WEBVTT - 7: The Fool's Golden Rule (Espiritismo and Spiritual Churches) 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.520 I'm going to try something a little different, and by 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.560 something a little different, I do mean go to a 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:17.880 haunted museum. The library at Cassadega offered a number of 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.840 interesting offerings when it came to spiritualist literature, but not 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.840 much in the way of cultures existing outside of the 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.240 white metal class in the nineteenth and twentieth century. So 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:35.240 I'm hoping that Sea Green's Haunted History House and Museum 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.320 will be better. It's in this little purple building near 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.080 the teeny tiny post office that's almost always closing, and 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.280 it looks and sounds like a bit of a tourist trap. 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.279 But I happen to know that it used to be 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:53.120 a Cassadega History museum before being rebranded to be a 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.760 little more pop culture touristy, and I hope there's still 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.960 some of that inside. It's not like an official part 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.959 of the camp and is not claimed or vetted by 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.680 the mediums. So you'd think that Sea Greens can get 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.440 a little loosey goosey punk rock with how they present 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:14.360 their history. Ten bucks later, I'm in. Actually, I did 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.480 have to gently reject the manager who was trying to 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:19.679 sell me a haunted doll for twenty dollars on the 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.120 way in. Like, look, I have twenty dollars, but I 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.600 just don't want a haunted doll. I'm flying spirit airlines 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:28.720 on the way home. Do you really think we can 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.240 afford the risk? We cannot. But I'm in the museum, 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.560 and as I suspected, a lot of newspaper clippings and 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:42.360 primary resources around Cassadega and twentieth century spiritualism are still here. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.440 It's really just a matter of finding them among the 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.760 many framed movie posters, and my favorite, a full sized 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:55.800 jigsaw doll on a little tricycle jigsaw from Saw. Actually, 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.440 if you haven't seen Saw, stop the podcast right now 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.600 and go watch Saw. At least Saw one. Some of 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:07.800 the best sociological storytelling of our lifetimes is contained in 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:12.040 James Wand's Saw Saga. Actually, on one of my first 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.079 dates with the guy that I eventually lost my virginity too, 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.720 on August two ten, we watched five Saw movies in 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.160 one sitting. Did not take a peabreak, did not kiss, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:27.080 should have married him, didn't became a comedian. You know 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.600 where that gets you? You start doing some gonzo stuff, 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:31.640 Where does that get you? I'll tell you where that 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.120 gets you Central Florida in the middle of the day 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.640 in a haunted museum, sitting next to a jigsaw doll 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.440 the size of a human three year old. Not too bad. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.200 I have no regrets. To quote a hot Dog Bun 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.760 I saw in Toledo last summer, we wear the chains 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:52.160 we forge in life, which I agree with the spirit 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.600 of There's other factors at play, for sure, but I 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.560 see where the hot Dog Bun was going with it. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.440 Where are we We're at a haunted museum, and honestly, 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.040 there's more useful information here than I was expecting. There's 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:08.400 acknowledgement of the Fox sisters, for example, including the fact 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.840 that they had claimed at one time that spiritualism was 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:16.600 a hoax. The museum also includes the admission that spiritualism 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.680 had experienced a decline in the late nineteenth century, something 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.840 you would not catch the camp sanctioned mediums fessing up to. 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.600 There are some references to indigenous culture, but they're about 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.360 on par as anywhere else in the camp. There's this 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.240 small room right past the entrance that references Native culture. 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.280 They certainly have more books than the library did on 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.760 the subject. But the twist is you're not allowed to 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.880 touch the books. Here there's this little laser jet printed 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.440 sign with a drawing of the girl from the movie 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.320 The Ring, the one who crawls out of the TV 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.640 seven Days to Live. The sign says this, please don't 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.440 touch books. Some are so old they will fall apart. 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.440 Some are haunted. Either way, it won't work out well 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.880 for you. Thanks management and the indigenous imagery they do 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.360 use in the room ranges from innocuous to outright offensive. 