08:09,720 --> 01:08:14,400 Speaker 1: He warned. He was giving exhibitions that were in Washington, 791 01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:19,160 Speaker 1: d c. That were well attended by all the upper 792 01:08:19,520 --> 01:08:25,120 Speaker 1: segments of society there. He was brought into the White 793 01:08:25,160 --> 01:08:31,200 Speaker 1: House to to give seances for Mary Todd Lincoln and 794 01:08:31,960 --> 01:08:37,479 Speaker 1: was investigated. I mean, I think this is this is 795 01:08:37,520 --> 01:08:40,960 Speaker 1: the source of where you're here, that Lincoln had to 796 01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:46,439 Speaker 1: protect his wife from unscrupulous mediums, because this is basically 797 01:08:46,479 --> 01:08:51,759 Speaker 1: what he did with with Colchester. He had the because 798 01:08:51,760 --> 01:08:57,000 Speaker 1: he was suspicious of the guy. He had the UM. 799 01:08:57,040 --> 01:08:59,520 Speaker 1: I think he was the head of the Smithsonian Institute. 800 01:09:00,240 --> 01:09:05,640 Speaker 1: UM recommend somebody to come in, you know, give his 801 01:09:05,680 --> 01:09:11,519 Speaker 1: opinion on this guy, and he essentially declared him um fake. 802 01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:20,240 Speaker 1: And Lincoln's friends, one of them was a journalist UM 803 01:09:20,479 --> 01:09:24,640 Speaker 1: essentially Collard Colchester and told him to get out of 804 01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:29,040 Speaker 1: town um or you know, he'd make things hot for him, 805 01:09:29,160 --> 01:09:32,840 Speaker 1: which he did um. Before he made off with the 806 01:09:32,880 --> 01:09:38,479 Speaker 1: White House Silver basically and yeah, and there's records I've 807 01:09:38,479 --> 01:09:41,400 Speaker 1: looked at the uh what was published in the newspapers 808 01:09:41,400 --> 01:09:49,840 Speaker 1: about Colchester's later jugglery trial, the fraud the fraud trial. UM. Yeah, Um. 809 01:09:49,880 --> 01:09:53,200 Speaker 1: So then you've also written about a lock of hair 810 01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:59,200 Speaker 1: that was probably given to the Lorries the family of mediums. Um. 811 01:09:59,280 --> 01:10:03,160 Speaker 1: Can you describ vibe that lock of hair and why 812 01:10:03,200 --> 01:10:05,840 Speaker 1: it would have been that they would have been able 813 01:10:05,840 --> 01:10:10,799 Speaker 1: to take possession of it? Well, the problem was presented 814 01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:17,519 Speaker 1: to me as something that appeared on the internet. Um. 815 01:10:17,560 --> 01:10:24,560 Speaker 1: The Chicago Museum UM displayed to the public as a 816 01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:33,360 Speaker 1: sort of what would you say, um, mystery for them 817 01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:35,920 Speaker 1: to solve. Here's a bunch of fun things that we 818 01:10:36,040 --> 01:10:38,680 Speaker 1: have in our in our possession that we don't know 819 01:10:39,640 --> 01:10:42,360 Speaker 1: what about. And one of these things was a lock 820 01:10:42,479 --> 01:10:46,800 Speaker 1: of hair. They have a lot of Lincoln curio as 821 01:10:46,800 --> 01:10:53,400 Speaker 1: a memorabila by the way, and they reproduced a piece 822 01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:56,080 Speaker 1: of paper that came along with it, and it said 823 01:10:57,120 --> 01:11:04,040 Speaker 1: Lincoln lock of hair taken him immediately after death, and 824 01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:08,280 Speaker 1: there were names at the bottom. They were a little 825 01:11:08,280 --> 01:11:10,760 Speaker 1: difficult to read, but not not very difficult to read. 826 01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:14,080 Speaker 1: And I looked at it and I recognized those names. 827 01:11:15,120 --> 01:11:21,720 Speaker 1: The names were of the two of the members of 828 01:11:21,720 --> 01:11:25,040 Speaker 1: the Lorrie family I've already talked about lived in Georgetown, 829 01:11:25,400 --> 01:11:30,800 Speaker 1: mother and the daughter. And so it occurred to me, 830 01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:34,840 Speaker 1: I mean not only just hey, Chicago Museum, I know 831 01:11:34,880 --> 01:11:38,760 Speaker 1: who these people are, but how, how and why they 832 01:11:38,760 --> 01:11:45,439 Speaker 1: would have gotten hold of this thing, um? And I 833 01:11:45,520 --> 01:11:51,639 Speaker 1: think it's by by pursuing my question. Um. I looked 834 01:11:51,720 --> 01:11:57,519 Speaker 1: in detail at the last moments of Lincoln's life before 835 01:11:57,560 --> 01:12:03,120 Speaker 1: he passed away and the following Almonds and discovered descriptions 836 01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:09,479 Speaker 1: of the physicians being asked by Mary Todd Lincoln too 837 01:12:10,280 --> 01:12:14,719 Speaker 1: cut her a lock of hair from Lincoln's head, and 838 01:12:14,760 --> 01:12:18,200 Speaker 1: the physicians themselves, a couple of them, did the same 839 01:12:18,240 --> 01:12:20,360 Speaker 1: and took those And the person I wanted to talk 840 01:12:20,400 --> 01:12:26,479 Speaker 1: about in this context is Henry Steele Allcott, um, because 841 01:12:26,520 --> 01:12:29,120 Speaker 1: he comes in he's one of the investigators of the 842 01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:32,400 Speaker 1: Lincoln assassination and then becomes a figure important to spiritualism 843 01:12:32,400 --> 01:12:35,599 Speaker 1: and then theosophy later. Can you introduce him to us? 844 01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:40,640 Speaker 1: Who was Henry Steele Alcott? Henry Steel Alcott was a 845 01:12:40,720 --> 01:12:45,720 Speaker 1: man of many professions. He was a professional lawyer, he 846 01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:51,759 Speaker 1: he was he was a journalist. He had been sent, 847 01:12:51,960 --> 01:12:55,360 Speaker 1: for example, by the UM I think it was the 848 01:12:55,439 --> 01:13:02,200 Speaker 1: New York Tribune to um covered John Brown's execution in 849 01:13:02,439 --> 01:13:06,880 Speaker 1: Harper Ferry, Harper's Ferry, which involves some undercover work on 850 01:13:07,000 --> 01:13:13,080 Speaker 1: his part because basically that the public weren't wasn't invited 851 01:13:13,160 --> 01:13:17,160 Speaker 1: to that UM. He wound up wandering the town there 852 01:13:17,439 --> 01:13:22,240 Speaker 1: and writing his account of that. At the same time 853 01:13:22,320 --> 01:13:26,600 Speaker 1: that Alan Pengerton, who wound up as the head of 854 01:13:26,640 --> 01:13:29,759 Speaker 1: the essentially what became the Secret Service for the United 855 01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:33,200 Speaker 1: States during the during the Civil War, was also there 856 01:13:34,040 --> 01:13:38,439 Speaker 1: UM or undercover UM. So he was involved with John Brown. 857 01:13:38,600 --> 01:13:42,280 Speaker 1: He was an abolitionist, he was a reformer, and I 858 01:13:42,320 --> 01:13:47,040 Speaker 1: think from an early age, like maybe fourteen, he was 859 01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:53,280 Speaker 1: quite interested in spiritualism, uh, and it was part of 860 01:13:55,240 --> 01:14:03,400 Speaker 1: that interest while he was UM working on assignment for 861 01:14:03,439 --> 01:14:10,840 Speaker 1: the New York Daily Graphic. I think it's okay that 862 01:14:10,960 --> 01:14:16,040 Speaker 1: he was sent to investigate and probably he this was 863 01:14:16,120 --> 01:14:18,800 Speaker 1: his own idea, But anyway, he was sent up to 864 01:14:19,160 --> 01:14:26,320 Speaker 1: Vermont to investigate this amazing place run by a family 865 01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:30,120 Speaker 1: named Eddie. They had set up a sort of I 866 01:14:30,120 --> 01:14:33,400 Speaker 1: don't know what you'd call it, the Spiritualists. Branson Missouri 867 01:14:33,600 --> 01:14:38,400 Speaker 1: or something. They had a spirit house where they would 868 01:14:38,439 --> 01:14:43,639 Speaker 1: give exhibitions of materialized spirits, and guitars would float around 869 01:14:43,640 --> 01:14:49,400 Speaker 1: in the air and ethereal music would come and um 870 01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:53,360 Speaker 1: phosphorescent hands would float about, um in the air, and 871 01:14:53,400 --> 01:14:55,559 Speaker 1: so on. So he was set up there, and when 872 01:14:55,560 --> 01:14:59,360 Speaker 1: he was up there, he was up there for a 873 01:14:59,400 --> 01:15:06,519 Speaker 1: long time, many weeks. He met a one named Helena 874 01:15:06,520 --> 01:15:13,280 Speaker 1: Blavatsky who was also there too investigate what was going on. 875 01:15:14,240 --> 01:15:18,679 Speaker 1: She was also a spiritualist at least at that time, 876 01:15:19,640 --> 01:15:23,000 Speaker 1: and had come to New York and was living there, 877 01:15:23,840 --> 01:15:29,559 Speaker 1: and they met and he became attached to her, enamored 878 01:15:29,600 --> 01:15:33,400 Speaker 1: of her. And when they got back to New York, 879 01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:39,719 Speaker 1: he published his findings that disappointed a lot of people 880 01:15:39,760 --> 01:15:44,519 Speaker 1: but also inspired a lot of people because he essentially said, well, 881 01:15:44,760 --> 01:15:48,320 Speaker 1: there's um a lot of miraculous things going on there 882 01:15:48,360 --> 01:15:52,240 Speaker 1: I can't explain. So that was regarded as a sort 883 01:15:52,240 --> 01:15:58,760 Speaker 1: of positive assessment of the Eddie Families performances. He and 884 01:15:59,120 --> 01:16:07,040 Speaker 1: Madame Blavatsky were instrumental in forming a sort of paranormal 885 01:16:07,520 --> 01:16:13,680 Speaker 1: research society or fraud I don't know what you call, 886 01:16:13,840 --> 01:16:22,320 Speaker 1: like a fraud investigatory, uh, society that would allegedly go 887 01:16:22,400 --> 01:16:28,880 Speaker 1: around and try to expose different fraudulent spiritualist practices. But 888 01:16:29,040 --> 01:16:33,439 Speaker 1: that then turned into just just a little while. It 889 01:16:33,479 --> 01:16:39,240 Speaker 1: turned into under especially under Madam Bobosky's influence, turned into 890 01:16:40,280 --> 01:16:45,439 Speaker 1: a more you might say positive, um society that had 891 01:16:45,479 --> 01:16:49,400 Speaker 1: its own goals, and that was what turned into Theosophical 892 01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:51,760 Speaker 1: Society that was just a couple of years later. I 893 01:16:51,760 --> 01:16:58,960 Speaker 1: think it was. Um, that's great. Let's uh, there are 894 01:16:58,960 --> 01:17:01,439 Speaker 1: a number of other well, we've talked about Conklin, We've 895 01:17:01,439 --> 01:17:04,519 Speaker 1: talked a little bit about Alcott. Um. They're a number 896 01:17:04,520 --> 01:17:07,400 Speaker 1: of other people who were following in the course of 897 01:17:07,400 --> 01:17:10,680 Speaker 1: our kind of narrative history of spiritualism. Um. And there's one. 898 01:17:10,680 --> 01:17:12,120 Speaker 1: We're going to step back a little bit in time 899 01:17:12,160 --> 01:17:15,280 Speaker 1: because I'd really like to talk about Cora Hatch and 900 01:17:15,439 --> 01:17:18,040 Speaker 1: her significance to spiritualism. And you know, so we'll go 901 01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:20,280 Speaker 1: back and kind of start in the eighteen fifties, but 902 01:17:20,760 --> 01:17:25,120 Speaker 1: go forward from there. Um, she she becomes a really 903 01:17:25,160 --> 01:17:29,639 Speaker 1: significant medium. Uh what do we know about her early life? 904 01:17:29,680 --> 01:17:31,280 Speaker 1: Can you talk at all about who she was and 905 01:17:31,320 --> 01:17:39,360 Speaker 1: where she came from? Yes, Corey Scott was born in 906 01:17:39,400 --> 01:17:43,240 Speaker 1: the town of Cuba, New York it's an Alleghany County 907 01:17:45,360 --> 01:17:50,879 Speaker 1: in eighteen o four, and her family, as she described 908 01:17:50,920 --> 01:17:58,920 Speaker 1: it later, was entirely free of the bonds of any orthodoxy. 909 01:17:59,840 --> 01:18:04,639 Speaker 1: I think you can read that in considering what her 910 01:18:04,920 --> 01:18:11,400 Speaker 1: father finally did as being open to certainly to universalist doctrine, 911 01:18:12,320 --> 01:18:17,799 Speaker 1: but maybe two other things, more free thought like stuff. Anyway, 912 01:18:17,840 --> 01:18:22,960 Speaker 1: he was a lumbermill operator up there, and he got 913 01:18:24,479 --> 01:18:33,479 Speaker 1: interested in the doctrines of a fairly famous Universalist come 914 01:18:33,479 --> 01:18:37,759 Speaker 1: out or who had named Aidan Balue, who had formed 915 01:18:38,400 --> 01:18:44,919 Speaker 1: a colony, a settlement about forty miles west of Boston 916 01:18:46,200 --> 01:18:56,320 Speaker 1: that he named Opdale in eighteen and the family. He 917 01:18:56,360 --> 01:19:01,040 Speaker 1: took his family back and forth basically between Cuban, New York, 918 01:19:01,120 --> 01:19:11,640 Speaker 1: and Hopedale throughout Corp's early life. She was um. I 919 01:19:11,680 --> 01:19:16,840 Speaker 1: think she was probably ten when they decided to move 920 01:19:16,880 --> 01:19:22,040 Speaker 1: to Hopedale, and they did for a little while, but 921 01:19:22,120 --> 01:19:24,760 Speaker 1: for one reason or another they found it maybe too 922 01:19:24,800 --> 01:19:29,280 Speaker 1: crowded or not entirely do their liking. They set out 923 01:19:29,400 --> 01:19:36,880 Speaker 1: for west to Um finally wound up near Waterloo, Wisconsin 924 01:19:37,680 --> 01:19:41,840 Speaker 1: and made a home there. And it was while she 925 01:19:42,000 --> 01:19:46,360 Speaker 1: was there, I think she was eleven years old when 926 01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:53,519 Speaker 1: she would have her first conversion to although I don't 927 01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:56,679 Speaker 1: know what it means to be converted to a belief 928 01:19:56,720 --> 01:20:00,200 Speaker 1: when you're eleven years old, but had her conversion to 929 01:20:00,680 --> 01:20:06,280 Speaker 1: some kind of spiritualist experience. Meanwhile, back in Hopedale, that 930 01:20:06,320 --> 01:20:12,599 Speaker 1: community was in full swing. Spiritualist interested Blue was by 931 01:20:12,640 --> 01:20:22,599 Speaker 1: that time giving sermons to his followers in a sort 932 01:20:22,640 --> 01:20:27,679 Speaker 1: of elevated trance state, supposedly under the direction of spirits, 933 01:20:27,760 --> 01:20:30,639 Speaker 1: because there were wrappings going on all around the room. Anyway, 934 01:20:30,680 --> 01:20:35,560 Speaker 1: there was obviously connection between Hopedale and the little community 935 01:20:36,000 --> 01:20:40,519 Speaker 1: in Waterloo, Wisconsin, and it was in that environment that 936 01:20:42,439 --> 01:20:47,920 Speaker 1: she developed herself into a medium. I think the first media, 937 01:20:48,360 --> 01:20:53,519 Speaker 1: first spirit control as it were, that she had was 938 01:20:53,800 --> 01:20:58,759 Speaker 1: the son of Aiden Blue, Aidan Augustus Blue, who died 939 01:21:00,160 --> 01:21:05,679 Speaker 1: early in his life and I'm not quite sure how 940 01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:15,760 Speaker 1: to um express this, but became her voice. She lent 941 01:21:15,880 --> 01:21:19,599 Speaker 1: her body and voice to him, at least to his spirit, 942 01:21:20,320 --> 01:21:26,519 Speaker 1: and that was the main way that she became known 943 01:21:27,400 --> 01:21:30,800 Speaker 1: as a spiritualist and made her career as someone who 944 01:21:31,280 --> 01:21:37,759 Speaker 1: in trance would be taken over by various spirits, mostly 945 01:21:37,920 --> 01:21:44,960 Speaker 1: of the well known and authoritative figures who were um 946 01:21:44,960 --> 01:21:48,320 Speaker 1: you know, her spirit control. She also had it developed 947 01:21:48,560 --> 01:21:52,519 Speaker 1: a series of Indian spirit controls. One of them was 948 01:21:52,640 --> 01:21:58,519 Speaker 1: named Weena. One of them was named Shannondoah. There are 949 01:21:58,520 --> 01:22:01,799 Speaker 1: a bunch of those as well. In her early career 950 01:22:01,960 --> 01:22:05,880 Speaker 1: she also did some I don't know what you'd call it, 951 01:22:05,960 --> 01:22:12,600 Speaker 1: spiritualist laying on of hands healing um healing work, but 952 01:22:12,680 --> 01:22:15,559 Speaker 1: it was under the direction of somebody she described as 953 01:22:15,600 --> 01:22:21,200 Speaker 1: a German physician, uh, spirit of a German physician. So 954 01:22:21,320 --> 01:22:25,360 Speaker 1: that was her early work. But it was basically basically 955 01:22:25,760 --> 01:22:35,160 Speaker 1: chorus ut um. Career consisted of standing before an audience 956 01:22:36,920 --> 01:22:40,200 Speaker 1: personating as I would say, I wouldn't say impersonating, but 957 01:22:40,360 --> 01:22:44,839 Speaker 1: personating I guess that's a stronger term. Personating. The spirits 958 01:22:44,880 --> 01:22:51,719 Speaker 1: of the famous departed Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster, Um, Theodore 959 01:22:51,800 --> 01:22:56,880 Speaker 1: Parker was was long time spirit control of hers and 960 01:22:56,920 --> 01:23:01,599 Speaker 1: speaking in those as as if they were present there. 961 01:23:02,720 --> 01:23:06,799 Speaker 1: That was That was her career. She was very obviously, 962 01:23:06,920 --> 01:23:14,000 Speaker 1: very gifted, very gifted improvisational speaker um and she produced 963 01:23:14,040 --> 01:23:19,960 Speaker 1: a lot of a spur of the momentum poetry. Uh 964 01:23:20,200 --> 01:23:23,400 Speaker 1: you'd have to make your own judgment about the value 965 01:23:23,400 --> 01:23:26,240 Speaker 1: of the poetry, but there's no denying that. If it 966 01:23:26,320 --> 01:23:32,200 Speaker 1: was done truly without preparation, Um, it was pretty impressive. 967 01:23:33,320 --> 01:23:37,280 Speaker 1: Mhm um do we do you do you have a 968 01:23:37,320 --> 01:23:41,000 Speaker 1: sense of the kinds of things that spirits were saying 969 01:23:41,000 --> 01:23:44,800 Speaker 1: through Cora. Was there some consistency between these different figures. 970 01:23:45,320 --> 01:23:49,600 Speaker 1: Was there some affinity to certain ideas or theologies that 971 01:23:49,720 --> 01:23:52,519 Speaker 1: she would speak that her spirit controls would deliver through 972 01:23:52,520 --> 01:23:56,519 Speaker 1: her at these at these translectors. I don't think it 973 01:23:56,680 --> 01:24:01,599 Speaker 1: was so much um at Carl. I think it was 974 01:24:03,200 --> 01:24:07,400 Speaker 1: her speaking to the events and the anxieties at the moment. 