Latest / The Unity Code - Where Science Meets Energy, Consciousness, and Spirit. / The Legacy of Spiritualism's Pioneers

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The Legacy of Spiritualism's Pioneers · The Unity Code - Where Science Meets Energy, Consciousness, and Spirit.

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, welcome back to empower your soul.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This episode is inspired by a recent visit to Salem, massachusetts, which is nearby for me, where a witchy friend and I went to go see the now closed exhibition.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: We went on the last day, because that's how I roll the Peabody Essex Museum and we were checking out this exhibit that's called Conjuring the Spirit World, art, magic and Mediums, and I've been wanting to do this and finally the day came where it was the last day and I'm like I got to go.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I got to go see this.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: So, essentially, this exhibit explored the role art and objects played for mediums and magicians in communicating with the dead between the 19th and 20th century spiritualism movement across us and europe, a time when people, like, really started wondering is this real?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Like, can we talk across the veil?
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So it was really cool because there was a lot of really old artifacts there.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Um, there were paintings, posters, photograph, photograph, costumes, like film productions, like they had things like oh my god, they had death masks, which was so cool to see one in person, right, like.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So it was just really cool to kind of see the history of, essentially, I'm going to say, the foundation of where, where my spirits making me stop talking this, the history of the spiritualism movement.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: They will not.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Let me say the spirit, the history of like, where my mediumship abilities came from, because they were like it was all a facade, as we're going to find out.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: And it was really interesting because while we were there, my witchy friend, who channels a little bit but mainly um, mainly respects the mediumship.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: She's taken a dabbled in a couple classes, but I don't think she would say that she's a medium, even though she could do it any day of the week.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: She was so surprised about how much the exhibit debunked things and I said, yeah, because none of it's real.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And she's like what?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And I was like none of it's real.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So let's get into that here, and I know I got notes.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to be looking some things up as we're talking.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: But essentially, spiritualism is the belief in communicating with spirits of the dead.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Right, so it's a.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's a very interesting history and spiritualism.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say like that's about the communication.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the spiritualist church and influences, again in the 18th, 19th centuries.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: But you know, people have essentially, as you know, always believed that we could communicate with the dead.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: We have all of the ancient cultures you know, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, indigenous people, shamans, oracles, mystics, you know know, are all regarded as having inter intermediaries between the living and the spirit world, right, um?
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So the idea that we can communicate to the dead, I just want to like ground everybody.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And this is not new, right, the idea of spiritualism is not new.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: It started gaining a little bit of traction in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to go there specifically because I don't think it's relevant to where we're going in this podcast today, but I do want to talk about the rise of modern spiritualism in the 19th century.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So this is super interesting Because this kind of all kicked off from the Fox sisters.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And, if you're unaware, in the 1840s, 1850s, there were two young sisters, margaret and Kate Fox, who were from Hydesville, new York, and they claimed that they could hear sounds in their home from a dead person.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: They said they found out that these sounds, these messages, could be heard from a spirit that was murdered and buried beneath their house.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: They have an older sister, leah, that really said like, yeah, let's get this going right, let's showcase what's happening.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: So what happened is they would do table tipping and they would.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: They would have, like the spirit communicating through knocking sounds, spirit writing, direct voice communication Um, the sisters, like media of the time, found out about it and the sisters ended up touring the country, like becoming famous and demonstrating their abilities to connect with this dead murderer, um, across many different audiences.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: What was so interesting about this?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And, by the way, like people, I think this is where my friend was like my friend's brain broke and I think it does for me too, because people do table tipping today and say that it's real, right, so like, it's just so interesting, and I think I'm going to come back to the reality today at the end of this podcast, so I guess a little sneak preview.