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The Spiritualism Movement Was Utterly Ridiculous, Part One: A Prank Goes Viral · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Wait, I hear in other worldly
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Speaker 1: knock on that door? Who is that? It's our guest
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Speaker 1: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan.
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Speaker 2: The ghostly apparition of Dylan Rapp tap tappin the very same,
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Speaker 2: very same, But that is a quote.
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Speaker 1: You are, Noel Brown. I am Ben Bollen. We have been, uh,
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Speaker 1: we've been fascinated for a long time about the idea
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Speaker 1: of you know, wija boards and mediums and psychics, and
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Speaker 1: the fact that pretty much from the moment humans started
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Speaker 1: human being, everybody has been understandably concerned about what happens
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Speaker 1: after they die.
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Speaker 2: Oh a million percent. I mean it's it's the foundation
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Speaker 2: of so many belief systems and debates as to where
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Speaker 2: you go and how you get there, and who's right
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Speaker 2: and who's wrong. I mean, Ben, it's it often. It
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Speaker 2: gets people pretty heated.
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Speaker 1: It does. People are at the risk of this beat
1:39
Speaker 1: a hot take. People are a little bit sensitive about
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Speaker 1: whether or not an echo of you persist. When your
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Speaker 1: body fails, does your consciousness go somewhere does it simply disappear.
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Speaker 1: And like you said, Nol, there are tons of religions
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Speaker 1: and belief systems that claim to have the answer, but
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Speaker 1: humanity is yet to land on a shared universal explanation
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Speaker 1: that everybody and their mom takes as fact. It's not
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Speaker 1: to say people haven't tried, but in the spirit of
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Speaker 1: this for our series this week, this will be a
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Speaker 1: two parter, we decided to call up our own ghost
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Speaker 1: from years gone. The rumors are true. After we shout
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Speaker 1: this guy out in the credits all the time, we're
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Speaker 1: welcoming back, Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quister. But you're reformed now.
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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. I'm
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Speaker 3: merely an elder statesman in podcasting.
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Speaker 2: Exaggerated by me. I'm always throwing around death it all
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Speaker 2: the time.
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Speaker 3: If it's wishful thinking in the case of Noel. But
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Speaker 3: you know, we love each other obviously, obviously, so I'm
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Speaker 3: very flattered to have been asked back, especially on this topic.
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Speaker 3: Quick personal story, when I was a student in elementary
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Speaker 3: school way back when. We'll probably cover some of the
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Speaker 3: time period when we get there, because that's how old
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Speaker 3: I am. But when I was a student in elementary school, I,
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Speaker 3: to the surprise of no one here, would frequent the
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Speaker 3: school library and the section I consistently went to was
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Speaker 3: the quote unquote non fiction books about the paranormal and
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Speaker 3: the supernatural. So I would check out the same books
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Speaker 3: over and over, even like just rereading ones I had
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Speaker 3: read all the way through what.
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Speaker 1: Are we talking here? John? And are we talking?
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Speaker 2: Like manuals on how to summon a specter?
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Speaker 3: There were no Tobin spirit guides in our elementary school library. No,
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Speaker 3: I'm thinking about things like deep Fried Rat I think
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Speaker 3: was one of the names of one. It was all
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Speaker 3: about urban legends and things of that nature.
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Speaker 2: Those were popular, like at the scholastic book fairs, right
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Speaker 2: remember this, Yeah, like, yeah, all kinds of urban legend
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Speaker 2: books and conspiracy type books. Not to mention those kind
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Speaker 2: of There are books for kids that, when you look
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Speaker 2: back on them, were pretty grizzly.
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Speaker 1: And scary stories to tell the dark. It's a banger.
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Speaker 1: It's some of the best folklore out there.
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Speaker 3: My dad wrote some of those. So, but this was
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Speaker 3: when I was a kid, it was before that kind
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Speaker 3: of trend had started taking off. But I would read
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Speaker 3: all the books on things like you know, you know, lockness,
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Speaker 3: monster or ghost stories or things about spiritualism and mediums
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Speaker 3: and such. And one of my favorite stories I wanted
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Speaker 3: to relate to you before we really jump into it.
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Speaker 3: Have you guys heard of a fellow named James Tidwell?
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Speaker 3: Not okay, so mid nineteenth century. This guy he was
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Speaker 3: like he had he had the deck stacked against him.
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Speaker 3: He was really short, like somewhere around four foot two.
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Speaker 3: But he became a prominent spiritualist in Maryland, and the
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Speaker 3: Baltimore Sun even had the great story that I'll talk
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Speaker 3: about in the second. But anyway, he became known as
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Speaker 3: this incredibly charismatic person who, despite his stature, was able
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Speaker 3: to get an enormous following. But he also became known
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Speaker 3: for bilking people out of huge amounts of money in
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Speaker 3: an effort to try and get them connected to their
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Speaker 3: their deceased loved ones.
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Speaker 1: Now that doesn't sound like something one of these folks
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Speaker 1: would do.
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Speaker 3: I know, right, So law enforcement became very interested in him,
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Speaker 3: and at that point he he made tracks which prompted
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Speaker 3: the Baltimore Sun to run the wonderful headline small Medium
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Speaker 3: at Large that.
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Speaker 2: He made this whole story up Dombastard.
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Speaker 1: We stared at this is the ridiculous history of this movement.
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Speaker 2: I was on board with this, Hootale.
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Speaker 1: Thanks, this is the ridiculous history of the spiritualist movement.
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Speaker 1: We have returned. No one really can prove what happens
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Speaker 1: after you die, to everybody else's satisfaction. Hence we have
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Speaker 1: things like spiritualism. How would we describe.
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Speaker 2: That, well, Spiritualism is a movement that started in the
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Speaker 2: nineteenth century in America and Europe, you know, based on
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Speaker 2: the notion that one could communicate with the dearly departed,
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Speaker 2: and that they in some shape or form had the
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Speaker 2: ability to interact with the living. And these you know,
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Speaker 2: kind of self proclaimed spiritualists for better or words, whether
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Speaker 2: they actually believed in these abilities or whether they were
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Speaker 2: just outright you know, hucksters, sought to make contact with
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Speaker 2: the dead, usually through a form of seance. The term
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Speaker 2: medium is often thrown around as in being sort of
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Speaker 2: like a go between, uh, you know, to sort of
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Speaker 2: channel the the the dad, you know, and to crossover
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Speaker 2: from this mortal coil into you know, the the world beyond.
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Speaker 2: And you know, these spiritualists, some of them, I think,
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Speaker 2: actually genuinely did believe that they were able to contact spirits.
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Speaker 1: We could even call them some of the original rappers
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Speaker 1: because they were wrapping knocking in terms of their communication,
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Speaker 1: kind of like clever hauns. Yeah, but that was but
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Speaker 1: but that was a scam. So you know, yeah, I'm
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Speaker 1: playing a seed with.
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Speaker 3: Some good to have some horse sense before you.