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.880 There's this flickering red light bulb to set the tone 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.000 for the haunted museum. There's a couple of figurines depicting 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:20.279 Native life. There's the first of many scary mannequins scattered 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:24.200 throughout the building that the owners dressed in iParty costumes 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.600 to fit the theme of any given room, and make 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:32.160 no mistake, I love the haunted mannequins, but the haunted 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.320 mannequin in the Indigenous History room does seem to be 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.359 wearing a costume that was left over from Disney's Pocahontas, 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:45.760 so not great representation wise. In a different room, there's 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.880 a mention of voodoo practices in New Orleans, but it's 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.240 only in passing. Mostly just a couple of tourist posters 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.760 for other places in New Orleans. But even this is 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.400 more acknowledgment of other spiritual idea as in cultures. Then 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.360 most areas of the camp will do. I need to 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.320 get back to these mannequins for a second. The second 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.240 mannequin you encounter at Sea Green's haunted History House and 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.440 Museum has been attempted to be dressed as the Cassadega 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:20.599 Camp founder George Colby. Now the management must know they're 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.719 not dressing the mannequins very convincingly. This one, for example, 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:28.359 is a female coated mannequin wearing a Mark Twain wig, 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.640 complete with handlebar mustache and a suit that is at 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.880 least two sizes too large, So you can only tell 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.120 who the mannequin is intended to be by the sticky 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.960 hello my name is George name tag they've attached to 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.440 the lapel. But even around this silly mannequin, there are 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.200 some little historical documents. In this case. Newspaper articles from 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.039 the eighties and nineties headlines like Cassadega mediums have the 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:59.160 right spirit, spiritualists converse with the dead and living tourists 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.480 and a very optimistic Cassadega springing back after a period 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.600 of decline. There's also some esoteric history I've never heard 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:12.120 about until coming here. One exhibit shows letters between President 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.320 Harry Truman and a d o J employee named William Underhill, 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:20.120 who was a spiritualist and at one time managed the 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:25.000 Cassadega Hotel. So it has its problems, but Sea Green's 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.080 Haunted History House and Museum is iconic. They get all 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.359 of the history out of the way in their first 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.919 couple of rooms and then just make a hard mostly 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:39.280 irrelevant to spiritualism, pivot into ghostie pop culture and media. 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.000 After that. Instead of, for example, a room full of 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:47.640 information on spiritism and a spiritismo, there's a whole wall 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.400 of framed pictures of those neckbeards on the Sci Fi 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.600 channel who claimed to hunt ghosts. There are brief, factually 0:06:54.720 --> 0:07:00.839 questionable explainers on things like tarot cards, reading tea leaves, palmistry, astrology, 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.279 a pile of Jack Skellington toys. Why not, and not 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.599 to go back to the mannequins again, But since I 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.680 know you're curious, here are my top three mannequins. At 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.840 the first is a woman dressed as a pilgrim who 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.920 has my haircut, and her name tag reads hello, my 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.160 name is Priscilla, the Puritan Queen of the desk Okay. 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.120 Coming in at number two. Male mannequin dressed in iParty 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.320 griffin door robes. His name tag says hello, my name 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:33.200 is Neville. Then my bottom is not that long? Horrible. Finally, 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:38.840 a mannequin that is also a huge gorilla wearing sunglasses, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.520 a hat from disney World and a Pride bandanna with 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.360 a name tag that says, and you're not ready for this? Hello, 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.440 my name is George. There's two. George is the founder 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.520 of the camp and also a gay gorilla. Amazing. No 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.920 notes if you don't want to visit this museum at 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.200 this point, I don't know how else to sell you on. 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:04.280 The history here is minimal. For sure. There's no reason 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.320 a history museum needs a wall full of clown masks, 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.160 or a wall full of dead baby dolls, or a 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.200 whole room dedicated to things that are just vaguely scary. 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.480 I couldn't get a read for the theme on this room. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:22.400 It's madness, it's anarchy. But it's also the only place 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.280 you see even an attempt to touch on other spiritually 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.760 based religions. However poorly done. And it's poorly done. So 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.240 this week on Ghoest Church, I want to create a 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.920 little audio room for two religious movements that were heavily 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:42.720 influenced by American spiritualism, A Spiritismo and the Black spiritual 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:48.160 Churches of America. So hop on your tricycle, my little jigsaw, 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.520 because the theme song is I'm bailing on It. I'm 0:08:52.520 --> 0:09:19.600 bailing on It. Music playing us jash and good look. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.840 Welcome back to my little slice of central Floridian paradise 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.840 where I'm returning to my hot waterless hotel room at 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.520 the Hotel CASTI day go to sit through the notes 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.079 I took away from the library the evening before. It 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.920 was a weird night in more ways than one, but 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.040 there's no time to think about that right now. Instead, 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:14.600 I flipped through the pictures I took on my phone 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.840 of book pages that stuck out to me in the moment, 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.160 and I asked my spirit guides, which I'm remembering correctly, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:27.400 is a guy named Dawn, a lady named Helen, a swan, 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:33.079 and two archangels. I asked them to show me something. 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.360 Here's what I know. Spiritualism was far from the only 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.000 white dominant religion to make their way on stolen land 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:45.760 in Florida during the late nineteenth century. Baptists and Methodists 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.000 came to the area less than twenty years before, and 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.480 Protestants only had a twenty three year head start on 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.760 the Spiritualists in forming a permanent presence in Volutia County. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.720 I wasn't aware of the majority of the actual history 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.719 behind the land that Cassadega was settled on when I 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.640 arrived at the library in town for my two hour 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.280 cram session. I wanted to sort of experiment and see 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.760 how much the library would teach me and how vested 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.400 the spiritualists who lived there now are in acknowledging any 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.559 history that isn't directly taken from the mouths of settlers 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:25.040 who got them started. As you know by now, there 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.000 wasn't too much. One of the books had caught my 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.400 attention from across the room. Had had this bright blue 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.680 cover a little older and in gold script it said 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:42.240 what is spiritualism and who are these spiritualists? And I thought, yeah, exactly, 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.360 I should call my podcast that I want to know. 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.880 So I opened the book the page eight and there 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:55.200 is a prominent heading that reads spiritualism is not spiritism, 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.760 So let me be the first to say yes, m no, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.640 they are not the same systems of belief, but, like 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.160 their names would indicate, there is a lot of shared 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.439 history and ideas between these movements. But this book is 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:17.679 pretty aggressive in distancing spiritism. Page eight reads this spiritualism 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.959 must be differentiated from spiritism. The terminologies of the two 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:27.199 words absolutely necessitate, as every scholar knows entirely different meanings. 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.400 Chinese Indians and Utah Mormons are spiritists believing in present 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.840 spirit communications. Most of the African tribes of the Dark 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.240 Continent worshiped demons believe in spirit converse, but certainly they 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:44.199 are not intelligent religious spiritualists. Holy shit. In addition to 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:49.360 being outwardly racist, most of this information is wrong, and 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.200 so to any current practicing spiritualists that denies a history 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.840 of racism within the religion, that's your book, you guys. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.320 It's likely that spiritism specific glee as being singled out 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:06.160 here because of its popularity among people in Puerto Rico, Cuba, 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:11.880 and Brazil. So this library does mention spiritism, sure, but 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.839 not in a kind way, which is a shame, because 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:20.040 spiritism is inherently influenced by spiritualism and is the core 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:27.080 of Espiritismo, possibly the widest practiced version of spiritualism today. 