WEBVTT - S2 – INTERVIEW 6: John Buescher 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.320 Welcomed. Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.399 Today's guest historian is John Buscher. He is the author 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.520 of many books and articles on the history of American spiritualism, 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.279 and that should be no surprise. He's the co director 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.280 of the International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.560 Occult Periodicals. It's an online database where John and his 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:30.120 team have digitized thousands of pages of newspapers, pamphlets, books 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.960 and advertisements, which is a gold mine for historians and 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.880 people like me. Researcher Carl Nellis talked with John about 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.960 all kinds of spiritualists. Some we covered in our season 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.199 of Unobscured, like Corras Scott to John Conklin, and some 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.800 will introduce to you here for the first time. So 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.000 let's get to the interview. Here's Dr John Buscher. This 0:00:51.120 --> 0:01:18.679 is the Unobscured Interview series for season two. I'm Aaron Mankey. Yeah. Well, 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:23.640 it meant to be attached to a movement that was 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:31.920 sometimes firmly and sometimes loosely associated. Um. These were people 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:37.640 who felt that they could make immediate contact with the soul, 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:42.640 so they departed and in order to do that, They 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:47.680 typically would sit around in a around a table and 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:53.200 join hands and UM wait for things to happen. Lights 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:59.280 tree usually turned down fairly low, and UM. One of 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:04.920 them would be would act as a medium, which means 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:14.600 someone who could establish psychic contact with the spirits. Sometimes 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.200 things would happen that We're not just what you might 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:23.080 think of as messages coming out of the medium's mouth 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:30.400 from various spirits, but sometimes UM, furniture would move, or 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:36.720 people would feel caressings or here wraps under the table 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.200 and so on. And that was more or less the 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:46.000 practical meaning of being a spiritualist. But it was wide movement, 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:51.280 and you didn't necessarily have to actually attend what came 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.519 to be called seances in order to identify yourself with 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:03.480 as a spiritualist. Spiritualist also developed a kind of constellational 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.560 beliefs about the afterlife and about this life, and so 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:15.880 there were spiritual conventions. There were UM a bunch of 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:22.320 people who traveled as platform lecturers who speculated on this 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:27.440 new theology and new doctrine and new era that was 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:33.280 opening up that would join up heaven to earth. You know, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:40.160 That's what it was. In that variety of kind of 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.240 events that would be considered spiritualists, from the platform lecture 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:48.400 to the test medium investigation to the seance. When people 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.000 were coming to these seances to meet with these mediums, 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.560 what kinds of things were they looking for? What do 0:03:53.640 --> 0:04:00.840 they want to get out of it? Well, they they 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:07.200 wanted to see wonder um, and one of the wonders 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:12.120 that they saw or hoped to see was some immediate 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:18.320 connection to their own relatives or friends in the afterlife. 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:25.520 They were anxious about that, and if it could be 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:34.559 proved that connection was made UM, it would of course 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:39.839 alieve their own grieving over the departed souls of their 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:46.160 friends and relatives, but it would also give them some conviction. 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:51.760 They typically talked about how traditional religion was based on 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.560 faith in the afterlife, but they were seeking knowledge or 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:03.000 proof of it. So that wonder that they were seeking, 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.800 I think was just larger than asking Aunt Bertha, where 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:12.120 where that will was of Uncle Carl's that nobody knows 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.839 that we can't find it? Now, where was the dresser 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:21.159 or something? UM? Or how are you doing? Um? Is it? 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.839 Is it a good place that you've gone to in 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:31.200 the afterlife? But there were larger questions about anxieties to 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:35.080 be answered about the direction of the country, about the 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:42.760 direction of about even about politics, about the new world 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:47.200 that would seemed to be merging all around them. Um. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:48.880 So these were the kind I mean, it was a 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:53.080 very broad spectrum of things that were going on. There 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:58.680 were many people who tended seances that called themselves investigators, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:04.240 you know, as if they were amateur or sometimes professional 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:11.239 um scientists who were looking for evidence and would regard 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:15.880 these sessions as an opportunity to test whether or not 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:21.280 fraud was going on, or self delusion or whatnot, as 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.000 well as firm believers that what they were seeing was 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:30.400 and was in fact true. So I think, um, it's 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:32.599 a hard question to answer, but there were a range 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:39.479 of motivations from people who joined in seances or even 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:45.080 who attended platform lectures. Um. I think it's very typical 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.320 reading account of a medium who would go up on 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:53.360 stage and the audience would be mixed between firm believers, 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.000 and they would usually set themselves off towards the front 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.320 in a kind of cord and maybe to pretend the 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.000 speaker I don't know, but and then behind them there 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.440 big hecklers and people who, you know, we're sort of 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:13.720 vaguely threatening Uh, you know, might ask embarrassing questions or 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.840 try to trick medium or something like that. Mm hmm. 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:25.880 In the course of researching the movement and studying its members. Uh, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.480 You've you've fastened on some figures like John Mary Spear 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.560 and John Conklin and and odeali Adista Bar and you've 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.679 written book length treatments about them. Is there a common 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.080 thread between the kinds of people that you have taken 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:43.240 as your research subjects and decided to tell their their 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:47.200 story in a kind of robust way. Well, there's two 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.600 parts of that answer, Quarrel. I think one is that 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:58.440 I'm fascinated with writing people's biographies. Um. I don't know 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:04.280 how to write history and abstract way. Um I usually 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.120 my eyes usually glaze over as I'm looking through history 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:14.000 that depicts it as a playground of impersonal forces and 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:20.240 working against each other and dropping out the individuals. I 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:26.000 think all I can see about history is the stories 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:32.400 of people to tell tales about other people, and that's 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.240 what I've always been interested in. So that's one way 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:41.800 to to talk about why I'm incasantly writing biographies. I 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.280 don't know how to do it any other way. But 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:52.280 the other issue is the people I've focused on, maybe, 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:59.400 as you've noticed, are really wild characters. And I think 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:03.439 I've always been I don't know if you'd say gifted, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:09.160 but at least fascinated by outliers. These are the sort 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:15.000 of the wildest of the wild folks. And h I 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.440 think I've always been able to, I don't know, walk 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:24.400 along the beach sand and find some odd saying that 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.640 whether people don't notice, or some piece of glass that 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.920 looks shiny, uh. And these are definitely that those kinds 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:36.240 of people, you know, within the wide range of the 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:42.280 spiritualist movement, I seem to be able to find, you know, 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.520 the toad and the hole or the serpent in the garden, 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:50.520 if you might say. And I think by looking at 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:55.040 those outliers, so you can see stuff that's true within 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:59.800 the movement, but maybe harder to see stuff that's true 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:06.760 m in potential, and that leads you into, you know, 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:11.360 questioning main narrative about what spiritualism was and trying to 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:15.600 follow its logic. They seem to be loose threads that 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.840 you can pull and see the texture a little better. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.480 That's that's fantastic. Maybe as we as we as we 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.760 talk over the next hour or so. UM, it would 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.040 be awesome to hear you kind of reflect, maybe because 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.920 I want to talk about both John Conklin and Cora 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:37.520 Scott who became Corea Hatch and Cora Richmond, and maybe 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.160 we'll be able to compare a little bit and talk 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.920 about what the main narrative is and and who the 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.320 outliers are and kind of how they played against each other. Um, 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.280 over a few decades of spiritualist history. I would love 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:51.920 that if we could do that kind of going forward. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.320 Um m hm. You're one of those people who has 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.920 done a great service to academia with the with I 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:08.360 apps up in digitizing and working to collect digitized periodicals 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.800 from spiritualist history. Uh. With with the team there, can 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.640 you talk about what originally drew you to the to 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:20.200 that work and uh and what you've done with that organization? Yes, 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.400 I can tell you. UM, I put a few things 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:30.640 on the web. M. I don't know fifteen eighteen years ago. UM, 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:36.280 that struck me as important and fascinating about history of spiritualism. 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:40.760 Mostly you get to know spiritualism I think from the 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:47.480 ground up as a historian. UM. And the ground was 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:52.960 missing here. There is plenty of secondary material. But if 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:57.360 you read secondary material people who already have a take 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:02.959 on it, and maybe we were not as familiar as 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:09.280 they could have been with this primary material, then you're 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.760 not really getting down into where the history was being formed. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:20.560 And it was also my conviction that all of the 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:27.040 material I was looking for was present in the periodicals 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:31.760 and newspapers that spiritualists themselves were producing back in those days. 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:38.040 You know, they would often give lists of platform mediums 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.960 and where they were going in their lecture tours and 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:46.520 so on. They would also give criticisms of one another, 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:52.800 um on this point at that point, who was marrying who, 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.680 who was dissing who? Um. Those kinds of things are 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:01.400 not readily available, and they were only in these periodicals. 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.400 So in order to get hold of these periodicals, I mean, 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:10.080 these were this is ephemera, you know, and a lot 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:15.520 of if you think about it, librarians, who an archivists, 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:23.280 who would be expected to um collect and preserve such materials, 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:28.280 they were inclined. Over the century and a half since 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.840 these things were produced, they were quite inclined to de 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:36.360 accession these things at at their first chance, either about 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:40.200 of their own convictions or simply because I thought oh, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:45.040 this is kind of crazy, and I need the space here, 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.600 and let's throw away these fourteen volumes of the Banner 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:53.200 of Light or something. So in practice, what that meant 0:13:53.480 --> 0:14:00.720 was if you wanted to do primary research in that area. UM. 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.760 The collections were scattered all over the country, in fact, 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:09.079 all over the world. You might have a volume collected 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.400 here or in Washington and the Library Congress, or there 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:17.320 might be one UM at the New York Public Library. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.280 And so UM there was three or four of us 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:26.320 who decided, maybe we're getting to be sort of retired 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.760 gentlemen here or whatever, men of leisure or something like that, 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:34.320 and we're of the same conviction that we really couldn't 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:41.680 rely on UM secondary material. So we set off sort 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:47.440 of quixotic project to collect all this stuff. And one 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:52.800 of us, in particular, Mark Damrest, was quite skilled, and 0:14:54.400 --> 0:15:00.440 UM I t and decided that we could elect all 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.760 this and put it on a server. We could scan it, 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.760 We could go dust off stuff, travel here and there 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.520 on our own resources, and use our time and talent 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:16.680 to either photograph these things stuck in a corner somewhere 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:22.640 here and there, UM or shell out some bugs to 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:29.120 get the libraries themselves to make microfilm roles that we 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.320 could turn into O c R stuff and call it 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.000 at all and put it on the web. And wouldn't 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:40.000 that be a wonderful resource for everybody, so people wouldn't 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.080 have to go trudging around and sort of work in 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:47.520 the darkness. So that was the that's the inspiration for it. 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.280 And uh yeah, it really has been such a service. 