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Speaker 2: Little horse, little horse play horsing around guys. My, I
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Speaker 2: think I've maybe mentioned on the show before. My mother
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Speaker 2: was an opera singer and an opera that she often
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Speaker 2: did that I remember very fondly. It's got some pieces
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Speaker 2: in It's more of like a operetta, I guess, but
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Speaker 2: it's I don't know, it doesn't feel like a traditional opera.
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Speaker 2: It's called The Medium by gian Carlo Manati. Folks may
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Speaker 2: know this composer from a very popular piece he did
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Speaker 2: called A Mall and the Night Visitors, which is a
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Speaker 2: tale of the you know, the wise men and all
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Speaker 2: of this stuff. It's often, you know, performed at churches.
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Speaker 2: But The Medium is about this woman who is a medium,
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Speaker 2: who has a mute assistant named Toby, who kind of
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Speaker 2: does all of the light behind the scenes rap tap
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Speaker 2: tapping and stuff and it doesn't get a lot of love,
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Speaker 2: and I really think some of the music in it
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Speaker 2: is utterly gorgeous. So do check out the medium if
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Speaker 2: anyone's interested in, you know, seeing a musical rendition of
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Speaker 2: the kind of stuff we're talking about today.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll see it in a lot of film and fiction.
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Speaker 1: This trope is a hard baked, deeply ingrained phenomenon in
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Speaker 1: horror and fantasy and entertainment because from the nineteenth to
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Speaker 1: the twentieth century this was a genuine craze. This was
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Speaker 1: all over the zeitgeist. People from all imaginable demographics and
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Speaker 1: walks of life genuinely seemed to believe that a combination
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Speaker 1: of science and religion could create a new understanding of
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Speaker 1: what happens after you die, could prove and after life existed,
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Speaker 1: and that further, certain very special people were able to
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Speaker 1: bridge the gap between the living and the debt.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you might actually wonder why this even happened, Like,
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Speaker 3: why did this trend.
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Speaker 1: Because you could pay them?
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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that's the very important part, is the payment part,
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Speaker 3: which stretches into today. But yeah, we'll talk later about
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Speaker 3: some of the elements. But I think it was a
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Speaker 3: convergence of factors that came together that kind of sowed
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Speaker 3: the seeds that would grow into spiritualism. Because it's one
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Speaker 3: thing to say this was a craze, but it's another
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Speaker 3: thing to say, but why that craze at that time?
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Speaker 3: And I don't think there's a single answer for that,
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Speaker 3: but I do think there's a lot of really interesting
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Speaker 3: different answers that all contribute to it.
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Speaker 2: Well, it's always made me wonder too. I mean, being
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Speaker 2: the United States was still quite a religious place, you know,
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Speaker 2: as so many of these religious leaders, how this stuff
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Speaker 2: wasn't looked upon as heresy or in some way offensive
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Speaker 2: to God, because I mean, this idea that of the
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Speaker 2: ghosts exists kind of implies that, I mean, they didn't
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Speaker 2: go to heaven.
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Speaker 1: Well, they were also this interesting because here we get
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Speaker 1: into something that would be called heresy in the past.
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Speaker 1: And as we'll see, not all of the skeptics were
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Speaker 1: necessarily atheist. A lot of the most famous ones were,
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Speaker 1: but there were some people who were skeptics because this
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Speaker 1: stuff in the spiritualist movement did not jibe with their
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Speaker 1: existing understanding of religion. So like, okay, you're always gonna
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Speaker 1: hear it this way, folks, Our story begins in upstate
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Speaker 1: New York in the eighteen forties. So many things do.
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Speaker 1: But we'll get to that. But I think we can argue,
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Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians, the story actually begins way way earlier,
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Speaker 1: when an absolute legend named Emmanuel Swedenborg or Seedenborg starts
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Speaker 1: doing some really weird stuff. Oh my god, he's such
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Speaker 1: a weird dude. He's an episode. We should do an
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Speaker 1: episode on Johnatha.
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Speaker 2: Can you make with the star trek puns for Swedenborg?
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Speaker 2: I could, but I was immediately thinking of Gutenberg. Also
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Speaker 2: true because Gutenberg the musical. The villain consistently mispronounces Gutenberg's
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Speaker 2: name is Gutenborg. Ah, let's not forget about Steve Gutenborg
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Speaker 2: from the Police Academy movies that Ben's loves so dearly it's.
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Speaker 1: Uh, and also mispronounced someone's name. It's one of those
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Speaker 1: tiny nags right with his little moves. Uh. We likes
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Speaker 1: doing that, sure does. And we also have to know
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Speaker 1: for the record, our buddy Manny, I'll call him Manny.
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Speaker 1: He is cartoonishly Swiss. His name For all of us
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Speaker 1: etymology nerds, his name literally translates to something like sweden Castle,
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Speaker 1: Can we call him sweets? Yeah, of course, yeah he was.
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Speaker 3: He was so sweet Swiss that he always had a knife,
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Speaker 3: a toothpick, a.
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Speaker 2: Saw tweezer song in his heart.
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Speaker 1: He was like, uh, he would uh, he would return
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Speaker 1: cheese if it didn't have holes in it. That's how
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Speaker 1: Swiss this guy is.
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Speaker 2: And if he got a piece of cheese with with
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Speaker 2: no holes in it, he damn well use that Swiss
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Speaker 2: army knife to make some He sure did.
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Speaker 1: And who knows back then, maybe they just called it
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Speaker 1: the army knife. That's true, sort of like the Irish
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Speaker 1: car bomb.
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Speaker 2: Nobody in Ireland wants to hear about the God as
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Speaker 2: a beverage. Come on, as a as a novelty cocktail.
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Speaker 2: Come on, that's like having it's like over here having
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Speaker 2: a cocktail called the nine to eleven.
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Speaker 3: Let's uh, let's let's leave the truck, let's leave the
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Speaker 3: troubles behind us. Do talk about and talk about this guy,
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Speaker 3: because so we're talking about someone who is formative in
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Speaker 3: the foundation of spiritualism, but this is also someone who
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Speaker 3: was a legit smarty pants type of person, right, We're
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Speaker 3: not Yeah, we're not talking about someone who's who just
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Speaker 3: like spontaneously gets this this uh, this hair, this wild
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Speaker 3: hair about about us convening with the dead. This is
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Speaker 3: someone who was a learned man.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, gives it some sand, you know, I mean we
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Speaker 2: I think we're all, especially on stuff they don't want
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Speaker 2: you to know. Often fascinated between the crossover between science
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Speaker 2: and the paranormal. We have an interview with an incredible
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Speaker 2: physicist named Russell targ who was responsible for training CIA
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Speaker 2: agents how to become psychic. The man who is incredibly learned,
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Speaker 2: has a background in all of the foundations of science,
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Speaker 2: and yet truly does believe that these things are possible,
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Speaker 2: which really makes you think twice about, you know, calling
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Speaker 2: someone like that a fraud.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and our buddy Manny at this time to
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Speaker 1: that beautiful point about science and spirituality converging again. He's
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Speaker 1: born in sixteen eighty eight, he lives until about seventeen
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Speaker 1: seventy two. To your point, Jonathan, he's a scientist, he's
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Speaker 1: an engineer. But wait, there's more. As Billy Bays was
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Speaker 1: wont to say, he's an astronomer, a philosopher, an inventor,
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Speaker 1: a Christian theologian. And then in seventeen forty one, he
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Speaker 1: is fifty three years old, and he starts to have
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Speaker 1: things that rock his lived experience. He has very vivid
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Speaker 1: dreams and he has waking visions. And these are not
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Speaker 1: one offs. They accumulate and escalate over time, all leading
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Speaker 1: to Easter weekend. It's April sixth, seventeen forty four, and
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ from earlier reaches out to Manny.