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: But essentially, these sisters later admitted that the rapping noises, the taps and sounds that they could make, doing this table tipping, doing these spiritualist exercises, was a was a complete hoax caused by cracking their toe joints, right?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, so if you are believe in the spiritualist movement, how interesting is that?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: That, like the founders of this movement essentially admitted, the whole thing's a hoax, right, very interesting.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But it didn't stop the momentum of all of these spiritual acts.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: That kind of happened after that, because spiritualism definitely like rose and exploded in the 19th century the Davenport brothers.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: So they were famous for a spirit cabinet act where essentially they were tied and locked in what looks to be like a cabinet.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: It looks like a huge armoire, like a two sided armoire with objects inside, and it's like the they, the, the audience, would like hear and see move movement inside, even though they're tied up right.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: So they found out you could untie right.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: They untied themselves to create the effects and there was mirrors in there, right.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So it's just really interesting.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And then they had a couple of other ones that they showed there about the ectoplasm and, like you know, like all of this stuff that they used to prove.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Because here's the thing about the 19th century and I'm going to channel this from spirit like people needed to see it, to believe it, like that, and I feel like that's still relatively, I'm going to say kind of true, today we're going to get to that but people needed to see it, to believe it back then.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: So they needed to hear the raps on the tables, they needed to see things moving in a cabinet.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They needed to see people, uh, what seemingly was like vomiting ectoplasm which, by the way, is just muslin or linen fabric that they would like shove down their throats or their shirts before, like they did these seances and stuff like that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So so that's what made the spiritualist movement so grow so quickly is because, seemingly, they had physical evidence of the spirit world and, just like everything else, they wanted to believe.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Right, they wanted to believe that their loved ones are there.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: And I think that really gets to more of the story around the 20th century in terms of the spiritualist movement.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Because remember those two world wars in the 20th century, right?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So both World War I and World War II really renewed interest in spiritualism.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people were grieving the loss of all of these people, you know, soldiers, victims you know I'm not going there, I'm not bringing that energy in, but so they were hoping that they would be able to communicate with soldiers who had died in battle or people who had died in the war.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: So you ended up seeing people starting to kind of like move again back into the spiritualist movement, being able to act like they're communicating to the dead, all these different things.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: But as these mediumship skills grew, as mediumship grew and the desire for people who could talk to the dead, so did the skepticism right, and they're in the exhibit.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: They had a whole bunch of like old artifacts from Harry Houdini.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Obviously, the magician who did dedicated his life to exposing fraudulent mediums.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: So he attended seances, debunked the tricks that were used to deceive audiences and like use like hidden accomplices and secret layers, right, like that, like secret levels.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: So he would actually go into these things and debunk all of these fraudulent mediums and seances, etc.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And there were a whole bunch of them like that.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So it was just really interesting because this exhibit was this weird combination of all of these historical artifacts.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Like they had pictures of the Fox sisters.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: They had pictures and videos of the spirit cabinet, right.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Like they had the wall hangings of Houdini saying they're all sham artists.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Right, they had spirit art or photography art of what looked like people with ghosts behind them.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And, by the way, my friend's like what is that?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I was like it's called double exposure.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: That's what that is right, like.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: So it's just really interesting to kind of see I'm going to say the artifacts and to oh, and I think what was so interesting about seeing these artifacts and like reading about it is some of the things they debunked in the exhibit and some they didn't.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: So the first thing you saw when you walked in was the picture of the Fox sisters who started the movement, right, and it was really cool.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't, I probably could Google what they look like, but I don't know, I didn't know.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: But she was like, oh, they did this, they did this.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm telling my friend, yeah, but they were, they were frauds.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And she's like what do you mean?