975 01:24:09,439 --> 01:24:16,439 Speaker 1: She could um become the mouthpiece of Henry Clay, she 976 01:24:16,479 --> 01:24:20,000 Speaker 1: could become the mouthpiece of John C. Calhoun, She could 977 01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:24,000 Speaker 1: become the mouthpiece of Abraham Lincoln. She could become the 978 01:24:24,040 --> 01:24:29,400 Speaker 1: mouthpiece of pretty much anybody who was who people were 979 01:24:29,439 --> 01:24:35,720 Speaker 1: looking to or might be looking to for advice. UM. 980 01:24:35,760 --> 01:24:39,479 Speaker 1: A cynic might say she was looking for an angle 981 01:24:40,120 --> 01:24:44,040 Speaker 1: that would appeal to a lot of people about subjects 982 01:24:44,080 --> 01:24:47,599 Speaker 1: that were in the news at the time, and we're 983 01:24:47,680 --> 01:24:53,880 Speaker 1: anxiously seeking some kind of advice about She was good 984 01:24:53,880 --> 01:24:57,840 Speaker 1: at that. Can you describe it? She was also good 985 01:24:57,880 --> 01:25:03,400 Speaker 1: at convincing people from high to low positions in the 986 01:25:03,439 --> 01:25:09,200 Speaker 1: government and society that she was in fact giving them 987 01:25:09,280 --> 01:25:15,040 Speaker 1: the advice that say Abraham Lincoln was would have given 988 01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:19,040 Speaker 1: if he were still with us after the war. She 989 01:25:19,160 --> 01:25:25,000 Speaker 1: quite influenced the thinking of high ranking congressmen who were 990 01:25:25,040 --> 01:25:32,160 Speaker 1: involved in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson to believe 991 01:25:32,320 --> 01:25:38,560 Speaker 1: that he was involved in an assassination conspiracy. For example, 992 01:25:40,240 --> 01:25:45,439 Speaker 1: if you look at the transcripts of seances she held 993 01:25:46,439 --> 01:25:51,400 Speaker 1: with many of the people who were involved at the 994 01:25:51,520 --> 01:25:58,679 Speaker 1: at the highest level UM in Congress, UM with matters 995 01:25:58,720 --> 01:26:07,639 Speaker 1: of state, especially regarding the Radical Republicans Reconstruction Plan UH 996 01:26:07,680 --> 01:26:11,519 Speaker 1: and the impeachment hearings, you can see that she was 997 01:26:12,840 --> 01:26:20,799 Speaker 1: UM convincing at least two these people that were running 998 01:26:20,840 --> 01:26:25,920 Speaker 1: the show, the radical Republicans who are running the show UM. 999 01:26:26,040 --> 01:26:32,280 Speaker 1: From an outsider's point of view, it looks like she's UM. 1000 01:26:32,320 --> 01:26:37,599 Speaker 1: She's been tasting the zeitgeist of gossip and rumors around 1001 01:26:37,640 --> 01:26:45,240 Speaker 1: town and UM, and that's what she was channeling. M. Channeling, 1002 01:26:45,280 --> 01:26:47,519 Speaker 1: by the way, is a very modern word. I just 1003 01:26:47,560 --> 01:26:51,280 Speaker 1: want to it's a very convenient word. But people back 1004 01:26:51,439 --> 01:26:54,840 Speaker 1: until I guess I looked up this a little bit, 1005 01:26:54,920 --> 01:26:58,640 Speaker 1: I didn't did a little research on it, but channeling 1006 01:26:58,800 --> 01:27:03,960 Speaker 1: to channel, channel or those things that we find so 1007 01:27:04,000 --> 01:27:07,519 Speaker 1: easy to describe, this sort of phenomenon didn't really appear 1008 01:27:07,600 --> 01:27:13,400 Speaker 1: until maybe the nineteen forties or fifties. That's a great comment, 1009 01:27:13,439 --> 01:27:19,040 Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, that's really helpful. Okay, um B. Before 1010 01:27:19,040 --> 01:27:22,120 Speaker 1: we got to that point in the sixties, there was 1011 01:27:22,439 --> 01:27:26,400 Speaker 1: um even as her popularity was growing, it was growing 1012 01:27:26,520 --> 01:27:30,960 Speaker 1: in coordination with her first husband, Benjamin Hatch. Uh. And 1013 01:27:31,040 --> 01:27:34,240 Speaker 1: then they had a divorce proceeding that was very very 1014 01:27:34,280 --> 01:27:38,320 Speaker 1: public drawn out. Can you describe her relationship to Benjamin Hatch, 1015 01:27:38,360 --> 01:27:43,920 Speaker 1: who he was, and then what happened with their marriage? Yes, Um, 1016 01:27:44,040 --> 01:27:52,240 Speaker 1: Benjamin Hatch was alternative physician in that time. That could 1017 01:27:52,280 --> 01:27:55,840 Speaker 1: mean almost anything. In his case, it meant that he 1018 01:27:56,120 --> 01:28:01,960 Speaker 1: was one who was very intent on using mesmerism as 1019 01:28:02,040 --> 01:28:08,360 Speaker 1: part of his tools. So he was a mesmeric physician. 1020 01:28:09,240 --> 01:28:15,080 Speaker 1: That often meant that he either hired a clairvoyant to 1021 01:28:15,200 --> 01:28:19,639 Speaker 1: work with him to diagnose his patients ailments, or that 1022 01:28:20,439 --> 01:28:27,599 Speaker 1: he himself um mesmerized his patients. But he was also 1023 01:28:27,640 --> 01:28:33,240 Speaker 1: a demonstrator of mesmeric phenomena magnetic phenomena as he called it, 1024 01:28:33,720 --> 01:28:38,320 Speaker 1: and a lot of those folks made a living out 1025 01:28:38,360 --> 01:28:44,360 Speaker 1: of it. In fact, that profession became ah what was 1026 01:28:44,439 --> 01:28:46,759 Speaker 1: later put on the vaudeville stage, you know, a hundred 1027 01:28:46,840 --> 01:28:55,839 Speaker 1: years later as stage hypnosis. Um. And when he saw Cora, 1028 01:28:57,680 --> 01:29:02,160 Speaker 1: she was probably third years younger than he was, maybe 1029 01:29:02,200 --> 01:29:10,160 Speaker 1: even more, and he romanced her and married her and 1030 01:29:11,560 --> 01:29:14,160 Speaker 1: became her I think you'd have to call him road 1031 01:29:14,200 --> 01:29:20,479 Speaker 1: manager for touring her around the country. So there was 1032 01:29:21,560 --> 01:29:24,400 Speaker 1: some tension right from the beginning because they were so 1033 01:29:24,479 --> 01:29:28,400 Speaker 1: much older from uh, you know, he was so much 1034 01:29:28,400 --> 01:29:31,840 Speaker 1: older than her. But also, um, you know the kinds 1035 01:29:31,840 --> 01:29:33,960 Speaker 1: of thing gonna crop up in a marriage. Well, he's 1036 01:29:34,000 --> 01:29:36,400 Speaker 1: keeping all the money, he's not giving me any he's 1037 01:29:36,400 --> 01:29:39,040 Speaker 1: stepping out on me and seeing all these other women, 1038 01:29:39,120 --> 01:29:46,559 Speaker 1: and um, you know those sorts of things. So when um, 1039 01:29:46,640 --> 01:29:52,120 Speaker 1: that became public knowledge when she filed for divorce. By 1040 01:29:52,120 --> 01:29:54,679 Speaker 1: the way, she did not file for divorce at first. 1041 01:29:55,360 --> 01:30:03,000 Speaker 1: She filed actually for merely separation without a moony. Um. 1042 01:30:03,040 --> 01:30:06,360 Speaker 1: It made the papers and a lot of people, especially 1043 01:30:06,400 --> 01:30:09,919 Speaker 1: in the spirituous community, were outraged at the charges against 1044 01:30:10,000 --> 01:30:15,200 Speaker 1: this brute, and a lot of her spiritual friends rose 1045 01:30:15,320 --> 01:30:22,920 Speaker 1: up and basically took her under the wing, and um, 1046 01:30:23,080 --> 01:30:27,679 Speaker 1: so the preliminaries were UM taking care of pretty quickly, 1047 01:30:27,880 --> 01:30:34,080 Speaker 1: but the legal difficulties there were drawn out years and 1048 01:30:34,240 --> 01:30:41,360 Speaker 1: years longer. She did not get finally divorced from him 1049 01:30:41,439 --> 01:30:47,800 Speaker 1: until just before the Civil War. UM claims and counterclaims 1050 01:30:47,840 --> 01:30:53,320 Speaker 1: back and forth during that time, basically after the just 1051 01:30:53,479 --> 01:31:00,640 Speaker 1: after the first separation, Benjamin hatch Um we applied to 1052 01:31:02,240 --> 01:31:09,120 Speaker 1: Cora and her protectors with a long book that accused 1053 01:31:09,320 --> 01:31:15,760 Speaker 1: spiritualists of um the most immoral and lascivious practices, and 1054 01:31:15,840 --> 01:31:26,240 Speaker 1: accusing spiritualists as a whole of of immorality and all 1055 01:31:26,360 --> 01:31:31,679 Speaker 1: kinds of things that would dissolve Christian tradition and so on. 1056 01:31:32,120 --> 01:31:36,720 Speaker 1: It was clearly he was talking about people finding what 1057 01:31:36,800 --> 01:31:42,920 Speaker 1: they called affinities and um linking up with them, leaving 1058 01:31:42,920 --> 01:31:49,240 Speaker 1: their wives and husbands and sleeping with other people. And 1059 01:31:49,280 --> 01:31:52,840 Speaker 1: while he didn't name Cora as among that group, it 1060 01:31:52,960 --> 01:31:57,599 Speaker 1: was obvious that this was his UM. You know, he 1061 01:31:57,640 --> 01:32:02,880 Speaker 1: was talking about her, and as in the community. You 1062 01:32:02,960 --> 01:32:06,559 Speaker 1: mentioned that Cora develops relationships with a number of other mediums. 