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Speaker 2: Directly from earlier? Is they see himself from before?
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Speaker 1: Right?
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Speaker 4: I mean?
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Speaker 3: And he had a lot of stuff to do that weekend.
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Speaker 1: He's a busy guy.
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Speaker 2: What would he do is the question that you often
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Speaker 2: see on people's little wristband. That's right, yeah, tell you
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Speaker 2: what he would do. He would reach out to Swedenborn.
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Speaker 1: And say, hey, you guys humans, great hustle on the
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Speaker 1: whole Christianity thing, humbly named. I need you to write
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Speaker 1: the truth about the world and life and death and
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Speaker 1: heaven and hell. I need you to write something called
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Speaker 1: the Heavenly Doctrine. You're the only guy who can do this.
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Speaker 1: Thanks great call.
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Speaker 2: This is some gold Tablets Joseph Smith type origin story.
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Speaker 2: You know, Emlily made me think of that one hundred percent.
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Speaker 2: But the question then becomes like, is this a person
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Speaker 2: who is mentally unwell, who is having an episode, or
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Speaker 2: is this someone who is divinely contacted uh and compelled
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Speaker 2: to write, you know, a work that could be seen
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Speaker 2: as a sacred.
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Speaker 3: Text, or or possibly someone who sees opportunity. Because I
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Speaker 3: don't think it's I don't think it's either or I
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Speaker 3: think there's a third option.
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Speaker 1: That's very true.
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Speaker 2: There is a secret third thing that you just illuminated
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Speaker 2: so well, so to accomplish this task that he was
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Speaker 2: tasked with. And again we're just we're speaking speculatively here.
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Speaker 2: God gave Swedenborg. Uh, well is it was it Jesus
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Speaker 2: or was it God? I guess they're one and the same,
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Speaker 2: depending on you know.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's the Holy Ghost of hanging around somewhere too.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, they franchised.
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Speaker 2: So he gifts Swedenborg with some some abilities.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he says, Okay, Manny, you can now freely visit
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Speaker 1: heaven and Hell, and you can talk with the angels,
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Speaker 1: you can talk with the demons, you could talk with
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Speaker 1: other spirits. And then this continues for years. By the way,
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Speaker 1: Manny feels that he is in communication with the divine
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Speaker 1: and later God or Jesus Christ if you like, tells manny. Oh,
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Speaker 1: by the way, the last judgment was also a real thing.
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Speaker 1: It already happened in seventeen fifty seven. You're in the aftermath. Okay.
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Speaker 2: I do like the detail here, Ben, because I think
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Speaker 2: the question that I posed earlier about how some of
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Speaker 2: this stuff jibed with you know, more religious outlooks. This
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Speaker 2: guy claimed to be able to dip right on into heaven,
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Speaker 2: you know, whereas I think when we think of ghosts
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Speaker 2: and content them, we think of ones that are sort
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Speaker 2: of still hanging around.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he has this. Okay, So he writes prolifically.
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Speaker 1: Over the last a little less than thirty years of
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Speaker 1: his life. He has eighteen published theological works we could
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Speaker 1: call him, and even now in twenty twenty six, he
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Speaker 1: has more stuff that was never officially published. The guys
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Speaker 1: on a roll. This is his new mission, and all
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Speaker 1: of his or a lot of his proposed discoveries, like
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Speaker 1: the pivotal ones, are way different from earlier accepted Christian thought.
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Speaker 1: To your question, he describes immediate death as kind of
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Speaker 1: going to a bus station or an airport terminal for
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Speaker 1: the dead.
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Speaker 2: You get the waiting room, beetlejuice.
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Speaker 1: It just so yeah, yeah, So he says the real
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Speaker 1: architecture of the afterlife is going to be three heavens
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Speaker 1: and then three hells and this, you know, this airport
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Speaker 1: terminal kind of you get stranded there, and if you
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Speaker 1: love yourself too much, then you end up going to
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Speaker 1: one of the hells, and if you love other people enough,
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Speaker 1: you end up going to one of the heavens.
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Speaker 2: Are these are there degrees of these hells like Delta?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Is there a hierarchy?
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Speaker 1: Is there?
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Speaker 3: Like medallion Lewest lowest level of lowest level of heaven
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Speaker 3: is steerage exactly right, you know.
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Speaker 1: But boy do they dance down there?
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Speaker 2: Boy do they just cut a rug, do a jig?
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Speaker 1: Such a can you imagine? What what is economy basic heaven?
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Speaker 3: Well, you're not allowed any carry ons unless you pay extra, okay, right,
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Speaker 3: you don't get to pick your seat, right.
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Speaker 1: And uh, you have to negotiate the arm rest.
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Speaker 3: That's right, if you're in the middle. If you're in
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Speaker 3: the middle, then technically they both should be yours.
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Speaker 2: The medal is like comfort plus, I guess, and then
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Speaker 2: the top one is you know, proper business class, Yes, right,
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Speaker 2: Delta one right, and so you can.
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Speaker 3: Tell we're located in Atlanta with Delta Ta.
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Speaker 1: We're a bit cartoonishally in that sandbox. Yes, so our
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Speaker 1: buddy Manny or Swedenborg, because I'm being a bit too
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Speaker 1: familiar with him. He further said, I pretty much have
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Speaker 1: the world's most the metaphysical version of the best passport ever.
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Speaker 1: I have encountered and spoken with spirits on every possible
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Speaker 1: plane of hell and heaven and that weird waiting room.
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Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, he said Robin Williams character in
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Speaker 1: What Dreams May Come? He loved that movie. He loved
20:46
Speaker 1: it so dear I did it.
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Speaker 3: The thing I like best about that is that it
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Speaker 3: later would get remade in a movie titled Looper.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh man, Looper. Have you guys seen no
20:57
Speaker 1: of you seen Looper.
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Speaker 2: I've seen Looper. Yeah, I do like Looper. I don't
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Speaker 2: understand the connection between Looper and What Dreams May Come.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of about the spiritualism movement, really, is what
21:08
Speaker 1: Looper is.
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Speaker 2: It could also think it was about time travel types.
21:12
Speaker 2: It could it could be a very long running, terrible
21:14
Speaker 2: inside joke between me and Ben Bolan.
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Speaker 1: I see, okay, I am out in the cold on
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Speaker 1: this one. Guys.