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.400 So a quick history, So how do you get from 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:37.360 spiritualism to a spiritismo? In short, Hydesville and the Fox 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:42.800 Sisters led to spiritualism. In the eighteen forties, Spiritualism inspired 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.839 a French guy named Alan Cardick. Alan Cardeck did some 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:51.800 investigations of spiritualist phenomena and modified the beliefs to call 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.480 it spiritism. Cardick writes a book that arrives in Latin 0:13:55.559 --> 0:14:00.120 America and is a huge hit. In Latin America, there 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:04.119 were large amounts of people from Africa brought and enslaved 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:08.760 by colonizers, which led to blending their spiritual traditions with 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.439 cardex ideas that were popping off in the area. And 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:17.679 this is approximately how a spiritusm began, a variation on 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.880 American spiritualism, whose exact beliefs and rituals vary with some 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.880 significance depending on the region it's being practiced in. The 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:30.400 most popular areas include Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, and 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.720 each branch is influenced by some degree by the indigenous 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:40.880 cultures of these countries and indigenous African spirituality. So to start, 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.440 who is Alan Cardik? First things first, that's not his 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:51.040 real name. His real name sounds expensive. It's hippolyte Leon 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:57.520 de nizard reveil Okay King Mr. Four names. Was raised 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.160 in France as a Roman Catholic the early eighteen hundreds 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.280 and didn't develop an interest in even the concept of 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:09.160 the seance until he was in his fifties and encountered spiritualism, 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.360 so he became interested in the movement the Fox Sisters 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.120 had began around the same time a lot of people did, 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:19.880 but he approached examining spiritualist phenomena with the mind of 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.800 an academic kind of skeptically, and so upon investigating on 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.640 his own terms, he was quick to dismiss Franz Mesmer's 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.880 theory of animal magnetism and stated on many occasions that 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.680 there was a high likelihood that there was some fraudulence 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.240 at play with a lot of the medium's working, particularly 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.680 those that were doing the really spectacular physical stuff, but 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.840 he didn't think it was all bullshit. Alan Cardick did 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:54.760 not claim or endorse the full spectrum of spiritualist phenomena 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.120 and all of its spirit photography habitet acts, spirit hands, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.000 and ectoplasm. And I know I still have to tell 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.280 you about ectoplasm, but it's not going to happen this week. 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.800 I think it's going to happen next week, So relax. Hell. 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:16.440 After investigating Alan Cardick boiled down his beliefs to the 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:21.840 following simple statements. True mediums could provide information that they 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.080 couldn't have known at the beginning of a reading. True 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.000 mediums could demonstrate the skills a spirit had that they 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:34.240 themselves didn't possess. I think a specific handwriting, speaking the 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.840 language they didn't know. All that good stuff. And finally, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:42.480 true mediums were able to communicate or even mimic the 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:48.120 personality of a specific individual that had died. Cardiac called 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:53.400 his scale back belief system Spiritism Original tent out of ten, 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.800 and he published his first and most successful book on 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.880 the subject, which was basically five hundred or so question 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:04.160 and answers on what spiritism did and did not endorse 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.000 in eighteen fifty seven. And if you thought the belief 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.560 system sounded like a ripoff of spiritualism, wait till you 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.720 hear the name of his book. It is the Spirit's Book. Wow. 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.080 I mean, look, he was an academic. He was not 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.720 an artiste. Not everyone to think of an incredible name 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.240 like ghost Church, which I did not think of. My 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.000 producer Sophie thought of it, so thank you Sophie. Anyways, 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:35.159 as creative genius Alan Cardiac explained it, spiritism was about 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.920 uniting three of the main interests of the nineteenth century together, 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:46.520 those being science, philosophy, and religion under a singular belief system. 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.840 In some ways, it was much easier to buy into 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:54.320 Spiritism because of its clarity. The Fox sisters had assembled 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.200 the belief system of Spiritualism kind of in real time 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.200 in this chaotic way, and didn't have a lot of 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.800 control over dictating what they did and did not think 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.760 was real. In the case of Cardec and Spiritism, the 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.800 Spirit's Book was far better equipped to serve as a 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:16.359 sort of alleged scientific endorsement to mediumship as well as 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.480 I viewing the moralistic ideas that tend to define religion, 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.000 and for its time, it's a pretty progressive text. It 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.679 endorses the idea of evolution, a theory that some public 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:33.240 schools still won't teach, and at the time Darwin's theory 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:37.160 had been published less than twenty years before Cardek started writing. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:42.320 The book also incorporated Eastern reincarnative ideas in a way 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:46.960 that spiritualism proper always skewed a little too Christian to 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.840 commit to. Many branches of a spiritismo uses Cardek's work 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:57.600 heavily influenced by spiritualism as sort of the foundation. In general, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:02.320 a spiritismo requires belief in an omnipotent God and belief 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.919 in the spirit realm. Like American spiritualism's sexy signature blend 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.919 of a non wrathful but still basically Christian God without 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.280 all of the heaven, hell and brimstone. A spiritismo believes 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.440 that spirits inhabiting our bodies can evolve over time in 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:25.120 their morality, and that communication with a spiritistas or mediums 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:29.520 basically will help facilitate this process of growth. Other shared 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:34.800 practices include trans mediumship, or a medium's ability to become 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.359 possessed by a spirit and completely change their voice and 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.640 mannerisms in the process. You might remember this phenomena when 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:47.920 I shared a clip of Reverend Dr Louis Keith channeling Lucerne. 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.880 You pick your time of us down to the very 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.240 second of your all time. You pick your time when 0:19:55.280 --> 0:20:00.360 you enter this aspect and you pick your birthdage months day. 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.280 You pick your name long before you get here, whether 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.359 you like it or not. Another blend of indigenous traditions 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:13.240 combining with spiritualist ideas was the a spiritus most spin 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:18.040 on the seance, the mesa or mass that required practitioners 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:22.879 gather around a mesa or table, often with additional rituals 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.919 or embellished altars that could include goblets of water flowers, 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:32.879 small statues and figurines, tobacco and candles. Music can be 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:37.640 integral to the experience. In her paper Spiritist mediumship as 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:42.800 historical mediation African American pasts, Black ancestral presence, and Afro 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:48.680 Cuban religions. Researcher Elizabeth Perez described lyrics that maybe understood 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.199 as products of the Cuban and Puerto Rican histories from 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.360 which they emerged, rich in the experiences of women, persons 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.440 of African descent, and those from the lower classes, excluded 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:01.240 from the official histories, yet still resonant to day. Unlike 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:06.959 spiritualists in Cassadega, those practicing a spiritismo tend towards group sciences, 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.560 not the one on one sessions that are commonly practiced 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.920 in Lily Dale, Cassadega, and other camps. So Alan Cardix book. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.760 The Spirits Book became very popular in several countries that 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.960 were in a state of physically and intellectually violent colonial 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.240 flux throughout the nineteenth century, and the branches that develop 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:31.000 tend to be very specific to the culture, history, and 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.280 moment of the area they existed in. I wanted to 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:38.919 give examples of a few different branches here, including Puerto 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:44.200 rican A Spiritismo, a Spiritismo de cardon A, Spiritismo Cruisal, 0:21:44.680 --> 0:22:00.680 and Santa Rismo, each having very unique traditions. Let's start 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.760 in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico had been colonized by Spain 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.840 back in the fifteen hundreds. Spain brought disease and religion 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:14.440 and kidnapped enslaved people, and like most imperialists and express 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:18.800 desire to quash the indigenous cultures and practices that predated 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.879 their invasion. Many African enslaved people, forcibly brought to the 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.840 region were from the Yoruba land region of Africa that 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:31.360 includes what is now Nigeria, the Binian Republic, and Toba. 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:36.960 Their beliefs included spirit communication and many different gods and goddesses, 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.560 just as different indigenous American groups slowly pooled their ideas 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:46.040 with other groups, tribes, and often escaped slaves taking refuge 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:50.520 in Spanish Florida, a new system of beliefs began to emerge, 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:55.280 what is now known as Puerto Rican espiritismo. This combination 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:59.359 of Yoruba practices and that of indigenous Puerto Rican people 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:03.320 known as Tanos, also brought in the concept of metaphysical 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:08.960 healing and the use of some physical mediumship meaning tobacco spells, etcetera, 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.560 and even some Spanish folk medicine found its way into 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:16.720 the evolving spiritual culture. The concept of healing was a 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:19.840 significant part of a spiritismo, to the point where an 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:24.760 entire branch, a Spiritismo di Cordon, was built around the concept. 