1063 01:32:06,560 --> 01:32:09,400 Speaker 1: You said some of them take her under their wing. UM. 1064 01:32:09,520 --> 01:32:14,320 Speaker 1: Emma Harding is one of those, do you, UM, would 1065 01:32:14,320 --> 01:32:17,840 Speaker 1: you be able to describe their relationship not very well, 1066 01:32:18,920 --> 01:32:22,000 Speaker 1: not very well. I know they were friends, UM, there 1067 01:32:22,000 --> 01:32:27,720 Speaker 1: were co workers, they were co leaders of the movement. UM. 1068 01:32:27,840 --> 01:32:34,960 Speaker 1: Emma hardened Um. She UM had, at least in her 1069 01:32:35,000 --> 01:32:38,640 Speaker 1: book Modern American Spiritualism, which was a kind of compendium 1070 01:32:38,720 --> 01:32:42,240 Speaker 1: of the history of the movement, was very complimentary to 1071 01:32:42,360 --> 01:32:49,600 Speaker 1: her reproduce this wonderful picture of her with golden ringlets, 1072 01:32:49,680 --> 01:32:53,519 Speaker 1: looking evan ward to the sky and the sun glinting 1073 01:32:53,600 --> 01:32:58,599 Speaker 1: off her face, very when she was fifteen years old. UM, 1074 01:32:58,640 --> 01:33:02,479 Speaker 1: but also regarded her as a as a prime if 1075 01:33:02,520 --> 01:33:09,600 Speaker 1: not the prime um trans medium of the time. Emma's 1076 01:33:10,360 --> 01:33:19,200 Speaker 1: Emma may have herself UM have done some mediumship, private mediumship, 1077 01:33:19,320 --> 01:33:25,000 Speaker 1: but wasn't one who named names of spirits who controlled 1078 01:33:25,000 --> 01:33:30,599 Speaker 1: her when she gave lectures under spirit inspiration. You might 1079 01:33:30,680 --> 01:33:38,599 Speaker 1: say she didn't UM direct people's attention to necessarily who 1080 01:33:38,720 --> 01:33:42,320 Speaker 1: who it was that was controlling her, which spirit. It 1081 01:33:42,439 --> 01:33:47,200 Speaker 1: was rather more vague than that, but certainly Cora did. 1082 01:33:47,800 --> 01:33:50,280 Speaker 1: She announced beforehand who was going to take control of 1083 01:33:50,320 --> 01:33:55,920 Speaker 1: her and speak to her. UM. It was really also 1084 01:33:56,000 --> 01:34:00,799 Speaker 1: interesting to discover that through kind of spiritualist goals, including 1085 01:34:01,040 --> 01:34:04,680 Speaker 1: uh Amy post in Rochester, uh Cora got to know 1086 01:34:04,920 --> 01:34:08,439 Speaker 1: Sojourner Truth, who's another person whose story we're following over 1087 01:34:08,479 --> 01:34:11,479 Speaker 1: the course of spiritualism. Uh. And there was a time 1088 01:34:11,560 --> 01:34:15,000 Speaker 1: when when Truth was working in the Freedman's Hospital after 1089 01:34:15,040 --> 01:34:17,639 Speaker 1: the war, that Cora actually came in stayed with Truth 1090 01:34:18,920 --> 01:34:21,080 Speaker 1: uh and and lived with her for a time. And 1091 01:34:21,120 --> 01:34:24,360 Speaker 1: their letters back and forth between her and Amy post 1092 01:34:24,640 --> 01:34:27,519 Speaker 1: talking about life for sojourn or the Freedman's Hospital. You know, 1093 01:34:27,600 --> 01:34:29,519 Speaker 1: some of these these pieces and storylines that we don't 1094 01:34:29,520 --> 01:34:33,559 Speaker 1: always think of as connected. Uh. Following certain spiritualists like 1095 01:34:33,640 --> 01:34:35,559 Speaker 1: Cora can take us through so many of them, from 1096 01:34:35,560 --> 01:34:39,519 Speaker 1: Mesmerism and Benjamin to reconstruction and so journal Truth and 1097 01:34:39,720 --> 01:34:43,720 Speaker 1: the radicalism of Emmy post Um. So I find Cora 1098 01:34:43,800 --> 01:34:52,040 Speaker 1: fascinating for that reason. She also in later Um there's 1099 01:34:52,080 --> 01:34:58,600 Speaker 1: another connection there. Um. Clara Barton was the voted spiritualized. 1100 01:34:59,520 --> 01:35:03,200 Speaker 1: I think if visit Clara Barton's house outside d c 1101 01:35:04,280 --> 01:35:08,559 Speaker 1: Um that information is sort of available if you broad 1102 01:35:08,680 --> 01:35:11,680 Speaker 1: the curators in the National Park Service a little bit, 1103 01:35:11,720 --> 01:35:16,719 Speaker 1: but it's not something they necessarily want to proclaim about Clara. 1104 01:35:16,840 --> 01:35:21,280 Speaker 1: But she was a very devoted spiritualist. She attended Cora's 1105 01:35:21,960 --> 01:35:28,639 Speaker 1: seances in Washington. UM. And that's obviously in some kind 1106 01:35:28,680 --> 01:35:33,040 Speaker 1: of connection with the Freedman's Hospital. Uh. And the Freedman's 1107 01:35:33,040 --> 01:35:39,080 Speaker 1: Bureau itself was one of the centers of the post 1108 01:35:39,120 --> 01:35:43,600 Speaker 1: war government that had a lot of spiritualist assigned to it, 1109 01:35:44,320 --> 01:35:48,479 Speaker 1: not surprisingly because most spiritualists, especially those in Washington, were 1110 01:35:48,920 --> 01:35:53,160 Speaker 1: former abolitionists and were uh working you know, to free 1111 01:35:53,200 --> 01:35:57,439 Speaker 1: the slaves and so on. In fact, the UM, the 1112 01:35:57,479 --> 01:36:02,200 Speaker 1: head of the the first head of the Colored Schools 1113 01:36:02,280 --> 01:36:07,280 Speaker 1: of Washington, which were set up in conjunction with the 1114 01:36:07,320 --> 01:36:12,360 Speaker 1: Freedman's Bureau, was a very long time spiritualist named Alonso Newton, 1115 01:36:12,439 --> 01:36:16,800 Speaker 1: who was connected of course with John Murray Spears New 1116 01:36:16,840 --> 01:36:21,360 Speaker 1: Motive Project, but he was also the editor of the 1117 01:36:21,439 --> 01:36:24,800 Speaker 1: New England Spiritualist and a co editor of several other 1118 01:36:25,040 --> 01:36:29,920 Speaker 1: spiritualist newspapers. UM. So there's a lot of connections in 1119 01:36:30,000 --> 01:36:36,040 Speaker 1: Washington if you go down just below the surface. And 1120 01:36:36,880 --> 01:36:40,040 Speaker 1: Cora continues to be involved. Uh. Well, she she has 1121 01:36:40,080 --> 01:36:43,839 Speaker 1: a couple of different husbands. She marries Nathan Daniels travels 1122 01:36:43,880 --> 01:36:45,960 Speaker 1: with him to New Orleans, where he had been stationed 1123 01:36:46,360 --> 01:36:49,000 Speaker 1: during the Civil War and been in command of the 1124 01:36:49,080 --> 01:36:53,720 Speaker 1: Native Guards, including some New Orleans spiritualists. Um, then he 1125 01:36:53,800 --> 01:36:59,200 Speaker 1: dies there, she returns back north, and really, it seems 1126 01:36:59,240 --> 01:37:02,680 Speaker 1: to me, uh embraces and just dives into her spiritualist 1127 01:37:02,720 --> 01:37:07,559 Speaker 1: connections and continues to be a significant presence in the 1128 01:37:07,720 --> 01:37:12,479 Speaker 1: kind of building a lasting institutional base for spiritualism in 1129 01:37:12,479 --> 01:37:15,920 Speaker 1: the in the later decades. Um, can you talk at 1130 01:37:15,920 --> 01:37:20,000 Speaker 1: all about her involvement in trying to create something stable 1131 01:37:20,040 --> 01:37:23,080 Speaker 1: that would last for spiritualism going forward into the future. 1132 01:37:24,120 --> 01:37:27,920 Speaker 1: I think Cora, this is my impression, okay. I think 1133 01:37:27,960 --> 01:37:33,519 Speaker 1: Cora always had an eye too getting of the stable 1134 01:37:33,600 --> 01:37:38,760 Speaker 1: position and an eye towards getting a formal leadership in 1135 01:37:38,800 --> 01:37:45,000 Speaker 1: the movement. The movement itself was fairly fragmented. I mean, 1136 01:37:45,479 --> 01:37:51,680 Speaker 1: essentially it was made up of independent minded and from 1137 01:37:51,720 --> 01:37:57,559 Speaker 1: the outside anyway eccentric individuals who UH followed their own 1138 01:37:57,600 --> 01:38:01,639 Speaker 1: ideas and paths. So they spiritual were notorious for being 1139 01:38:01,800 --> 01:38:08,320 Speaker 1: unable to form lasting institution or association. They'd had several 1140 01:38:08,360 --> 01:38:13,040 Speaker 1: tries at it, extending all the way back to early 1141 01:38:13,080 --> 01:38:21,439 Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, and I think Corus saw her own career 1142 01:38:22,400 --> 01:38:28,200 Speaker 1: as one of taking leadership and as he said, a 1143 01:38:28,240 --> 01:38:35,680 Speaker 1: stable organization and planting something that would last beyond her. 1144 01:38:36,640 --> 01:38:39,120 Speaker 1: Of course, you might say with her as as he had. 1145 01:38:39,200 --> 01:38:45,160 Speaker 1: But anyway, I think that was definitely on her mind 1146 01:38:45,960 --> 01:38:53,240 Speaker 1: UM towards later in life. UM. She tried several times 1147 01:38:53,320 --> 01:38:59,320 Speaker 1: to establish Spiritualist churches, important Spiritualist churches, with herself as head. 1148 01:39:00,240 --> 01:39:02,479 Speaker 1: And the very fact that I'm calling it a church, 1149 01:39:03,400 --> 01:39:07,519 Speaker 1: you might say, is a something that's came late to 1150 01:39:07,560 --> 01:39:13,479 Speaker 1: the movement, relatively speaking, because it hints that what she's 1151 01:39:13,479 --> 01:39:18,919 Speaker 1: looking at is a sort of denomination UM with definite beliefs. 1152 01:39:18,960 --> 01:39:23,800 Speaker 1: And of course the early Spiritualists we're all antidenominational, and 1153 01:39:23,880 --> 01:39:28,599 Speaker 1: they didn't really see themselves as just another denomination with 1154 01:39:29,439 --> 01:39:32,560 Speaker 1: preachers and ministers and so on. She did have a 1155 01:39:33,320 --> 01:39:38,960 Speaker 1: big church, a very popular church in Chicago, UH, for 1156 01:39:39,040 --> 01:39:44,400 Speaker 1: a long time before the National Spiritual Association was formed, 1157 01:39:45,439 --> 01:39:52,679 Speaker 1: but around eighteen two, in conjunction with a very large 1158 01:39:53,439 --> 01:39:59,520 Speaker 1: and in retrospect very influential meeting event that occurred in Chicago, 1159 01:40:00,080 --> 01:40:05,720 Speaker 1: in conjunction with a UM Colombian exhibishop exposition there in 1160 01:40:05,840 --> 01:40:11,680 Speaker 1: eighteen m there was what was called the World's Parliament 1161 01:40:11,720 --> 01:40:16,519 Speaker 1: of Religions, a big ecmnical movement, and there were many 1162 01:40:16,560 --> 01:40:21,439 Speaker 1: people from different faiths who were invited to participate in 1163 01:40:21,479 --> 01:40:25,280 Speaker 1: this and give speeches and so on. And I think 1164 01:40:25,320 --> 01:40:31,040 Speaker 1: she saw this as a prime time for setting up another, 1165 01:40:31,200 --> 01:40:37,520 Speaker 1: giving another try to forming a lasting organization among spiritualists. 