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Speaker 2: All I remember about What Dreams May Come is that
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Speaker 2: hell was Hella bad cgi. That's all I remember. Max
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Speaker 2: von Seido on it.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's a psychologist. You really see the glowing
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Speaker 1: edges of the green screen around all of the bodies.
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Speaker 2: I remember.
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Speaker 3: I remember wanting that movie to be better than what
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Speaker 3: it was.
21:39
Speaker 1: Beautiful. I remember watching it and thinking if I didn't
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Speaker 1: speak English, I would love this even more. It also
21:47
Speaker 1: features a good friend of the show, Cuba Gooding Junior
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Speaker 1: uh nol.
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Speaker 2: That's an inside joke between me and Beat. That's not
21:55
Speaker 2: a joke at all, just a harrowing tale being accosted
21:58
Speaker 2: by Kuba. It's true, Jonathan, have we not told you
22:03
Speaker 2: this story? I have not heard it.
22:04
Speaker 3: But I think, boy, unless your listeners have never heard
22:07
Speaker 3: the story, maybe we could move it along and we'll
22:09
Speaker 3: talk about it.
22:09
Speaker 2: He forced me a chicken wing, that's all. He forced
22:12
Speaker 2: bild a chicken.
22:14
Speaker 1: So along with okay, along with clearly What Dreams May
22:19
Speaker 1: Come and Looper fan Swedenborg, there's another guy who influences
22:24
Speaker 1: the spiritualism movement. His name is Franz Mesmer. He's the
22:29
Speaker 1: inventor of the very humbly named mesmerism.
22:33
Speaker 2: I can't say it without wiggling your fingers.
22:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so let's get some quick background on Franz.
22:43
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, why don't you give it to us? Jonathan
22:45
Speaker 2: all right?
22:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, So eighteenth the tree, So we're still talking at
22:48
Speaker 3: seventeen hundreds here Australian healer. By the time you get
22:52
Speaker 3: all the way up into early mid century nineteenth century.
22:58
Speaker 3: The idea is that he was talking about we're starting
23:01
Speaker 3: to make their way over to uh, the not so
23:04
Speaker 3: New World at this point, but you know, the United States,
23:07
Speaker 3: and uh we have a great quote from the Smithsonian
23:12
Speaker 3: which is quote mesmer proposed that everything in the universe,
23:16
Speaker 3: including the human body was going.
23:18
Speaker 1: By Jonathan Nold Dylan and I are so sorry. Could
23:22
Speaker 1: you please do it in one of your legendary European accents? Oh?
23:27
Speaker 3: Yes, quote because of the European curators of the Smithsonian.
23:33
Speaker 1: Sure, here we go. Quote.
23:37
Speaker 3: Uh, let's see, I'll do I'll do English because I
23:41
Speaker 3: feel good about that, right, So we'll do nice posh English.
23:44
Speaker 1: I feel great about that. Yeah, here we go.
23:47
Speaker 5: Messmen proposed that everything in the universe, including the human body,
23:53
Speaker 5: was governed by a magnetic fluid that could become imbalanced,
23:57
Speaker 5: causing illness, but wive in his hands over a patient's body,
24:00
Speaker 5: he induced a mesmurized, if not a state that allowed
24:05
Speaker 5: him to manipulate the magnetic force and restore ealth. Amateur
24:09
Speaker 5: mesmerists became a popular attraction at parties and parlors, a
24:13
Speaker 5: few proving skillful enough to attract paying customers. So we
24:16
Speaker 5: awake in from a mesmeric trance claimed to have experienced
24:20
Speaker 5: visions of spirits from another dimension.
24:23
Speaker 1: God, it look like a pocket or two.
24:26
Speaker 3: Thank you. A man's got of heart, hasn't he?
24:32
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I I so little little thing I want
24:36
Speaker 4: to throw in here that's interesting to me is you
24:40
Speaker 4: have to keep in mind that this is also around
24:42
Speaker 4: the time when uh, the scientific world.
24:47
Speaker 3: Is starting to investigate electromagnetism. Right, magnetism itself had been
24:52
Speaker 3: observed for millennia, but this is a time where electromagnetism
24:57
Speaker 3: is starting to be examined. Not understood yet.
25:02
Speaker 2: But exam It wasn't until the insane clown Posse came
25:05
Speaker 2: along that we fully understood and they really asked, how
25:08
Speaker 2: do magnets work?
25:09
Speaker 1: Uh?
25:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can you know, you're seeing forces that
25:15
Speaker 3: are able to act upon one another without any visible interaction, right,
25:20
Speaker 3: So that I think also helps support these beliefs that
25:27
Speaker 3: something spiritual either is happening there or could also happen.
25:31
Speaker 3: Because if you can have an invisible force in front
25:36
Speaker 3: of you, like you can see that there's something happening,
25:39
Speaker 3: but you can't see what the actual force is, then
25:42
Speaker 3: why not a spiritual force as well?
25:44
Speaker 2: So what was gravity? I mean fully, I mean it
25:47
Speaker 2: would have been under so.
25:48
Speaker 3: That would that didn't come out until the two thousand
25:50
Speaker 3: centri bullet hadn't been born.
25:52
Speaker 1: Yet, right right right? Yeah?
25:54
Speaker 2: No, but I mean the notion of a gravity being
25:56
Speaker 2: an invisible force.
25:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I gea, you see the effects, right, but
26:01
Speaker 1: you don't see the mechanism at place exactly.
26:04
Speaker 2: It's also a little less sexy than magnets because you
26:07
Speaker 2: can totally use magnets to do all kinds of woo
26:09
Speaker 2: woo looking stuff.
26:10
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, absolutely people did. Yeah, So we have one
26:16
Speaker 1: more guy to add to our origin story here, Andrew Jackson.
26:21
Speaker 1: Wait for Davis, so not the other Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson.
26:26
Speaker 1: Davis comes along way after Manny and Mesmer, and this
26:32
Speaker 1: guy strikes me as I'm gonna be unfair. Here, he
26:36
Speaker 1: strikes me as kind of a a train kid like.
26:42
Speaker 1: He strikes me as one of those woo woo guys
26:44
Speaker 1: you might see in certain areas of different cities. Here
26:48
Speaker 1: we have little five.
26:49
Speaker 2: Right, he's walking around with a dog with a bandana.
26:52
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe reading your cards, you.
26:54
Speaker 1: Know, right, yeah, yeah, nailed the dude. He's a self
26:57
Speaker 1: described seer and he's and he's a faith healer. And
27:02
Speaker 1: he says, Okay, I'm going to take the ideas of
27:05
Speaker 1: Mesmer and Swedenborg and I'm going to put them together
27:10
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go into Mesmeric trances, and Nanny
27:15
Speaker 1: Swedenborg himself is going to speak to me. And I'll
27:19
Speaker 1: record these messages and I'll publish them in a huge book,
27:25
Speaker 1: actually very long book called The Principles of Nature, Divine
27:30
Speaker 1: Revelations and Devoice to Mankind. Hmm, very humble. I'm intrigued.