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:28.800 These sounds like rituals would generally consist of a circle 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.639 of people chanting, swinging their arms and beating the floor 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:36.920 until a hypnotic trance state was achieved. It's said to 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.960 be a very intense ritual mentally, physically, emotionally, with no 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:46.000 real leadership system except for a head medium who would 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:49.480 purify the room to protect others from bad spirits before 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:52.639 a ritual began. What I also think is really interesting 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:56.040 is that these ceremonies tend to have a very open 0:23:56.160 --> 0:24:02.000 door policy. This particular branch blended elements of Catholicism, Kardecian 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:06.240 Spiritism which does sound like star Trek, and Tana religious rituals, 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:12.280 implementing dances called aratos. Alan Cardick's work became popular among 0:24:12.440 --> 0:24:17.640 different classes in different ways. Different classes tended to practice 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:22.320 with different ceremonies, and the upper class remained most engaged 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:26.920 in espiritismo during wartime. A good example of this is 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.040 the Ten Years War, a conflict that began in eighteen 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:33.760 sixty eight in which Cuba fought Spain for their independence 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:38.240 and were supported by Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Dominican volunteer 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:42.160 troops who shared their struggle. This was the most engaged 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:45.159 the middle class had ever been with the movement, as 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:48.440 they began to lose soldiers who they knew. This is 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.800 very similar to what was happening in the Continental US 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:55.159 with the Civil War around the same time. Because of 0:24:55.359 --> 0:25:00.160 the variety of blended cultures and political tensions, even war 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:04.359 branches of a spiritismo developed in Puerto Rico. One leaned 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:08.119 further into cardex work and was called White Table a 0:25:08.200 --> 0:25:13.200 Spiritismo for the seance table, while others used American spiritualisms 0:25:13.280 --> 0:25:17.480 increasing popularity as a means to practice their indigenous religion 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:22.360 that had been deemed uncivilized by the imperialists, such as 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:26.400 the Congo religion. Over in Cuba, losses from the Ten 0:25:26.520 --> 0:25:31.560 Years War increased a spiritis most popularity and spiritual beliefs 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:35.800 brought by an increasing number of enslaved African people helped 0:25:35.960 --> 0:25:39.720 shape the ideas further. For the record, slavery was not 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:44.520 abolished in this area until eighteen eighty six. This particular 0:25:44.640 --> 0:25:48.920 offshoot was called a spiritismo cruise Ou, which pulled from 0:25:49.160 --> 0:25:54.280 some Catholicism and another African diasporic religion called Palo that 0:25:54.480 --> 0:25:58.320 developed among enslaved people in Cuba. They would use Palo 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:03.280 cauldrons and others significant objects while still observing Catholic saints. 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:08.040 Because this branch was innovated and frequently observed by enslaved people, 0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:12.840 spirits channeled would often be deceased enslaved people who spoke 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:16.280 Bosol Spanish, which was a dialect that was developed out 0:26:16.320 --> 0:26:21.199 of necessity that combined the colonizing enslaver's language with ki Congo, 0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:25.399 a Bantu language spoken by enslaved people who were originally 0:26:25.560 --> 0:26:29.800 from the Congo. This branch of the spiritismo is alter heavy. 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:33.320 I think photos of the dead candles to summon their 0:26:33.400 --> 0:26:38.879 specific spirit. And finally, there was Santa Rismo, a blend 0:26:39.080 --> 0:26:43.199 of you guest it Spiritismo and Santoria, which was one 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:46.760 of the most popular religions innovated in the nineteenth century 0:26:46.920 --> 0:26:51.760 in Cuba. Santoria is an African diasporic religion that combines 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:56.320 elements of the Yoruba religion from West Africa, Roman Catholicism, 0:26:56.680 --> 0:27:00.119 and spiritism. As written by Kardak in their prod Do, 0:27:00.160 --> 0:27:04.239 says mediums can communicate with spirits while themselves possessed by 0:27:04.359 --> 0:27:09.800 the dead. Leaders include the Godfather and Godmother Awesome aka 0:27:10.000 --> 0:27:14.200 the Padrino and Madrina, who conduct mediumship sessions around a 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:18.320 table and play or sing Afro Cuban chants and prayers 0:27:18.600 --> 0:27:22.359 to attract good spirits. Rituals would sometimes end with a 0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:27.880 ceremony called sahumerio, a purification ritual that uses charcoal, garlic, 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:31.560 and herbs to extract evil spirits and wash them away 0:27:31.760 --> 0:27:36.720 with blessed water. A Spiritismo at large became extremely popular 0:27:36.880 --> 0:27:40.960 and outlived the American spiritualism craze in the continental US, 0:27:41.240 --> 0:27:45.040 which had pretty thoroughly wound down by the nineteen twenties. 0:27:45.600 --> 0:27:49.280 Even though a Spiritismo was banned during the Cuban Revolution 0:27:49.359 --> 0:27:52.240 in the nineteen fifties, the movement didn't die out. It 0:27:52.440 --> 0:27:56.159 was just forced underground, and there are plenty still practicing 0:27:56.320 --> 0:28:00.320 in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Brazil now, with Brazil aiming 0:28:00.600 --> 0:28:04.360 nearly four million practicing members as of two thousand ten. 0:28:05.160 --> 0:28:10.240 Spiritismo and if many forms tells the story of forced enslavement, 0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:14.960 of imperialism, of an underclass combining multiple systems of belief 0:28:15.040 --> 0:28:19.200 for their circumstances. Should any of it had to have happened, No, 0:28:20.000 --> 0:28:23.560 these circumstances were born of oppression, which makes it particularly 0:28:23.680 --> 0:28:29.520 relevant that a spiritismo and spiritualism are enmeshed in this optimism, 0:28:29.960 --> 0:28:32.920 the idea that what is coming next will be better 0:28:33.280 --> 0:28:36.960 than what you're experiencing now. So I decided to ask 0:28:37.080 --> 0:28:42.280 an expert. Dr Carlos Camacho is a sociologist whose dissertation 0:28:42.480 --> 0:28:48.440 is called Navigating Ocha LGBT Practitioners, Participation and Navigation of Lukumi. 0:28:48.880 --> 0:28:51.600