1166 01:40:38,280 --> 01:40:39,880 Speaker 1: I think it was a way you might say, of 1167 01:40:41,160 --> 01:40:47,519 Speaker 1: getting validation for spiritualism as such as a quote real 1168 01:40:47,640 --> 01:40:53,200 Speaker 1: religion able to step out and walk among the other religions. So, 1169 01:40:53,280 --> 01:40:57,720 Speaker 1: in fact, you know that event happened across town from 1170 01:40:57,960 --> 01:41:06,680 Speaker 1: Cora's spiritual church, and um it is alleged that she 1171 01:41:06,800 --> 01:41:13,760 Speaker 1: gave a translator to the World Parliament of Religion about spiritualism. 1172 01:41:13,800 --> 01:41:19,599 Speaker 1: I myself have been unable to find such evidence as 1173 01:41:19,680 --> 01:41:22,479 Speaker 1: to leave me that she didn't in fact directly address 1174 01:41:23,040 --> 01:41:32,880 Speaker 1: that World Parliament. But she did also organize the first convention, 1175 01:41:33,000 --> 01:41:38,120 Speaker 1: annual informative Convention of the National Spiritual Association, which happened 1176 01:41:38,160 --> 01:41:41,559 Speaker 1: the next week, the days following the World Problement of Religion. 1177 01:41:43,840 --> 01:41:50,280 Speaker 1: So she was elected vice president and she stayed connected 1178 01:41:50,320 --> 01:41:53,880 Speaker 1: with the organization for many many years. She often gave 1179 01:41:54,360 --> 01:41:57,400 Speaker 1: a keynote address in their annual meetings and so on. 1180 01:41:58,360 --> 01:42:01,479 Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier a little bit about some of the 1181 01:42:01,560 --> 01:42:05,320 Speaker 1: investigations of spiritualism that we're going on, and we are 1182 01:42:05,360 --> 01:42:08,720 Speaker 1: going to address the Society's for Psychical Research. Uh, some 1183 01:42:09,439 --> 01:42:12,120 Speaker 1: would you be would you be comfortable describing them a 1184 01:42:12,160 --> 01:42:17,040 Speaker 1: little bit and what their approach to spiritualism was. Okay, 1185 01:42:17,080 --> 01:42:21,639 Speaker 1: I can contribute a little bit. It's not exactly the area, 1186 01:42:21,840 --> 01:42:26,400 Speaker 1: I mean, the era that I'm most familiar with, but yeah, 1187 01:42:26,520 --> 01:42:30,920 Speaker 1: I'm I mean it's obvious. I think it's obvious that 1188 01:42:31,160 --> 01:42:39,120 Speaker 1: such societies were formed, Um, with a view two take 1189 01:42:39,240 --> 01:42:46,559 Speaker 1: the investigation of psychic meaning, including spiritualist phenomena, and put 1190 01:42:46,560 --> 01:42:54,000 Speaker 1: it under scientific scrutiny, which meant controlled conditions, repeated tests, 1191 01:42:54,000 --> 01:42:59,400 Speaker 1: and so on by scientists who are who were trained 1192 01:43:00,120 --> 01:43:09,600 Speaker 1: to observe and test and eliminate possibilities and so on. Um. 1193 01:43:09,680 --> 01:43:17,760 Speaker 1: And I don't think it's ah, I don't think it's 1194 01:43:18,600 --> 01:43:25,840 Speaker 1: so much that scientists decided to take spiritualism and put 1195 01:43:25,840 --> 01:43:31,880 Speaker 1: it under the microscope, so much as science itself had 1196 01:43:33,680 --> 01:43:43,080 Speaker 1: tracked alongside the way spiritualists themselves thought about these phenomena. 1197 01:43:44,680 --> 01:43:50,280 Speaker 1: As we've already described spiritualist work. Fellow travelers, if you will, 1198 01:43:50,400 --> 01:43:54,479 Speaker 1: with mesmerists and so on, back and back in the 1199 01:43:54,520 --> 01:43:59,559 Speaker 1: early days, and it became more and more common for 1200 01:44:00,720 --> 01:44:06,160 Speaker 1: spiritualist to think about the phenomenon that was going on 1201 01:44:07,479 --> 01:44:12,639 Speaker 1: as a kind of psychological phenomenon one kind or another. 1202 01:44:13,600 --> 01:44:21,679 Speaker 1: In other words, too except the possibility that what we're 1203 01:44:21,760 --> 01:44:25,080 Speaker 1: exploring was the mind and the powers of the mind 1204 01:44:25,160 --> 01:44:32,800 Speaker 1: for other than some real you might say, objectively, externally, 1205 01:44:32,920 --> 01:44:41,640 Speaker 1: substantially real afterlife. I think that became an acceptable alternative 1206 01:44:43,240 --> 01:44:49,479 Speaker 1: narrative within spiritualism, and it was because of that. I 1207 01:44:49,600 --> 01:44:54,080 Speaker 1: think that you could think of the Psychical Research Society 1208 01:44:54,080 --> 01:45:00,320 Speaker 1: and so on as an evolution of that tendency within 1209 01:45:00,439 --> 01:45:08,240 Speaker 1: spiritualism itself. Um. Spiritualist I think by that time often 1210 01:45:08,280 --> 01:45:14,200 Speaker 1: resorted to a sort of unspoken acceptance of the idea 1211 01:45:14,280 --> 01:45:17,360 Speaker 1: that I don't know where these things are coming from, 1212 01:45:17,400 --> 01:45:22,400 Speaker 1: and I don't know what's going on exactly, Um, but 1213 01:45:22,920 --> 01:45:29,759 Speaker 1: they're really interesting, aren't they. And they're uncanny, and they're weird, 1214 01:45:30,640 --> 01:45:38,280 Speaker 1: and somehow the conditions of the mind of the medium 1215 01:45:38,320 --> 01:45:42,920 Speaker 1: and the minds of the spectators are involved in this, 1216 01:45:44,400 --> 01:45:49,200 Speaker 1: and so UM. I think that was an opportunity for 1217 01:45:49,520 --> 01:45:53,400 Speaker 1: scientists who were also interested in the science of the 1218 01:45:53,520 --> 01:45:59,240 Speaker 1: mind and psychology, like William James, for example, to set 1219 01:45:59,240 --> 01:46:03,479 Speaker 1: out UM to see what they could find out about it. 1220 01:46:04,360 --> 01:46:09,080 Speaker 1: Did this kind of thinking about abnormal psychology and and 1221 01:46:09,160 --> 01:46:12,400 Speaker 1: kind of what started being published from Freud and new 1222 01:46:12,400 --> 01:46:14,679 Speaker 1: ways of thinking about the human mind? Did it sap 1223 01:46:14,840 --> 01:46:17,840 Speaker 1: interest in spiritualism from the outside? What was that kind 1224 01:46:17,840 --> 01:46:20,679 Speaker 1: of what was the influence on maybe like general interest 1225 01:46:20,720 --> 01:46:28,000 Speaker 1: in spiritualism? Just as an intuitive answer, I would say, yes, 1226 01:46:28,040 --> 01:46:34,840 Speaker 1: it did it. It drew people. It certainly drew people 1227 01:46:34,880 --> 01:46:41,840 Speaker 1: away from UM. The simple explanation of what was going 1228 01:46:41,880 --> 01:46:49,040 Speaker 1: on here was that the spirits of George Washington or 1229 01:46:50,400 --> 01:46:54,800 Speaker 1: your uncle Charlie were speaking directly to you, and that 1230 01:46:54,880 --> 01:46:57,000 Speaker 1: you had nothing to do with it, and that you 1231 01:46:57,040 --> 01:47:00,000 Speaker 1: were just a mirror radio receiver who had been turned 1232 01:47:00,000 --> 01:47:02,599 Speaker 1: and on in your own mind had been turned off, 1233 01:47:03,360 --> 01:47:08,360 Speaker 1: and you were just an automaton if you are a medium. 1234 01:47:08,400 --> 01:47:13,160 Speaker 1: I think that sort of explanation became less and less 1235 01:47:13,200 --> 01:47:20,240 Speaker 1: appealing to people, and as an alternative, they became more 1236 01:47:20,240 --> 01:47:26,840 Speaker 1: and more attracted to this other alternative explanation, that it 1237 01:47:27,040 --> 01:47:31,599 Speaker 1: was an explanation and mysteries of the mind and how 1238 01:47:31,640 --> 01:47:37,519 Speaker 1: the mind in turn affected external reality. Maybe we could 1239 01:47:39,280 --> 01:47:47,160 Speaker 1: not only read people's minds transferred thoughts, but we could 1240 01:47:48,000 --> 01:47:55,360 Speaker 1: create UM create a world that we could treat anyway 1241 01:47:55,640 --> 01:48:00,680 Speaker 1: as as well as we treated the objective world, or 1242 01:48:00,720 --> 01:48:04,200 Speaker 1: maybe the objective world itself didn't really exist, and we 1243 01:48:04,200 --> 01:48:09,720 Speaker 1: were all a creation of mind. That was certainly an 1244 01:48:09,720 --> 01:48:14,479 Speaker 1: early position within Spiritualism, and it was something that was 1245 01:48:14,560 --> 01:48:23,320 Speaker 1: emphasized by Mary Baker Eddie informing Christian science, and that 1246 01:48:23,439 --> 01:48:33,320 Speaker 1: continued with UM investigators who call themselves mental scientists, and 1247 01:48:33,479 --> 01:48:37,839 Speaker 1: was a big factor in the creation of a movement 1248 01:48:37,920 --> 01:48:43,080 Speaker 1: that I regard as the successor to Spiritualism, which was 1249 01:48:43,160 --> 01:48:53,960 Speaker 1: called New Thought. Mind over matter. You can bring success, health, wealth, money, 1250 01:48:54,640 --> 01:49:01,000 Speaker 1: dollars dollars want you, Carl, if you could only create 1251 01:49:01,040 --> 01:49:05,360 Speaker 1: the conditions in your mind that would allow them to form. 1252 01:49:05,439 --> 01:49:09,439 Speaker 1: These were all questions that were you might call UM 1253 01:49:09,640 --> 01:49:17,960 Speaker 1: alternative psychological explanations for psychic phenomenon. So