27:37
Speaker 3: This also makes me think of a Joseph Smith kind
27:40
Speaker 3: of story. Right, It's somewhere like now a step removed,
27:44
Speaker 3: where you're not talking to an angel or to God,
27:48
Speaker 3: but rather someone who claims that they commune with God
27:52
Speaker 3: and angels and demons as well.
27:54
Speaker 2: I know a guy who knows a guy always a
27:57
Speaker 2: little sus when someone says they're the only one they
28:00
Speaker 2: can do the thing, and that you get, you know,
28:03
Speaker 2: speak through them.
28:04
Speaker 3: I mean there was a long history of that though,
28:07
Speaker 3: right session Exactly, you look at you look at the
28:11
Speaker 3: the Catholic Church, and that's the whole foundation of you
28:15
Speaker 3: have the designated person who is able to commune directly
28:20
Speaker 3: with God, starting with the Pope and then trickling down.
28:23
Speaker 2: And forgive me for being suspicious of those folks as well.
28:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, but saying that, saying that, uh, you know, they
28:31
Speaker 3: were cribbing from well written notes that have been around
28:35
Speaker 3: for ages, right, And we.
28:37
Speaker 1: Were also going to at this point note that we
28:41
Speaker 1: are not casting aspersion on anybody's personal beliefs or short ideology.
28:49
Speaker 1: Your path is your own. We might not follow it.
28:53
Speaker 1: I think the four of us know each other pretty well,
28:56
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm pretty read up on your
29:00
Speaker 1: small spiritual leanings. But we are acting in good faith,
29:05
Speaker 1: unlike some mediums when we say there's always a question
29:09
Speaker 1: about profit and popularity with these people, uh, p R
29:13
Speaker 1: O F I T as well as p R O
29:17
Speaker 1: F p R O P H E T. So probably
29:21
Speaker 1: got the profit. You got there. I got there eventually,
29:23
Speaker 1: it took a long walk for it.
29:24
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think, you know, there's a lot
29:26
Speaker 2: of things that are very, very powerful and you know,
29:30
Speaker 2: useful in religion, and I think people there are certain
29:33
Speaker 2: people that follow it as a way of life that
29:38
Speaker 2: allows them to be empathetic and kind to others. And
29:41
Speaker 2: you know, your beliefs being your own. But I just
29:44
Speaker 2: personally kind of have a problem with someone that says
29:47
Speaker 2: I'm the only.
29:48
Speaker 1: Way for you to talk to God like that just bugs.
29:51
Speaker 3: Me inherent If everyone in religion conducted their way similar
29:59
Speaker 3: to how mister Rodgers did, I would be I would
30:02
Speaker 3: be beside myself and I would love to see that.
30:05
Speaker 3: But I understand exactly where Ben and Nola are coming from. Like,
30:08
Speaker 3: I too respect people's beliefs, but I do not respect
30:13
Speaker 3: those who would prey upon others and specifically target vulnerabilities
30:19
Speaker 3: that their target audience have in an effort to benefit themselves.
30:25
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, when we're talking about spiritualism, maybe not even
30:30
Speaker 3: a majority, but certainly a significant number of practitioners were
30:34
Speaker 3: doing exactly that.
30:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it starts with uh, we'll give you the
30:40
Speaker 1: straight poop. It starts with a prank that goes out ahead.
30:43
Speaker 1: So all right, it's eighteen forty seven. Our guy, Andrew
30:47
Speaker 1: Jackson Davis takes the work or the beliefs of these
30:51
Speaker 1: other two dudes, mixes it all together and says, bit
30:56
Speaker 1: of a cosmic gumbo. Bit of a cosmic gumbo. We
30:59
Speaker 1: used to joke about that on set. And that's eighteen
31:04
Speaker 1: forty seven right. One year later, in eighteen forty eight,
31:07
Speaker 1: he believes that his prediction about his spiritual understandings is
31:13
Speaker 1: proven correct due to the infamous Fox Sisters. This is
31:19
Speaker 1: the origin story kicking into high gear. March thirty first,
31:23
Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight, Hydesville, New York, upstate. He got a
31:27
Speaker 1: teenager name's Maggie Fox. She's fourteen. She's got a younger
31:31
Speaker 1: sister named Kate who is eleven. They have an older
31:34
Speaker 1: sister named Leah that will get to later. She's living
31:37
Speaker 1: somewhere else. But these kids start doing a little pranky prank.
31:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you hear the story and you think, wow,
31:46
Speaker 3: this sounds kind of similar to other stories I have
31:49
Speaker 3: heard largely in the realm of poltergeist activity. You know,
31:54
Speaker 3: there's I would say there's some commonalities that exist across
31:58
Speaker 3: these stories, not to say that everyone involved in them
32:03
Speaker 3: manufactured the situation themselves, but certainly that was the case
32:09
Speaker 3: in some of these occurrences. And this is a prime example,
32:15
Speaker 3: and it makes me think, like, I don't know about
32:17
Speaker 3: you two, I'm sure that this is the case. But
32:20
Speaker 3: if you've ever told a little lie thinking this is
32:24
Speaker 3: just going to help me smooth this situation over, I
32:26
Speaker 3: just want this situation smoothed over, for whatever it may be.
32:29
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell this little lie. It'll get me
32:31
Speaker 3: through this. I'll be okay. But then people pay more
32:35
Speaker 3: attention to that little lie than they would have if
32:37
Speaker 3: you had just not said anything, and it would have
32:39
Speaker 3: been fine. So then you have to keep committing to
32:41
Speaker 3: the little lie, and you keep committing and like your
32:45
Speaker 3: life becomes very much entangled with this little lie until
32:48
Speaker 3: it's become a huge lie. I feel a lot of
32:51
Speaker 3: empathy toward the Fox sisters because I feel like they
32:55
Speaker 3: got caught up in that and at a certain point
32:58
Speaker 3: they could not extricate themselves because there was just way
33:02
Speaker 3: too much pressure to keep the story going.
33:05
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, okay, so again, I love that comparison. These
33:09
Speaker 1: are children, To be clear, these are not cynical, you know,
33:16
Speaker 1: late middle aged grifters. These are kids who one day
33:21
Speaker 1: tell their mom something is talking to us by knocking
33:26
Speaker 1: on the walls or the furniture, and we'll show you, mom.
33:31
Speaker 1: And the mom asked, how many children do I, mother
33:36
Speaker 1: fox have? And the spirit appeared to communicate the correct
33:41
Speaker 1: number of children through taps and knocks, and they later
33:50
Speaker 1: you'll hear this story describe different ways. But sometimes they'll
33:54
Speaker 1: say Maggie and Kate intentionally sought out a neighbor and
34:01
Speaker 1: chase them down to tell them the story. But then
34:03
Speaker 1: other times it sounds like they just ran into their
34:07
Speaker 1: neighbor and they said, hey, every night around bedtime, we
34:10
Speaker 1: hear a series of knocks and raps and they're definitely
34:14
Speaker 1: coming from some other worldly, intelligent force. And the neighbor says,
34:22
Speaker 1: you're like eleven and fourteen. Are you serious? But I
34:26
Speaker 1: don't have cable, I don't have television yet, I do
34:29
Speaker 1: need to be entertained. I'll go to your house. You
34:33
Speaker 1: show me what's happening. And they persuade the neighbor yeah.
34:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and it's it's an effective demonstration because to
34:42
Speaker 3: the neighbor's perspective, there's no visual cause of the rapping
34:48
Speaker 3: sound like, it's not obvious to the neighbor. And so
34:52
Speaker 3: the next conclusion they jump to is that some unseen
34:58
Speaker 3: force is making this noise. And again, we're in an
35:01
Speaker 3: era where unseen forces are becoming more and more of
35:05
Speaker 3: a known quantity. We don't understand them fully yet, but
35:09
Speaker 3: we're talking about things like electromagnetic radiation, where again you
35:14
Speaker 3: can't see it, but you can see the effects. So
35:17
Speaker 3: why not.
35:18
Speaker 1: And we've got to give credit here to the Fox family.
35:23
Speaker 1: They hear this news word is spreading around they're part
35:27
Speaker 1: of town, that something odd is going on at their household,
35:32
Speaker 1: and they make the decision that everyone should make at
35:36
Speaker 1: the beginning of a horror film. They say, we're going
35:40
Speaker 1: to leave.
35:41
Speaker 3: Too bad, we can't stay.
35:43
Speaker 1: Too bad, we can't stay. And they sent Maggie and
35:47
Speaker 1: Kate to live with their older sister, Leah Fox her
35:52
Speaker 1: married name was Leah Fox Fish over Rochester. And that's
35:56
Speaker 1: where things get interesting, because Rochester has its own sort
36:01
Speaker 1: of mil you or folklore or past.
36:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, this will become the birthplace of numerous movements, right,
36:12
Speaker 3: not just spiritualism, but others as well, which to me
36:16
Speaker 3: is just kind of again it's a convergence that I
36:19
Speaker 3: find really fascinating, Like I would love to learn more
36:24
Speaker 3: about the history and development of Rochester and what were
36:29
Speaker 3: the root causes or maybe root elements that kind of
36:34
Speaker 3: allowed this to foment, because it is maybe it's just
36:39
Speaker 3: coincidence and it has no connective tissue whatsoever. But I
36:42
Speaker 3: did not know any of this before we started putting
36:47
Speaker 3: these notes together.
36:48
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's your earlier point. This is
36:52
Speaker 1: the birthplace of Mormonism. The finger links reach it as
36:57
Speaker 1: well as Millerism, which eventually becomes Seven Day Adventism. So
37:02
Speaker 1: the local population, we could say, is already primed to
37:07
Speaker 1: question existing ideology or spiritual belief systems, and they're already
37:12
Speaker 1: primed to be open minded to alternate pitches.
37:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking after I
37:22
Speaker 2: posed that initial question about, like, you know, the religiosity
37:25
Speaker 2: of the United States, because it was at this point
37:30
Speaker 2: secularism was starting to creep in a little bit more
37:34
Speaker 2: and so it was a little more almost in vogue
37:37
Speaker 2: to question some of these norms, which is I think
37:40
Speaker 2: really the attitude that allowed this stuff to flourish.
37:50
Speaker 1: This is where we get to the upper crust of Rochester.
37:56
Speaker 1: Isaac and Amy Post. Now they're doing very well for
38:00
Speaker 1: their time and their area. They're not having the best
38:04
Speaker 1: personal life because they've recently lost a daughter. So they
38:08
Speaker 1: are intrigued by the story of the Fox sisters, especially
38:13
Speaker 1: this rumor that's been growing that says the spirit they
38:16
Speaker 1: spoke to in their original home belonged to a peddler
38:20
Speaker 1: who had been murdered five years earlier at the farmhouse.
38:24
Speaker 1: No one can prove it. Law in order SVU is
38:27
Speaker 1: not really a thing, right, nor is honestly forensic science.
38:33
Speaker 1: So from there, based off this story, the Post family says, hey,
38:38
Speaker 1: Fox kiddos, come to our house. We want to see
38:41
Speaker 1: if you can communicate with spirits in a different location.
38:46
Speaker 1: Whatever they heard, they were convinced. They said, hey, we
38:50
Speaker 1: can hear the Knox the raps. We think the older
38:53
Speaker 1: sister Leah is a medium as well. She put us
38:57
Speaker 1: in touch with our daughter. Know our daughter has recently died.
39:03
Speaker 1: This would prove to be the engine of spiritualism's success.
39:07
Speaker 1: To the earlier point, targeting the vulnerable.
39:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, grief is a powerful motivator, as we will see
39:15
Speaker 3: time and again when we go through these stories that
39:19
Speaker 3: it's what allows the opportunity for people who would take
39:23
Speaker 3: advantage of others.
39:25
Speaker 2: Hope as a hell of a drug, right it is,
39:28
Speaker 2: it is truly if you're offered that whatever, however long
39:33
Speaker 2: of a shot it might seem. And I've been watching
39:35
Speaker 2: this show, The Pit on HBO. It's like a hospital show,
39:39
Speaker 2: and there's a plot line where these parents have basically
39:44
Speaker 2: their child has potentially become brain dead due to a
39:47
Speaker 2: drug overdose, and they keep insisting on further tests and
39:52
Speaker 2: further tests and further tests, holding out the hope that
39:56
Speaker 2: one of these tests is going to be the one
39:58
Speaker 2: that truly allows them to believe that he might come back.
40:02
Speaker 1: And it's it's.
40:03
Speaker 2: It's heartbreaking to see because the doctor the whole time
40:06
Speaker 2: kind of knows that it's futile, but he also sort
40:09
Speaker 2: of on the fence because he wants to give them
40:11
Speaker 2: a little bit of hope. But some of his colleagues
40:13
Speaker 2: are like, it's false hope. But that's a tricky thing.
40:16
Speaker 3: This would also be when we'd see it had already
40:20
Speaker 3: been a technique for you know, for as long as
40:22
Speaker 3: humans have been able to manipulate one another, but sort
40:25
Speaker 3: of a codified approach to what we would call cold
40:28
Speaker 3: reading or or worm reading. You know, obviously, cold reading
40:32
Speaker 3: is where you go very general with your statements and
40:36
Speaker 3: then you start to see what's hitting and you gradually
40:39
Speaker 3: get more specific.
40:40
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you, I'm hearing you know a a person,
40:48
Speaker 1: I'm hearing their name is.
40:58
Speaker 2: Some people are better added than There's some mentalism involved
41:02
Speaker 2: in this idea of sort of reading the room and
41:05
Speaker 2: then listening and looking for certain tells, right, And I mean,
41:09
Speaker 2: folks that can do this convincingly are employing a lot
41:12
Speaker 2: of interesting techniques and bits of psychology.