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.280 Uh you know, of course I've been in offended from 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.240 it for this project, but just as I've been sorting 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.480 through the more recent secondary material that's been written since 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.280 those resources have been on the web, Uh, I see, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.480 I see the debt to you and Mark and and 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.360 the folks who have joined you over Power Vaney, the 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:16.520 other guy who has joined us was retired lawyer from 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:23.920 New York. He had spent probably years collecting microfilm roles 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.920 sticking him in his study. He bought a microfilm reader 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.440 and would put, you know, just for enjoyment. Instead of 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.240 other people who might, you know, turn on a football game, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.240 he would go into his study and load one of 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:43.120 these microfilm rolls on and read the Um Spiritual Telegraph 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.040 from eighteen sixty four and just to have a good 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.800 old time. So he was a really primary resource for 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:56.080 us at the beginning, especially at the beginning. Uh, this 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.960 kind of creates an interesting bridge back to what spiritual 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:05.040 us we're doing with publishing. How would you describe what 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:09.199 spiritualists were doing with various kinds of technology. I mean, 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.400 there was lots of experience, experimentation, and interest in both 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.359 spreading news but also figuring out how to communicate across 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:21.920 new horizons. And I see almost some parallels between I mean, 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.720 what kind of what we're doing now with podcasting, but uh, 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:26.920 you know where every kind of group has a podcast 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:28.760 or a website or a blog, or what you were 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:30.960 doing with digitizing saying we can put this out on 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.680 the web. We can. Um, can you talk a little 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:38.080 bit about how spiritualists in the nineteenth century engage technology 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:44.160 and communication and how that was really tied into the movement. Well, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.880 there's several things that we could talk about there. One 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:54.240 of them is essentially the newspapers from periodicals themselves. There 0:17:54.280 --> 0:18:01.800 weren't that many spiritualists around the country, but um, they 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:07.560 formed a definite group and had related interest. And the 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:13.280 newspapers weren't local newspapers, they were national newspapers. They were 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:19.760 always conceived of is that way, um, And so they 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:24.640 functioned as a sort of social media platform I guess 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:29.080 you could say, in a primitive way, uniting people who 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:35.919 were surrounded by seeds of unbelievers and had you know, 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:40.160 allowed them to basically talk to each other. So that's uh, 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:45.919 that's one way in which they used their you know, 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:51.560 the emerging technology of newspaper distributions and subscription lists and 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.760 cross references and so on. So it was an interesting 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:00.000 time in the history of newspapers itself in the United States, 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:06.280 and spirituals took full use of that made you full 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:11.439 use of that. So that's one thing. But there's another 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:17.959 issue that's quite striking about spiritualism in general. There was 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:26.439 an emergence during this time of new technology that was 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:32.320 an inspiration to them religiously. I think you'd have to say, Um, 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:39.520 it looked to them like harnessing of previously invisible forces 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:48.840 steam electricity, and there were inventions that suggested to them 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.919 that there was there were things in the world that 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:59.920 hadn't been seen before, powers and potentialities that were being 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:07.360 revealed to them unmistakably. Spiritual telegraph, which is the name 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:12.080 of one of the main papers back then took its 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:20.719 name from this kind of inspiration. The electronic telegraph had 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:25.680 just been demonstrated, and it was a miracle. Basically, too 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:33.160 many many people, and there was some real conviction that 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.720 there were things going on, that we're turning the times 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:46.160 into a new era, a new age, and that it 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.000 was it was you could think of it as a 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.440 sort of secular millennium. Heaven and Earth were being joined, 0:20:53.640 --> 0:21:00.760 the visible and invisible, Spirit and matter were coming close together. UM, 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:05.080 the dead and the