yeah, a lot 1254 01:49:18,000 --> 01:49:22,240 Speaker 1: of people got drawn off into that. There was also 1255 01:49:22,280 --> 01:49:27,200 Speaker 1: in the in the seventies and eighties increasing interest in UH. 1256 01:49:27,240 --> 01:49:30,800 Speaker 1: What we've talked about the private sciences and the wrappings 1257 01:49:30,960 --> 01:49:36,040 Speaker 1: and the trans lectures, but we also have materialization mediums 1258 01:49:36,080 --> 01:49:40,160 Speaker 1: and UH. And then ectoplasm becomes one of the phenomena 1259 01:49:40,200 --> 01:49:43,280 Speaker 1: that people are coming for UM you know, coming to 1260 01:49:43,320 --> 01:49:45,639 Speaker 1: a science to witness and observed. Can you talk about 1261 01:49:45,640 --> 01:49:47,680 Speaker 1: how some of those changes and what was going on 1262 01:49:47,840 --> 01:49:51,320 Speaker 1: at a sciance changed the meaning of spiritual and the the 1263 01:49:51,560 --> 01:49:55,240 Speaker 1: social meaning or the religious meaning for some people. I 1264 01:49:55,320 --> 01:50:00,040 Speaker 1: think about that as part of this notion that it 1265 01:50:02,520 --> 01:50:05,479 Speaker 1: the process that was going on in this new era 1266 01:50:06,560 --> 01:50:11,639 Speaker 1: was the elevation of Earth to heaven and the drawing 1267 01:50:11,680 --> 01:50:18,360 Speaker 1: down of Heaven to earth, and the resulting communion of 1268 01:50:18,479 --> 01:50:23,960 Speaker 1: saints where those on earth would be walking with those 1269 01:50:24,040 --> 01:50:30,000 Speaker 1: in heaven. Now, if you think about it, that means 1270 01:50:30,160 --> 01:50:36,160 Speaker 1: that there were some real desire from the very beginning 1271 01:50:36,320 --> 01:50:42,720 Speaker 1: to make material or bring to earth. Not just the 1272 01:50:42,800 --> 01:50:49,080 Speaker 1: voices were the ideas of those in heaven, but more 1273 01:50:49,960 --> 01:50:55,080 Speaker 1: maybe the endpoint of all this was to materialize Heaven 1274 01:50:56,160 --> 01:51:02,080 Speaker 1: on Earth, to join it together. And you can read 1275 01:51:02,840 --> 01:51:08,479 Speaker 1: in the spiritualist newspapers at the time this sense that 1276 01:51:10,080 --> 01:51:16,320 Speaker 1: there was a progression towards that in which maybe one 1277 01:51:16,400 --> 01:51:24,000 Speaker 1: medium would be able to um produce a materialized filmy 1278 01:51:24,479 --> 01:51:29,240 Speaker 1: fluid um, something that will float around the room, or 1279 01:51:30,560 --> 01:51:33,400 Speaker 1: would be able to push your guitar or a stramat 1280 01:51:33,760 --> 01:51:36,240 Speaker 1: even though you couldn't see it. But then there was 1281 01:51:36,320 --> 01:51:41,840 Speaker 1: some desire maybe to materialize and make visible a hand 1282 01:51:41,840 --> 01:51:49,320 Speaker 1: hands that would um, stroke a person's head or push 1283 01:51:49,320 --> 01:51:51,760 Speaker 1: your button or something like that. And then there was 1284 01:51:51,800 --> 01:51:54,920 Speaker 1: an arm, and then there was a news article. It 1285 01:51:55,040 --> 01:51:57,519 Speaker 1: was like a rumor mill in a wave. As I said, 1286 01:51:57,840 --> 01:52:02,320 Speaker 1: you know, these newspapers were social were functioning as a 1287 01:52:02,360 --> 01:52:07,200 Speaker 1: sort of social media in which um news reports would 1288 01:52:07,200 --> 01:52:10,920 Speaker 1: come in and breathlessly report that has been able to 1289 01:52:10,960 --> 01:52:15,679 Speaker 1: not only materialize an arm, but also you know, maybe 1290 01:52:15,720 --> 01:52:22,080 Speaker 1: the full form of a person. UM. So it towards 1291 01:52:22,120 --> 01:52:24,840 Speaker 1: the end of this process you could say that the 1292 01:52:24,920 --> 01:52:30,080 Speaker 1: process was one of making more, more and more material 1293 01:52:30,479 --> 01:52:34,759 Speaker 1: the things of the spirit. And I actually have joked 1294 01:52:34,800 --> 01:52:39,360 Speaker 1: with one of my magicians associates who I'm working on 1295 01:52:39,360 --> 01:52:44,520 Speaker 1: a project with now that during the same time basically 1296 01:52:44,520 --> 01:52:50,320 Speaker 1: in our if you follow the spiritualists and the professional magicians, 1297 01:52:50,400 --> 01:52:54,559 Speaker 1: what you find is that the spiritualists are trying to 1298 01:52:54,680 --> 01:53:00,519 Speaker 1: make visible bigger and bigger things, more more of the 1299 01:53:00,600 --> 01:53:05,840 Speaker 1: human body, for example, while magicians were trying to make 1300 01:53:06,160 --> 01:53:09,800 Speaker 1: too de materialized per and bigger things, ending up with 1301 01:53:09,840 --> 01:53:13,280 Speaker 1: the Hoodini on the on the platform of the New 1302 01:53:13,320 --> 01:53:18,080 Speaker 1: York Hypotrome making an elephant disappear UM, you know, starting 1303 01:53:18,080 --> 01:53:22,639 Speaker 1: out with making a rabbit disappeared down down your sleeve 1304 01:53:22,720 --> 01:53:25,439 Speaker 1: and winding up with an elephant. So there there was 1305 01:53:25,479 --> 01:53:28,880 Speaker 1: this question about the relationship between the spiritual and material. 1306 01:53:29,560 --> 01:53:33,840 Speaker 1: But at the same time this obviously was a temptation 1307 01:53:34,560 --> 01:53:42,559 Speaker 1: to produce phenomenon UM that were not real, that could 1308 01:53:42,600 --> 01:53:49,320 Speaker 1: be reproduced or were being reproduced by UM tricks. So 1309 01:53:51,520 --> 01:53:56,320 Speaker 1: that was that was a part of UM the spiritualist 1310 01:53:57,520 --> 01:54:03,080 Speaker 1: history as well more and more war UH temptations and 1311 01:54:03,200 --> 01:54:10,920 Speaker 1: obvious temptations to expose the mechanical means of producing materialized 1312 01:54:11,040 --> 01:54:16,160 Speaker 1: bodies and actoplasm and so on, and the exposures that 1313 01:54:16,240 --> 01:54:20,920 Speaker 1: came out of that UM definitely affected the reputation of 1314 01:54:21,040 --> 01:54:27,400 Speaker 1: the movement, and UM set people off. And I think 1315 01:54:27,439 --> 01:54:30,519 Speaker 1: that's in some sense you can see that that was 1316 01:54:31,360 --> 01:54:38,920 Speaker 1: very clearly at work in the UM around By by 1317 01:54:38,960 --> 01:54:46,760 Speaker 1: about eighteen eighty eighteen five, UM spiritualism wasn't the force 1318 01:54:46,880 --> 01:54:52,240 Speaker 1: that it was, And of course Death Blow to Spiritualism 1319 01:54:52,320 --> 01:54:57,440 Speaker 1: is published in which the author recounts Maggie Fox's recantation 1320 01:54:57,960 --> 01:55:00,680 Speaker 1: of her life as a medium. Right, how what what 1321 01:55:00,760 --> 01:55:03,800 Speaker 1: kind of influence did that particular publication with Maggie Fox 1322 01:55:03,840 --> 01:55:07,720 Speaker 1: being who she was, what influence did that have on spiritualism. Well, 1323 01:55:07,720 --> 01:55:11,760 Speaker 1: it was a big shock. It's being shocked to spiritualists. 1324 01:55:13,000 --> 01:55:17,000 Speaker 1: But I have to say that there were ways to 1325 01:55:17,120 --> 01:55:20,560 Speaker 1: protect yourself from her if you were a spiritual From 1326 01:55:20,560 --> 01:55:27,840 Speaker 1: her recantation, Um, they included the fact that she would 1327 01:55:27,840 --> 01:55:35,600 Speaker 1: become a alcoholic by that time, Mum, they were and undependable. 1328 01:55:36,600 --> 01:55:42,160 Speaker 1: And there was another way to protect yourself that was 1329 01:55:42,240 --> 01:55:47,520 Speaker 1: taken by the editor of the Religio Philosophical Journal, whose 1330 01:55:47,600 --> 01:55:53,560 Speaker 1: name is John Bundy. Um. After her recantation, he said, 1331 01:55:53,560 --> 01:55:59,120 Speaker 1: it doesn't matter that she recanted uh, and talked about 1332 01:55:59,120 --> 01:56:08,360 Speaker 1: her tricks, because we're standing with a collection of experiences 1333 01:56:08,760 --> 01:56:16,040 Speaker 1: by millions of people over decades that we have confidence in. 1334 01:56:16,720 --> 01:56:20,160 Speaker 1: So in effect, you could write her off as he did. 1335 01:56:21,840 --> 01:56:23,920 Speaker 1: There was a lot of talk around that time by 1336 01:56:23,960 --> 01:56:29,600 Speaker 1: spiritualists that she'd been suborned, that her testimony had been 1337 01:56:29,640 --> 01:56:38,440 Speaker 1: suborned because she decided to convert to Catholicism, and that 1338 01:56:38,600 --> 01:56:41,800 Speaker 1: her new friends had convinced her that this was part 1339 01:56:41,800 --> 01:56:46,320 Speaker 1: of her penance essentially, So there were ways to deal 1340 01:56:46,360 --> 01:56:50,400 Speaker 1: with it. If you're a believer, you can, you know, 1341 01:56:50,480 --> 01:56:53,400 Speaker 1: think of ways to to reconcile it with what you 1342 01:56:53,480 --> 01:56:56,280 Speaker 1: believe without giving up your belief. But it definitely was 1343 01:56:56,320 --> 01:56:59,880 Speaker 1: a big hit, no question. And of course her sister 1344 01:57:00,200 --> 01:57:02,520 Speaker 1: Leah at this point no longer. I mean, she had 1345 01:57:02,600 --> 01:57:04,040 Speaker 1: main lely a fox for a long time, she's been 1346 01:57:04,080 --> 01:57:06,160 Speaker 1: lea fish, and then at this point she's Leah underhill. 