41:16
Speaker 3: And of course sometimes it's not totally cold either. Sometimes
41:19
Speaker 3: they might go in with a point or two of
41:21
Speaker 3: data that they can use to kind of establish a
41:25
Speaker 3: foundation and then build upon it. And I'm not even
41:27
Speaker 3: suggesting that everyone who does this does so with the
41:31
Speaker 3: knowing intent to deceive. It may be that they are
41:34
Speaker 3: not really consciously doing this, but that is the same.
41:38
Speaker 3: They're essentially following the same roadmap. They just didn't do
41:42
Speaker 3: it in a malicious way. But there are plenty who have.
41:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, they drink through flavor age. Perhaps they believe. Yeah, okay,
41:54
Speaker 1: all right, we're here for the long haul.
41:56
Speaker 3: So the troubles, the troubles jonestown. Do we want to
42:00
Speaker 3: throw in any others in here?
42:02
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, we'll keep going. We'll see where we go.
42:05
Speaker 2: I mentioned nine to eleven one you did have a.
42:07
Speaker 1: Drink as a cocktail proposition and the okay, so the
42:11
Speaker 1: Post family they are impressed. They, for whatever reason, they
42:17
Speaker 1: genuinely feel the Fox sisters have connected them to their
42:22
Speaker 1: daughter who died too soon. They stage another get together
42:27
Speaker 1: in the largest public hall in Rochester. We're talking four
42:31
Speaker 1: hundred people coming to watch this show. Afterwards, skeptics examine
42:36
Speaker 1: the Fox sisters and they say, we have no idea. Oh,
42:41
Speaker 1: they could have faked these noises. They don't have any
42:43
Speaker 1: little hammers, clackers, or wood blocks or moroccas, which is
42:48
Speaker 1: a thing we don't know exist. At the time, they
42:51
Speaker 1: said to each.
42:51
Speaker 3: Other, same reason why they were having so much trouble
42:55
Speaker 3: with what dreams may come?
42:57
Speaker 1: You know? Right? Right? All right there we get to
43:03
Speaker 1: we can fast forward a bit. This is where we
43:05
Speaker 1: see our buddy Davis. He hears about the Rochester incident
43:11
Speaker 1: and he says, oh, Fox sisters come to my home
43:14
Speaker 1: in the Big Apple. Let me watch your show for myself.
43:18
Speaker 1: I want to figure out if it jibes with what
43:20
Speaker 1: I think about the universe and everything involved. And he
43:27
Speaker 1: knew this is again that third cynical point. He knew
43:30
Speaker 1: that if he co signed these kids and said they
43:35
Speaker 1: were legitimate mediums, then this could be good for his
43:40
Speaker 1: career as a self professed prophet.
43:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, typical agent.
43:47
Speaker 2: Right right, looking for the angle and the percentage. Thus
43:54
Speaker 2: was the birth of spiritualism, and business was hot, guys.
43:58
Speaker 2: It was really taken off.
44:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, it turns out at a lot of people are dying,
44:02
Speaker 3: so that that kind of helped.
44:04
Speaker 2: It is a it is a regular occurrence. It is
44:06
Speaker 2: sort of part of life. So spiritualism really really was
44:09
Speaker 2: off to the races. To your point, Jonathan, it appealed
44:13
Speaker 2: to Americans weary of the kind of more pedantic, kind
44:20
Speaker 2: of calvinistic approach to predestination. It allowed people that considered
44:26
Speaker 2: themselves to be reform minded open to new ideas of
44:32
Speaker 2: the mid nineteenth century. It was a great way of
44:36
Speaker 2: you know, kind of bolstering some of the beliefs about oneself.
44:40
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, you could feel like you could really manifest
44:43
Speaker 3: your destiny.
44:44
Speaker 1: Ut. Yeah, it has this new car smell to it.
44:48
Speaker 1: Spiritualism a lot of we talked about how a lot
44:51
Speaker 1: of Christian denominations, Catholicism in particular, make this big deal
44:56
Speaker 1: about the concept of intercession. You've got to have a
44:59
Speaker 1: middleman and between you and divinity. Spiritualism takes that old
45:04
Speaker 1: chestnut and kind of rolls it across the table. American
45:08
Speaker 1: spiritualists in particular are saying, Okay, I can have through
45:14
Speaker 1: a medium or through my own training, direct communication with
45:18
Speaker 1: those who have passed. They will give me insight into
45:22
Speaker 1: the ultimate fate of the soul, which means that I
45:25
Speaker 1: can have a direct hand in my own salvation. This
45:28
Speaker 1: is the can do American attitude of the time. Forget
45:32
Speaker 1: the stuffy books, forget those crotchety, creepy priests. I'm gonna
45:36
Speaker 1: roll up my sleeves, I'm gonna hold a seance. I
45:39
Speaker 1: will be the person who saves my soul.
45:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you can see elements of this to
45:45
Speaker 3: this day, right, Like you know, the Parker Brothers Weija
45:48
Speaker 3: board is in many ways the descendant of this kind
45:53
Speaker 3: of thing where you get a group of friends together
45:56
Speaker 3: and you're able to commune with either spirits or other
46:01
Speaker 3: ethereal entities that that communicate through you, like everything from
46:07
Speaker 3: automatic writing to there was telegraphy, there were spiritual telegraphy
46:11
Speaker 3: at this time, Like there were all these different, uh,
46:15
Speaker 3: possible conduits of communication that were being explored and exploited
46:22
Speaker 3: by mediums of the of the age.
46:24
Speaker 1: Oh, and the Fox Sisters go on tour, right, This
46:29
Speaker 1: was always interesting to me. Yeah.
46:31
Speaker 2: They conducted their sessions in various homes of affluence, you know,
46:37
Speaker 2: of community members across the country. One in particular or
46:41
Speaker 2: infamous series of sessions took place in the parlor of
46:44
Speaker 2: the Barnum Hotel, which was owned by the cousin of
46:50
Speaker 2: mister Barnum himself, the greatest, the greatest showman. They were
46:54
Speaker 2: born every minute, one hundred percent. I don't think is
46:57
Speaker 2: lost on us, the the the irony there. Maybe it's
47:00
Speaker 2: I don't know irony is the right word, but it
47:02
Speaker 2: is fascinating that the Barnum you know, was such a
47:06
Speaker 2: huckster himself, and then this name shows up here as well.
47:09
Speaker 2: And they did three shows a day around this giant
47:13
Speaker 2: table where they would invite as many as thirty folks
47:15
Speaker 2: to attend. They did at ten o'clock, a five o'clock,
47:18
Speaker 2: and an eight o'clock, occasionally taking time aside for private
47:23
Speaker 2: meetings in between.
47:25
Speaker 1: I imagine those were costs a little more.
47:28
Speaker 3: I like the fact that you know they did the
47:30
Speaker 3: whole stage door thing like this really does feel like
47:35
Speaker 3: the equivalent of going to see a Broadway show today.