living would walk together. Space and 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:12.440 time would be annihilated. And it was exciting too many 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.800 people and a hopeful and optimistic time that it was 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:24.960 also somewhat distressing, UM annihilated. I think if you look 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:35.639 at there's one particular story of called the Celestial Railroad 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:47.359 that was written by UM David Thorow, and this story 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:53.760 is about a gentleman who gets on the railroad at 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.840 some place I forget anyway, All the points along the 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:02.760 way are are named for the points of progress that 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:07.760 the pilgrim makes in the old Pilgrim's Progress story. And 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:11.760 by getting on the railroad, he just sails on past 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.720 the slough of Despond and Vanity Fair. He just sees 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:21.800 out the window and it sails right onto you know, 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:26.720 the Heavenly City. But as he's moving into the Heavenly City, 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.640 waiting for the final stop, it does occur to him 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:32.879 whether or not this this is going to be heaven 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:37.600 or it's something like it's reverse. Um. There was plenty 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.119 of anxiety as well as optimism about it. And I 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:43.159 think this is one of the things that made people, 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.720 you know home for the best with the secular millennium 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:52.280 that was upon him. So I think the spiritualists were 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:57.760 both impressed and put somewhat at sea with the rest 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.919 of everybody else about this new world that was opening 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:07.119 up before them. And there are a few spiritualist inventors 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:13.160 who try to create technologies that will capture or become themselves. 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:17.040 A spiritual telegraph that will allow spirits to speak to people. 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:19.960 You you write about John Mary Spear and there's a 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:25.440 god machine. Uh. Decades later, there's the psychophone, right. Yes, 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:33.880 there's a whole a series of machines for connecting humans 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:41.439 with the other world. Um. And one of our co 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:47.680 directors on the IP project, Brandon Hodge, really has made 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.840 that his specialty. He's a collector. If you walk through 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:57.000 his house. It's kind of scary anyway. But he's collected 0:23:57.040 --> 0:23:59.800 plan chats and whigy board to do all kinds of stuff. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.240 He's very well up on this. This is really his his, 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:08.959 He's Bailey Wick. But yes, there was But they didn't 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:13.879 just focus on machines to contact make contact between the 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.639 living and the dead, but they also put their minds 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:21.840 at work to try to get inspiration spirit help to 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:27.800 invent new machines that would that would help everybody. John 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.639 Murray spirit you mentioned, he worked on under the conviction 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:37.320 that the spirits could give him and his fellow workers 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:43.280 new ideas for patenting. They would avoid the patents of 0:24:43.320 --> 0:24:49.000 the singer and how for perfecting the sewing machine and 0:24:49.560 --> 0:24:54.600 spend quite a bit of time trying to um materialize 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:57.320 those I guess you would say, into a workable machine. 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:04.480 Another spirit actualist you claim to have invented vacuum canning. 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:09.240 I think she did actually, So there were people that 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:14.560 were looking who who are thinking about inspiration in a 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:21.760 new way, were open to ideas that they didn't know 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:24.920 where where they were coming from. I think everybody actually 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:30.520 has such experience of feeling that they've been inspired by 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:36.639 in the creative act inspired by ideas that don't seem 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:40.320 to them to be connected with anything that they actually 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:46.440 tried to figure out to work from. And spirituals were very, very, 0:25:46.560 --> 0:25:51.080 very much of that mind that goes way back right 0:25:51.320 --> 0:25:55.080 to the idea of the muse. Yes, I think so. 0:25:56.160 --> 0:26:03.040 I think the muses personific asian of something mysterious that 0:26:03.960 --> 0:26:07.040 that works inside you. You know, in some ways you 0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:14.280 can you can see there something that connects spiritualist movement 0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:20.160 which began late eighteen forties with the earlier Romantic movement UM. 0:26:20.200 --> 0:26:24.640 They two were very much impressed with UM the idea 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:29.919 that poetry was a holy art and you could be 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:41.640 inspired by resorting to non non rational faculties and powers 0:26:41.680 --> 0:26:48.320 that were beyond your little self, And in the thirties 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:53.640 and forties kind of seating the ground for modern spiritualism. 