1347 01:57:06,600 --> 01:57:11,080 Speaker 1: She publishes the Missing Lincoln spiritualism and directly addresses uh, 1348 01:57:11,160 --> 01:57:13,320 Speaker 1: Maggie's recantation. And so you even have one of the 1349 01:57:13,360 --> 01:57:16,920 Speaker 1: other Fox sisters who is pushing back against it and 1350 01:57:16,920 --> 01:57:20,280 Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. Uh. And then not much later, 1351 01:57:21,120 --> 01:57:23,840 Speaker 1: Maggie recancer recantation, right, and she says, well, no, that 1352 01:57:23,920 --> 01:57:25,960 Speaker 1: was a lie. How does that feed into this kind 1353 01:57:25,960 --> 01:57:34,440 Speaker 1: of public discussion? It makes it a big mesk. Nobody 1354 01:57:34,480 --> 01:57:39,160 Speaker 1: knows what's going on at that point. Yeah, I mean, 1355 01:57:39,240 --> 01:57:42,280 Speaker 1: from the very beginning, it seemed to many people that Leah, 1356 01:57:42,480 --> 01:57:48,600 Speaker 1: the older sister, had pushed the younger sisters into a career, uh, 1357 01:57:48,680 --> 01:57:53,360 Speaker 1: and had ginned up a sort of act and was, 1358 01:57:53,720 --> 01:57:57,320 Speaker 1: you know, the controlling spirit here behind everybody else. So, 1359 01:57:58,440 --> 01:58:00,640 Speaker 1: I mean, there's all kinds of ways to look at this. 1360 01:58:00,800 --> 01:58:04,320 Speaker 1: I don't I don't know, but uh, it made it 1361 01:58:04,360 --> 01:58:09,839 Speaker 1: a big mess in the spiritualist community for sure. UM. 1362 01:58:09,880 --> 01:58:12,240 Speaker 1: So how when we come kind of towards the end 1363 01:58:12,240 --> 01:58:15,560 Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century, you mentioned there was a decline 1364 01:58:15,600 --> 01:58:20,360 Speaker 1: in spiritualism by the eighties. How strong was spiritualism by 1365 01:58:20,400 --> 01:58:24,120 Speaker 1: the time we're stepping into the twentieth century. I don't 1366 01:58:24,160 --> 01:58:29,800 Speaker 1: think it was. Um, it was a big factor in 1367 01:58:29,840 --> 01:58:36,000 Speaker 1: American thought by There were plenty of spiritual still, But 1368 01:58:36,480 --> 01:58:39,840 Speaker 1: when I say plenty, I don't mean that they dominated 1369 01:58:39,880 --> 01:58:47,080 Speaker 1: intellectual life, or were the attraction or that they that 1370 01:58:47,200 --> 01:58:50,360 Speaker 1: they had been, or the challenge that they had been before. 1371 01:58:51,280 --> 01:58:57,480 Speaker 1: But um, it wasn't all downhill after that. There was 1372 01:58:57,560 --> 01:59:02,000 Speaker 1: a big revival of spiritualism in the post World War 1373 01:59:02,040 --> 01:59:08,240 Speaker 1: One period, and in some sense it's still a part 1374 01:59:08,280 --> 01:59:13,880 Speaker 1: of UM. You know, what lay at the heart of 1375 01:59:13,920 --> 01:59:19,680 Speaker 1: spiritualism is still in continuity with what we see around 1376 01:59:19,760 --> 01:59:24,760 Speaker 1: us all the time in our own culture. UM. Belief 1377 01:59:24,800 --> 01:59:31,440 Speaker 1: in psychic powers, belief in channeled texts that give some 1378 01:59:31,600 --> 01:59:36,640 Speaker 1: higher revelation. UM. A lot of that interest is now 1379 01:59:36,800 --> 01:59:40,960 Speaker 1: labeled new age UM, which is a term that was, 1380 01:59:41,160 --> 01:59:44,040 Speaker 1: as far as I know, was invented in its original 1381 01:59:44,120 --> 01:59:47,360 Speaker 1: sense or in the sense that we know it now, Um, 1382 01:59:47,640 --> 01:59:53,000 Speaker 1: in the spiritualist community. M Um, you know a lot 1383 01:59:53,000 --> 01:59:56,840 Speaker 1: of that still with us today. M You've mentioned that 1384 01:59:56,920 --> 02:00:00,840 Speaker 1: some of your recent work, uh really really engages the 1385 02:00:00,840 --> 02:00:03,480 Speaker 1: early days of radio and when they were you know, 1386 02:00:03,600 --> 02:00:07,120 Speaker 1: Vodeville stage mentalists and mind readers and hypnotists who are 1387 02:00:07,120 --> 02:00:11,320 Speaker 1: on the airwaves. Um, how do you relate those two? 1388 02:00:11,360 --> 02:00:15,320 Speaker 1: I mean earlier you were comparing magicians to spiritualists. How 1389 02:00:15,320 --> 02:00:17,920 Speaker 1: do these kind of radio performers and mind readers and 1390 02:00:17,960 --> 02:00:28,640 Speaker 1: mentalists relate to spiritualist practice? Well, mind readers performing mind 1391 02:00:28,640 --> 02:00:36,520 Speaker 1: readers who call themselves mentalists most often went on the 1392 02:00:36,640 --> 02:00:41,720 Speaker 1: radio big time as soon as it became commercially available, 1393 02:00:42,240 --> 02:00:50,560 Speaker 1: meaning just after World War One, and they saw themselves 1394 02:00:50,560 --> 02:00:54,240 Speaker 1: as part of the professional magic world, but they could 1395 02:00:54,320 --> 02:01:01,360 Speaker 1: not present themselves as doing a trick. Basically, nobody wants 1396 02:01:01,400 --> 02:01:04,600 Speaker 1: to see a fake psychic. Nobody wants to see a 1397 02:01:04,600 --> 02:01:08,240 Speaker 1: fake medium, a mentalist, or a fake medium for that matter. 1398 02:01:10,120 --> 02:01:16,720 Speaker 1: So unlike a magician who could define his performance space 1399 02:01:17,440 --> 02:01:22,760 Speaker 1: in a way that the audience and he accepted, culturally accepted, 1400 02:01:22,800 --> 02:01:26,040 Speaker 1: and was an implacent part of the act. As an act, 1401 02:01:27,000 --> 02:01:29,520 Speaker 1: it may look wonderful, and you may not be able 1402 02:01:29,560 --> 02:01:32,680 Speaker 1: to figure it out audience. But we all know that 1403 02:01:32,680 --> 02:01:36,920 Speaker 1: this is a trick. A mentalist can't do that. They 1404 02:01:36,960 --> 02:01:42,200 Speaker 1: have to become that persona. They have to their their 1405 02:01:42,280 --> 02:01:47,400 Speaker 1: act is based on developing a relationship and projecting it 1406 02:01:47,600 --> 02:01:52,120 Speaker 1: with the audience itself. They have to get into the 1407 02:01:52,200 --> 02:01:57,560 Speaker 1: audience's mind. And it seemed to me that that's pretty 1408 02:01:57,560 --> 02:02:03,160 Speaker 1: well known. But it struck me that what they were 1409 02:02:03,560 --> 02:02:16,080 Speaker 1: doing was particularly attuned to the radio because in the radio, 1410 02:02:16,960 --> 02:02:24,120 Speaker 1: unlike TV or visual medium, Unlike in those mediums, you're 1411 02:02:24,160 --> 02:02:30,680 Speaker 1: not provided any visual element. What happens is somebody on 1412 02:02:30,720 --> 02:02:33,600 Speaker 1: the other end of the line is speaking to you, 1413 02:02:34,800 --> 02:02:41,560 Speaker 1: and they're telling a narrative, and you're participating. In order 1414 02:02:41,720 --> 02:02:46,560 Speaker 1: for this to work, you provide the images, you're already 1415 02:02:46,600 --> 02:02:52,840 Speaker 1: a partner in creating the story and and basically that 1416 02:02:53,840 --> 02:02:59,560 Speaker 1: is the quid pro quo of doing radio work. But 1417 02:02:59,640 --> 02:03:03,520 Speaker 1: at least you know, if you're not doing advertising, you 1418 02:03:03,600 --> 02:03:09,240 Speaker 1: assume that you're getting into people's heads and that they're 1419 02:03:09,280 --> 02:03:12,920 Speaker 1: participating with you and they're helping to create the story 1420 02:03:13,280 --> 02:03:19,560 Speaker 1: as they're listening, which is quite different from TV. In TV, 1421 02:03:19,680 --> 02:03:22,760 Speaker 1: you're just sitting there letting it wash over. You, and 1422 02:03:22,840 --> 02:03:27,880 Speaker 1: not only is the image being fed to you, but 1423 02:03:28,360 --> 02:03:33,480 Speaker 1: the narrative is quite controlled, so you're more much more 1424 02:03:33,520 --> 02:03:38,120 Speaker 1: of a passive participant. But radio itself is a sort 1425 02:03:38,120 --> 02:03:45,400 Speaker 1: of mentalists paradise. I thought it's much more appropriate and 1426 02:03:45,440 --> 02:03:49,680 Speaker 1: in tune with what mentalists we're doing, which was rejecting 1427 02:03:51,040 --> 02:03:58,400 Speaker 1: persona of relating to one person's mind directly reading it 1428 02:03:58,840 --> 02:04:03,440 Speaker 1: in communication with it. UM. So I thought I would 1429 02:04:03,480 --> 02:04:11,200 Speaker 1: write a book about that special relationship between performing mentalists. 1430 02:04:12,120 --> 02:04:16,840 Speaker 1: We're on vaudeville and off Vaudeville um and the kinds 1431 02:04:16,880 --> 02:04:19,680 Speaker 1: of things they were doing, and the way they flocked 1432 02:04:19,680 --> 02:04:23,280 Speaker 1: onto the radio between the war. Between World War One 1433 02:04:23,320 --> 02:04:28,720 Speaker 1: and World War Two. One of the observations that a 1434 02:04:28,800 --> 02:04:31,480 Speaker 1: number of historians who have written about spiritualism have have 1435 02:04:31,680 --> 02:04:35,800 Speaker 1: made is the interest in spiritualism in the wake of 1436 02:04:35,840 --> 02:04:41,120 Speaker 1: the Civil War in the United States, UM, with the 1437 02:04:41,200 --> 02:04:46,120 Speaker 1: scale of of loss and grief and uh the scale 1438 02:04:46,120 --> 02:04:49,839 Speaker 1: of national mourning, and then also looked at the aftermath 1439 02:04:49,880 --> 02:04:53,280 Speaker 1: of World War One as a driving factor for renewed 1440 02:04:53,280 --> 02:04:56,879 Speaker 1: interests in spiritualism. Do you see that same kind of connection. 1441 02:04:58,720 --> 02:05:01,760 Speaker 1: I think there was renewed in just because simply there 1442 02:05:01,880 --> 02:05:06,120 Speaker 1: was a lot of people dying, and particularly dying early, 1443 02:05:06,560 --> 02:05:12,960 Speaker 1: So there was a sharp sense of injustice there and 1444 02:05:13,000 --> 02:05:17,480 Speaker 1: how it could it be reconciled with divine justice. But 1445 02:05:18,920 --> 02:05:25,360 Speaker 1: I'm not so much one who connects it with a 1446 02:05:25,440 --> 02:05:32,240 Speaker 1: way to deal with national grief, individual or countrywide grief. 