47:39
Speaker 1: Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah. And there were plenty of people,
47:43
Speaker 1: to be clear, who denounced the Fox Sisters as fakes.
47:48
Speaker 1: And some people did correctly guess that they were just
47:53
Speaker 1: cracking their joints their toes in particular, but a lot
47:58
Speaker 1: of other people did believe if they were witnessing a
48:01
Speaker 1: true paranormal phenomenon. The admission was one dollar at the time.
48:07
Speaker 1: The visitors were not your average hey walking into New Yorker.
48:12
Speaker 1: This show did, to your point, Jonathan, become the thing
48:15
Speaker 1: to see, like going to see Hamilton, right, whatever the
48:20
Speaker 1: modern Broadway hit is. And so all of the all
48:24
Speaker 1: the great minds and the upper crust wanted to hang
48:28
Speaker 1: out with the Fox Sisters. You see philanthropists like New
48:32
Speaker 1: York Society guys Horace Greeley, the editor of the New
48:36
Speaker 1: York Tribune. You see poets like William Colin Bryant. You
48:41
Speaker 1: also see abolitionist and social activists like William Lloyd Garrison,
48:46
Speaker 1: and each of these people walks away from the show
48:50
Speaker 1: most of the time at the beginning, they walk away
48:53
Speaker 1: from the show thinking that whatever these spirits said absolutely supports, validates,
49:00
Speaker 1: and encourages their pre existing beliefs.
49:03
Speaker 2: And you know, we talked about this recently with the
49:06
Speaker 2: incredible hosts of the podcast Hoaxed about the incident involving
49:12
Speaker 2: also two young girls who kind of faked picture a
49:16
Speaker 2: picture a photograph of these fairies, and it came up
49:20
Speaker 2: that they were pretty easily spotted as fake, but the
49:23
Speaker 2: power of belief was so strong that many learned individuals
49:28
Speaker 2: were taken in by it, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
49:32
Speaker 2: who is like the king of like reasoning and deduction
49:36
Speaker 2: through his character. Anyway of Sherlock Holmes.
49:39
Speaker 3: His name will come back into play in this conversation
49:43
Speaker 3: as well, because he was we'll talk more about the
49:47
Speaker 3: reasons why he began to embrace spiritualism. But the yeah,
49:52
Speaker 3: actually the calling fairies, like the birth of photography is
49:56
Speaker 3: another thing that I think helps contribute to the right
50:00
Speaker 3: of spiritualism because again you're able to capture a moment
50:02
Speaker 3: in time, and it seems.
50:05
Speaker 1: A little woo woo even now, like with that does
50:07
Speaker 1: that work?
50:07
Speaker 3: It's crazy And it has a connection with death right
50:11
Speaker 3: because in Victorian England, one of the big ideas behind
50:16
Speaker 3: grief was to take a post mortem photo with your
50:21
Speaker 3: recently deceased family member and the rest of the family
50:24
Speaker 3: all gathered around them to preserve that memory forever. So
50:28
Speaker 3: there is an association between the supernatural and technology because
50:34
Speaker 3: to most people photography seemed akin to magic.
50:38
Speaker 2: It is, like I said, I mean, I'm not even
50:41
Speaker 2: being sarcastic. So many of those things, even to this
50:44
Speaker 2: day feel that way to me. I mean, I know
50:46
Speaker 2: they can be explained, but it is, for all intents
50:48
Speaker 2: and purposes, a certain kind of magic. Not to mention
50:52
Speaker 2: versions of what you're talking about, Jonathan, pre photography, where
50:56
Speaker 2: things like death masks were created, you know, to preserve
51:00
Speaker 2: of a similar way, you know, the image of a
51:03
Speaker 2: deceased loved.
51:04
Speaker 1: Shout out to everybody who just recited that Arthur C.
51:08
Speaker 1: Clark quote in their head. And here we see that
51:12
Speaker 1: the Fox sisters continue their they continue their path to stardom.
51:20
Speaker 1: Leah will stay in New York for a while, and
51:23
Speaker 1: Kate and Maggie go on the road Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Washington,
51:28
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and more. For now, we're going to give the
51:31
Speaker 1: Fox clan a break. We're going to learn how spiritualism
51:35
Speaker 1: overall skyrocketed in popularity and then why it fell. That's
51:42
Speaker 1: our flat twist right there, folks.
51:44
Speaker 2: Indeed, I am looking forward to it so huge. Thanks
51:48
Speaker 2: to Jonathan Stricklin, the quizzer, who's here to be Thanks
51:53
Speaker 2: to his to his face, and thank.
51:55
Speaker 1: You for being so well behaved today. Of course, I
51:59
Speaker 1: mean like.
52:00
Speaker 3: You're you're talking about a subject that has fascinated me
52:04
Speaker 3: since literally since childhood. So I was so excited to
52:08
Speaker 3: be on here. I hope I did not interject too much.
52:12
Speaker 1: Not at all. But it is also clear why you
52:14
Speaker 1: are the way you are.
52:16
Speaker 3: Wos fair?
52:18
Speaker 1: That's fair?
52:19
Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna be quiet. Now, why don't we
52:20
Speaker 3: outro the show?
52:21
Speaker 1: No? No, come on, you got to co sign us
52:24
Speaker 1: on some of this. Uh. I think we can all
52:26
Speaker 1: agree that we will a big, big thanks to our
52:30
Speaker 1: guest super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fake and Dylan,
52:34
Speaker 1: how do we go? How's our wija? Board looking for
52:36
Speaker 1: this one. Sorry, what'd you say?
52:40
Speaker 2: That's that's the response I always get whenever I talked
52:43
Speaker 2: to the Ouigi board.
52:44
Speaker 1: It's like, excuse, I'm sorry I didn't catch that. Check
52:47
Speaker 1: back later as the Ouiji board might. Yeah, you, guys,
52:53
Speaker 1: I am clear. I got years ago for uh for
52:58
Speaker 1: my girl, I got a uh Guda Tama version of
53:02
Speaker 1: a magic eight ball. Guda Tama is a very lazy
53:05
Speaker 1: egg in Japanese culture. It's like a famous character and
53:10
Speaker 1: it always says for another time. And that's what we're
53:14
Speaker 1: doing today. Join us later in the week. We can't
53:17
Speaker 1: wait to come back with part two of the Rise
53:20
Speaker 1: and Fall the Spiritualism Movement, featuring none other than our
53:24
Speaker 1: own Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister.
53:28
Speaker 2: Thanks, guys, huge, thanks to christ Frasiotis names Jeff Coats
53:31
Speaker 2: here in Spirit, super producer, Max the Madman Williams and.
53:35
Speaker 1: His brother Alex Williams who composed this bang, and Bob
53:39
Speaker 1: Big Big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance aj
53:42
Speaker 1: Bahamas Jacobs, and of course the Rude Dude's a Ridiculous crime.
53:47
Speaker 1: If you like us, you'll love them. Everybody. Check out
53:51
Speaker 1: the old episodes of Tech stuff about similar historical events.
53:57
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks.
54:05
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
54:09
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.