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I said it was all fake and she didn't know that and they didn't have that in the exhibit, right, like.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So that was weird because, like, that was the journey through the exhibit and spirits kind of nodding with me right in my head right now of what it looked like to go through the spiritualist movement, because they had the Fox sisters, they had the spirit box, the spirit cabinet, they had like all of these really cool things.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And then you started moving into the section that started debunking everything, and debunking like this wasn't real, this is how they trick people, this is what.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: What it was like, um, but even still about halfway through, even after you've been through the rise of spiritualism, you've seen all the debunking things.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Then they just started showing all the fun artifacts that were old and I'm going to get my phone out while I'm talking, but they started showing all of these really cool old artifacts, um, from the olden days for all these, all of these really cool old artifacts from the olden days for all these, all of these spiritualist movements.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: So a few of them were old planchettes.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So I, so I'm seeing right now there's a planchette for Ouija boards from 1856.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: They're they have an auto automatic writing manuscript from 1906.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: They had a business card from a Mary Ricker from 1859.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: As a trance medium, should I redo my business cards to look like that?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: It was so cool and I was laughing at that because it looks like if you've seen me in any of my client meetings, I have a notebook in front of me, I'm taking notes and I'm drawing and I'm writing things down while we're going, just because spirit works through me in multiple ways.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And so, like they had somebody's piece of paper from like a mediumship reading, with like scribbled notes and like a little drawing on, I was like my shit could be in here, everybody, my shit could be in here.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: They had what seemed to be kind of like a pendulum board.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: It's not really, though.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: It had like a spinny arrow instead of like a pendulum, but I had, like the letters and the yes, no and the don't know.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, think so must go.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to do that on mine my pendulum boards going forward.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: They had I don't even know what this is.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Let me pause this picture and zoom in.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: They had a Thayer Magic manufacturing company produce a spirit toe box.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: It's like spirit with an O at the end.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I encourage you to look this thing up.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: It's amazing, from 1932.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And it looks like this radio receiver with an antenna on top and it has this dial on the front.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: That essentially what I assume.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't read it.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I still haven't read it.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: The little caption aisle on the front.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: That essentially what I assume.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't read it.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I still haven't read it, the little caption.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: But what I assume is like you would pick up the energy from the spirit.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Who would predict things for you?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Do you know what they had the spirits predict at the time I was rolling?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I was rolling about this.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Here are some of the ones that this dial would turn to, based on the energy.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Will my stock investment pay?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Will I succeed in a theatrical career?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Is my wife true to me?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: They also have.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Is my husband true to me.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: For those of you that want fair, fairness, will my trip bring success?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Will I get the money due to me?
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Does this girl I love love me?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: And then, my personal favorite, will I receive a letter soon?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So like, seeing, like, this is what they used spiritualism for back in the day, this is the things that they would worry about and there's parallels to today, right, but like, will I receive a letter soon?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Can't make that stuff up.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And then that was, I mean that was most of it, and I just I walked out scratching my head and my friend watched, walked out scratching her head as well, and I'm like I mean it was really cool, I guess, to see those historical artifacts and that's probably the expectation I should have walked in with, is I'm here to see the history and see the artifacts, and that was fucking cool, like I really enjoyed that a lot.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: But it left me feeling like the whole thing was was a exhibit to debunk talking to the dead In Salem Massachusetts, everybody like in Salem Massachusetts.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So it was so interesting and then, like my perspective as I was walking through it is, I knew most of these people were sham artists, right, like, because if you think about all businesses I'm going to be honest with, not even just religions, because, because there is, you know, the spiritualist church that goes with it, all businesses are going to find a way to hook on to what is most most relevant and what's the lowest hanging fruit, to make money.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So no freaking wonder that the Fox sisters are like oh, people are interested in this, people will pay for us, we can tour, we can make money.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they go do it Right the same with the spirit cabinet?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, people are really interested in the spiritualist movement, let's figure out a way to make some money.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And for them and their mindsets they're probably like this is entertainment, um, and you know, which is probably a very different perspective than the people watching the show.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think the core of all of it is this oh, we got big here.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Sorry, the energy just changed from spirit is this need for people and I'm using the word need on purpose this need for people to know that the afterlife is real and that their loved ones are still safe in heaven, versus the capitalistic opportunities of frauds and sham artists that are always going to be around to make a quick buck.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And that is essentially where they focus where the sham artists that were there to make a quick buck, and that's what the exhibit was about.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: So I would have really liked to see more about real mediums or real people that have been proven to connect with the dead.