1447 02:05:32,560 --> 02:05:34,240 Speaker 1: I think it was there, and you can see it 1448 02:05:34,320 --> 02:05:40,560 Speaker 1: intertwined with with the movement, but I don't I think 1449 02:05:40,560 --> 02:05:46,560 Speaker 1: he would be in error if you just assigned it 1450 02:05:46,600 --> 02:05:52,480 Speaker 1: all to either individual or national tragedy. There was a 1451 02:05:52,560 --> 02:05:55,960 Speaker 1: much wider movement than that, as I you know, as 1452 02:05:56,000 --> 02:05:58,960 Speaker 1: I tried to say, it wasn't just that people were 1453 02:05:58,960 --> 02:06:05,560 Speaker 1: looking for to make contact to make sure that there 1454 02:06:06,400 --> 02:06:11,240 Speaker 1: dead husband or son, we're still in a happy place 1455 02:06:12,600 --> 02:06:17,680 Speaker 1: after life. But it was an entire revisioning of the 1456 02:06:17,680 --> 02:06:21,800 Speaker 1: relationship between heaven and Earth and the possibilities of human 1457 02:06:22,680 --> 02:06:27,000 Speaker 1: evolution and progression and what people needed to do here 1458 02:06:27,080 --> 02:06:31,760 Speaker 1: on this earth in order to turn this earth more 1459 02:06:32,200 --> 02:06:35,960 Speaker 1: into a heaven. That's a big that's a big thing. 1460 02:06:37,720 --> 02:06:41,880 Speaker 1: So there was some relationship between the wars and grief, 1461 02:06:42,080 --> 02:06:45,080 Speaker 1: but it was a much bigger project than that. M 1462 02:06:45,240 --> 02:06:51,320 Speaker 1: hm hm um. Maybe to wrap up our conversation, if 1463 02:06:51,360 --> 02:06:55,720 Speaker 1: you're thinking about what you would hope that we would 1464 02:06:55,720 --> 02:07:01,040 Speaker 1: communicate to our listeners about spiritualism. M And you know, 1465 02:07:01,120 --> 02:07:04,320 Speaker 1: our goal is to go back to the middle of 1466 02:07:04,360 --> 02:07:08,480 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century and uh, to let the dead speak 1467 02:07:08,960 --> 02:07:11,600 Speaker 1: as best we can. And Brodie's phrase, the historians work 1468 02:07:11,680 --> 02:07:13,440 Speaker 1: is the spiritualists work. You know, we're trying to let 1469 02:07:13,480 --> 02:07:17,120 Speaker 1: the dead speak. Um. What is it that you would 1470 02:07:17,120 --> 02:07:19,800 Speaker 1: hope that listeners to our documentary that's going to be 1471 02:07:19,840 --> 02:07:23,040 Speaker 1: a narrative history of spiritualism. What do you hope they 1472 02:07:23,080 --> 02:07:37,200 Speaker 1: will hear? I hope they will hear that the history 1473 02:07:37,200 --> 02:07:46,120 Speaker 1: of our country during that time was influenced deeply by 1474 02:07:46,120 --> 02:07:51,920 Speaker 1: a set of ideas that were expressed very well by spiritualism. 1475 02:07:51,960 --> 02:07:54,560 Speaker 1: And what they need to know, this is my special 1476 02:07:54,600 --> 02:07:58,240 Speaker 1: message to the listeners. What they need to know is 1477 02:07:58,560 --> 02:08:04,320 Speaker 1: that that profound influence that they exerted on the national 1478 02:08:04,400 --> 02:08:13,000 Speaker 1: life was deliberately written out of histories of reform movements 1479 02:08:13,040 --> 02:08:17,720 Speaker 1: like the women's movement, the labor movement, the politics, history 1480 02:08:17,720 --> 02:08:22,120 Speaker 1: of the politics of the period, the intellectual history, history 1481 02:08:22,200 --> 02:08:26,760 Speaker 1: of of the novel and poetry, and on and on, 1482 02:08:27,560 --> 02:08:33,360 Speaker 1: that those things were modified so that you hardly see 1483 02:08:33,360 --> 02:08:38,440 Speaker 1: it any reference to it. Anymore. And I have found 1484 02:08:38,640 --> 02:08:45,080 Speaker 1: that particularly in the movement, the labor movement, for example, 1485 02:08:45,280 --> 02:08:52,960 Speaker 1: and the Women's Movement UM, that the writing out happened deliberately. 1486 02:08:53,600 --> 02:08:57,120 Speaker 1: The labor movement, it's easy to see marks in the 1487 02:08:57,160 --> 02:09:04,480 Speaker 1: international kicked out a bunch of spiritistum in and everybody 1488 02:09:04,520 --> 02:09:11,240 Speaker 1: that was had previously gotten along splendidly under that umbrella 1489 02:09:12,760 --> 02:09:17,200 Speaker 1: suddenly had to be a materialist and therefore spiritualists was 1490 02:09:17,480 --> 02:09:22,000 Speaker 1: spiritualist or on the out, and that hardly has been 1491 02:09:22,120 --> 02:09:26,040 Speaker 1: that story has hardly been told. Very recently. It started 1492 02:09:26,080 --> 02:09:30,760 Speaker 1: to the same thing happened with the Women's Movement UM 1493 02:09:30,800 --> 02:09:35,240 Speaker 1: and the five volume history of the Women's Suffrage Movement 1494 02:09:36,400 --> 02:09:40,360 Speaker 1: that was written by Matilda, Jocelyn Engage, Elizabeth Katie Stan 1495 02:09:40,640 --> 02:09:44,680 Speaker 1: and so on, that also was worked on, and it 1496 02:09:44,800 --> 02:09:49,040 Speaker 1: was there was some strategy to this. Basically, they didn't 1497 02:09:49,080 --> 02:09:56,960 Speaker 1: want to ally themselves with a lot of people and 1498 02:09:57,080 --> 02:10:01,640 Speaker 1: ideas that mainstream America thought were crazy and they were 1499 02:10:01,640 --> 02:10:09,960 Speaker 1: out of bounds. They had specific political aims, aims that 1500 02:10:10,080 --> 02:10:13,200 Speaker 1: included legislation that had to be passed and so on. 1501 02:10:13,760 --> 02:10:17,880 Speaker 1: So they were claiming the largest possible platform and brought 1502 02:10:17,920 --> 02:10:21,240 Speaker 1: us view that they could but if I think a 1503 02:10:21,320 --> 02:10:26,600 Speaker 1: few historians have of late been trying to resurrect the 1504 02:10:26,840 --> 02:10:33,040 Speaker 1: influence of spiritualism during this time, And if you want 1505 02:10:33,040 --> 02:10:36,600 Speaker 1: a good view, you know on and Browd's words, Yes, 1506 02:10:37,040 --> 02:10:40,200 Speaker 1: you need to resurrect these people and what was going 1507 02:10:40,240 --> 02:10:43,480 Speaker 1: on with them and how they influenced society in order 1508 02:10:43,520 --> 02:10:55,280 Speaker 1: to really understand the nuts and bolts of nine century America. Hey, folks, 1509 02:10:55,360 --> 02:10:58,520 Speaker 1: it's Aaron here. I hope today's interview helped you deepen 1510 02:10:58,600 --> 02:11:02,600 Speaker 1: your understanding of every thing involved in the world of spiritualism. 1511 02:11:02,600 --> 02:11:05,440 Speaker 1: But we're not done yet. We have more interviews to 1512 02:11:05,480 --> 02:11:08,200 Speaker 1: share with you, so stick around after this brief sponsor 1513 02:11:08,320 --> 02:11:19,200 Speaker 1: break to hear a preview of next week's interview. Next 1514 02:11:19,240 --> 02:11:24,080 Speaker 1: time on Obscured. Edmonds was a judge in the New 1515 02:11:24,160 --> 02:11:27,920 Speaker 1: York State Supreme Court, and he was in charge for 1516 02:11:28,120 --> 02:11:34,360 Speaker 1: many years of the condition of prisoners in New York prisons, 1517 02:11:34,880 --> 02:11:43,320 Speaker 1: which was miserable, utterly miserable. So he had a vocational 1518 02:11:43,480 --> 02:11:47,760 Speaker 1: interest in what happens to bad people in the afterlife. 1519 02:11:48,160 --> 02:11:50,240 Speaker 1: So if everybody's going to heaven, then you're going to 1520 02:11:50,400 --> 02:11:52,840 Speaker 1: end up with criminals. And what do you do with 1521 02:11:52,840 --> 02:11:57,200 Speaker 1: your criminals in the afterlife what happens to them? So 1522 02:11:57,680 --> 02:12:03,080 Speaker 1: he led many years science circle in which they routinely 1523 02:12:03,240 --> 02:12:10,280 Speaker 1: talked to dead criminals, and he brought back some reports 1524 02:12:10,640 --> 02:12:15,560 Speaker 1: from these folks, mostly men, but not always crime. In Edmunds, 1525 02:12:16,200 --> 02:12:22,320 Speaker 1: heaven is very very gendered, So men are murderers and 1526 02:12:22,720 --> 02:12:28,680 Speaker 1: brutes and rapists and drunkards, and women are sexually permissive 1527 02:12:29,480 --> 02:12:49,720 Speaker 1: and murder children. Lot Obscured was created by me Aaron 1528 02:12:49,800 --> 02:12:53,160 Speaker 1: Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh 1529 02:12:53,200 --> 02:12:56,960 Speaker 1: Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research in writing 1530 02:12:57,000 --> 02:12:59,000 Speaker 1: for this season is all the work of my right 1531 02:12:59,040 --> 02:13:02,440 Speaker 1: hand man Carl Ellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed 1532 02:13:02,440 --> 02:13:06,360 Speaker 1: the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians, 1533 02:13:06,520 --> 02:13:09,640 Speaker 1: source material and links to our other shows over at 1534 02:13:09,720 --> 02:13:14,600 Speaker 1: history unobscured dot com And until next time, thanks for 1535 02:13:14,680 --> 02:13:24,440 Speaker 1: listening Unobscured as a production of I Heart Radio and 1536 02:13:24,480 --> 02:13:27,040 Speaker 1: Aaron Minkey. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit 1537 02:13:27,040 --> 02:13:29,560 Speaker 1: the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 1538 02:13:29,600 --> 02:13:30,480 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.