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:56.840 There was all kind of interest in uh mesmerism and 0:26:56.960 --> 0:27:01.480 animal magnetism and um magna of ties, chances and some 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:05.240 of those practices that were considered kind of new horizons 0:27:05.240 --> 0:27:09.119 of applied science of the of the human person, of 0:27:09.160 --> 0:27:11.600 the mind of the soul. Can you talk a little 0:27:11.600 --> 0:27:15.240 bit about how those ideas laid the groundwork for what 0:27:15.280 --> 0:27:24.560 would become spiritualism. Okay um. Historically, there was a French 0:27:24.640 --> 0:27:31.119 mesmerist who whose name was Charles Poya, who decided to 0:27:31.400 --> 0:27:36.120 come to America and give a series of Mesmerick demonstrations, 0:27:36.200 --> 0:27:40.000 as he called them, and spent most of his time 0:27:40.040 --> 0:27:45.959 around New England giving demonstrations of what we would recognize 0:27:45.960 --> 0:27:55.040 as hypnosis, and it very much impressed people. Um, and 0:27:56.040 --> 0:28:05.200 it created a rowing mass of other mesmeric demonstrators, demonstrators 0:28:05.280 --> 0:28:10.320 who applied their way around the country, showing off what 0:28:10.480 --> 0:28:14.719 was possible here and the sort of miraculous things that 0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:20.960 that people under hypnotic control could be expected to do, 0:28:21.400 --> 0:28:26.760 one of which was clairvoyance. Some of their mesmeric subjects 0:28:26.800 --> 0:28:31.879 were seemed to be capable of leaving their bodies and 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:36.080 traveling other places, coming back and reporting to the audience 0:28:36.320 --> 0:28:40.600 details that they couldn't know. Um. They might be able 0:28:40.680 --> 0:28:46.520 to report being able to see into other people's bodies 0:28:46.840 --> 0:28:54.080 and figuring out diagnosing their diseases and prescribing what would 0:28:55.000 --> 0:29:01.520 cause them to heel. Um. This was a shock to people, 0:29:02.680 --> 0:29:07.520 and I think it was, as he said, laid the 0:29:07.520 --> 0:29:14.680 groundwork for the possibility that um, well, you know, in 0:29:14.720 --> 0:29:17.080 a larger sense, I think you can see him during 0:29:17.080 --> 0:29:24.080 that time that what we call the self was a 0:29:24.200 --> 0:29:28.080 mystery was being revealed as a mystery, that that it 0:29:28.200 --> 0:29:35.600 wasn't unitary, or there was something underneath, hidden underneath, beyond 0:29:36.600 --> 0:29:40.360 what was on top of your consciousness that usually identified 0:29:40.400 --> 0:29:44.720 as yourself. You know, people who are speaking about main 0:29:44.840 --> 0:29:50.480 narratives here. It is often said that one of the 0:29:50.560 --> 0:29:54.760 crises of modernism a modern man that threw man into 0:29:54.800 --> 0:30:03.840 a dizzy. I mean capital M. Here was um for 0:30:02.200 --> 0:30:08.160 a for ad Darwin. But in Fred's case it was 0:30:08.360 --> 0:30:12.440 that he discovered and made plausible the notion of a 0:30:12.520 --> 0:30:17.960 subconscious But in fact um this was an issue, had 0:30:18.040 --> 0:30:23.200 been an issue um and a matter of much anxiety 0:30:23.240 --> 0:30:27.320 back into the late eighteenth century. And the people that 0:30:27.440 --> 0:30:34.520 were wandering around showing off their mesmerism, Um, we're certainly 0:30:34.600 --> 0:30:38.680 part of that. I don't know what you called uh 0:30:39.160 --> 0:30:46.360 discussion or um in the broader public realm didn't demonstrating 0:30:46.440 --> 0:30:50.640 that there were other things going on inside the self 0:30:50.680 --> 0:30:56.160 that might not be a parent At the same time, Uh, 0:30:57.040 --> 0:31:00.560 there are also changes in American religion. You write a 0:31:00.600 --> 0:31:03.000 lot in your book The Other Side of Salvation about 0:31:03.000 --> 0:31:09.720 connections between especially universalist ministers and spiritualists in the eighteen 0:31:09.760 --> 0:31:14.240 forties and eighteen fifties. Can you talk a bit about, um, 0:31:14.440 --> 0:31:18.880 the way that Universalism's place in American religion, uh was 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:28.880 another piece uh of preparing the ground for spiritualism. Yes, okay. Um. 0:31:29.120 --> 0:31:35.560 Universalists were people who generally were what they called come 0:31:35.600 --> 0:31:42.120 outers of established religion. Now come outers as a term 0:31:42.200 --> 0:31:45.560 that they lifted out of a reference to the Book 0:31:45.600 --> 0:31:51.680 of Revelation where the Holy people are advised to come 0:31:51.720 --> 0:31:57.200 out of Babylon the fallen and go off into the wilderness, 0:31:58.000 --> 0:32:03.400 separate themselves. And so yeah, Um, there were many people 0:32:03.440 --> 0:32:07.400 who formed groups that I thought of themselves as come 0:32:07.400 --> 0:32:13.760 outers from either established religion or established government. And um, 0:32:13.920 --> 0:32:19.440 America was full of utopian projects and communes and so on, 0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:25.120 always has been, and the universe less in particular work 0:32:25.240 --> 0:32:31.800 come outers of what they called orthodoxy. That it's probably 0:32:31.840 --> 0:32:36.200 a too narrow a term to really understand without comment. 0:32:36.760 --> 0:32:44.280 What they meant by orthodoxy was a form of congregationalism 0:32:44.280 --> 0:32:48.200 based on mostly on what they understood of John Calvin. 0:32:49.280 --> 0:32:53.720 And the reason they came out of it was or 0:32:54.120 --> 0:32:57.800 or said that they came out was because they they 0:32:57.920 --> 0:33:05.600 were anxious. Seemed they were oppressed by the notion that, um, 0:33:05.600 --> 0:33:11.440 that there could be a god who would ah force 0:33:11.560 --> 0:33:20.000 people into endless misery and that such people couldn't act 0:33:20.840 --> 0:33:26.080 two affect that from their reading of Calvinism, it seemed 0:33:26.080 --> 0:33:28.960 that they were cut off from heaven, they were cut 0:33:29.000 --> 0:33:34.960 off from any effort to change their destiny, and that's 0:33:34.960 --> 0:33:40.640 a hard load to bear, and so they declared for 0:33:40.800 --> 0:33:47.120 universal salvation instead. All people would be saved in some ways. 0:33:47.200 --> 0:33:53.280 It's taking Calvin and turning him on his head. M 0:33:53.280 --> 0:33:59.680 So that was how exactly they came out, um, but 0:34:01.640 --> 0:34:05.840 I mean humans are humans. So they immediately began arguing about, well, 0:34:06.880 --> 0:34:11.240 if if everybody goes to heaven straight off, no matter 0:34:11.320 --> 0:34:14.320 what they've done on earth, then that means, for example, 0:34:14.440 --> 0:34:22.120 that Judas, who hung himself after betraying Christ, got to 0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:27.160 heaven before Jesus did his master are you know, posing 0:34:28.760 --> 0:34:34.200 sort of extreme consequences on each other to try to 0:34:34.280 --> 0:34:39.279