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: And I know it's a, I know it's a topic which is so interesting, right, because everyone wants to go to a medium.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Everyone wants, like, like I was so afraid for so long to tell people what I did, and I got to tell you I can count on one hand how many people were like, nope, don't read me, I don't want to read from only one hand, like less than five people over the course of my career.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: So I have to tell you, even though it feels very strange and insecure and unnatural, and it feels like you're the odd, odd duck and you're doing something rebellious and you're doing something you shouldn't be doing by talking to the dead.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Everyone loves a medium.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Everyone's seen Teresa Caputo or Tyler Hinton, like most people have anyway.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So there's this knowing about what.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: This is right.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So I just I find it interesting that they took the time to debunk everything but not provide validation for modern day things, and I argue that because there were some some modern day things, although they tended to end in like the 1950s.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to look at the last exhibit that I took a picture of, because I feel like they stopped right after World War Two and that was the majority of where.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they stopped the exhibit.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So I guess, given the timeline of the exhibit, that makes sense.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: But I would have loved to see more about the reality and the science behind mediums and how they are right and how they do exist instead.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: But I guess to bring it together.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I guess to bring it together and I think this is why spirits reminding me of YouTube, if you ever go on my YouTube, I don't get too many comments over there.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I love the people that do comment on there.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, but on the shorts I get so many like in my video I'm going to say quote unquote takes off and it gets a lot of people that there are.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Sorry, I'll finish my sentence before I move to the next one.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: If my video takes off and there's more people that are viewing it than normal and it's like added to the algorithm, then it'll show up on people's pages as they're scrolling through YouTube shorts.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: So many haters like, so many religious haters, and spirits bringing that into my attention, because that's a function of the people who are the sham artists that are out to make the quick book and prey on people that are deep in loss and grief and need healing, because that need has never gone away.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: That need to connect and know that the afterlife is real, as I mentioned at the beginning, has existed since ancient times.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: That need has always been there and will always be there.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: So, in case, mediums listening to this, you're wondering is there a market for me?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: There has always been a market for you at every point in time.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, and then for?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But we all need to be conscious of the people who are out to make the quick buck, the scam artists, because that's what made people so skeptical of this work, right, and especially because the fraud is very easy to prove people wrong if you're not actually talking to dead people.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: So where the heck am I going with this?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask spirit to help help me wrap it up, okay?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: So for those of you that question are people going to believe me if I come out of this spiritual closet?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: They're not going to believe you, but I think that's the way it needs to be, because this is like it's kind of like the reverse version of court, like they're going to assume you're guilty of being a fraud until you can prove otherwise.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You can prove otherwise.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: So I want you to know, and I want to empower you, that if you're in it for the right reasons and you are doing the work and you are getting evidence and you are solid in your information, know that the um, there's going to be a certain point where no one can deny that you are actually talking to the dead.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: But you have to work through it and you have to prove it to yourself and know that there's always going to be naysayers that never, ever want to believe you.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: But that is a function of, again, these scam artists through history that have fooled people for for hundreds of years at this point and that's not your fault so so the people that are looking for you will find you and the sham artists that don't trust this.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Let them go and just figure out that this stuff is real when they die, like that's.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the reality of it.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: So, wow, yeah, so I guess that's.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: That's my, that's my takeaway from this entire, and it took me this podcast episode to really talk it through and really think it through.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: But I can understand why people don't believe, because I don't know if I necessarily understood before because I always thought it came from religious backings, but from and then like the annoying people that end up in your DMs on social media.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: But I guess I never understood this ingrained culture of not trusting mediums that have come historically down through the generations.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of what we're up against and that's okay, that I'm okay.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to fight, I'm willing to stand up for what I believe in.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: But you're not going to change people that don't want to change.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: And for those of you that receive mediumship readings, know that like, look for the frauds always come in skeptical as well.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's where I'm going to leave it, because I don't know where else to go with this.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that was my experience.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping that this museum does something more about modern mediumship and brings in some of the brain scans from these people that you know as soon as they connect to the dead loved ones, essentially their cognitive thinking turns off and they access a part of a brain that's not really normally processed.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I hope they bring in scientists and people who've done the work to prove that this is real, to offset what we just saw.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But again, it's a museum, not like.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: We will see what happens that I'm, maybe my stuff, will be in a museum someday.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: You'll see my, my notes and my misspelled scribbles and be like, wow, that lady was crazy.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: She was full of shit, who knows.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: All right, um silly episode today.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, everybody.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the adventures of salem today.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: All right, love y'all, take care.